How to Find Research Gaps using Zotero + Litmaps

..and a short clip from the Masterclass

Finding research gaps is the first step on your PhD or research journey. It involves making a new, novel, and interesting contribution to your field. 

However, finding these gaps takes a lot of work. 

Let me explain to you here!

Before we dive into today's topic, I have a couple of updates to share. I concluded my first ever Masterclass towards the end of May, and I am simply humbled by the participation and the response! 🙌

I went for a quick vacation to the beautiful city of Vancouver right after, and returned to give a 3-hour workshop in Mannheim, Germany followed by an insightful talk with an amazing panel at Thomas Jefferson University, US.

During these three back-to-back commitments, I am convinced more than ever on how much every researcher can benefit by being exposed to latest learnings in AI in Research. And I am not fear mongering when I say that those who are dismissing these early developments will honestly be left behind. I believe every single researcher following my newsletter can tremendously benefit from taking my 7-hour Masterclass (divided into 6 Modules and 27 chapters). 

Don't take my word alone on it and see the social proof here: Masterclass Testimonials. You will get access to a dedicated learning platform with every single resource (workbooks, mega prompts and slides) linked to it - this will allow you to learn at your own pace. If you are interested (and you should be!), I have a discount code at the end of this post. Also, I have a discount code for Litmaps.

Now, onto the topic:

Many of you are not sure how to differentiate between Research Questions and Research Gaps.

For example, consider the question: What is social media’s impact on mental health? We find a significant amount of data on the internet in the form of papers, blogs, videos, etc. So, we can categorize this statement as a Research Question. 

However, when we ask, What is the impact of social media usage on pregnant women and fetuses/health of babies? We find a lack of published information and this can be identified as a Research Gap. 

This gap is simply an open research question that a researcher may or may not be aware of. Identifying gaps is not about finding a problem but defining an area of knowledge that could be further explored and researched.

Many gaps exist simply because there is a huge amount of scientific literature. Many scientists themselves aren't aware of how it is all connected. 

For example: How different scientific domains use different terminologies for the same concept. This results in Unintentional Research Gaps. 

These gaps continue even today because many researchers rely on Keyword Searches. Thus, they miss out on connections that don't match those "keywords." Focusing on keywords alone means researchers from one field may miss important discoveries in the other.

Basic Principle For The Discovery Of The Relevant Literature

1- The Citation Network: Reference and Similarity

Papers that are similar to one another reference similar papers. So the more overlap in the references the more similar the two papers are (Figure 1).

2- Finding Similar Papers Through References: Complexity of Citation Network

Imagine you have a Paper X-2023 (Seed Paper). Collect all the cited papers from the references list, and take more similar papers of your interest. 

But,

If Paper X-2023 has 100 references and Paper A is SIMILAR to them, but not referenced by Paper X-2023. What does this mean?

• Paper X-2023 missed it → Research Gap!

• It was not relevant → Still something you could consider for your review

• It wasn’t published then (check publication date) → These are future developments which are also useful in identifying a gap.

Older approach: You read through everything to find the gap.
Modern approach: Use Litmaps to find a gap by just using references and similarity.

Unlike searching through literature with Google Scholar, where you have to go paper by paper and figure out 1 by 1 how they relate to each other. Litmaps allows you to immediately see which papers are:

• the most cited by others

• the oldest classics in the field

• the most built upon in further research

And so much more along with how they connect to each other.

Here’s a short clip from my Masterclass where I explain this using Whiteboard (yes, the good old whiteboard to explain modern AI 😎)

How to Find Research Gaps Using Litmaps

Litmaps analyzes scientific literature and how it connects by using the citation network. 

Litmaps lets you observe how fields interact and find research gaps by seeing the connections among articles.

Here, is a step-by-step tutorial to explain to you how to discover the literature gaps using Litmaps. All you need is a set of papers to be analyzed.

1- Zotero Collection

Assuming you have all your references in Zotero: A Reference Management Tool. 

1- Right-click on your Collection—- Export library—- Save the file in BibTex format. 

2- This BibTex file contains all the references that you have in your Zotero collections (Figure 3).

2- Running Litmaps Discoveries

Go to Litmaps and sign In.

1- Click on Create Litmap.

2- Upload your BibTex file into it. 

3- Create a Litmaps (Figure 4).

That’s it. Your search starts running. 

3- Expand and Visualize Your Papers

Litmaps Creates a Map based on your input articles. 

1- Expand your search by clicking on Explore Related articles:  

2- It will help you to identify new papers that are relevant to your topic in the form of Ring. 

3- You'll see a list of suggested articles on your Map (and in the sidebar). 

Click on the “More Like This” button to add them to your Map. Then hit “Update Results” to re-run the search with these articles added as search inputs.

By going through your Map, and adding additional articles, you can find related literature on your topic. 

For each suggested article, you can see how it connects to the existing papers you already know. It will keep you on track of what parts of your field are more or less connected (Figure 5).

4- Identify the Research Gap in your Collection 

Now, You've explored your topic and created a collection of connected articles. However, this search has been largely limited based on connected papers. 

Suppose you want to find articles you may have missed because they aren't connected at all to your existing literature. You'll need to change your search strategy.

Select “Similar Abstract & Title Content” to search for similar literature based on the titles and abstracts of your papers.

You'll see a very different Litmap. 

One that likely shows many entirely disconnected articles. This is a great way to spot papers that fail to cite or reference papers you already know (Figure 6).

5-Monitor your Search

Now you've curated a comprehensive set of papers on your topic and spotted any potential gaps in your field. The last step is to ensure your work doesn't go out of date.

Enabling "Monitor" for your Litmap. Litmaps will automatically run your search for you as new papers are published, and let you know about any new articles on your topic (Figure 7).

Summary

Here is how Litmaps helps you to identify potential gaps in your literature review. 

1. Identify your research topic and gather relevant articles.

2. Import papers from Zotero to Litmaps.

3. Use Litmaps to visualize how your articles connect.

4. Discover more related literature using the Litmaps search algorithm.

5. Add suggested articles to your Map and re-run searches with these new

articles as inputs.

6. Change your search strategy to find disconnected literature.

7. Search for similar literature based on titles and abstracts to spot papers

that don’t cite or reference your known articles.

8. Enable "Monitor" in Litmaps to automate the process and receive updates on new articles.

If you are interested in taking the Masterclass, here's a discount code which will give you 25% off when you use it at checkout: MC25OFF

Note: This discount code is only valid for a week or the first 2 usages, whichever comes first.

Get more information and buy the Masterclass at this link: Masterclass by Razia Aliani

Lastly, you can sign up to Litmaps for free, click here.

In the free plan, you can create 2 litmaps each with upto 20 input and 100 articles per map.

If you intend to upgrade, you can use my code to get a 30% off on both monthly and annual plans: RAZIA30

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Do you want me to create a similar workflow for ResearchRabbit (free tool)?
💬 Let me know in the comments!

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