1. Synthesizing Literature and academic articles
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2. Synthesizing what you read
What does synthesis mean?

3. Example: Should We Have the Death Penalty?
Your group gathers background from 12 sources.
Each person types of a short description of what they read.
Your Team Captain pastes those all together into one document and turns it in.
Critique

4. Example: Should We Have the Death Penalty? A SYNTHESIS Approach
Your group gathers background from 12 sources.
Each person types up a short description of what s/he read in his/her own words.
Your team then gets together to look at all the notes on the sources and groups them based on content; a source can be used to support more than one point.
The team decides how best to present the background research – what order will take you from your research question to your hypotheses?

5. The Point
Background research should be presented in a logical order; it should move the reader from the research question to the hypothesis.
Logical order is important both between and within paragraphs.
Good topic sentences are somewhat specific
Research shows that the death penalty leads to a decrease in crime
Research shows that the death penalty affects the crime rate

6. The Sources
3 show that crime rates decreased after the institution of the DP
4 show that the DP costs the nation millions of dollars annually in court costs
3 present data about cases in which ppl who were executed were later proven innocent
2 talk about the eye-for-an-eye morality behind the DP
How should we order these and why?

7. Phase 2: Academic Articles
Academic = Peer Reviewed
Try Google Scholar
Use search engines that are relevant to your field (See instructions in Student Guide)
PsycInfo
ERIC
PubMed
Science Direct
Use your academic sources to understand how researchers in your field have carried out studies on related topics. Take notes on their methods and findings (results v. discussion).

8. Searching Tips Experiment with different search terms
Avoid articles that seem overly long, complex or specific
Read the abstract carefully
Ask us top approve your abstracts before you invest the time to read the article
Once you find a good article, use the “cited by” feature – show example
Look for the classic study in the field