Now that you have read the sources in this chapter’s Conversation on mandatory community service, let’s walk through the process of synthesizing the sources and then writing a synthesis essay. As you move from reading and analyzing the sources to integrating them into your own writing, you will engage in a process of selection. This is often a complex step in which, ideally, you explore the individual texts and start to see connections among them. Essential to this process is your willingness to understand each text on its own terms, even if you disagree with the ideas or position; in fact, texts that present viewpoints different from those you initially hold are often the ones that become most important to the development of your argument.