The Historical Thinking Skill of Synthesis
The skill of synthesis can be the most challenging of the skills expected of students in AP European History, and it is
expected that student will demonstrate it in their DBQs.. While complete mastery of this skill is the hallmark of
professional historians, there are a variety of ways that a student at the AP/introductory college level can begin to
demonstrate proficiency in this skill, including but not limited to, the following:
1. You can appropriately extend or modify your thesis or argument.
o
How do I do this?
a. Moving beyond the prompt of a given question in order to give the argument more depth
and/or context. For example, if a question asks about the causes of World War I, you might
structure the essay around three primary causes: rivalries caused by imperialism, the alliance
system, and the influence of Social Darwinism. In the conclusion, you might extend the
argument by suggesting that all three causes were fundamentally rooted in the expansion of
nationalism over the course of the 19th century.
b. Modifying the argument by recognizing its limitations concerning causation. For example, in an
essay on the influence of the French Revolution on the emergence and development of
socialism, you might introduce in the conclusion other aspects that were not developed in the
body of the essay, such as the impact of industrialization.
c. Modifying the argument of the essay or presentation by recognizing the limits of its
applicability. For example, if you argue throughout an essay that the Enlightenment radically
changed the way in which Europeans thought about religion, you might note in the conclusion
that the majority of Europeans were not exposed to the new ideas and maintained traditional
religious beliefs.
d. Extending or modifying the argument by demonstrating proficiency in a different historical skill.
For example, in an essay that is primarily about historical causation, you may conclude by
questioning the periodization used in the prompt.
2. You can recognize and effectively account for disparate, sometimes contradictory evidence from primary
sources and/or secondary works in crafting a coherent argument.
o How do I do this?
a. Employing a style of writing that shows that you are capable of sophisticated comparisons. For
example, “While John Smith advocates … Mary Jones criticizes ...”; “On the one hand … while on
the other hand ...”; etc.
b. Clearly stating how one perspective or argument might undermine another or lead to different
conclusions.
c. Illustrating how one source functions as an explicit or implicit critique of another.
d. Demonstrating how different types of sources (e.g., texts, images, maps) can be used to create
a coherent argument.
3. You can identify and employ an additional category of analysis (e.g., political, economic, social, cultural,
geographical, race/ethnicity/gender) beyond that called for in the inquiry or essay prompt.
o How do I do this?
a. Discussing how cultural attitudes accounted for political differences. For example, in discussing
a political treaty like the Peace of Westphalia, you might briefly note how the treaty shaped and
was shaped by cultural attitudes toward religion.
b. Offering descriptions of the ways in which economic concerns may have affected political
decisions. For example, you might include a paragraph on the importance of the Great
Depression in an essay on the political factors behind the rise of the Nazi Party.
c. Paying attention to how gender, race, or ethnicity shaped cultural attitudes. For example, in a
discussion of two paintings from the Impressionist movement, a student might briefly discuss
the restrictions female artists faced in painting city scenes.
4. You can appropriately connect the topic of the question or inquiry to other historical periods, geographical
areas, contexts, or circumstances.
o How do I do this?
a. Comparing developments in one region with developments in another, even when not asked
for in the prompt. For example, in an essay on industrialization in western Europe, a student
might conclude by discussing one major way in which industrialization was different in eastern
Europe.
b. Highlighting how one development was a precondition for a subsequent one (or vice versa). For
example, in an argument about how the Renaissance established new ways of thinking about
the individual, you might state in the conclusion that these new ways of thinking about the
individual laid the foundation for modernity, as seen in the continuing emphasis on subjectivity
in the arts.
c. Illustrating how developments in one period might be compared to those in another. For
example, you might draw attention to a major difference in the peace settlements following the
first and second world wars.
d. Highlighting the ways in which social, political, and cultural contexts affected how one group of
people experienced a historical development or event versus another. For example, in an essay
on workers’ attempts to organize in the 19th century, you might include a brief discussion of
how and why their middle-class employers saw such attempts as dangerous.
5. You can draw on appropriate ideas and methods from different fields of inquiry or disciplines in support of his
or her argument (anthropology, economics, another historical discipline, religious studies, psychology, etc.)
o How do I do this?
a. Incorporating knowledge from other classes (e.g., literature, art history, economics) into your
arguments. For example, you may have learned about Keynesian economics in another class
and can use this knowledge to explain how Germany recovered from the Great Depression.
b. Drawing on methods of analysis learned in other courses. For example, you may learn in your
English class how novelists use plot to convey meaning might pay special attention to plotting in
analyzing a document in an essay.
c. Arguing that while a historian would emphasize certain aspects of a source or make a certain
type of argument, someone from another discipline might point to other factors. For example,
in an essay about modernist art, you might argue that while overall historians tend to see such
art as evidence of cultural anxiety and a turn toward the irrational, art historians celebrate the
artists who produced such art as self-assured actors whose innovations were evidence of
progress in the arts.