Do not treat six sources as six paragraphs. Decide what each source can actually support and mark where its evidence stops. A source belongs in the essay when it serves the writer's line of reasoning, whether it supplies context, data, or a complication that changes the claim.
Read the prompt before reading the packet
The synthesis prompt names the decision you are being asked to take a position on. Read it carefully before reading any source, and identify the actor, the action, the scope, and any qualifier the prompt uses. Reading the sources first, before knowing exactly what decision they need to inform, wastes the first read.
Give every source a tentative use
As you read, mark one likely use for each source, but do not treat that label as permanent. A source may supply context in one paragraph, evidence in another, or become a complication once your claim changes. The useful question is not "What type of source is this?" but "What specific claim could this source support, limit, or complicate?"
Separate context from evidence
Some sources exist mainly to establish background, why this issue exists, what the current policy is, how the debate arose. Others supply the specific evidence an essay can cite to support a claim. Confusing a context source for an evidence source, or the reverse, leads to citing the wrong kind of material for the job a paragraph needs done.
Find the source that limits the easy claim
In a well-built packet, at least one source complicates the position that looks easiest to take. Identifying that source early lets you build a more sophisticated essay from the start, rather than discovering the complication late and having to awkwardly retrofit it into an already-drafted argument.
Write the strongest claim each source can support
For each source, practice stating the strongest specific claim it could support in an essay, in one sentence. This is different from summarizing the source's content; it is deciding what argumentative job the source is actually suited to perform.
Notice when two sources do different jobs
Two sources can address the same general topic while doing entirely different jobs, one supplying a measurable trend, the other a stakeholder's lived experience of that same trend. Treating them as interchangeable, rather than recognizing their distinct contributions, flattens an essay's use of the packet.
Mark the visual before you forget it
A visual or data source requires its own careful reading: the variable, the units, the population, and the time period. Mark these details as you read the visual, since returning to reread a chart under time pressure costs more than reading it carefully once.
A source does not have to appear in the essay
You are not required to use all six sources equally, and a source that does not fit your specific argument does not need to be forced in. Using at least three sources well, each doing a specific job for your claim, serves the essay better than citing every source thinly.
Exam Diamond
Give each source a tentative job, then test it against a claim. The same source can do different work in different lines of reasoning.