Locate review research gap
Skill xingtaxueshu/literature-review-skills/skills/locate-review-research-gap
Five open agent skills for sharper literature reviews: question refinement, review modules, method comparison, contradiction mapping, and research gap discovery.
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Locate a concrete, defensible research gap from a literature review synthesis and convert it into an executable future research direction. Use when the user is writing the conclusion, research outlook, thesis proposal significance, or contribution section and needs to avoid vague phrases like "more research is needed" by connecting question, modules, method limits, contradictions, and a specific next study.
SKILL.md
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Locate Review Research Gap
Goal
Turn a literature review's ending from generic "future research" into a specific, justified research direction: what predecessors have done, where the explanation gets stuck, where to cut in, and why that move matters.
Workflow
- Restate the question anchor.
- Summarize the field's current progress in one sentence: consensus plus unresolved tension.
- Identify where progress gets stuck: theory gap, method limitation, data blind spot, context boundary, variable/mechanism omission, or contradictory evidence.
- Select one cut-in point: a module, mechanism, variable relation, context, population, time window, or method design.
- Explain why this cut-in point advances the field: fills a gap, resolves a contradiction, tests a boundary, or improves explanation.
- Draft a concise research outlook or contribution paragraph.
Four Required Questions
A strong research gap must answer all four:
- What have previous studies already established?
- Where exactly is the explanation stuck?
- Which specific opening will the next study enter through?
- Why is this opening worth entering?
If any answer is missing, do not present the gap as ready.
Gap Types
Use the type that matches the evidence:
- Theory gap: existing frameworks miss a mechanism or actor.
- Method gap: existing methods cannot observe the needed process, time dimension, or causal structure.
- Data gap: important samples, contexts, time windows, or measurements are absent.
- Boundary gap: known findings may not hold under certain conditions.
- Contradiction gap: studies disagree and the disagreement has a plausible unresolved source.
- Integration gap: separate modules exist but have not been connected into one explanation chain.
Output Format
Provide:
## Current Progress
[Consensus + tension in one sentence]
## Stuck Point
[Where the literature cannot yet explain enough]
## Proposed Cut-In Point
[Specific module/mechanism/variable/context/method]
## Why It Matters
[How this fills a gap, resolves a contradiction, tests a boundary, or advances explanation]
## Ready-To-Use Paragraph
[Academic prose for conclusion/research outlook]
## Three-Minute Oral Test
- Previous studies have shown: ...
- They have not explained: ...
- I will focus on: ...
- This is valuable because: ...
Guardrails
- Do not use "few studies have examined" as the only proof of a gap; explain why the missing piece matters.
- Do not propose an opening that is broader than the user's review question.
- Do not confuse the user's not-yet-searched area with a true research gap; mark it as "needs verification" when evidence is insufficient.