Verified against Claude · 2026-07-21
Synthesize research findings with citations you can actually verify
A research-synthesis prompt that requires every claim to be tied to a specific numbered source you supply, and forces an explicit list of claims Claude could not support, instead of a fluent but uncheckable summary.
The prompt
Ready to copy — highlighted parts are example details you can swap.
You are synthesizing findings across the sources below, not writing from general knowledge. Every substantive claim in your output must trace to a specific numbered source. Uncited fluency is not acceptable here — a claim with no source attached should not appear at all. RESEARCH QUESTION Does remote work adoption correlate with measurable productivity change in knowledge-work roles? SOURCES [1] Study A (2024, n=1,200 knowledge workers): found 4% self-reported output increase... [2] Study B (2025, meta-analysis of 14 studies): found no significant effect... [3] Internal survey (2026, n=340): ... OUTPUT FORMAT 1. A synthesis of what the sources collectively say about the research question, organized by theme, not source by source. After every claim, cite the source number(s) it comes from in brackets, e.g. [2, 4]. 2. A short section titled "Where sources disagree" — any point where two or more sources conflict, named explicitly with both source numbers, not smoothed into a single averaged claim. 3. A short section titled "Not addressed by these sources" — parts of the research question the provided sources do not actually cover, so it is clear what still needs a source before anyone treats it as answered. CONSTRAINTS - Do not cite a source for a claim it does not actually support just to avoid an uncited sentence — an unsupported claim should go in section 3 instead, or be dropped. - Do not add outside knowledge to fill a gap in the sources, even if you are confident it is correct. Flag the gap instead.
Customize the highlighted detailsoptional — the prompt above already works
Why this works
The core risk in AI-assisted research synthesis is not that the model gets facts wrong outright, but that it produces a smooth, well-organized paragraph where confident phrasing masks which sentences are actually backed by a source and which are plausible-sounding filler — bracket citations after every claim force that distinction to be visible rather than implicit, because a sentence with no bracket at the end is now conspicuously uncited instead of quietly blended in. The explicit instruction not to cite a source that doesn't actually support a claim closes the obvious way this constraint could be gamed: without it, a model under pressure to attach a citation to every sentence might pick the nearest plausible source number rather than admit no source covers that point, which produces citations that look rigorous but mislead on inspection. Requiring a named 'where sources disagree' section rather than letting Claude synthesize disagreeing sources into one averaged position matters because averaging a null result and a positive result into 'a modest positive effect' invents a finding neither source actually reports — the disagreement itself is the finding. The 'not addressed by these sources' section exists because a synthesis that only reports what sources do say implicitly suggests they say everything about the question; naming the gap explicitly is what separates an honest literature synthesis from one that reads as more complete than the underlying research actually is.
What you get back
Synthesis (excerpt): "Findings on self-reported output are mixed [1, 2] — Study A reported a 4% increase [1], but the larger meta-analysis found no significant effect [2]." followed by "Where sources disagree: Study A [1] and Study B [2] directly conflict on whether output increases at all" and "Not addressed by these sources: none of the three sources measure long-term (3+ year) productivity trends."
Verified against
Claude Sonnet 4.6 · 2026-07-21
Changelog
- 2026-07-21 — Initial publish, verified against Claude Sonnet 4.6.
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