How do undergraduate students handle writing syntheses?

The aim of this study is to explore the students' difficulties in the writing academic competence. A test on different area of writing abilities was prepared, to explore the undergraduates' writing performance, particularly the written syntheses, elaborated by the integration information from different source-texts. Participants were 150 freshmen of Educational Faculty in Padua University, future Primary teachers. We asked them to write a synthesis of 150 words, integrating the information of three texts. Three dimensions are been considered: informativeness (the degree to which a synthesis accounts for the source information), integration (degree to which readers relate concepts in a coherent representation), text quality: cohesion and textual organization. The data highlights that many students have serious difficulties in the integration of text-sources information and adopt a sequential procedure. Besides, a relationship emerges between comprehension and written production.