In such cases you need to formulate your own purpose, and develop your own perspectives and interpretations. A systematic preliminary comparison will help. Begin by summarizing briefly the points, themes, or traits that the texts have in common you might find summary-outline notes useful here.
Explore different ways to organize the information depending on what you find or what you want to demonstrate. You might find it helpful to make different outlines or plans before you decide which to use. Your synthesis should be organized so that others can understand the sources and evaluate your comprehension of them and their presentation of specific data, themes, etc.
Write a one-sentence statement that sums up the focus of your synthesis. Introduce the texts to be synthesized:. Give the title of each source following the citation guidelines of the style sheet you are using i. Provide the name of each author for each source;.
Provide pertinent background information about the authors, about the texts to be summarized, and about the general topic from which the texts are drawn. The body:. Your organization will be determined by the assignment or by the patterns you see in the material you are synthesizing theme, point, similarity, or aspect of the topic. The organization is the most important part of a synthesis, so choose the most effective format for your topic.
Begins with a sentence or phrase that informs readers of the topic of the paragraph;. Note that synthesizing is not the same as summarizing. A summary restates the information in one or more sources without providing new insight or reaching new conclusions. A synthesis draws on multiple sources to reach a broader conclusion. Not all of your sources have to complement one another.
Do your best to highlight the relationships between sources in very clear ways. Example Syntheses Below are two examples of synthesis: one where synthesis is NOT utilized well, and one where it is.
Example 1: Parents are always trying to find ways to encourage healthy eating in their children. Elena Pearl Ben-Joseph, a doctor and writer for KidsHealth , encourages parents to be role models for their children by not dieting or vocalizing concerns about their body image. The first popular diet began in An example of a stronger synthesis can be found below. Example 2: Parents are always trying to find ways to encourage healthy eating in their children.
This allows you to group sources by relevant similarities, as well as noticing important differences or contradictions in their findings. Each column in the table lists one source. Each row is labelled with a specific concept, topic or theme that recurs across all or most of the sources. The purposes of the table is to identify the common points that connect the sources, as well as identifying points where they diverge or disagree.
For shorter papers, your outline can just identify the focus of each paragraph; for longer papers, you might want to divide it into sections with headings. If your sources cover a broad time period, and you found patterns in how researchers approached the topic over time, you can organize your discussion chronologically.
If the literature covers various different topics, you can organize it thematically. That means that each paragraph or section focuses on a specific theme and explains how that theme is approached in the literature. That means grouping together studies based on the type of research they did and discussing the findings that emerged from each method.
If your topic involves a debate between different schools of thought, you can organize it theoretically. That means comparing the different theories that have been developed and grouping together papers based on the position or perspective they take on the topic, as well as evaluating which arguments are most convincing.
What sets a synthesis apart from a summary is that it combines various sources. The easiest way to think about this is that each paragraph should discuss a few different sources, and you should be able to condense the overall point of the paragraph into one sentence. This is called a topic sentence , and it usually appears at the start of the paragraph. The topic sentence signals what the whole paragraph is about; every sentence in the paragraph should be clearly related to it.
For an effective synthesis, you can use topic sentences to link back to the previous paragraph, highlighting a point of debate or critique:. By using topic sentences, you can ensure that your paragraphs are coherent and clearly show the connections between the articles you are discussing. As you write your paragraphs, avoid quoting directly from sources: use your own words to explain the commonalities and differences that you found in the literature.
Do I introduce the paragraph with a clear, focused topic sentence?
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