AI Prompts for Topic Discovery and Literature Mapping
Prompts that map an unfamiliar field, find the gap a project can fill, and turn a vague interest into a research question you can defend. Fill the blanks with your own subject and paste the result into any assistant.
Frequently asked questions
How do I use a prompt once I have filled the blanks?
Copy the finished card into any assistant: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, a local model. There is no account, no API key and no connection kept open, and nothing you type is stored anywhere except your own browser.
These prompts find a research gap. Will the model invent one?
It is asked to map what you have told it and to name the questions those sources leave open, which is a synthesis of work you supply. Treat every claim as a lead to verify in the actual paper, which the prompts also tell it to expect.
My topic is still very broad. Where do I start?
Start with the field map prompt, then narrow with the gap prompt once you have real sources in hand. A model asked to find a gap in a one line topic will produce a plausible sounding gap that no literature actually has.