Opening up the black box of scholarly synthesis: Intermediate products, processes, and tools

Synthesis is a foundational scholarly product that generates new conceptual wholes from independent intellectual sources. But effective synthesis products—such as literature reviews—are rare, in part due to inadequate support from existing tools and information systems. A detailed, situated understanding of the work practices behind synthesis is necessary to inform the development of synthesis tools. Previous work in scholarly primitives, active reading, and sensemaking provide partial explanations of aspects of synthesis, but a detailed explanation of scholarly synthesis, specifically, is lacking. This paper presents a foundational empirical examination of the work practices behind synthesis to address the gap, focusing on unpacking the intermediate products, processes, and tools through in‐depth contextual interviews with scholars. Results shed light on the distinctive intermediate products generated during synthesis—including in‐source annotations, per‐source summaries, and cross‐source syntheses—as well as effortful processes for nonlinear progression of these intermediate products towards a final synthesis product. These products and practices were also embedded in a complex ecology of creative re‐appropriated tools. This work enriches understanding of the complex scholarly practices that produce synthesis and opens up a research agenda for understanding and supporting scholarly synthesis more generally.