• Can you think of a time where you had to synthesize information? Was it for a class or in your personal life? If it was for a class, did you have to follow any particular format? What were the challenges?
• Ask students to pull out the central theme(s) of a sample passage you provide. Using the same paragraph, ask students to summarize the paragraph using their own words.
• Provide students with a few short passages and have them synthesize the information into one paragraph.
• Ask students to compile ways in which a few research articles (with different premises and/or data) could be used together in a final paper.
• Ask students to generate a list of words or phrases that can be used in writing to describe relationships between sources. Look at writing samples that successfully synthesize ideas and highlight the phrases or sentences that tie together sources or contrast them with each other.
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