Synthetic Research, Essay Example

Thinking about what I’ve learned will help me not only reinforce the material but will also give me motivation to see how far I’ve come. When I started this class, I had a pretty good handle on grammar and punctuation, but I had never written a paper that long. Also, I sort of understood the principle of academic style writing, but I was not sure about the specifics of citation and referencing. Here, I enumerate the applicable course outcomes as they apply to me so far.

Although I saw myself as a pretty good communicator before, I hadn’t had a whole lot of experience formally addressing an academic or scholarly audience. Learning in-text citation and referencing strengthened my written communication skills among the formally educated. The process of selecting and narrowing a topic had been somewhat of a challenge – one that plagued my paper until the end. I had no problem finding and applying credible sources and rationale in my writing. Nevertheless, some critics believe some of my writing could have been more focused. Still, it could be argued that my critic did not necessarily grasp the nuances involved in the indirectly supporting evidence. Perhaps, a portion of that sentiment could have been less likely if I implemented simpler sentence structures and more explicitly articulated the logical connection between the more abstract ideas.

Overall, I am proud of my work though. I successfully incorporated appropriate research, supporting evidence, and relevant sources. Thus, I have successfully met the requirments of the assignment. Nonetheless, as I examine my process in researching and writing this synthesis research essay, I see that I am not as skilled as I would like to be. Academic and scholarly writing is definitely a skill that requires lots of practice in which to become proficient. One of the most enjoyable lessons was learning how to take seemingly disparate resources and combining them into a unique work.

I researched my topic in great detail, but in some places, I had to sacrifice depth for breadth. In retrospect, having learned what I learned about the topic and the research and writing process, my focus might have changed a bit. The nature of my process was considerably exploratory at first. So, I think the paper makes a good pilot study to subsequent papers. My thesis was:

Assertively, globalization produces diverse negative and positive effects on the developing countries in such fields as education, healthcare economic and political development, and urban growth.

Although it seems more or less manageable in principle, there are so many examples and interrelationships to the topic in reality that it would not have been possible to thoroughly research in the course of the class. As such I am taking the following points from our handbook:

“…as they [readers] move into the body of the paragraph, they expect to encounter specific facts, details, or examples that support the topic sentence-either directly or indirectly” (Bedford/St. Martin’s Writer’s Help, 2012). If a sentence does not support the topic sentence directly, readers expect it to support another sentence in the paragraph“(Bedford/St. Martin’s Writer’s Help, 2012). Thus, indirect support must be clearly linked back to the topic sentence (Bedford/St. Martin’s Writer’s Help, 2012).

Still, I covered the topic sufficiently for the course. Next time, I know to work a bit harder at narrowing and focusing. I could also do a bit better at formulating topic sentences and transitions (Bedford/St. Martin’s Writer’s Help, 2012).

Reference

Bedford/St. Martin’s Writer’s Help. (2012). Retrieved from http://writershelp.bedfordstmartins.com/ebooks/helphandbook.php