Synthesizing Sources

Synthesizing sources is arguably the most important writing move you will use in both academic and professional context. Where summarizing involves accurately conveying the main points from a source in condensed form, synthesis entails combining ideas and research from a variety of perspectives, voices, and perhaps even disciplines to  develop and support your own position.

Synthesizing information from a range of sources helps to establish your understanding of an issue’s complexity, determine your own perspective on this issue, and join the “scholarly conversation.” If you’ve read a literature review or a meta-analysis, then you have seen synthesis in action. If you have checked several online restaurant reviews so that you can recommend the best Chicken Vindaloo in town to your visiting friend, you have engaged in a kind of source synthesis.

As a student, you will engage in synthesis when writing a research essay or report that draws on information from multiple sources. As a professional, you may be required to combine information from various sources to understand a workplace problem and recommend a solution. Synthesis, as a rhetorical move, allows you to “borrow” credibility and logical support from a range of reliable sources, to help you convince your reader to accept your position as valid. However, that does not necessarily mean that all of the sources you use will “agree” with or directly support your perspective.

You might, for example, consult sources that offer a range of approaches to a topic to establish a consensus among experts, or they might indicate what controversies and diverging approaches exist in the literature. You should avoid “cherry picking”, that is, only using sources that directly support your claims; look for a representative sample of sources that allow you to examine and include diverging viewpoints and potentially conflicting research. Taking a broad-ranging approach will provide you with a more in-depth, nuanced, and sophisticated understanding of the complexity of the issue you are writing about. It also might allow you to see where “gaps” exist in the current knowledge and research, providing a potential “springboard” for your own research or approach.

Synthesis “Moves”

Synthesizing source material for use within your own writing entails a number of specific rhetorical “moves” that you might apply, depending on your purpose. Scheidt and Middleton^[1] identify 5 rhetorical moves that authors tend to use when incorporating ideas from other authors (inform, explain, react, develop, and connect)  and they explain why, where, and how you might use these moves in your own writing:

INFORM: you might refer to specific information, facts, definitions, etc., from respected sources to simply provide reliable information and background context that your reader will find credible.

EXPLAIN: you might summarize, paraphrase, or integrate quotations from a source in a way that moves beyond merely presenting facts. For example, you might explain that the sources have something significant to say, or note that they challenge other interpretations, thereby using the source to help you establish an argumentative framework.

REACT: you might take a position in relation to the source and actively respond to the source’s ideas. You might use a source that you don’t quite agree with to exemplify a common misunderstanding or to set up your alternative perspective; or you might express your reaction by noting that the source ideas are “surprising” or “shocking.”

DEVELOP: you might build upon or analyze ideas from the sources. For instance, you might apply a source idea or theory to a new situation, take the ideas in a slightly new direction, or explore them in more depth.

CONNECT: you might make connections between two (or more) texts or authors to show how ideas relate to each other in a broader context, demonstrate a variety of perspectives, or engage in compare and contrast.

Examining these excerpts, you might note that Rathje informs the reader about the study, explains the study’s methodology and findings, reacts to the results (“one of the most remarkable things…”), and connects it to his overall thesis. (Note that this passage does not include in-text citations, because it is published in an online newspaper, not in an academic journal.) The authors of the second passage (from an academic article) use synthesis to explain, develop and connect ideas from several other sources in order to set up their own contribution to the scholarly conversation by noting where gaps in the current research exist.

Applying Synthesis Moves

When your writing requires research — say a research essay for school or business proposal for work — you will likely synthesize information from a range of sources, applying the rhetorical moves of informing, explaining, reacting, developing, and connecting, in any of the following ways:

In the Introduction: use sources to establish the background information and context necessary to understand your purpose and the “controversy” or “problem” you are addressing. This might take the form of a Literature Review. You will need to cite data to create a justification for your research — in other words,  to help establish why this issue needs to be addressed, what current impacts are occurring, and who is directly or indirectly impacted.

Defining your Scope: use sources to justify the approach or framework you are using and the limitations you are applying to your project. For example, you might explain how other researchers have approached the problem, what frameworks or heuristics they have used, how similar solutions have been implemented, demographic data about users or other relevant parties, and how you have determined objectives and constraints for the problem you wish to address.

Validating and Supporting: use sources to help you support your claims and validate your solution idea. Sources can help you justify specific design features and principles, and convince your reader that your proposed idea will provide measurable benefits. You might include research on similar designs to prove your design is feasible; refer to user experience research to show that your design is “user-friendly” and accessible; introduce sustainability research to show that your design will not have negative environmental impacts; and so on.

Addressing Opposition: depending on context, you may need to examine sources that might disagree with your approach or oppose your solution idea. The more you understand why someone might oppose your idea, the stronger you can make your case by directlly addressing and “answering” their concerns either by rebuttal or concession. Conceding that they have some good arguments that merit further consideration or research bolsters your credibility as a person — a researcher — who is open to seeing other perspectives and not blindly following only one idea.

You might use a chart like the one below to brainstorm specific ways that you might use your secondary sources to support, develop, explain, diverge from or connect ideas in your writing.

Integrating Sources Using Quotation, Paraphrase and Summary

Integrating the words and ideas of others coherently and fluently into your own writing can be challenging from a grammatical and structural perspective. Structurally, there are three main ways of integrating source material: quoting directly, paraphrasing, and summarizing. Each of these methods had a set of conventions you should follow.

Quoting Sources

Direct quotations are useful when you want to call attention to the specific words or style of language used by the author (for example in a literature essay or rhetorical analysis), or when the author has stated something in such a striking way that you really cannot improve on or condense effectively. Still, quotations should generally be used sparingly. Overuse can interfere with the flow of the argument and make it seem like you don’t have enough ideas of your own. Relying too heavily on quotations can seem like you aren’t fully capable of expressing a source’s ideas in your own words. Therefore, quotations should be judiciously selected – not just sprinkled throughout – and carefully contextualized both argumentatively and grammatically

CONTEXT: A quotation, statistic or bit of data generally does not speak for itself; you must provide context that clearly explains why you have included it and its relevance to your argument. Essentially, aim to create a “quotation sandwich” where you

• Introduce the the context (the idea that the quotation will support)
• Quote (and cite)
• Explain how the quoted information supports your idea.

GRAMMAR: quoted words and phrases must also integrated grammatically with your own so that information flows logically and coherently. There are three main methods to integrate quotations grammatically:

• Seamless Integration Method: embed the quoted words as if they were an organic part of your sentence (if you read the sentence aloud, your listeners would not know there was a quotation).
• Signal Phrase Method: use a signal phrase (Author + Verb) to introduce the quotation, clearly indicating that the quotation comes from a specific source
• Colon Method: introduce the quotation with an independent clause (a statement that reads like a complete sentence), end the clause with a colon, and then insert the quoted material to explain, illustrate, or exemplify the idea in your opening clause.

Editing Quotations

Placing quotation marks around material indicates that these are the exact words of the original author. However, sometimes the text you want to quote will not fit grammatically or clearly into your sentence without making some changes. Perhaps you need to replace a pronoun in the quote with the actual noun to make the context clear, or perhaps the verb tense does not fit. There are two main ways that you can edit a quotation to make it fit grammatically with your own sentence:

Use square brackets: to reflect changes or additions to a quote, place square brackets [like this] around any words that you have changed or added.

Use ellipses (3 dots): to show that some text has been removed, use an ellipses. Three dots indicate that one or more words have been removed from the sentence; 4 dots indicate that a substantial amount of text has been deleted, including the period at the end of a sentence.

Here is a sample excerpt from Henry Petroski’s “The Obligation of an Engineer,” followed by examples of how you might edit quoted material to suit your needs.

To reiterate: when directly quoting a source, you are allowed to change the original words or cut some material, but only if you signal those changes appropriately with square brackets or ellipses, as the following examples illustrate:

Example 1:  Petroski asserts that while “[e]ngineers are always striving for success… failure is seldom far from their minds” [3; p. 175].

Example 2:  Petroski recounts the story of a large bridge that was constructed at the beginning of the twentieth century in Quebec, asserting that “by the time [it was done], in 1917, almost ninety construction workers [were] killed in the course of building the $25 million structure” [3; p. 175].

Example 3:  “Planners expected that when completed the … bridge would set a world record for long-span bridges of all types” [3; p. 175].

If you find that you have to incorporate a lot of square brackets and ellipses to make the quotation work, you might be better off simply paraphrasing instead of trying to quote. The goal is to maintain the integrity of the original quote whenever possible.

Paraphrasing and Summarizing

Instead of using direct quotations, which can become cumbersome, you can paraphrase and summarize evidence to integrate it into your argument more smoothly and concisely. Both paraphrase and summary requires you to read the source carefully, understand it fully, and then rewrite the key content in your own words. Above all, avoid relying too heavily on the orginal wording, as this qualifies as“patchwriting,” which is a breach of academic integrity.

Using summary and paraphrase effectively demonstrates your understanding of the source, because rephrasing requires a good grasp of the core ideas. Paraphrasing and summarizing also makes integrating someone else’s ideas into your own sentences and paragraphs a little easier, as you do not have to merge their grammar and writing style with your own.

Paraphrase and summary differ in that paraphrases focuses on a smaller, specific section of text (a few sentences or paragraphs at most) that when reworded may be close to the length of the original. For example, you might paraphrase a concluding portion of the Petroski excerpt above like this:

Summaries, on the other hand, provide condensations of large chunks of text — perhaps a long section of an article, or even the entire text. As a result, they are much shorter than the original, capturing only the key ideas. A summary of Petroski’s entire excerpt above might look like this:

Using Signal Phrases

Signal phrases are useful for introducing information integrated from a source, usually via some kind of signalling verb. When introducing sources, purposeful verbs work best. Verbs like says, writes, talks about, or discusses tend to be overly general and vague: they do not provide  provide much information about the rhetorical purpose of the author. Consider using more rhetorically descriptive verbs when signalling that you are integrating the words or ideas of a source. For example, is the author explaining something? Arguing a point? Providing examples? Estimating? Recommending? Warning or urging the reader? Choose a verb that accurately represents the author’s intent.

The list of signal verbs below offers suggestions for introducing quoted, paraphrased, and summarized material that convey more specific information about the rhetorical “move” the author is making than verbs like “says” or “writes” or “discusses.”