How should literature survey be done?

How should literature survey be done?

Literature survey is a very important part of research. However, students are generally not told how to do it systematically. In India, students are often expected to present their research as if they started their actual work only after completing the literature survey. New researchers typically ask me for papers to start with. If I give them a couple of papers, they will take a couple of weeks to read them line by line, then come back to explain what they understood and ask me to explain the parts they did not. I call this passive research -- the course of your research is defined by what you read.

Instead, I promote active research. Start with a question. Check the literature for answers. What is the difference? You don’t need to read and understand an entire paper you come across. You are only checking whether an answer already exists or not. It is much more efficient.

An example when the research objective is improving streamflow prediction:

Passive research: Spend a month reading the articles given by the adviser or the ones that appear on Google Scholar. Find the one you like and check its discussion section to know the limitations of the method and the future directions the authors suggest. Or consult your adviser for future directions. Repeat the process till you are a passive researcher.

Active research: Come up with a question based on your existing knowledge, without reading any literature. For example, ask: Does a machine learning model perform better when we know more about hydrological processes, or does it simply not matter? You may get multiple, even contradicting, answers. But that is good. It will push you to think more deeply and come up with new questions. The cycle repeats till you are an active researcher.

The advantage of active research: Your work is more likely to lead to new ideas. However, note that if you pursue active research, you will often have Eureka moments, only to later find that the idea already exists in the literature. Don’t get disheartened; instead, see it as evidence of your capability to come up with original ideas.

Needless to say, LLMs make active research easier.

Basudev Biswal, Website: https://sites.google.com/site/basudev02/home