During our second project, we were given three different texts and prompted to use two of them to shape a discussion. I chose Michael C Mann’s “Can Planet Earth Feed 10 Billion People” and Lizzie Widdecombe’s “The End of Food” because I thought these two texts worked the best together. To me, the idea presented in Widdecombe’s piece was the solution that Mann was calling for in his piece. This idea easily lent itself to a thesis for which I began to pick quotes for support.
When picking quotes, I searched for pieces in Mann’s paper that presented the problems, and pieces in Widdecombe’s paper that would solve these problems. Having an idea in mind when looking for evidence made it much easier to narrow down my search and made my paper stronger by sticking to one idea rather than jumping ideas.
Integrating quotes is usually one of the hardest parts of writing, because you need to be able to introduce the idea and the writer, quote the writer, and relate this to your thesis. I find the most difficult part to be dissecting the quotes rather than letting the quote do the explaining. The best representation of my quote usage is the fifth paragraph. Here, I followed some of the templates we learned in class about introducing and using multiple quotes in a paragraph. Furthermore, I included much more analysis of these two pieces at the end of the paragraph, as suggested by my peers. This really allows the reader to see what direction I am going in and how this supports my thesis. I find that this way of using and integrating quotes is much more effective in making my writing clearer to the reader and more meaningful.
My biggest success this semester regarding the use of evidence in my writing was definitely the analysis of these quotes. I have learned not to let the quote do the explaining, and really show the connection to my thesis. This will make the use of quotes in future writing much more effective.
