Practice writing synthesis

Objective

Write one synthesis paragraph (175 225 words) that weaves information from all three texts, highlighting where the authors agree, where they diverge, and what questions remain. Use correct APA 7thed. intext citations.

Provided TextsText 1 Empathy and Fiction

Gaines (2021) reviews 30 neuroscience and psychology studies to argue that characterdriven fiction measurably boosts empathy and theory of mind. FunctionalMRI scans show heightened activity in brain regions linked to emotion recognition after participants read literary short stories. Gaines concedes that nonfiction improves factual knowledge, yet claims only fiction places the reader inside anothers lived experience. The article urges educators to assign at least two fiction titles per term but admits little is known about how long empathy gains last or whether they translate to civic behavior.

Text 2 Critical Thinking and Nonfiction

Simmons (2020) challenges the fictionfirst view, presenting results from a twoyear classroom study (N = 412) where half the students read narrative nonfiction, half literary fiction. Students in the nonfiction group outperformed peers by 18 % on argumentativewriting rubrics and by 25 % on factretention quizzes. Simmons acknowledges fictions empathy benefits but argues that empathy rarely predicts realworld decisionmaking. The article calls for integrative reading lists yet notes a research gap on how mixedgenre curricula affect longterm analytic skills.

Text 3 Reading Choice & Genre Diversity

Lin (2022) surveys 1,600 adult readers across five countries and finds that 70 % routinely choose books from only one genreusually the genre they enjoyed in adolescence. Despite documented benefits of both fiction and nonfiction, readers rarely diversify without external nudges such as bookclub prompts or school assignments. Lin highlights overlap between Gainess empathy findings and Simmonss criticalthinking results, suggesting that balanced genre exposure may deliver the broadest cognitive payoff. However, Lin notes few studies explore how digitalfirst reading habits influence genre loyalty, identifying this as an important gap for future work.

Your Task

1. Read all three texts.
2. Write one synthesis paragraph (175 225 words) that:

• Summarizes key ideas and evidence from each text.
• Explicitly shows agreements, disagreements, and gaps.
• Uses APA intext citations (e.g., Gaines, 2021; Simmons, 2020; Lin, 2022).

Note: This activity is focused on entirely on synthesis writing, so you do not need to worry about formatting your work in a typical APA-styled paper (title page, double-spaced, reference page, etc.). Just write the paragraph and include APA in-text citations to demonstrate that you know how to synthesize the material and give credit to the authors with the in-text citations.

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