In this article, making a strong literature synthesis is essential for a strong thesis or dissertation. However, students often mistake the explanation of existing literature for critical synthesis. This article explains the true meaning of synthesis, which involves the integration of information from various sources to provide a comprehensive analysis.
It outlines a methodological approach through five guiding questions: identifying points of agreement and disagreement, recognizing key theories, considering different contexts, and examining methodological approaches. Researchers can effectively highlight what is known and unknown and what needs further exploration by addressing these questions, thus laying a solid foundation for their own research actions.
Literature Synthesis
The students who are writing their thesis or dissertation make a common mistake while writing the section on the literature review, and the mistake is to err on the side of explaining the existing literature rather than providing a critical synthesis of the literature. In this article, the exact meaning of synthesis is described in detail, and it also describes how to craft a strong literature synthesis through detailed and practical examples.
Synthesis
Literature synthesis is more than telling the reader what others have stated and discovered. Thus, synthesis is about putting all the information from various sources to provide a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature and its relation to the aims and questions of your study. In other words, a good synthesis gives the reader a clear perception of the current state of research in the particular area of interest that is named as what is known, what is still unknown, and what remains to be explored.
There is no one correct method to synthesize pieces of literature, but it is more helpful to pose five questions when you are involved in the literature synthesis process. You can better address them in your write-up by doing so. Therefore, this article provides an explanation of each of these questions one by one. These questions are explained in detail as follows.
Figure 1: Literature Synthesis
Points of Agreement
The first question that you need to be asked by you from yourself is, “Overall, what does the majority of the literature seem to agree on?” For example, if the aim of your research is to identify the factors that make their contribution towards the satisfaction of jobs, then you need to know about the factors that are broadly agreed upon, and these factors are settled with the literature. Sometimes, there may be a lone opponent who has a radical point of view, but the majority of the researchers agree, so it is effective to random the outlier to the side. This is because the aim of your research project is to explore the contrarian approach, and there is also an effective justification for performing this. The identification of broadly agreed upon is the most important and essential point of starting the synthesis of literature because there is no need to reinvent the wheel or run down a road that is used to investigate something that is already well-known. Therefore, this question makes an effective foundation for settled knowledge.
Figure 2: Points of Agreement in Literature Synthesis
Points of Disagreements
The second important question that is opposite to the previous question but has equal importance is “Where do the disagreements lie?”
In other words, which issues are considered by modern scholars as less studied and not quite clear? Again, to be clear here, disagreement does not mean that researchers are arguing over it. It is simple that, to the best of the current empirical research, findings are, by and large, mixed, and there is no clear consensus amongst researchers. It is important to respond to this question because such “conflicts” will always pave the way for the research gap. In other words, they suggest some ideas that concern areas for further investigation, which your study can hopefully help in addressing.
Figure 3: Disagreement Points in Literature Synthesis
Key Theories
The third important question that you have to ask yourself is, “Which key theories seem to be coming up repeatedly?”
It is not strange to observe that regardless of the specific area in which you are conducting your research, there are a few theories that are always mentioned almost everywhere. Besides the identification of these theories, you are going to be expected to consider the relationships between them. Specifically, you need to ask yourself these questions.
- Is this all the ground that one has to cover? Do they have different focal points, or are their assumptions different?
- Some of them are derivatives of each other, and if there is such a chance, then there is the potential for the merger of the theory.
- Does it ever occur that some of those forces are pulling in opposite directions? If so, why might this be?
- The following question arises: do all of the theories describe the key concepts and variables in a similar manner, or is there a certain degree of inconsistency? If so, what is its effect?
Figure 4: Key Theories in Literature Synthesis
In other words, you would have to be very attentive to the key theories that are challenging within your area of research since they would be required within your theoretical framework and would form a significant part of your final literature review. This will outline the general framework upon which the rest of your study will be based; therefore, it is important that you are critical when synthesizing this literature.
Contexts
The fourth question is the important question in your literature synthesis: “Which contexts have (and have not) been covered by the existing research?”
For example, if the earlier hypothetical topic was related to factors that influence job satisfaction, you may discover that most of the studies have targeted white-collar employees who are mostly managers within the developed countries of the West, but few have taken the time to conduct a study on blue-collar workers in the developing countries of the East.
This is an interesting observation, particularly because there are huge sociocultural disparities between these two groups of people, and this may, therefore, qualify as a contextual research niche. In the sense of practical work, this implies that the researcher has to consider the context of the respective piece of literature, particularly the empirical research, that presents real data analysis because each piece of literature is important. The researcher should maintain certain notes about the framework of each study in some form of index or sheet so that you may make sense of it before the writing process.
Figure 5: Context in Literature Synthesis
Methodological Approach
Last but not least, the question that the researcher needs to ask himself is, “What types of research methodologies have (and haven’t) been used?”
For example, it may be possible to discover that most of the existing studies have employed interviews and thematic analysis in addressing the subject. On the other hand, you could come across most of the works employing quantitative examples like online questionnaires and statistical tests. Well, it can run in one of two potential directions, which are as follows: If you discover that the majority of the available studies utilize a particular methodological method, then you may use this as a starting point for the creation of the methodology of your study. In other words, it means that, based on the methodologies of comparable investigations, it is possible to justify the research design of your own study.
Figure 6: Methodology in Literature Synthesis
On the other hand, the second approach is that you might defend yourself by stating that the absence of various methodological approaches is a research problem, and thus, your study could help to eliminate this problem by adopting different methods. For example, the qualitative method can be applied to a research area that has been tackled before with the quantitative method. Of course, if you are to stray from the conventional methodological frameworks, you will have to verify the rationale of why the suggested approach is appropriate. In any case, you have to be very cautious about the methodologies applied in the respective studies, and you have to include at least some comments on them in your report.
Conclusion
It is concluded that an effective literature synthesis goes beyond brief existing research; it critically analyzes and integrates various sources to provide a comprehensive overview. Researchers can uncover gaps and inconsistencies in the literature by asking key questions that include the identification of points of agreement and disagreement, key theories, contexts, and methodologies. This approach not only highlights what is known and unknown but also sets the stage for future research directions. A well-crafted synthesis forms the foundation of a solid thesis or dissertation, which guides the researcher to build upon existing knowledge and make contributions for new insights to their field of study.
