Literature Review Writing

Don't ask permission. Just do it.

Guide for writing a structured literature review or survey paper from papers you've already collected. This skill helps with reading strategy, note organization, and academic writing.

Workspace: See ../_shared/workspace-spec.md for directory structure. Outputs go to $WORKSPACE/review/.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have:

1. Papers collected in $WORKSPACE/papers/
2. Ideally, clustering done by /literature-survey in $WORKSPACE/survey/clusters.json

Check active project:

cat ~/.openclaw/workspace/projects/.active 2>/dev/null
ls $WORKSPACE/papers/

Phase 1: Reading Strategy

1.1 Triage Papers by Priority

Based on clusters from survey, prioritize reading:

Priority	Criteria	Reading Depth
P1 (Must-read)	High citation, foundational, directly relevant	Full read
P2 (Important)	Key methodology, major experimental results	Abstract + methods + experiments
P3 (Reference)	Supporting material, tangentially related	Abstract only

Create $WORKSPACE/review/reading_plan.md:

# Reading Plan

## P1 - Must-read (Full read)
- [ ] [paper_id]: [title] - [reason]
- [ ] ...

## P2 - Important (Selective read)
- [ ] ...

## P3 - Reference (Skim)
- [ ] ...

1.2 Reading Notes Template

For each paper, create $WORKSPACE/review/notes/{paper_id}.md using template in references/note-template.md.

Phase 2: Synthesis & Organization

2.1 Build Comparison Table

Create $WORKSPACE/review/comparison.md:

# Method Comparison

| Paper | Year | Category | Key Innovation | Dataset | Metric | Result |
|-------|------|----------|----------------|---------|--------|--------|
| [A]   | 2023 | Data-driven | ... | ... | RMSE | 0.05 |
| [B]   | 2022 | Hybrid | ... | ... | RMSE | 0.08 |

2.2 Timeline Analysis

Create $WORKSPACE/review/timeline.md:

# Research Timeline

## 2018-2019: Early Exploration
- [Paper A]: First proposal of method X
- [Paper B]: Introduction of technique Y

## 2020-2021: Method Maturation
- [Paper C]: Proposed SOTA method
- ...

## 2022-2023: New Trends
- [Paper D]: Began addressing problem Z
- ...

## Key Milestones
1. [Year]: [Event/Paper] - [Significance]

2.3 Taxonomy Design

Create $WORKSPACE/review/taxonomy.md:

# Taxonomy of Approaches

## Dimension 1: Method Type
- Data-driven
  - Statistical (e.g., GPR, SVM)
  - Deep Learning
    - CNN-based
    - RNN/LSTM-based
    - Transformer-based
  - Hybrid
- Model-based
  - Electrochemical
  - Equivalent Circuit

## Dimension 2: Data Source
- Laboratory Data
- Real-world Driving Data
- Synthetic Data

## Dimension 3: Prediction Horizon
- Short-term (< 100 cycles)
- Medium-term (100-500 cycles)
- Long-term (> 500 cycles)

Phase 3: Writing Structure

3.1 Survey Paper Template

Create $WORKSPACE/review/draft.md using template in references/survey-template.md.

Key sections: Abstract -> Introduction -> Background -> Taxonomy -> Comparison -> Datasets -> Future Directions -> Conclusion

3.2 Thesis Literature Review Template

For a thesis chapter:

# Chapter 2: Literature Review
## 2.1 Introduction
## 2.2 [Topic Area 1]
## 2.3 [Topic Area 2]
## 2.4 Summary and Research Gaps

Phase 4: Writing Tips

Citation Density Guidelines

Section	Citation Density
Abstract	0 citations
Introduction	10-20 citations
Background	5-10 citations
Main Survey	50-100+ citations
Conclusion	2-5 citations

Transition Phrases

Introducing similar work:

• "Similarly, [Author] proposed..."
• "Following this direction, ..."
• "Building upon [X], [Author] extended..."

Introducing contrasting work:

• "In contrast, [Author] argued..."
• "However, [Author] took a different approach..."
• "Unlike previous methods, ..."

Summarizing:

• "In summary, existing methods can be categorized into..."
• "The key insight from these works is..."

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. List-style writing - Don't just say "A did X, B did Y, C did Z"
2. Lack of comparison - Analyze relationships and differences between methods
3. Tense confusion - Use present tense for methods, past tense for results
4. Over-citing - Not every sentence needs a citation
5. Missing important work - Ensure coverage of foundational works in the field

Output Files

$WORKSPACE/review/
├── reading_plan.md       # Reading plan
├── notes/                # Reading notes
│   ├── {paper_id}.md
│   └── ...
├── comparison.md         # Comparison table
├── timeline.md           # Timeline analysis
├── taxonomy.md           # Taxonomy
├── draft.md              # Review draft
└── bibliography.bib      # References

Commands

• "Help me write a review" -> Full workflow from reading to writing
• "Generate reading plan" -> Create reading_plan.md
• "Compare these papers" -> Generate comparison.md
• "Write review draft" -> Generate draft.md
• "Polish this section" -> Polish specific section