 Okay, so now we're going to go over some quick introductions. So, I am Brittany Norwood. I use she her pronouns. I'm a common Siberian here at UTK so be ever chat in meeting help with research research assistants, or come to the front desk I might be the person who helps you out. And my email address is norwoodbr at utk.edu. Good morning everybody. My name is Chris Powell, I use she her pronouns, and I am a student success librarian here I work with a lot of our first year composition students so if you're in English 101 one or two, etc. I'm your librarian, and you can reach me at curset at utk.edu. Okay, so today we're going to be covering what synthesis is in the search process. We're going to use it and how you can use it when you're doing your research, and we'll stay after the lecture for about 30 minutes to answer any additional questions you have. Okay, so first of all, what is synthesis. So, for a little background on this workshop. We see several students who need help finding research, and they have this idea that every single source needs to answer their entire research question. Now, sometimes this is possible, and it's necessary. And every single source you would include does need to address everything you're asking in your research question for your specific situation, or assignment. But this approach in general isn't always possible. Sometimes the perfect research you would be needing to back up your question just hasn't been published yet. And the fact that you're looking into something that's new or unstudied could be why you're asking this question in the first place is something you want to explore because it isn't unknown. So there are cases in which the perfect source might not exist. Okay, and first of you could click really fast. So this leads us into what synthesis is. It's the process in which you take different things and combine them to create something new. And probably one of the most accessible examples of this process will be baking a cake. Depending on your recipe, you would take eggs, sugar, flour, milk, and combine them and in doing so create a product that while containing all those things and while needing to contain them is ultimately something different from every good into it. So for the search process. This means that you're searching for several sources that each address a piece of your research question, and you use them in tandem to support your overarching argument. So you aren't necessarily looking for one perfect source, but are instead willing to find several sources that support different elements of your argument. And so just a quick note. This workshop is about how synthesis can be used to better your search process. But people also often use synthesis to structure their arguments as well. If you're wanting more information on paper structure, please remember to contact the writing center to get more information. They're a great resource, and we'll be sure to help you out. So now let's talk about when to use synthesis. Can I click Carissa. Wonderful. So, other than the fact that hopefully after this presentation, synthesis is an approach that you just want to use. There are some examples of when it might be pretty necessary for you to use it. So the biggest example would be when you're researching a topic, and no one else has published research on your exact topic. So this could be the case when you're already pretty familiar with the literature on a certain topic or variable. And you know already that there is a gap in that literature. And the purpose of your research is to try to fill that gap. It could also be the case that maybe you're researching something that's relatively new, and you're trying to be innovative in your search process. So as an example of this, when I was an undergraduate studying psychology, and several of my peers were wanting to look into Instagram and how it would affect women's body consciousness. Now at the time, Instagram was a new enough platform that not a lot of scholarly literature had been published on it. So my peers had to go about the research process and a more roundabout way. And I'll give you an example about what they had to do. I'm later on in the slides. Now you might also need to use synthesis if you need to demonstrate critical thinking and your professor isn't wanting you to just have some or just to summarize your sources. So the synthesis approach requires you to select sources that do complement each other and work together. Now in synthesis, you do need to use critical thinking and analysis to show how your sources fit together to answer your research question. And it can also be the case that you've hit a wall, but you still really want to research your topic, or you can't change your topic. And you just need a way to move forward. So in all of these situations, synthesis as a search strategy is really your friend. So you might be asking how synthesis is different from our other approaches. So let's compare it to the common summary based approach. So in a summary based approach, you're more focused on finding sources that stand on their own, meaning they encompass everything you're looking for, and you don't need to even other sources to fill in the gaps. So if you're researching tick tock mood and self esteem, then you might want every source you have to include all three of those elements. So the research strategy would be to include as many of those different elements you're researching as possible into whatever search bar you're using whatever database you're using. And as this is a summary based approach, you are pretty much repeating a lot of the research that you found, and might not be doing too much to show how those sources work in tandem, because I don't need to work in tandem. So if your source addresses every element of your research question, you don't have to tie them together to make them work. Now, some assignments do call for all of your sources to contain every single element of your argument. The summary approach is valid. And sometimes you will be required to take a summary based approach. But it isn't always viable for all assignments. I mean just think about some of the scenarios we talked about on the previous slide. Even a synthesis approach really can help you out. So when you use synthesis, you're more focused on finding information about the elements of your research, and how those elements interact. So you can have several different combinations of sources that represent the different variables you're looking at. So some sources may focus on one element, so they may focus on the different relationships between them. Some may talk about all the elements, but the point is you're focused on how these sources work together. The synthesis approach is a bit like weaving an argument together with each study being a different thread of the overall tapestry of your argument. And consequently, you're working with a search strategy that does aim to construct your argument, rather than just put forward studies that already completely answer your question. Now, I know this can be a bit of a confusing concept, especially when it's laid out like this. So I'm going to take some time to explain it more fully with a couple of examples. Next slide. Thank you. So let's go back to the earlier example that I pretty briefly mentioned and say you're researching how using TikTok impacts a person's mood and self-esteem. And you're going to need at least three scholarly sources for your assignment. So to start a synthesis approach on this topic, you might want to break down your research question into the elements that you're looking for. In this case, you're looking at three different elements, one, TikTok, to mood and three self-esteem. These three things will become your keywords. And think of them as individual elements when you're searching. You're also going to need to know how these three different elements interact with each other. So you'll need sources that talk about at least a couple of these elements together. Now, say you type all of these keywords into a search and you do find one perfect source that talks about the relationship between all three of these elements. Okay, go ahead and click really fast, Grisha. Twice at least. Thank you. So once again, say for your first source, you find something that talks about all three of them. But you put TikTok and mood and self-esteem into a couple more different databases and you don't find anything else that talks about all three of these things together, at least not in a way that's helpful for you. The problem is, remember, you need at least three sources for this. Here's where synthesis comes in handy when you're looking for sources. When you can't find sources that talk about all of the elements of your research, start searching for sources that talk about a few or specific elements of your research. So let's say that you start searching for sources that support these elements relationships with each other. You can break your search up into TikTok and mood. So these first two, TikTok and self-esteem, the second two, or mood and self-esteem. For me to these sources, you might end up finding at least one usable source. So now you have your first source that talks about TikTok and mood, as indicated by the red arrows. You have a source that ends up talking about TikTok and self-esteem. And go ahead and click again, Grisha, as shown by the green arrows. And then you have a source that ends up talking about mood and self-esteem, as shown by the blue arrows. So even though these last three sources, each only address a couple of different elements of your overall research topic. As you can see, each of these elements is, they're all talked about pretty equally. The way that your sources are found, the way that you found your sources and have used your search strategies. Each of these elements is pretty equally dispersed. And your arguments pretty well supported and how everything interacts. So even though you only found that one perfect source, you're still able to support your topic because you found plenty of other information that ties everything together in different pieces. And you're able to weave them together to fully support things. And of course, your approach to synthesis doesn't need to fit this exact example that I've outlined to you. The point of synthesis is to allow you to have flexibility in your search process so you can support your argument as needed. Your approach to synthesis may end up looking totally different from this and still be completely valid. That's part of the beauty of this approach. You have more flexibility to make your work your own, and you're able to tailor your search strategy appropriately. So let's say maybe you want your paper to focus predominantly on self-esteem and less on mood. You can instead come up with more searches using self-esteem as a keyword and use mood and fewer of your searches. Or maybe you're interested in the relationship between tick-tock and mood and then how mood affects self-esteem. But you aren't really interested in how tick-tock itself might impact self-esteem. If that's the case, you can just do a couple of searches for tick-tock and mood and a couple of searches for mood and self-esteem. And leave out searches that would include tick-tock and self-esteem together. And it might also be the case that one of these elements is the main part of your paper. And so you really want to go in depth on that. If that's the case, use that element individually as a search potentially. So say self-esteem is your big variable. You could try to just search for self-esteem. And so if you can find any larger or seminal sources that focus on this topic, and then you can branch out into the others as appropriately. So now let's address what happens if you can't find much information about one of these elements. So yes, next slide, please. Thank you. So this goes back to the example I mentioned earlier with my peers who wanted to research Instagram. So let's say you're doing the same topic as before, how tick-tock affects mood and self-esteem. But when you start your search, maybe instead you can't find any real searches that actually include tick-tock. Because it's such a new platform that not a lot of scholarly work has been published on it. So instead here you can split tick-tock up, your variable of tick-tock up, as so. So Chris, if you could click a couple of times, perfect. So instead of looking at tick-tock as your main variable, you can split it up into predominantly social media. So whatever social media platforms you might feel appropriate or just the topic in general. But put the specific element of tick-tock to the side. Okay, and click again for me, Chris, please. From there, you can research how these different social media platforms impact mood and self-esteem. And you can do it using a similar approach to the last screen. Or if you can find some resources that you want to use, that's fine as well. But the point is, is that you have sources that demonstrate how social media works in conjunction with these two other variables. And now here is where the beauty of synthesis really comes into play. So if you take, go back to the idea of tick-tock and find some descriptive sources, like maybe even a corporate source that just talks about what it is as an app. Then you look at the social media platforms that you examined in these searches. Give me a couple more clicks, Chris. And find some sources that describe them as platforms. You can then compare and contrast tick-tock to these other forms of social media. And if your argument allows, you can say that tick-tock is comparable enough to be substituted for whatever platforms you used here. And that its relationship should be similar to mood and self-esteem. Now, take a step back and I'm going to tell you that you will probably want to talk to your professor and potentially the writing center to make sure your logic is strong enough to support this leap for the substitution. But the point I'm making here is that while you probably wouldn't be able to construct this argument with a purely summary-based approach, with a synthesis approach, you still have a chance at researching this topic successfully. So overall, synthesis is about allowing you to be creative or innovative in your research process while still making sure that your argument is supported. It's about looking at your sources, filling in the gaps with using your search strategy, and making sure that everything works well together. And it's about constructing a search strategy that's about you and your specific topic. And now for a quick disclaimer. If this is an approach you're interested in but aren't sure if it fits within the parameters of your assignment, talk with your professor first. Once again, sometimes your assignment does call for a summary-based approach. And some fields are much more prone to acquiring this than others. But if you find that you are able to use synthesis but you aren't sure how to get started, then feel free to get in touch with us. You can always use our chat feature and we'll help you plan out how you can divide up your search into an appropriate strategy for whatever you're wanting to research. And so that is the end of this presentation.