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

Integrating ideas is something that I have always massively struggled with. I have no problem bringing in my own ideas and experiences but have always hit a roadblock when it comes to textual evidence. It is honestly something that gives me anxiety because I never properly learned how to make citations and most of the time that seemed like to much work so I would avoid using quotes whenever possible because I didn’t want to go through the hassle of citing it. Then when I was forced to add quotes I always cited them incorrectly and this was very frustrating. Another thing that kept me from using quotes was I feel that It squashes the creativity of a piece if your trying to fit in so many quotes and “make it work” it takes away from what the writer of the essay is trying to write in my opinion.

The following is an example is how I incorporated the text summary in my first Essay.

In this I was able to keep it short and sweet but at the same time still get my point across. Adding the text gives the reader a better idea of what I was trying to say by giving them a different example to consider it also makes an author seem more credible if they include multiple sources in their piece.

This semester I definitely still struggled with adding text and received the feed back that I could use more text evidence and the authors voice on all three of my Essays. Something that has helped me with that has been learning about Barclay paragraphs this semester. I think the thing that I struggle with the most is where to integrate the sources and how to make them flow with my own thoughts. The structure of the Barclay paragraph was a perfect solution to that problem for me it basically spoon feeds you on where the quote should go and how you need to introduce the quote and have a transition to the next quote. Page count is also something I really struggled with this semester I have never had to write papers longer than 2 pages before so adding the Barclay paragraphs and integrating as many quotes as possible also really helped with page count.

Below is an example of a Barclay paragraph from my second essay

This structure allows me to get the thoughts out in a much clearer way than I have ever been able to before. If I were to take one thing from this class it would be the Barclay paragraphs I will continue to use them in my future writings to help myself better connect my ideas to the relevant textual evidence.