How to do a Literature Review in 3 hours
This workflow will help you crush your next literature review
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Hi there! Today, I'll reveal the workflow that allows me to do comprehensive literature review 3 times (x) faster.
Doing a comprehensive literature review on a topic can be a hard and time-consuming task. It involves sifting through a vast amount of information and synthesizing it into a cohesive overview of current knowledge.
Hence, optimizing your time is vital when searching for references and writing your essay or literature review for a paper or grant.
Here is my workflow that will allow you to do it on steroids:
1. Research Rabbit - Finding Papers
Research Rabbit is a FREE go-to app for discovering literature and visualizing their connections. This app is more user-friendly than most database search engines like PubMed or Embase!
In the app, you start by creating a new collection, after which you search for new articles using keywords or by pasting the title of a pre-identified paper.
The app will then automatically make a connection map with new articles using forward and backward citations and suggest new papers based on your initial paper selections. As you find more articles, you can add them to your collection folder.
Additionally, Research Rabbit easily lets you sync and export your collection folder to Zotero - our next tool in this list.
After collecting all articles in your "collection," you can click on "sync to Zotero," which will export your selected references to Zotero.
2. Zotero - Reference Management and Note-Taking
Zotero is a powerful, FREE, easy-to-use research tool that helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources and then share the results of your research.
I believe Zotero is the best tool out there for reference management and note-taking.
Reference management:
Go to your collection of newly imported/ synced articles from Research Rabbit and do the following:
Right click on a citation and import all open-access PDFs automatically. You can also integrate it with Sci-hub systems (if permissible in your country).
If you don't find specific PDFs, find them manually using your institutional access or HINARI if you are in a lower and middle-income country (LMIC).
Add these papers manually to your collection. They'll automatically pair with your references. You can add new articles to your collection with a single click if needed. Simply open the paper on a chrome tab and use Zotero's chrome extension to add it to the Zotero.
Note-taking:
After you have imported all your articles to Zotero, you can start your note-taking process.
Double-click on the PDF in your collection, which will open it in a new tab.
After that, in each article's PDF, highlight the text you found interesting, right-click, and select "add to note." Give your note file a name. This feature lets you export the text into a seperate note while keeping original references.
Having gone through all articles, export your "note file" from Zotero to Microsoft Word or Google Docs, as shown in the next step.
Writing - MS Word + Jenni
You should now open MS Word and import your Zotero "note file" using the "Add note" feature from the Zotero pane in MS Word.
This will bring in all your note annotations and the associated references.
Using the Zotero pane, click on "citations." This will let you import all your references in the referencing style of your choice.
An excellent next step is to create an outline of your write-up. Write short bullet points for each paragraph and its content. Find outline ideas online.
Additionally, you can summarize each paper's findings using this format:
Study 1 (Research question, methods, participants, relevant findings)
Study 2 (Research question, methods, participants, relevant findings)
Study 3 (Research question, methods, participants, relevant findings)
Now, you need to synthesize the text you imported from your notes, group and organize points, and re-write or paraphrase text while keeping your original references.
If you are out of ideas, use some free paraphrasing tools like ChatGPT or Jenni (Freemium) to get ideas to restructure your text. Use these tools ethically!
4. Cite
Cite articles used → Zotero (Important)
Every idea, concept, or detail you used from an article must be cited! If employing exact text, use quotation marks and cite!
Zotero lets you choose the appropriate style, such as APA, Vancouver, and others!
This is how you do a literature review FAST! However, expect your paper to undergo multiple revisions after your collaborators provide their feedback.
Thank you,
Asad
How can I help you:
Week 4 of my webinar-series: How to Publish a Paper (with Ethical AI) is on May 9, 2025 at 11:00 am EST-
This is a 7-week program that takes you from research idea to publication. If interested, you can check out week 1-3 recording and join week 3 this Saturday.
Sign up here→ https://stan.store/asadnaveed/p/how-to-publish-a-paper
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Very helpful for new one like me.
Thanks for sharing Asad. As always we appreciate your informative literature reviewing article.