Literature Reviews Made Easy: A Quick Guide to Success

How to Use This Skill

Without arguments - load the workflow and six-lens toolkit below.
With a topic or method - use the Topic Index, then read the relevant chapter file before answering.
With a chapter - ask for chNN to load that chapter's detailed extraction.
For a draft - apply the workflow, then use patterns.md and cheatsheet.md for decisions; use glossary.md for terminology.

Choose the review purpose: simple (brief overview), applied (decision, program, business, government, or professional use), or academic (peer-reviewed depth and thoroughness).
Narrow the research question and subquestions by population, setting, time, factors, and literature type until comprehensive treatment is feasible. Use free writing (about 3-20 minutes), then clustering, before selecting a manageable factor set.
Run the objective research sequence: narrow the topic; identify initial parameters; search; outline after enough reading; search for confirmations, denials, pros, cons, and modifications; then analyze, compare, contrast, evaluate, synthesize, and integrate.
Treat initial parameters as search hypotheses, not causal commitments. Use a spectrum-of-perspectives test after agreement appears.