Tips for Writing Synthesis Essays

Your Name: Your Major:

Your Third ENG 112 Essay: The SynthesisA Essay

Format: MLA

Length: 1300 words (not including header, identification, title or WC page). Essays that are less than 1300 words will have a 10% deduction from the final score earned (or a score of 50% if that is higher); essays that are less than 1000 words will have a 25% deduction from the final score earned (or a score of 50% if that is higher); essays that are less than 900 words will earn an automatic score of 50% and will only be read during an Office Hours appointment; essays that are less than 800 words will earn an automatic score of 0% and will only be read during an Office Hours appointment. Essays that earn a 0% will also receive -95 for CEs (or less depending on whatever your remaining point total is at the time of submission).

Task: You will write an essay integrating THREE (or FOUR, but no more than that) articles together to illustrate a point you would like to make. Ideally, you would want to find complimentary / contradicting sources. The essay should have sources that "talk" to one another and/or illustrate interactions / intersections of ideas. This is not about citing more than one author in a paragraph or two; it is a matter of making clear the interaction and/or relevancy of one source in relation to one another. If you don't show me how the ideas are relevant, not only in and of themselves, but also in relation to one another, then you have not completed the task at hand.

Sources: At least THREE JOURNAL articles (not magazine or newspaper articles). These sources could be found through the EJC and/or some could even be found through a search engine like Google Scholar (not just Google, but Google Scholar). They may also be from handheld print professional journals and/or journals you have access to through another library and/or a membership in some professional organization. A JOURNAL article is a peer-reviewed article. The easy way to determine...