It is a method in synthesizing where two different sources about a topic are read

To demonstrate your knowledge on a field through a review of literature, the key component is synthesis. To synthesize is to combine independent elements and form a cohesive whole; in essence, your literature review should integrate your sources and

• Identify patterns
• Critically discuss strengths and weaknesses of sources or the field
• Compare and contrast methods, approaches, and findings of authors
• Evaluate and interpret what is known in your field and what, if anything, is missing

A Metaphor for Synthesis

Imagine you are at a dinner party with other researchers and theorists from your field. Everyone is sitting around the table and discussing the state of your field of research. The beginning portion of your literature review would be similar to those dinner party guests who started the conversation by discussing foundational research and theories. The body of your literature review could take many forms: What guests are agreeing, and which are arguing? What are the debatable issues, and are there any subtopics of those key topics? Does one particular guest keep interrupting the table's conversation? The final portion of your literature review would be similar to the host of the dinner party ending the debate with a comprehensive speech that touches on all opinions yet provides closure for the conversation.

Local and Global Synthesis

When writers synthesize successfully, they present new ideas based on interpretations of other evidence or arguments. In a literature review, it can helpful to think about synthesis occurring at both the local (or paragraph) level and the global (or section/paper) level.

Local Synthesis

Local synthesis occurs at the paragraph level when writers connect individual pieces of evidence from multiple sources to support a paragraph’s main idea and advance a paper’s thesis statement. A common example in academic writing is a scholarly paragraph that includes a main idea, evidence from multiple sources, and analysis of those multiple sources together.

Example: Based on the metaphor above, local synthesis would occur during each individual conversation item. So, if you brought up a single issue within your topic, and several prominent scholars agree, while others disagree, you would represent this debate of a singular issue in that paragraph.

Global Synthesis

Global synthesis occurs at the paper (or, sometimes, section) level when writers connect ideas across paragraphs or sections to create a new narrative whole. In a literature review, which can either stand alone or be a section/chapter within a capstone, global synthesis in integral for cohesion and flow.

Example: Using the same dinner party metaphor, global synthesis occurs when a writer take a birds-eye view of the entire dinner party. What major topics were discussed and how were they linked to other ideas or conversations? What dinner party guests contributed to what ideas? And, finally, where did the guests leave the conversation at the end of the night? A summary of your dinner party, with its multiple guests and discussions, is what ultimately will bring order to major themes within your larger topic.

Tips for creating global synthesis within a literature review:

• Use thematic headings to create an intentional narrative order.
  • Quick Tip: Create a heading outline to think through which headings should be placed where.
• Use topic sentences for each paragraph that clearly link ideas between paragraphs.
• Incorporate appropriate transitions throughout your draft to clearly connect ideas.

Summarizing and Synthesizing: What’s the Difference?

Summarizing and synthesizing are two important reading comprehension strategies. They’re also skills that students struggle with and often confuse despite the differences. In this article, we review the two skills, discuss the differences between them, and highlight activities that can be used to support students as they develop proficiency with them.

SUMMARIZING

What does summarizing mean? Into the Book, a reading strategies web site for teachers and students, explains that when readers summarize, they “identify key elements and condense important information into their own words during and after reading to solidify meaning.” The site offers a simpler definition for students: “Tell what’s important.”

Why is summarizing difficult for students? For starters, it requires students to apply the skill of determining importance in text and then express the important ideas in their own words. Many times, as students learn to summarize, their first attempts are a collection of details, rather than the main ideas of the passage. Other student-produced summaries are too vague and do not include enough detail. Teachers need to devote time to explicit instruction and modeling on both determining importance and summarizing to help students become proficient with both strategies.

The following resources can be helpful for teaching students to summarize:

Summarizing
This article provides an overview of summarizing as a reading comprehension strategy, and how it can be taught and assessed in an elementary classroom.

Into the Book: Summarizing
This section of the Into the Book web site provides definitions of summarizing for teachers and students, learning objectives with videos, lessons, and a wealth of additional resources. The student area (which requires a key to access) has interactive activities for each of the featured comprehension strategies.

Guided Comprehension: Summarizing Using the QuIP Strategy
This lesson plan, for grades 3-6 from ReadWriteThink, teaches students to summarize information by graphically organizing information in response to questions, then reorganizing their answers into paragraph form.

Lesson 8: Summarizing Information
In this lesson, students practice summarizing by extracting the Five Ws (who, what, when, where, why) and the H (how) from feature stories in local newspapers. The lesson could be adapted for use with other texts as well.

SYNTHESIZING

Synthesizing takes the process of summarizing one step further. Instead of just restating the important points from text, synthesizing involves combining ideas and allowing an evolving understanding of text. Into the Book defines synthesizing as “[creating] original insights, perspectives, and understandings by reflecting on text(s) and merging elements from text and existing schema.” For students, the site provides the simpler “Put pieces together to see them in a new way.”

As with summarizing, this higher-order thinking skill needs explicit instruction and modeling. In her book Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading, Tanny McGregor provides examples of instructional sequences for synthesizing using common objects (nesting dolls), prompts or sentence starters, and a spiral-shaped graphic organizer inspired by the notes written and passed by her students. These activities provide the scaffolding needed to support students as they become familiar and then proficient with the skill and can be used with all types of text.

The following resources can be helpful for teaching students to synthesize:

Synthesizing
This article provides an overview of synthesizing as a reading comprehension strategy and describes approaches for teaching and supporting students as they develop proficiency.

Into the Book: Synthesizing
This section of the Into the Book web site provides definitions of synthesizing for teachers and students, learning objectives with videos, lessons, and a wealth of additional resources. The student area (which requires a key to access) has interactive activities for each of the featured comprehension strategies.

Classroom Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading
Tanny McGregor’s book includes chapters devoted to six reading comprehension strategies: schema, inferring, questioning, determining importance, visualizing, and synthesizing. Heinemann’s page also includes links to web seminars about various strategies (click on Companion Resources).

This article was written by Jessica Fries-Gaither. For more information, see the Contributors page. Email Kimberly Lightle, Principal Investigator, with any questions about the content of this site.

Copyright June 2010 – The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0733024. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This work is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license.

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