Writing the Synthesis Paragraph and Critical Essay Rough Draft

What This Assignment Is Actually Doing — And Why It Matters

If you have been following the Critical Essay steps in order, you have already summarized two sources. You know what each article argues. Now the course is asking you to do something harder: find where those two arguments meet, and then test that meeting point against what you have actually experienced.

That is synthesis. Not “Source A says X and Source B says Y.” Synthesis is “Source A and Source B both suggest Z — and here is where my own life confirms or complicates that idea.”

The Week 8 Discussion gives you room to work that out in conversation with classmates before the graded essay is due. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are not assessed here. That is by design. The instructor wants you to think on paper without worrying about polish. Take that permission seriously — it’s rarer than you think in a college writing course.

The GORP Writing Process — What the Four Stages Mean in Practice

Assignment 9 explicitly asks you to work on three stages of the GORP writing process: Generating, Organizing, and Revising. Understanding what GORP actually means will help you approach the rough draft without freezing up every time you start a new paragraph.

For Assignment 9, you are working in G, O, and R — not P. The rough draft is not expected to be polished. It is expected to be complete enough to revise. The assignment itself says this is your “shitty first draft” — that phrase comes directly from Anne Lamott’s essay on first drafts, which is widely assigned in composition courses because it gives students permission to write badly on purpose as part of the process.

The Week 8 Discussion post is pure G — generating. When you paste it into the template for Body Paragraph 3, you are starting the O and R stages. The final essay will involve full revision. Right now, your job is to generate enough raw material that revision is possible.

What Synthesis Actually Means — And What It Doesn’t

Most students hit a wall with synthesis because they think it means summarizing two sources in the same paragraph. It doesn’t. A synthesis paragraph does something more specific: it identifies a relationship between two sources — usually agreement, tension, or complementarity — and then makes a claim about that relationship.

Here’s the simplest way to think about it. If you have read two articles about, say, social media and mental health, and both articles argue that increased screen time is correlated with higher anxiety levels in adolescents — that shared claim is your synthesis point. You don’t re-explain what each article says. You explain what they agree on, and then you test that agreement against your own experience.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab, one of the most widely used academic writing resources in the United States, defines synthesis writing as “the process of combining information from multiple sources to produce a new, integrated understanding” — meaning the writer’s job is not to list sources but to show how they illuminate a single idea (Purdue OWL, n.d.). That integrated understanding is what your Body Paragraph 3 is supposed to produce.

How to Write Your Initial Post — Both Parts, In Order

The initial post has two required components. They are listed in the prompt in order, and they should appear in that order in your post. Minimum 150 words total. Most students write closer to 200–250 when they address both parts with enough substance.

Part 1: Where the Two Sources Agree on Important Points

Start here. Before you touch your personal experience, get clear on what the sources are saying together. Go back to your two summaries. Read them side by side. Ask yourself: what claim would both authors nod at? Where do they point in the same direction, even if they start from different places?

You are looking for agreement on important points — the prompt uses that phrase deliberately. The sources will agree on minor details incidentally. What matters is identifying agreement on the central argument or a significant supporting claim. If Source A argues that nurse-led programs improve patient outcomes and Source B argues that patient education reduces hospital readmissions, the synthesis point might be: both sources argue that proactive nursing intervention leads to measurably better patient outcomes. That is the shared terrain.

Part 2: Where Your Experience Matches or Doesn’t Match

This is the part most students underwrite. They get one sentence in — “my experience matches this” — and stop. That is not enough. The prompt asks about the important points the sources agree on, and it wants you to say how your lived experience has or hasn’t aligned with those points.

Your experience doesn’t have to be dramatic. It doesn’t need to be a profound personal story. It needs to be specific. “I have noticed that…” is stronger than “I believe that…” because noticing implies observation, not just opinion. “When I worked in retail, I saw that…” is stronger than “In general, people tend to…” because it is grounded in a real situation you witnessed or lived through.

If your experience does not match the sources — that is also a valid and interesting answer. It means you have a real-world counterexample to the academic claims. Say so. Explain why your experience diverges. That kind of critical engagement is exactly what the course is trying to build.

The Body Paragraph 3 Template Formula — Use It Exactly

Assignment 9 gives you a specific sentence template for the opening of Body Paragraph 3. This is not a suggestion. Use it. The template tells the grader immediately that you understand what synthesis means and that you can execute it in a standard academic format.

Two sentences. That is the required opening of the paragraph. Everything else in the paragraph — the rest of your discussion of personal experience — follows from these two sentences.

Choosing the Right Verb and Noun

The choice of verb matters more than students usually realize. “Argue” suggests the authors are making a strong, evidence-backed claim. “Suggest” implies something more tentative. “Imply” means the conclusion is there but not stated directly. “Claim” is neutral and widely used. Pick the verb that accurately characterizes how the sources present their ideas — not just whichever word sounds best.

Writing the Two Response Posts — What the Prompt Actually Wants

Two response posts. Minimum 75 words each. Due by Day 7. The content requirements are specific: you are asked to comment on (1) how interesting or compelling your classmate’s post is and why, and (2) what they might consider as they revise.

Most students write generic responses: “Great post! I really liked your examples.” That satisfies the word count but not the content. The prompt is asking for two distinct things — engagement with the content and revision advice — and both parts need to appear in every response.

How to Make Response Posts Substantive in 75 Words

Assignment 9 Full Structure — All Five Sections and What Each One Needs

The rough draft has five parts. Two of them — the summaries — are already written. You are revising those based on instructor feedback and pasting them in. Three parts require new generation: the introduction, Body Paragraph 3, and the conclusion. Here is what each section needs to accomplish.

Total points: 50. Each criterion carries equal weight. Students who focus on generating the new paragraphs and neglect the APA format criterion will lose points unnecessarily — especially since the template handles most of the formatting for you automatically. There is no reason to lose points on APA if you use the template correctly.

Writing the Introduction — Background, Importance, and the Thesis Statement

The introduction is the first new piece of writing you need to generate for Assignment 9. The template tells you to use your Week 6 Discussion post as a starting point — that post was about why your topic is important. Paste it in, then add to it.

A Critical Essay introduction does three things. It brings the reader into the topic (background). It explains why the topic matters (significance). And it ends with a thesis or purpose statement that tells the reader what the paper will do.

What Background Information Means Here

Background is not a history lecture. It is context — the information a reader needs to understand why this topic is worth a whole essay. Think about what someone who knows nothing about your topic would need to know in order to understand your thesis. Define key terms if the topic involves specialized language. Mention the scope of the issue — who it affects, how widely, with what consequences. Two to four sentences of solid context is more effective than a paragraph of vague generalities.

The Required Thesis Statement

The template specifies exactly how the thesis should read: “This paper examines [your topic].” That is your thesis sentence. It goes at the end of the introduction paragraph. Do not change the phrasing — the assignment is using this consistent structure to ensure you include a clear purpose statement. Add the actual topic where the bracket is, and you’re done with that requirement.

Writing the Conclusion — Significance, Takeaway, and Call to Action

The conclusion is the second piece of new writing you need to generate. Most students write the weakest conclusion they can get away with — one paragraph that restates the thesis and says “in summary.” That approach will not score well here, because the rubric specifies three distinct things the conclusion must accomplish.

Here’s what the conclusion needs:

The template says to “free write about the significance of your topic, what your reader should learn from reading your essay, and what they should do based on what you have written.” That is exactly the three-part structure above. Use freewriting to get it out, then check that all three parts are present before submitting.

APA Formatting in the Template — What You Still Need to Add

The template does most of the APA work for you. But there are specific things the template cannot fill in for itself. You need to add these before submitting.

The References Page — How to Format the Two Sources

The assignment tells you that the full citations for your two sources are in your Assignment 7 and Assignment 8 submissions — the source summaries. Go retrieve those citations now and paste them onto the References page in alphabetical order by the first author’s last name.

In APA 7th edition, references on the References page have a hanging indent — the first line of each reference is flush left, and every additional line is indented by 0.5 inches. The template should have this formatting set up if you type normally. If you paste a citation in and it doesn’t look right, highlight the reference, go to Format → Paragraph, and set the indent to “Hanging” at 0.5 inches.

FAQs — What Students Ask About This Assignment

A Practical Checklist — What to Confirm Before You Post and Submit

Before you post the discussion and before you submit Assignment 9, run through these two checklists quickly. They correspond directly to the rubric criteria.

The rough draft is not the final essay. It is a working document. The goal is to have all five sections present and coherent enough to revise — not perfect. Give yourself permission to write something that needs work. That is the assignment. Getting the material on the page is the task. Refinement is what the next step is for.

If you need help at any stage — the discussion post, the synthesis paragraph, the introduction, the conclusion, or the full rough draft — the academic writing specialists at Smart Academic Writing work with English composition students regularly. You can also access discussion post writing support, college essay help, and editing and proofreading for any stage of this assignment.