BA 3: Synthesizing sources

1. BA 3: Synthesizing sources

2. BA 3 • This is another assignment specifically developed to aid you in preparing for the literature review. In your literature review, you will need to synthesize the sources you’ve found. Since synthesis is more than summary and more than describing one source after another, it’s important to understand how to approach identifying connections and synthesizing the information for your reader..

3. Before beginning the assignment, read the “Helpful Information on Synthesis” handout found on the class website. The handout should inform your understanding of synthesis. We are asking you to go beyond summarizing the sources or simply comparing and contrasting their content. We want you to find a common theme in these articles and thoroughly explore the relationship/connection/divergences between the texts.

4. BA 1 • BA 3 is a synthesis of three texts from your textbook for this course. Read the directions on RaiderWriter for the assignment now(or you will not understand much of the information presented). • 1)Read each article through once so that you understand its scope and the author’s argument.You must read all three essays, and you need to read actively. Highlight important passages and keep track of the themes or points each author is discussing.

5. 2) As you begin to read through each article again, note common themes and ideas. What are the things these authors agree and disagree about? (Hint: You may find it helpful to use an organizational tool such as a Venn diagram.) We did something similar in the participation assignment. (You will need something more nuanced and less obvious than “language” or “English.”

6. 3) Create a working thesis statement based on one common theme or idea that runs through all three articles (a statement that will tie all three articles together in some way).  There will be several possible common themes or ideas for you to choose from.  Pick the one that you can develop in the most detail. In the introduction of your brief, remember to introduce the authors’ names and the titles of their essays. The titles of essays should be “Inside Quotation Marks with Every Major Word Capitalized for Correct MLA Format.” Your thesis statement should also appear in the introduction.

7. 4) Then, write an essay which summarizes and synthesizes these articles. In other words, describe the common theme, explain how each author develops the common theme, and then explain how each article relates to the others. What are their similarities and differences? Why are these similarities and differences important to the theme which you are examining? Here are some important notes about synthesis your graders will consider: Though some disciplines may use the terms summary and synthesis interchangeably,in this course summary is only a part of synthesis. It is important for you to understand that you must move beyond just summarizing the sources to providing connections and pointing out the relationship of the common themes and ideas in the sources.

8. Synthesizing is not discussing each source individually in its own paragraph! More than one source should be discussed in each paragraph. Don’t simply discuss each source in its own paragraph!! This is a red flag to the grader that you have missed the point of the assignment (and will be an even more egregious error if it appears in your literature review).

9. Use correct MLA! You will need to provide textual evidence for your assertions with good quotes and paraphrases from the text. Remember that a textual citation needs the author’s last name and the page number (no comma between). If you use the author’s name in a signal phrase at the beginning of the sentence, only the page number needs to appear in the textual citations. However, instead of emphasizing the democratizing nature of English, Langford insists “the real issue in the spread of the English language is globalization” (89).

10. The works cited list Your works cited list should have three entries and should be titled “Works Cited.” Below is an example of how to cite an excerpt from your textbook. Use this example to craft correct citations. Power, Carla. "Not the Queen's English." First Year Writing: Writing in the Disciplines." 4 ed. New York: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2010. 371-375.