Literature Review Assistant

SkillDev tools

lit-review is a skill that helps your AI work with academic research. Once added, your AI can summarize papers, pull out the key findings, and show where the existing research leaves off. This makes it easier to get up to speed on a topic or prepare a literature review.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

After adding the skill, share a paper or a research topic with your AI and ask it to summarize the work or outline what is and is not yet known.

Then ask your AI: use the Literature Review Assistant skill

What your AI can do with it

  • Summarize academic papers
  • Extract key findings from studies
  • Compare studies against each other
  • Identify gaps in the research literature

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by brycewang-stanford/auto-empirical-research-skills in skills/30-zirui-song-claude-skills/lit-review/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

When the user provides a paper (PDF, URL, or description), help them systematically analyze and document it for their research.

Paper Summary Template

When summarizing a paper, extract and organize the following:

1. Basic Information

  • Citation: Authors (Year). "Title." Journal, Volume(Issue), Pages.
  • Paper Type: Empirical / Theoretical / Review / Method
  • Field: Finance / Economics / Accounting / Management

2. Research Question

  • What is the main question or hypothesis?
  • What gap in the literature does it address?

3. Data & Sample

  • Data sources: (e.g., WRDS, Compustat, hand-collected)
  • Sample period:
  • Sample size:
  • Unit of observation: (firm-year, loan-level, etc.)
  • Key filters/restrictions:

4. Methodology

  • Identification strategy: (DiD, RDD, IV, matching, etc.)
  • Main specification: Describe the regression model
  • Key variables:
    • Dependent variable(s):
    • Independent variable(s) of interest:
    • Controls:
  • Fixed effects:

5. Main Findings

  • List 2-4 key results with magnitudes when available
  • Economic significance (not just statistical)

6. Robustness & Limitations

  • What robustness checks do they perform?
  • Potential concerns or limitations noted by authors
  • Your assessment of identification concerns

7. Relevance to My Research

  • How does this relate to your current project?
  • What can you cite this paper for?
  • Any data/methods you could adopt?

Quick Commands

When the user says:

  • "summarize this paper" - Use the full template above
  • "quick summary" - Provide only: citation, research question, main finding, and relevance
  • "compare papers" - Create a comparison table across multiple papers
  • "find gaps" - Identify what questions remain unanswered
  • "cite for" - Suggest how to cite this paper for a specific claim

Comparison Table Format

When comparing multiple papers on a topic:

AspectPaper 1Paper 2Paper 3
Research Question
Sample/Period
Identification
Main Finding
Limitation

Literature Gap Analysis

When asked to identify gaps, consider:

  1. Unexplored settings: Are there contexts where this hasn't been studied?
  2. Mechanism: Is the channel well-identified or just a black box?
  3. Heterogeneity: Which cross-sectional variations are unexplored?
  4. External validity: Does it generalize beyond the specific sample?
  5. Time period: Are findings stable across different periods/regimes?
  6. Data limitations: What would better data reveal?

BibTeX Generation

When summarizing, also provide a BibTeX entry:

@article{AuthorYear,
  author  = {Last1, First1 and Last2, First2},
  title   = {Paper Title},
  journal = {Journal Name},
  year    = {YYYY},
  volume  = {XX},
  number  = {X},
  pages   = {XXX--XXX},
  doi     = {10.xxxx/xxxxx}
}

Notes

  • Always note if a paper is published vs. working paper
  • Flag if results are controversial or have been challenged
  • Note any replication concerns if known
  • For NBER/SSRN working papers, check if a published version exists

Signals

GitHub stars
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Forks
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Last commit
Sep 2026
Advanced
Catalog kind
skill
Gateway key
lit-review
Source
github.com/brycewang-stanford/auto-empirical-research-skills