brycewang-stanford/lit-review

Literature Review

Conduct a structured literature search and synthesis on the given topic.

Input: $ARGUMENTS — a topic, paper title, research question, or phenomenon to investigate.

Steps

1. Parse the topic from $ARGUMENTS. If a specific paper is named, use it as the anchor.

2. Search for related work using available tools:

   • Check master_supporting_docs/supporting_papers/ for uploaded papers
   • Use WebSearch to find recent publications (if available)
   • Use WebFetch to access working paper repositories (if available)
   • Read any existing .bib file for papers already in the project

3. Organize findings into these categories:

   • Theoretical contributions — models, frameworks, mechanisms
   • Empirical findings — key results, effect sizes, data sources
   • Methodological innovations — new estimators, identification strategies, inference methods
   • Open debates — unresolved disagreements in the literature

4. Identify gaps and opportunities:

   • What questions remain unanswered?
   • What data or methods could address them?
   • Where do findings conflict?

5. Extract citations in BibTeX format for all papers discussed.

6. Save the report to quality_reports/lit_review_[sanitized_topic].md

Output Format

# Literature Review: [Topic]

**Date:** [YYYY-MM-DD]
**Query:** [Original query from user]

## Summary

[2-3 paragraph overview of the state of the literature]

## Key Papers

### [Author (Year)] — [Short Title]
- **Main contribution:** [1-2 sentences]
- **Method:** [Identification strategy / data]
- **Key finding:** [Result with effect size if available]
- **Relevance:** [Why it matters for our research]

[Repeat for 5-15 papers, ordered by relevance]

## Thematic Organization

### Theoretical Contributions
[Grouped discussion]

### Empirical Findings
[Grouped discussion with comparison across studies]

### Methodological Innovations
[Methods relevant to the topic]

## Gaps and Opportunities

1. [Gap 1 — what's missing and why it matters]
2. [Gap 2]
3. [Gap 3]

## Suggested Next Steps

- [Concrete actions: papers to read, data to obtain, methods to consider]

## BibTeX Entries

```bibtex
@article{...}

---

## Important

- **Be honest about uncertainty.** If you cannot verify a citation, say so.
- **Prioritize recent work** (last 5-10 years) unless seminal papers are older.
- **Note working papers vs published papers** — working papers may change.
- **Do NOT fabricate citations.** If you're unsure about a paper's details, flag it for the user to verify.