For this final assignment, you will write a synthesis essay that expresses an argument. Synthesis writing brings together
For this final assignment, you will write a synthesis essay that expresses an argument. Synthesis writing brings together
Assignment Details
Assignment: You’ve already completed the first part of this assignment; you’ve written emails to friends or family, explaining a food-themed problem, and integrating ideas from two sources as you work to construct an argument in response to that problem. Now, it is time for the second part: drafting the essay.
For this final assignment, you will write a synthesis essay that expresses an argument. Synthesis writing brings together multiple voices and perspectives. You already have these voices assembled: the voices of each of the authors from your two sources and, most importantly, your own voice.
You’ve also already started shaping these three perspectives into one coherent structure in the emails you’ve written. You should see your emails as stepping stones to the longer, more complex essay. The pieces are there, but now the rhetorical situation is changing.
You are no longer writing an email; you are writing an essay. Your audience is no longer a friend or family member; your audience is me (your professor) and your classmates (your peers). Your purpose is no longer just to informally introduce the topic; your purpose is now to formally support an argument, using both your own ideas and the ideas of the writers whose articles you’ve chosen. All of these rhetorical factors will, as we’ve discussed in class, change the final product.
It is important that you don’t see your emails as the first drafts for this essay assignment. You should not be copying and pasting anything from one to the other. Instead, think of your letters as the prewriting necessary to help inspire the drafting process. Use them to help you articulate your claim, your reasons, and identify your evidence. That is, use the ideas in your email when drafting your essay, but don’t use the actual text.
Before you begin drafting, you should identify all of the parts of your argument: your claim (which will be your thesis), your reasons (which will be drawn both from your own ideas and from the ideas in your articles), and your evidence. Once you have all of these puzzle pieces, and have them organized in an outline, you know you are ready to start writing! (Don’t forget that your synthesis grids should help with developing your argument.)
Finally, remember that you must work to establish your ethos in the essay. You can do that in a few ways.
First, you can do that by making sure that your ideas are not lost in the paper. This isn’t just about what author X and author Y have to say about the topic; this is also about what conclusions you have come to after thinking deeply about the various perspectives.
Also, you can build your ethos by proving to us that you fully understand the sources that you are referring to in your paper. How can you do this? Well, for one, you can rely on paraphrasing and not direct quotation. The more you quote a source, the more you admit that you can’t actually explain the ideas without relying on the original author’s words.
Finally, you can show that you are accountable for where the ideas in your essay come from. So, when you do use ideas from a source, whether you are paraphrasing, summarizing, or directly quoting, make sure to use author tags regularly (Janet Sanchez argues). This will help your readers know whose ideas we are reading, and it will help keep you honest.
If you haven’t already had your sources approved by me, you MUST do that before this first draft is due.
Requirements: MLA format; typed, double-spaced
5 page minimum
Description
The first part of this essay ask that you write an email. Now, you have to change the rhetorical situation: new audience, new mode, new purpose–but same argument.
An important note about documenting sources for this essay: I am not requiring you to use in-text citations for this paper, nor do you have to have any sort of bibliography. This is mostly because the structure of this semester doesn’t allow for the time it would take to teach you to do these things accurately. (Expect to spend a lot of time on documentation in EGL 102.) You should be providing the title and author of each source as part of the overviews you write after you intro.
Also, it is still your responsibility, as the writer, to ensure that you are accountable and trustworthy, meaning you must still let readers know any time you are using ideas or words from one of your sources. How can you do that if you aren’t using in-text citations or footnotes? Through regular and rigorous use of signal phrases/author tags. So, any time you reference a source, whether you are paraphrasing, summarizing, or quoting, you should use a phrase like, “According to Jackson and Perez,…” to let your readers know the ideas you’re sharing are not your own.
I. Intro
- hook/attention-getter
- background info about the issue/topic you’ve chosen; your intro must establish relevancy and explain to the reader WHY your argument is important
- thesis (state your claim/argument)
As a kid, how often did you eat Happy Meals? McDonalds restaurants are everywhere in the United States. In most cities, you’ll find one every few miles. Many American kids grow up thinking that Happy Meals are the ultimate treat. They crave the food, but they also get excited to receive the various toys and treats they find inside of the Happy Meal boxes. McDonalds uses these toys as a way to persuade children to eat their food. In addition to Happy Meal toys, the company also collaborates with well-known celebrities, they have playgrounds on site, and they use kid-friendly clown and characters in marketing. However, at the same time, childhood obesity rates are higher than ever, and lifestyle diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, are becoming increasingly more prevalent. Although there are many reasons for this obesity epidemic, most doctors and nutritional experts draw direct links between diets high in processed convenience foods, such as McDonalds, and diet-related health diseases in children. Yet, despite the fact that childhood obesity is on the rise, there are many ways that McDonalds continues to intentionally use advertising and marketing in order to build a kid-sized customer base.
II. Provide extended context on your topic/issue
- in 2-3 paragraphs, give the history, background info, and any other relevant information about your topic/claim
- this is the place where you explain any information your reader must know in order to follow along with your argument
III. Introduce your debate team–the summaries
- provide a short, 1-paragraph summary of each article, introducing it to your reader; this is an overview, keep it short and sweet
IV. Make your argument: Reason #1 (First, McDonalds should stop using Happy Meal toys to market to young children, because childhood obesity rates can be directly correlated with the growing popularity of fast food restaurants.)
- what author #1 says about this, if anything
- what author #2 says about this, if anything
- what author #3 says about this, if anything
- your ideas, observations, examples, connections, or further explanation/analysis
V. Reason #2
- what author #1 says about this, if anything
- what author #2 says about this, if anything
- what author #3 says about this, if anything
- your ideas, observations, examples, connections, or further explanation/analysis
VI. Reason #3
- what author #1 says about this, if anything
- what author #2 says about this, if anything
- what author #3 says about this, if anything
- your ideas, observations, examples, connections, or further explanation/analysis
VII. Conclusion
- restate the argument and review the reasons
- offer some kind of call to action
Remember: The entire point of synthesis writing is to BRING TOGETHER multiple ideas/perspectives in response to ONE issue. So, you aren’t synthesizing if you are just summarizing each source in separate paragraphs. Synthesis, as they write in They Say/I Say, is like a conversation. It is imperative that your sources “talk” to one another in the same paragraph. Refer to the different templates in They Say/I Say for ideas about how to do this well.
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