Patch writing and Synthesis
Read pages 425-428
Answer questions.
1. Based on Leary’s discussion, how do you understand “patchwriting?” Had you heard of this style of writing before now?
2. According to our textbook, what does it mean to synthesize sources? What do you see as some similarities and differences between synthesis and patchwriting?
3. In one part of Leary’s article, he describes the process that anthologists go through when creating anthologies. He writes, “While anthologists read, they think very strategically, trying to figure out where in the anthology a piece might go, if it will make it into the anthology at all, and what section or subsection it will go into” (232). How can this description apply to your own process of reading various sources that you might use in your research?
4. What does this suggest about what you can be thinking about as you conduct your own research?
Read over the example synthesis paragraphs provided on pages 427-428 in our textbook. Do you consider these paragraphs examples of patchwriting, as Leary describes it? Why or why not?
5. On pages 226-228, Leary describes a time when he practiced patchwriting with several different poems. Based on how our textbook describes synthesis on page 425, do you think that Leary was synthesizing these poems? Why or why not?
