AI-Powered Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are where AI saves the most time. What used to take weeks of manual searching, reading, and note-taking can be compressed to days — if you use the right tools and the right process.

This lesson teaches a systematic approach to AI-powered literature review that’s fast, thorough, and verifiable.

🔄 Quick Recall: In the previous lesson, you refined a research question using the topic funnel and FINER criteria. Your research question determines what literature you need to find — now you’ll build the review that contextualizes it.

The Three-Tool Approach

No single tool does everything well. Use three specialized tools together:

Step 1: Discover Papers (Semantic Scholar)

Start broad, then narrow. Search your research question and related keywords on Semantic Scholar:

• Use the “highly cited” filter to find foundational papers
• Use “recent” filter (last 3-5 years) for current research
• Click “Related Papers” and “Citations” to expand your search
• Save relevant papers to a library

Target: 30-50 candidate papers for a standard literature review. More for a systematic review.

Step 2: Screen and Extract (Elicit)

Upload your paper list to Elicit and set up screening criteria based on your research question:

• Elicit AI-screens titles and abstracts against your criteria
• Creates structured tables extracting specific data points (sample size, methodology, key findings)
• Saves 80%+ of manual screening time

Set up extraction columns for:

• Authors and year
• Study design (experiment, survey, meta-analysis, etc.)
• Sample size and population
• Key findings relevant to your question
• Limitations the authors noted

✅ Quick Check: You found 50 papers through Semantic Scholar. Elicit’s AI screening marks 15 as “highly relevant.” Should you skip reading the other 35? (Answer: No. Review Elicit’s exclusion reasons for the other 35. AI screening catches most relevant papers but can miss some — especially papers that use different terminology for the same concepts. Manually scan the “excluded” titles for any that seem relevant.)

Step 3: Synthesize (AI Assistant)

Once you have your extracted data, use an AI assistant to identify themes:

I'm writing a literature review for a paper on [your research question].

Here are my key sources with their findings:
[Paste your extraction table or key findings summary]

Help me:
1. Identify 3-5 major themes across these studies
2. For each theme, note which studies agree and which disagree
3. Identify gaps where research is missing
4. Suggest a logical order for presenting these themes

Writing the Literature Review

Thematic vs. Chronological Organization

Chronological (weak): “Smith (2020) found X. Jones (2021) found Y. Lee (2022) found Z.”

Thematic (strong): “Three major factors influence X. First, [factor A] has been consistently linked to [outcome] across multiple studies (Smith, 2020; Lee, 2022). However, the mechanism remains debated — Jones (2021) argues…”

Thematic organization shows you’ve synthesized the literature, not just listed it.

AI-Assisted Drafting

For each theme section, use this prompt pattern:

Write a literature review paragraph about [theme name].

Key studies:
- [Author, year]: Found [key finding]. Method: [brief]. n=[sample size]
- [Author, year]: Found [key finding]. Method: [brief]. n=[sample size]
- [Author, year]: Contradicted above — found [finding]. Possible reason: [context]

The paragraph should:
- Open with the theme's main claim
- Cite supporting evidence from multiple studies
- Note any contradictions or debates
- End with what remains unknown (linking to your research gap)
- Use [APA/MLA/Chicago] citation format

Critical rule: After AI generates the paragraph, verify every citation against the original paper. Check that the finding is accurately represented, the year is correct, and the author names match.

✅ Quick Check: AI drafts a literature review paragraph citing “Johnson et al. (2023)” with a finding about student performance. You search for this paper and can’t find it. What happened? (Answer: The AI likely hallucinated the reference — generating a plausible but fictional citation. This is one of the most common and dangerous AI errors in academic writing. Delete the citation and replace with a verified source, or remove the claim entirely.)

Verification Checklist

Before including any AI-generated content in your literature review:

For every citation:
□ Paper exists (search by exact title)
□ Authors and year are correct
□ The finding is accurately represented
□ The statistic cited matches the original paper
□ The context isn't misrepresented

For the review overall:
□ Major papers in your field are included (not just what AI found)
□ Both supporting and contradicting studies are represented
□ Themes flow logically toward your research gap
□ Your own analysis and synthesis are evident (not just AI-generated summaries)

Managing References

Use Zotero or Mendeley to organize your sources:

1. Import papers from Semantic Scholar exports or DOI lookups
2. Tag by theme so you can sort by literature review section
3. Annotate with notes — your own observations, not AI summaries
4. Use the PapersGPT plugin (Zotero) to ask AI questions about papers in your library

Export your library to BibTeX format if you want AI to help with citation formatting or cross-referencing.

Practice Exercise

1. Take your research question from the previous lesson
2. Search Semantic Scholar for 20+ relevant papers
3. Use Elicit (or manually) to extract key findings into a structured table
4. Ask your AI assistant to identify 3-4 themes across the findings
5. Draft one thematic paragraph, then verify every citation against the original source

Key Takeaways

• Use three tools together: Semantic Scholar (discovery), Elicit (extraction), AI assistant (synthesis)
• Organize thematically, not chronologically — show synthesis, not just summaries
• AI can draft review prose, but every citation must be verified against the original paper
• Hallucinated references are common — never include a citation you can’t verify
• Use Zotero/Mendeley to organize sources and tag them by theme

Up Next

In the next lesson, you’ll use AI to write and structure your methodology section — clearly describing your research design so others can evaluate and replicate your work.