User:Dan Wylie-Sears 2/What SYNTH is not

This page is obsolete. I've put the essay into the WP namespace at WP:SYNTHNOT.

SYNTH cautions against committing "original syn", i.e. original research by synthesis. This essay is intended to help explain the spirit of that policy, but to oppose adhering to the letter of the policy in many cases. After all, Wikipedia does not have firm rules.

It must be emphasized that WP:SYNTH is policy, and this is merely a user essay.

SYNTH is not useless

"SYNTH" refers both to a policy forbidding original research by synthesis, and to such synthesis itself. The policy is not useless. You should not be able to use Wikipedia to publish a crackpot theory, even if you can cite sources for all the premises of your arguments. You should not be able to count something as verified when it really isn't, even if you can cite sources for all the premises of your arguments.

Here's an example of SYNTH:

N At the battle of Salamander Creek, the Union forces had a total of 3016 men missing or killed.^[1] Confederate forces reported taking 1008 prisoners,^[2] and the Salamander Valley Critic reported that of the corpses recovered from the battlefield, 1508 were Union soldiers.^[3] The remaining 500 men would be classified as deserters under ...

The sourced numbers would imply, by simple arithmetic, that 500 men went missing. But there's more to it than that: Are the numbers comparable? Just because someone gives four significant figures, that doesn't mean they actually know that level of precision: how precise are these numbers? Is there another category that could account for part of the difference? That requires some argument, or an expert judgment: even if you read and understand the sources, you still don't necessarily know. The factual claim of 500 deserters is unverified until a source is cited for it, not just the other numbers.

SYNTH is not merely unclear writing

Unclear writing can cause editors to commit SYNTH unintentionally. If your writing is so garbled that you say something you didn't intend to, well, you still said it. But if it's merely unclear, then there's no new thesis introduced. There's just an unclear statement that could be taken as introducing a new assertion. And if some writing is unclear, the response shouldn't be to challenge the presumed assertion as SYNTHful. The response should be to either ask for clarification on the article talk page (if it's a high-traffic article where other editors will be able to clarify the statement), ask for clarification on the author's user talk page, or boldly clarify it yourself.

SYNTH is not an advocacy tool

If someone doesn't like what was said, and they therefore cry SYNTH, others almost certainly will be right to cry foul. Virtually anything can be shoehorned into a broad reading of SYNTH, but the vast majority of it shouldn't be..

SYNTH is not a rigid rule

Wikipedia doesn't have them, supposedly. But if a policy gets enforced zealously, it can be hard to tell the difference. The solution is not to enforce policies zealously. Never use a policy in such a way that the net effect will be to stop people from improving an article.

SYNTH is not mere juxtaposition

SYNTH is when two or more reliably-sourced statements are combined to produce a new thesis that isn't verifiable from the sources. Given just about any two juxtaposed statements, one can imagine that something might be insinuated by the juxtaposition. Don't. If the juxtaposition really does constitute SYNTH, the insinuation will be obvious. Gray-area cases aren't SYNTH, just unclear writing.

SYNTH is not summary

SYNTH is when two or more reliably-sourced statements are combined to produce a new thesis that isn't verifiable from the sources. It's likely that none of the sources summarize exactly the same set of information. But if it's an accurate, neutral summary, then it's verified by the sources for the statements being summarized.

SYNTH is not explanation

SYNTH is when two or more reliably-sourced statements are combined to produce a new thesis that isn't verifiable from the sources. If you're just explaining the same material in a different way, there's no new thesis.

SYNTH is not ubiquitous

If your understanding of SYNTH includes 90% of what's on Wikipedia, your understanding of SYNTH is wrong. If the letter of the policy supports your understanding, clarify or ignore it.

SYNTH is not presumed

If you want to revert something on the grounds that it's SYNTH, you should be able to explain what new thesis is being introduced and why it's not verified by the sources. You don't have to put the whole explanation in the edit summary, but if someone asks on the talk page, you should have something better ready than "Of course it's SYNTH. You prove it isn't." The burden of proof is light: just explaining what new assertion is made will do, and then it's up to the other editor to show that your reading is unreasonable. But in any disagreement, the initial burden of proof is on the person making the claim, and the claim that something is SYNTH is no exception.

SYNTH is not a catch-all

If there's something bugging you about an edit, but you're not sure what, why not use SYNTH? After all, everything under the sun can be shoehorned into a broad-enough reading of SYNTH. Well, because it isn't SYNTH. It's shoehorning. To claim SYNTH, you should be able to explain new claim, and what sort of additional research a source would have to do in order to support the claim.

SYNTH is not important per se

What matters is that all material in Wikipedia is verifiable, not that it's actually verified. If there's a statement for which no source is cited, that's normally ok, as with the example on WP:NOR: "Paris is the capital of France" needs no source because no one is likely to object to it, but we know that sources for it exist. Likewise with very many unsourced statements, regardless of whether they could be deduced from sourced statements in the same article, we know the sources exist.

SYNTH is not moot

If something is not likely to be challenged, a source need not be cited.

SYNTH is not a policy

It's part of a policy: no original research. If a putative SYNTH doesn't constitute original research, then it doesn't constitute SYNTH. The section points out that synthesis can and often does constitute original research. It does not follow that all synthesis constitutes original research.

SYNTH is not obvious I

It's not always obvious whether something is SYNTH. To be able to say that something is SYNTH, you have to be able to understand what it says, what the sources say, and whether the sources suffice to verify the assertion. If you don't understand something, don't say it's SYNTH. Say it's too advanced for the article. Say it's unclear writing. Boldly try to clarify it. Allege on the noticeboard that it's SYNTH. But don't revert it indiscriminately for being SYNTH.

SYNTH is not obvious II

If something is obvious to anyone who reads and understands the sources that are supposed to support it, then it's not SYNTH.

SYNTH is not a secondary-school question

Most Wikipedia articles, those on subjects of general interest, should be comprehensible to a typical secondary-school student. It does not follow that a secondary student should be able to evaluate whether the cited sources suffice to verify a particular assertion. Inevitably, many sources are more advanced than the article. Normally, however, an ordinary educated layperson can understand the sources adequately. If such a person can confirm that the sources suffice to verify the claim, then the claim is not SYNTH -- even if a typical secondary-school student would have trouble evaluating the question.

SYNTH is not a matter of grammar

The policy gives one example of something that's not SYNTH and says, "The first paragraph is fine, because each of the sentences is carefully sourced." SYNTH is when two or more reliably-sourced statements are combined to produce a new thesis that isn't verifiable from the sources: it's about what the writing says, not the grammatical structure of how it says it.

SYNTH is not just any synthesis

SYNTH is original research by synthesis, not synthesis per se. In 2004, Jimbo Wales actually contrasted synthesis with original research: "In many cases, the distinction between original research and synthesis of published work will require thoughtful editorial judgment." [1] It seems clear to me that "synthesis of published work" was assumed to be part of the legitimate role of Wikipedia.

Some old versions of NOR even said "Wikipedia is a secondary source (one that analyzes, assimilates, evaluates, interprets, and/or synthesizes primary sources) or tertiary source ..."[2] (emphasis added).

SYNTH is not primarily point-by-point

Very old versions of NOR focused on crackpot theories being published whole, not on single statements within the exposition of a body of well-established fact. The under-the-microscope level of scrutiny often practiced now, which demands removal of a single clause until a source can be found that presents the material the same way, is more a result of creep than of well-thought-out policy.

Crackpot theories should be removed quickly; their exclusion is a good reason to have NOR be a central tenet of Wikipedia policy. By contrast, unsourced but uncontroversial individual statements can be left in place indefinitely, with at most a citation-needed template. If such statements were what the policy was primarily about, it would be a minor guideline.

SYNTH is not NPOV, when it is point-by-point

The policy forbids "synthesis of published material that advances a position" (emphasis added). An NPOV article gives appropriate weight to all positions, if there are multiple positions on a subject, by including multiple statements. A single assertion, by contrast, can be NPOV only if it doesn't advance any particular position to begin with. So if a single statement, taken in isolation, is NPOV, then it's not SYNTH.

SYNTH is not unpublishably unoriginal

When you look at a case of putative SYNTH, apply the following test. Suppose you took this claim to a journal that does publish original research. Would they (A) vet your article for correctness, documentation, and style, and publish it if it met their standards in those areas? Or would they (B) laugh in your face because your "original research" is utterly devoid of both originality and research, having been common knowledge in the field since ten years before you were born? If you chose (B), it's not original research -- even if it violates the letter of WP:SYNTH.