Purpose of Synthesis: A Follow-Up Note To Students

Why do you need to synthesize sources when writing in academics? What is the purpose? Well.. the answer to that varies. For some classes you will  be asked to compare articles or theories in order to show your critical thinking skills. For others of you, you will need to collect many sources in order to write the introduction of your research paper before you talk about your study. Regardless of the task, synthesis has one main point: It should teach the reader something. 

Synthesis does not mean simply stating that one study is different than another or that this one article talks about something while the other talks about something else. That doesn't really teach us any new information about our topic. We synthesizes sources because they have different pieces of information that when put together give our readers a more complete picture of the topic we are discussing. 

Many of you will be asked to do this task in other classes. Remember this principle and keep it in mind as you try to integrate your sources into your papers.