While you’re reading critically you will start to make links, identify themes and connect ideas from different sources. You will start to synthesise the literature.
Synthesis is defined by Pope (2007) cited in Efron, and Ravid (2018) as “bringing together separate elements from the individual studies or pieces of evidence and weaving them logically together to produce a coherent whole in the form of an argument, a theory, or a conclusion”.
While you’re reading critically you will start to make links, identify themes and connect ideas from different sources. You will start to synthesise the literature.
The video below is a great explanation and demonstration of a matrix synthesis.
You could use Microsoft Word or Excel, or Google Docs/Sheets to create your synthesis.