SYNTHESIS ESSAY:
NARRATIVE & COMPOSITION
What it is:
A synthesis essay is an essay whose objective is to incorporate evidence from multiple
sources in one fluid framework. While it follows the basic structure of any other paper, its
primary focus is showing what a breadth of evidence shows. It can be persuasive or
informative.
What you will do:
 Take the materials from your annotated bibliography as sources, to then create
synthesis paper analyzing the film in question.
 The paper is individual, even if the annotated bibliography was with a partner
The questions you answer:
 What research have you found?
 How can you best organize it?
 What does the breadth of evidence show about this subject?
This essay will strive to:
 be approximately 3 pages in length, standard font & margins
 set-up and cite all evidence efficiently and correctly
 rely on phrases rather than entire sentences, except in the case of rare fullquotes (no more than 2 in the entire paper)
 contain accurate citations that correlate to an accurate works cited list


A option: Write up a synthesis of 4 sources from your annotated bibliography,
exploring the common thinking on why the film is one of the greatest of all time.
C option: Write a synthesis of 3 credible, critical reviews of a film of your
choosing.
Your main purpose is to organize the information in an insightful and meaningful
way.
 You do not need to focus on commentary or generating a cohesive argument
across your paragraphs.
 You do need to focus on accurate evidence presentation and providing as
much meaningful evidence as possible.
 You do need a thesis, but it is not the primary focus. In this case, the individual
paragraphs matter more than the smooth cohesiveness of the whole essay.
Due Date: Friday, April 29, end of day, on Turn It In.com
Excerpted from: “Why Did America Allow Itself to Become Entangled in the
Grisly Quagmire of the Vietnam War?”
Defenders of the war saw the conflict in terms of the forces of evil
(communism) against the forces of good (freedom). Supporters of intervention
believed, according to civilian Ed Kastenmeier’s recollection, that to refuse aid
was to abandon the peaceful and democratic nation of South Vietnam to
“communist enslavement” (Kastenmeier 977). President Johnson painted a picture
of a “small and brave” nation beleaguered by communist aggression. The president
asked “only that the people of South Vietnam be allowed to guide their country in
their own way” (“President Johnson” 976). Congress had already agreed; in its
Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, it accused the communists of carrying out an
unprovoked attack on American naval vessels and said that this attack was only
part of a larger attack on the “freedom” of the South (Johnson 971). Some of the
fighting men tended to see the war in black-and-white terms, with the communists
as evil and Americans as good. After witnessing some brutalities committed by the
Viet Cong, one soldier wrote: “I wanted to go down and kill all
those...bastards...Those slobs have to be stopped, even if it takes every last believer
in a democracy and a free way of life to do it” (“War of Atrocities” 974).
The first challenges to this diverse and overwhelming belief came in
response to the brutal and horrific images broadcast into American homes.
Works Cited [*]
Johnson, Lyndon. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States : Lyndon B. Johnson (1966). Print.
Kastenmeier, Ed. Vietnam Hearings: Voices from the Grass Roots. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. Print.
“President Johnson States his War Aims (1965).” The American Spirit: United States History as Seen by
Contemporaries. Ed.Thomas A. Bailey. 4th ed. Vol. 2 Lexington: Heath, 1978. 975-76. Print.
“War of Atrocities.” The American Spirit: United States History as Seen by
Contemporaries. Ed.Thomas A. Bailey. 4th ed. Vol. 2 Lexington: Heath, 1978. 974-975. Print.
Excerpted from: “Wal-Mart versus Mom and Pop: How can a Small Store
Survive?”
The statistics surrounding Wal-Mart’s success are astounding: as of 1994,
Wal-Mart had 2,504 stores across the U.S. and was expected to open 125 more that
year (Ortega 205). Furthermore, Wal-Mart stores do over $67 billion dollars in
annual sales (Norman 207). A Wal-Mart store in Iowa, after being open for two
years and building its base, can generate $10 million a year in sales. A Wal-Mart
store planned for Greenfield, Mass. would have employed 274 people (Anderson
218) or 240 people (Johnston 222), depending on which source is relied on.
Discount stores like Wal-Mart allow small to medium towns with little population
growth to hold customers to the local shopping area by cutting down on trips by
locals to bigger urban areas with lower prices (Stone 210). With all of these
benefits, why would anyone be upset about a Wal-Mart store opening in their
town?
The concerns against Wal-Mart all seem to focus around one main concern:
Wal-Mart and similar stores have changed American retailing, and the protestors
don't like the change. Albert Norman, the best known anti-Wal-Mart advocate,
claims that Wal-mart represents "... an unwanted shove into urbanization, with all
the negatives that threaten small town folks" (Norman 209). This urbanization
appears to be connected, in the minds of the anti-Wal-Mart movement, to
"mindless consumerism, paved landscapes and homogenization of community
identity" (Ortega 204). In other words, instead of a centrally located downtown
shopping area with 30 different stores all locally owned, there are now only a
handful of bigger stores located on the edge of town in malls and giant concrete
shoeboxes, all of them owned by or franchised from huge out-of-town
corporations.
Works Cited
Anderson, Sarah. "Wal-Mart's War on Main Street." Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, 6th ed. Eds. T
Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman, 1997. 216-222. Print.Johnston, Jo-Ann.
"Who's Really the Villain?" Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, 6th ed. Eds. Laurence Behrens and
Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman, 1997. 222-225. Print.
Norman, Albert. "Eight Ways to Stop the Store." Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, 6th ed. Eds. Laurence
Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman, 1997. 207-209. Print.
Ortega, Bob. "Ban the Bargains." Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, 6th ed. Eds. Laurence Behrens and
Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman, 1997. 203-207. Print.
Stone, Kenneth E. "Competing with the Discount Mass Merchandisers." Writing and Reading Across the
Curriculum, 6th ed. Eds. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman, 1997. 209-216.
Print.