Topic-5: Synthesis

Salaaaaaaam

Synthesis is the fifth step of the research process (Big6). Therefore, I learnt that synthesizing can be defined as our lecturer explained that Clay stated that “Synthesizing is like putting a puzzle together. You have to sort out your thinking and put it in the right place.”

After that, our lecturer explained that synthesis involves organization. In fact, synthesis has many elements that can produce effective organization of information. The effective information is very important. Therefore, our lecturer mentioned some importance of effective organization of information. The first importance of effective organization of information is that to communicate effectively to the audience, the information has to be organized logically. The second importance of effective organization of information is to allow people to understand easily. The third importance of effective organization of information is that a success organization is a result of well-organized information in professional report and presentation. The fourth importance of effective organization of information is that material that is organized in a logical and meaningful fashion is more readily used and applied than disorganized materials. The fifth importance of effective organization of information is that people will maximize the opportunity for audience to receive an accurate message. 

After we learnt the importance of organized information, our lecturer explained to us some strategies that can help us to organize the information. The first strategy is Organization by Category or Concept. In this strategy, I learnt that separate ideas which combine to produce any concept must be understood individually to make a sense before synthesis them. Moreover, the organization by concept also is effective when making a case to support premise. In addition to that, the organization by concept uses analysis of concept by breaking it down into the elements that form the central ideas. Then, our lecturer gave an example on how we use this strategy.

The second strategy that we learnt is chronological organization. The meaning of chronological organization is organization according to time which can be used effectively when we have sequence events that influence an outcome. Usually, the information that organized chronologically involves transitions from one phrase to another. The example of this strategy is how the people discover and improve the computer through several times.

The third strategy that I learnt is hierarchical organization. This strategy is usually used when the information is conveyed in a specific order. It can be from the most important to the least important.  It can also be from the least complex to the most complex. Then, the lecturer gave us an example. She mentioned, the IT student who is describing the process of diagnosing a computer problem always starts from the easy part such as looking to the cable of the computer to the complex part such as examining the problem.

The fourth strategy that I learnt is alphabetical organization. Therefore, the lecturer explained the presenting the information alphabetically does not imply any type of order or characteristics. The examples of using this strategy are dictionaries.

After that, our lecturer explained to us organization the graphics for presentation. In presentation, the graphics, tables, figures, and charts must be in appropriate ways to help the reader understand and follow the presenter easily. Then, the power point presentation should be very clear and easy to read by choosing the appropriate colors and the font sizes should be between 28 to48.  The main points should be larger  and we should avoid unclear abbreviation and sentences. Also the graphs and the pictures should be relative to the topic and make a sense.

At the end of this topic, our lecturer explained the differences between summarizing and synthesizing. She said that Keene explained the differences by defining both of them as summarizing is identifying key points and organizing thoughts, a listing of the parts. Keene highlighted that summarizing usually occurs at the end. Nonetheless, Keene declared that synthesizing is the creation of a whole.  It goes on throughout the process of reading—not just at the end.  It is bringing together different ideas and facts and weaving them together into a tapestry, something much larger than all the threads. In addition to that, our lecture end the topic with Harvey quotation as he stated, “Summarizing is part of synthesis. You can’t synthesize if you don’t know how to summarize.  Summarizing is the act of briefly presenting the main point.  When teaching summary, teachers should encourage readers to retell information by including important ideas but not telling too much.”

 In fact, this topic is very important and very useful in our daily life. Therefore, I hope that you learnt something good as I learnt from this topic.

Thanks