(Integrating Ideas) – Be able to integrate their ideas with others using summary, paraphrase, quotation, analysis, and synthesis of relevant sources.

Framing statement – Integrating other individuals ideas into my essays is an essential part of academic writing so it’s extremely important to me to know how to incorporate it into my work. Especially considering I may end up writing scientific research papers that reference other articles.

Before English 110 I struggled integrating quotes in a way that was fluent. Every time I did use a quote it seemed forced or would interrupt the flow of the paragraph that I had going. I had never been good at integrating quotes and most english classes I’ve had before have never directly helped me overcome this issue. When quotes where discussed the main focus was on finding good ones and explaining them well. I was much more comfortable summarizing the pieces we were talking about rather than pulling quotes from them as transitioning from my own voice into someone else’s has always been hard for me. I could recognize the disconnect yet didn’t know how to fix it.

After English 110 I still feel a little rocky integrating quotes into my text. However, I feel as though I’m at a place a hundred times better than where I started. Using They Say I Say has been a huge help for integrating quotes and I’m happy I’ll still have that book to use as a resource. I know I can improve much more with my quote integration but I’m better off than how I started thanks to the They Say I Say passages on how to seamlessly enter quotes into my essays.

quote sandwich probably from essay two the summary from essay 1? using the text as evidence will probably have to come from essay 1 as well consider that’s the one with scientific evidence so maybe make the summary from essay three or the quote sandwich from essay three and summary from essay two whatever’s easiest

In essay 1 using Konnikova’s article about social media effects on human interaction I used a quote from Dunbar as evidence.

In Konnikova’s article she writes about how Dunbar fears for this new generation, “Dunbar fears that too much virtual interaction may subvert that education. ‘In the sandpit of life, when somebody kicks sand in your face, you can’t get out of the sandpit. You have to deal with it, learn, compromise,’ he said. “On the internet, you can pull the plug and walk away. There’s no forcing mechanism that makes us have to learn (Konnikova 5).'” In this he’s saying that children won’t learn how to socialize and they’ll be able to simply disconnect from the internet whenever they are faced with something uncomfortable or that they don’t like.

Text evidence from essay 1

I went on to use this quote to prove my own point that he was wrong. He claimed this as a scientist but I looked at it from a personal standpoint about how it really isn’t so easy.

Then in essay 2 I used a summary of the Bloom’s text (as well as one quote) to get the point of his essay across to the reader.

However, Bloom’s article suggests that empathy and sympathy towards others can be misplaced and harmful to the world around us and I think Bloom’s takes miss the mark. He claims people’s empathy is biased and only focuses on specific people. He relates it to a spotlight in the way it focuses on one person or one problem but not all of them. Bloom makes the argument that empathy for others can do more harm than good and it can impede people’s logic and reasoning. He uses the example, “Making children suffer temporarily for their own good is made possible by love, intelligence and compassion, but yet again, it can be impeded by empathy” (4). This is just one of the examples Bloom uses about how having empathy towards others can actually be a bad thing.

Bloom summary from essay 2

In essay 3 I used quotes to strength my point and move the reader emotionally.

“…blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up” (DFW 2).

Dfw quote from essay 3

I used this quote to try and hammer my point home that education will be what bridges the divide in America. I added it in after telling my own story of coming out to my father and I think have a quote this powerful after a story like that just hits the reader a little bit harder.

Word Count – 439