Once you’ve found two sources you’re likely to want to use in your project, you’ll practice synthesising* them; this practice will make synthesising more—and different kinds of—sources easier and more effective as you work on your project.
To complete this, answer the following questions, writing a well-developed paragraph for each, making specific textual references (brief quotations or page/paragraph numbers; if using a nonprint source such as a video, refer to specific points, such as minutes and seconds):
- What similarities do you note/ what do the sources have in common? For ex., where/ on what do they agree?
- Next, note differences: where do they disagree/ diverge? How else are they different?
- Finally, answer the “So what?” question: what do these similarities and differences show? Why do they matter, possibly? What does this teach you or help you understand re: the topic you’re investigating/purpose of your project? What can you contribute to what you’ve learnt from these sources?
After completing the above, add a “Works Cited” page listing your sources in the latest MLA format.
Save the above in a file format I can open, and upload to the designated Assignment link; this portion of the Research Project will be worth 10% of the overall mark for this assignment. It will receive a letter grade and be marked primarily on completeness (answering all the above questions, incl. the “Works Cited” page and textual references, as well as giving the reader a clear sense of your sources’ content, similarities, differences, significance, and so forth), but also following MLA format and using clear, precise language.
*Synthesis, in academic discourse, is the combining of various ideas, arguments, texts, other sources … to arrive at a new understanding that brings value to you and, just as importantly, your reader/s.