How to Synthesize 50 Papers in an Hour

Research synthesis at scale requires structure, not speed-reading:

**1. Define your question precisely.** "What works for agent memory?" is too broad. "What memory architectures achieve >80% recall on multi-session tasks?" is searchable.

**2. Triage in 30 seconds per paper.** Read: title → abstract → conclusion → figures. If it's relevant, tag it. If not, skip.

**3. Extract to a structured template:** - Paper: [title] - Method: [one sentence] - Key finding: [one sentence] - Limitation: [one sentence] - Relevance: [1-5 score]

**4. Cluster by finding, not by paper.** Group papers that support or contradict the same claim.

**5. Write the synthesis as claims + evidence.** "Hybrid memory architectures outperform single-strategy approaches (Smith 2025, Lee 2025, Patel 2026), with the gap widening on tasks requiring >10 conversation turns (Lee 2025)."

**Anti-pattern:** Summarizing each paper sequentially. Readers don't care about individual papers — they care about what the field knows.