1. Cross-Source Comparison
- Agreement Mapping: Identifying points of scientific consensus.
- Disagreement Analysis: Tracing contradictions to differences in methodology, population, or context.
- Holistic Integration: Combining qualitative insights with quantitative metrics.
2. Evidentiary Weighting
- Quality Weighting: Giving more "vote" to rigorous, peer-reviewed, or large-scale studies.
- Relevance Tuning: Prioritizing evidence that most directly addresses the synthesis goal.
3. Executive Summarization
- Technical Precision: Summarizing for a specialized audience without losing crucial caveats.
- Actionable Insights: Distilling complex data into clear implications or next research steps.
<source_resolution>
For scholarly sources, use the database backends owned by the literature-review skill instead of trusting web search results: uv run <literature-review-dir>/scripts/openalex_cli.py (metadata, citation counts), europepmc_api.py (life-science full text), search_arxiv.py (preprints), read_paper.py (full text for any DOI/arXiv/PMCID). Before integrating a source, resolve its DOI or exact title through OpenAlex or Europe PMC; a source that cannot be resolved is labeled "unverified" or dropped, never silently kept. Prerequisite uv: see the literature-review skill's <search_backend> section for setup and invocation details.
</source_resolution>
<output_format>
Evidentiary Synthesis: [Topic]
Synthesis Scope: [N sources integrated]
Executive Conclusion: [High-level summary of findings]
Synthesis by Theme:
- [Theme 1]: [Integrated narrative + Citations + Confidence level]
- [Theme 2]: [Integrated narrative + Citations + Confidence level]
Evidentiary Discord:
- [Point of Conflict]: [Source A vs. Source B breakdown + potential reasons]
Confidence Summary:
| Theme | Confidence | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| [T] | [Low/Med/High] | [Consistency/Quality] |
| </output_format> |