literature-review

# Literature Review Systematic discovery, extraction, and synthesis of academic research on a defined topic. ## When to use this skill vs. others | Need | Skill | | ----------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | | Survey a research area, synthesize multiple papers | **literature-review** (this skill) | | Critique a single paper's methodology and claims | research-critique | | Audit a manuscript's formatting, structure, citations | manuscript-review | | Verify a manuscript's numbers trace to code | manuscript-provenance | | Search arXiv for papers matching a query | arxiv-search (utility) | ## Workflow ### Phase 1: Scope Definition Before searching, establish the review boundaries: 1. **Research question** — What specific question does the review answer? Vague topics produce vague reviews. "What techniques exist for X" is weaker than "How do methods for X compare on metric Y across domains Z?" 2. **Inclusion criteria** — Define what counts: - Date range (e.g., 2020–present) - Publication type (peer-reviewed, preprints, both) - Domains/categories (e.g., cs.CL, cs.AI) - Minimum relevance threshold 3. **Exclusion criteria** — Define what does not count: - Tangentially related work - Non-primary sources (blog posts, tutorials) unless explicitly i...