Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS):
6.5.H
synthesize information to create new understanding;
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS):
6.6.E*
interact with sources in meaningful ways such as notetaking, annotating, freewriting, or illustrating;
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS):
6.12.D*
identify and gather relevant information from a variety of sources;
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS):
6.12.E*
differentiate between primary and secondary sources;
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS):
6.12.F*
synthesize information from a variety of sources;
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS):
6.12.G*
differentiate between paraphrasing and plagiarism when using source materials.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS):
6.12.H*
examine sources for:
reliability, credibility, and bias; and
faulty reasoning such as hyperbole, emotional appeals, and stereotype.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS):
6.12.I*
display academic citations and use source materials ethically;
Florida - Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking:
ELA.6.C.1.5
Improve writing by planning, revising, and editing, considering feedback from adults and peers.
Florida - Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking:
ELA.6.C.4.1
Conduct research to answer a question, drawing on multiple reliable and valid sources, and refocusing the inquiry when appropriate
Georgia Math and ELA Standards:
6.T.RA.1.b
Conduct research by locating, gathering, curating, and integrating information from credible sources (including print, digital, and personal communication) about texts and related topics. (I)
Georgia Math and ELA Standards:
6.T.RA.2.a
Locate evidence in print and digital sources to support a central idea or question, recording basic bibliographic information, such as author, title, and page number. (I)
Georgia Math and ELA Standards:
6.T.RA.2.b
Analyze print and digital texts to identify features of credible, relevant sources and to determine indicators that might signal unreliable sources. (I)
6th Grade Writing - Research and Synthesis Lesson
Research & Synthesis
Researching is gathering data from credible, reliable, and relevant sources. After data is gathered, it must be synthesized, or merged, into a coherent whole. All sources from which data is gathered must be acknowledged, or cited.
Choosing Appropriate Sources
Relevantsources are those that are related to the subject matter.
Example:
NOT RELEVANT: Asian Tigers, African Lions, a nonfiction book about big cats in the wild
RELEVANT: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Cat Breeds, a nonfiction book about breeds of petcats.
Credible and reliablesources are those that are believable and trustworthy.
NOT A GOOD SOURCE: website with popular cat videos that people have posted of their pets eating their favorite foods
GOOD SOURCE: website with the URLwww.thecatnetwork.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating people about how to care for pet cats
Primary vs. Secondary Sources
A primary source provides first-hand information about a topic.
Example:
RESEARCH TOPIC: Civil Rights Movement primary source: an interview with someone who lived through and experienced the Civil Rights Movement
RESEARCH TOPIC: E.E. Cummings, an American poet primary source: The actual poems that E.E. Cummings wrote
A secondary source provides second-hand information about a topic.
Example:
RESEARCH TOPIC: Civil Rights Movement secondary source: A chapter about the Civil Rights Movement in a school textbook
RESEARCH TOPIC: E.E. Cummings, an American poet secondary source: A biography of E.E. Cummings, published on a website about famous American poets
Avoiding Sources with Faulty Reasoning
Hyperbole: A logical fallacy that occurs when something is stated more strongly than the evidence supports.
Example:
This statement provides nodata to back up the catastrophic predictions offered. Instead, the speaker uses extremelanguage to frighten the listeners into voting against his or her opponent.
Emotional Appeals: A category of logical fallacies that use emotion instead of reason to persuade audiences.
Example:
This statement does not rely on data to convince people of the safety or effectiveness of the medicine. Instead, it relies on an emotional appeal, trying to make people feel guilty about "not being there" for family members due to chronic pain and hopeful that they could be pain free.
Stereotype: A logical fallacy based on making assumptions about people because they belong to particular groups.
Example:
The above decision is based on a stereotype that is commonly applied to older people. In fact, it is an illogical assumption that will unfairly exclude many qualified candidates and perhaps deny the employer the best candidate for the job.
In general, BEWARE of sources with the above types of faulty reasoning.
Do not confuse rhetorical devices with faulty reasoning.
A rhetoricaldevice is any use of language that helps an author achieve a particular purpose. For instance, hyperbole can be used as a rhetorical device to emphasize a point.
Example:
LogicalFallacy: You should watch this new show because it is more compelling than any police procedural in history!
While the first use of hyperbole merely emphasizes a point, the second use of hyperbole is a logicalfallacy because it is designed to persuade without reliance on actual facts, reasoning, or logic.
It is important to use a variety of credible, reliable, and relevant sources, free of flawed reasoning and biases, when researching topics you are writing about. After gathering information from your sources, you must synthesize the information from different sources into a coherent piece of writing of your own. Go to the next page to see an example of synthesizing data from a variety of sources.
SYNTHESIS
When gathering information from multiple sources, it is important to synthesize the information by drawing conclusions and merging the ideas into a coherent whole.
Darla is researching volcanoes for a science report. She found this diagram in an encyclopedia.
Darla recorded the source information on the back of an index card, and recorded the following notes about the diagram on the front of the card:
Magma is deep underground and flows up through a central pathway called a conduit, or pipe, and out the top of the volcano through a "throat" and a main "vent."
Off-shoots of lava break through the layers of the volcanic mountain and form "sills" on the inside of the volcano and "parasitic cones" with their own vents on the outside.
Lava flows down the sides of the volcanic mountain, and ash clouds spew out into the air through the main vent of the volcano.
The volcanic mountain is formed of layers of cooled lava and ash.
Darla also recorded notes from an online article she found on the National Geographic website on the front of the index card below (with source details on the back of the index card):
Volcanoes form when magma breaks through the "crust," or surface, of the earth.
Most volcanoes are formed where "tectonic plates" of the earth's crust meet.
There are two kinds of volcanic eruptions:
Explosive: like Mount St. Helens in Washington state — Rocks and ash particles shoot out, up to 20 miles high, and huge boulders are thrown as far as a half mile away.
Effusive: like Mauna Loa in Hawaii — Lava flows out slowly, burning and melting anything in its path.
She also recorded a description of the term tectonic plates that she found on the website of the United States Geological Survey. She recorded it in her own words on the following index card (with source details on the back of the index card):
Tectonic plates - huge slabs of rock that form the earth's crust and rub against each other when they move over time, causing earthquakes and allowing volcanoes to form when cracks in the crust are exposed by their movements.
Darla also found a useful description of the term magma in an online science dictionary. She put the description in her own words, and recorded it on the following index card (with source details on the back of the card):
magma - molten, liquid rock under the earth's crust; becomes "lava" when it reaches the earth's surface.
As Darla writes the first draft of her report, she synthesizes the data she has recorded on these four cards to compose the following paragraph:
Volcanoes are formed when liquid, molten rock beneath the earth’s crust — called “magma” — breaks through a crack exposed by the movement of the huge tectonic plates that form the crust. The hot magma flows up through a “conduit,” or pipe. The resulting volcanic eruption can be explosive or effusive. An explosive eruption is one that shoots rocks and ash particles up to 20 miles high and huge boulders as far as a half mile away. Mount St. Helens in Washington state is an example of a volcano that erupts like this. An effusive eruption is one in which lava — magma that has reached the earth’s surface — flows out of the volcano’s surface vents and moves slowly down the volcanic mountain and the surrounding land, burning and melting everything in its path. Mauna Loa in Hawaii is an example of a volcano that erupts in this way. As the lava and ash that spew from the vents settle to the ground and cool, they form layers of land that grow the sides of the volcanic mountain.
Now that Darla has synthesized the information she gathered and recorded it into a coherent paragraph, she must be sure to cite her sources. Go to the next page to learn how to properly acknowledge sources in your writing.
QUOTATIONS & CITATIONS
Quotations are the exactwords from a source. These exact words must be put in quotationmarks. The writer or speaker of the words must be acknowledged, or cited, in your own written work.
SOURCE: Guide to American Poets (book) AUTHOR: Jonathan Perry PUBLISHER: Random House PUBLICATION DATE: 2017 PAGE NUMBER: 52
Edwin Estlin Cummings, also known as E.E. Cummings, was a prolific American poet of the twentieth century. He published nearly 3,000 poems in his lifetime. He is known for his trademark use of lowercase letters that are normally capitalized, especially the pronoun I. He often wrote I as i to de-emphasize the importance of himself, the author of the poem, and thus emphasize the subject matter instead.
Example:
Quotation 2: E.E. Cummings sometimes used the lowercase letter i for the pronoun I in his poems in order to "de-emphasize the importance of himself, the author of the poem, and thus emphasize the subject matter instead" (Perry 52).
Example:
The above citations are "in-text citations" because they appear in the written text. All in-text citations refer to a complete citation in the bibliography, or "Works Cited" page, at the end of a written work.
"WORKS CITED" PAGE
When you write a report or other piece of work that uses information and quotations from sources, include a "Works Cited" page at the end of the report. Put the sources in alphabetical order.
The following examples of correctly formatted citations on the Works Cited page are based on the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook, published by the Modern Language Association of America in 2016:
Example:
FORMAT: Book with One Author
Author's Last Name, Author's First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year.
NOTE: In all MLA citations on the Works Cited page, indent the second and all subsequent lines of the citation. This format is called "hanging indentation."
Example:
Sayers, Dorothy L., and Robert Eustace. The Documents in the Case. Harper Torch, 1995.
NOTE: If there are more than two authors, list only the first author, plus the abbreviation et al.
Example:
Brooks, Anna. "Self-Amputating Animals." Popular Science, 24 May 2018, pp. 15-20.
NOTE: Multiple page numbers are preceded by the abbreviation pp. Single pages are preceded by the abbreviation p.
Example:
Becker, Mikkel. "Six Common Dog Behavior Myths Get Busted." vetSTREET, 19 July 2016, www.vetstreet.com/our-pet-experts/ six-common-dog-behavior-myths-get-busted. Accessed 25 July 2018.
NOTE: Website citations may include two dates — the date of publication and the date that you accessed the web page. While it is recommended to include both dates, the access date is optional.
Plagiarism is using someone else's work or ideas without properly acknowledging the source.
If you use the exact, or verysimilar, words of a source without putting them into quotation marks and acknowledging the original author, you are committing plagiarism. Plagiarismisstealing someone else's writing and representing it as your own.
SOURCE: Guide to American Poets (book) AUTHOR: Jonathan Perry PUBLISHER: Random House PUBLICATION DATE: 2017 PAGE NUMBER: 52
Edwin Estlin Cummings, also known as E.E. Cummings, was a prolific American poet of the twentieth century. He published nearly 3,000 poems in his lifetime. He is known for his trademark use of lowercase letters that are normally capitalized, especially the pronoun I. He often wrote I as i to de-emphasize the importance of himself, the author of the poem, and thus emphasize the subject matter instead.
Example:
Plagiarism:
E.E. Cummings is known for his trademark use of lowercase letters, especially the pronoun I, which he did to de-emphasize the importance of himself — the author of the poem — and emphasize the subject matter instead.
Even though the words and structure are slightly rearranged, many of the creative ways that the original author expressed his ideas are used in exactly the same way, as shown in red below.
E.E. Cummings is known for his trademark use of lowercase letters, especially the pronoun I, which he did to de-emphasize the importance of himself — the author of the poem — and emphasize the subject matter instead.
6th Grade Writing - Research and Synthesis Lesson
