User:Remsense/Explicit and implicit synthesis

Language is slippery: in reality, neither words nor rhetorical techniques have totally fixed meanings for an individual reader, never mind across a potential readership of millions. However, for our purposes words do have shared, broadly understood meanings, and so do rhetorical techniques. There are many ways to create meaning in a text besides the explicit use of words, and this meaning is also capable of constituting an improper synthesis of sources, and therefore original research.

The examples given here may be characterized as spanning the overlap of Wikipedia's policies on original research and undue weight—fundamentally, both concepts are concerned with the claims made by an article, so this is a reasonable perspective. Here, focus is given to examples of when claims may be easily distilled to explicit statements, but remain implicit in the text.

Simple juxtaposition
Below are three example sentences demonstrating improper editorial synthesis. On their own, the two factual claims in each example may be reliably sourced. However, in the first example they have been joined with a conjunction such that the second clause explicitly questions the first clause, ultimately synthesizing a claim that the UN has failed to maintain international peace.

In the second example, the same sourced material is composed with a different conjunction and an additional qualifying term to synthesize the exact opposite claim, illustrating how easily an article's framing can be skewed by synthetic claims not actually supported by any one source:

The previous two examples both synthesize material by adding words with specific meanings. However, meaning is also created by juxtaposition alone. The third example simply states the two factual claims sequentially. Whether it is implicit synthesis depends on further context, as the surrounding material can likewise clarify implications made by its constituent passages. Ultimately, it is more subjective, and arguably where original research overlaps with the distinct policy regarding. Care is warranted, as it is possible to imagine many contexts where a negative implication would be obvious to many readers: