Week 7 Reading Response
This week’s readings were about synthesis and summary. The way the book presents these subjects helped me understand how to write a better abstract and blend my ideas for the lit review. I liked how the book provides different examples of how summary is used and then a section of an actual paper that was a summary. I found it really interesting how the book mentions what to and what not to include in the summary which reminded me of the news for some reason because it seems like they all leave out information in order to make the viewer feel a certain way.
The synthesis chapter talked about how to “blend” information together in order to write a better paper as well as more clearly present information. I think I do this automatically when I write but I really enjoyed the section on how to use synthesis to compare and contrast information from different sources which I sometimes struggle with. The chapter also included examples of synthesis in academic papers which really helped reinforce what it was trying to say.
There was also a chapter on the handbook about research for the lit review. It was fairly short and to the point. It basically talked about how not to ask bias questions for primary source research and how to use the resources at the library including the data bases and books. The last part of the chapter talked about how to avoid plagiarism which is super important because even a small mistake while writing an academic paper can haunt one for the rest of their life.