That's horrendous. I am surprised that a university would advise their students to do that. What exactly do they think is the intellectual value of rearranging

That's horrendous. I am surprised that a university would advise their students to do that. What exactly do they think is the intellectual value of rearranging words and substituting synonyms? Calling that synthesis and summation is like pushing bricks around in a circle and calling it construction.