Second Brain / Standard term
Synthesis
Combining evidence from multiple sources to produce a new account of agreements, differences, relationships, uncertainty, and unresolved gaps.
Synthesis is more than concatenating summaries. It compares claims under their dates, scopes, methods, authority, and provenance. Two records may conflict because one supersedes the other, because they describe different populations, or because one is wrong. Source count alone is weak evidence when several records repeat the same origin.
Builder example
A useful synthesis keeps supported findings, contradictions, and open questions distinct and links each to the underlying evidence. Records can carry different review states; excluding all unreviewed primary evidence may hide a new development, while treating every source equally can manufacture consensus.
Common confusion: Synthesis is not the same as summarizing. A summary condenses one source; synthesis sets several reviewed sources against each other to expose where they agree, conflict, or leave a gap. Two records can each be reliable alone and still contradict each other once compared.