Synthesizing what you have read into a draft
 

One of the essential skills to be learned with any research assignment is the ability to weave together your own thinking with that of expert testimony. To do so requires that you cull together from many resources a consistent theme or idea. This is synthesizing.

Successful synthesizing does not allow the expert testimony to become the loudest voice in your chorus of discussion. Your thesis, your opinion, your voice must still remain distinct and clear above the din of your evidence. 

How this can be accomplished varies. My suggestion for those new to such a writing strategy is always to begin a draft by writing entirely from your own knowledge and experience. This is true especially for the argumentative research paper. Without notes, without books, without a shred of outside support, compose as much text as you can, and frame your argument in your words. When you are satisfied you have compiled your argument, then and only then supplement your assertions with the expert testimony. Then you will know where your argument needs the help of outside opinion to shore up weaker points, or where a choice quote can seal the deal.

To practice this skill, consider the following. First, answer in your own mind the question, "Should we legalize all recreational drugs?" Why or why not? Are you sure? What is your strongest reason for believing so? 

Now read the three passages included below. Each addresses the same issue: the legalization of drugs. What similarities do you see in the authors’ ideas? What differences? Consider this expert testimony in light of what you already believe. Does one support your view? For those points of view that might contradict yours, why do you disagree? What is your counter-argument?

Finally, open up a word processing document and compose a paragraph of your own in which you use these authors’ views as a point of departure for your own view about drug legalization. Be sure your opinion is clearly stated, but just as surely, refer to the expert testimony both to justify your position and refute the opposing view. I’d suggest expanding on your belief in your own words, and then finding a way to integrate the expert testimony into the discussion. Keep your response to a paragraph of about 200 to 250 words. When you finish, double space your paragraph, include your name at the top, and print and hand in.

Consider these articles as resource materials about this topic. Each expresses a different viewpoint on the controversy. You should measure your own beliefs against the ideas expressed here and decide, first of all, with whom you most closely agree, and secondly, why.

  1. Perhaps the most unfortunate victims of the drug prohibition have been the residents of America’s ghettos. These laws have proved largely futile in deterring ghetto-dwellers from becoming drug abusers, but they do not account for much of what ghetto residents identify as the drug problem. Aggressive, gun-toting drug dealers often upset law-abiding residents far more than do addicts nodding out in doorways. Meanwhile, other residents perceive the drug dealers as heroes and successful role models. They’re symbols of success to children who see no other options. At the same time the increasingly harsh criminal penalties imposed on adult drug dealers have led drug traffickers to recruit juveniles. Where once children started dealing drugs only after they had been using them for a few years, today the sequence is often reversed. Many children start using drugs only after working for older drug dealers for a while...Legalization of drugs, like the legalization of alcohol in the early 1930's, would drive the drug-dealing business off the streets and out of apartment buildings and into government-regulated, tax-paying stores. It would also force many of the gun-toting dealers out of business and convert others into legitimate businessmen.

    2. - Ethan A. Nadalmann, "Shooting Up"

  2. All studies show that those most likely to try drugs, got hooked, and die--as opposed to those who suffer from cirrhosis and lung cancer--are young people, who are susceptible to the lure of quick thrills and are terribly adaptable to messages provided by adult society. Under pressure of the current prohibition, the number of kids who use illegal drugs at least once a month has fallen from 39% in the late 1970s to 25% in 1987, according to the annual survey of high school seniors conducted by the University of Michigan. The same survey shows that attitudes toward drug use have turned sharply negative. But use of legal drugs is still strong. Thirty-eight percent of high school seniors reported getting drunk within the past two weeks, and 27% said they smoke cigarettes every day. Drug prohibition is working with kids; legalization would do them harm.

    3. - Morton M. Kondrake, "Don’t Legalize Drugs"

  3. I have to laugh at the debate over what to do about the drug problem. Everyone is running around offering solutions--from making drug use a more serious criminal offense to legalizing it. But there isn’t a real solution. I know that. I used and abused drugs, and people, and society, for two decades. Nothing worked to get me to stop all that behavior except just plain being sick and tired. Nothing. Not threats, not ten-plus years in prison, not anything that was said to me. I used until I got through. Period. And that’s when you’ll win the war. When all the dope fiends are done. Not a minute before.

    - Michael W. Posey, "I Did Drugs Until They Wore Me Out. Then I Stopped"