Writing an Explanatory Synthesis

Bayu Kristianto
SYNTHESIS

In an academic synthesis – you

make explicit the relationships that
you have inferred among separate
sources.
Writing a Synthesis

• Your ability to write syntheses depends on your ability to

infer relationships among sources – essays, articles, and
the like.

• Sometimes this process can be tricky. For instance, you

have read three articles – A, B, and C. Now you have to
decide the relationship among them.

Is the information in A an extended example of the

generalization in C? Would it be useful to compare and
contrast A with B? Having read and considered A, B, and
C, can you infer something else – D?
Writing a Synthesis

• Based on a synthesis on two or more

sources, be SELECTIVE when choosing
information from each by considering the
purpose of your essay.

• Your purpose of reading the sources and

selecting ideas and information from them
is often reflected in the wording of an
assignment.
Writing a Synthesis

• Look at the following assignments on the U.S. Civil War:

- American History = Evaluate your text authors’ treatment of the origins of the
Civil War. ( discuss ideas from different sources and evaluate them)

- Economics = Argue the following proposition in light of your readings: “The

Civil War was not fought for reasons of moral principles but for reasons of
economic necessity.” ( write an argumentative synthesis)

- Mass Communication = Discuss how the use of photography during the Civil
War may have affected the perceptions of the war by Northerners living in
industrial cities. ( write an explanatory synthesis)

- Military History = Compare and contrast the technology of warfare in the

1860s with the technology available a century earlier. ( synthesize from
different sources to compare and contrast)
Writing a Synthesis

• Each of those assignments creates for you a

particular purpose for writing.

• Having located sources relevant to your

topic, you would select only those parts
which helped you in fulfilling this purpose.

• How you used those parts, how you related

them to material from other sources, would
depend on your purpose.
Purposes of a Synthesis

• To draw a cause-and-effect relationship

• To compare and contrast
• To argue a proposition / To develop an
argument
• To describe / explain / inform
• To analyze and evaluate, etc.
Two Main Types of Synthesis

• Explanatory synthesis –
primarily to convey
information

• Argument synthesis –
primarily to convey an opinion
Source: (A Sequence for Academic Writing, by Laurence
Behrens, et al, p. 138)
Creating Relationships

Determine not only what parts of

your sources you will use but also
how you will relate them to one
another. Some relationships among
the material in your sources must
make them worth synthesizing.
(Sequence, p. 136).
 Identifying the Primary Purpose

• Explanatory and argumentative writing are

not mutually exclusive.
exclusive (Sequence, p. 139)

• The varying purposes in writing do overlap –

it is possible and useful, however, to identify
the primary purpose in each piece of writing –
informative / explanatory and persuasive /
argumentative. (Sequence, p. 140)
The 12 steps in writing a synthesis

1. Consider your purpose in writing

2. Select and carefully read your sources
3. Take notes in your reading
4. Identify the connections between/among the sources
5. Identify topics from the sources that will be discussed
in your synthesis
6. Formulate a thesis statement that encompasses all the
sources
7. Decide how you will use your source material
8. Develop an organizational plan
9. Draft the topic sentences for the body paragraphs
10. Write the first draft
11. Document your sources
12. Revise your synthesis
Developing an Organizational Plan and Topic Sentences

• The writing of syntheses is a recursive process,

process and you
should accept a certain amount of backtracking and
reformulating as inevitable. (Sequence, p. 143)

• After formulating a thesis – develop an organizational plan

based on the grouping (i.e. categories) of ideas from your
sources. (See Sequence, p. 154)

• Then develop a topic sentence for each category of ideas.

When read in sequence, these topic sentences will give an
idea of the progression of your synthesis essay as a whole.
(See Sequence, pp. 154-155)
Explanatory Synthesis
(From PRISM 4, Unit 5, p. 128)

• An explanatory synthesis = similar to a summary  it directly

reports the content of another source.

• As in a summary, you choose the most important information

in the source texts and paraphrase it. In a synthesis, however,
you must weave the information in the sources together to
make a coherent new text.
text

• Because you are reporting the work of other writers, you will
not make a claim based on your own views. However, you will
still need a THESIS STATEMENT to give your readers an
idea about the content of your essay.

• Use a T-chart to help you gather and organize your ideas.