hey guys welcome back to coach Hall rights in today's video we're going to be talking about how to add commentary to your synthesis essay if you're familiar with the new AP langu breaks you'll know that four of the possible six points come from evidence and commentary so in this video we're going to talk about what evidence and commentary are and how to develop your commentary that way you can set yourself up for a higher score it is absolutely crucial that students understand that they are expected to cite three different sources within their essay so if you cite it as source a or the author's last name that's fine but you need three different sources failure to do so means that you're going to get a much lower score and evidence and commentary because you didn't follow instructions at that point it does not matter how good your commentary is because you didn't cite three different sources it's okay to cite the same source more than once but different citations for the same source means that it's still only one source now as far as what you cite you can either cite direct quotations or a paraphrase both of those count as evidence what you want to avoid though is summary because summary is not original thought so it doesn't drive your argument forward as far as general tips go it's important that students know how to do a parenthetical citation if you are familiar with either MLA or APA format chances are you've probably heard of a parenthetical citation or possibly an in-text citation it's the same thing the idea is to try to not lead into a sentence saying something like according to source B instead to cite the source whether it's a direct quote or a paraphrase put the name of the source or the author's last name in between parentheses at the end of the sentence and put the period outside the parentheses doing this helps the readability of the piece because you're not interrupting the sentence to try to cite the source and it also makes it seem like your essay is not source driven but rather that you are creating an argument another thing to think about is that you should have more commentary than evidence so you don't want to have lots of big long quotes and you don't want to over quote because that means that you're relying too heavily on the sources so in order to balance that out it's important to have more commentary than evidence so what is commentary anyway a lot of times my students think they're not writing commentary when they actually are so commentary is when you can do any of these things here you can analyze the implications of something so usually like the social implications of it you can draw conclusions you can explain relationships you can extend discussion or make connections so a lot of times we look for verbs like highlights suggests reveals illustrates these verbs tend to suggest that commentary is coming one of the things that has helped a few of my students is asking why did the College Board put this question on the exam now we've looked at a variety of prompts there have been prompts about the penny libraries museums local eating all of these are issues that students sort of know about but probably haven't really thought about in great detail so one thing that you can do to develop your commentary is just ask yourself what are the implications of this issue what are the different sides why are there opposing views why does this matter because they're gonna choose a topic that is approachable to teenagers but at the same time it's an issue where there are differing positions on it so think about the impact on society like the community at large is there an international impact is it something that impacts quality of life is it something that impacts the environment is it something that impacts the economy why are we talking about this issue that's one of the things that you need to figure out first that way you can drive the rest of your commentary because the synthesis essay is essentially an argumentative essay with sources it can be very helpful if students include either a concession and refutation or a counterclaim and rebuttal now just including this alone does not guarantee that you're gonna get more points however it can help your argument so the reason it helps your argument is because instead of giving like a one-sided one-dimensional argument if you can acknowledge the good in the opposition and then refute it or if you can acknowledge what the opposing side says and then refute it you are showing more complex thought and so essentially by negating the other side and upholding your side you are proving your stance a whole lot more thoroughly than if you just say here's what I think and why so if you can include a concession and refutation so basically saying like yes this has but and then refuting it or a counterclaim and rebuttal something like you know although this there's this or like people think this but they fail to consider this that can actually further your argument because it shows that you are aware of the differing opinions however you are very sure in the position that you're taking with the synthesis you want to avoid saying always or never because if you say always and someone can find one example that disproves it then it negates your argument the same thing with never so a lot of times in the sources themselves there are contrasting examples so for instance with eminent domain there might be an example of a time that it was successful and it benefited the public and then in a different source there might be an example in which it totally backfired you can pull both of these as evidence and examine it as these are times when it's successful and why and this is a model for appropriate use of eminent domain and here's a time where it didn't work and these are the things that we need to consider so that we could avoid this happening you see something very similar in the museum prompt so there is a source that talks about how a museum did not look at public interest and I lost a bunch of money and then there's another source that talks about how a museum was very interesting to the public and then became successful so you can look at an example of a certain issue being done well versus done poorly and then you can make inferences about what people need to consider with this issue so a lot of times the evidence that you choose can actually help your commentary as well so look for meaningful similarities or meaningful contrast within the evidence as you're reading because the College Board tries to choose topics that are approachable for students oftentimes students can draw on their personal experience in order to further their commentary sometimes this is easier than others so for instance if you're talking about the library prompt or even the locavore prompt or the museum prompt chances are you've been to a library or a museum and you might know a little bit about your local farm stand or at the very least you know how convenient it might be to go to the grocery store so these are ways where students can draw on personal experience to kind of fill in the gaps of that commentary now sometimes it's better to phrase this and first person and other times it's better to be a bit more general in thinking about building credibility if your example is highly personal it might sound odd if you're trying to phrase it in a more distant way and so in those cases I would say it's okay to use first-person generally speaking I encourage my students to try not to use first-person and academic writing but I will admit that there are circumstances where it's more appropriate so another thing that you have to think about is okay wait a minute sometimes the prompts are actually not super approachable if you don't have that kind of experience things like eminent domain and windfarms so for eminent domain you could ask yourself how would I feel if my home was taken away and the land was put forward for public use or for wind farms how would I feel if there was a wind farm in my community that was constantly causing extra noise and was considered an eyesore you can kind of infer how you would feel even if you don't have direct experience with the issue here are some examples of questions that students can ask themselves in order to generate more commentary and each of these questions is based on a former prompt from the a-peeling exam now sometimes students have to be willing to go through the questioning process for instance this first question what have I done at a library some students might say I haven't even been to a library so I don't know you have to kind of infer what you would do then if you had been to a library and my area because it's a very rural area a lot of students don't have very strong internet connection so they rely on either the public library or the school library to do research papers and essays outside of class and so this was mentioned briefly in one of the documents as far as how it provides the public with access to Internet so they could supplement the evidence from that source with personal experience also in our area you can actually take your written test and your driving test at a public library not all of them but some of them and so a lot of times students go to one of the major public libraries for their driving test and this was not necessarily mentioned in the sources but it is a service that the library provides that would be important and it would be lost if the library shut down so this is an example of taking extra information from personal experience and adding it to commentary to go beyond what the sources say the other two questions achieve the same thing have I ever been to a farmers market if the answer is No think about why maybe there isn't one in your area or maybe the times are really inconvenient or maybe they just don't have what you're looking for that could help prove the inconvenience of local tourism now the last question is for the museum prompt and so I asked my students to think about which museums they have loved and hated and they all had very similar answers and similar reasoning and so they were able to connect their personal experience to the sources that talked about public interest so these are times when students can take personal knowledge and then use it to drive their commentary forward because they can use personal experience to go beyond what the sources say and doing so actually helps their authorial voice and it helps them develop their commentary in a way that feels a little bit less stilted and repetitive because there are ways to generate commentary without personal experience but sometimes students feel really redundant if you can incorporate a little bit of personal experience every once in a while it might help you feel like you're having fresh commentary if you're looking for additional ways to build your commentary I would recommend looking at the student samples from previous years that are on the College Board website and looking at previous prompts not just the ones you're answering in class because this can show you what the expectations are and it can help you familiarize yourself with what to do and also what not to do