Show that you Know: Source Integration Overview

Source integration is a matter of properly introducing, referencing, citing, and explaining research sources. On the one hand this is important for coherent writing. On the other, it's an important way to demonstrate familiarity with the research itself. If a source is poorly integrated, it suggests the writer didn't understand the information.

So, when you embark on a research project and are faced with referencing your research in your essay, take the following into consideration.

• Research First: When starting a research project, you shouldn't start with drafting the actual essay. Instead, invest in research and learn more about your topic.
• Active Research: Good source integration means good research, and good research means taking the time to read closely, take notes, and evaluate your sources.
• Take Notes: Jotting down interesting information, highlighting or bookmarking intriguing passages, and otherwise making personal records of what you learn from your research.
• Introduce & Explain sources: Any time you put research into your own writing you are repurposing and recontextualizing it. Therefore, it is essential to take the time to explain your research before summarizing, paraphrasing, or quoting it (also, see Hit & Run Quotes below).
• Summarize: Explaining the main points, thesis, and arguments of a source.
• Paraphrase: Taking a selection of a larger piece and reiterating the main points in your own words.
• Quote: Using the exact words of a source in your own piece.
• Blended Words: Carefully integrating a quote with your own words.
• In-Text Citations: Knowing where to place in-text citations, and why they go there.
• Synthesis: Finding and recognizing where your sources have related points so you can reference them together.

Knowing how to integrate sources is important, but sometimes a good way to figure out why we do something is to understand how not to do it.

• Hit & Run Quotes: This term comes from a book entitled They Say/I Say, and it refers to improperly introduced and explained quotes.
• Patchwriting: Paraphrasing and quoting at the same time and without quotation marks. This involves taking a selection from a source, changing a few words here and there, and not treating it as a quote. This can be borderline plagiarism. Instead, quote or use more of your own words.
• Just the first few pages: Don't just rely on a few pithy statements from the opening pages of a book or article; take the time to go through the entire piece and you'll find more useful information.
• Excessive Integration: There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Sometimes, it's easier to just quote ad nauseum or even give too much supplementary information.
• Plagiarism: The failure to properly acknowledge research, or, taking the work of another passing it off as your own. This is one of the worst things you can ever do.

Improper source integration can harm an essay. Sometimes it’s easy to just drop in quotes or citations and call it good. However, good source integration is more than just a stylistic issue. Coherent writing means a coherent thought process, so coherently integrating sources suggests a better understanding of the material. An author who drops in quotes willy-nilly probably just found and crammed them in there and doesn’t understand what they are saying. Taking the time to introduce, explain, synthesize, and blend shows you know the information well enough it is part of your own thought process and knowledge: it shows you are confident in your knowledge and you can control the information.

Active Research: An Overview of Research

Every composition course I’ve ever taught has had a research component, and in some it’s more prevalent than others. With each course, I hope my students understand that they take composition classes not just to learn to write but to be better prepared to work in the disciplines they're studying. I want my students to understand research is an important part of why they’re in school. We don't just research to satisfy assignment requirements, but to learn: it’s the same reason we go to school.

Good research requires more than skimming a few sources and quoting a few quaint lines. It involves a lot of work to properly read and understand the research being done, so here’s a few things to bear in mind:

• Selection: Taking the first few results on a Google search or books from the library shelf and only using these is not research. It's important to read, or even skim, through a plethora of sources to determine which ones are worth taking a closer look at. It may take some time to find sources pertinent to your topic.
• Close Reading and Note Taking: Skimming is okay when selecting which sources to use, but research requires more than just that. Research involves reading closely and taking notes to help yourself understand, process, and, most importantly, retain the information.
• Authority: An expert in a field can tell when someone who isn't an expert tries to pass themselves off as one. Having authority as a researcher and writer means you recognize and understand the breadth and complexity of your field, while also understanding there is a lot you just don't know yet.
• Hypothesis: A hypothesis is what you expect your thesis to be. In order to properly hypothesize, you need to have a basic understanding of the topic – and you need research to do that.
• Quoting and Paraphrasing: It isn't enough to just read something and cite it; you need to take the information and fairly and correctly present it in your writing and develop upon those ideas.
• Summary: Similar to quoting and paraphrasing, but rather than selections from a piece, summarizing involves describing the entire piece, cover to cover.
• Evaluation: Determining whether or not a source is worth using. This is more than the aforementioned selection because it’s going from if a source is worth reading to considering its reliability or how it can be used.
• Citing: Making sure you are showing credit where credit is due. Properly citing shows your understanding of conventions in your discipline and respect for those whose work you are using. Any time you use the ideas, concepts, or words of others, you show where it came from.
• Plagiarism: Failing to cite. Not showing where you got your ideas from is tantamount to stealing. Don't do it.

In addition to relevant topics, a few genres deal specifically with research.

• Annotated Bibliography: A list of sources with accompanying commentary, general summaries or evaluations of the sources in question. These are rarely published but are extremely useful tools in research.
• Literature Review: These can be stand alone essays, but are generally the opening pages to research pieces. They address the research going into the piece itself, demonstrating how the writer developed their conclusions and hypotheses, while simultaneously establishing their authority through their familiarity with the research.

When you approach research assignments, don't just stop when you have enough to fill a works cited page and scatter a few citations in your writing. Research is an invaluable opportunity to learn, to become more knowledgeable and expert about your topic, to hone your interests in specific ways, or to even learn just where your interests lie. Research, therefore, cannot be passive: it has to be active, involving multiple steps and hard work, not because it's important to do research assignments, but because it is important to learn.

What makes it Argumentative? An Overview

I want to start this post off by saying the words argument and persuasion have very close definitions, but can be interpreted quite differently. I try to avoid any confusion by using them interchangeably. My interest here, however, is not to draw distinctions between being argumentative and persuasive, but between being argumentative and informative.

Most of us are familiar with informative writing. We encounter it all the time in textbooks, news sources, blogs, documentaries, etc. This causes problems when students need to move to argumentative writing.

I’ve had students insist they will argue by merely being informative. I take this to mean they haven’t caught on to the issues regarding argumentation I’ve covered in class. The distinction is as follows:

Informative writing just gives information: facts, details, observations, research, etc.

Argumentation makes recommendations and proposals about what to do with that information.

To further describe the difference between informative and argumentative is to use the Stasis Model, which is a kind of hierarchy of argumentation. Each aspect must be addressed, or at least clear, before moving to the next:

• Fact: Determining whether or not something exists, did or did not happen, could or could not happen, etc. This is generally a yes or no question. Sometimes called “Conjecture.”
• Definition: Describing characteristics and attributes of the Facts.
• Value: Determining the quality or severity of the issue or topic – if what has been defined is good or bad, better or worse, etc. Sometimes called “Quality.”
• Policy: Proposing active change based on the discussion of the Values: if a better option exists and its implementation is feasible, then recommendations how to pursue it should be made.

Argumentation address all of these: Facts are considered, defined, and weighted against actual and hypothetical situations, culminating in the proposed change. 

Informative writing stops anywhere before Policy: a proposal isn't made, a plan of action isn't discussed, plans aren't made for improvement.

While the Stasis Model is the first step in differentiating between informative and argumentative writing, argumentative writing also necessitates a number of considerations:

• Take a stance: Perhaps the most important. Being argumentative requires a clear stance on the issue.
• Rhetorical Situation: Aristotle broke rhetoric down into a number of different aspects. These are, primarily:
• Ethos: Author's authority; how does the author demonstrate their credibility.
• Pathos: Audience awareness; how is the piece written for its audience.
• Logos: Logic; the structure and coherence of the argument itself.
• Audience Specificity: Not exactly the same as pathos. Audience is always important. In Argumentation it is very important. Argumentative writing necessitates writing not just for an audience, but an audience, people, persons, or groups, that can enact the recommended change.
• Opposing viewpoints: Others will recommend different policies, interpret the research or situation differently, or think nothing needs changing. Acknowledging opposing viewpoints and countering them can strengthen arguments.
• Advocating active change: By “active” I mean it should be more than just “people need to know.” Knowing something is being informative. Argumentation entails making recommendations about the action that specific (see “Audience Awareness” above) people need to do. Best case scenario, if the proposal were accepted, there should be observable, measurable changes.

These may still be present in informative writing, but sometimes informative writing just weighs the sides of an issue without taking a stance or proposing a change. Just as the Stasis Model becomes more and more argumentative as it goes from Facts to Policy, informative essays may adopt some aspects of argumentation. There isn't anything wrong with that. The important thing is an argumentative essay does significantly more, regarding audience, opposition, and proposing than an informative piece.

Organization: An Overview

Organization is ubiquitous and yet invisible. It’s an issue identified with words like “flow,” and transition,” terms that are neither technical nor specific. An essay should flow, but what does a flowing essay look or sound like? Should an essay flow like a river?...What does that even mean?

Maybe a different comparison. 

In filmmaking, editing is the process of piecing together the different shots of film into a coherent whole. It involves sifting through the filmed footage and finding the best parts to include and putting them together seamlessly: so that you don’t even realize it’s going on. Poor editing stands out. Good editing goes unnoticed.

A well organized essay will do the same thing. You’ll be able to move from word to word, sentence to sentence, and paragraph to paragraph without stopping to notice the fact the subject matter has changed or shifted. Organization is supposed to make the transition from topic to topic smooth and understandable: to tame the beast that composing an essay.

There are many topics that address the finer nuances of organization, none of which I have time to adequately discuss here; I’ll have to devote a specific post to each one later. For now, a simple overview will have to suffice.

• Outlining: Listing the topics you are going to write about in the order you are going to write about them.
• Methods of Organization: Using a specific form or model to give your essay a way to disseminate the information. There are a lot of different methods, and sometimes an essay will employ several.
• Transitions: Statements at the start and ending of paragraphs designed to signal the subject matter is changing. And an issue with which I have mixed feelings.
• Balance: Making sure each topic receives a fair amount of attention, and the essay is not spending undue time and attention where it should not.
• Thesis Consistency: Tracking the development of the essay’s thesis from the very start to the very end of the essay.
• Paragraph Structure: Not just the essay but the information in paragraphs need to be carefully structured and developed.
• Topic Sentences: Sub-theses for your paragraphs.
• Sentence Structure: Determining how best to place information in specific sentences so that their form and structure emphasizes your point.
• Tangents: Oddities that arise and appear out of place. They do not support the thesis and introduce topics not discussed elsewhere.

This is, at best, only some of the issues dealing with organizing. It is, as I said, made up of many topics and finer nuances. I hope that this list gives at least an understanding of how nuanced and ubiquitous it can be.

You may also notice that I left out “flow.” This was a deliberate choice. I use it to describe essays, but only for lack of a better word. I don’t feel like it’s a great teaching tool because all it really says is the information throughout the essay made sense. It doesn’t give me a model to present to a class or write about here, and it may not even mean the student has fully grasped the concept of organization. Maybe they got lucky. Maybe they wrote a way that made sense to their professor. I can teach a lot of things about organization, but I can’t teach “flow.”

My purpose in this introductory post is to emphasize the complexity of an otherwise undervalued topic. There are so many things more apparent when it comes to writing and composition, like thesis, editing, research, citations, etc, that organization can be relegated to a day or two in any curriculum on the rush towards more apparent topics. Therefore, I don’t want to take it lightly or undervalue it. I want to give it the time and attention it deserves.