Literature Review Prompt

The Prompt

Conduct a structured literature review on: [RESEARCH TOPIC]

For each source/paper I provide, extract:
- **Thesis:** Main argument in one sentence
- **Method:** How they investigated (study type, sample, metrics)
- **Key findings:** Top 3 results with effect sizes if reported
- **Limitations:** What they acknowledge and what they don't
- **Contribution:** What's genuinely new vs confirming existing knowledge

Then synthesize across all sources:

**Themes:** What topics do multiple papers address?
**Agreements:** Where do findings converge? (note strength of evidence)
**Contradictions:** Where do findings conflict? Why might this be?
**Evolution:** How has thinking on this topic changed over time?
**Gaps:** What questions remain unanswered? What populations/contexts are understudied?
**Methods critique:** Are the dominant methods appropriate? What alternative approaches might yield different results?

**Research opportunity:** Based on the gaps, propose 2-3 specific research questions worth pursuing.

Sources:
[PASTE PAPER SUMMARIES OR KEY FINDINGS]

How To Use It

Provide summaries, abstracts, or key findings from 5-20 papers. The AI will find patterns across them that reading individually wouldn’t reveal. Works best when sources represent different perspectives or methodologies.

Why It Works

Literature reviews fail when they summarize papers sequentially instead of synthesizing across them. This prompt forces comparative analysis — looking for patterns, contradictions, and gaps — which is the actual intellectual work of a review.

Variations

Rapid systematic review:

From these 10 abstracts, create a PRISMA-style summary: inclusion rationale, quality assessment, evidence synthesis, and confidence in conclusions.

Theoretical framework mapper:

Map the theoretical frameworks used across these papers. Which frameworks dominate? Which are underused? Where might applying [FRAMEWORK X] to [TOPIC Y] yield new insights?

Citation network:

Based on these papers' reference lists, identify: the 5 most-cited foundational works, the intellectual lineages (who builds on whom), and recent papers that might be important but aren't yet widely cited.