Summarizing and Synthesizing Information for Your Literature Review

by

Dr. Tracy L. Jackson, PhD, MSW

Your literature review is probably the most important chapter in your dissertation. The literature review establishes the research problem, significance of your study and it helps you build your research questions and methodology. Students become at a loss when trying to figure out how to summarize and synthesize all the information gathered to produce a scholarly written literature review. The purpose of this article is to help clarify what it means to summarize and synthesize the information you have gathered for your literature review.

Start by collecting research articles related to the research topic. Read the articles and note if a thematic pattern reveals itself. A thematic pattern may include asking and answering the following questions. Does much or all of the research agree? Which studies finding disagree with other studies on the same topic? Is there a gap in the literature concerning associated with this topic? Is more focus research needed on this topic?

Next, you will need to do both a summary and synthesis of information pertaining to a chosen research topic. As a summary, it is merely retelling what the published information has to point out about a topic. However, as a synthesis of information a literature review goes beyond retelling what the data points out and pulls the research together and puts it in a clear voice of the author. It is important to understand that a literature review requires both synthesis and summary to be considered well written. A summary adds nothing and takes away nothing from the information, but reiterates what the study is about. Summary is important in a literature review because some research may be foreign to the writer because of limited exposure to the researched subject matter. A summary helps a writer develop an understanding of the subject matter. Once that understanding is developed the writer becomes up to date hopefully with current knowledge.

The application of knowledge is demonstrated when synthesis is added into the literature review. While summary details what a study is about, synthesis pulls several sources together and explains through the writers words what his interpretation of the data means to the writer in his own voice.For example, you have five research studies and they all point to the same conclusion. Through your synthesis of the studies, you will express that conclusion. Neither summary nor synthesis adds any new theory or inference to the scientific, social, or medical discussion. The summary and synthesis pull all arguments together to update or inform other professionals reading the literature review.