- A common question that our students ask is, what is the difference between summary, analysis, and synthesis? So think of a summary reporting objective information based on what you have been reading. So it's going to be very concise. You could summarize a whole article in 50 words, or it could be 100 words, and it could be just a sentence. 

It doesn't matter the length. What matters is how are you going to use that summary, is going to be because you're writing an annotated bibliography or because you are using that source in sections of your literature review. Maybe you will alternate a summary also with some quotes, for example, or maybe some paraphrases. 

Remember, the quotes are word by word, and we use the quotation marks, while a paraphrase is restating the information that the authors presented in different words. 

When we analyze that information, that's when we are processing it with some filters. Are we criticizing it? Is that information going to help us with the research that we're doing or maybe is it contradicting it? 

So you have to have a more critical lens about the information that you just read, that you have presented objectively in a summary, and you're going to argue whether that can be useful or not. Or maybe that information is linking to other data, other analysis or other information that other sources are saying. 

So whenever you are joining there, let's say maybe three sources or four sources that mention the same concept, or they take the same view, that's when you're synthesizing. You're putting those sources together and you're presenting the main idea, they say, but obviously, you're going to acknowledge that all four sources said the same thing. 

So summary, very objective reproduction of what an article states. Analysis, you perceive it from a critical lens. You agree or disagree. You discuss whether that is going to be useful or not based on what you're going to do. And synthesizing, when you bring your sources together because they have common grounds.