Reviewing literature and mapping the current state of knowledge in the subject area of study is vital to the research process. A literature review does not entail just summarizing what is known about a particular topic. It is important to present an organized review of the existing literature that provides the context for your study, points out what is not known or the gaps, and thereby situates your proposed study in terms of its significance in addressing this gap and contributing to the existing knowledge.
Given the plethora of existing literature, this can be a daunting task. It is here that literature mapping finds significance as a helpful strategy while searching the literature for your study.
What is literature mapping?
Literature mapping is a way of locating, visualizing, and analyzing scholarly articles by tracing links or connections between various similar and related publications in a field of study or research. The links can relate to concepts, keywords, authors, citations, references, or any other metadata. They can be searched using various AI tools.
Benefits of literature mapping in research
Literature mapping offers several significant benefits to researchers, enhancing their ability to navigate complex information landscapes and identify new research opportunities:
1. Visualizing the Research Landscape
Literature mapping provides a visual representation of concepts and themes in a body of literature, helping researchers understand the broader context of their work. By mapping out connections between studies, researchers can identify potential research questions and explore new avenues of inquiry.
2. Identifying Knowledge Gaps
Literature mapping helps researchers identify areas that have not been extensively studied, guiding them in refining research questions. By pinpointing knowledge gaps, researchers can ensure that their research contributes meaningfully to the existing body of knowledge.
3. Discovering Relationships and Patterns
Researchers can reveals relationships and patterns among studies, leading to new insights and a better understanding of the subject matter. For example, mapping can uncover how different factors interact within a research area, guiding researchers toward innovative approaches in their own inquiries.
4. Facilitating Collaboration
With literature mapping, researchers can fosters discussions and collaboration, leading to interdisciplinary opportunities and enhancing research quality. By sharing visual representations of the literature, researchers can more effectively brainstorm and develop new ideas together.
5. Supporting Informed Decision-Making
Researchers can avoid duplication of efforts and enhance the efficiency and impact of their work. By providing a clear overview of existing studies, researchers can identify influential studies to build upon while avoiding wasting resources on areas that have already been thoroughly explored.
Types of literature mapping methods
Literature mapping encompasses various methods that help researchers visualize and organize existing literature in a systematic way. Here are some of the most recognized types of literature mapping methods:
- Feature mapping is generally used in data analysis and machine learning. Here, underlying patterns are extracted from the original data using select functions. This process makes analysis easier
- Topic tree mapping organizes the results of a literature search by creating a hierarchical structure with the main topics at the top and sub-topics branching out below
- Content mapping focuses on the content in a particular article, book, or website. It breaks down and organizes the content into smaller parts that enable you to analyze the information
- Taxonomic mapping provides for the classification of objects or organisms into standardized taxonomies based on their specific features
- Concept mapping visually represents the connections between concepts and processes arranged in a hierarchical manner. It helps understand the links between theory and practice and also identifies gaps in the literature
- Rhetorical mapping focusses on the document’s text and the rhetorical tools used to influence or persuade the reader. It is especially useful in social policy, discourse analysis, and political science
- Citation mapping tracks an article’s cited references and locates other articles that have cited it
Making a literature map
There are two basic steps that you can start with when mapping literature for your specific research topic:
Literature mapping with keywords: An essential step that you can start with is typing the keywords of the research topic in the selected literature mapping tool. The tool will provide visualizations that can help you decide which path to take in finding relevant literature.
Author mapping: also known as citation mapping, helps identify authors in the field, key experts, and articles.
Accelerate literature mapping with R Discovery
R Discovery is an AI-powered tool that streamlines the process of literature mapping by providing researchers with a comprehensive and efficient way to discover, read, and analyze relevant research papers. With over 250 million research articles, including more than 150 million peer-reviewed papers and 40 million open access articles, from top publishers and aggregators, R Discovery’s database ensures that researchers have access to a wide range of literature for their mapping needs.
R Discovery offers a suite of advanced features like:
- Personalized recommendations based on researchers’ research interests and topics to identify the most relevant papers to include in their literature mapping process
- AI-generated summaries and highlights for around 6 million papers, allowing users to quickly assess the relevance of a paper without reading the full text
- Seamless integration with reference managers like Zotero and Mendeley, making it easier to organize and cite sources during the literature mapping process
- Multilingual research reading support, allowing users to read papers in their preferred language
Download the R Discovery app today and accelerate your research reading journey.
R Discovery is a literature search and research reading platform that accelerates your research discovery journey by keeping you updated on the latest, most relevant scholarly content. With 250M+ research articles sourced from trusted aggregators like CrossRef, Unpaywall, PubMed, PubMed Central, Open Alex and top publishing houses like Springer Nature, JAMA, IOP, Taylor & Francis, NEJM, BMJ, Karger, SAGE, Emerald Publishing and more, R Discovery puts a world of research at your fingertips.
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