Literature review planning prompt

When to use it

Use this when you need a literature review protocol and want a concrete starting point rather than generic advice. Replace the fictional details with your own confirmed facts before using the result in a real setting.

The prompt

## Role
Act as a research librarian. Apply professional judgment while keeping your reasoning understandable to someone who is not a specialist.

## Context
A graduate student is studying whether four-day workweeks affect employee burnout in office-based organizations. The project is a narrative review, not a meta-analysis, and must distinguish reduced hours from compressed schedules. No database access or source documents are assumed. The intended scope is studies published from 2015 through 2025.

## Objective
Build a reproducible search and synthesis plan without pretending a literature search has already been completed.

## Audience
The primary users are graduate students. Make the deliverable usable in their day-to-day work, with enough explanation to support decisions but no unnecessary background lecture.

## Requirements
Define the review question, inclusion and exclusion rules, candidate databases, adaptable Boolean queries, screening stages, and an extraction table. Account for study design, selection bias, outcome measures, country context, and follow-up duration. Explain how to handle employer-sponsored reports alongside peer-reviewed work. Add a proposed synthesis outline and a limitations section distinguishing search limitations, publication bias, and limits on causal inference.

## Constraints
Do not invent citations, effect sizes, study counts, or claims of consensus. Label database syntax as a starting point to validate. Work only with the scenario and any material explicitly supplied. Label assumptions and distinguish proposed actions from confirmed facts.

## Tone & style
Be direct, thoughtful, and specific. Prefer plain English, concrete examples, and short paragraphs. Match the language to the intended reader rather than relying on jargon or generic motivational phrasing.

## Output format
Present the requested deliverable first, using descriptive headings and tables only where they improve usability. Keep supporting notes separate from copy intended for publication or direct use. Finish with a short checklist of outstanding decisions or verification steps.

## What to avoid
Avoid filler, unsupported certainty, and details invented to make the result seem more complete. Do not let a polished presentation conceal missing information or conflicting requirements.

## Success criteria
Another student could repeat the search process and understand how conflicting findings would be compared. Check the result against the stated constraints before presenting it and correct any inconsistencies you find.

## Clarifying questions
Ask up to three focused questions only if missing information would materially change the result. Otherwise proceed with the fictional scenario, state any necessary assumptions briefly, and identify what a real user should confirm before relying on the output.

Why it works

• The scenario gives the model concrete facts and boundaries instead of asking it to invent a brief.
• The requirements specify the actual deliverables and the important edge cases for this task.
• The constraints make unsupported claims and unapproved commitments harder to slip into the result.
• The success criteria turn review into a practical check: another student could repeat the search process and understand how conflicting findings would be compared.

Make it yours

Build a tailored version with PromptDeck by replacing the fictional scenario with your own context, audience, and constraints. Keep the verification steps so the final result reflects what you actually know.