Synthesis Essay Examples

My papers typically consisted of a couple of sources jammed into random crevices of thought. I usually didn’t care what kind of source the quote came from, as long as the quote supported my thesis. Now, I’m well practiced in using scholarly sources and checking into the author’s background. The annotated bibliography helped me to focus on the reliability of the sources in conjunction with the background of the authors. I thought it was really awesome to be able to contribute research of my own rather than just regurgitating other people’s research. Improvement is still needed when finding why my research and argument is relevant and why it is of any importance. Additionally, I need to do a better job at contributing my thoughts to the previous

As I described in the “Research History” paper assigned at the beginning of the semester, I used census records to find the majority population in each state and combined this with quotes about a population’s typical political stance. This was then used to determine how each state would vote, whether Democrat or Republican in the 2016 election. These simplified synthesis skills have now been amplified to where I am now combining results from multiple studies to draw conclusions that are implied in the papers and to create stronger, more valid conclusions. Such synthesis can contribute greater to a paper rather than simply just putting in quotes. The synthesis essay was what helped me develop this skill the best. I ended up synthesizing another source into the video game argument between Anderson et. al and Ferguson et. al. I didn’t understand synthesis very well when I was writing this, so I subsequently struggled. After I had written this essay, which started me figuring out how to write with synthesis, I began to fully understand what was meant by synthesis. The annotated bibliography helped with synthesis with my own sources as well and was really the starting point of my meshing of the sources. Now, as I look back, I can see that I think through my inclusion of sources more than I did in the past, especially when I consider how the sources build upon