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tips from academic writers

Academic Writing Lessons: Components Of A Synthesis Essay

A synthesis essay is an interesting type of paper as it requires one to discover and present unknown, or hard to identify connections between two different objects or situations. One is initially not clear about any existing connections between the two items and must discover this for themselves, through investigation, then find interesting ways of presenting these findings to their readers.

Fundamentally, this is a research project of discovery for both the author and readers and if treated as such, one will be well on the way to succeeding at this task. The following points will outline a simple guide to help you through the process of writing a synthesis essay:

  1. Hypothesis
  2. This is a statement of declaration made with the intention of testing whether or not it is true. It can be a bold statement of fact or simply a condition or conditions to be fulfilled in other for a particular claim to be deemed true or false. Creating a good hypothesis will help guide the direction your research will take.

  3. Investigation and data collection
  4. This part can be laborious and may require some minor travel at times. You want to be thorough in your data collection, it is important to only utilize accepted methods of experimentation and one must ensure that any third party information they use, is properly cited in their paper.

  5. Analysis
  6. At this stage, you get to apply some of your own personal opinions on the situation, based on evidence gathered. Try to find ways of forming links between different aspects of the topics under study and present these ideas to your readers. Remain objective, only make claims that are backed up by evidence.

  7. Ideas behind connections
  8. Depending on the topic, some ideas may be very philosophical, or opinionated. In these cases, it is important to remember that your reader cannot see things through your eyes, so you must make greater effort to try to communicate your thoughts to them. Use examples or references to familiar, well known concepts is one way to help with this.

  9. Final findings
  10. In your final paragraph, you should briefly summarize all of your chief points, listing them in a form of tally, for and against your original thesis statement. Be brief and do not go into lengthy explanations, simply state the final conclusion about each topic and move on to the next. At the end, if you thesis was proven true, you can repeat it, or state any other final conclusion in a short sentence.

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