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together multiple points of view and offering a final synthesis. Those familiar with the popular journalist Malcolm Gladwell may recognize that he is fond of this method. In books such as Blink, Gladwell presents one piece of research, and in making inferences about it, leads us to the next and often unexpectedly related piece of research. Part of the appeal of Gladwell’s method is how he quilts together a range of disparate voices into one unfolding narrative. The thinking in a Gladwell piece is presented in the way he connects the parts, not in the way that he is critiquing them, finding shortcomings, or emphasizing the differences.

GUIDELINES FOR CONVERSING WITH SOURCES

Avoid the temptation to plug in sources as answers. Aim for a conversation with them. Think of sources as voices inviting you into a community of interpretation, discussion, and debate.

Quote, paraphrase, or summarize in order to analyze. Explain what you take the source to mean, showing the reasoning that has led to the conclusion you draw from it.

Quote sparingly. You are usually better off centering your analysis on a few quotations, analyzing their key terms, and branching out to aspects of your subject that the quotations illuminate. Remember that not all disciplines allow direct quotation.

Don’t underestimate the value of close paraphrasing. You will almost invariably begin to interpret a source once you start paraphrasing its key language.

Locate and highlight what is at stake in your source. Which of its points does the source find most important? What positions does it want to modify or refute, and why?

Look for ways to develop, modify, or apply what a source has said, rather than simply agreeing or disagreeing with it.

If you challenge a position found in a source, be sure to represent it fairly. First, give the source some credit by identifying assumptions you share with it. Then, isolate the part that you intend to complicate or dispute.

Look for sources that address your subject from different perspectives. Avoid relying too heavily on any one source. Aim at the end to synthesize these perspectives: what is the common ground?

When your sources disagree, consider playing mediator. Instead of immediately agreeing with one or the other, clarify areas of agreement and disagreement among them.

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Assignments: Conversing with Sources

1. Make One Source Speak to Another. Choose two articles or book chapters by different authors or by the same author at different points in his or her career. The overriding aim of the assignment is to give you practice in getting beyond merely reacting and generalizing, and instead, participating in your sources’ thinking.

Keep in mind that your aim is not to arrive at your opinion of the sources, but to construct the conversation you think the author of one of your sources might have with the author of another. How might they recast each other’s ideas, as opposed to merely agreeing or disagreeing with those ideas? It’s useful to confine yourself to thinking as impartially as you can about the ideas found in your two sources.

2. Use Passage-Based Focused Freewriting to Converse with Sources. Select a passage from a secondary source that appears important to your evolving thinking about a subject you are studying, and do a passage-based focused freewrite on it. You might choose the passage in answer to the question “What is the one passage in the source that I need to discuss, that poses a question or a problem or that seems, in some way difficult to pin down, anomalous or even just unclear?” Copy the passage at the top of the page, and write without stopping for 20 minutes or more. As noted in the discussion of freewriting in Chapter 4, paraphrase key terms as you relentlessly ask “So what?” about the details.

3. Use a Source as a Lens on Another Source. Apply a brief passage from a secondary source to a brief passage from a primary source, using the passage from the secondary source as a lens. Choose the secondary source passage first—one that you find particularly interesting, revealing,