Synthesis
Selecting Your Sources
Examine your collection of sources.
- How do they work together?
- What do these sources add to the topic?
- Can an argument be made using all of them together?
- What order would you put them in?
Avoid just writing summaries of each of your sources. This is like making a fruit salad, with all the pieces of fruit in the same bowl, but still separate pieces.
Instead work to synthesize your sources which is like making a smoothie, where you blend it up to create something new: your interpretation of what all this information means together.
Dahlen, S., 2022
Synthesis Table
To help synthesize information from all of your sources, it may be useful to create a table.
Put one source per column and one theme per row. In each cell, put a short summary of what each source had to say about each theme. Some cells may be blank if that source didn't address one of the themes.
For example, if your research question was "Which animals make the best pets?", your table might look like this:
| Garfield, 2019 | Lassie, 2022 | Mickey, 2020 | |
| Dogs | Dogs are co-dependent | Dogs are loyal | |
| Cats | Cats are discerning | Cats are jerks | Cats are terrifying |
| Mice | Mice are delicious | Mice are swell |