Source Materials

In academic contexts, most types of evidence come from source material— information found in books, articles, conversations, blogs, and many other documents, videos, or recordings. Evidence from firsthand observation or experience is also used in academic settings. Writers relate source material to their own argument by syntactically embedding, or weaving in, particular quoted, paraphrased, or summarized information from one or more sources into their own ideas. When you quote a source, you use an author’s exact words. When you paraphrase, you rewrite the author’s ideas in your own words. When you summarize, you condense key information from a source in your own words, leaving out some details.

Weaving in Others’ Ideas

At the beginning of the argumentation process, a writer’s thinking may be shaped by information from informal sources, such as conversations with classmates and posts on social media. However, once a writer has established a position and a claim, more concrete evidence is needed to make the argument convincing to a varied audience. When the writer’s own observation or experience does not provide sufficient or appropriate evidence, the writer looks for other reliable sources for information to justify the claim.

Combining Writer and Source Ideas 

Good information from outside sources needs to be woven into a writer’s argument. Deftly synthesizing source information with your own ideas strengthens your argument by demonstrating that experts agree with your position. The information you get from outside sources may shape the wording of the claim. It also may become evidence, or it may become part of the reasoning that explains how the evidence supports the claim. However you use it, new information should blend seamlessly with your own word choice and writing style. 

Study the following diagram. 

Figure 1

Drawing Inferences from Source Information 

Inferences are conclusions based on evidence and reasoning. Educator and author Jim Burke used the following formula to explain how an inference is made: 

Known Information + New Information = Inference, or New Idea 

When developing an argument, writers synthesize, or mix together, information from outside sources with their own ideas in order to arrive at a new idea, or an inference. Study the example below. 

Figure 2

Inferences such as the one above connect evidence to the writer’s claim—in other words, they provide the reasoning that supports the argument. This connection is crucial for making a convincing argument.

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

In the first figure,1, the writer chose to quote a source directly. The writer could have paraphrased the information but probably thought that using a direct quotation would be more convincing.  

You can synthesize sources into your own writing three different ways: by quoting, by paraphrasing, and by summarizing. Which method you choose will depend on the amount of information needed and the specific details of that information. 

Read Table 1 below. The table shows how and when an original text can be quoted, paraphrased, and summarized.

Table 1

Remember: Writers relate source material to their own argument by syntactically embedding particular quoted, paraphrased, or summarized information from one or more sources into their own ideas. 

Let's Practice

Let's Check Your Understanding