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2 years ago in Topic Novelty By Venu M
How much literature review is enough to confidently claim my topic is novel?
I've been reviewing literature for months. At what point can I stop and be confident that I haven't missed a paper that completely replicates my idea? Is there a sign that the search is "saturated"?
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By Alison Answered 1 year ago
You reach confidence through systematic search techniques, not just time spent. I recommend: 1) Database Cross-Checking: Search Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and key discipline-specific databases. 2) Backward & Forward Chasing: Take key papers and exhaustively review their references (backward) and papers that cite them (forward). 3) Keyword Iteration: Continuously refine your search terms based on new terminology you discover. 4) Consult Experts: Ask your supervisor or scholars at conferences if they know of similar work. Saturation is reached when you see the same core papers and authors recurring, and new searches yield no new conceptual leads, only tangential references. At that point, you can claim with high confidence that your specific combination of question, method, and context is novel. Document your search strategy in your proposal to demonstrate this rigor.
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