(Integrating Ideas) – Be able to integrate their ideas with others using summary, paraphrase, quotation, analysis, and synthesis of relevant sources. (Word Count: 295).
At the beginning of the semester, I always found it difficult to blend my ideas with those that I read. The extent of how I would communicate with the authors from the readings would be inserting a quote here or there that I thought made some sense with what I was writing. As my time in this class progressed, I was introduced to the idea of quote sandwiches. Throughout high school, I was told to insert quotes in a way that made them a part of your sentence rather than introducing them and explaining them afterwards.
The quote sandwich taught me that introducing the quote, stating the quote, explaining it in your own words, and then go into your argument or purpose for the quote was exactly what to do. In my previous education I was told that this was boring or ineffective, when in fact it makes the most sense in academic writing. An instance in which I successfully integrated a quote sandwich is in my second paper. (Photo 1).
The red section is the introduction of the quote, the orange is the preface and the quote itself, the green is the explanation and further development of my ideas. I was also able to continue this pattern a second time in order to develop a Barclay paragraph. (Photo 2).
The colors of this paragraph have the same meanings as the one above, although the blue color is the transition rather than another introduction to a different idea. Quote sandwiches have allowed me to collect and gather my thoughts while displaying them in a useful way to my readers. This is a new concept to me, and I am very grateful to be able to continue using the practice going forward in my academic career.
