Organizing your writing:
Project #2: Using outside sources to illustrate, extend, clarify, or complicate and argument

Using the Prospectus you wrote for this project, start filling in the blanks below to help organize your ideas. Please note that you will need to provide more than one example from each source. This is just an exercise to help you organize your ideas as you get started.

Introduce the text
Introduce the author
Describe main topic(s) addressed in this text
Quote author’s claim from primary text that you will investigate
Introduce outside sources and STATE whether they(illustrate, extend, clarify, and/or complicate) the text
[This statement is your claim that you will be trying to prove throughout your paper]
Identify outside source #1 and EXPLAIN how outside research relates to the author’s claim (HOW does it illustrate, extend, clarify, complicate the argument?)
Quote the source that was just introduced in order to provide evidence for your claim – SHOW how this source illustrates, extends, clarifies, or complicates the text (Kidder)
Analyze the quote, explaining why it is meaningful - EXPLAIN WHY this source illustrates, extends, clarifies, or complicates the text (Kidder)
Identify outside source #2 and EXPLAIN HOW outside research relates to the author’s claim (HOW does it illustrate, extend, clarify, complicate the argument?)
Quote the source that was just introduced in order to provide evidence for your claim – SHOW how this source illustrates, extends, clarifies, or complicates the text (Kidder)
Analyze the quote, explaining why it is meaningful - EXPLAIN WHY this source illustrates, extends, clarifies, or complicates the text (Kidder)
Explain HOW the evidence from both sources illustrates, extends, clarifies, and/or complicates the claim and WHY this evidence is SIGNIFICANT (why should we care)
Organizing your writing:
Project #2: Using outside sources to illustrate, extend, clarify, or complicate and argument
I have filled in the blanks below as an example, using the paragraph I drafted regarding how documents written by Roman Catholic leaders complicate Kidder’s argument. Please note that you will need to provide more than one example from each source. This is just a starting point.
Introduce the text / In his bestselling novel MountainsBeyondMountains
Introduce the author / Journalist Tracy Kidder
Describe main topic(s) addressed in this text / discusses liberation theology as a “branch of Catholicism” (62).
Quote author’s claim from primary text that you will investigate / He states that “Latin America’s Catholic bishops had endorsed some of its tenets” in the “late 1960s,” and describes its “central imperative” which is “to provide a preferential option for the poor” (62, 81).
Introduce outside sources and STATE whether they(illustrate, extend, clarify, and/or complicate) the text
[This statement is your claim that you will be trying to prove throughout your paper] / However, several documents written by Roman Catholic leaderscomplicate the argument presented by Kidder.
Identify outside source #1 and EXPLAIN how outside research relates to the author’s claim (HOW does it illustrate, extend, clarify, complicate the argument?) / Though his book was published in 2004, Kidder failed to make note of the fact that Prefect Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) presented a document specifically discussing the Roman Catholic stance on liberation theology during the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in August, 1984, entitled “Instruction on Certain Aspects of the ‘Theology of Liberation.’”
Quote the source that was just introduced in order to provide evidence for your claim – SHOW how this source illustrates, extends, clarifies, or complicates the text (Kidder) / In this text, Prefect Ratzinger points out that there are “essential aspects [of Christianity] which the ’theologies of liberation’ especially tend to misunderstand or eliminate.”
The Prefect also discusses ways in which some of the “theologies of liberation” can misrepresent the “Christian meaning” of the poor, “by confusing “the 'poor' of the Scripture and the 'proletariat' of Marx. In this way they pervert the Christian meaning of the poor, and they transform the fight for the rights of the poor into a class fight within the ideological perspective of the class struggle.”
Analyze the quote, explaining why it is meaningful - EXPLAIN WHY this source illustrates, extends, clarifies, or complicates the text (Kidder) / Kidder fails to mention the Marxist associations of some branches of liberation theology, the violent political tenets of which contradict the teachings of Catholicism.
Identify outside source #2 and EXPLAIN HOW outside research relates to the author’s claim (HOW does it illustrate, extend, clarify, complicate the argument?) / In an interview held during a flight to Brazil for The Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and theCaribbeanin May, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI (formerly Prefect Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) responded to questions about current exponents of liberation theology in Brazil, and also explained the intent behind his 1984 text regarding liberation theology.
Quote the source that was just introduced in order to provide evidence for your claim – SHOW how this source illustrates, extends, clarifies, or complicates the text (Kidder) / . . . there is room for a difficult but legitimate debate on how to achieve [necessary reforms, in the fight for fairer living conditions] and on how best to make the Church's social doctrine effective. In this regard, certain liberation theologians are also attempting to advance, keeping to this path; others are taking other positions.
In any case, the intervention of the Magisterium was not to destroy the commitment to justice but rather to guide it on the right paths, and also with respect for the proper difference between political responsibility and ecclesiastical responsibility.
Analyze the quote, explaining why it is meaningful - EXPLAIN WHY this source illustrates, extends, clarifies, or complicates the text (Kidder) / This interview, which takes place more than 20 years after “Instruction on Certain Aspects of the ‘Theology of Liberation’” was published, extends the argument set forth in this document. Pope Benedict XVI points out that some practitioners of liberation theology follow the “path” advocated by the Catholic Church, while others do not, and that the Church wishes to guide Christians who advocate for the poor to do so without violence and without pushing a specific political agenda.
Explain HOW the evidence from both sources illustrates, extends, clarifies, and/or complicates the claim and WHY this evidence is SIGNIFICANT (why should we care) / Though Kidder alluded to the fact that only “some” of the tenets of liberation theology have been endorsed by the Catholic Church, his failure to mention the reasons why other tenets of liberation theology were not endorsed by the Church reveal a shortcoming in his presentation of liberation theology as a “branch of Catholicism.”