Using Sources to Inform an Argument

As we discussed in Chapter 3, many different types of evidence can be used to support an argument. But it is important to remember that your sources should enhance, not replace, your argument. You may worry that the ideas of others are so persuasive that you have nothing new to say. Or you may think that the more sources you cite, the more impressed your reader (especially your teacher) will be. But as you develop your skills in writing synthesis essays, you will find that sources are most persuasive when they inform your own ideas and demonstrate your understanding of opposing views. What you have to say is the main event; your position is central.

In the following example, Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit, a Pulitzer Prize–winning book about a champion racehorse who beat the odds, maintains her own voice throughout, even when she uses the work of experts to help make a point. (She identifies those sources in a section at the end of her book.) But whether she is quoting directly or paraphrasing, she never gets lost in the sources or allows them to overwhelm her ideas.

from Seabiscuit

Laura Hillenbrand

To pilot a racehorse is to ride a half-ton catapult. It is without question one of the most formidable feats in sport. The extraordinary athleticism of the jockey is unparalleled: A study of the elements of athleticism conducted by Los Angeles exercise physiologists and physicians found that of all major sports competitors, jockeys may be, pound for pound, the best overall athletes. They have to be. To begin with, there are the demands on balance, coordination, and reflex. A horse’s body is a constantly shifting topography, with a bobbing head and neck and roiling muscle over the shoulders, back, and rump. On a running horse, a jockey does not sit in the saddle, he crouches over it, leaning all of his weight on his toes, which rest on the thin metal bases of stirrups dangling about a foot from the horse’s topline. When a horse is in full stride, the only parts of the jockey that are in continuous contact with the animal are the insides of the feet and ankles—everything else is balanced in midair. In other words, jockeys squat on the pitching backs of their mounts, a task much like perching on the grille of a car while it speeds down a twisting, potholed freeway in traffic. The stance is, in the words of University of North Carolina researchers, “a situation of dynamic imbalance and ballistic opportunity.” The center of balance is so narrow that if jockeys shift only slightly rearward, they will flip right off the back. If they tip more than a few inches forward, a fall is almost inevitable. A thoroughbred’s neck, while broad from top to bottom, is surprisingly narrow in width, like the body of a fish. Pitching up and down as the horse runs, it offers little for the jockey to grab to avoid plunging to the ground and under the horse’s hooves.

Notes

Jockey (video), Tel-Air Productions, 1980.

A. E. Waller et al., “Jockey Injuries in the United States,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 2000; vol. 283, no. 10.

(2001)

Rather than citing her sources within the text, Hillenbrand includes the information about the sources she cites in the endnotes section of her book. The first item is a videotape about the study by Los Angeles exercise physiologists and physicians; the second is an article in a medical journal. The inclusion of both acknowledges that she turned to authorities—sources—to deepen and supplement her knowledge about the mechanics and physics of how a racehorse and a jockey move as one entity.