How To Write A Good Synthesis Essay AP Lang?

If you are planning to appear for the AP language examination, it might have already cleared to you that almost above 50% of total score will be based on three essays among which the first one is synthesis essay. Therefore if you want to score maximum at this part, you first need to know what synthesis essay is and what skills are needed to be assessed by AP language synthesis essay. 

So What Is A Synthesis Essay?

A synthesis essay is nothing but a piece of writing that combines information and ideas from more than two or more sources. According to the College Board if an essay prompt ask you to ‘synthesize’, it actually wants you to combine different perspectives from sources. In other words, it asks you to state your declaration on a topic and then emphasize the relationships between several sources that support claim on that topic.

The synthesis part comes in as you start to develop connections between the sources, whether they are in agreement or dis agreement approach the same topic from different perspectives and the like. In addition you might need to cite specific evidences from your sources in order to prove your point.

What Are The Types of Synthesis Essay?

Essentially, there are two types, one is argumentative essay and the other is Explanatory essay. Argumentative essay presents one’s own opinions and support those on the basis of appropriate information provided by the sources. Argumentative essay is must be a proposition to be debated and another potential argument must be there against your own.

An explanatory essay on the other hand, is a type of writing that requires explanation of the arguments and ideas presented in the sources. It also demands the connections and contrasting elements between the sources in order to display your reasoning and understanding skills. The people who will be evaluating the AP Lang synthesis essay, use a clearly defined rubrics to determine scores.

Now before you start writing a quality synthesis essay, you need some time to develop your ideas and also look into the matter if those ideas can be related to your sources. Here few guidelines are mentioned that need to be followed in order to have less trouble in incorporating interesting and complex ideas for your essay.

First of all, you need to know the purpose that means to determine what a prompt is asking you to do. Since the obvious expectation is to synthesize the sources, here are few key words that can be helpful -Defend, Quality, Challenge, Judge, Assess, Infer, Compare, Affirm, Argue, and Respond.

Second, when you read the source material, read it again and again to annotate.

Third, after reading and taking notes, you need to formulate your thesis statement. This helps to keep a track of potential aspects of the sources needed to support your claim.

Fourth, sketch a simple outline that includes your statement, supporting your points and help you to give a rough idea about incorporating those.

A good synthesis essay, what an AP score is looking for, comprises few techniques or strategies, which can be used in a combined way for effective outcome.

?    Summarizing the ideas

?    Compare and contrast of resources or ideas- the exact level of synthesis.

?    Giving an example in order to illustrate and clarify the topic.

?    “They say, I say” which means to present a quotation or paraphrase from many sources that relates or support your ideas.

Finally, a good quality synthesis essay relies on an effective basic structure that involves an introduction, a body and a conclusion. In introduction, some background information and context of the topic to be given. Then the sources are briefly introduced and after that the thesis statement is presented.

The body paragraph includes the topic sentence supporting the statement, citation of one or more sources, providing commentary and analysis of ideas and then using a transition or phrase to guide the reader logically towards ideas. The conclusion paragraph restates your thesis statement, briefly summarize the main points and answers all the questions that explain the importance and implication of the argument.

Considering the importance of a good synthesis essay in AP Lang examination, we EssayExpert.us assure the students to give all over support to get a good score. We also follow some Dos and Don’ts rule in order to write quality synthesis essay. We are dedicated and focused to meet each and every criteria that an AP Lang exam demands to evaluate a synthesis essay and to help the students achieve good score.