Synthesis

When to use

Reach for this when you already have a pile of sources and need one coherent answer out of them — deduplicated, cited, and honest about where sources agree, conflict, or fall silent. It's the step that turns collected material into a usable narrative.

Not for: gathering the sources in the first place (use rsr-deep-dive); verifying a lone claim (use rsr-fact-check); grading one source (use rsr-source-eval); packaging for a decision-maker (use rsr-brief). Synthesis assumes the sources are in hand.

Method

1. Extract claims. From each source, pull discrete claims tagged with source and date. Ignore the prose; work at the claim level.
2. Cluster by assertion. Group claims that make the same point, regardless of wording, so you can see agreement and dedupe.
3. Score agreement. For each cluster: how many independent sources back it? Decision: count sources that echo one origin as one — independence, not headcount, drives confidence.
4. Resolve conflicts. Where claims contradict, prefer the more primary, more recent, better-evidenced source; if you can't resolve, present both and say why.
5. Assign confidence. High (multiple independent primaries agree), Medium (limited or secondary support), Low (single/weak source or unresolved conflict).
6. Write the answer. Lead with the high-confidence throughline, then caveats and conflicts, every claim carrying an inline citation.

Example

Six sources on "did remote work lower productivity?" Cluster A (4 sources, incl. 2 primary studies): mixed effects by role — High. Cluster B (2 sources, both citing one 2021 survey): "productivity dropped" — really one origin, so Medium at best. Conflict: a vendor blog claims a clear gain; it's self-interested and uncited, downgraded. Synthesis leads with "effects vary by role and task [1][2]," notes the survey-based drop claim is single-origin [3], and flags the vendor claim as unsupported [4].

Pitfalls

• Vote-counting: treating five sources that all cite one study as five-fold confirmation.
• Averaging conflicting claims into a mushy middle instead of adjudicating by source quality.
• Writing fluent prose with citations bolted on at the end that don't actually map to specific claims.
• Hiding disagreement to make the answer look cleaner than the evidence is.

Output format

Answer: <2-4 sentence throughline, inline [n] citations>

Supported claims:
- <claim> [High|Med|Low] — sources [1][2] (n independent)
- ...

Conflicts / unresolved:
- <claim A> [1] vs <claim B> [3] — resolved toward <..> because <..> / unresolved

Overall confidence: <High | Medium | Low>
Sources: [1] title — date …