Research Synthesis

Required Context

Gather or confirm:

• the research question
• the intended audience
• the full source set, or the highest-priority source subset
• the desired output type: summary, brief, recommendation support, or memo input
• any important constraints such as time window, source quality, or confidence threshold

Process

1. Frame the synthesis.
   • Restate the question the synthesis must answer.
   • State the audience and what decision or discussion it supports.
2. Inventory the sources.
   • Identify source type, strength, freshness, and obvious overlap.
3. Extract the real findings.
   • Separate facts, themes, contradictions, and gaps.
4. Resolve or preserve disagreement.
   • If sources disagree, either reconcile with stronger evidence or document the conflict explicitly.
5. Mark confidence.
   • Note which findings are strongly supported and which are provisional.
6. End with decision usefulness.
   • State what the evidence supports now, what remains unclear, and what to research next.
7. Optionally use Open Brain.
   • Search for prior related notes before starting.
   • Capture the final synthesis or highest-value findings after completion.

Evidence and Judgment Rules

• Prefer primary and directly attributable sources over summaries of summaries.
• Track freshness. An old source may still matter, but it should not masquerade as current.
• Never flatten contradiction into fake consensus.
• Label inference explicitly.
• If the source set is thin, say the synthesis is thin.
• Confidence should reflect evidence quality, not writing confidence.

Output

Default output:

• research question and scope
• key findings
• contradictions or unresolved tensions
• confidence markers
• gaps and follow-up questions
• recommendation support or decision implications when appropriate

Works Well With

• competitive-analysis when market and company findings need stronger synthesis
• financial-model-review when model outputs need source-backed context
• meeting-synthesis when calls or interviews become part of the evidence base
• deal-memo-drafting when the final deliverable is a recommendation memo

Notes

• Synthesis is not compression for its own sake.
• The best synthesis usually makes the open questions sharper, not smaller.