Synthesize Ideas unit test

Paraphrase that is too close

Limitations of your own argument

Thesis that names the how

Organizing by claim, not by source

Common knowledge

Revision as re-seeing

Sources agreeing, disagreeing, extending

Synthesis defined operationally

The evidence-to-commentary ratio

Self-plagiarism and reuse

Integrating a quotation

Signal phrases

END-OF-COURSE EXAM, PART B (90 minutes, 24 points). Read the four sources, summarized below, focusing on a theme or issue that connects them and the different perspective each represents. Then write a logically organized, well-reasoned, and well-written argument presenting your own perspective on the theme or issue you identified. You must incorporate at least two of the sources, cited as Source A–D or by author, and link your claims to supporting evidence. The four sources (connected by the theme of POWER), summarized: Source A — Paul Atkins, "Why Is Talking About Power Important?", ProSocial World, May 2023: an essay defining power (quoting Miki Kashtan) as "the capacity to mobilize resources to attend to needs," and arguing that power itself is neutral — what matters is whether it is used over others or with them, and that groups function best when power differences are made discussable rather than left hidden. Source B — Nandini Maharaj, "How the Shoulder Pad Became a Symbol of Female Empowerment: A History Lesson": an article tracing how power dressing — most famously the padded-shoulder silhouette of the 1980s — served professional women as a visual claim to authority in male-dominated workplaces, and reflecting on what clothing-as-armor says about who is presumed to hold power. (The exam PDF itself could not license this text for public reproduction.) Source C — Adrienne Rich, "Power," from The Dream of a Common Language (1978): a short free-verse poem that moves from an unearthed hundred-year-old bottle of patent medicine to a meditation on Marie Curie, who (the poem observes) suffered radiation sickness from the element she had purified and denied to the end that her wounds and her power shared one source. Source D — Jeff Desjardins, "Generational Power Index," Visual Capitalist, 2021: a data visualization quantifying how much economic, political, and cultural power each generation holds, showing Baby Boomers and Gen X dominating most categories while Millennials and Gen Z hold outsized cultural influence relative to their political and economic share.