literature-positioning-map

Literature Positioning Map

Your job is not to summarize everything ever written. Your job is to help the paper occupy a precise place in the literature.

Workflow

1. Identify the paper's exact question, mechanism, setting, and design.
2. Search for truly close papers using available tools before expanding outward.
3. Build concentric rings: closest papers (direct competitors), near papers (shared mechanism or method), and contextual papers (broader field).
4. Group papers by the dimension of comparison: mechanism, identification strategy, setting, data, or prediction.
5. Identify the comparison set that a referee would naturally invoke.
6. Write a positioning argument that is specific enough to survive scrutiny.

Tool integration (Corbis MCP) — this is critical

Always search before writing. Do not rely on parametric knowledge alone. Corbis searches 250,000+ papers via hybrid semantic+keyword search.

Mandatory search sequence (execute in order)

Step 0 — Check existing data and run architecture + frontier searches:

• If output/paper_set.json exists, read it first. Papers already collected for this topic can inform the positioning without redundant searches.
• search_papers (query: the core topic, sortBy: "citedByCount", matchCount: 15) → immediately see the field's citation hierarchy. The most-cited papers are what referees will compare you to.
• search_papers (query: core topic, minYear: 2020, matchCount: 15) → the recent frontier and scooping risks.
• These two searches frame everything that follows. Save results to output/paper_set.json (merge if exists) and append queries to output/search_log.md.

Step 1 — Inner ring (direct competitors):

• search_papers (query: the exact question + method, matchCount: 15) → find papers doing the closest thing.
• get_paper_details_batch (paper IDs from top 5 results) → read abstracts to confirm true overlap.

Step 2 — Middle ring (same question, different methods OR same method, different question):

• search_papers (query: the same question with alternative methods, matchCount: 10)
• search_papers (query: the same method applied to related questions, matchCount: 10)

Step 3 — Outer ring (seminal and contextual):

• top_cited_articles (journalNames + query: topic) → identify canonical papers within key journals that may not have appeared in keyword searches.

Step 4 — Verify specific papers:

• get_paper_details or get_paper_details_batch (paper IDs) → when the user mentions a specific paper or when you need to verify what a close paper actually does vs. what its title suggests.

Citation-aware comparison set

The comparison set is what a referee would invoke when evaluating the paper's contribution. This is heavily correlated with citation count:

• High-citation close papers (500+ citations) are the biggest positioning challenge. If your paper is close to one of these, the referee already knows that paper and will ask "what's new?" You must differentiate explicitly.
• Medium-citation close papers (100-499) define the active conversation. Your contribution must be stated relative to these.
• Low-citation close papers (<100, especially recent) represent scooping risk. A 2024 paper with 20 citations doing nearly the same thing is a bigger threat to your submission than a 2005 paper with 2,000 citations, because the 2024 paper hasn't been absorbed yet and the referee may not know it.

When identifying the "closest 3-5 papers," include at least one high-citation anchor and at least one recent paper. Do not let the comparison set consist entirely of niche recent work that a referee has never heard of.

Citation management

• format_citation (paper ID, style: apa or chicago) → generate properly formatted citations for individual papers.
• export_citations (list of paper IDs, format: bibtex) → batch export references for the LaTeX bibliography file. Use this after completing the literature map to give the user a ready-to-use .bib file.

What to avoid

• Laundry-list literature reviews ("this paper relates to several strands")
• Empty novelty claims such as "few papers study" or "the literature is silent on"
• Citing a paper only because it shares a noun with the current paper
• Claiming novelty without having searched
• Treating every cited paper as equally relevant

Dimensions of differentiation

When comparing the current paper to the closest work, be specific about which dimension the novelty lies in:

Dimension	Example claim
Mechanism	"Unlike X who study channel A, we identify channel B using..."
Identification	"X documents the correlation; we provide causal evidence using..."
Data/Setting	"X studies large public firms; we use novel private-credit data that reveals..."
Scope	"X examines one state; our national sample allows us to..."
Time period	"X's sample ends in 2005; we study the post-crisis regime where..."
Prediction	"X predicts effect A; our mechanism predicts the opposite in subgroup..."
Method	"X uses hedonic regressions; our repeat-sales design differences out..."

Weak differentiators (be cautious):

• "We use more recent data" alone is rarely sufficient
• "We study a different country" needs a reason the setting matters
• "We use a different empirical method" needs a reason the method matters for the answer

Contribution writing rules

• State the closest paper or papers by name in the first sentence.
• Explain whether the difference is in mechanism, data, identification, setting, or implication.
• Say what the present paper can claim that the closest papers cannot.
• Use cautious language unless the gap is truly verified ("we contribute to" not "we are the first to").
• If two or three papers together cover most of what you do, explain what the combination still misses.

Related-literature section structure

Organize by intellectual contribution, not by topic label:

Option A — By disagreement: Group papers by which side of a debate they support, then explain where the current paper enters.

Option B — By mechanism: Group papers by the economic channel they emphasize, then explain the new channel or evidence.

Option C — By method/setting: Group papers by empirical approach, then explain why the new approach changes the answer.

Never use Option D — By topic label ("this paper relates to the literature on X, the literature on Y, and the literature on Z" with no differentiation within each bucket).

Required deliverables

Produce:

• a literature matrix using assets/literature-matrix-template.md (populated with actual papers from searches)
• a closest-paper list (3-5 papers with specific differentiation for each)
• a contribution paragraph ready for the introduction
• a related-literature section outline organized by one of the structures above

Output format

# Literature positioning memo
## Closest papers (3-5, with specific differentiation)
## Comparison dimensions (which dimension of novelty is strongest)
## Where this paper overlaps (be honest)
## Where this paper differs (be specific)
## What claim is safe
## What claim is too strong
## Draft contribution paragraph
## Draft related-literature outline (organized by disagreement, mechanism, or method)
## Papers to watch (recent working papers that could scoop or complement)

Reference files

Read if needed:

• references/writing-norms.md

Guardrails

• "To our knowledge" requires real verification effort — search before using this phrase.
• A literature section should reduce, not increase, ambiguity about the paper's contribution.
• If the paper is too close to an existing one, say that directly and propose a repositioning.
• Do not pad the literature review with tangentially related papers.
• If you find a paper that substantially overlaps, tell the user immediately.
• Verify claims about what prior papers do or do not do by reading their abstracts.

Example prompts

• "Position this corporate-finance paper against the payout and investment literatures."
• "Draft a related-literature roadmap for a commercial real-estate distress paper."
• "What is the nearest paper to this anomaly paper, and how do I differentiate mine?"
• "Search for any recent working papers on mortgage forbearance and housing supply."
• "Build a literature matrix for a paper on climate risk and property values."