# Lit Review > Use when working with a literature review is NOT a summary of what scholars have said. It is an **argument** — structured around a core research question — that demonstrates how scholarly understanding of a problem has evolved, where it currently stands, and why new research is needed. Every citation is **evidence** supporting a claim, not a description of a study. - Skill: `tomevault-io/lit-review` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add tomevault-io/lit-review` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/tomevault-io/lit-review/raw - Safety review: pending (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS) - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Research & Search - Author: tomevault-io (https://skillmd.com/u/tomevault-io) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/tomevault-io/lit-review --- # Literature Review Skill ## Core Philosophy A literature review is NOT a summary of what scholars have said. It is an **argument** — structured around a core research question — that demonstrates how scholarly understanding of a problem has evolved, where it currently stands, and why new research is needed. Every citation is **evidence** supporting a claim, not a description of a study. **The golden rule: problem-driven, not literature-driven.** The reader should finish the review understanding the intellectual landscape of a question, not a catalogue of publications. ## Hard Gate **DO NOT search for literature, outline, or begin writing until Phase 1 (Research Understanding) is fully completed and confirmed by the user.** The quality of a literature review depends entirely on the clarity of the research question it serves. Rushing to search before understanding the research guarantees a mediocre product. ## Process Overview ``` Phase 1: Research Understanding (Socratic dialogue with user) ↓ user confirms Phase 2: Literature Discovery (seed → snowball → curate) ↓ user confirms corpus Phase 3: Full-text Acquisition (self-attempt → user assistance) ↓ user provides missing papers Phase 4: Exemplar Analysis (dissect 2-3 top-journal lit reviews) ↓ Phase 5: Architecture Design (propose structure for user approval) ↓ user approves Phase 6: Drafting (write section by section, user reviews each) ↓ user approves all sections Phase 7: Integration & Polish (combine, check citations, finalize) ``` --- ## Phase 1: Research Understanding ### Goal Achieve crystal-clear understanding of the user's research before touching any literature. Use Socratic questioning — one question at a time, building on each answer. ### Required Information (must collect ALL before proceeding) 1. **Research topic & object**: What exactly are you studying? What is the empirical case or phenomenon? 2. **Core research question**: What question does your research answer? (If the user can't articulate this clearly, help them formulate it through dialogue.) 3. **Disciplinary positioning**: Which academic field(s) does this sit in? Which scholarly conversations does it join? 4. **Theoretical orientation**: What theoretical lens or framework are you using or building on? 5. **Hypothesized contribution**: What do you think your research adds to existing knowledge? What makes your case or argument distinctive? 6. **Literature review scope**: What language (English, Chinese, both)? What time span? What journals matter most in your field? 7. **Output requirements**: Target word count? Part of a larger paper or standalone? Language of output? ### Questioning Strategy - Ask ONE question per message. Do not overwhelm. - Prefer multiple-choice when possible to help users clarify their thinking. - When the user's answer is vague, probe deeper: "You mentioned X — can you be more specific about what makes this different from Y?" - If the user struggles to articulate their contribution, offer candidate framings: "Based on what you've described, your contribution might be framed as A, B, or C — which resonates most?" - Summarize your understanding after collecting all information and ask the user to confirm before proceeding. ### Confirmation Gate Before moving to Phase 2, present a structured summary: > **Research Summary for Confirmation:** > - Topic: [...] > - Research question: [...] > - Field: [...] > - Theoretical lens: [...] > - Hypothesized contribution: [...] > - Literature scope: [language, time span, key journals] > - Output spec: [word count, language, format] > > Is this accurate? Any corrections before I begin searching for literature? **Only proceed after explicit user confirmation.** --- ## Phase 2: Literature Discovery ### Step 2.1: Seed Literature Identify 5-8 seed papers through: - User-provided references (always ask: "Do you already have key papers in mind?") - WebSearch for the most-cited papers on the core topic - lit-review-mcp tools (resolve_papers, snowball_expand) if available **Seed selection criteria:** - Published in high-impact journals (see Journal Tier List below) - Highly cited in the field - Directly relevant to the core research question ### Step 2.2: Snowball Expansion From seeds, expand outward: - Use citation networks (who cites these papers? who do they cite?) - Use lit-review-mcp snowball_expand if available - Search for recent papers (last 3-5 years) that cite the classic seeds - Search for papers that challenge or complicate the seeds ### Step 2.3: Curation Target: **30-50 papers** in the final corpus. **Curation rules:** 1. **Journal quality filter**: Strongly prefer Tier 1 and Tier 2 journals (see list below). Tier 3 papers may be used as search clues but should NOT appear in the final review unless they make a unique, irreplaceable contribution. 2. **Temporal balance**: Include both foundational/classic works AND recent publications (last 5 years). A review with no papers after 2020 looks outdated; a review with no papers before 2010 looks rootless. 3. **Perspective balance**: Include papers that support, complicate, and challenge the user's framing. A review that only cites sympathetic literature is unconvincing. 4. **Relevance triage**: Every paper must serve a specific argumentative function in the review. If you can't articulate why a paper is included, cut it. ### Journal Tier List (customize per field — below is for Urban Studies / China Studies) **Tier 1 — Must-use if relevant:** Urban Studies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR), Environment and Planning A/B/C/D, Progress in Human Geography, Antipode, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, The China Quarterly, Journal of Peasant Studies, World Development **Tier 2 — Strong sources:** Cities, Habitat International, Urban Geography, Regional Studies, China Economic Review, Journal of Contemporary China, Development and Change, Geoforum, Political Geography, Journal of Rural Studies, Land Use Policy **Tier 3 — Use as search clues only:** MDPI journals (Land, Sustainability, etc.), SCIRP journals, conference proceedings, working papers, book reviews **Books from major university presses** (Oxford, Cambridge, Chicago, Minnesota, etc.) are equivalent to Tier 1 journal articles. ### Deliverable Present the curated corpus to the user as a structured list: | # | Author(s) | Year | Title | Journal/Publisher | Role in review | |---|-----------|------|-------|-------------------|----------------| Ask the user to review, suggest additions, or flag removals before proceeding. --- ## Phase 3: Full-text Acquisition ### Step 3.1: Self-attempt For each paper in the corpus, attempt to obtain full text through: 1. Open access URLs (check OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar) 2. Author institutional repositories 3. WebFetch / Jina on known open-access versions 4. web-access skill CDP browser mode for publisher sites (if user's browser has institutional access) ### Step 3.2: Gap Report For papers whose full text cannot be obtained, compile a clear list for the user: > **Papers I could not access — please help me obtain these:** > > 1. Wu (2018) "Planning centrality, market instruments" — Urban Studies 55(7): 1383-1399 > DOI: 10.1177/0042098017721828 > 2. [...] > > Please download these PDFs and save them to [working directory]. Once available, tell me and I'll read them. ### Step 3.3: Reading & Analysis For each acquired paper, extract: - Section structure and headings - Core argument (in 2-3 sentences) - How the literature review section is organized (if present) - Key concepts or frameworks introduced - Empirical evidence or cases used - How it relates to the user's research question **Store notes** in a working file for reference during drafting. --- ## Phase 4: Exemplar Analysis ### Goal Before writing, study how excellent literature reviews in the user's field are actually constructed. ### Process 1. Select 2-3 papers from the corpus that are published in Tier 1 journals AND contain substantial literature review sections (or are themselves review articles). 2. For each, analyze and extract: - **Section architecture**: How many sections? What are the headings? What's the logical flow? - **Argumentative strategy**: How does the author establish the research gap? Through theoretical debate? Empirical contradiction? Conceptual genealogy? - **Citation technique**: How are citations used — as clustered evidence for claims (parenthetical) or as descriptions of individual studies ("Scholar X argued that...")? - **Transition logic**: How does the author move from one section to the next? What connects them? - **Opening strategy**: How does the paper begin — with a puzzle? A contradiction? A bold claim? 3. Present findings to user: > **Exemplar Analysis: What top papers in your field do** > > Paper A uses [strategy]... > Paper B uses [strategy]... > > For your review, I recommend combining [elements] because [reasoning]. --- ## Phase 5: Architecture Design ### Design Principles (derived from experience) 1. **One core question runs through the entire review.** Every section answers or advances this question. 2. **Sections represent shifts in the answer**, not shifts in chronology. Time may be a dimension, but the organizing principle is how the scholarly answer to the question has changed. 3. **The research gap emerges from the logic of the argument**, not from a claim that "nobody has studied X." A credible gap is one that the reader can see is logically necessary given the preceding analysis. 4. **The opening creates cognitive tension** — present an anomaly, a contradiction, or a puzzle that the existing literature cannot resolve. This hooks the reader and justifies the review's existence. ### Structure Template (adapt to specific case) ``` 1. Opening (~10% of word count) - Anomaly or puzzle that motivates the review - Core question stated explicitly - Roadmap of the argument 2-N. Body sections (~70% of word count) - Each section: one phase/dimension of how the question has been answered - Within each section: thesis statement → evidence (citations as proof) → limitation/transition - Transitions between sections: "This framework was powerful, but it carried an implicit assumption that..." N+1. Gap & Contribution (~20% of word count) - What the preceding analysis reveals is missing - Why this gap matters (derived from the logic, not asserted) - How the present study addresses it - Honest engagement with adjacent work that partially overlaps ``` Present the proposed architecture to the user for approval before drafting. --- ## Phase 6: Drafting ### Writing Rules 1. **No "Scholar X argued/found/demonstrated" constructions.** Instead: state a claim, then cite evidence parenthetically. - BAD: "Hsing (2010) argued that local governments compete for land rents." - GOOD: "Local governments compete fiercely to capture land rents, using construction projects to consolidate territorial authority (Hsing, 2010)." 2. **Cluster citations** when multiple sources support the same point: "(Wang et al., 2009; Liu et al., 2010; Hao et al., 2011)". Name individual scholars in the text ONLY when they introduced a distinctive concept that cannot be attributed generically. 3. **Every paragraph has a job.** It either advances the argument, provides evidence, or transitions to the next point. Paragraphs that merely describe a study without connecting it to the argument should be cut. 4. **Transitions are arguments, not connectors.** Don't write "Moving on to the next topic..." Write "This framework was powerful, but it carried an implicit assumption: that high-quality urbanization requires state direction. This assumption was thrown into relief by..." 5. **The gap section must be honest.** Acknowledge adjacent work (Hou, Smith, Chung & Unger, etc.) that partially addresses the space you're claiming. Explain precisely what remains unintegrated, not that nobody has ever looked at this. ### Process - Write one section at a time. - After each section, present to user for review. - Incorporate feedback before proceeding to the next section. - Track word count to stay within target. --- ## Phase 7: Integration & Polish 1. Combine all approved sections into a single document. 2. Check citation consistency — every parenthetical citation must appear in references; every reference must be cited in text. 3. Verify journal names, years, and volume/issue numbers against known data. 4. Compile the full reference list in the required citation style. 5. Read the complete review once more for argumentative coherence — does each section flow logically into the next? 6. Present the final integrated version to the user. --- ## Tool Usage ### Literature Search - **WebSearch**: For discovering papers, checking journal impact, finding open-access versions - **lit-review-mcp tools** (if available): resolve_papers, snowball_expand, run_snowball_pipeline, filter_by_topic, rank_by_importance - **web-access skill CDP mode**: For accessing papers through the user's browser (institutional subscriptions) ### Full-text Reading - **Read tool**: For PDFs downloaded to local workspace - **WebFetch / Jina**: For open-access HTML versions - **web-access skill CDP mode**: For reading papers through the user's authenticated browser sessions ### When Access Fails **NEVER silently skip a paper you can't access.** Always report to the user: - Which papers you could not access - Why (paywall, 403, institutional login required) - What the user should do (download PDF, log into university library, etc.) - Where to save the files so you can read them --- ## Anti-patterns to Avoid 1. **Starting to search before understanding the research.** This produces a generic, unfocused literature dump. 2. **Organizing by chronology instead of argument.** Time can be a dimension within an argument, but "First scholars said X, then scholars said Y" is not an argument. 3. **Treating all papers equally.** Some papers deserve a sentence; some deserve a paragraph. Allocate space by argumentative importance, not by recency or citation count. 4. **Claiming "nobody has studied X."** Almost certainly someone has studied something adjacent. The honest move is to show what they studied, what they missed, and why the gap matters. 5. **Using small-journal papers as primary evidence.** These can help you find relevant work, but the review itself should be built on high-quality sources. 6. **Writing the review before reading exemplars.** You cannot produce publication-quality writing without first studying what publication-quality writing looks like in the specific field. 7. **Presenting a complete draft without iterative user review.** Academic writing is deeply personal — the user must shape it section by section. --- > Source: [Bethww/lit-review](https://github.com/Bethww/lit-review) — distributed by [TomeVault](https://tomevault.io).