Q: Why it is important to identify gaps that exists in literature?

Detailed Question -

I want to know WHY it is important to identifying gaps that exists in literature

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

A research gap refers to unexplored or underexplored areas with scope for further research. When you read papers on topics of interest, you may realize there are some areas that have significant scope for more research but have not been studied by other researchers.

We will now explain why it is important to identify gaps in literature: Assume that you have completed your research work and sent your paper for peer review only to find out that another researcher has already published something similar. It is therefore necessary to find out problems in your research field that have not been previously addressed before. Not only would you be investing your funds and resources in the right project but also increasing the chances of your research findings getting published.

To summarize, identifying the gap in literature will help you

  • Clearly define the motivations behind your study
  • Clearly define the problem being studied
  • Clearly define why the problem is important

In fact, to make sure you stay updated about new research in your domain of expertise, it is recommended to make literature reading a habit. This will also prevent you from getting overwhelmed by the amount of articles you need to digest before you start working on a new research project. R Discovery is a perfect solution for this! It is a free research discovery app with relevant, curated literature from PubMed and PubMed Central, Microsoft Academic. It has a simple interface and very useful features like notifications on recently published papers in your field of study, personalization, convenient search filters, bookmarking and more. Click here to know more about R Discovery, or download the free app from Google Play or the App Store.

Related reading:

 

Comment