You have probably heard the saying “Knowledge is power.” But knowledge gives you power only if you put it to use in the form of what might be called a product. You have to decide what form that product will take—a piece of writing or a presentation—and what kind of power you want it to hold. Who is your audience and how will you present the information? What do you hope to accomplish by sharing your conclusions? Remember that a major goal of information literacy is to use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose. Make it a point to do something with the results of your research. Otherwise, why bother? You researched information to find the answer to a question. Now is the time to formulate that answer and share it with others.

Many students satisfy themselves with a straightforward report that summarizes what they found. Sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes you’ll want to analyze the information and use that analysis to form your own ideas. To do that, first consider how the facts, opinions, and details you found from your different sources relate to one another. What do they have in common, and how do they differ? What conclusions can you draw from those similarities and differences? What new ideas did they spark? How can you use the information you have on hand to support your conclusions? Essentially, what you’re doing at this stage of any research project is synthesis, a process in which you put together parts of ideas to come up with a whole result. By accepting some ideas, rejecting others, combining related concepts, and pulling it all together, you’ll create new information and ideas that other people can use.

Your final paper will include analysis and synthesis of the information you found through your research along with your original ideas. You must make sure that you clearly state which thoughts and ideas came from the sources you found and which are yours.