Working with sources is the activity that best characterizes the work of the academic writer. It is simply not enough for us to tell folks what we think, we must ground our ideas in the conversations that are already taking place on our topic.

Mauk gives us two ways to think about sources:

Supportive

Vital

This is your standard, run-of-the-mill use of another author's work. To "support" or "prove" or emphasize your own ideas.

These kinds of sources have 3 benefits:

They make our arguments stronger via their authority.

They add richness/complexity.

They connect us to specific conversations.

Vital sources are something new, but they are very useful. Essentially, this is an approach to working with text that sees us rely heavily on an author, text, or concept. Functionally, their ideas become the backbone of our own project. 

Check out Mauk's example. Avatar is a terrible movie but the example is a solid one. Campbell is the engine that drives Smith's project. She wouldn't have an argument without Campbell.

As you start working with synthesis, try to determine if one idea from the text (literacy, maybe) could worl similarly.

Basically, invest the time to get their ideas right. 

Later in the chapter, Mauk calls this the "long buildup" (65) where an author really spends significant time explaining another author's project or key terms (recall that one of our Brandt examples did this too). 

Strategy (54):

Summarize carefully

Explain how the source is valuable.

Weave its insights into your own thinking.

Be clear and careful about how author's "relate" or "respond" to one another (note: very often they are not actually writing to one another; rather, you are putting their texts into conversation via synthesis).

Signal agreement with clear verbs: agrees, echoes, supports...

Signal disagreement: disagrees, challenges, resists...

Mauk offers 4 levels of agreement/disagreement (62-64).

58b: Signal Phrases

Use signal phrases to set up quotes and to create action in a text. Never drop a quote into a paper; you always need to include some kind of signal for the reader to understand who is speaking. Even something as simply as "Brandt explains..." will work.

Also use signal phrases to demonstrate action as authors:

Acknowledge, admit, argue, assert, claim, compare, contend, declare, deny, emphasize, explore, illustrate, insist, observe, reason, refute, report, respond, or suggest. 

The goal of synthesis, again, is to generate conversations in your writing. Your reader needs to see you sources "speaking" to one another on the topic at hand. 

The trick here is (you guessed it) key terms: employ verbs (see the previous slide) and transitional statements to signal agreement and disagreement. 

The Hacker/Sommers example on 478 offers a great example. A well placed "however" makes all the difference for signaling a shift in the conversation.