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• Synthesizing Sources | Examples & Synthesis Matrix

Synthesizing Sources | Examples & Synthesis Matrix

Published on July 4, 2022 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on May 31, 2023.

Synthesizing sources involves combining the work of other scholars to provide new insights. It’s a way of integrating sources that helps situate your work in relation to existing research.

Synthesizing sources involves more than just summarizing . You must emphasize how each source contributes to current debates, highlighting points of (dis)agreement and putting the sources in conversation with each other.

You might synthesize sources in your literature review to give an overview of the field or throughout your research paper when you want to position your work in relation to existing research.

Table of contents

Example of synthesizing sources, how to synthesize sources, synthesis matrix, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about synthesizing sources.

Let’s take a look at an example where sources are not properly synthesized, and then see what can be done to improve it.

This paragraph provides no context for the information and does not explain the relationships between the sources described. It also doesn’t analyze the sources or consider gaps in existing research.

Research on the barriers to second language acquisition has primarily focused on age-related difficulties. Building on Lenneberg’s (1967) theory of a critical period of language acquisition, Johnson and Newport (1988) tested Lenneberg’s idea in the context of second language acquisition. Their research seemed to confirm that young learners acquire a second language more easily than older learners. Recent research has considered other potential barriers to language acquisition. Schepens, van Hout, and van der Slik (2022) have revealed that the difficulties of learning a second language at an older age are compounded by dissimilarity between a learner’s first language and the language they aim to acquire. Further research needs to be carried out to determine whether the difficulty faced by adult monoglot speakers is also faced by adults who acquired a second language during the “critical period.”

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To synthesize sources, group them around a specific theme or point of contention.

As you read sources, ask:

• What questions or ideas recur? Do the sources focus on the same points, or do they look at the issue from different angles?
• How does each source relate to others? Does it confirm or challenge the findings of past research?
• Where do the sources agree or disagree?

Once you have a clear idea of how each source positions itself, put them in conversation with each other. Analyze and interpret their points of agreement and disagreement. This displays the relationships among sources and creates a sense of coherence.

Consider both implicit and explicit (dis)agreements. Whether one source specifically refutes another or just happens to come to different conclusions without specifically engaging with it, you can mention it in your synthesis either way.

Synthesize your sources using:

• Topic sentences to introduce the relationship between the sources
• Signal phrases to attribute ideas to their authors
• Transition words and phrases to link together different ideas

To more easily determine the similarities and dissimilarities among your sources, you can create a visual representation of their main ideas with a synthesis matrix . This is a tool that you can use when researching and writing your paper, not a part of the final text.

In a synthesis matrix, each column represents one source, and each row represents a common theme or idea among the sources. In the relevant rows, fill in a short summary of how the source treats each theme or topic.

This helps you to clearly see the commonalities or points of divergence among your sources. You can then synthesize these sources in your work by explaining their relationship.

If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• ChatGPT vs human editor
• ChatGPT citations
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Using ChatGPT for your studies
• What is ChatGPT?
• Chicago style
• Paraphrasing

 Plagiarism

• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Consequences of plagiarism
• Common knowledge

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Synthesizing sources means comparing and contrasting the work of other scholars to provide new insights.

It involves analyzing and interpreting the points of agreement and disagreement among sources.

You might synthesize sources in your literature review to give an overview of the field of research or throughout your paper when you want to contribute something new to existing research.

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

Topic sentences help keep your writing focused and guide the reader through your argument.

In an essay or paper , each paragraph should focus on a single idea. By stating the main idea in the topic sentence, you clarify what the paragraph is about for both yourself and your reader.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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When you look for areas where your sources agree or disagree and try to draw broader conclusions about your topic based on what your sources say, you are engaging in synthesis. Writing a research paper usually requires synthesizing the available sources in order to provide new insight or a different perspective into your particular topic (as opposed to simply restating what each individual source says about your research topic).

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.

There are two types of syntheses: explanatory syntheses and argumentative syntheses . Explanatory syntheses seek to bring sources together to explain a perspective and the reasoning behind it. Argumentative syntheses seek to bring sources together to make an argument. Both types of synthesis involve looking for relationships between sources and drawing conclusions.

In order to successfully synthesize your sources, you might begin by grouping your sources by topic and looking for connections. For example, if you were researching the pros and cons of encouraging healthy eating in children, you would want to separate your sources to find which ones agree with each other and which ones disagree.

After you have a good idea of what your sources are saying, you want to construct your body paragraphs in a way that acknowledges different sources and highlights where you can draw new conclusions.

As you continue synthesizing, here are a few points to remember:

• Don’t force a relationship between sources if there isn’t one. Not all of your sources have to complement one another.
• Do your best to highlight the relationships between sources in very clear ways.
• Don’t ignore any outliers in your research. It’s important to take note of every perspective (even those that disagree with your broader conclusions).

Example Syntheses

Below are two examples of synthesis: one where synthesis is NOT utilized well, and one where it is.

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 1863. William Banting named it the “Banting” diet after himself, and it consisted of eating fruits, vegetables, meat, and dry wine. Despite the fact that dieting has been around for over a hundred and fifty years, parents should not diet because it hinders children’s understanding of healthy eating.

In this sample paragraph, the paragraph begins with one idea then drastically shifts to another. Rather than comparing the sources, the author simply describes their content. This leads the paragraph to veer in an different direction at the end, and it prevents the paragraph from expressing any strong arguments or conclusions.

An example of a stronger synthesis can be found below.

Parents are always trying to find ways to encourage healthy eating in their children. Different scientists and educators have different strategies for promoting a well-rounded diet while still encouraging body positivity in children. David R. Just and Joseph Price suggest in their article “Using Incentives to Encourage Healthy Eating in Children” that children are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables if they are given a reward (855-856). Similarly, Elena Pearl Ben-Joseph, a doctor and writer for Kids Health , encourages parents to be role models for their children. She states that “parents who are always dieting or complaining about their bodies may foster these same negative feelings in their kids. Try to keep a positive approach about food” (Ben-Joseph). Martha J. Nepper and Weiwen Chai support Ben-Joseph’s suggestions in their article “Parents’ Barriers and Strategies to Promote Healthy Eating among School-age Children.” Nepper and Chai note, “Parents felt that patience, consistency, educating themselves on proper nutrition, and having more healthy foods available in the home were important strategies when developing healthy eating habits for their children.” By following some of these ideas, parents can help their children develop healthy eating habits while still maintaining body positivity.

In this example, the author puts different sources in conversation with one another. Rather than simply describing the content of the sources in order, the author uses transitions (like "similarly") and makes the relationship between the sources evident.

How to Synthesize Written Information from Multiple Sources

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When you write a literature review or essay, you have to go beyond just summarizing the articles you’ve read – you need to synthesize the literature to show how it all fits together (and how your own research fits in).

Synthesizing simply means combining. Instead of summarizing the main points of each source in turn, you put together the ideas and findings of multiple sources in order to make an overall point.

At the most basic level, this involves looking for similarities and differences between your sources. Your synthesis should show the reader where the sources overlap and where they diverge.

Unsynthesized Example

Franz (2008) studied undergraduate online students. He looked at 17 females and 18 males and found that none of them liked APA. According to Franz, the evidence suggested that all students are reluctant to learn citations style. Perez (2010) also studies undergraduate students. She looked at 42 females and 50 males and found that males were significantly more inclined to use citation software ( p < .05). Findings suggest that females might graduate sooner. Goldstein (2012) looked at British undergraduates. Among a sample of 50, all females, all confident in their abilities to cite and were eager to write their dissertations.

Synthesized Example

Studies of undergraduate students reveal conflicting conclusions regarding relationships between advanced scholarly study and citation efficacy. Although Franz (2008) found that no participants enjoyed learning citation style, Goldstein (2012) determined in a larger study that all participants watched felt comfortable citing sources, suggesting that variables among participant and control group populations must be examined more closely. Although Perez (2010) expanded on Franz’s original study with a larger, more diverse sample…

Step 1: Organize your sources

After collecting the relevant literature, you’ve got a lot of information to work through, and no clear idea of how it all fits together.

Before you can start writing, you need to organize your notes in a way that allows you to see the relationships between sources.

One way to begin synthesizing the literature is to put your notes into a table. Depending on your topic and the type of literature you’re dealing with, there are a couple of different ways you can organize this.

Summary table

A summary table collates the key points of each source under consistent headings. This is a good approach if your sources tend to have a similar structure – for instance, if they’re all empirical papers.

Each row in the table lists one source, and each column identifies a specific part of the source. You can decide which headings to include based on what’s most relevant to the literature you’re dealing with.

For example, you might include columns for things like aims, methods, variables, population, sample size, and conclusion.

For each study, you briefly summarize each of these aspects. You can also include columns for your own evaluation and analysis.

The summary table gives you a quick overview of the key points of each source. This allows you to group sources by relevant similarities, as well as noticing important differences or contradictions in their findings.

Synthesis matrix

A synthesis matrix is useful when your sources are more varied in their purpose and structure – for example, when you’re dealing with books and essays making various different arguments about a topic.

Each column in the table lists one source. Each row is labeled with a specific concept, topic or theme that recurs across all or most of the sources.

Then, for each source, you summarize the main points or arguments related to the theme.

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.

Step 2: Outline your structure

Now you should have a clear overview of the main connections and differences between the sources you’ve read. Next, you need to decide how you’ll group them together and the order in which you’ll discuss them.

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.

There are a few different approaches you can take to help you structure your synthesis.

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 .

That doesn’t mean you just summarize each paper in chronological order; instead, you should group articles into time periods and identify what they have in common, as well as signalling important turning points or developments in the literature.

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.

Source Used with Permission: The Chicago School

If you’re drawing on literature from various different fields or they use a wide variety of research methods, you can organize your sources methodologically .

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.

Step 3: Write paragraphs with topic sentences

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.

A topic sentence can be a simple summary of the paragraph’s content:

“Early research on [x] focused heavily on [y].”

For an effective synthesis, you can use topic sentences to link back to the previous paragraph, highlighting a point of debate or critique:

“Several scholars have pointed out the flaws in this approach.” “While recent research has attempted to address the problem, many of these studies have methodological flaws that limit their validity.”

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.

Don’t try to cover every single point from every single source – the key to synthesizing is to extract the most important and relevant information and combine it to give your reader an overall picture of the state of knowledge on your topic.

Step 4: Revise, edit and proofread

Like any other piece of academic writing, synthesizing literature doesn’t happen all in one go – it involves redrafting, revising, editing and proofreading your work.

Checklist for Synthesis

•   Do I introduce the paragraph with a clear, focused topic sentence?
•   Do I discuss more than one source in the paragraph?
•   Do I mention only the most relevant findings, rather than describing every part of the studies?
•   Do I discuss the similarities or differences between the sources, rather than summarizing each source in turn?
•   Do I put the findings or arguments of the sources in my own words?
•   Is the paragraph organized around a single idea?
•   Is the paragraph directly relevant to my research question or topic?
•   Is there a logical transition from this paragraph to the next one?

Further Information

How to Synthesise: a Step-by-Step Approach

Help…I”ve Been Asked to Synthesize!

Learn how to Synthesise (combine information from sources)

How to write a Psychology Essay

Pasco-Hernando State College

Synthesizing Information from Sources

• Finding and Evaluating Sources (Critical Analysis)

Paraphrasing

Summarizing.

• MLA Documentation
• APA Documentation
• Writing a Research Paper
• Sample Essay with Sources - Atlantis
• Sample Essay with Sources - Bullying

Related Pages

Research papers (research essays)  must include information from sources.  This is called  synthesizing  or  integrating  your sources.

There are three ways to incorporate information from other sources into your paper: quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. Good research papers should include at least quoting and paraphrasing and preferably also summarizing. The method you choose depends on which is the best way to make the point you are trying to make in using that particular information from the source. It is very important to remember that even if you are not using the exact words of the author as when you paraphrase or summarize, you must give a source citation.

Every sentence with information from a source must give credit to the source by citing the source. It is NOT all right to have a few sentences from a source and then give credit to the source. A reader would not know how many, if any at all, of the preceding sentences had information from that source. A quote, paraphrase, or summary without a citation giving credit to the source is plagiarism.

Quotations are best used when used sparingly. A common error in many papers is the overuse of quotations.  When a paper contains too many quotations the reader may become bored or conclude that you have no ideas of your own. Keep quotations short and only use them when a paraphrase would not capture the meaning or reflect the author’s specific choice of words.  You may also wish to introduce a quote if you plan on disagreeing with the source since using the exact words helps the reader understand the differences between your position and the position in the source and helps to show that you are fairly representing the source.

When you do decide to use quotations, make sure that you do not simply cut the words out and drop them into your paper. You will need to give a brief introduction to the quote to let readers understand the context of the words and their relationship to your argument. Quotes that do not reflect the meaning of the author within the context are considered  out-of-context .  Quotes should not be used  out-of-context  to convey a meaning not intended by the author.  In addition, quotes must be incorporated logically into a sequence of sentences.

Incorrect use:

People pay higher prices for organic food.  “The FDA simply does not have enough agents to do thorough inspections” (Jones).

Corrected use:

People pay higher prices for organic food.  Jones makes a good point when he explains how really impossible it is at this time to tell whether foods are grown without certain chemicals or pesticides to justify these higher prices. “The FDA simply does not have enough agents to do thorough inspections” (Jones).

Quotations must also be incorporated grammatically.

Original Quotation: 

Jones continues to explain, “No proof that pesticides were not used.”

Corrected use:  

Jones continues to explain that there is “no proof that pesticides were not used.”

Substitutions, Additions, and Omissions in Quotations:

Quotations can be modified; however, proper punctuation must be used to indicate the substitutions, additions, and omissions.  Any such substitutions, additions or omissions should not result in quoting out of context where the meaning of the quote is changed.

• Brackets, also called square brackets, are used to show that the original quote has been modified.
• An ellipsis (three periods in a row) is used to show that words have been omitted.

Original Quotation:  

“Besides, step-families offer unique advantages as well. One example is the increase in available emotional support and, other resources from the larger, more extended family. Another is the opportunity the children have for learning how to cope with an ever changing and complicated world due to the social and emotional complexity of their own step family environment” (Pinto).

Quotation Modified to Substitute an Uppercase for a Lowercase:  

Pinto acknowledges that blended families can also offer positive aspects. Pinto indicates that “[o]ne example is the increase in available emotional support and, other resources from the larger, more extended family.”

See how a small letter  o  was substituted for the capital  O  since using the word that changes what is in the quote to a continuation of a sentence started outside the quote.

Quotation Modified for Clarity:

Pinto continues, “Another [advantage] is the opportunity the children have for learning how to cope with an ever changing and complicated world due to the social and emotional complexity of their own step family environment.”

The word advantage was added to make the subject clear.

Quotation Modified to Eliminate Unnecessary Words: 

Pinto explains, “One example is the increase in available emotional support … from the larger, more extended family.”

See how the ellipsis shows the omission of words.

Length of Quotes:

While research essays should primarily be your own ideas and analysis of sources, sometimes, such as when the author’s words cannot be adequately paraphrased to convey the intended meaning,  it is appropriate to include a long quote.

If you are quoting for more than four lines (not sentences), you need to set the quote off from the text.  Indent the quote one inch from the left margin, and do not surround the quote with quotation marks. The quote should be double spaced as with the rest of the paper.

Helen Keller, though born both deaf and blind, was no coward. This can be seen in her views on the worth of life:

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Paraphrasing is a restatement of the sources ideas into your own words. Quotations should only be used in paraphrases when there are special words or wording that cannot be paraphrased. Because the same information that the author provided is being used, a paraphrase is often as long as the original source. Since paraphrases are information from a source, every sentence with paraphrased information must cite the source even if exact words are not quoted.

Even through a sentence with paraphrased information must cite the source, any exact words from the source must be in quotation marks.  Failing to use quotation marks on exact words is plagiarism even if the sentence give credit to the source.

Proper note-taking while doing research will help avoid plagiarism.  Notes should include quotation marks around any exact words taken from sources.

Another problem students may have with paraphrasing is that the language used in the paraphrase should be an accurate accounting of the source’s ideas. Good paraphrasing doesn’t just capture the ideas of the source. They don’t include your own opinions or omit important information. Just like in a quotation, be sure to either introduce the source at the beginning of your paraphrase or cite the source at the end of the sentence so that the reader knows these are not your ideas, but ideas from your source.

Jones thinks the answer to reducing water usage is to raise water rates.

OR – The answer to reducing water usage is to raise water rates (Jones).

A Good Paraphrase:

has all the main ideas included with no new ideas added.

is different enough from the original to be your own writing.

• refers directly to the original source

Quotation:  

“Besides, step-families offer unique advantages as well. One example is the increase in available emotional support and other resources from the larger, more extended family. Another is the opportunity the children have for learning how to cope with an ever-changing and complicated world due to the social and emotional complexity of their own step family environment” (Pinto).

Unacceptable Paraphrase: 

Step-families have advantages too. One is that there is more emotional support when there are more people. Also, children can cope better with life if they start dealing with problems when they’re young.

• This paraphrase uses too much of the original’s wording and sentence structure.
• It does not properly introduce or cite the original source.
• It does not accurately convey the ideas of the source.

Improved Paraphrase: 

Although there are many criticisms leveled against mixed families, Pinto gives some reasons for hope. First, Pinto says that blended families are often larger and can provide more “emotional support” and other aid for the children. Pinto continues by explaining that because of the emotional and social complications that arise in a blended family, children are more able to deal with the complexities of today’s changing world.

A summary is similar to a paraphrase in that you again use your own words.   This time, however, not all the details are included.  You must decide what the source’s main points are and condense them into a few concise sentences. For this reason summaries are often much shorter than the original source. Summaries should not use exact quotes from the source except in those unusual situations where there is a special word or phrase that cannot be expressed in your own words.

Like all of the other methods of incorporating source information into your paper, it is important to not plagiarize, either by forgetting to quote the original if you use the same words, or by not clearly introducing the information as having come from the source.

A Good Summary:

• contains only the most important information
• is concise; it should always be shorter than the original
• paraphrases any information taken from the source
• does not use exact wording (quotes) except for special word or words that cannot be expressed otherwise

Unacceptable Summary: 

Step-families have advantages too. One is that there is more emotional support when there are more people. And there are other resources because there are more family members.  Also, children can cope better with life if they start dealing with problems when they’re young.

• This summary contains more than just the most important information.
• It is not concise
• It does not refer back to the source

Improved Summary:  Pinto believes that blended families can provide more emotional support and resources and help children learn to cope more effectively in a complex world.

Since a summary contains sentences with information from a source, each sentence must cite the source if you use a summary in your research paper.  However, there are times when you have an assignment in a class which asks for a summary.  In that case, the instructor may not require that the source be cited in each sentence as long as it is given credit at the beginning or end and there is no question it is a summary of a source. If the assignment asks for an analysis of a particular source along with your opinion, then each sentence with information from the source must cite the source in order to distinguish it from your analysis.  This is not strictly a summary since summaries contain only key ideas from the source and not your opinion or analysis.

Important Notes

Separation of personal feelings:.

Sometimes, it is difficult to separate our personal feelings about the content of a source when we paraphrase or summarize.  It is critical to be able to objectively paraphrase and summarize.  Research is not about finding sources which support your position.  Research is about finding the variety of opinions on the issue, evaluating them, and then deciding what your position is.  You will be reading and using information you do not agree with.

Use of Summaries in Research Papers:

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Literature Review How To

• Things To Consider
• Synthesizing Sources
• Video Tutorials
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What is Synthesis

What is Synthesis? Synthesis writing is a form of analysis related to comparison and contrast, classification and division. On a basic level, synthesis requires the writer to pull together two or more summaries, looking for themes in each text. In synthesis, you search for the links between various materials in order to make your point. Most advanced academic writing, including literature reviews, relies heavily on synthesis. (Temple University Writing Center)  

How To Synthesize Sources in a Literature Review

Literature reviews synthesize large amounts of information and present it in a coherent, organized fashion. In a literature review you will be combining material from several texts to create a new text – your literature review.

You will use common points among the sources you have gathered to help you synthesize the material. This will help ensure that your literature review is organized by subtopic, not by source. This means various authors' names can appear and reappear throughout the literature review, and each paragraph will mention several different authors. 

When you shift from writing summaries of the content of a source to synthesizing content from sources, there is a number things you must keep in mind: 

• Look for specific connections and or links between your sources and how those relate to your thesis or question.
• When writing and organizing your literature review be aware that your readers need to understand how and why the information from the different sources overlap.
• Organize your literature review by the themes you find within your sources or themes you have identified. 
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15.7: Synthesizing Sources

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Learning Objectives

• Evaluate how good source synthesis and integration builds credibility

What is Synthesis?

Synthesis is the combining of two or more things to produce something new. When you read and write, you will be asked to synthesize by taking ideas from what you read and combining them to form new ideas.

Synthesizing Sources

Once you have analyzed the texts involved in your research and taken notes, you must turn to the task of writing your essay. The goal here is not simply to summarize your findings. Critical writing requires that you communicate your analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of those findings to your audience .

You analyze and synthesize even before you compose your first draft. In an article called, “Teaching Conventions of Academic Discourse,” Teresa Thonney outlines six standard features of academic writing. Use the list to help frame your purpose and to ensure that you are adopting the characteristics of a strong academic writer as you synthesize from various sources:

• Writers state the value of their work and announce their plan for their papers.
• Writers adopt a voice of authority.
• Writers respond to what others have said about their topic.
• Writers acknowledge that others might disagree with the position they have taken.
• Writers use academic and discipline-specific vocabulary.
• Writers emphasize evidence, often in tables, graphs, and images.

Cooking With Your Sources

Let’s return to the example of Marvin, who is working on his research assignment. Marvin already learned from the online professor that he should spend time walking with his sources (knowing where to find them) and talking to his sources (knowing who is conversing about them and what they are saying). Now Marvin will learn the importance of cooking with his sources, or creating the right recipe for an excellent paper.

O-Prof: Let’s take a look at the third metaphor: cooking. When you cook with sources, you process them in new ways. Cooking, like writing, involves a lot of decisions. For instance, you might decide to combine ingredients in a way that keeps the full flavor and character of each ingredient.

Marvin: Kind of like chili cheese fries? I can taste the flavor of the chili, the cheese, and the fries separately.

O-Prof: Yes. But other food preparation processes can change the character of the various ingredients. You probably wouldn’t enjoy gobbling down a stick of butter, two raw eggs, a cup of flour, or a cup of sugar (well, maybe the sugar!). But if you mix these ingredients and expose them to a 375-degree temperature, chemical reactions transform them into something good to eat, like a cake.

Marvin: You’re making me hungry. But what do chili cheese fries and cakes have to do with writing?

O-Prof: Sometimes, you might use direct quotes from your sources, as if you were throwing walnuts whole into a salad. The reader will definitely “taste” your original source. Other times, you might paraphrase ideas and combine them into an intricate argument. The flavor of the original source might be more subtle in the latter case, with only your source documentation indicating where your ideas came from. In some ways, the writing assignments your professors give you are like recipes. As an apprentice writing cook, you should analyze your assignments to determine what “ingredients” (sources) to use, what “cooking processes” to follow, and what the final “dish” (paper) should look like. Let’s try a few sample assignments. Here’s one:

Assignment 1: Critique (given in a human development course)

We’ve read and studied Freud’s theory of how the human psyche develops; now it’s time to evaluate the theory. Read at least two articles that critique Freud’s theory, chosen from the list I provided in class. Then, write an essay discussing the strengths and weaknesses of Freud’s theory.

Assume you’re a student in this course. Given this assignment, how would you describe the required ingredients, processes, and product?

Marvin thinks for a minute, while chewing and swallowing a mouthful of apple.

Marvin: Let’s see if I can break it down:

Ingredients

• everything we’ve read about Freud’s theory
• our class discussions about the theory
• two articles of my choice taken from the list provided by the instructor

Processes : I have to read those two articles to see their criticisms of Freud’s theory. I can also review my notes from class, since we discussed various critiques. I have to think about what aspects of Freud’s theory explain human development well, and where the theory falls short—like in class, we discussed how Freud’s theory reduces human development to sexuality alone.

Product : The final essay needs to include both strengths and weaknesses of Freud’s theory. The professor didn’t specifically say this, but it’s also clear I need to incorporate some ideas from the two articles I read—otherwise why would she have assigned those articles?

O-Prof: Good. How about this one?

Assignment 3: Research Paper (given in a health and environment course)

Write a 6–8-page paper in which you explain a health problem related to water pollution (e.g., arsenic poisoning, gastrointestinal illness, skin disease, etc.). Recommend a potential way or ways this health problem might be addressed. Be sure to cite and document the sources you use for your paper.

Ingredients : No specific guidance here, except that sources have to relate to water pollution and health. I’ve already decided I’m interested in how bottled water might help with health where there’s water pollution. I’ll have to pick a health problem and find sources about how water pollution can cause that problem. Gastrointestinal illness sounds promising. I’ll ask the reference librarian where I’d be likely to find good articles about water pollution, bottled water, and gastrointestinal illness.

Process : There’s not very specific information here about what process to use, but our conversation’s given me some ideas. I’ll use scholarly articles to find the connection between water pollution and gastrointestinal problems, and whether bottled water could prevent those problems.

Product : Obviously, my paper will explain the connection between water and gastrointestinal health. It’ll evaluate whether bottled water provides a good option in places where the water’s polluted, then give a recommendation about what people should do. The professor did say I should address any objections readers might raise—for instance, bottled water may turn out to be a good option, but it’s a lot more expensive than tap water. Finally, I’ll need to provide in-text citations and document my sources in a reference list.

O-Prof: You’re on your way. Think for a minute about these assignments. Did you notice that the “recipes” varied in their specificity?

Marvin: Yeah. The first assignment gave me very specific information about exactly what source “ingredients” to use. But in the second assignment, I had to figure it out on my own. And the processes varied, too. In the second assignment—my own assignment—I’ll have to use content from my sources to support my recommendation.

O-Prof: Different professors provide different levels of specificity in their writing assignments. If you have trouble figuring out the “recipe,” ask the professor for more information. Keep in mind that when it comes to “cooking with sources,” no one expects you to be an executive chef the first day you get to college. Over time, you’ll become more expert at writing with sources, more able to choose and use sources on your own.

Watch this video to learn more about the synthesis process.

Building Credibility through Source Integration

Writers are delighted when they find good sources because they know they can use those sources to make their writing stronger. Skillful integration of those sources adds to an argument’s persuasiveness but also builds the credibility of the argument and the writer.

Well-integrated sources build credibility in several ways. First, the source material adds evidence and support to your argument, making it more persuasive. Second, the signal phrase highlights the reputation and qualifications of the source, thereby adding to the source material’s credibility. Third, effective citation makes it easy for your reader to find and investigate the original source, building your credibility as a trustworthy writer. Finally, your thorough explanation of the source’s relevance to your argument demonstrates your critical thinking and reasoning , another avenue to increased credibility.

Notice in the example below how the student is able to synthesize multiple sources on the minimum wage in the United States in order to demonstrate familiarity with and respond to other voices on the topic. The writer is also able to state with authority their own perspective on the minimum wage and economic inequality based on the effective discussion and synthesis of sources.

Student Example

In the activity below, you’ll practice building your synthesis based on your analysis and thinking about other source material.

Examine the use of signal phrases, direct quotations from an outside source, citation, and explanation of relevance to consider how well the writer’s source integration builds credibility.

https://lumenlearning.h5p.com/content/1291006520432442118/embed

Synthesis, then, is the final step in the process of using sources. Good writers strive to include other voices in conversation, and they do so using direct quotes, paraphrase, and summary. The most important step, however, in integrating source material, is synthesis where we compare, contrast, and combine those other voices in order to fairly and accurately represent the existing conversation on the topic and thus to demonstrate how our ideas fit into or respond to that existing conversation.

Contributors and Attributions

• Revision and Adaptation. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Incorporating Your Sources Into Your Paper. Provided by : Boundless. Located at : www.boundless.com/writing/textbooks/boundless-writing-textbook/the-research-process-2/understanding-your-sources-265/understanding-your-sources-62-8498/. Project : Boundless Writing. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Synthesizing Sources from Chapter 4 and Integrating Sources from Chapter 5: Critical Thinking, Source Evaluations, and Analyzing Academic Writing. Authored by : Denise Snee, Kristin Houlton, Nancy Heckel. Edited by Kimberly Jacobs. Located at : lgdata.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/docs/679/734444/Snee_2012_Research_Analysis_and_Writing.pdf. Project : Research, Analysis, and Writing. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Critical Thinking, Source Evaluations, and Analyzing Academic Writing. Authored by : Denise Snee, Kristin Houlton, Nancy Heckel. Edited by Kim Jacobs. Located at : digitalcommons.apus.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=epresscoursematerials. Project : Research, Analysis, and Writing. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• OWL at Excelsior College: Signal Phrases Activity. Provided by : Excelsior College OWL. Located at : http://owl.excelsior.edu/research-and-citations/drafting-and-integrating/drafting-and-integrating-signal-phrases-activity/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Synthesizing Activity. Provided by : Excelsior OWL. Located at : https://owl.excelsior.edu/orc/what-to-do-after-reading/synthesizing/synthesizing-activity-1/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Walk, Talk, Cook, Eat: A Guide to Using Sources. Authored by : Cynthia R. Haller. Located at : www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/writing-spaces-readings-on-writing-vol-2.pd. Project : Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Vol. 2.. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Synthesis: Definition & Examples. Provided by : WUWriting Center. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLhkalJe7Zc . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

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• Lit Review Prep Use this template to help you evaluate your sources, create article summaries for an annotated bibliography, and a synthesis matrix for your lit review outline.

Synthesize your Information

Synthesize: combine separate elements to form a whole.

Synthesis Matrix

A synthesis matrix helps you record the main points of each source and document how sources relate to each other.

After summarizing and evaluating your sources, arrange them in a matrix or use a citation manager to help you see how they relate to each other and apply to each of your themes or variables.  

By arranging your sources by theme or variable, you can see how your sources relate to each other, and can start thinking about how you weave them together to create a narrative.

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WRITING / Synthesis

Academic Synthesis

 What is  synthesis ?

Synthesis is a key feature of analytical academic writing. It is the skill of being able to combine a number of sources in a clause, paragraph or text to either support an argument or refute it. We also synthesise sources to be able to compare and contrast ideas and to further expand on a point. It is important that the writer shows the reader that they have researched the subject matter extensively in order to not only demonstrate how a variety of sources can agree or disagree but also to present more balanced arguments.

Academic Synthesis Video

A short 8-minute video on what synthesis is.

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  Academic Synthesis: synthesising sources

This lesson is designed to support students in their understanding and use of synthesising sources. It includes noticing the use of sources in context, a language focus with examples, two guided writing practice activities, a freer practice paragraph writing task with model answer and teacher’s notes – see worksheet example. Time: 120mins.   Level *** ** [ B1/B2/C1]   TEACHER MEMBERSHIP / INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP

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Paragraph example of synthesis.

Look at this paragraph containing synthesised sources. Highlight the citations / in-text references and their corresponding point made.

Coursework versus examination assessment

Using assignment essays for assessment supports learning better than the traditional examination system. It is considered that course-work assignment essays can lessen the extreme stress experienced by some students over ‘sudden death’ end of semester examinations and reduce the failure rate (Langdon, 2016). Study skills research by Peters et al. (2018) support assessment by assignment because research assignments can be used to assess student learning mid-course and so provide them with helpful feedback. They also consider that assignment work lends itself to more critical approaches which help the students to learn the discourse of their subjects. In contrast, Abbot (2008) and Cane (2018) both argue that assignments are inefficient, costly to manage and are the cause of plagiarism problems in universities. A key argument is that “assessment by examination is a clean-cut approach as you obtain students’ knowledge under supervised circumstances” (Bable, 2008, p.20). The weight of evidence, however, would suggest that it is a fairer and more balanced approach to have some assessment by assignment rather than completely by examinations.

Using assignment essays for assessment supports learning better than the traditional examination system. It is considered that course-work assignment essays can lessen the extreme stress experienced by some students over ‘sudden death’ end of semester examinations and r educe the failure rate (Langdon, 2016) . Study skills research by  Peters et al. (2018) support assessment by assignment because r esearch assignments can be used to assess student learning mid-course and so provide them with helpful feedback. They also consider that assignment work lends itself to more critical approaches which help the students to learn the discourse of their subjects . In contrast, Abbot (2008) and Cane (2018) both argue that assignments are inefficient, costly to manage and are the cause of plagiarism problems in universities. A key argument is that “assessment by examination is a clean-cut approach as you obtain students’ knowledge under supervised circumstances” (Bable, 2008, p.20) . The weight of evidence, however, would suggest that it is a fairer and more balanced approach to have some assessment by assignment rather than completely by examinations.

Language Focus

The writer synthesises two sources to be able to support their argument for assignment examinations.

It is considered that course-work assignment essays can lessen the extreme stress experienced by some students over ‘sudden death’ end of semester examinations and reduce the failure rate  (Langdon, 2016) . Study skills research by  Peters et al. (2018)  support assessment by assignment because research assignments can be used to assess student learning mid-course and so provide them with helpful feedback.

The writer synthesises two connected sources to be show the opposing views to assignment based examinations.

In contrast,  Abbot (2008)  and  Cane (2018)  both argue that assignments are inefficient, costly to manage and are the cause of plagiarism problems in universities.

The writer synthesises another relevant source through quotation to further support the point  against assignment-based examinations.

A key argument is that “assessment by examination is a clean-cut approach as you obtain students’ knowledge under supervised circumstances”   (Bable, 2008, p.20) .

The writer could synthesise a number of sources together to show they have applied comprehensive academic research into the topic.

Study skills research by Jones et al. (2010), UCL (2016), Wilson (2017) and Peters (2018) support assessment by assignment because research assignments can be used to assess student learning mid-course and so provide them with helpful feedback.

Study skills research supports assessment by assignment because research assignments can be used to assess student learning mid-course and so provide them with helpful feedback (Jones et al., 2010; UCL, 2016; Wilson, 2017 & Peters, 2018) .

Integral and non-integral referencing

When synthesising sources, it is important to incorporate and reference them accurately. This can be done in two ways:

• Integral citations are where the author is the main subject of clause and only the year is placed in brackets. A reporting verb ( argue, claim, suggest etc.) is required to introduce the rest of the clause.

2. In non-integral citations, both the author and year is stated in parenthesis at the end of a clause. There must also be a comma separating the name and year.

Synthesis Practice

Suggested answer

Although the main goal of the World Bank is to reduce poverty and foster economic growth in developing countries (Johnson, 2018) , Williams (2019) highlights that there has been an increase in the level of poverty in Africa.

For a detailed worksheet and more exercises – buy the  download below.

Arnold (2019) asserts that the decline of printed newspapers is mainly due to increased online activity overall. As we spend more time on the Internet in general than we did ten years previously, the more likely we are to search for news stories through search engines or blogs (James, 2020).

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  Academic Synthesis: synthesising sources 

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 This is a basic reference guide to citing and creating a reference list or a bibliography. It shows the correct way to create in-text citations and reference lists for books, journals, online newspapers and websites.   Web page link . TEACHER MEMBERSHIP  / INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP

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Referencing: harvard referencing worksheet 1 .

Two part worksheet that is a paragraph and reference list.  Students have to put in the correct in-text reference. The second part is a reference list exercise where students have to put the sections in the correct order. A nice lesson to introduce students to referencing and becoming aware of key referencing principles.  Level ** ** * [B1/B2/C1]  Example  / Webpage link / TEACHER MEMBERSHIP  / INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP

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Referencing: Harvard Referencing Worksheet 2

This lesson supports students in their understanding and use of Harvard referencing. It contains six worksheets: a discussion on referencing, a noticing activity, a reordering task, an error identification exercise, a sentence completion task, a gap-fill activity and a reference list task.   Level ** ** * [B1/B2/C1]  Example  / Webpage link / TEACHER MEMBERSHIP  / INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP

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Two part worksheet that is a paragraph and reference list. Students have to put in the correct in-text reference. The second part is a reference list exercise where students have to put the sections in the correct order. A nice lesson to introduce students to referencing and becoming aware of key referencing principles.  Level ** ** * [B1/B2/C1]    Example   / Webpage link   / TEACHER MEMBERSHIP  / INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP

This lesson supports students in their understanding and use of APA referencing. It contains six worksheets: a discussion on referencing, a noticing activity, a reordering task, an error identification exercise, a sentence completion task, a gap-fill activity and a reference list task. Level ** ** * [B1/B2/C1]    Example   / Webpage link   / TEACHER MEMBERSHIP  / INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP

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This lesson is an introduction to using the online reference generator: www.citethisforme.com. It begins by providing a step-by-step guide to using the application and its many functions. The lesson is a task-based activity where students use the reference generator to create bibliography citations.   Worksheet example  Time: 60mins.   Level *** ** [ B1/B2/C1]  / Video / TEACHER MEMBERSHIP / INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP

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Video transcripts, analyzing & synthesizing sources: synthesis: definition and examples.

Last updated 11/8/2016

Video Length: 2:50

Visual: The screen shows the Walden University Writing Center logo along with a pencil and notebook. “Walden University Writing Center.” “Your writing, grammar, and APA experts” appears in center of screen. The background changes to the title of the video with open books in the background.

Audio: Guitar music plays.

Visual: Slide changes to the title “Moving Towards Synthesis” and the following:

Interpreting, commenting on, explaining, discussion of, or making connections between MULTIPLE ideas and sources for the reader.

Often answers questions such as:

• What do these things mean when put together?
• How do you as the author interpret what you’ve presented?

Audio : Synthesis is a lot like, I like to say it's like analysis on steroids. It's a lot like analysis, where analysis is you're commenting or interpreting one piece of evidence or one idea, one paraphrase or one quote. Synthesis is where you take multiple pieces of evidence or multiple sources and their ideas and you talk about the connections between those ideas or those sources. And you talk about where they intersect or where they have commonalities or where they differ. And that's what synthesis is. But really, in synthesis, when we have synthesis, it really means we're working with multiple pieces of evidence and analyzing them.

Visual: Slide changes to the title “Examples of Synthesis” and the following example:

Ang (2016) found that small businesses that followed the theory of financial management reduced business costs by 12%, while Sonfield (2015) found that this theory reduced costs by 17%. These studies together confirmed that adopting the theory of financial management reduces costs for U.S. small businesses.

Audio: So here's an example for you. In this eaxmple we have Ang (2016), that's source number 1, right? Then Sonfield (2015), that's source number 2. They are both using this theory and found that it reduced costs by both 12% and 17%. So this is my evidence, right?

I have one sentence, but two pieces of evidence, because we're working with two different sources, Ang and Sonfield, one and two. In my next sentence, my last sentence here, we have my piece of synthesis. Because I'm taking these two sources and saying that they both found something very similar. They confirmed that adopting the theory for financial management reduces costs for small businesses. So I'm showing the commonality between these two sources. So it's a very, sort of, not simple, but, you know, clean approach to synthesis. It's a very direct approach to kind of showing the similarities between these two sources. So that's an example of synthesis, okay.

Visual : The following example is added to the slide:

Sharpe (2016) observed an increase in students’ ability to focus after they had recess. Similarly, Barnes (2015) found that hands-on activities also helped students focus. Both of these techniques have worked well in my classroom, helping me to keep my students engaged in learning.

Audio: Another example here. So Sharpe found that one thing helps students. Barnes found another thing helps students focus. Two different sources, two different ideas. In the bold sentence of synthesis, I'm taking these two ideas together and talking about how they have both worked well in my classroom.

The synthesis that we have here kind of take two different approaches. The first example is more about how these studies confirm something. The second example is about how these two ideas can be useful in my own practice, I'm applying it to my own practice, or the author is applying it to their own practice in the classroom. But they both are examples of synthesis and taking different pieces of evidence showing how they work together or relate, okay.

I kind of like to think of synthesis as taking two pieces of a puzzle. So each piece of evidence is a piece of the puzzle. And you're putting together those pieces for the reader and saying, look, this is the overall picture, right? This is what we can see, when these two pieces--or three pieces--of the puzzle are put together. So it's kind of like putting together a puzzle.

Visual: “Walden University Writing Center. Questions? E-mail [email protected] ” appears in center of screen.

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Summarizing and synthesizing

Part 3: Chapter 10

Questions to consider

A. What distinguishes a synthesis from a summary?

B. How much “author voice” is present relative to source material?

C. What is the nature of the material contributed to a synthesis by the author?

The purpose of synthesizing

Combining separate elements into a whole is the basic dictionary definition of synthesis. It is a way to make connections between numerous and varied source materials. A literature review presents a synthesis of material, grouped by topic, to create a broad and comprehensive view of the literature relevant to a research question. Here, the research questions are often modified to the realities of the information, or information may be selected or rejected based on relevance. This organizational approach helps in understanding the information and structuring the review.

Because research is an iterative process, it is not unusual to go back and search information sources for more material while remaining within the parameters of the topic and research questions. It can be difficult to cope with “everything” on a topic; the need to carefully select based on relevancy is ongoing.

The synthesis must demonstrate a critical analysis of the papers assembled as well as an integration of the analytical results. All included sources must be directly relevant and the synthesis writer should make a significant contribution. As part of an introduction or literature review, the syntheses not only illustrate the evolution of research on an issue, but the writer’s own commentary on what this information means .

Many writers begin the synthesis process by creating a grid, table, or an outline organizing summaries of the source material to discover or extend common themes with the collection. The summary grid or outline provides a researcher an overview to compare, contrast and otherwise investigate the relationships and potential deficiencies. [1]

Language in Action

• How many different sources are used in the synthesis (excerpted from “Does international work experience pay off? The relationship between international work experience, employability and career success: A 30-country, multi-industry study” ) that follows? (IWE: international work experience)
• How do the sources contribute to the message of the paragraph?
• What are the elements of a strong synthesis?
• What information is contributed by the authors themselves?

1 Taking stock of the literature, several characteristics stand out that limit our understanding of the IWE−career success relationship. 2 First, many studies focus on individuals soon after their return from an IWE or while they are still expatriates (Kraimer et al., 2016). 3 These findings may therefore report results pertaining to a short-lived career phase. 4 Given that careers develop over time, and success, especially in the form of promotions and salary increases, may take some time to materialise, it is perhaps not surprising that findings have been mixed. 5 Some authors note that there are short-term, career-related costs of IWE and the career ‘payoff’ occurs after a time lag for which cross-sectional studies may not account (Benson & Pattie, 2008; Biemann & Braakmann, 2013). 6 Second, the majority of studies use samples consisting only of individuals with IWE (Jokinen et al., 2008; Stahl et al., 2009; Suutari et al., 2018). 7 Large samples that include both individuals with and without IWE are needed to provide the variance needed to identify the influence of IWE on career success (e.g., Andresen & Biemann, 2013). 8 Third, studies tend to focus on the baseline question of whether IWE or IWE-specific characteristics (e.g., host country, developmental nature of assignment) are related to a particular career success variable (e.g., Bücker et al., 2016; Jokinen et al., 2008; Stahl et al., 2009). 9 Yet there may be an indirect relationship between IWE and career success (Zhu et al., 2016). 10 More complex models that examine the possible impact of mediating variables are thus needed (Mayrhofer et al., 2012). 11 Lastly, while studies acknowledge that findings from specific countries/nationalities, industries, organisations or occupational roles may not be transferable to all individuals with IWE (Biemann & Braakmann, 2013; Schmid & Wurster, 2017; Suutari et al., 2018), the specific role of national context is rarely considered. 12 However, careers do not develop in a vacuum. 13 Contextual factors play an important role in moderating the career impact of various career experiences such as IWE (Shen et al., 2015). [2]

Organizing the material

Beginning the synthesis process by creating a grid, table, or an outline for summaries of sources offers an overview of the material along with findings and common themes. The summary, grid, or outline will allow quick comparison of the material and reveal gaps in information. [3]

The process of building a “library” from which to draw information is critical in developing the defense, argument or justification of a research study. While field and laboratory research is often engaging and interesting, understanding the backstory and presenting it as an explanation of a proposed method or approach is essential in obtaining funding and/or the necessary committee approval.

Returning to the foundational skill of producing a summary , and combining that with the maintenance of a system to manage source material and details, an annotated bibliography can be both an intellectual structure that reveals connections among sources and a means to initiating – on a manageable level – the arduous writing.

Example – Two entries from an annotated bibliography

Nafisi, A. (2003). Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. New York: Random House.

A brave teacher in Iran met with seven of her most committed female students to discuss forbidden Western classics over the course of a couple of years, while Islamic morality squads staged raids, universities fell under the control of fundamentalists, and artistic expression was suppressed. This powerful memoir weaves the stories of these women with those of the characters of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov and extols the liberating power of literature.

Obama, B. (2007). Dreams from My Father. New York: Random House.

This autobiography extends from a childhood in numerous locations with a variety of caregivers (a single parent, grandparents, boarding school) to an exploration of individual heritage and family in Africa, revealing a broken/blended family, abandonment and reconnection, and unresolved endings. Obama describes his existence on the margins of society, the racial tension within his biracial family, and his own identity conflict and turmoil.

Using a chart or grid

Below is a model of a basic table for organizing source material.

Exercise #1

• Read the excerpts from three sources below. Determine the common topic and themes.
• Complete a table like the one above using information from these three sources.

1 Completion of a dissertation is an intense activity. 2 For both groups [completers and non-], the advisor and the student’s family and spouse served as the major source of emotional support and are most heavily invested in the dissertation. 3 Other students and the balance of the dissertation committee were rated as providing little support. 4 Since work on the dissertation is highly individual and there are no College organized groups of students working on the dissertation that meet regularly, the process can be a lonely one. 5 Great independence and a strong sense of direction is required. 6 Although many students rated themselves as having little experience with research, students are dependent on their own resources and on those closest to them. 7 It was noted that graduates rated emotional support from all sources more highly than students rated it. 8 This may be a significant factor associated with dissertation completion.

9 The scales and checklists suggest that there are identifiable differences between the two groups. 10 Since the differences are not great, the implications are that with some modification of procedures, a greater proportion of students can become graduates. 11 Emotional support, financial support, experience with research, familiarity with university and college dissertation requirements, and ready access to university resources and advisors may be factors to build into a modified system to achieve a greater proportion of graduates.

Kluever, R., Green, K. E., Lenz, K., Miller, M. M., & Katz, E. (1995). Graduates and ABDs in colleges of education: Characteristics and implications for the structure of doctoral programs. In  Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. San Francisco, CA. Retrieved from the ERIC database .

1 In this writing group, students evaluated their goal achievement, reflected on the obstacles before them, and set new targets. 2 This process encouraged them to achieve their goals, and they could modify or start a new target instead of giving up. 3 The students also received positive feedback and support from other members of the group. 4 This positive environment helped the students view failure as part of the nature of writing a thesis.

5 On the other hand, daily monitoring encouraged the students to focus more on the process and less on the outcome; therefore, they experienced daily success instead of feeling a failure when the goals were not achievable.

Patria, B., & Laili, L. (2021). Writing group program reduces academic procrastination: a quasi-experimental study.  BMC Psychology ,  9 (1), 1–157. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-021-00665-9

1 The promotion of awareness of the tension between core qualities and ideals, and inner obstacles, in particular limiting thoughts, in combination with guidelines for overcoming the tension by being aware of one’s ideals and character strengths is characteristic of the core reflection approach and appears to have a strong potential for diminishing academic procrastination behavior. 2 These results make clear that a positive psychological approach focusing on strengths can be beneficial for diminishing students’ academic procrastination. 3 In particular, supporting and regenerating character strengths can be an effective approach for overcoming academic procrastination.

Visser, L., Schoonenboom, J., & Korthagen, F. A. J. (2017). A Field Experimental Design of a Strengths-Based Training to Overcome Academic Procrastination: Short- and Long-Term Effect. Frontiers in Psychology , 8, 1949–1949. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01949

A topical outline is another tool writers may use to organize their material. It begins as a simple list of facts gleaned from various sources and arranged by category. [4]

A topical outline might look like this:

a. fact #1/source #1

b. fact #2/source #1

a. fact #3/source #1

b. fact #4/source #2

Exercise #2

Identify relevant facts presented by the three sources in Exercise #1. Determine the relationships between them. Consider how to categorize and arrange them in order to support or extend a related concept.

Exercise #3

A word about primary sources

Primary source material is information conveyed by the author(s) of the publication. The information they use to support or extend their ideas – their source material – is secondary source material for their readers. Anything considered for inclusion in research writing should be derived from primary sources. When writers find very valuable material cited, they retrieve the original work rather than paraphrase what has already been paraphrased.

Example – Synthesis

The excerpted synthesis below is the work of Joellen E. Coryell, Maria Cinque, Monica Fedeli, Angelina Lapina Salazar, and Concetta Tino. The two primary sources they use in the paragraph were authored by Niehaus and Williams (2016), and Urban, Navarro, and Borron (2017). Because research writers are urged to only use primary sources, further investigation into the paper of Niehaus and Williams would be required in order to use their work as a source. As discussed in Identifying and deploying source material , an effective strategy in finding useful sources is to explore the references of particularly valuable articles or papers.

University Teaching in Global Times: Perspectives of Italian University Faculty on Teaching International Graduate Students

1 Other researchers (Niehaus & Williams, 2016; Urban et al., 2017) offered analyses of faculty’s experiences participating in various training programs for internationalization of their courses.  2 Niehaus and Williams (2016) studied a 4-year global faculty development program aimed at transforming faculty perspectives and internationalizing the curriculum.  3 Findings indicated that participants integrated international and comparative topics to support their learners’ development of global perspectives.  4 They worked to integrate international students’ viewpoints on research, and participants reported professional and personal gains defined by expanded professional networks of faculty members and higher standing that comes with teaching international students.  5 Similarly, Urban et al. (2017) reported findings from a training program that assisted teaching staff to internationalize their courses.  6 The program included a 12-day field trip to a different country.  7 Semi-structured interviews with faculty members, 6 years after participating in the program, affirmed updated course content, new and broader perspectives, and a supportive environment for implementing the internationalized courses and teaching activities.

Primary source:

Coryell, J. E., Cinque, M., Fedeli, M., Lapina Salazar, A., & Tino, C. (2022). University Teaching in Global Times: Perspectives of Italian University Faculty on Teaching International Graduate Students. Journal of Studies in International Education , 26(3), 369–389. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315321990749

Secondary sources:

Niehaus, E., & Williams, L. (2016). Faculty Transformation in Curriculum Transformation: The Role of Faculty Development in Campus Internationalization. Innovative Higher Education, 41(1), 59–74. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-015-9334-7

Urban, E., Navarro, M., & Borron, A. (2017). Long-term Impacts of a Faculty Development Program for the Internationalization of Curriculum in Higher Education. Journal of Agricultural Education, 58(3), 219–238. https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.2017.03219

Experienced researchers often have a strong hypothesis and search for evidence that supports or extends this. However, students often learn about their topic during the research process and formulate a hypothesis as they learn what is established in the field on their topic. Both approaches are acceptable, as is a hybrid.

Discovery phase

Researchers typically begin by paraphrasing any important facts or arguments, tracking their discoveries in a table, outline or spreadsheet. Some good examples include definitions of concepts, statistics regarding relevance, and empirical evidence about the key variables in the research question. The original source information (citations in the appropriate style and format) is as important as the content under consideration.  As shown in the model syntheses here, multiple sources often support a common finding.

Evaluation and analysis phase

A strong synthesis must demonstrate a critical analysis of the papers as well as an integration of analytical results; this is the voice of the synthesis writer, interpreting the relationships of the cited works as they are assembled. Each paper under consideration should be critically evaluated according to its relevancy to the topic and the quality of its content.

Writers first establish relationships between cited concepts and facts by continuously considering these questions:

A. Where are the similarities within each topic or subtopic?

B. Where are the differences?

C. Are the differences methodological or theoretical in nature?

The answers will produce general conclusions for each topic or subtopic as the entire group of studies relate to it.

As the material is organized logically using a grid, table or outline, the most logical order must be determined. That order might be from general to specific, sequential or chronological, or from cause to result. [5]

Review and Reinforce

Summarizing and synthesizing are key building blocks in research writing. Read with an awareness of

A. what information has been added for support;

B. what the source of that information is; and

C. how the information was incorporated (quotations or summaries) and documented (integral or parenthetical citations) into the material.

Research writing is a process itself that synthesizes new information, stylistic tendencies, and established conventions with the background knowledge of the researcher.

Media Attributions

• chameleon © Frontierofficial is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
• 5182866555_18ae623262_c © rarebeasts is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
• Adapted from Frederiksen, L., & Phelps, S. F. (2017). Literature Reviews for Education and Nursing Graduate Students . Open Textbook Library. ↵
• Andresen, M., Lazarova, M., Apospori, E., Cotton, R., Bosak, J., Dickmann, M., Kaše, R., & Smale, A. (2022). Does international work experience pay off? The relationship between international work experience, employability and career success: A 30-country, multi-industry study. Human Resource Management Journal , 32(3), 698–721. https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12423 ↵
• Adapted from DeCarlo, M. (2018). Scientific Inquiry in Social Work . Open Textbook Library. ↵
• Adapted from DeCarlo, M. (2018). Scientific Inquiry in Social Work. Open Textbook Library. ↵
• Adapted from Frederiksen, L., & Phelps, S. F. (2017). Literature Reviews for Education and Nursing Graduate Students . Open Textbook Library.   ↵

combining separate elements into a whole, generally new, result

a condensed version of a longer text

a list of sources on a particular topic, formatted in the field specific format, which includes a brief summary of each reference

a reference presenting their own data and information

reference material used and cited by a primary source

Sourcing, summarizing, and synthesizing:  Skills for effective research writing  Copyright © 2023 by Wendy L. McBride is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Holman Library

• Library Instruction

Research Guide: Citations

• Synthesizing Sources
• Citing Sources
• Quick Overview
• Plagiarism & Academic Honesty This link opens in a new window
• APA Citation Style Overview
• In-Text Citations - APA
• ARTICLES - APA Reference List
• BOOKS - APA Reference List
• ONLINE SOURCES - APA Reference List
• OTHER SOURCES - APA Reference List
• APA Formatted Paper Example
• APA Annotated Bibliography Example
• APA Verbal/Speech Citations Example
• APA Images and Visual Presentations Citations Example
• MLA Citation Style Overview
• In-Text Citations - MLA
• ARTICLES - MLA Works Cited
• BOOKS - MLA Works Cited
• ONLINE SOURCES - MLA Works Cited
• OTHER SOURCES - MLA Works Cited
• MLA Formatted Paper Example
• MLA Annotated Bibliography Example
• MLA Verbal/Speech Citation Example
• MLA Images and Visual Presentations Citations Example
• Other Citation Styles
• Citation Generator (NoodleTools)
• Get Help & Citation Workshops

Synthesize Sources in Your Essays & Presentations

Quick guide to synthesizing sources.

• Weaving it together

Click on the link above to find two formulas that can help you

•  incorporate signal phrases and verb cues to show how your sources connect with each other and with your analysis
•  structure your essay paragraphs or presentation slides to frame, cite and analyze each source

Source: "Research Synthesis" by USU Libraries , is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.

When to Quote a Source

Quote:  use someone's exact words when rewording will not do justice to the original statement, the person you are citing is a known authority, for accuracy, or for conciseness. Use quotes sparingly.

• Limit the use of direct quotes to at most, 20% of the paper (exception: papers on literary works).
• Put quotation marks around a quote.
• In APA format, quotation marks are used for quotes less than 5 lines only. 
• Indent direct quotes five or more lines (MLA), or 40+ words (APA). 
• Use ellipses (three dots...where the...words were...removed) to indicate omissions from a direct quote. Be careful to not lose context or the true meaning of the statement by omitting parts.
• indicate additions or changes with [brackets]
• Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL): Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarizing

Source: "How to Quote in Under 5 Minutes" by Scribbr , is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.

What is Paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is restating, in your own words ,  information from a source, like a conclusion or particularly important point. Always cite the source you paraphrase. A paraphrase is usually about the same length as the original.

• Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL): Paraphrase: Write It in Your Own Words
• Six Steps for Paraphrasing Material

Source: "How to Paraphrase in 5 Easy Steps" by Scribbr , is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.

Be Careful of "Accidental" Plagiarism When You Paraphrase

The most common form of “accidental” plagiarism is the result of poor paraphrasing skills . This type of “accidental” plagiarism occurs when you actually cite a source, but the amount of material you use from that source, or the overall writing style—i.e., use of words, phrases, and writing patterns—is too close to the original (without using quotation marks). Be careful about relying too much in a paper on someone else’s words or ideas. Basically, if you use too many of the same phrases or words from the original and do not use quotation marks, it is considered plagiarism even if you cite the source.

Examples of attempted paraphrasing

Original Source Excerpt

Such savvy borrowing may be lost on some educators, but others, like librarians, are catching up. “Students are finding it so easy to use these sources that they will dump them in the middle of the papers without any attribution,” says John Ruszkiewicz, an English professor at Texas. “What they don’t realize is how readily [professors] can tell the material isn’t the student’s and how easy it is for instructors to search this material on the Web” (434).

• Student Version A—Plagiarism :

Students borrowing from the Web may be lost on some educators, but some teachers and librarians are catching up. Some students use chunks of other sources right in the middle of their papers without citations. But what these students often don’t realize is how easily professors can tell the material isn’t the student’s and how the instructors can easily search and find this material on the Web too.

Explanation: This paraphrase is an example of plagiarism because the student uses many of the same phrases as the original passage and the same overall style and structure as the original author with just a few substitution words or phrases (without using any quotation marks and without citations).

• Student Version B—Attempted Paraphrase—But Still Plagiarism :

According to Mark Clayton, students borrowing from the Internet may be missed by some teachers, but others are catching it. Students find it easy to use these sources and will put them in their papers without citations or credit. However, they don’t realize that professors can tell the material isn’t the student’s and that it is easy for them to search the web and find this material too.

Explanation: his paraphrase is an example of “accidental” plagiarism because the student has combined a couple of sentences, substituted a few words, but still has used the same overall structure with minor substitutions and has given a nod to the original author with a tagline but still does not have a proper parenthetical citation anywhere in the paraphrase.

• Student Version C—Appropriate Paraphrase—NOT Plagiarism :

According to Mark Clayton's article, "A Whole Lot of Cheatin' Going On," many students are using the Internet to research sources on topics they write about, but they are using these sources in their papers without giving any credit to the original authors. Clayton also points out that teachers and librarians are figuring out what's going on and can recognize when it is not the student's own work. Furthermore, teachers can find the sources themselves on the Internet and prove that the student has plagiarized (434).

Explanation: This student has paraphrased using his or her own words and sentence constructions, and the student has accurately reflected the author's ideas and cited him correctly both with a tag and a parenthetical citation.

Content in this “Types of accidental plagiarism” section is reused with permission from Sims, Marcie.  The Write Stuff: Thinking Through Essays.  Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.

Tips for Avoiding Plagiarism

To avoid plagiarism writers must be aware of three concerns: ethical, legal, and methodological.

Every time you use another person’s words or thoughts, you have both a legal and ethical obligation to give that person (also called a source) credit. To fulfill those obligations you must know the methods by which to correctly credit that source. That means using a specific documentation style or format (the most common being MLA, APA, and Chicago Manual of Style). Thus, avoiding plagiarism starts with being aware of what it is and then taking the precautions necessary to document and cite all the sources, even if the writers just gained an insight or idea from another person.

Here are some helpful  tips:

Take careful notes and mark direct quotes and summarized ideas with the page numbers they came from.

In the process of searching for secondary sources, especially when using the Internet, you should be sure to take detailed notes about the source information of any piece you are even considering using in your paper.

Make sure to use your own words and sentence constructions and even your own style when you paraphrase or summarize the ideas of others. You still need to  credit the original source clearly to avoid plagiarism.

Many students intentionally cheat and copy ideas or words without giving credit to the original author. Some students, though, are guilty of just being unaware of the rules for citing sources or maybe even of dismissing that nagging feeling that they might be improperly using other people’s ideas. You should never try to claim lack of awareness as an excuse. Since you are in college now, as a writer, you must be responsible and scholarly and always give credit for others’ ideas or words. You are stealing someone else’s intellectual property when you plagiarize. It is a serious offence with serious consequences.

Content in this “Tips for avoiding plagiarism” section is reused with permission from Sims, Marcie.  The Write Stuff: Thinking Through Essays.  Upper Saddle River : Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.

How to Properly Summarize

Summarize:   state the main ideas of a source concisely and in your own words. Keep if brief and to the point. Always indicate the source you are summarizing. A summary is much shorter in length than the source. 

Tip: Practice explaining out loud a source you would like to summarize. 

• Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL): Summarizing
• Eight Steps for Writing a Summary
• The things they carried: War photographer marks last steps of vets at home "After decades of war reporting, photojournalist David Guttenfelder . . . teamed up with Mission 22, an advocacy campaign to raise awareness about the high rate of suicide among veterans. . . . Guttenfelder visited with five families who had lost a loved one to suicide." Photographs and podcast.
• A summary is a brief synopsis of the key points of a work. 
•  A summary is written in your own words and credits the original source.

(click on image to enlarge)

Source: Sims, Marcie. “Eight Steps for Writing a Summary.” The Write Stuff: Thinking through Essays. 2nd ed. Boston: Prentice-Hall. 2012. 330-332.  Print.

Putting it All Together

Most college-level writing - and in fact, life writing - requires you to do more than summarize and paraphrase! You also need to be able to tie it all together into your own discussion and analysis. 

Writing texts refer to this process by different names; The Write Stuff describes it as making an "ice cream sandwich" in which you wrap other's ideas and words within your own analysis. In other words, you sandwich them.

The Ice Cream Sandwich: Framing Facts and Sources

Top Cookie:

A sentence or two to introduce the point you want to make or critique

The text reference that supports your point. Be sure to put the summaries and paraphrases into a sentence of your own:

Paraphrase > plus page number (in parentheses)

Direct quote

Bottom Cookie

Interpretation and analysis

Interpretation (what is being said - define key terms when necessary)

Analysis (what the messages are and a critique of the author's ideas, writing style, or techniques)

Source" Sims, Marcie. “The Ice Cream Sandwich: Framing Facts and Sources” The Write Stuff: Thinking through Essays. 2nd ed. Boston: Prentice-Hall. 2012. 337-338. Print.

Avoid Plagairism

Plagiarism, intentional or unintentional, is a serious offense. Know how to identify it and avoid it. 

• Green River College Library: LibGuides - Academic Honesty Tutorial
• Student Code of Conduct
• Student Code of Conduct-FAQs for Students

Video Tutorial: Synthesizing Sources

Tips to Organize Your Sources

• Tip #1: Organize Your Research Process
• Tip #2: Take Notes As You Research
• Tip #3: Structure Your Essay/Presentation

Save time, make the writing process easier, and create a better essay or presentation by organizing your sources:

Use Noodle Tools to get organized

• make notes on virtual index cards!
• attach files or links to your sources
• create a to-do list
• easily create in-text and full text citations

Use My Source Chart below to get organized:

• map out all your sources in one location
• determine how your sources relate to one another and to your thesis
• gather quotes and paraphrases that you will use to support your ideas
• My Source Chart

Or of course use whatever organization method works best for YOU! 

Develop or improve your note-taking habits.

• Take notes in your own words, label things that you paraphrase and provide appropriate documentation.
• When taking notes, place direct quotations in quotation marks and provide appropriate and complete documentation.
• Make a list of the writers and viewpoints you discover in your research.
• Be careful of internet sources that may just recycle or plagiarize other sources.
• Clearly organize your notes into three categories: your ideas, your summaries of the contents of a source, and any exact wording you write or copy from a source.

Consider your basic essay/presentation structure:

• Your thesis.
• The main ideas or arguments that support your thesis. Present them in a logical order.
• Transition words, phrases and sentences which improve the flow of your paper.
• A concluding paragraph that sums up the main points

Useful Style Guides and Writing Guides

Browse the Essential Skills and Main sections of Holman Library -- 808 Call Number -- for books on incorporating sources into your research papers.

• << Previous: Citation Generator (NoodleTools)
• Next: Get Help & Citation Workshops >>
• Last Updated: Mar 6, 2024 6:56 PM
• URL: https://libguides.greenriver.edu/citations

Module 11: The Research Process—Using and Citing Sources

Synthesizing sources, learning objectives.

• Evaluate how good source synthesis and integration builds credibility

What is Synthesis?

Synthesis is the combining of two or more things to produce something new. When you read and write, you will be asked to synthesize by taking ideas from what you read and combining them to form new ideas.

Once you have analyzed the texts involved in your research and taken notes, you must turn to the task of writing your essay. The goal here is not simply to summarize your findings. Critical writing requires that you communicate your analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of those findings to your audience .

You analyze and synthesize even before you compose your first draft. In an article called, “Teaching Conventions of Academic Discourse,” Teresa Thonney outlines six standard features of academic writing. Use the list to help frame your purpose and to ensure that you are adopting the characteristics of a strong academic writer as you synthesize from various sources:

• Writers state the value of their work and announce their plan for their papers.
• Writers adopt a voice of authority.
• Writers respond to what others have said about their topic.
• Writers acknowledge that others might disagree with the position they have taken.
• Writers use academic and discipline-specific vocabulary.
• Writers emphasize evidence, often in tables, graphs, and images.

Cooking With Your Sources

Let’s return to the example of Marvin, who is working on his research assignment. Marvin already learned from the online professor that he should spend time walking with his sources (knowing where to find them) and talking  to his sources (knowing who is conversing about them and what they are saying). Now Marvin will learn the importance of cooking with his sources, or creating the right recipe for an excellent paper.

O-Prof: Let’s take a look at the third metaphor: cooking. When you cook with sources, you process them in new ways. Cooking, like writing, involves a lot of decisions. For instance, you might decide to combine ingredients in a way that keeps the full flavor and character of each ingredient.

Marvin: Kind of like chili cheese fries? I can taste the flavor of the chili, the cheese, and the fries separately.

O-Prof: Yes. But other food preparation processes can change the character of the various ingredients. You probably wouldn’t enjoy gobbling down a stick of butter, two raw eggs, a cup of flour, or a cup of sugar (well, maybe the sugar!). But if you mix these ingredients and expose them to a 375-degree temperature, chemical reactions transform them into something good to eat, like a cake.

Marvin: You’re making me hungry. But what do chili cheese fries and cakes have to do with writing?

O-Prof: Sometimes, you might use direct quotes from your sources, as if you were throwing walnuts whole into a salad. The reader will definitely “taste” your original source. Other times, you might paraphrase ideas and combine them into an intricate argument. The flavor of the original source might be more subtle in the latter case, with only your source documentation indicating where your ideas came from. In some ways, the writing assignments your professors give you are like recipes. As an apprentice writing cook, you should analyze your assignments to determine what “ingredients” (sources) to use, what “cooking processes” to follow, and what the final “dish” (paper) should look like. Let’s try a few sample assignments. Here’s one:

Assignment 1: Critique (given in a human development course)

We’ve read and studied Freud’s theory of how the human psyche develops; now it’s time to evaluate the theory. Read at least two articles that critique Freud’s theory, chosen from the list I provided in class. Then, write an essay discussing the strengths and weaknesses of Freud’s theory.

Assume you’re a student in this course. Given this assignment, how would you describe the required ingredients, processes, and product?

Marvin thinks for a minute, while chewing and swallowing a mouthful of apple.

Marvin: Let’s see if I can break it down:

Ingredients

• everything we’ve read about Freud’s theory
•  our class discussions about the theory 
• two articles of my choice taken from the list provided by the instructor

Processes : I have to read those two articles to see their criticisms of Freud’s theory. I can also review my notes from class, since we discussed various critiques. I have to think about what aspects of Freud’s theory explain human development well, and where the theory falls short—like in class, we discussed how Freud’s theory reduces human development to sexuality alone.

Product : The final essay needs to include both strengths and weaknesses of Freud’s theory. The professor didn’t specifically say this, but it’s also clear I need to incorporate some ideas from the two articles I read—otherwise why would she have assigned those articles?

O-Prof: Good. How about this one?

Assignment 3: Research Paper (given in a health and environment course)

Write a 6–8-page paper in which you explain a health problem related to water pollution (e.g., arsenic poisoning, gastrointestinal illness, skin disease, etc.). Recommend a potential  way or ways this health problem might be addressed. Be sure to cite and document the sources you use for your paper.

Ingredients : No specific guidance here, except that sources have to relate to water pollution and health. I’ve already decided I’m interested in how bottled water might help with health where there’s water pollution. I’ll have to pick a health problem and find sources about how water pollution can cause that problem. Gastrointestinal illness sounds promising. I’ll ask the reference librarian where I’d be likely to find good articles about water pollution, bottled water, and gastrointestinal illness.

Process : There’s not very specific information here about what process to use, but our conversation’s given me some ideas. I’ll use scholarly articles to find the connection between water pollution and gastrointestinal problems, and whether bottled water could prevent those problems.

Product : Obviously, my paper will explain the connection between water and gastrointestinal health. It’ll evaluate whether bottled water provides a good option in places where the water’s polluted, then give a recommendation about what people should do. The professor did say I should address any objections readers might raise—for instance, bottled water may turn out to be a good option, but it’s a lot more expensive than tap water. Finally, I’ll need to provide in-text citations and document my sources in a reference list.

O-Prof: You’re on your way. Think for a minute about these assignments. Did you notice that the “recipes” varied in their specificity?

Marvin: Yeah. The first assignment gave me very specific information about exactly what source “ingredients” to use. But in the second assignment, I had to figure it out on my own. And the processes varied, too. In the second assignment—my own assignment—I’ll have to use content from my sources to support my recommendation.

O-Prof: Different professors provide different levels of specificity in their writing assignments. If you have trouble figuring out the “recipe,” ask the professor for more information. Keep in mind that when  it comes to “cooking with sources,” no one expects you to be an executive chef the first day you get to college. Over time, you’ll become more expert at writing with sources, more able to choose and use sources on your own. 

Watch this video to learn more about the synthesis process.

Building Credibility through Source Integration

Writers are delighted when they find good sources because they know they can use those sources to make their writing stronger. Skillful integration of those sources adds to an argument’s persuasiveness but also builds the credibility of the argument and the writer.

Well-integrated sources build credibility in several ways. First, the source material adds evidence and support to your argument, making it more persuasive. Second, the signal phrase highlights the reputation and qualifications of the source, thereby adding to the source material’s credibility. Third, effective citation makes it easy for your reader to find and investigate the original source, building your credibility as a trustworthy writer. Finally, your thorough explanation of the source’s relevance to your argument demonstrates your critical thinking and reasoning , another avenue to increased credibility.

Notice in the example below how the student is able to synthesize multiple sources on the minimum wage in the United States in order to demonstrate familiarity with and respond to other voices on the topic. The writer is also able to state with authority their own perspective on the minimum wage and economic inequality based on the effective discussion and synthesis of sources.

Student Example

In the activity below, you’ll practice building your synthesis based on your analysis and thinking about other source material.

Examine the use of signal phrases, direct quotations from an outside source, citation, and explanation of relevance to consider how well the writer’s source integration builds credibility.

Synthesis, then, is the final step in the process of using sources. Good writers strive to include other voices in conversation, and they do so using direct quotes, paraphrase, and summary. The most important step, however, in integrating source material, is synthesis where we compare, contrast, and combine those other voices in order to fairly and accurately represent the existing conversation on the topic and thus to demonstrate how our ideas fit into or respond to that existing conversation.

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• Incorporating Your Sources Into Your Paper. Provided by : Boundless. Located at : https://www.boundless.com/writing/textbooks/boundless-writing-textbook/the-research-process-2/understanding-your-sources-265/understanding-your-sources-62-8498/ . Project : Boundless Writing. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Synthesizing Sources from Chapter 4 and Integrating Sources from Chapter 5: Critical Thinking, Source Evaluations, and Analyzing Academic Writing. Authored by : Denise Snee, Kristin Houlton, Nancy Heckel. Edited by Kimberly Jacobs. Located at : http://lgdata.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/docs/679/734444/Snee_2012_Research_Analysis_and_Writing.pdf . Project : Research, Analysis, and Writing. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Critical Thinking, Source Evaluations, and Analyzing Academic Writing. Authored by : Denise Snee, Kristin Houlton, Nancy Heckel. Edited by Kim Jacobs. Located at : http://digitalcommons.apus.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=epresscoursematerials . Project : Research, Analysis, and Writing. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• OWL at Excelsior College: Signal Phrases Activity. Provided by : Excelsior College OWL. Located at : http://owl.excelsior.edu/research-and-citations/drafting-and-integrating/drafting-and-integrating-signal-phrases-activity/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
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• Walk, Talk, Cook, Eat: A Guide to Using Sources. Authored by : Cynthia R. Haller. Located at : http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/writing-spaces-readings-on-writing-vol-2.pd . Project : Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Vol. 2.. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
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• Midway University
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Synthesizing information

English 101/102 research guide: synthesizing information.

• The Research Process
• Formulate a research topic
• Find information
• Find Websites
• Find Articles
• Find Print Books & E-Books
• Evaluate information
• Cite Information
• What is synthesis
• An example of sythesis
• Strategies to help you synthesize

What is synthesis?

Synthesis refers to combining multiple sources and ideas. As a scholarly writer, you will use information from multiple scholarly articles combined with your own interpretation and analysis to create new ideas. That is synthesis. Watch the brief video above for more information.

How is synthesis different from summarizing?

In a summary, you include the key points from one source and then move on and summarize another source and another in the same way. You are left with a series of separate paragraphs, one for each article. There's nothing to connect them in any way. In synthesis, you need to combine and connect the information from those multiple sources and add your own analysis. Your paragraph or paragraphs will include multiple sources and citations, as well as your own ideas and voice.

Why do I need to include synthesis?

Synthesis shows that you can:

1. Critically read what other scholars have written

2. Organize it in your own way, noting the similarities and differences of opinion

3. Add your own interpretation or new ideas to the scholarly conversation.

• Synthesis Matrix A 100-200 level matrix to help students begin thinking about synthesizing their sources.
• Advanced Synthesis Matrix A source synthesis matrix for 400 level and graduate level writing assignments.
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Source inclusion in synthesis writing: an NLP approach to understanding argumentation, sourcing, and essay quality

• Published: 11 November 2021
• Volume 36 , pages 1053–1083, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Scott Crossley   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5148-0273 1 ,
• Qian Wan 1 ,
• Laura Allen 1 &
• Danielle McNamara 1  

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Synthesis writing is widely taught across domains and serves as an important means of assessing writing ability, text comprehension, and content learning. Synthesis writing differs from other types of writing in terms of both cognitive and task demands because it requires writers to integrate information across source materials. However, little is known about how integration of source material may influence overall writing quality for synthesis tasks. This study examined approximately 900 source-based essays written in response to four different synthesis prompts which instructed writers to use information from the sources to illustrate and support their arguments and clearly indicate from which sources they were drawing (i.e., citation use). The essays were then scored by expert raters for holistic quality, argumentation, and source use/inferencing. Hand-crafted natural language processing (NLP) features and pre-existing NLP tools were used to examine semantic and keyword overlap between the essays and the source texts, plagiarism from the source texts, and instances of source citation and quoting. These variables along with text length and prompt were then used to predict essays scores. Results reported strong models for predicting human ratings that explained between 47 and 52% of the variance in scores. The results indicate that text length was the strongest predictor of score but also that more successful writers include stronger, semantically-related information from the source, provide more citations and do so later in the text, and copy less from the text. This work introduces the use of NLP techniques to assess source integration, provides details on the types of source integration used by writers, and highlights the effects of source integration on writing quality.

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In search of an effective source use pattern for writing argumentative and informative synthesis texts

Nina Vandermeulen, Brenda van den Broek, … Gert Rijlaarsdam

Automated Assessment of Quality and Coverage of Ideas in Students’ Source-Based Writing

Our initial corpus was 919 texts. We removed ten texts because participants either did not write on topic or copy and pasted the entire essay from available sources.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES R305A180261 and R305A180144) and the Office of Naval Research (N00014-20-1-2623). The deas expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of our funders.

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Crossley, S., Wan, Q., Allen, L. et al. Source inclusion in synthesis writing: an NLP approach to understanding argumentation, sourcing, and essay quality. Read Writ 36 , 1053–1083 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10221-x

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Computer Science > Programming Languages

Title: generative explanations for program synthesizers.

Abstract: Despite great advances in program synthesis techniques, they remain algorithmic black boxes. Although they guarantee that when synthesis is successful, the implementation satisfies the specification, they provide no additional information regarding how the implementation works or the manner in which the specification is realized. One possibility to answer these questions is to use large language models (LLMs) to construct human-readable explanations. Unfortunately, experiments reveal that LLMs frequently produce nonsensical or misleading explanations when applied to the unidiomatic code produced by program synthesizers. In this paper, we develop an approach to reliably augment the implementation with explanatory names. We recover fine-grained input-output data from the synthesis algorithm to enhance the prompt supplied to the LLM, and use a combination of a program verifier and a second language model to validate the proposed explanations before presenting them to the user. Together, these techniques massively improve the accuracy of the proposed names, from 24% to 79% respectively. Through a pair of small user studies, we find that users significantly prefer the explanations produced by our technique (76% of responses indicating the appropriateness of the presenting names) to the baseline (with only 2% of responses approving of the suggestions), and that the proposed names measurably help users in understanding the synthesized implementation.

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Official repo for VGen: a holistic video generation ecosystem for video generation building on diffusion models

ali-vilab/VGen

Folders and files, repository files navigation.

VGen is an open-source video synthesis codebase developed by the Tongyi Lab of Alibaba Group, featuring state-of-the-art video generative models. This repository includes implementations of the following methods:

• I2VGen-xl: High-quality image-to-video synthesis via cascaded diffusion models
• VideoComposer: Compositional Video Synthesis with Motion Controllability
• Hierarchical Spatio-temporal Decoupling for Text-to-Video Generation
• A Recipe for Scaling up Text-to-Video Generation with Text-free Videos
• InstructVideo: Instructing Video Diffusion Models with Human Feedback
• DreamVideo: Composing Your Dream Videos with Customized Subject and Motion
• VideoLCM: Video Latent Consistency Model
• Modelscope text-to-video technical report

VGen can produce high-quality videos from the input text, images, desired motion, desired subjects, and even the feedback signals provided. It also offers a variety of commonly used video generation tools such as visualization, sampling, training, inference, join training using images and videos, acceleration, and more.

• [2024.03] We release the code and model of HiGen!!
• [2024.01] The gradio demo of I2VGen-XL has been completed in HuggingFace , thanks to our colleague @ Wenmeng Zhou and @ AK for the support, and welcome to try it out.
• [2024.01] We support running the gradio app locally, thanks to our colleague @ Wenmeng Zhou for the support and @ AK for the suggestion, and welcome to have a try.
• [2024.01] The gradio demo of I2VGen-XL has been completed in Modelscope , and welcome to try it out.
• [2023.12] We have open-sourced the code and models for DreamTalk , which can produce high-quality talking head videos across diverse speaking styles using diffusion models.
• [2023.12] We release TF-T2V that can scale up existing video generation techniques using text-free videos, significantly enhancing the performance of both Modelscope-T2V and VideoComposer at the same time.
• [2023.12] We updated the codebase to support higher versions of xformer (0.0.22), torch2.0+, and removed the dependency on flash_attn.
• [2023.12] We release InstructVideo that can accept human feedback signals to improve VLDM
• [2023.12] We release the diffusion based expressive talking head generation DreamTalk
• [2023.12] We release the high-efficiency video generation method VideoLCM
• [2023.12] We release the code and model of I2VGen-XL and the ModelScope T2V
• [2023.12] We release the T2V method HiGen and customizing T2V method DreamVideo .
• [2023.12] We write an introduction document for VGen and compare I2VGen-XL with SVD.
• [2023.11] We release a high-quality I2VGen-XL model, please refer to the Webpage
• Release the technical papers and webpage of I2VGen-XL
• Release the code and pretrained models that can generate 1280x720 videos
• Release the code and models of DreamTalk that can generate expressive talking head
• Release the code and pretrained models of HumanDiff
• Release models optimized specifically for the human body and faces
• Updated version can fully maintain the ID and capture large and accurate motions simultaneously
• Release other methods and the corresponding models

Preparation

The main features of VGen are as follows:

• Expandability, allowing for easy management of your own experiments.
• Completeness, encompassing all common components for video generation.
• Excellent performance, featuring powerful pre-trained models in multiple tasks.

Installation

You also need to ensure that your system has installed the ffmpeg command. If it is not installed, you can install it using the following command:

We have provided a demo dataset that includes images and videos, along with their lists in data .

Please note that the demo images used here are for testing purposes and were not included in the training.

Clone the code

Getting started with vgen, (1) train your text-to-video model.

Executing the following command to enable distributed training is as easy as that.

In the t2v_train.yaml configuration file, you can specify the data, adjust the video-to-image ratio using frame_lens , and validate your ideas with different Diffusion settings, and so on.

• Before the training, you can download any of our open-source models for initialization. Our codebase supports custom initialization and grad_scale settings, all of which are included in the Pretrain item in yaml file.
• During the training, you can view the saved models and intermediate inference results in the workspace/experiments/t2v_train directory.

After the training is completed, you can perform inference on the model using the following command.

Then you can find the videos you generated in the workspace/experiments/test_img_01 directory. For specific configurations such as data, models, seed, etc., please refer to the t2v_infer.yaml file.

If you want to directly load our previously open-sourced Modelscope T2V model , please refer to this link .

(2) Run the I2VGen-XL model

(i) Download model and test data:

or you can also download it through HuggingFace ( https://huggingface.co/damo-vilab/i2vgen-xl ):

(ii) Run the following command:

or you can run:

The test_list_path represents the input image path and its corresponding caption. Please refer to the specific format and suggestions within demo file data/test_list_for_i2vgen.txt . test_model is the path for loading the model. In a few minutes, you can retrieve the high-definition video you wish to create from the workspace/experiments/test_list_for_i2vgen directory. At present, we find that the current model performs inadequately on anime images and images with a black background due to the lack of relevant training data. We are consistently working to optimize it.

(iii) Run the gradio app locally:

(iv) Run the model on ModelScope and HuggingFace:

• HuggingFace

Due to the compression of our video quality in GIF format, please click 'HRER' below to view the original video.

In a few minutes, you can retrieve the high-definition video you wish to create from the workspace/experiments/test_img_01 directory. At present, we find that the current model performs inadequately on anime images and images with a black background due to the lack of relevant training data. We are consistently working to optimize it.

(3) Run the HiGen model

(i) Download model:

Then you might need the following command to move the checkpoints to the "models/" directory:

(ii) Run the following command for text-to-video generation:

In a few minutes, you can retrieve the videos you wish to create from the workspace/experiments/text_list_for_t2v_share directory. Then you can execute the following command to perform super-resolution on the generated videos:

Finally, you can retrieve the high-definition video from the workspace/experiments/text_list_for_t2v_share directory.

Due to the compression of our video quality in GIF format, please click 'HERE' below to view the original video.

(4) Other methods

In preparation!!

Customize your own approach

Our codebase essentially supports all the commonly used components in video generation. You can manage your experiments flexibly by adding corresponding registration classes, including ENGINE, MODEL, DATASETS, EMBEDDER, AUTO_ENCODER, VISUAL, DIFFUSION, PRETRAIN , and can be compatible with all our open-source algorithms according to your own needs. If you have any questions, feel free to give us your feedback at any time.

If this repo is useful to you, please cite our corresponding technical paper.

Acknowledgement

We would like to express our gratitude for the contributions of several previous works to the development of VGen. This includes, but is not limited to Composer , ModelScopeT2V , Stable Diffusion , OpenCLIP , WebVid-10M , LAION-400M , Pidinet and MiDaS . We are committed to building upon these foundations in a way that respects their original contributions.

This open-source model is trained with using WebVid-10M and LAION-400M datasets and is intended for RESEARCH/NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY .

Contributors 6

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