Literature Review Template

Section-by-section template to build a full survey-style literature review.

Use this template when you want to produce a full literature review paper, not a short summary.

Full process command sequence

bohr plan-research "topic"
bohr lit-review "topic"
bohr evidence-score outputs/<slug>.md
bohr contradict outputs/<slug>.md
bohr reasoning-validate outputs/<slug>.md
bohr citation-check outputs/<slug>.md
bohr review outputs/<slug>.md

Expected outputs

  • outputs/.plans/<slug>-orchestration.md
  • outputs/<slug>.md
  • outputs/<slug>-evidence-scores.md
  • outputs/<slug>-contradictions.md
  • outputs/<slug>-reasoning-validation.md
  • outputs/<slug>-citation-integrity.md
  • outputs/<slug>-review.md
  • outputs/<slug>.provenance.md

Section-by-section build guide

Build each section in this order so the final review stays coherent and source-grounded.

1) Introduction

Goal: define scope, motivation, and review question.

Checklist:

  • state the exact topic boundary
  • define timeframe and source coverage policy
  • explain why this review matters now

2) Search and selection method

Goal: make paper selection reproducible.

Checklist:

  • list academic sources used
  • include inclusion/exclusion criteria
  • summarize quality scoring logic (relevance, recency, influence)

3) Thematic sections

Goal: organize papers into meaningful clusters.

Checklist:

  • group papers by method, problem framing, or evaluation style
  • summarize each theme’s core claims and evidence
  • include representative papers per theme

4) Key disagreements

Goal: surface real conflicts, not averaged consensus.

Checklist:

  • identify contradictory findings between papers
  • explain likely disagreement drivers (data, metrics, setup, assumptions)
  • mark unresolved contradictions clearly

5) Research gaps and open problems

Goal: show what is missing from current literature.

Checklist:

  • underexplored settings or populations
  • missing evaluations or robustness checks
  • high-value open questions for future work

6) Conclusion and implications

Goal: provide a balanced synthesis.

Checklist:

  • what is well-supported vs tentative
  • where confidence is high vs low
  • practical implications and next-step recommendations

7) References and citation integrity

Goal: ensure claims and citations align exactly.

Checklist:

  • all high-impact claims have direct support
  • no invalid or weak citation on critical conclusions
  • provenance sidecar is complete

Quality checklist

  • Thematic clustering is explicit and traceable.
  • Contradictions are visible and not hidden in prose.
  • Research gaps are concrete and prioritized.
  • Low-support claims are downgraded or removed.
  • Reasoning validation has no invalid high-impact chain.
  • Citation checks show no invalid high-impact references.