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5 Tips to Improve Your Synthesis Essay | AP Lang Exam 2021 | Coach Hall Writes | Coach Hall Writes | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: 5 Tips to Improve Your Synthesis Essay | AP Lang Exam 2021 | Coach Hall Writes
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Core Theme
This content provides five key strategies for improving performance on the AP English Language synthesis essay, focusing on understanding the prompt, developing strong main points, effectively integrating sources, building a logical line of reasoning with transitions, and considering concession/refutation.
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hey guys welcome back to coach all rights
rights
in today's video we're going to be going
over five tips to help you improve
your synthesis essay when you encounter
a synthesis prompt on the apilling exam
they're going to give you a paragraph of context
context
and then they're going to give you the
prompt later on now the prompt is not
phrased like a question it's more like a statement
statement
so they're going to ask you to develop a
position on and then whatever comes next
that's what you're actually supposed to
write about so i chose a couple
phrasings that i saw multiple times
on ap classroom the first one is to
develop your position on the role
if any blank plays in the future
so there's a couple questions you could
ask yourself
should it stay the same should there be
minor changes should there be major changes
changes
or do we need a complete overhaul so to
answer this question you want to ask yourself
yourself
what is the role of that particular
topic and then
why the why is important because that's
going to be your commentary
now for the other phrasing that i've
seen used quite frequently
they ask you to develop a position on
the most important changes or
factors now i'm not sure how they're
going to phrase it on exam day in fact
because there's three renditions of the
test in 2021 and it's possible that
there's gonna be multiple versions of
the test
each time they offer it one person might
encounter one thing somebody else might
encounter something else
so that's why it's really important to
understand what you're being asked to do
if you're being asked about important
changes or factors
those are just different things that you
need to consider the way i like to
approach this type of question is to identify
identify
at least two factors that i think are
important i might ask myself okay which
one is the most important and which one
comes in second that way i have a
logical order
and then i also ask myself okay what
change or
factor is least important because i
might be able to use that for a
concession refutation later on
those are not required we're going to
talk about them later in this video but
they can be helpful
before you actually start writing your
essay it's usually very helpful to plan
your main points
so you need to decide how many developed
paragraphs you can reasonably write
so could you write two or could you
write three paragraphs about this topic
development is key so quality over
quantity then you need to ask yourself
what are the main points
so one of the problems that i see
students have sometimes is that their
main points are so specific
and they're so centralized to one source
that they struggle to really develop
their ideas without just summarizing the source
source
so consider that as you're coming up
with their main points you don't want
them to be too broad but you don't want
them to be so narrow that you run out of
things to say
one way to help you determine your main
points of your essay a little bit easier
is to make sure that you're actually
annotating or taking notes
as you encounter the sources so
depending on whether you're taking the
paper test or the digital test this
might look a little bit different
but in theory if you have some sort of
scratch paper or ability to take notes
go ahead and note the main idea or main
ideas of each source
that way you can see which sources are
about which topic and that way you can
decide how to put them into conversation
with each other
generally speaking when it comes to my
own students i recommend that they try
to include
two sources in one paragraph now this is
a recommendation not a rule but the
reason why i recommend two sources per
paragraph is because
number one you need to cite three
sources in your essay or more
but also because it's putting the
sources into conversation with each
other so if you think about a
conversation the way a conversation works
works
is that you've got multiple perspectives
you're not just summarizing what the
other person says
you might summarize a little bit of it
to clarify but really you're going to
agree with them maybe disagree maybe
you're going to add in new information
those are skills that keep the
conversation going so look for those
relationships within the sources themselves
themselves
so sometimes a source might be about a
really specific topic
and there might not be another source
about that topic but if you broaden it a
little bit
maybe you can put the sources into
conversation with each other or you
might encounter two sources that have
opposing views
and you can put those into conversation
with each other or maybe they really are
about the same topic but they offer
different causes
effects solutions things like that so
look for those moments of
overlap where you can put them in
conversation with each other because
that's going to be how you develop your argument
argument
instead of just relying on one source
per paragraph regardless of what the
topic is that you're being asked to
develop a position on
there's going to be multiple
perspectives and this is actually
helpful to you as a student because
if there are at least two different
perspectives on an issue
that means that there's some tension
there you can actually use this to
develop your commentary
so one thing that you can do as you're
examining the implications or the
tensions within the sources themselves
or within the issue itself
is to try to situate it in a broader
context so depending on the issue
is there a historical perspective that
you could look at is it related to
current events
do you have any personal experience with
this topic
is it possible that you could think
about the future impact either
short-term or long-term impact on society
society
if you can answer any of these questions
and go beyond what the sources say
this could help you develop your
commentary and depending on the execution
execution
possibly even help you earn the
sophistication point another way to
improve your essay is to think about
your transitions
so an essay needs to have a strong line
of reasoning there's a couple different
things to consider
we already talked about trying to come
up with the best order of your main
points we want them to progress in a
logical order
we also want evidence that proves those
main points but
you also want to focus on your
transitions now these occur
within a paragraph and between
paragraphs in order to write a
successful synthesis essay you need to
have a strong line of reasoning
a line of reasoning is a logical
progression of ideas
now we've already partially addressed
this when we talked about our main
points because you want to make sure
that your main points
are in a logical order that way your
paragraphs have a logical progression
you also want to select evidence that
best proves those main points
now as far as transitions this is
another way to improve the flow of your essay
essay
so you can have transitions within a
paragraph in between paragraphs so
within a paragraph usually it's between
your layers of evidence and commentary
so you can use transition words that
indicate the relationship between those layers
layers
words like similarly conversely additionally
additionally
therefore furthermore things like that
those help
signal to your reader that you're moving
on or it could signal
you know similarities contrast things
like that now when you're actually
navigating between paragraphs you can
use your topic sentences
to help create a line of reasoning one
tip i have for you is to try to avoid
really simple topic sentences things
like another factor to consider
is because even though this is
transitioning it's not exactly the most
well-written way to do it
so another way that might be a little
bit better could be something like
having already discussed x we must also consider
consider
y or in addition to x
society must also consider why so you
could manipulate that sentence however
you need to but basically try to create
a bridge between your paragraphs
you also want to transition into your
evidence you don't want to just drop a
quote in your essay because it's actually
actually
very jarring for your reader so one way
to do this is to embed your quote that
means to put words
before it so that it reads more smoothly
one way that students tend to try to
embed their quote is to just say
according to source b
now this is not wrong it does count as
citing your source however
is a bit arbitrary and here's why the
college board is the one who labeled it
as source b
that's not its original name so what i
prefer when i'm reading an essay is to
actually see students acknowledge the
real author
or the real source so you could say
according to
and then the person's name the author's
name and give their credentials
so who are they because that helps us
understand why the evidence matters
so if they are a leading expert in their
field we need to know that because if
you're going to quote them
it helps it make more sense also you can
just quote the source itself
so you could say something like
according to a 2017
article from forbes magazine so give us
as much
specific information as you can that
helps it read better and
as the person's reading your essay it
helps them understand why you've chosen
that evidence
so it actually adds credibility to your
own argument
another way to embed evidence is to
choose a short quote
often something that's not a complete
sentence and to embed it into a sentence
of your own
and then include a parenthetical
citation at the end of the sentence
so that would be parentheses and then
source and whatever letter it is
close your parentheses and put the
period outside of the source this is
what you do for mla or apa so this also helps
helps
to cite it remember the citation does go
at the end of the sentence though
not immediately after the quote so if
there's words after the quote make sure
you put your citation at the end of the sentence
sentence
a final tip is to consider a concession refutation
refutation
or a counter claim and rebuttal there is
a slight difference between the two but basically
basically
if possible if it's going to help your argument
argument
consider addressing and then refuting
the counter argument so the
counter-argument is actually the
opposite side
so what would people who are against
your position say about your position
what would they argue instead i've done
a separate video about concessions and
refutations that goes into this concept
in much more detail so i would love it
if you would check that out
however a concession is when you
acknowledge the merit of the other side
you concede so you're acknowledging that
the opposite side isn't all that bad however
however
in order not to contradict yourself you
have to have a refutation
so after you acknowledge the merit of
the other position then you have to note
the limitations of that argument
or what people who say that failed to consider
consider
now as far as where does this go it can
technically go anywhere in your essay
i've seen more and more students include
it as a third body paragraph
so really trying to develop that
concession refutation don't just have it
be two sentences
really dig into the tensions there now
do you have to have it as a third body
paragraph no
some students don't have enough time to
do that so as you're planning out your
argument that might be
a third body paragraph because you might
say you know what if i don't get to it i
don't get to it
other students like to include it in
their other body paragraphs so there's
not really a right or wrong answer
but make sure that it actually helps
your argument
don't just throw it in there because you
are told to it has to be effective
if you're looking for more tips to help
you prepare for the a peeling exam
don't forget to check out my other
videos also check out the description
box below because i do have some
resources for teachers and students
and if you're a tick-tock user go ahead
and look me up on tik-tok
coach hall rights i do tips videos on
that platform as well
best of luck for those taking the exam
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