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Four Examples of Student Writing

Four Examples of Student Writing

In the four examples below, only ONE shows a good example of synthesis: the fourth column, or Student D.

(Each of the four students uses sources in their writing. For accessibility, each unique sources is represented with formatted text, such as [bold, italic... etc.])

 

Student A 

In November of 2014, "almost all Swift's music vanished from Spotify, the online streaming service that claims over 50 million active users, more than 10 million of whom pay for an ad-free and mobile ready version. Swift's departure came as a surprise to plenty of those users" (Dickey).

Taylor Swift pulled her music from Spotify because, "she believes that Spotify's particular model devalues her work" (Dickey). Swift will leave her music on Beats and Rhapsody because both programs require users "to pay for a premium package in order to access my albums. And that places a perception of value on what I've created. On Spotify, they don't have any settings or any kind of qualifications for who gets what music. I think that people should feel that there is a value to what musicians have created, and that's that" (Dickey).

According to Swift, removing her music "shouldn't be news right now. It should have been news in July, when I went out and stood up and said I'm against it in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal" (Dickey).

"Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek, wrote a blog post defending his business" (Dickey). The company also responded to Swift's accusations that artists aren't paid by saying that the "total payout for Swift's streaming over the past 12 months globally was $2 million" (Dickey). However, "Swift's label, which receives only a portion of payments, says it collected $496,044 from domestic streams during that period" (Dickey).

However, Swift proved that she doesn't need Spotify because "her first-week figure of 1.287 million copies sold for her new album, 1989, bests any album's sales week since 2002's The Eminem Show" (Dickey).

 

Student B

In November of 2014, "almost all Swift's music vanished from Spotify, the online streaming service that claims over 50 million active users, more than 10 million of whom pay for an ad-free and mobile ready version. Swift's departure came as a surprise to plenty of those users" (Dickey).

Taylor Swift pulled her music from Spotify because, she doesn't approve of the free, ad-supported business model that Spotify uses. Shortly after the release of 1989, Swift's record label "notified Spotify that it would be withdrawing her entire catalog from the service. Big Machine didn't pull her catalog from other on-demand streaming companies such as Apple Inc.'s Beats Music, which doesn't offer a free, ad-supported tier. Rdio also still has her catalog, but only allows its paying subscribers to access it, not the users of its free service" (Grundberg).

According to Swift, she "didn't think that it would be shocking to anyone. With as many ways as artists are personalizing their musical distribution, it didn't occur to me that this would be anything that anyone would talk about. But I could never have expected so many text messages, emails and phone calls from other artists, writers and producers saying thank you" (Light).

Spotify responded to Swift's accusations that artists aren't paid by saying that the "total payout for Swift's streaming over the past 12 months globally was $2 million" (Dickey). However, "Swift's label, which receives only a portion of payments, says it collected $496,044 from domestic streams during that period" (Dickey).

 

Student C

In November of 2014, Taylor Swift removed nearly all of her music from Spotify, (an online streaming service) leaving both fans and Spotify shocked. Swift made the decision to remove her music from Spotify because "she believes that Spotify's particular model devalues her work" (Dickey).

In order for her to be recognized as an artist, Swift wants to see Spotify follow the same business models such as Beats or Rhapsody because both programs require users "to pay for a premium package in order to access my [Swift's] albums" (Dickey). However, Spotify does have an option for users to "pay for an ad-free and mobile ready version" (Dickey), but only a small portion of Spotify users subscribe for the ad-free version.

Although many listeners are upset with Swift's decision, she "never could have expected so many test messages, emails and phone calls" (Light) from people who are in the same industry as her. Swift says that she's heard from "other artists, writers and producers" (Light), thanking her for taking a stand on music rights.

According to an article written by Sven Grundberg, a label company can pull an "individual artist's work from Spotify with only a few days notice" (Grundberg). While it is unclear if Swift will ever allow Spotify to stream her music again, sales for the 1989 album continue to rise and are expected to reach 1.2 million by the end of the release week. With such a large fanbase around the world and albums sold, Swift has made it clear that she does not need to use Spotify as a platform for distributing her music.

 

Student D

In November of 2014, Taylor Swift removed nearly all of her music from Spotify, (an online streaming service) leaving both fans and Spotify shocked. Swift claims that she isn't sure why the removal is news to the company, especially after she "said I'm against it in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal" (Dickey) earlier that year.

Swift believes that Spotify's ad-supported model is unfair to artists and diminishes the quality of their work. According to Swift, several "other artists, writers and producers" (Light) have thanked her for standing up to the streaming service and protecting artists' music rights, making Swift feel "SHE'D MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE" (GIBSON). Although those around her are grateful, Spotify's CEO, Daniel Ek, responded to the frenzy in an official blog post. Ek argues that Spotify doesn't detract from the artist's value but rather serves "AS A BULWARK AGAINST ONLINE PIRACE" (KEDMEY) and pays artists fair compensation.

However, Swift disagrees with Ek about the royalty payments. Spotify claims that Swift received two million dollars from 2013-2014, but the record label "says it collected $496,044 from domestic streams during that period (Dickey). The low amount of royalties is staggering, considering that Spotify has over 40 million registered users. According to Spotify, Swift's music was on "over 19 million playlists" and has about sixteen million listeners approximately every thirty days (Grundberg). With so many listeners, the amount of royalties should exceed the $496,044; however Swift argues that each song played "AVERAGES LESS THAN A PENNY" (KEDMEY), significantly less than other companies.