Author's Note

 The research for this essay was difficult at first as I couldn't find any good sources, but eventually I did get the sources I was looking for, I even found an 8th source while writing. The writing process involved making an outline, then adding an overview of the sources, then using that along with my AB and the abstracts of the sources to create a general idea of what I was going to write down in my head, which I then used to write the actual essay. The hardest part was figuring out what to take from the sources, especially the longer ones, but the actual writing was pretty easy since I've been thinking about this topic for quite some time as I am working on a project with a similar topic. The genre of this is an argumentative synthesis essay, which is important to be able to convey both sides of the argument effectively while still arguing for a certain viewpoint and is the best way to present this evidence. The intended audience is policy makers, farmers, consumers, and anyone with an interest or questions on sustainable agriculture. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the complex issues and viewpoints surrounding sustainable agriculture, evaluate tradeoffs, and develop an argument that although there are tradeoffs, they are not permanent and resolvable. The situation and topic of my essay is sustainable agriculture, specifically the cost of transitioning and cost to consumers, as well as other benefits and drawbacks of sustainable agriculture. The digital tools I used were the NDSU Library Database and Google Scholar to look for sources. I got all but one source from the NDSU Library, which was somewhat difficult to figure out and get the right mix of key words to search for to get the sources I wanted. I also got pee feedback to make things more concise and avoid repetition, which I implemented by breaking up sentences and removing anything unnecessary or redundant.