{"id":288,"date":"2016-07-14T20:02:04","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T20:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level3-english\/?post_type=chapter&p=288"},"modified":"2023-09-01T14:13:42","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T14:13:42","slug":"text-synthesizing-sources","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-englishcomposition1-2\/chapter\/text-synthesizing-sources\/","title":{"raw":"Using Sources Overview","rendered":"Using Sources Overview"},"content":{"raw":"One of the challenges of writing an essay using sources is successfully integrating your ideas with the material from your sources. Your essay must explain what you think, or it will read like a disconnected string of facts and quotations. However, you also need to support your ideas with research or they will seem insubstantial. How do you strike the balance?\r\n\r\nBalancing\u00a0your own ideas with sources' ideas involves synthesizing the information from those sources so that you can blend multiple source ideas into your own idea structure that\u00a0supports your thesis.\u00a0 The following video offers information about the concept of synthesis, or blending ideas from others' with your own in research writing.\r\n\r\n[embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ObK6J7vGnw8&t=6s[\/embed]\r\n\r\nOne main method of synthesizing source information with your own ideas is to offer your own comments and insights about others' ideas that you have included from your research. Once you have analyzed the texts involved in your research and taken notes, you must turn to the task of writing your essay. The goal is here is not simply to summarize your findings. Critical writing requires that you communicate your analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of those findings to your audience<\/em>.<\/span>\r\n\r\nIntegrating materials from sources into your own text can be tricky; if\u00a0you consider the metaphor that writing a paper and including sources is a way of facilitating a conversation about a topic, it helps to\u00a0think about how this will best work.\r\n\r\n\"decorative\r\n\r\nWhen you're discussing a topic in person with one or more people, you will find yourself referencing outside sources: \u201cWhen I was watching the news, I heard them say that . . . I read in the newspaper that . . . John told me that . . .\u201d These kinds of phrases show instances of using a source in conversation, and ways that we automatically shape our sentences to work references to the sources into the flow of conversation.\r\n\r\nThink about this next time you try to work a source into a piece of writing: if you were speaking this aloud in conversation, how would you introduce the material to your listeners? What information would you give them in order to help them understand who the author is, and why\u00a0her view is worth referencing? After giving the information, how would you then link it back to the point you were trying to make? Just as you would do this in a conversation if you found it necessary to reference a newspaper article or television show you saw, you also need to do this in your essays.\r\n\r\n[embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pyxR2pwqXEY[\/embed]\r\n\r\nAs you can see, using sources involves much more than\u00a0just including\u00a0a series of quotations in your essay.\u00a0To avoid falling into\u00a0the trap of having strings of quotations and very little else in a research essay, follow a few simple pointers:\r\n