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Suraj Sahu
How to Series

Literature Survey like a Detective

The Plot
  1. The Crime Scene: In the world of research, a scientific phenomenon or observable event is akin to a crime scene. Something has occurred, leaving behind evidence and raising questions.
  2. The Suspects: Your hypotheses are the suspects in this scientific mystery. Each hypothesis is a potential explanation for the observed phenomenon, waiting to be tested and either confirmed or ruled out.
  3. The Witnesses: Scientists who have observed the phenomenon or claim to understand it are your witnesses. Some may have been present at the “crime scene” as direct observers, while others might be previous investigators who studied similar cases.
  4. Witness Statements: Research papers serve as witness statements in this scenario. However, unlike in a legal setting, there are no formal consequences for inaccuracies or misleading information in these “statements.”
  5. Multiple Crime Scenes: Across the globe, researchers encounter similar “crimes,” or phenomena. Each researcher claims to have evidence and insights into what transpired, contributing to a complex web of information and theories.
  6. The Detective’s Role: As a researcher, you step into the role of the detective. Your mission is twofold:
    1. Analyze the evidence meticulously.
    2. Decipher the witness statements to construct a solid case.

    With high stakes and potentially limited evidence, your goal is to identify the true “culprit”: the most accurate explanation for the observed phenomenon.

  7. Wearing Multiple Hats: In this scientific investigation, you must embody multiple roles:
    • Detective: Piecing together clues and forming a coherent narrative
    • Evidence Collector: Gathering relevant data and research
    • Forensic Expert: Analyzing the collected information with precision
    • Investigator: Digging deeper into the details and following leads
    • Lawyer: Building and presenting a compelling case for your findings
Seattle Police Department detectives pose outdoors in coats and hats in the early 1900s.
The detectives. Seattle Police Department, circa 1900–1910. University of Washington Special Collections · Public domain (U.S.)

The problem

When the evidence is unclear

Your job as a scientist is challenging because the evidence from the crime is not always clear. You must use your analytical skills to find and understand the evidence. You need to be someone who can “see the blood spatter” in the data and deduce who fired the gun. In other words, you must infer, induce, and deduce.

Witness statements

Why witness statements are hard to interpret
  1. Witnesses often provide an overwhelming amount of information, not all of which is relevant to your case. You must discern. Cut through the clutter.
  2. Witnesses often communicate unclearly and can be difficult to interpret. They may tell half-truths or simply have an incomplete view of the situation. Although they may have witnessed the “crime,” their perspective is often limited. Even if they followed a rigorous scientific process, you cannot trust them blindly or completely.
  3. When you work on cutting-edge research, even the witnesses themselves may not fully understand what is happening. As a scientist, you must cultivate the ability to recognize what you do not know.
  4. As you read these statements, you will notice that witnesses exaggerate through misleading graphs, lie by violating research ethics, or overstate their findings by overselling them. More commonly, they rely on hearsay: references and citations. This is a hallmark of the publishing industry. Authors must cite other work, often without fully comprehending what they are citing. A citation may support a very specific point rather than the paper’s central theme. Truth is context-dependent, and the devil is in the details. What is true may be condition-specific and may not generalize. You might not be aware of all the assumptions.
  5. The social status and reputation of the person who gave the statement are irrelevant. Publication in a top journal does not guarantee reliability. Remember, witnesses pay to have their statements published.

Keeping track of the papers you collect
  1. Research papers are not organized or kept in one place for you. Many are behind paywalls. Your job is to collect the witness statements you think are important and understand them. Declutter them and make the picture clear.
  2. You do not gather all the witnesses, put them in a room, and then never talk to them. Yet that is often what happens after a literature survey: hundreds of open browser tabs and papers scattered across unorganized folders. You cannot draw a clear picture unless you investigate methodically.

Research Process

Find potential witnesses and evidence: Chase the leads

Search the neighborhood
  1. Litmaps and Research Rabbit
  2. Google Scholar and Google Images

Record what you find
  1. Memory is a residue of thinking.
  2. Copy text into loosely organized topics. It is completely okay to be disorganized at this stage. That is the point.
  3. Add figures and images.
  4. Add the paper to Zotero.
  5. Leave a trail. Record a citation, link, or anything else that lets you trace the information back to its source.

The Evidence Room: Don’t let Rats eat the Marijuana

Zotero
  1. This is where you categorize and read the witness statements and evidence.
  2. Categorize them into collections.
  3. Take screenshots, highlight text, and write what you think in the comments. Record your thought process.

Notero
  1. Use Notero to sync your Zotero library to Notion automatically.
  2. Title the page using the BibTeX citation key.
A Seattle police staff member checks tagged firearms and other evidence in a property room around 1922.
Keeping track of the evidence. Seattle police property room, circa 1922. Webster & Stevens / MOHAI · Public domain (U.S.)

Investigation Board: Detective’s crazy wall

Choose the specific question you will answer
  1. You want to answer a very specific question. You may want to ask many questions, but know that you are going to answer only a select few in your own research. That is one thing you have to learn in a PhD: finding one question among the many questions that you really care about.
  2. You will end up with multiple relevant pieces of evidence and important witnesses.
  3. This is where you develop your suspicions. Your hypothesis. Your model.
  4. Write what you think, and write what you do not know.

Connect the threads
  1. Add the papers, images, and videos.
  2. Now the material becomes slightly more organized.
  3. Use the citation key from Notero.
A man in a suit studies photographs, notes, maps, and red threads on an investigation board.
Following the connections between clues. A staged detective scene. cottonbro studio / Pexels · Pexels License

Forensics: Analyze those Fingerprints
  1. Make this your research workspace.
  2. Write your questions.
  3. This is where you figure things out and solve the scientific problem.
  4. This may include your code scripts, laboratory records, or field notes.
  5. It can also be a record of discussion topics for your principal investigator and collaborators.

Laboratory example: This manufacturer’s guide is one concrete example of planning benches, storage, and evidence movement in a physical forensic workspace.

Microscopes, computers, analytical instruments, and workbenches fill a forensic science laboratory at Bowling Green State University.
A space to examine the evidence. Bowling Green State University forensic laboratory, 2020. Mbrickn / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

Investigation report: “Suspect was seen wearing… something blue… I think?”
  1. This is where you write the first draft of your paper. Do not worry about the format. Put everything together and paint a story.
  2. To write a paper, create content titles. This is where you work on the sequence of your results. You can play with different versions.
  3. This is where you work out how to write the research paper.
  4. Bring together all the references to create a compelling story, mostly imported from the Crime Board.

Research presentation: The courtroom drama
  1. Write the script before you shoot.
  2. Keep different versions of your slides.
  3. Prepare short, medium, and long versions.
  4. Use words as labels rather than symbols.
  5. While speaking, talk about the meaning of the symbols rather than the symbols themselves. Use images as analogies.
  6. The story is the most important element.
  7. A presentation can be character-driven or plot-driven. Most presentations are character-driven.
  8. Name the lab whose paper you are citing.
  9. What do the results mean?

Organization Structure
  1. Potential witness: everything you read and come across.
  2. Investigation board:
    1. Questions
    2. Hypothesis
    3. Analysis
    4. Your results + Witness
  3. Investigation report:
    1. Writing

Resource references