I had never focused too much on integrating others’ ideas into my own writing. I usually just summarized what they said and explained it a bit further. Now, I try to focus on how I can use their ideas to strengthen and develop my own claims. I have always been pretty good at challenging what some authors say, however now I have really honed in that skill. I have also gotten better at explaining what the author is saying and applying it to ideas and claims I have made or other authors have made. I was able to connect the information in UNE CAS student handbook with ideas brought forth by Scheuer and Ungar. Previously, I would not have been able to make such connections between the texts. One of my strongest connections of text was, “In the Core Handbook, under the Core Curriculum Objectives section, it states…Citizenship and creating well informed citizens is an important part of the liberal arts education that UNE is striving to fulfill”. Within this chunk of my essay I made good connections between all of the texts I used in the essay.