ARGUING FOR A TARGET POPULATION
Summarize 3-5 sources that address the target population in your PICOT question. Then, synthesize the evidence from these sources into one paragraph in support of the target population.
Introduction
Successful academic writing requires the interpretation and synthesis of scholarly sources in support of ideas, projects, or additional scholarship. In this assessment, you will progress from summary to synthesis, using the sources you have gathered to support the target population of your project. This assessment focuses on crafting an argument in support of the selection of the target population identified in your PICOT question. Complete this assessment before beginning Assessment 7.
Demonstration of Proficiency
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:
· Competency 1: Address assessment purpose in a well-organized text, incorporating appropriate evidence and tone in grammatically sound sentences.
. Integrate evidence into text appropriately.
· Competency 2: Craft a compelling argument.
. Compose a strong thesis stating an argument.
. Explain how evidence supports an argument.
· Competency 3: Create a literature review that supports a possible intervention or process change.
. Develop a synthesis of evidence in support of an argument.
Preparation
· Gather 3–5 sources you have found supporting your argument that there is a need in the target population and that the intervention identified in your PICOT question will meet the need. The following are things you should identify when considering your population (not an exhaustive list and not all the items on this list might apply to your population): age, generation, sociocultural determinants, geographic area, gender, and ethnicity.
· Review the resources on summarizing.
· Review the steps in the MEAL Plan.
· Use the Synthesis module for an introduction to synthesis.
Instructions
State your PICOT question, including the target population. Gather 3–5 resources that address the topic. Write the following:
· For each source, write a summary paragraph.
· Then, create one synthesized paragraph of information, bringing together the information from all the sources.
. Here are some questions to consider when writing this final paragraph, which will be a synthesis in support of the target population.
. How do your sources relate?
. In what ways are they similar or different?
. How do they build upon one another?
· Each paragraph should present a main idea, supported by evidence, following the model set by the MEAL Plan.
Your assessment will be graded according to the following criteria:
· Integrate evidence into text appropriately.
· Compose a strong thesis stating an argument.
· Explain how the evidence supports an argument.
· Develop a synthesis of evidence in support of an argument.
Additional Requirements
· APA Format: Citations and references follow current APA style and format.
MEAL Plan
Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking
Writing academic text can’t be done without first locating, reading, and analyzing other academic texts to use as resources. The Reverse Outline and the MEAL Plan are useful during the entire process. By incorporating critical thinking methods into a system of reading academic texts and your own writing, these tools will be invaluable to you as you build your academic writing skills.
Key Elements
Academic writing is focused on a main point or thesis. The main point or thesis is often found at the very beginning of an academic text, such as in the introduction or abstract. Everything after the thesis statement provides additional information or evidence to support the thesis, often referred to as supporting evidence or details.
In order to strongly and effectively support a thesis statement, a writer must focus on how to organize ideas and to develop key points.
Using the MEAL plan and practicing reverse outlining will help you organize ideas and develop key points in your academic writing. Both practices can be useful at multiple stages of the writing process.
MEAL Plan
MEAL stands for: main idea, evidence or examples, analysis, and link. This guide is a helpful tool when you are first constructing paragraphs and essays and when you are revising your work.
| How the MEAL plan relates to essays and paragraphs | |
| Essay | Paragraph |
| Introduction/Thesis Statement | Topic Sentence/Main Idea |
| Body | Evidence/Analysis |
| Conclusion | Link/Transition to Next Paragraph |
Main Idea
Every paragraph should have one main idea. An essay or piece of writing similarly focuses on one topic. If you find that your paragraphs have more than one main idea, separate your paragraphs so that each has only one main point. The idea behind a paragraph is to introduce an idea and expand upon it. If you veer off into a new topic, begin a new paragraph.
Evidence
Your main idea needs support, either in the form of evidence that supports your argument or examples that explain your idea. If you don’t have any evidence or examples to support your main idea, your idea may not be strong enough to warrant a complete paragraph. In this case, re-evaluate your idea and see whether you need even to keep it in the paper.
This goes the same for writing an essay. The evidence should support the main argument of the writing assignment. If it does not, your writing may lack focus and need to be revised.
Analysis
Analysis is the heart of academic writing. While your readers want to see evidence or examples of your idea, the real “meat” of your idea is your interpretation (analysis) of your evidence or examples:
· How you break down the ideas or evidence.
· Compare ideas.
· Compile your ideas to build a persuasive case.
· Demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence.
Analysis is always needed for any type of evidence or example you use to support your main point. Whether you include the evidence as a paraphrase, summary, or direct quotation your analysis is critical. It demonstrates how the evidence helps you make your case. Think about how each source fits into the context of your main idea in the paragraph and in the overall thesis of your essay.
Link or Transition
Links help your reader to see how your paragraphs fit together. When you end a paragraph, try to link it to something else in your paper, such as your thesis or argument, the previous paragraph or main idea, or the following paragraph. Creating links will help your reader understand the logic and organization of your paper, as well as the logic and organization of your argument or main points. Key words that function as links include:
· however
· so
· thus
· still
· despite
· nonetheless
· although
Reverse Outline
Reverse outlining is a great tool to use to figure out where your draft needs work. One of the most important parts of the writing process is revision, the stage where you rework your draft’s global concerns focus, clarity, organization, and persuasiveness.
What is Reverse Outlining?
You’re probably familiar with the concept of outlining as a prewriting strategy—when you outline, you write down all the sections and subsections of your paper in an organized, numbered hierarchy, which you can then use as a blueprint in producing your first draft.
When you create a reverse outline, you do the same thing, only backwards: you start with an existing draft, and try to create an outline that represents its sections and its major points. Doing so allows you to see where your organization doesn’t make sense, where you have unexplained “leaps” in your logic, and where you haven’t constructed effective paragraphs.
How to Create a Reverse Outline
There are a couple of ways to create a reverse outline:
· Create a sequential outline.
· Make a table.
How to Create a Sequential Outline
· Look at your current draft and read each paragraph carefully—and separately—for purpose and content.
· Write in the margins of your draft what you see as the main point in your paragraph. If your paragraph seems to have two main points, write them both in the margin of the paper.
· Transfer these “main points” into an outline format on a separate sheet of paper.
· Examine your outline for several important things:
· Fluidity of development: Ask yourself, do my points follow logically from each other? Could I make the flow smoother by moving certain paragraphs to different places in my argument?
· Separation of points: Do any of my paragraphs make more than one point? If so, how do I separate them into different paragraphs? Do the paragraphs belong near each other? Or should they be separated to improve the flow of my argument?
· Inclusion of important elements: Does my essay miss any significant points or connections that are necessary for its development? Where should I put these “missing links”?
· And finally, make revisions as necessary, first with the outline, and then with the draft.
How to Create a Table
To use the tabling approach to reverse outlining:
· Number your draft’s paragraphs from beginning to end.
· Use the following table (or draw columns on a separate sheet) to record what each paragraph “does” and “says.”
· In the “does” column, write down the paragraph’s function, the job it is supposed to do in your draft (“proves that some evidence indicates heightened self-esteem among home-schooled pre-teen girls;” “creates a logical transition from discussion of self-esteem to discussion of body image”).
· In the “says” column, write down each paragraph’s main point(s). As with the sequential outlining approach, you’ll want to keep an eye out for paragraphs that have more than one main point and paragraphs whose “says” don’t seem to match their “does;” that is, paragraphs that are not functioning in the way you intended them to function.
· When you’re done, check your paper’s organization and logical flow by reading the “does” column in order from top to bottom. Are the points presented in the most logical order? Do you see gaps in reasoning, or places where you suddenly switch tracks without explanation or transitions? Also, how can you revise paragraphs so that what they say makes them do what they’re supposed to do more effectively?
| The Template | ||
| Paragraph Number | Does | Says |
| Example of a Table | ||
| Paragraph Number | Does | Says |
| 1 | Introduction | Teachers must balance different methods with the rise of technology in the classroom. |
| 2 | Evidence | Many elementary students are now required to use e-reader software on the iPad for reading assignments in order to track their progress. |
Using the Tools
Using the Reverse Outline and MEAL Plans for reading and writing will add more time to the earlier stages of your academic writing, so be sure to budget time to use these tools to their full potential.
You will find, however, that spending this extra time at the beginning of writing will pay off down the road. Research shows that the more you use these tools when reading and writing, the more proficient you become.
Writers note that after using these tools to write a few papers, they find the process to actually be faster and more concise because they generate first drafts rapidly, without worrying that everything is right. They know that they have two tools to help them effectively organize and develop their drafts and put their ideas into the academic format that those reading and assessing their writing will expect.
Credits
Subject Matter Expert: Cheryl Anderson
Interactive Design: Vijay Dutta
Instructional Design: Steve Sorenson
Project Manager: Nakeela Hall
The Meaning of Synthesis
· Practice
· Credits
What is Synthesis
“What does the research say?” As you gather evidence for your writing, you will reach a phase at which you must start weaving the references together into a cohesive whole. This stage is called synthesis. It involves many different pieces, such as: summary, analysis, and transition. In Bloom’s Taxonomy, synthesis is a higher order of thinking, so it’s natural that many learners struggle with this stage of the writing process.
The Purpose of Synthesis
Synthesis helps you move from the piles of sources that you have gathered into a clean, logical exploration that supports your thesis. The purpose of synthesis depends on the goal of your writing project.
Course Papers
Are you preparing a short, persuasive argument for a one-to-five page course paper? In that case, synthesis will help you reinforce your points with the findings you have gathered from scholarly or professional sources.
Dissertations
Are you working on your dissertation literature review? For this project, your synthesis will explore a relationship between two or more concepts. Your synthesis will help you clarify your research question. Or it may explain the four-to-five themes that help you fully discuss your research focus.
Cultural Note
In different cultures, academic writing may be approached differently. In the United States, academic writing involves the creation of a document that is a synthesis of information and ideas from many applicable sources.
Examples of Synthesis
Synthesis always has a focus. Your review of literature (or careful reading of your research sources) will help you to identify and clarify your specific focus or research question. Later, this review can help you narrow and explain the topics you plan to address in your paper. See the fictitious example below, focusing on the simple topic of apples.
Ficticious Example
Quotes from sources:
“Apples are fruit.” (Randolf, 2013, p. 94)
“Apples are available in several colors including red, yellow, and green.” (Collier, 2014, p. 12)
“Although both Macintosh and Red Delicious apples are red, they have different flavors. (Gerson, 2014, p. 386)
| Synthesis | |
| Excerpt | Tip |
| All fruit is not the same. For example, Randolf (2014) noted that apples are a fruit. They “are available in several colors” (Collier, 2014, p. 12) and apples of the same color may vary in flavor (e.g., Gerson, 2014). | Notice the initial general statement (“all fruit is not the same”) followed by bringing the tree sources together to explicate the general statement. |
| All fruit is not the same. For example, Randolf (2014) noted that apples are a fruit. They “are available in several colors”(Collier, 2014, p. 12) and apples of the same color may vary in flavor (e.g., Gerson, 2014). | Notice the use of past tense “noted” rather than “notes” since Randolf wrote in the past. Notice also the use of “notes that,” suggesting that Randolf is reporting an uncontroversial fact and not, for example, a controversial position (“Randolf argued that”) nor the result of Randolf’s research (“Randolf found that”). |
| All fruit is not the same. For example, Randolf (2014) noted that apples are a fruit. They “are available in several colors” (Collier, 2014, p. 12) and apples of the same color may vary in flavor (e.g., Gerson, 2014). | Notice the rewording of Gerson from “have different flavors” to “may vary in flavor.” Repeating “have different flavors” without quotation marks may seem a common use of language and not plagiarism but the duplication will be picked up by Turnitin or other text matching software and require action by a course instructor, dissertation mentor, or journal editor. |
| All fruit is not the same. For example, Randolf (2014) noted that apples are a fruit. They “are available in several colors”(Collier, 2014, p. 12) and apples of the same color may vary in flavor (e.g. , Gerson, 2014). | Notice the use of “e.g.” with Gerson, since Gerson does not make a general statement about apples and their flavors but, instead, gives a single example of two varieties of apples having different flavors. |
Your specific focus or research question will lead you to topics, themes, and key ideas. Remember that academic papers are not written to persuade. You are not writing to present an argument or persuade your reader. Rather, you are, writing to explore the relationship between X and Y, through your sources. For example, you might explore:
· The relationship between poverty and academic performance in middle school.
· The relationship between air pressure and the temperature at which water will boil.
Real Example with Peer Reviewed Scholarly Article
Quotes from sources:
“Approximately 89% strongly or somewhat agreed that handing in someone else’s writing as one’s own or purchasing a paper to turn in as one’s own is wrong, whether done conventionally or online (see Table 5).”
Scanlon, P. M., & Neumann, D. R. (2002, May June). Internet plagiarism among college students. Journal of College Student Development.
“That 24.5% of these students reported plagiarizing online sometimes to very frequently should be cause for concern…”
Scanlon, P. M., & Neumann, D. R. (2002, May June). Internet plagiarism among college students. Journal of College Student Development.
“‘cut & paste’ plagiarism…A majority of students (77%) believe such cheating is not a very serious issue (CAI research, 2005).”
Jocoy, C., & DiBiase. (2006, June). Plagiarism by adult learners online: A case study in detection and remediation. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).
“While this behavior is intended to capture larger scale plagiarism, it is possible that the perceived high level of student engagement reported by faculty is driven by instances which students view as less egregious and place in the ‘cut and paste’ category.”
McCabe, D., & Trevino, L. K. (2002, Jan-Feb). Honesty and honor codes. Retrieved October 7, 2012, from Academe Online: https://www.aaup.org/AAUP/ pubsres/academe/2002/JF/Feat/ mcca.htm?PF=1
“We detected copying from the log of student interactions with a web-based socratic tutorial homework system called MasteringPhysics.com that was used in four of the largest introductory calculus-based physics classes studied at MIT… Recent research on time to completion of problems in MasteringPhysics enabled us to develop algorithms that give a probability that a particular submitted solution has been copied.”
Palazzo, D.J., Lee, Y-J, Warnakulasooriya, R., & Pritchard, D.E. (2010). Patterns, correlates, and reduction of homework copying. Physics Review Special Topics–Physics Education Research, 6(1).
Synthesis
Scanlon & Neumann’s survey (2002) of 698 college students showed that nearly 90% viewed cutting and pasting without citation as unethical, although 24.5% admitted to “sometimes” to “very frequent” use of this type of plagiarism…Jocoy and DiBiase (2006) cite a Center for Academic Integrity survey of approximately 50,000 students from more than 60 universities that revealed 77% of the participants did not view “cutting and pasting” as a very serious issue. McCabe has also hypothesized that students do not regard cutting and pasting from the Internet as an act of cheating (McCabe, 2005). This is supported by the results of Palazzo, et al. (2010) who developed an algorithm to detect copying in an online tutorial system and then administered an academic dishonesty survey to students and utilized the online tutorial to compare the extent of self-reported vs. actual copying.
Jones, I, Blankenship, D., & Hollier, G. (2013). Am I cheating? An analysis of online student perceptions of their behaviors and attitudes. Proceedings of the American Society of Business and Behavioral Sciences, 20.1, Las Vegas, NV, February 21-24, 59-69.
Dissertation: Notes
The literature review is the foundation of your synthesis. During this process, you will find topics, themes, and key ideas. You will have to make sense of the diverse concepts you find and look for patterns of agreement and disagreement. See the Tools for Synthesis tab for resources and techniques for additional help.
| Synthesis | |
| Excerpt | Tip |
| “Qualitative studies also found that group therapy has psychotherapeutic value (Rubenfeld, 2005, 2008; Rutan et al., 2014). Research sponsored by the American Group Psychotherapy Association (Bernard et al., 2008; Weber, 2006) helped shape an appreciation of the life-world of the participants, as is elaborated on more fully in Chapter 5. Solid examples of phenomenological methodology related to the psychotherapeutic situation were included (Giorgi, B., 2011; Giorgi, A., & Gallegos, 2005).” Sweeden, L. M. (2014). The lived experience of therapists practicing psychodynamic group therapy: A phenomenological study (Doctoral dissertation). Retrievedfrom ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (Accession Order No. AAT 1629444041) | Note that dissertations and other research articles will synthesize multiple sources with one sentence and often many sources per paragraph. They do not dedicate one paragraph to one source, like an annotated bibliography. |
Tools for Synthesis
Attributive Verbs or “Verbs of Attribution” or Signal Phrases
What are they? Signal phrases allow you to smoothly weave quotations together into a clean narrative. They also provide some orientation to your reader by naming the author whom provided the quote.
Rather than writing, “Smith says” and “Jones says”, choose other attributive verbs to show more complex relationships between sources. Did a researcher “suggest” something or “warn”, perhaps? Do two researchers “counter” or “affirm” each other’s’ work? Using a range of verbs gives your reader a better sense of the relationships in the literature.
Where can I find them? View a list of attributive verbs.
Annotated Bibliography
What is it? Annotated bibliographies are tools for organizing the content of the sources you use as fuel for your writing. Annotated bibliographies are commonly assigned in Capella coursework, and they are also useful for keeping track of sources you might use in writing longer pieces, such as a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation.
Note: Annotated bibliographies are helpful for organizing your sources. However, unlike an annotated bibliography, your ultimate synthesized paragraphs will include more than one source per paragraph. You will attribute many sources per paragraph in your final draft.
View the Annotated Bibliography media piece.
Review Grid
What is it? The review of literature is a discovery process. That means you should map where you’ve been. When reading dozens of different articles, it can be easy to lose the forest for the trees. A review grid helps you cluster the various points from your articles into common topics, subtopics or themes. This organizes your reading in a way that is helpful for writing.
Where can I find them? You can find lists of attributive verbs by searching for the phrase online.
| Grid of Common Points | |||
| Topic 1 | Topic 2 | Topic 3 | |
| Author A | |||
| Author B | |||
| Author C |
Scholarly Resarch Log
What is it? Track important aspects of articles including the research question, theoretical framework, methodology, and findings. The library has created the Scholarly Research Log (Excel file) to help you with this process. It allows you to quickly record important information about each item you read:
Once completed, the Scholarly Research Log can be sorted or scanned to help you make important connections between resources.
Where can I find it? https://capellauniversity.libguides.com/ organizingtools/researchlog
Bibliography Management Software (e.g. RefWorks)
What is it? RefWorks is a research management tool that helps you collect, organize, and store citations from library databases and other resources. Utilize this web-based tool to import citations from online databases, organize those citations into folders, and create bibliographies using APA format.
Where can I find it? You can set up your free account, attend webinars and watch short how-to videos on the RefWorks Information Page.
For Further Reading
They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by G. Graff and C. Birkenstein, published by Norton, is an outstanding tool for understanding and constructing effective synthesis.
Techniques of Synthesis
Clustering
Start by clustering your sources into conversations, or themes. If you have done a thorough search of professional or scholarly sources, the writers should address related research findings. You should be able to see areas of agreement and disagreement between the different articles. If you cannot see the points of conversation, you may not have enough relevant sources. Contact the library for assistance in finding more sources.
Annotated Bibliography
Annotations are the summative or evaluative phrases that you capture from each source that you read. Learn more about annotations.
Analyzing
As you read, ask yourself these questions:
· How are the articles similar?
· Where do they agree? Disagree?
· What comparisons are relevant to my paper?
Linking
It may help to map out the arguments in your sources as you read. Don’t hesitate to read the sources multiple times. Each reading with map the characteristics of the article into your working memory. Learn more about Reading Strategies.
Organizing
You want to do research, but you don’t want to “re-re-re-research.” That is, you don’t want to backtrack multiple times to find a source that you had read before. Staying organized with file naming conventions and careful documentation will save you days of time as you synthesize.
Practice
Which of the following examples is the best representation of good synthesis?
EXAMPLE 1 The book Empowering education: Critical teaching for social change, by Ira Shor, a professor of English at the City University of New York, offers new pedagogical methods of “critical teaching for social change.” The author, who teaches composition and basic writing courses, integrates his own classroom experiences with a discussion of Freirean and other pedagogical theories. Beginning with the politics of socialization in the education system, Shor makes a case for empowering (as opposed to traditional) education, defined as “a critical-democratic pedagogy for self and social change” (p. 15). Student participation, he argues, is a key element of this model, and it is up to the teacher to foster positive feelings about the class and invite participation from the students.
EXAMPLE 2 In reviewing the literature of liaison programs in colleges and universities, most described programs where a majority of their students attended class on a physical campus. Colleges and universities have ever more hybrid and online courses, however none of the literature described a liaison program in a completely online environment. While some of the differences may seem obvious, it is worthwhile to describe the key elements of the online classroom compared to the physical classroom.
EXAMPLE 3 There is a fair amount of literature on walking as an alternative means of knowledge production, something that provides a new perspective, another way of seeing and feeling (Phillips 2005; Wylie, 2005). It is a performative act that determines the kind of knowledge produced. As Instone (2011) points out, how a person moves through a landscape and among the people living in those spaces, constitutes how they relate to that place and how and what they learn about it. Similarly, it also shapes the walker’s mind and body as she or he moves in and through the landscape. Instone writes, “This performative understanding of space and knowledge highlights the complex processes through which worlds are always relational achievements and perpetually “in-the-making, never fixed or pre-given” (2011).” Banerjee, B., & Blaise, M. (2013). There’s something in the air: Becoming-with research practices. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 13(4), 240-245.
ANSWER:
The correct answer is Example 3. This is a good example of synthesis. In contrast with the other examples, this one cites multiple references per paragraph, in a manner that leads to new knowledge for the topic it explores.
Example 1 is not a good example of synthesis, since the paragraph only addresses one source, in a book report or annotated bibliography fashion. It does not weave together multiple sources to achieve new insights.
Example 2 does not cite the literature to which it refers, so it is poorly supported.
Credits
Subject Matter Expert: Montgomery, Marilyn
Interactive Design: Yadavali, Deepika
Instructional Design: Gronseth, Judi
Project Manager: Latimer, LaRohnda
Arguing for a Target Population Scoring Guide
| Criteria | Non-performance | Basic | Proficient | Distinguished |
| Compose a strong thesis stating an argument. | Does not compose a strong thesis stating an argument. | Composes a thesis, but lacks clarity about the focus of the argument. | Composes a strong thesis stating an argument. | Composes a strong thesis stating an argument; thesis relates to all evidence and analysis offered in the writing. |
| Develop a synthesis of evidence in support of an argument. | Does not develop a summary or a synthesis of evidence in support of an argument. | Develops a summary of the evidence, which sometimes reaches the level of synthesis of evidence. | Develops a synthesis of evidence in support of an argument. | Develops a synthesis of evidence in support of an argument; synthesis includes robust evidence from multiple sources. |
| Explain how evidence supports an argument. | Does not cite evidence in support of an argument. | Cites evidence in support of an argument, but does not explain how the evidence supports the argument. | Explains how evidence supports an argument. | Explains how evidence supports an argument; provides interpretation of evidence that shows how it supports an argument. |
| Integrate evidence into text appropriately. | Does not integrate evidence into text appropriately. | Integrates evidence into text appropriately, but with errors in attribution and/or citation that introduce or approach plagiarism. | Integrates evidence into text appropriately. | Integrates evidence into text without errors in attribution or APA style. |
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