Question

Some literature reviews read as "book reports" that simply provide a string of summaries of the articles reviewed. How is synthesis different than summarizing? How does developing and employing the skill of synthesis improve the quality of the literature review? Explain in 150 words or more.

Answer 1

Answer:

The major difference between synthesis and summarizing is one is relating the most important points in a text, whereas the other is pulling together the most important points from the literature that moves beyond what’s stated by the author. Synthesizing is a skill that combines two or more sources to form a new whole. The quality of the literature review depends on how much the researcher has studied various sources related to the research topic. When writing the literature review, the researchers come across different articles and other sources, but find it difficult to use the sources in their researches. The skill of synthesizing helps the researchers to integrate multiple resources, describe, summarize, analyze, and identify key concepts to address the research questions. Apart from that, the skill of synthesis helps the researchers to compare and contrast, critically evaluate, interpret, and draw the conclusion from the sources to improve the quality of the literature review.