Synthesis Essay
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RTG 391 Writing Assignment 3 Latest-UMUC
WRTG391
WRTG 391 Writing Assignment 3 Latest-UMUC
Writing Assignment #3
Synthesis Essay
(Sometimes called a Literature Review)
Writing Assignment #3 will be a synthesis
essay, a format that is sometimes referred to as a literature review.
Please click here for a video that briefly
describes and outlines this writing assignment.
Organization:
Your synthesis essay should be organized in
the following manner:
- Introduction: Write one or two paragraphs in which you
introduce the reader to your topic.
- Body-the categories into which you are dividing the
literature: Divide your sources into a few categories. A suggestion is
that you divide them into three to five categories.
- Conclusion: Summarize what the literature says on your
topic.
Approach:
This semester, you have constructed a table of
research findings of four articles that discussed research studies.
You have also critically evaluated several
articles in the annotated bibliography. In this assignment you will synthesize
the ideas of several authors in a synthesis essay, or literature review.
For your annotated bibliography, you selected
a topic based on your interests and, possibly, your major. You constructed a
list of 12 references and summarized and critically analyzed them in 150-200
words each.
Through this process, you may have seen
patterns in the scholarly literature in the topic on which you conducted
research. For example, consider the following examples:
- You may have researched studies in criminal justice and
found that there are varying opinions on how to respond to criminal
behavior among youth.
- You may have researched studies in psychology and found
that counseling strategies for victims of domestic abuse tend to fall into
four categories.
- You may have researched graphic communications and
discovered that the integration of graphics in business report writing has
evolved from the 1970s to the present because of advancements in
technology.
- You may have researched articles on gerontology and
found studies that answered three basic questions on how older adults
respond to training for physical performance.
In the synthesis essay, you will focus your
research efforts in a particular area, perhaps as a response to what you found
while writing the annotated bibliography. You will then conduct more research
and synthesize your findings in this synthesis essay.
Please note that the annotated bibliography
was the beginning, not the end, of your research. You might decide to disregard
several of the articles you analyzed in the critical annotated bibliography
because they don’t speak to the specific area on which you have decided to
write your synthesis essay. You might select one article that you analyzed in
the critical annotated bibliography, look up the articles cited in that
article, and “snowball” your research in that way.
In other words, this process is a recursive
one. You might find reasons to hone in on and narrow your topic even further
after you have written the annotated bibliography.
How to organize the synthesis essay:
When you have focused on your topic, determine
how you will divide the literature. In other words, consider the following
examples we described above:
You may have researched studies in criminal
justice and found that there are varying opinions on how to respond to criminal
behavior among youth.
You might divide the paper as follows:
Introduction Body
- Category 1: “A” view on responding to criminal
behavior.
- Category 2: “B” view on responding to criminal
behavior.
- Category 3: “C” view on responding to criminal
behavior.
- Category 4: “D” view on responding to criminal
behavior.
Conclusion
You may have researched studies in psychology
and found that counseling strategies for victims of domestic abuse tend to fall
into four categories.
You might divide the paper as follows:
Introduction Body
- Category 1: “A” counseling strategy for victims of
child abuse
- Category 2: “B” counseling strategy for victims of
child abuse
- Category 3: “C” counseling strategy for victims of
child abuse
- Category 4: “D” counseling strategy for victims of
child abuse
Conclusion
You may have researched graphic communications
and discovered that the integration of graphics in business report writing has
evolved from the 1970s to the present because of advancements in technology.
You might divide the paper as follows:
Introduction Body
- Category 1: graphics in business report writing in the
1970s
- Category 2: graphics in business report writing in the
1980s
- Category 3: graphics in business report writing in the
1990s
- Category 4: graphics in business report writing from
2000 to the present
Conclusion
You may have researched articles on
gerontology and found studies that answered three basic questions on how older
adults respond to training for physical performance.
You might divide the paper as follows:
Introduction Body
- Question 1
- Question 2
- Question 3
Conclusion
In order for you to see this concept with a
real-life example, you can access a sample synthesis or literature review from
a psychology student by clicking here. The student writes her paper on the
following topic:
Emotional Eating: The Perpetual Cycle of
Mood-Food Influence. She divides her literature into the following categories:
- Influence of Mood on Eating Behavior
- Gender Differences
- Influence of Eating Behavior on Later Moods
- Chronic Stress Response Network
Notice how she synthesizes and integrates the
research into the different categories.
Approach and Requirements
Your synthesis essay, or literature review,
should be 2000-2500 words, not including your “references” pages at the end of
the review. In other words, the text of the paper should be 2000-2500 words.
In addition your synthesis essay should
include at least 10 scholarly sources in the “references” section. As stated
above, this means that you may decide not to use all 12 sources that you
summarized in your annotated bibliography.
You are free to use all 12 of them. However,
it is possible that your experience in writing summaries of the 12 sources led
you to conclude that a few of them will not be as helpful to your topic as you
had originally thought. You may decide not to include such sources in the
synthesis essay. This is totally up to you. Moreover, you might find other
sources that you would like to include in your synthesis essay that were not
included in your annotated bibliography.
Some helpful tutorials and guides from UMUC’s
Effective Writing Center:
- Click here for a tutorial that features two short
videos on writing a literature review.
- Click here for a tutorial on principles in synthesizing
multiple sources.
In synthesizing your research, you are
analyzing the topic on which you have conducted research. Click here for a
helpful tutorial on analyzing a topic.
Some helpful guides from other universities:
- Some very systematic advice from The University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill can be accessed by clicking here.
- Some helpful advice from the University of Wisconsin-Madison can be accessed by clicking here.
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