Four Purposes for Academic Writing

Summarize, Analyze, Synthesize, Evaluate

By Prof. Randee Baty with The Lukeion Project

Most of the writing a student will do in rigorous high school classes and college classes will come from material they have been assigned to read or from research they have done. When a student is assigned to write an academic paper on that material, it’s crucial for the student to know what they are being asked to do with the material so that they can complete the assignment correctly. All writing assignments aren’t the same! Usually, when assigning a writing project, the professor wants the student to do one of four things with the material: summarize, analyze, synthesize, or evaluate. Be sure you know which one you are being asked to do!

Summarize

Summarizing is the least requested types of writing for papers. Summarizing is taking someone else’s work and distilling it down to its basic elements. This is usually asked for when a professor wants to ensure that you did actually read the material or that you understand the material. For example, a professor may have you write a summary of each chapter of your textbook or of videos assigned to view.  When you are asked to summarize, you should give all the main points without giving most of the evidence that backs them up. Only give the main supporting information. Unless specifically instructed to do so, no opinions or personal thoughts on the work should be given because you are simply asked to tell the professor the gist of the author’s work.

The biggest mistake students make when summarizing is thinking that a summary implies a few sentences. A well-written summary should be about a quarter of the length of the original material. If you are assigned four pages, it should take about a page to summarize. Less than about the quarter of the original length will most likely fail to do justice to the main points of the reading material.

The reason that teachers rarely want summary are two-fold.  First, they have already read or viewed whatever material they’ve assigned and don’t need you to tell them what it said.  Second, it does not show the depth of understanding that other types of writing show. Summarizing can be done with a surface reading, so don’t summarize in papers unless that is what you are asked to do.

Analyze

Analyzing is the most requested task in writing assignments. When you are asked to analyze, understand that you are not being asked to summarize. Unless you are specifically asked to do so, don’t summarize what you read. Believe me, the teacher already knows what it says. They don’t need you to tell them. What they need you to do is to dig deeper. Go below the surface. Take all the individual elements apart and look at them piece by piece. I like to think of taking individual parts of something and holding them up to the light to see how they look. Turn them around.  Look at them from different directions.  Take complex material and break it down into individual components to see how it works. Put it back together in various ways to make sense of it. It’s similar to a scientist breaking a compound into its individual components to see what it’s made of and how it can be manipulated. An analysis prompt might be something like “Compare the political and societal circumstances of the  Iroquois Confederacy from before the arrival of Europeans through the end of the 16th century.” This shows them your thinking process and how well you understand the subject. Be prepared for plenty of this type of writing in high school and college.

Synthesize

The third reason purpose of writing is to synthesize information from several sources that you have read or researched. This is the basis of most research writing. You’ll take information from several sources to support a new claim that neither of the sources made directly, but that you have realized after reading the sources. Synthesizing sources can require some summary, but mostly it requires analysis. The only way to draw a new conclusion from the sources is to have analyzed them and worked their various parts together. An example of this might be something like researching the value of recess time for middle-school aged students.  It would require information from a number of different sources to create a claim.

A well-written synthesis paper or research paper won’t have the sources standing alone in the points they make.  If each point is made by one source, you essentially are giving the instructor a string of summaries.  Weave the sources together as you make your points.  Show how each point and your overall claim are supported by more than one source.  If you have an over-reliance on one source and aren’t working it together with other sources, it can appear that you are mainly summarizing that one source rather than creating a new idea from plenty of research. That will not work in research writing.

Evaluate

Evaluation is the fourth reason for academic writing.  When you evaluate, you are giving a value judgement on the worth of something, specifically on its academic worth. It could be a someone else’s research, it could be a line of discussion, it could be particular sources.  This will not come into play much until you hit upper levels of academia because you aren’t qualified to make these types of judgements until you have done plenty of research, analysis, and synthesis.  By the time you are asked to evaluate material, your prior knowledge of the topic, your understanding of good research practices, your ability to recognize logical or illogical arguments, and your critical thinking skills should be well-developed.  Evaluating requires a combination of summarizing, analyzing, and synthesis skills.

When a writing assignment is given in any class, thoroughly read the assignment instructions to know exactly what the instructor is asking you to do.  If you have any questions about the assignment, ask them right away!  Understanding the point of the paper is one of the keys to a strong academic performance.