7.3. Steps to Writing a Synthesis
Writing a synthesis, like writing a summary, is principally a strategy for framing your own argument. It is one thing to synthesize what you read and convey to your readers how various points in a conversation intersect and diverge. It is quite another to write yourself into the conversation. This entails thinking critically about what you are reading, raising questions, conducting further research, and taking a stance based on your own understanding of what you have read, what you believe and value, and the available evidence.
To compose an effective synthesis, you must (1) make connections among ideas in different texts, (2) decide what those connections mean, and (3) formulate the gist of what you have read, much like what you did when you wrote a summary. The difference is that in a synthesis, your focus is not on the central idea of one text, but the relationship among different ideas in multiple texts.
(1) Make connections between and among different texts.
Annotate the texts you are working with, with an eye to comparing them. As you would for a summary, note major points in the texts, choose relevant examples, and formulate the gist of each text.
Example: Drawing connections among ideas in different texts
The follow is an excerpt from “Making Our Lives Count”, where the author, Paul Loeb brings together different ideas about the power of serving our communities. He cites published studies to support his point that civic engagement can affect our health and well-being and then use the transition word “so” to ensure that readers draw the conclusions he wants them to.
In [ The Healing Power of Doing Good ], Allan Luks describes various studies to confirm what he calls the “helper’s high.” People who volunteer in their communities experience significantly greater physical pleasure and well-being in the process of their work, a general sense of increased energy, and in some cases an easing of chronic pain. [ A Harvard School of Public Health study ] found that African Americans who challenged repeated discrimination had lower blood pressure than those who did not. So taking stands for what we believe may help use save more than our souls.
Exercise 7.3.1.
Try using a similar strategy for making connections and helping readers to understand the connections between texts. Words such as so, therefore, and altogether serve as signposts that tell readers “this is a connection between the sources I am citing.”
- [Author] has demonstrated in a number of studies that ____________. [Others] have also drawn similar conclusions ______________. Therefore, the underlying argument that we should understand is that _______________.
- Based on studies of _________________, [Author] concludes that _________________. This is consistent with [other researchers] who find that ____________________. Altogether, these studies draw attention to the important point that ______________________.
(2) Decide what those connections mean and how you want readers to understand those connections.
Fill out a worksheet to compare your notes on the different texts, track counterarguments, and record your thoughts. Decide what the similarities and differences mean to you and what they might mean to your readers.
Example: Ensuring that readers know what you think and believe
The excerpt below shows how the author, Maryanne Wolf creates a space for her own voice in writing her essay “Skim Reading Is the New Normal.” Citing others’ research serves the purpose of explaining what is at issue – that reading online will diminish our abilities to develop essential skills of empathy and critical thinking, for example. She then uses the word “however” to draw a contrast between how others have addressed the issue and what she thinks is more important.
As [ UCLA psychologist Patricia Greenfield ] writes, the result is that less attention and time will be allocated to slower, time-demanding deep reading processes, like inference, critical analysis and empathy, all of which are indispensable to learning at any age… Increasing reports from educators and from researchers in psychology and the humanities bear this out. [ English literature scholar and teacher Mark Edmundson ] describes how many college students actively avoid the classic literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries because they no longer have the patience to read longer, denser, more difficult texts. We should be less concerned with students’ “cognitive impatience,” however, than by what may underlie it: the potential inability of large numbers of students to read with a level of critical analysis sufficient to comprehend the complexity of thought and argument found in more demanding texts…
Exercise 7.3.2.
Try using a similar strategy for making connection and helping readers understand your point of view.
- [ Author ] is persuasive in showing that ___________________. [ Others ] take a slightly different approach when they conclude that __________________________. More than this, however, it is important to see that ____________________________.
- Although [ researchers _____________ and ________ ] have shown that ___________, it’s difficult to draw similar conclusions when we consider __________________. The evidence actually reveals _____________________.
(3) Formulate the gist of what you’ve read.
Identify an overarching idea that brings together the ideas you’ve noted and write a synthesis that forges connections and makes use of the examples you’ve noted to make sure readers know what you think. Use transitions to signal the direction of your synthesis.
