Your literature review should not simply be a summary of the articles, books, and other scholarly writings you find on your topic. It should synthesize the various ideas from your sources with your own observations to create a map of the scholarly conversation taking place about your research topics along with gaps or areas for further research.
A Summary:
- Reports ideas of others
- Highlights important points of one source
- Neither supports nor refutes an argument
- Does not contain your opinion
- Constructs a narrative from source material with no critical analysis (often arranged in historical order by date of publication)
A Synthesis:
- Highlights important points AND your observations of the related texts
- Usually has a specific focus
- Thesis is defined and supported by various sources
- Compares and contrasts information from multiple sources; cites multiple sources at once
- Makes connections between sources (support arguments, refutes arguments, similar and opposing concepts, similar and opposing methodologies, etc.)
