Synthesizing Information

Introduction

Many assignments require you to synthesize information you find from different sources in the course of your research. Synthesizing information involves combining what you've learned from reading various sources to form new conclusions about a particular topic. In this tutorial, you will familiarize yourself with how to:

• Incorporate information synthesis in steps throughout your research process.

• Apply the principles of information synthesis.

Synthesizing Information

While synthesizing information might sound intimidating, it's actually something you do constantly. Essentially, synthesizing information means that you take one thing you know and explore how it relates to another thing you know or are learning. For example, you might apply knowledge from an introductory class to a more advanced class on a similar topic. Or you may have information or interests in your personal life that inform your choice of a research topic, which also is synthesizing information.

Synthesizing Information as a Process

No matter what your research assignment, you likely will have several steps throughout the process where you must gather information and begin to make sense of how it all works together. You don't need to have an immediate idea of how your sources fit together when you first begin researching your topic. There are many stages throughout the research process that enable you to build connections between sources and realize how the pieces of knowledge you are gathering relate to one another. By being conscientious during these earlier steps, you will be in a strong position to synthesize the information in your final paper clearly and thoughtfully.

Steps Toward Synthesis

Background Research

As you perform background research to narrow down your topic, you will see ideas emerge. You might start drawing connections between these ideas and other prior knowledge you have.

When these connections arise in your thinking, take a minute to write them down in your notes, even if they are skeletal. Ideas that come up early in your research often can be fleshed out and make valuable contributions to your paper once you have completed more research. A concept map is a helpful way to organize these connections. Remember, a concept map is a visual organizer where related terms and ideas are written in bubbles and linked together.

Early Research

Even after choosing a topic in the early stages of your research process, you may still have to work out which ideas should become the focus of your paper. You might not feel like you're doing much in the way of analysis or synthesis yet. But setting up your research process in an organized and thoughtful way, even at the outset, will greatly ease your ability to perform a successful synthesis of concepts later on. One way to do this is by taking effective notes.

Note Taking

Taking good notes from the very beginning of your research process is crucial to your final results. Once you've reviewed more sources, you will notice common themes emerging and connections you'll want to make in your paper. This is when your notes will come in handy. When you review what you learned from your early sources, you'll be able to skim over the themes and main ideas you noticed early on, and easily connect them to information you gathered later.

Annotated Bibliographies

As a part of your research process, you may be asked to create an annotated bibliography. An annotated bibliography is list of the sources you plan to consult for your research paper that contains both the full citation for each source as well as a note, or annotation, about it.

Outlining

Often, you will be required to create an outline for a paper before you produce a fully polished draft. Even if you are not required to do so, it is wise to create one anyway. Outlining is a practical way to organize your research and an important early step toward synthesizing your ideas in a thoughtful and logical order.

Divide Paper by Topics

While there are different ways to organize an outline, it often makes sense to divide it by your paper's topic, subtopics, or arguments. In each section of your outline, note points that will make up that portion of your paper. These points often come from a number of different sources. By creating an outline based on your notes, you can recognize how the variety of sources you found might work together to support a claim you are making.

Writing Techniques

In addition to the steps in the research process that will help you synthesize information, certain writing techniques will aid you as well. Paraphrasing, quoting, and summarizing allow you to smoothly and clearly synthesize your sources, and help the organization and flow of your paper.

Products of Synthesis

Some research assignments explicitly may ask you to synthesize information, while others may not. But any time you must use multiple sources to create an argument or explore an idea, essentially you are being asked to synthesize the information you find in those sources to form your own conclusions. The types of sources you gather and the way you synthesize what you find will vary by assignment. Let's take a look at some common papers you may be asked to write, and what information synthesis looks like in each case.

Literature Review

A literature review is a common paper type in the sciences and social sciences. In a literature review, you will be asked to describe and summarize the current scholarship in a specific field on a particular topic. To write a literature review, you would gather primary research on your chosen topic. You might divide your paper to focus on a variety of areas, study methodologies, different study focuses, or results across the various sources you review. For example, you may write a literature review for an environmental science class summarizing current scholarship on the topic of preventive efforts against invasive insect species. You would survey recent scholarship on the subject and, based on your assignment's requirements, select an order and strategy for your analysis.

Historical Research Paper

If you are taking a history course, you may need to write a paper using a combination of historical primary and secondary sources. You also may need to write a similar paper in other areas of the humanities, such as art history or religious studies. When doing historical research, you often will be synthesizing material from original (primary) sources created during the time period you are studying, with scholarship written about that period after the fact. In combining what you learn from primary and secondary sources, you are synthesizing information. For example, you might use letters from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, combined with scholarly books about their relationship, to write a research paper on the creation of the Declaration of Independence.

Literary Criticism or Analysis

Another type of paper is a literary analysis. You may find yourself with this sort of assignment if you are taking an English or language course. For this type of assignment, you could be asked to analyze a particular work of literature, using various techniques and methods of criticism. You will be synthesizing information by merging other scholars' analysis that either touches on this work specifically, or on works by the same author of a similar genre, to inform your analysis. For example, you might choose to incorporate feminist theory to analyze a novel written by Virginia Woolf.

Persuasive Essay

In some courses, such as a class with a focus on current events, you may be asked to write a persuasive essay arguing an issue. For papers in this style, you will build your argument by synthesizing evidence and ideas from multiples sources related to your chosen issue. For example, if you are writing a persuasive essay arguing in favor of federal funding for the arts, you might combine evidence such as statistics about outcomes for children educated in the arts, or anecdotes about the quality of life in communities with cultural opportunities.