Chapter 10: Synthesis and Drafting
Adding to the Conversation
Let’s take a moment to look back. In Chapter 8: Making a Research Argument, you learned about the components that go into making an effective research argument. In Chapter 9: Pre-Writing, you experimented with strategies to help you get started on a longer writing project. In this chapter, we’re going to build on what you’ve already learned and focus on synthesis. How do you bring together everything you’ve read and discovered to add something to the conversation and bring your research argument to life?
Questions for Reflection: 
- What does the term critical thinking mean to you? How do you know when you’ve demonstrated it?
- Does synthesis involve creativity? What activities, settings, states of mind help to spark your creative or divergent thinking?
- When you write, how do you know when to begin and end a paragraph?
- How do you organize your thoughts when you write?
- Look at a scholarly article or other piece of writing you’ve read this year. How does the author use paragraphs?
Media Attributions
- Bee Kind © Karla Čurčinski is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license
- Think © Kirby Wu is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
