Synthesis

WRITING
CRITICALLY

  • Summarize
  • Analyze
  • Synthesize
  • Evaluate

A synthesis pulls together information from additional sources or experiences to make a new point. Here is a synthesis of “Daily Hassles.” Because the writer wanted to address some of the questions she raised in her analysis, she incorporated additional details from published sources and from people she interviewed. The various sources the writer pulls together are underlined. Her synthesis of this information helped her arrive at a fresh conclusion.

In Discovering Psychology, Hockenbury and Hockenbury present evidence that males and females react to different sources of stress and respond differently to them. The studies they use as evidence discuss only married couples, however, and they provide few details about the actual kinds and symptoms of stress. Several other studies, as well as original research done among unmarried college students, provide some additional insights into these questions.

The Mayo Clinic’s Web site, produced by the staff at the Mayo Clinic, suggests that there are two main types of stress: acute stress, which is a response to specific and isolated situations (such as a car accident, a performance, or an exam) and chronic stress, which is longer term and cumulative. Acute, short-term stress can be good for people, prompting them to act. Chronic stress, however, tends to have negative effects, both physical and psychological. Daily hassles can produce either or both types of stress. Physical symptoms include headaches, back pain, stomach upset, and sleep problems. Psychological symptoms include anxiety, anger, depression, and burnout. The site offers numerous articles on stress and stress management, including a stress assessment test.

The Web site Diabetes at Work gives a list of the “Top 10 Daily Hassles,” among them the illness of a family member, home repairs, loss of work, and crime. It includes the same symptoms of stress that the Mayo Clinic site does, such as shortness of breath, forgetfulness, reduced concentration, trouble making decisions, and irritability. Neither the Diabetes at Work Web site nor the Mayo Clinic site distinguishes between male and female stress sources or symptoms.

To these sources, I added interviews with eight friends — four men and four women — who all reported these top five daily hassles: worries about money, transportation problems, waiting in lines, unfair bosses, and automated phone systems that take forever and never get you an answer.

The only significant difference in the kind of hassles reported by the men and women I talked to was that several women (but not men) mentioned worries about physical safety (for example, while traveling home from school at night). When I asked my friends to report how they dealt with their stress, they seemed to confirm the Hockenburys’ claim that women’s stress spills over into the family and men tend to withdraw. Two men reported no psychological symptoms of stress, whereas the remaining six people (four women and two men) emphasized both psychological and physical symptoms.

These sources suggest that there might be some gender differences in the hassles that people experience and the symptoms that result from these hassles, but they might not be as major as the Hockenburys’ passage led me to expect. Most of the stresses mentioned seem to be caused by having to do too much in too little time. Perhaps this is a comment on the quality of modern life, which affects both men and women equally.

Works Cited

Hockenbury, Don H., and Sandra E. Hockenbury. Discovering Psychology. 5th ed. New York: Worth, 2010. 543. Print.

Mayo Clinic Staff. “Stress Symptoms: Effects on Your Body, Feelings, and Behavior.” Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic, 20 Feb. 2009. Web. 13 Oct. 2010.

“Top 10 Daily Hassles.” Diabetes at Work. United States Dept. of Health and Human Services, 27 May 2007. Web. 10 Oct. 2010.

Synthesizing is important for longer writing assignments and research papers, in which you need to make connections among different works. Many courses that involve writing, such as history and psychology, require papers that synthesize information from more than one source.