# Claude Research Brief: From Question to Cited Draft

> A three-stage Claude workflow that turns a research question into a structured brief with sources, key claims, and a first draft you can edit.

**Platform:** Claude  
**Category:** claude  
**Difficulty:** Intermediate  
**Tags:** claude, research, writing, long-context  
**Updated:** 2025-06-02  
**Source:** https://promptfoo.tech/workflows/claude-research-brief-workflow

## Overview
Long-context models make it possible to research and write in the same session without losing citations. This workflow uses Claude's 200k context to hold source material, extract claims, and produce a first draft that references the sources by number.

## How it works
1. Stage 1: paste 5–15 source articles into a single message with numbered delimiters.
2. Stage 2: ask Claude to output a claims table (claim, source #, confidence).
3. Stage 3: ask Claude to write an 800-word brief that only uses claims marked high-confidence and cites source numbers inline.

## Benefits
- Cuts research-to-first-draft from a full afternoon to under an hour.
- Every claim in the draft is traceable to a source you provided.
- Reusable across topics by changing only the sources.

## Use cases
- Analysts writing weekly market notes.
- Content teams producing pillar articles from vetted sources.
- Consultants preparing briefing docs for client meetings.

## Step-by-step
### Step 1: Collect and label sources
Save each source as plain text or clean markdown. Number them S1..Sn. Strip navigation and ads.

### Step 2: Paste with the framing prompt
Use the provided system prompt that instructs Claude to only cite sources present in the message and to refuse otherwise.

### Step 3: Request the claims table
Ask for a markdown table with claim, supporting source(s), and confidence. Reject any row without a source.

### Step 4: Generate the draft
In a follow-up turn, ask for the 800-word brief. Insist on inline [S3] style citations.

### Step 5: Human edit pass
Read every citation. Anything not directly supported gets cut, not softened.

## FAQs
**Why not use web search?**

Web-search agents drift and cite pages they didn't actually read. Providing sources up front produces more auditable output.

**How many sources can I include?**

Practically 15–25 well-trimmed articles fit comfortably. Beyond that, chunk into topic clusters.

**Does this work with GPT-4?**

Yes, but you'll want to reduce sources to fit its context window and be stricter about citation refusal in the prompt.

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Licensed under CC-BY-4.0. Attribution: PromptFoo.tech