Literature Review

Literature review

Work through six steps: scope, sweep, expand, verify, write, lint. The failure modes this skill exists to prevent are all silent — a fabricated DOI, a retracted headline result, a reading list dressed up as a synthesis — so each step below names the check that catches it.

1. Scope the request

Different phrasings want different deliverables:

A vague lay query gets the scope a domain expert would default to, stated explicitly ("taking this as human RCT evidence; animal work is separate"). Clarify with the user only when the answer would change what you retrieve.

2. Sweep

Never write from recall. Recall chooses the framing and the search terms; retrieval supplies every citation. Start with search_openalex / crossref_lookup from this skill's runtime.py, a PubMed query, or any literature connector advertised in the session (search_skills with {"query":"literature PubMed Semantic Scholar bioRxiv ClinicalTrials"} finds installed guidance; load matches with use_skill).

For a named-paper lookup, the target is the highly cited primary publication that later work cites — not a review of it, not a news piece. Even when you know the paper cold, resolving its DOI is one tool call; skipping it turns a citation into a claim about a citation.

3. Expand along the citation graph

Keyword sweeps miss two things systematically: the foundational paper a field builds on, and the newest work that extends or contests your top hits. Take the two or three most relevant results and run expand_citations(doi) — it returns references (backward) and cited-by (forward) from OpenAlex. Fold the on-topic finds back into the working set before drafting. A survey-grade answer typically rests on fifteen or more distinct primary-paper DOIs; a handful of reviews is a reading list.

The Python OpenAlex helpers raise on HTTP errors, timeouts, or malformed responses. Empty results are valid only after successful retrieval. If either citation direction fails, report the retrieval failure rather than treating the partial graph as complete. Do not convert an exception into an empty list.

4. Verify

Run verify_dois on everything you intend to cite. Distinguish registered, not resolving, and unverified (ok=None, e.g. network failure) results. A registered DOI still requires reading the paper to check whether it supports the claim; a failed request is not evidence of fabrication. When you have author/year/journal but no DOI, look it up; never pattern-complete one. For surprising or high-profile findings, check Crossref's update-to field: sensational papers are findable because they were sensational, and some were retracted. When the requested paper does not exist — the claim collapsed or was never established — say exactly that and point at what the evidence actually shows, instead of substituting the nearest-matching citation.