Synthesizing & Citing Evidence — English

Synthesis means finding what the sources add up to together — where do they point in the same direction?

Your claim should be something neither source states alone but both support.

Attribute as you integrate: “A sleep researcher found…,” “according to a school counselor….”

Claim: Keeping phones out of the bedroom at night may improve not only how students sleep but how well they function the next morning.

Both a researcher and a counselor point toward this conclusion from different angles. A sleep researcher reports that students who kept phones out of the bedroom “fell asleep about twenty minutes faster” and woke less during the night — evidence that a phone-free bedroom improves sleep itself. A school counselor adds the daytime consequence, noting that the students who “struggle most with morning focus” are almost always the ones scrolling in bed past midnight. Put together, the two sources connect the nighttime habit to the next-day cost: the phone in the bedroom disrupts sleep, and that lost sleep shows up as trouble focusing in class.

Response criteria

• States one synthesized claim supported by both sources, not just one
• The paragraph integrates a specific detail from Source A with attribution
• The paragraph integrates a specific detail from Source B with attribution
• The two sources are woven together to support the claim, not listed separately

A signal phrase names who is speaking and frames the quote: “As Marcus Reed argues, …”

Put the page number in parentheses after the quote, before the period, with no comma: (Reed 12).

After the quote, add a sentence of your own explaining why it matters to your argument.

In his essay on urban life, Marcus Reed challenges the usual measures of a thriving city, arguing that “a city's greatness is measured less by its skyline than by whether a child can walk to a library” (Reed 12). By tying a city's worth to something as ordinary as a child's walk, Reed reframes libraries not as luxuries but as basic tests of whether a city serves its people. That reframing is exactly why neighborhood branches deserve investment: they are, in Reed's terms, a measure of the city's greatness itself.

Response criteria

• Introduces the quotation with a signal phrase (naming the source/author)
• Embeds the quotation rather than dropping it as a standalone sentence
• Includes a correct in-text citation with author and page
• Follows the quote with the writer's own explanation of its significance

A dropped quote sits alone with no lead-in; fix it by attaching it to a sentence of your own.

Introduce the source: who is Nguyen, or at least signal that you're citing a study or writer.

After the quote, explain the connection — don't assume it speaks for itself.

Volunteering offers teenagers benefits that last well beyond their teen years. As the researcher L. Nguyen reports, “teens who volunteer regularly are more likely to stay engaged in their communities as adults” (Nguyen 8). In other words, the habits young people build by volunteering don't end at graduation — they shape the kind of citizens those teens become. That long-term payoff is a strong reason for schools and families to give teenagers more chances to serve.

Response criteria

• Adds a signal phrase that introduces the quotation and its source
• The quotation is embedded in a sentence rather than standing alone
• Keeps the in-text citation (Nguyen 8)
• Adds explanation linking the quotation to the paragraph's point

A real paraphrase changes the sentence's structure and wording, not just a synonym here and there.

Even a correct paraphrase still needs a citation, because the idea and the data came from someone else.

Rebuild the sentence from scratch: change the order, the framing, the phrasing — then cite it.

The second version isn't a real paraphrase — it's patchwriting. The student kept the original's exact structure and simply swapped in synonyms (“ocean” for “marine,” “sea floor” for “ocean floor”), so the sentence is still essentially Okafor's, just lightly disguised. That counts as plagiarism. There is also a second problem: even a perfect paraphrase would still need a citation, because the specific facts — the one-quarter figure and the under-one-percent figure — are Okafor's findings, not common knowledge.

An acceptable version rebuilds the sentence and credits the source: Although they occupy only a tiny sliver of the seafloor — less than one percent — reefs are astonishingly rich habitats, home to roughly a quarter of all the species living in the ocean (Okafor 3). This reworks the order and phrasing rather than shadowing the original, and it gives Okafor credit for the data.

Response criteria

• Explains that swapping a few synonyms is patchwriting, not true paraphrase (structure/wording barely changed)
• Notes that even a genuine paraphrase still requires a citation because the idea/data is borrowed
• Provides a genuinely reworded paraphrase (different structure, not just synonyms)
• Includes a correct in-text citation (Okafor 3)

Look for the tension: A and B pull in opposite directions — what does C add?

A nuanced claim often uses “while,” “although,” or “depends on” to hold competing truths together.

Synthesis isn't summary — show how the three sources together point to a fuller answer than any one alone.

Claim: The evidence suggests that remote work's value depends on how it is structured — the productivity gains of working from home are real, but so are its costs to collaboration, which is why a hybrid model may capture the benefits while limiting the damage.

The three sources only look contradictory until they are read together. An economist points to a clear upside, arguing that remote work raises productivity because employees “waste less time commuting” and face fewer interruptions. A management professor, however, identifies the flip side, finding that fully remote teams suffer “weaker collaboration and slower mentoring” of new hires — the human costs the economist's numbers miss. The employer survey then resolves the tension: it reports that hybrid schedules produced “the highest employee satisfaction of any arrangement,” suggesting that a mix of home and office days can preserve the focus the economist praises while restoring the in-person contact the professor found lacking. Taken together, the sources point not to “remote good” or “remote bad,” but to structure as the deciding factor.

Response criteria

• States a nuanced claim that captures both agreement and tension (not one-sided)
• Integrates a point from each of the three sources with attribution
• Explains the relationship among the sources (where they conflict and how it resolves)
• Arrives at a synthesized position rather than summarizing them separately

An MLA in-text citation for a paraphrase is just the author's last name and page number in parentheses: (Marsh 47).

A Works Cited entry runs: Last, First. “Article Title.” Journal Title, volume, issue, year, pages.

Article titles go in quotation marks; the journal name is italicized; end with the page range and a period.

(1) In-text citation for a paraphrase: (Marsh 47).

(2) Works Cited entry: Marsh, Elena. “The Language of Bees.” Field Notes in Biology, vol. 8, no. 2, 2019, pp. 40–58.

Response criteria

• In-text citation is correct MLA: (Marsh 47), author last name and page, no comma
• Works Cited lists the author last-name-first
• Article title is in quotation marks and the journal title is italicized
• Includes volume, issue, year, and page range in the correct order

Start with your own topic sentence — a claim the evidence will support.

Keep only the single most vivid quote; turn the others into paraphrases (still cited).

Add transitions and reasoning so the evidence builds toward your point instead of just piling up.

School gardens turn out to benefit students far beyond the lunch table. The most immediate effect is on how children eat: Ito found that growing vegetables makes kids “more willing to taste them” (Ito 5), and that this hands-on experience improves their eating habits more broadly (Ito 4). The gains don't stop at nutrition, though. Tending a garden over weeks also builds patience and responsibility as students wait for plants to mature (Ito 6). Most striking of all, these gardens seem to reinforce classroom learning: Ito reports that science test scores actually rose at schools that started them (Ito 7). Taken together, the evidence suggests a school garden is less a side project than a surprisingly powerful teaching tool.

Response criteria

• Opens with the writer's own claim/topic sentence
• Reduces to at most one direct quotation
• Paraphrases the remaining evidence and keeps citations for it
• Uses reasoning/transitions so the writer's voice frames the evidence