Students who complete English 110 should:

Be able to integrate their ideas with those of others using summary, paraphrase, quotation, analysis, and synthesis of relevant sources.

With my first paper, something I found really important was integrating quotes and how to make it flow. One quote that I included that I find valuable is:

Wang creates this different version of herself by wearing her wedding ring, sharing her accomplishments, and wearing nice clothes. Wang refers to these examples as “signifiers,” and states that “with these signifiers, [she] is trying to say that [she is] a wife, [she is] a good patient, [she is] an entrepreneur…[she is also] living with mental illness, living with mental health challenges, crazy, insane – but [she] is just like [us]” (Wang 380). Wang on the outside wants society to believe she fits into our puzzle which helps her survive. She hides her true identity, similar to how Nguyen does by changing her name.

I find this quote valuable because of how I had to integrate it into the paper, making it clear to the readers what “signifiers” are, and on top of integrating my idea with the evidence I chose, I paraphrased afterwards and even was able to connect Wang back to Nguyen. Connecting your evidence is important too when using quotes, paraphrasing, analysis, or synthesizing relevant sources. The way I put this together does not only make it clear to the reader, but shows how everything connects and relates to each other. The claim I am making here is people will hide their true identity to fit into our society and that is important throughout the paper because of how each author hides apart of themselves to fit into our society’s standards due to the categories placed upon us. In my rough draft, I just brought up the idea of signifiers with no explanation or evidence so it was very confusing, but adding the quote and changing this specific part of my paper for my final made it very clear. Integrating my ideas throughout paper one took some work, but I am happy with the outcome and it shows readers why I think what is right or what is wrong.