Help at the MGH Institute
IHP Writing Center - Soup to nuts help with your writing assignments: planning, writing, editing, and referencing.
Academic writing can take many forms and serve different functions, especially in the context of a graduate school program. Here are some of the varied purposes.
Your graduate school assignments can include one of these, multiple of these, or all of these (which would be typical of a paper you would submit for publication).
For people new to academic writing, the difference between reporting and synthesizing can be a tough concept to understand. Let's see if we can give you some guidelines to help you understand the difference.
Reporting |
Synthesizing |
---|---|
1. Can include one or multiple sources. |
1. Must include multiple sources. |
2. Summarizes what a sources says. |
2. Highlights the most relevant and/or unique |
3. Does not include your thoughts on those |
3. Includes your own interpretations of what |
It might help to think about reporting like news reporting, "Just the facts, Ma'am." While synthesizing takes information from several sources in order to better explain the why or how of something.
For more discussion about this topic, take a look at Help... I've Been Asked to Synthesize!
General Writing Guides
Different Types of Writing
Grammar
Enroll in Bellack Library's short, self-paced online course on Academic Integrity that uses videos and written materials to help you learn to avoid plagiarism.
Here are a few additional guides that can help you avoid plagiarizing.
Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing (Purdue OWL)
Incorporating References (University of Kanas)
Avoiding Plagiarism (Purdue OWL)
Avoiding Plagiarism - Paraphrasing (MIT)
You may also want to talk with the MGH Institute's Writing Consultant.
Need to talk about percentages, statistics, or any other numbers in your paper?