AI Research Assistant for PhD Candidates
Four years of reading, and every answer here arrives with its sources attached.
A doctorate is four years of reading in which the hardest part is not understanding papers but deciding which ones deserve the time. The literature in any subfield is larger than one person can read, grows faster than one person can follow, and rewards knowing where the argument currently sits more than knowing every study in it. What makes that manageable is sourced answers: something that tells you what the field holds and shows you the papers it came from, so you read to verify rather than to find out whether reading was worth it. Everything still has to be checked, and that is the point.
How do I keep up with a literature that keeps growing?
By tracking the argument rather than the output. Knowing where the disagreement currently sits matters more than having read everything.
Can I cite something I found this way?
Cite the paper, not the tool, and read the paper first. Anything else is a citation you cannot defend in a viva.
What is the most common mistake in a doctoral literature review?
Reading exhaustively before knowing the question. The question narrows the reading, not the other way round.