Syntic
All playbooks

Playbook

Research 4 min read

Map your lit review with your AI Research Analyst Employee

Your AI Research Analyst Employee reads your stack of papers and dispatches a Syntic Mapping Agent that draws the argument structure inline — clusters by claim, tension lines where camps disagree, blind spots per group. A reading of the debate you test against your own.

  • Workforce role AI Research Analyst Employee
  • Vertical Education / Research
  • Agent Syntic Mapping Specialist Agent
  • Capabilities Custom interactive visuals
  • Share Copy link

The request

You've read the papers. Each made sense on its own. What gets hard around paper twelve is holding the shape of the whole thing — which papers are building on each other, which are in tension, what each camp is taking for granted. Hand the stack to the AI Research Analyst Employee. It dispatches a Syntic Mapping Specialist Agent that draws the shape inline as you work through the set: clusters by claim, tension lines where camps disagree, a panel per cluster on what it's missing. The map is one reading of the debate — something to check against your own. Where you'd cluster differently is often where your own argument starts taking shape.

A grad student has read twenty papers on AI in K-12 and lost the thread. The Mapping Agent draws five argument clusters with tension lines between them, and the blind-spot panels give the student something to check against their own sense of the literature.

"I've read 20 papers on AI in K-12 and I've lost the thread. Map out who's actually agreeing with who and where the real disagreements are. I can't tell anymore which papers are building on each other and which are talking past each other. If I click into a group, give me the short version of what they've got and what they're missing."

How the Analyst briefs the Agent

Attach the papers or notes. The more of each paper the Mapping Agent can see — abstract, claims, who's cited — the more the map reflects what's there rather than a generic reading.

What the Agent needs

Papers or a consolidated notes file.

Paper notes PDF.

What ships back to chat

The Mapping Agent clusters by argument — the map is a picture of the debate, not a keyword tree. The blind-spot section in each cluster panel is the Analyst's reading of what that camp consistently undertheorizes, which is the kind of thing you stop seeing once you're inside a literature. The map is a position you check: where it matches your sense of the field, you've confirmed something; where it doesn't, you've found either a place you're wrong or the beginning of your own reading.

Shipped by the Syntic Mapping Specialist Agent.

Follow-up dispatches

Keep the loop going — the Analyst dispatches deeper as questions sharpen.

Click an element in the map to go deeper

Click any element and the Mapping Agent expands it below — the map stays, the detail opens beneath. A tension line surfaces which papers are in it.

"Walk me through the assessment-vs-surveillance tension — which specific claims does the critical camp push back on, and do the analytics papers engage or talk past it?"

Write up what the map showed

The Analyst dispatches a Writing Agent that drafts the lit review section using the map as the outline — one paragraph per cluster, one per tension line — and you edit from there.

"Draft the 'state of the debate' section for my lit review from this map. One paragraph per cluster, then one per tension line."

Tell the Analyst where you'd draw it differently and it redraws

Name the boundary you'd move and the Mapping Agent redraws — your correction reshapes the map.

"I think the Williamson paper belongs between the analytics and critical camps, not inside analytics. Redraw with it as a bridge and show me what changes about the tension lines."

Tips for the workforce loop

Verbs in your prompt shape what ships

"Who's agreeing with who and where the disagreements are" tells the Analyst to brief the Agent to cluster by argument — that's what gets tension lines. A plain "organize these papers" tends to ship a topic tree; this phrasing ships a map of the debate. Papers on the same subject can sit in opposite camps, and that's what you want to see.

Check the ship against your own understanding

The clusters are the Analyst's interpretation. If a paper you'd call a bridge ended up firmly in one camp, say so and watch the map adjust. Where you disagree is worth attention — either the Analyst's read is sharper than yours, or yours is sharper than the Analyst's, and the second case is an insight you can write up.

What to do with the visual next

Save as Artifact keeps the map live — add a paper next week and redraw without re-uploading the rest. Or ask the Analyst to write the "state of the debate" section from the clusters. The map is an outline you've tested; the paragraphs come from what it shows.

Onboard your AI Research Analyst

Hire an AI Research Analyst Employee inside Syntic, hand it the literature that's stopped making sense as a whole, and let it dispatch the right Specialist Agent to map the camps. Hover over the map for options: copy an image, or save as Artifact to keep iterating across the review.

Run this play yourself

Spin up Syntic free and bring your context. Most teams ship their first dispatch in under an hour.