An essay without sources is like peanut butter without jelly, it’s incomplete. Having sources to work with for an essay helps to strengthen your argument when using quotes from within the text, and generates a conversation between your thoughts and the sources. When I wrote essays in high school, I would just list off phrases like “this person stated this,” throw in a quote, and then just go on to summarize what the author wrote in their text. I now know that this is not an effective way to write an essay because you don’t get your point across, and in turn, don’t write a compelling paper. Even early on in this course, for our very first paper, I remember just stating what the sources we were working with said. Having learned how to properly use sources, I can now effectively generate a conversation in my writing, instead of just listing off sources and only summarizing them. I have developed the ability to pull quotes from the sources that correlate with my argument, frame them properly, and integrate them with my thoughts throughout the paper. For example, in the final draft of my significant writing project, I wrote a paragraph about scientific researches and how they dive deeper and deeper into the unknown. The quote I chose to use, from Jonah Lehrer, was, “it’s clear that solving the deepest mysteries of the brain will require a new scientific approach, one that is able to incorporate the wisdom of the arts.” When I read his essay, I knew this quote would fit perfectly into the paragraph I wrote, and would help enhance its main ideas. Here, I was able to demonstrate my ability to choose a quote that supported my ideas, explain the context of the quotation, and integrate it into conversation with my ideas. Learning from Professor Emerson how to properly frame quotes, and integrate them into my papers has helped me further develop and elevate my writing.
