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ENG 102 Advanced Research Library Tutorial 2024-2025

Research Synthesis

This video walks you through how to engage in synthesis in order to take research from multiple sources, your own arguments and turn it into a research paper.

Tips for synthesizing information from your research

When synthesizing information for your academic assignments, there are steps you can follow to help you in the learning process and to develop new understandings. 

1. Print out, save or bookmark articles you find in your research so you will be sure to have all of the citation information needed when you create your Works Cited page.

3. Read through the articles you have found, highlighting or annotating main ideas and facts that stand out to you or appear to be key points. You may need to re-read articles or other information you find more than once to fully understand the concepts discussed. You may need to continue seeking additional sources to develop a stronger understanding of your topic.

4. Be sure that any notes of research you make clearly show what what you have taken directly from sources (exact wording or quotations) and what you have summarized or paraphrased. You still need citations for all references but you want to be sure to use quotations for direct wording used from sources! 

5. Cite sources you have used during your research within your writing to support the points you are making! Continue to seek information with a similar strategy, even for personal reasons, to develop your research and writing skills. These information literacy skills will serve you throughout your life to help you make more informed decisions and complete work-related tasks. 

Through synthesizing, you are gathering, analyzing, interpreting, evaluating, organizing, comparing and presenting information and conclusions you have drawn during the process of your work! 

Use this online document to better understand a step-by-step process for synthesizing research for your class assignments. 

Using data and statistics as evidence in writing

As a student, incorporating data and statistics into your research requires you to find reliable sources for numbers to interpret and use as evidence to support your arguments and point of view. Citation of numbers is another important aspect of data literacy, as statistics may differ from one source to another due to collection methods, etc.. Seeking and analyzing data can support decisions we make every day and the actions we take as individuals. (See the "Sources for Data and Statistics" box on the Locating Sources for Research page of this tutorial!)

When looking at data, also consider the following:

  • Who created the data? Is their purpose for collecting data clear?
  • Be careful about using data that could be collected or used out of context and use care with your methodology. Look at other data points, such as population numbers and percentages to make sure you are not using skewed data, or do your research laterally. 

Article for further reading: