Responding to Sources, MLA format, 650 – 800 words, for more grading details, please see Essay #1 Grading Rubric)
Rough draft due: 1/29, Saturday midnight in Canvas
Peer-review due: 2/12, Saturday midnight in Canvas
Final draft due: 2/12, Saturday midnight in Canvas
Sample Essay #1 (Three Sources) – Google Docs
Sample Essay #1 (Two Sources) – Google
Sample Synthesis Essay (Sample Essay #1 (Two Sources)Teenagers) – Google Docs
Additional handout for composing Essay #1
6 more Sample essays
Thesis statement templates (for essay of two sources only)
A synthesis essay is an essay that incorporates multiple sources surrounding a central theme. You may choose TWO or THREE from the following sources in
composing your essay. (The number of the sources will not affect your grade. If you choose TWO sources, please consider using one of the thesis templates
(link) for your essay.)
Source #1: Video: “They Say, I Say Introduction” (“What is Academic Writing?”)
Source #2 “The Process of Writing – Growing”
Source #3 “The Cognition of Discovery: Defining a Rhetorical Problem”
The central theme in this assignment is embedded in your thesis statement. The thesis statement should reflect your opinion over the sources you choose.
The sources should serve to back up or explain your thesis statement.
You may look at this essay as a response to a research question on the process of writing, so your thesis statement will be a one-sentence answer to the
question, and your essay will be organized in a way to explain your thesis statement by using the ideas and implications of the sources.
You may also look at this essay as a recipe for a delicious dish and all the sources as raw materials. Your role is to create a recipe with some or all the
materials. In this case, your thesis statement will be your opinion over this dish, and your body paragraphs should describe how the materials have
contributed to the creation of the flavor. Though you all have the same raw materials, each dish will taste differently from others because of different recipes.
These are just my suggestions, and you surely may approach the essay in other ways.
Synthesizing is not Summarizing
Synthesizing sources is not the same as summarizing sources. The difference between them lies in their different purposes. There is a clear argument or
direction in synthesizing sources. In other words, you are using these sources to explain your thesis statement, these sources serve as your evidence to back
up your argument. However, the purpose of summarizing is to pull out the main points of the source to inform the reader or to demonstrate to your teacher
that you have read the source.
Moreover, synthesizing involves two or more than two sources, but summarizing usually involves one source only.
A Synthesis essay is different from a Compare and Contrast essay
Their purposes are different. The purpose of synthesizing is to seek a better understanding of the topic, so there can be two or more than two sources in a
synthesis essay. The purpose of comparing and contrasting is to inform a decision (for example, making a decision on which car to buy, Ford or Honda?), so
there are only two sources.
Adopting writing strategies from the sources to inform your Essay #1 writing process:
The sources including one video and two articles are all about writing. You are writing about them or writing about writing. You are welcome to adopt the
writing strategies or writing ideology from these sources to inform your composing process. How?
From the essay assigned date to the rough draft due date, you will have one week to work on Essay #1, so it is a good idea to always keep this assignment in
mind but with a relaxing state of mind. Whenever you have a new idea, write it down in your notebook as if you are dumping it out of your mind, so you can
allow for more room in your mind for new ideas to flow in. This is like what Elbow suggests: you write out everything you know about the topic, and then
review it and sum it up before you proceed to the second hour unit of writing.
Time management may not sound quite relevant to your creativity, but it has an impact on your writing product. If you write for one hour everyday from
Monday to Friday, you probably will see a much better writing result than if you write for five hours on a single day Friday. Also, make sure to leave at least
one day for revision. To avoid becoming mentally exhausted, take a break before you feel tired.
If you are concerned about the word count (650-800 words), analyzing the rhetorical aspects (assignment, audience, reader, persona, meaning, and text) that
Flower and Hayes propose will help you generate more ideas. Especially, ask yourself: “What is my writing purpose? Do I want to inform, entertain, or
persuade? Who is my audience, expert writers such as Elbow, Flower, and Hayes, or student writers such as my peers, or student writers who will take
ENGL101 next quarter, or myself (the ‘self’ before registering for this class)?”
When you try your best, you are likely to see that you have constructed something better than you had expected.
Resources for idea generation:
The video and the original readings – follow the reading process we discussed in class: Read “into it” first, and then “read out of it”; read the section titles,
important passages, conclusions, and concept explanations; focus on your takeaways.
Your journals – your journals reflect your takeaways from the readings.
Your peers’ journal posts
My feedback on your journals – my feedback focuses on clarifying your understanding, answering your questions, and extending and challenging your
thoughts.
Selected questions/reflections and my comments on Journal #3
Lecture slides
My annotations – I annotated both Elbow’s article and Flower and Hayes’s article. I highlighted the important passages in various colors and commented on
certain passages.MLA Sample Synthesis Essays (Link to one Sample essay incorporates two sources, and Link to the Sample essay with three sources. and link to the Sample
essay “Teenagers”) – you can find them by clicking the hyperlinks or in Canvas.
Additional Handout for Composing Essay #1 Synthesis Essay
Before you turn in your draft, please check if your draft has the following elements:
MLA page setup (double-spaced, 1 inch on all sides, indent the first line of each paragraph one half-inch from the left margin.)
page numbers
The essay title
Thesis statement – It is located at the end of the introduction paragraph.
Topic sentences – Each body paragraph should have a topic sentence.
MLA In-text citations
MLA Works Cited
You may see how the above elements look like in the sample essays
Please note: All body paragraphs should address/support the thesis statement, but each supports one aspect of the thesis statement so that the thesis is
fully addressed/supported with all the body paragraphs together. In other words, if you see any of your body paragraphs is not addressing/supporting your
thesis, you should either delete it or rewrite it.
There are more MLA resources in Canvas