Map literature contradictions
Skill xingtaxueshu/literature-review-skills/skills/map-literature-contradictions
Five open agent skills for sharper literature reviews: question refinement, review modules, method comparison, contradiction mapping, and research gap discovery.
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Analyze conflicting findings in a literature review and turn disagreement into structured insight. Use when the user has papers, abstracts, notes, or claims that disagree and needs to identify consensus, explain contradictions by sample/method/indicator/context/time differences, define explanation boundaries, or write a stronger synthesis section.
SKILL.md
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Map Literature Contradictions
Goal
Use contradiction as information. Instead of avoiding inconsistent findings, map what researchers agree on, where they diverge, and what hidden conditions or method limits explain the disagreement.
Workflow: Comb Method
- Find consensus: list findings repeatedly supported across studies, settings, or methods.
- Separate contradictions: name the exact claim that conflicts rather than saying "the literature is mixed".
- Compare study conditions: inspect object, sample, indicator, method, time window, and context.
- Infer why the difference matters: connect the comparison to theory, mechanism, or validity.
- Mark explanation boundaries: identify what current methods or data cannot answer.
- Convert the boundary into a possible research contribution.
Contradiction Matrix
Use this table when the user provides multiple papers or claims:
| Study/claim | Finding | Object/sample | Method | Indicator | Time/context | Possible reason for difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
Then summarize in prose:
The disagreement is less about whether [factor] matters and more about when it matters. Studies using [sample/method/indicator] tend to find [result], while studies in [context/time] find [different result]. This suggests the effect may be conditional on [boundary], rather than universally positive or negative.
Difference Dimensions To Check
- Research object: region, industry, population, organization type, development stage.
- Sample: size, selection method, subgroup, representativeness.
- Indicator: how the key variable or outcome is measured.
- Method: cross-sectional, longitudinal, interview, experiment, case, meta-analysis.
- Time window: policy period, crisis period, before/after intervention, short vs long term.
- Theoretical lens: rational choice, institutional, social network, capability, cultural, ecological, etc.
Output Format
Provide:
## Consensus
- ...
## Main Contradictions
1. ...
## Contradiction Matrix
| Study/claim | Finding | Object/sample | Method | Indicator | Time/context | Possible reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
## Synthesis Paragraph
[Ready-to-use review synthesis]
## Explanation Boundaries
- Current literature cannot yet explain ...
Guardrails
- Do not force agreement by selecting only consistent studies.
- Do not claim a contradiction is solved unless the provided evidence supports the explanation.
- Distinguish observed differences from inferred importance; label inferences clearly.