Smooth Integration of Sources: Using Evidence From a Source to Support a Claim

Printed Page 147
 Analyze 
Use the basic features.
Printed Page 148

Cain’s article first appeared in the New York Times. So, like Toufexis and Lehrer, whose articles were originally published in popular periodicals, Cain names her sources and mentions their credentials but does not cite them as you must do when writing a paper for a class. While Cain does not cite her sources formally, as academic writing requires, she does integrated her sources efffectively by

Look at how Cain achieves these goals:

As a society, we prefer action to contemplation, risk-taking to heed-taking, certainty to doubt. Studies show that we rank fast and frequent talkers as more competent, likable and even smarter than slow ones. As the psychologists William Hart and Dolores Albarracin point out, phrases like “get active,” “get moving,” “do something” and similar calls to action surface repeatedly in recent books. (par. 10)

Cain’s idea

Research findings supporting Cain’s idea

Author credentials and signal phrase

Links Cain’s idea and research findings

ANALYZE & WRITE

Write a paragraph analyzing how Cain integrates source material elsewhere in Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic?

  1. Examine paragraphs 18–19 or 20–21 to see how Cain uses a pattern similar to the one described above.
  2. Find and mark the elements: Cain’s idea; the name(s) and credentials of the source or sources; what the source found; text linking the source’s findings to the original idea or extending the idea in some way.
  3. When writers use information from sources, why do you think they often begin by stating their own idea (even if they got the idea from a source)? What do you think would be the effect on readers if the opening sentence of paragraph 18 or 20 began with the source instead of with Cain’s topic sentence?

    Question