One-liner: Build a complete research synthesis pipeline — from question to evidence-graded conclusions — using structured AI queries and your own critical judgment.
Pick a question you genuinely need answered for your work. Not a trivia question — something where the answer shapes a real decision.
Phase 1 — Define the research question. Send:
I need to research this question: [your question]
Help me refine it into a research-ready question by:
- Breaking it into 3-4 sub-questions that, if answered, would fully address the main question
- For each sub-question, identifying what type of evidence would count as a strong answer (data, expert consensus, case studies, logical argument, etc.)
- Flagging any assumptions embedded in the main question that I should test
Phase 2 — Structured evidence gathering. For each sub-question, run a separate AI query:
Research sub-question: [sub-question]
For this query, I want structured evidence:
- Strong evidence: Claims supported by widely documented data, peer-reviewed research, or established expert consensus
- Moderate evidence: Claims supported by credible case studies, industry reports, or respected analysis
- Weak evidence: Claims based on anecdotes, single examples, logical inference without data, or common assertions that may not hold up
Classify every claim you make. If you're not sure about the evidence quality, say so. I'd rather have honest uncertainty than false confidence.
Phase 3 — Contradiction analysis. After running all sub-queries, send this to a fresh session:
Here are the findings from my research on [main question]:
Sub-question 1 findings: [paste summary]
Sub-question 2 findings: [paste summary]
Sub-question 3 findings: [paste summary]Analyze the contradictions:
- Where do the findings from different sub-questions conflict?
- Which conflicts can be resolved by looking at the evidence quality?
- Which conflicts are genuine unresolved tensions?
- What additional evidence would resolve the remaining tensions?
Phase 4 — Your synthesis. Write a 500-word research brief yourself (not AI-generated) that answers your original question. Structure it as:
Here's what you're about to do:
"Done" looks like: A research brief that clearly distinguishes strong from weak evidence, acknowledges uncertainty, and provides a decision-ready answer with stated confidence.
This exercise combines the skills from IS-Basic-01 (extracting signal from noise) and IS-Intermediate-01 (triangulating across perspectives) into a complete research methodology. The evidence grading system prevents the common failure mode of treating all AI output as equally reliable. The contradiction analysis surfaces genuinely open questions rather than papering over them. This pipeline is directly applicable to due diligence, competitive intelligence, policy analysis, and any context where the cost of being wrong is high and the question is too complex for a single query.
You've reached the advanced level for Insight Synthesis. From here, consider:
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