Structuring a text

Twelfth on this list is in sintesi, and the family it belongs to is one an English reader has to handle with care. La sintesi is the ordinary Italian word for a summary. Fai una sintesi di due pagine asks for a précis and nothing more, and in sintesi at the head of a sentence means in short. English « synthesis » cannot do that work at all. It is the putting together of parts into a whole — a synthesis of two traditions, the synthesis of ammonia — so a reader who meets « a synthesis of the report » expects a combination rather than a shortening. The adjective is the worse trap, because it looks harmless. Una risposta sintetica is a brief answer, scrivi in modo sintetico asks for concision, and sintetico is plain praise in a report; « synthetic » in English means man-made, and said of prose it means fake. The safe renderings are therefore « in short », « in sum », « to sum up » and « concise ». Keep « synthesis » for the laboratory and for philosophy, where it really does mean two things joined into one.