Research Synthesis

Problem

Most research work fails at the synthesis step. Facts get repeated instead of organized, contradictions disappear, and the final brief sounds cleaner than the evidence really is.

Audience

• Primary: both operators and investors

When to Use

• Turning a defined source set into a clear, decision-grade brief
• Resolving or surfacing contradictions across sources
• Distilling a large research packet into findings, gaps, and next questions
• Preparing material for a memo, strategy discussion, or leadership review

When Not to Use

• Competitive market mapping with light source work: use competitive-analysis
• Transcript cleanup, action extraction, or follow-up drafting: use meeting-synthesis
• Final memo drafting when the synthesis is already done: use deal-memo-drafting
• Model-specific assumption review: use financial-model-review

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.