Think of Photosynthesis

When writing a literature review, we must do more than just report what different studies have found. As researchers, we need to find the similarities and differences among our sources and then discuss how those findings relate to our proposed study. We call that process “synthesis.”

Synthesis is the process of analyzing and interpreting separate streams of information in order to communicate the ideas in a new form. 

To understand synthesis in writing, think of photosynthesis that you learned about in grade school. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants transform diverse resources (sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide) into new elements (oxygen and sugar). When we synthesize sources in writing, we combine and interpret information from multiple sources in order to transform them into a conclusion for the reader.

Questions to Generate Synthesis

After answering the focusing questions in Chapter 11, you’ll have written pages of information for each RQ section. You need to synthesize that collected information. Look at everything you’ve written for an RQ Section and search for patterns, agreement, disagreement, and gaps in the research. An easy way to do this is to answer the following questions. As you answer a question, you will automatically synthesize information.

• Which studies have results that are similar to each other?
  • On what key points do they agree?
  • How does that agreement have relevance for your study?
• Which studies have conflicting results?
  • On what points do they disagree?
  • How does that disagreement have relevance for your study?
  • On what points do they agree?
• Why and how do past studies still relate to your current study even though times and conditions have changed?
• Why might past studies not apply to your current study because the times and conditions have changed. (For example, in past studies about mobile phones, participants complained about tiny dark screens. That is no longer a concern with contemporary smartphones, so that change in testing conditions could be mentioned.)
• What research do you want to see that doesn’t exist? That’s called a “research gap.”
• What trends or patterns do you see in the studies that you’ve read? How do the trends or patterns relate to your study?

Synthesis Examples

Synthesis can take different forms. When writing, consider the following synthesis strategies.

Example 1: Synthesize similarities 

Several researchers suggest that an online student’s testing environment has a greater influence on test performance than the type of device used to take the test (Smith, 2015; Traxler, 2009; Green et al., 2020).

In Example 1 above, notice how multiple sources are cited together. By identifying a common point in three different sources, the author shows how the sources agree on that point. This provides better context for the reader than if the individual findings were discussed independently.

Example 2: Contrasting differences

Often m-learning definitions have centered on the type of device used in learning, including laptops (e.g., Wurst & Gaffney, 2008), PDAs (e.g., Chen et al., 2003), tablets (e.g., Sung & Mayer, 2013), cell phones (e.g., Thornton & Houser, 2005), and smartphones (e.g., Vasquez-Cano, 2014). 

In Example 2, sources are synthesized to show their differences. Bringing five diverse examples into one sentence makes the point more effectively than if readers had to gather these definitions from five locations throughout the literature review.

Example 3: Synthesizing to explain

Distance educator’s have always sought to provide learning at a student’s convenience. Now m-learning allows educators to offer anytime, anywhere access (Ally, 2009; Gebb & Young, 2014) through a learning management system, which is known as an LMS (Crescente & Lee, 2017).

In Example 3, the writer synthesizes several sources to explain a point in two flowing sentences. The first sentence and the start of the second sentence come from the first two sources. The end of the second sentence comes from a third source. By synthesizing three sources into two sentences, the writer makes a point clearly and concisely.

Example 4: Exposing research gaps 

Wood (2006) contends that most literature about accreditation focuses primarily on the product of accreditation rather than the process. The literature cited in this review supports Wood’s claim. Of the eight reviewed sources that discuss accreditation (e.g., Brittingham, 2008), only one researcher (Wood, 2006), gives recommendations for writing an accreditation self study.

In Example 4, the writer compares and contrasts various sources to see what the sources say about the topic to be studied. As a result, the writer identifies where research is lacking.

Regarding style, notice that the second citation uses “e.g.,” which is the latin abbreviation for “for example.” The writer cites a sample source rather than listing all eight sources. Providing one example sufficiently makes the point.

Example 5: Justifying research design

This research project will allow participants to use their own smartphones for two reasons. First, students generally want to learn on their own mobile devices (Bradley et al., 2009). Second, having students use their own smartphones may make these results more generalizable (Gedik, et al., 2012). 

In Example 5, the author synthesizes sources to show how other studies have helped shape the design of the current study. This use of synthesis illustrates the primary goal of a literature review. As researchers, we look for guidance from other studies, and we then transform that information into our own approach that fits our unique research situation.