One of the most difficult (and arguably most important) elements of academic writing is integrating your voice with the ideas of other scholars and writers because:
- it asks you to have a firm understanding of other ideas from scholars and writers using your abilities as a critical reader
- it asks you to know how to use that understanding and connect it to a larger argument or narrative you are making as a critical reader and writer
- it asks you to organize such synthesis in a logical fashion, which requires connecting not only other ideas to your own ideas, but those other ideas among all of the scholars and writers you cite
- it asks you to adapt stylistically to other voices. That is, you have to use conventions of paraphrase and quoting to meld another writing style to your own to make readable writing
This is difficult, but really helps you as a reader, writer, and learner! If you can do these things well, it means you can enter into complex discussions about a topic and move those discussions forward. That is a really valuable thing to know how to do personally (e.g., as a consumer of news and politics to make political decisions, thinking about medical decisions, weighing disputes among family and friends) and professionally (e.g., writing reports, evaluating possible scenarios for different decisions).
After reading the Qasim research-driven writing project in our textbook, I hope you noticed some moments where Qasim effectively integrates different perspectives and voices together well and that you can use that article as a model for your own writing for your research-driven writing project.
I’m going to isolate one excerpt from the reading on page 242. I’m going to paste the excerpt as a whole at first and then a second version with my annotations.
The United States is not alone in its dependence on immigrants for economic prosperity, and can learn lessons from the consequences of strict immigration policies abroad. Jason Furman, Harvard professor of economic policy and former chairman of Barack Obama’s economic advisors, believes Japan’s harsh stance on immigration has caused its economic instability, concluding that “immigration makes a strong contribution to economic growth” (Furman). For many nations, immigration has become a necessity due to lower birthrates and rising age of the population with lower percentages of workers to take their place. As Furman reports, Japan’s working population has been shrinking due to its rising average age, hindering the growth of their economy. Lest we think this can’t happen in America, Daniel Griswold points out that, without immigration, our labor force would begin to shrink soon, and he contends that immigrants revitalize areas of the country where populations have declined (“Immigrants Have Enriched American Culture”)
Here is the same paragraph with my annotations for what is going on in terms of synthesis of multiple voices with the writer’s own voice.
The United States is not alone in its dependence on immigrants for economic prosperity, and can learn lessons from the consequences of strict immigration policies abroad. [previous sentence sets up argument of paragraph and sources’ relevance to argument]. Jason Furman, Harvard professor of economic policy and former chairman of Barack Obama’s economic advisors [INTRODUCES SOURCE], believes Japan’s harsh stance on immigration has caused its economic instability [paraphrase about case of Japan before setting up direct quote about applicable lesson of Japan], concluding [signal word that identifies main argument of piece] that “immigration makes a strong contribution to economic growth” (Furman). For many nations, immigration has become a necessity due to lower birthrates and rising age of the population with lower percentages of workers to take their place. [previous sentence sums up connection between immigration’s impact on economic instability and economic growth in nation] As Furman reports, Japan’s working population has been shrinking due to its rising average age, hindering the growth of their economy [goes back to source to look at that relationship to Japan]. Lest we think this can’t happen in America, [transition toward relevance for U.S. as way to introduce new source] Daniel Griswold points out that, without immigration, our labor force would begin to shrink soon, and he contends that immigrants revitalize areas of the country where populations have declined (“Immigrants Have Enriched American Culture”). [paraphrase to make parallel to Japan case study complete]
In a below comment, do one of the following:
- paste something you have already written for your research project so far that uses 2 sources, together, to make a larger point about your research topic. Annotate it in the way I did above. Use the above analysis of the excerpt from the Qasim research-driven writing project on immigration as a way to help you think through how to do that. After pasting the annotated version, take a little bit of time to reflect on how it went–could your voice be incorporated more? Did you need to do more work saying something about what you cited? Do you need to do more work connecting what you wanted to say about the one source to what you say about another source?
- If you don’t already have something you can lift from your in-progress draft, just try to do it based on the sources you have collected already and give it a quick shot in 3-6 sentences. This is just an attempt here, so don’t stress too much. Try some things out based on your reading of Qasim here.
- Choose another paragraph from the Qasim reading and do the sort of annotations that I do above.
If you do option 1 or 3, just try to annotate after any signal words/phrases and at the end of each sentence as best as you can.
After commenting below, click on the button below to continue.