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 fields of study, in order to both summarize these ideas and use them to support and develop your ideas. This can help establish your understanding of the complexity of the issue, 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 something that draws on information from multiple sources, such as a research essay or report. As a professional, you might combine information from various sources to understand a problem and recommend a solution to a workplace problem. Synthesis, as a rhetorical move, allows you to “borrow” credibility and logical support from reliable research 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 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. This approach will provide you with a 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 entails a number of specific rhetorical “moves” that you might use, depending on your purpose. Scheidt and Middleton^[1] identify 5 rhetorical moves that authors use when incorporating ideas from other authors (inform, explain, react, develop, and connect)  and they explain why you might use them:

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. You might note that the sources have something significant to say, or you might be providing an in-depth explanation with help from the source, using the source to help you establish a framework and do argumentative or rhetorical work.

REACT: you might take a position in relation to the source and react to the source’s ideas. You might use a source that you don’t quite agree with to exemplify a common misunderstanding or 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. You might apply them to a new situation, take them in a slightly new direction, or explore them in more depth.

CONNECT: you might make connections between two (or more) texts or two (or more) authors to show how ideas relate to each other in a broader context, show 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 the gaps are.

Applying Synthesis Moves

When what you are writing requires research — say a research essay for school or business proposal for work — you might synthesize information from sources, applying the inform, explain, react, develop, and connect strategies, in 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. You will need to include data that helps 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 are addressing.

Validating and Supporting: use sources to help you support your claims and validate your solution idea. Sources might 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; user experience research to show that your design is “user-friendly” and accessible; 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 look at 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 addressing their concerns. In some cases, you might need to concede that they have some good arguments that need to be further considered or researched. This also bolsters your credibility as a person 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 research essay.

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 being used by the author as the focus of your analysis, or when the author has stated something in such a way that you really cannot improve on or condense effectively. Quotations should generally be used sparingly because too many quotations can interfere with the flow of ideas and make it seem like you don’t have enough ideas of your own. Quotations must be carefully contextualized both argumentatively and grammatically.

CONTEXT: A quotation, statistic or bit of data generally does not speak for itself; you must provide context and an explanation for quotations you use. Essentially, you should 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 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 a complete clause ending in a colon, and use the quoted material to explain or exemplify the idea in your introductory 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 the ellipses. Three dots indicate that some 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.

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:

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 of simply paraphrasing instead of trying to quote.

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 concisely. Both paraphrase and summary requires you to read the source carefully, understand it, and then rewrite the idea in your own words to avoid “patchwriting.” Using these forms of integration 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 that when paraphrased 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, are condensations of large chunks of text, so they are much shorter than the original and capture only the main ideas. A summary of the above excerpt might look like this:

Using Signal Phrases

Verbs like says, writes, talks about, or discusses tend to be over-used to signal a quotation and are vague in that they do not 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 information about the rhetorical “move” the author is making than verbs like “says” or “writes” or “discusses.”