ThezisHow to synthesize a literature review
You have read the papers and written the summaries. Now your draft sounds like a roll call: one author found this, another author found that. To synthesize the literature, give the section a question and use the papers to work toward an answer.
1. Give the section a question
Summary explains a source. Synthesis explains a relationship between sources: agreement, disagreement, a difference in methods, or a limit in what is known. UNC’s Writing Center describes a literature review as combining summary with synthesis and an organizing pattern. Read UNC’s guidance.
Start with one section, rather than trying to solve the whole dissertation at once. Write down what that section should help the reader understand. A review of policy, history, or theory can have an organizing question without proposing an experiment.
Broad topic: Feedback in higher education. Section question: What do these studies tell us about when students act on written feedback?
The question gives you a reason to compare findings. It also helps you decide which details belong elsewhere.
Check the assignment before choosing a structure. A dissertation chapter, a standalone narrative review, and a systematic review have different requirements. The drafting exercise below does not replace a systematic review’s search, screening, appraisal, or reporting process. Nursing course reviews have a separate walkthrough that uses checked nursing-education studies. Write a nursing literature review.
2. Compare findings before writing transitions
Pull out the findings that answer your section question. For each one, keep the population or context, method, and limitation alongside the result. Two studies may appear to disagree because they measured different outcomes.
| Source | Finding | What limits the claim? |
|---|---|---|
| Study A: course survey | Students who described feedback as specific also reported using it more often. | Self-reported use; the survey cannot establish causation. |
| Study B: student interviews | Participants could explain the comments but wanted examples of how to revise. | One course; interviews do not measure the effect of examples. |
| Study C: draft comparison | Students incorporated some comments when revising the same assignment. | No comparison group; transfer to a new assignment was not measured. |
Read across those rows. All three concern the use of feedback, but they do not establish the same thing. A possible thread is the distance between understanding a comment and knowing how to act on it. That is an interpretation to explain and qualify, not a new result to attribute to every paper.
3. Build a paragraph around the relationship
Study A examined specific feedback and reported use. Study B interviewed students about comments. Study C compared students’ drafts.
The reader learns what each study did but has to work out why they belong together.
These studies distinguish understanding feedback from acting on it. In Study A, students who described comments as specific also reported using them more often. Study B complicates that association: participants understood the comments but still wanted examples of revision. Study C documents some incorporation of comments into a revised draft, although it does not establish that those changes would carry over to a new assignment. Taken together, the findings suggest that clarity and opportunities to apply feedback deserve separate attention; they do not establish that either causes lasting improvement.
The opening names the relationship. Each source has a distinct job. The ending explains both the interpretation and its limit. Replace these fictional labels with citations to sources you have actually read.
Use this as a diagnostic, not a fixed sentence formula. A paragraph may need one source in depth or several compared closely. Adding three citations does not automatically make it a synthesis.
4. Explain what connects the evidence
Words such as “similarly,” “however,” and “therefore” should name a relationship you have already established. They cannot create one. If two papers use different populations or definitions, state that difference before treating their findings as a contradiction.
- Agreement: What finding recurs, and under what conditions?
- Difference: Do the studies disagree, or do they answer different questions?
- Limitation: What would you need to know before making a broader claim?
- Relevance: How does this comparison help answer your section question?
Keep a note of the exact source passage behind each claim. An abstract can help you decide whether to investigate a paper, but it may omit the method or qualification your comparison depends on. Read the relevant parts before relying on the finding.
5. Check one section before expanding
Read just the first sentence of every paragraph. Together, they should reveal the section’s path. If they only name authors, try rewriting them as questions, findings, or comparisons. Keep an author-led opening where the history of that author’s contribution actually matters.
- Can I explain why these sources appear together?
- Does each citation support the claim beside it, including its scope?
- Have I distinguished a reported result from my interpretation?
- Have I preserved disagreements and uncertainty?
- Does the section answer its question without claiming to cover evidence I have not reviewed?
If the answer is no, revise the reasoning before polishing the wording. When time is short, draft a small section from evidence you understand and mark the precise gaps to investigate. A placeholder such as “check whether this finding extends to postgraduate students” is more useful than a confident unsupported sentence.