# Literature Review

> Conduct literature reviews that map existing knowledge, identify gaps, and position new work without drowning in unprioritized sources. Use when starting academic work, grounding product strategy in prior evidence, or building a state-of-the-art summary.

- Skill: `itsual/literature-review` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add itsual/literature-review`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/itsual/literature-review/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Research & Search
- Author: itsual (https://skillmd.com/u/itsual)
- Updated: 2026-09-22
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/itsual/literature-review

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# Literature Review

## Overview

A literature review synthesizes what is already known so new work is additive. It prioritizes relevance and quality over exhaustive citation counts.

## When to Use

- Academic papers and theses
- Evidence grounding for strategy or policy
- Technology or market landscape baselines
- Identifying research gaps and debates

## Core Practices

- Define scope, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and time bounds
- Search systematically across relevant databases and sources
- Screen for quality and relevance; don’t cite everything found
- Organize by themes, methods, or debates — not only by paper
- Call out consensus, conflicts, and gaps
- Keep a source log with why each item was included

## Principles

- Synthesis > annotated bibliography
- Recent is not always better; seminal work matters
- Track what you searched so the review is reproducible
- Bias toward higher-quality evidence when claims are strong

## Verification

- [ ] Scope and search strategy are documented
- [ ] Themes and gaps are clear to a reader
- [ ] Claims are tied to cited evidence