A Simple AI-Powered Workflow for Literature Review

Written by Theophilus Aidoo

Doing a literature review can be quite painful, I think many students can relate. Over time, I have learned a few things that I would like to share here.

Often, we do not struggle because we do not know what to do, but because we do not have a procedure or system for finding relevant research. Below is a simple workflow showing how I use AI tools to support my literature review process.

1. Clarifying the Research Direction

I start by giving my research idea (even if it’s rough) to Perplexity AI. I ask it to help identify:

  • The main research topic
  • Related subtopics
  • Possible research directions based on the text

This helps me better frame my problem and understand how it fits into existing research.

2. Generating Keywords and Search Queries

Once I have these topic areas, I pass them to ChatGPT (or any free chat-based AI tool). I ask it to:

  • Generate relevant keywords
  • Construct advanced search queries

These queries are tailored for academic databases such as Google Scholar.

3. Searching and Downloading Papers

I then use the generated queries to search for papers in the relevant databases. Where possible, I download the full papers for further reading.

4. Filtering and Summarizing with AI

Next, I upload the downloaded papers to Elicit AI (or similar tools). These tools help me:

  • Identify the most relevant papers
  • Extract summaries and key contributions

This step saves a lot of time, especially when dealing with many papers.

5. Manual Reading and Extraction

Finally, I manually read the selected papers and extract the specific information I need.
This part can be boring, but it is also essential as students, we still need to engage with the material and think critically.

I am still learning how to best use AI tools to improve my research workflow. This is just one way literature reviews can be done, not a strict rule.

Some helpful links can be found below

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