A workflow for moving from an initial research question to a structured literature review matrix.
This workflow is designed for early-stage research in international Chinese education: clarify the question, discover sources, organize references, and produce a review matrix before drafting.
Use Perplexity or a general assistant to map key terms, populations, contexts, and nearby research areas.
Output: A revised research question plus keyword variants in Chinese and English.
Use Elicit to find papers and screen abstracts by method, data, population, and relevance.
Output: A short list of candidate papers and a reason for including or excluding each one.
Save selected papers and metadata in Zotero, then attach PDFs and notes when available.
Output: A clean Zotero collection with tags or notes matching the research question.
Use NotebookLM or the literature review matrix prompt on verified notes and abstracts.
Output: A review matrix with findings, methods, gaps, and links back to the original sources.