Analysis

and Synthesis

Valerie Ross Both analysis and synthesis are processes of discovery. Analysis teaches us what a thing or thought is made of. It is the process of breaking something down into smaller parts and attempting to identify and understand them as things in themselves as well as parts of a whole. Synthesis is the counterpart of analysis. In synthesis, one seeks connectionsways of combiningwhat appear to be different things, disparate elements. Synthesis may be based on identifying something that all of the objects or ideas have in common; or how they interact; or how, combined, they might form a new idea or object, or be put to new use. While synthesis is generally viewed as the process of creativity and invention resulting in new ideas and things, analysis is also inventive. Knowing how to take an idea or an object and break it into identifiable, meaningful elements calls for careful attention and creative thinking. Most people regard analysis as a process that goes backward, undoes, regresses. Analysis takes things apart, de-composes a larger whole into elements, calls for inductive reasoning. Synthesis, in turn, is a process that moves forward, collects, recombines, composes, calls for deductive thinking. Analysis separates; synthesis combines. You may have noted in your first exercise how challenging it can be to explain something: knowing how and when and to what degree something needs to be broken into component parts to create a meaningful explanation (explanatory reasons) is an art. Reasoning, explanatory and justificatory, is a continuous process of analysis and synthesis, of looking at individual cases and data and then generalizing about this data to form reasons and propositions. The iPhone provides a timely example of analysis and synthesis. Andrew Sherman notes in his blog, Business Technology, that we often imagine innovation being generated by a bolt out of the blue. But most often it is the result of synthesizing existing ideas from within and without the industry youre working in. Sherman notes that the iPhone offered no new functions but was instead a synthesis of various popular devices and functions: mobile phone, SMS, GPS, web browsing, email, Mp3, camera, third party applications, touch screen interface, online shopping, and accelerometer. Steve Jobs was a gifted synthesizer. Even the name of his company, Apple, is the result of a synthesis of the Beatles label, Apple Records, combined with the many other associations elicited by an apple. This process of analysis and synthesis is at the very root of understanding; it is how we come to know things, create new knowledge and insight, and make connections that not only lead to new devices or concepts, but also to forging identification and changing the minds of audiences. Some instances of analysis and synthesis in everyday life include:

Discovery of previously unremarked connections between things: for example, shared premises among those who are otherwise in disagreement or who use these premises to arrive at different conclusions. For example, many agree that education needs to be reformed. Such an agreement, if analyzed, leads to three obvious points of synthesis: 1) all agree that education is important and valuable; 2) all agree that there are problems with education and 3) All agree that education can and must be corrected. Yet those who promote education reform may be political rivals with profound ideological differences; they may propose starkly different solutions; they may disagree on what the actual problems are, and so forth. Analysis and synthesis are the operations that allow us to identify these areas of difference and common ground. Direct, intentional connections made with particular groups or communities that ones audience respects or reviles: for example, a Republican or Democratic candidate in 2012 might mention the Tea Party or the Occupy Wall Street movement as a way of establishing a synthesis between himself and one of these organizations. Indirect connections: creating synthesis through metaphors, images, symbols, references. Such indirect syntheses are frequently used by artists, poets, musicians, advertisers, fashion designers, and filmmakers.

When a politician features a flag in the background of a campaign commercial, she is generating a synthesis that connects her image and campaign to the flag (patriotism). This form of conceptual/psychological synthesis can be contrasted to concrete synthesesthe iPhone or, for example, the fashion industry when it combines a fabric print or skirt length from the 1970s with elements of current fashion. Some other examples of synthesis include: A law = a synthesis of the facts/situations it governs A proposition = a synthesis of facts, events, conditions, intuitions, or feelings A reason = a synthesis of evidence, observations, events, feelings, conditions, or experiences A demonstration of a proposition = analysis that breaks down and arranges the proposition into a selected set of ideas, arguments or component parts. Analysis demands accuracy and exactness of observation, attention to all the relevant details. Synthesis, in turn, requires mental abstraction and generalization. Both skills are mandatory for substantive intellectual work. Neither can be communicated without strong command of presentation, the essence of critical writing and the very thing you have been practicing throughout the first half of the semester: the proposition and its demonstration through informal reasoning.

 All of these cognitive processesanalysis, synthesis, and reasoningare closely entwined and interdependent. One analyzes a set of data, an experience, a group of texts, a situation or series of situations, or sometimes merely an intuition, and detects a pattern, some kind of connection. The analysis, in turn, leads to one or more syntheses that result in a conclusion. For example, after an encounter with a gas stove, a bonfire, and a candle, one is likely to come up with the proposition that no matter the means, fire burns ones skin. This conclusion is based on analysis of individual experiences and then a synthesis of these; if one challenged the burn victims proposition, he would likely respond by providing informal reasoning There are many routes to and forms of synthesis. Hegel, for example, proposed this form of synthesis, known as dialectical reasoning: Thesis/Proposition (he says X about A) Antithesis/Counterargument (she says Y about A) Synthesis (but I say Z about A) This model proposes that knowledge is a continual process in which a synthesis becomes a thesis that is then opposed and subsequently synthesized with its opposition to transform into a new idea or event. . Syntheses can also be accidents or mysteries, bolts out of the blue. One can be as systematic as possible, carefully analyzing evidence and arguments, and turn up nothing. Then, when one least expects it, one experiences a flash of insight that is probably not quite as mysterious as it seems; one has, after all, been filling ones mind with ideas about, say, consumer technology. The mind needs time to consider the various elements of the analysis. Paradoxically, one sometimes finds that the best syntheses occur when we take our mind off of our work; in the midst of watching a movie, talking to a friend, listening to music, things suddenly come together. Other strategies for prompting syntheses include free-writing or simply discussing your work with others, who may point out common ground that youre not even aware of presenting to them. Synthesis of Scholarly Sources Students seldom have experience writing substantive research essays and thus are unfamiliar with the necessity or experience of synthesizing the information they gather. While they may in high school have done substantial researchfinding many sources, writing lengthy papersgenerally the papers themselves are more of a book report, a patching together of published research, than a demonstration of a connection they made between and among the sources. In college, this book report structure may be viewed as patchwork plagiarism, depending on the assignment. Patchwork plagiarism is a collection of paraphrased or directly quoted ideas that are only held together by the strength of transition phrases: First, Author X is opposed to Z Second, Author Y is opposed to Z. In contrast, Author B is in support of Z.

 And so forth. Instead of engaging in synthesis, the student has simply made a patchwork of others ideas. Similarly, a student unfamiliar with strategies of synthesis might propose, Two scholars argue against trickle-down theory, while one argues for it, and his demonstration of this patchwork proposition would be a summary of each of their arguments. He would identify no conceptual link, no deeper relationship, no connection among these beyond the flat presentation of the different views. In order to write a solid research essay, the writer needs to drill down and find out what these three authors have in commonor confirm for the reader that these authors have virtually nothing in common, which can occasionally happen: no shared premises, no shared conclusion, no shared evidence. As we know, argument must begin in agreement, so in such an instance, the writers job may be quite challenging. Even if the writers project is simply to provide an overview of literature written about a particular topic, she should generally do more than simply summarize each article. Instead of writing, The following authors all have written scholarly articles on Huck Finn, and follow with a series of synopses, the sophisticated writer will analyze the articles and identify common elements or meaningful divisions. Thus she might note that all of the articles weigh in on whether the book should be taught in high schools; noting this, perhaps shell divide them more finely still: those that focus on issues of race, literary history, or style, for example. Perhaps shell notice that some, pro and con, focus on moral issues while others, pro and con, focus on literary history or style. In short, the writer is obliged to do more than just report what other writers said. She must dig deeper and share with her readers the fruits of her labor, the analyses and syntheses that result from spending substantial time with texts, or data in the case of some social and natural sciences. Otherwise, she may as well just distribute copies of the material to her readers and let them do the work of analysis. When engaging in analysis, the question arises of when enough is enough. One needs to break down the material into the smallest elements necessary to produce a productive connection. At the crudest level, one can note that all of the articles are written in English, or stored on a database, or published by scholarly journals. These arent very illuminating syntheses. In contrast, finding common ground that isnt readily available to other readers can be immensely enlightening. For example: The authors methodologies: are they all from the same discipline using the same approach to explaining or justifying their work? Are the authors relying on the same sorts of premises and evidence? Do they all cite the same authorities? Do they all share the same problem definition or goal, though their proposal for achieving resolution differs? Perhaps all believe that we should pay taxes, but disagree on how the taxes should be spent. Having identified this common ground, one can push back a bit more to see why

 However, analysis doesnt always lead to productive linkages. Like oil and water, not all things lend themselves to combination. While it might be a stimulating exercise in creative synthesis to consider how a Honda, an orange, and a staircase are the same, chances are that if you encounter such profound disparity of elements in your scholarly research project, you are going to be in the soup. Still, sometimes disparity can be highly productive, as the iPhone underscores. In any event, in the early stages of research, analyzing disparate materials requires the writer or thinker to rely on the most obvious kind of oil and water arrangement strategy: a list or paragraph devoted to each disparate element, with the hopes that a productive linkage will occur. A word of caution, however: If you are doing text-based research and encounter such stubborn disparity, you may not have sufficiently researched and refined your line of inquiry. You may have to drill down a bit more. On the other hand, some of the most interesting work comes from audacious syntheses theres really no predicting. In real life, you will have time for syntheses to occur more organically, but in the seminar youre going to need to be a bit more pragmatic about your analyses and syntheses. Fortunately, you are working within a relatively narrow topic so the materials you encounter should lend themselves to these processes. You will know that you have a solid synthesis when your proposition and reasons demonstrate a clear conceptual link that joins them. In the example below, the student identified a common element: all of the authors studied had challenged the evidence used by the author of the research text. He pushed the analysis further, however, so that there was a conceptual rather than simply a concrete synthesis. He observed that the authors, while challenging the evidence, did so for different reasons. Thus the student went from analysis to synthesis and then analyzed the product of his synthesis: Proposition: The majority of scholars challenged the evidence of Book C. Reason: Scholar X and Y pointed to what they felt were serious flaws in the books data collection methods. In the paragraphs developing this reason, the student would explore how Scholar X focused on the survey tool used, while Scholar Y noted that the individuals surveyed were chosen for their availability rather than selected through more formally valid means. Reason: Scholar Z, in contrast, argued that Book C should not be judged by the evidence it obtained from quantitative research, since a close analysis of the book reveals that its conclusions are derived exclusively from its qualitative, not quantitative, data. In the ensuing paragraphs developing this reason, the student would provide Scholar Zs demonstration of how criticisms of data collection do not matter by showing that the book depends on its qualitative research.

it is these authors agree on taxation and perhaps find a new avenue for agreement.

Analysis and Synthesis: Rhetorical Considerations Analysis and synthesis are complementary and interdependent. The writer needs to decide which results to emphasize, the analytic or the synthetic. Psychologically, as well as logically, each implies the other. Sometimes its more important to emphasize the connections, the concept that ties the elements together, but for other purposes an emphasis on the divisions may be more effective. For example, if we take the proposition: All four authors demonstrate the great demands made of college athletes. We might wish to emphasize reasons that highlight the analytic division, demands made by each sport because we have decided that a particular sport makes too many demands on our students. Then our demonstration might look something like this: Explanatory Reason 1: Two authors show how basketball makes great demands Explanatory Reason 2: Some authors point to the lesser demands of certain other sports, such as fencing. Explanatory Reason 3: Many authors point to football as the most demanding. In contrast, the writer may wish to show that all sports are too demanding and therefore would only distract readers by pointing to the differing demands made by individual sports. Instead, this writer would likely wish to present the result of analysis and synthesis across the sports. The reasons might look something like this: Explanatory Reason 1: Time commitment demanded by sports Explanatory Reason 2: Physical demands (fatigue, injury) Explanatory Reason 3: Emotional/intellectual demands More Examples of Analysis and Synthesis A recent New Yorker article provided a fine example of analysis and synthesis in a description of a current event: Something Tea Partiers and Occupiers [Occupy Wall Street] might agree on is that the groups are not like each other. (They certainly don't look alike.) Yet there's an irresistible symmetry. Both arose on the political fringe, more or less spontaneously, in response to the financial crisis and its economic consequences. Neither has authoritative leaders or a formal hierarchical structure. Each was originally sparked by a third-tier media outlet, albeit of opposite types--one by a cable business-news reporter's rant against "loser's

mortgages," the other by an email blast from an anti-corporate, nonprofit, incongruously slick Canadian magazine. Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party are both protest movements, not interest groups, and while both are wary, or claim to be, of established political figures and organizations, each welcomes their praise, if not their direction. Both have already earned places in the long, raucous history of ideologically promiscuous American populism. Hendrik Hertzberg, "Occupational Hazards" New Yorker, Nov 7, 2011, p23

Analysis: contrasts, classifies, divides, sorts, unlinks, disassociates, de-composes, breaks down, identifies elements: Let's sort these mice into groups (by color, by habitat, by size) Synthesis: compares, links, associates, composes, establishes a relationship among unlike objects: How are a mouse and a refrigerator the same? Analysis: How might you sort the apples that you buy at the farmer's market? How might you divide an apple into parts? How are apples purchased at the farmers market different from apples purchased at a grocery store? Synthesis: What do apples, pears, peaches, plums, and oranges have in common? What do farmers markets and grocery stores have in common? Analysis: How might you classify the different religions of the world? Different genres of poetry? Different stanzas, lines, words in a poem? Synthesis: How are religions and poetry the same? How are sonnet and limericks the same? Analysis: Identify the various breeds of dog; identify the differences between the breeds. Synthesis: Determines that all dogs are mammals. Analysis: What are the different elements of each of your three keyword articles? Can their authors be sorted in terms of their position on the subject, their methodology, the kind of evidence they use, the conclusions they reach, the authorities they cite? Synthesis: What does the author of your research text have in common with the sources s/he cites? Do they all share the same goal? Do they all define the problem similarly? Do they all cite the same scholar? Do they all agree on what constitutes persuasive evidence?