Introduction

Writing a well-balanced, academically sound, and correctly referenced piece of work is essential for any student or academic. The ability to navigate and synthesize vast amounts of literature, while ensuring accuracy and relevance, is a critical skill. However, current tools like PubMed and Google Scholar, though useful, often fall short in maximizing the potential of the available research. Moreover, traditional AI tools such as ChatGPT may fabricate references, which undermines their value for serious academic work.

This is where Consensus steps in. By offering an academic-focused database and a multifunctional search bar, Consensus streamlines the research and writing process. Unlike other tools, Consensus is specifically designed to support rigorous academic work without compromising on the quality or integrity of references.

At Consensus, we are committed to upholding the highest academic standards. While the platform won’t write your Literature Review or Dissertation for you, it acts as a powerful assistant—much like a good teacher who guides you through the process. Consensus won’t take over the writing, but it will make the task significantly easier. By asking the right questions, you can extract valuable insights, break down complex topics, and advance your work effectively.

This tutorial will guide you on how to use Consensus to enhance your Literature Review or Dissertation writing process, helping you navigate the complexities of academic research.

Key points in this guide

• Do not use Consensus to write the review or dissertation for you: Instead, use it as an academic assistant.
• Use Consensus for assistance across all sections: It helps with the overall structure and each part of the Literature Review or Dissertation.
• Consensus helps build a reading foundation: Use it to break large topics into smaller, manageable sections.
• Utilize prompts for Consensus Pro: Maximize your searches with specific prompts for different purposes (e.g., research questions, outlines).
• Ask Consensus about limitations in the evidence: This ensures balanced and nuanced insights.
• Save key searches and papers: Create lists for quick reference during your writing process.

 

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Quick start prompts

This section provides a collection of practical prompts designed to help you make the most of Consensus during your research and writing process. These prompts can guide you through various stages, from generating research questions to outlining your literature review and finding key references. Whether you’re seeking to clarify your topic, organize your ideas, or identify gaps in the literature, these prompts will serve as a starting point to streamline your research. By leveraging these targeted prompts, you can more efficiently navigate the complexities of academic writing and produce well-informed, comprehensive work.

Generate potential review questions about your topic

 

Gauging the review question content for interest, scope, and difficulty

“What should be discussed when writing about [your topic]”

 

Construct the review outline and format

“Provide an outline for a literature review about the [review format] of [topic]”

 

Construct the content for each subheading of the review

“Provide an outline for a literature review about [subheading 1 from Consensus Pro output for ‘Construct the review outline’]”

 

Find definitions and concepts

“What key concepts do I need to know about around [topic]?”

 

The flexibility to learn according to your needs and style

“Provide [notes, bullet points, a summary] on [topic]”

 

Critical appraisal: Nuance and variation

“How does [variable] vary by [variable/factor]”

“How does [variable] vary between [variable 1] and [variable 2]?”

 

Strengths and limitations

“What are the limitations and strengths of [topic, method, study design]”

 

Find whether a theory or idea is supported

“Is there any evidence to support the following statement: [statement]”

 

Find references to support a specific claim

“Find me references which support the following statement: [statement]”

 

Future research needs

“What are the unanswered questions regarding [topic]?”

 

Implications

“What are the [policy, practical, public health] implications of [topic]?”

 

Find other viewpoints

“Provide the existing opposing viewpoints that do not support the statement that [claim]”

 

Finding papers based on experimental/observational study design

“Reference the studies closest matching this study design: population = [e.g. adults, children, diabetes], intervention = [e.g. a drug, a diet, a support programme, any], comparison = [e.g. a control, placebo, current gold-standard treatment, any], outcome = [e.g. death, recovery from disease, blood pressure, any]”

 

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Developing your Literature Review or Dissertation question 

Depending on your course, you may already have a set research question, but many institutions allow you to choose your own. Deciding on an interesting and valuable question can be challenging, but Consensus Pro can help. By exploring your subject area or specific interests, you can use Consensus to generate relevant research questions based on the latest literature. This ensures your question is both informed and aligned with current academic discussions. For example:

If you have a better idea of the type of question you wish to address, you can also add this in the specifics of the essay type. You could compare and contrast, or consider pros and cons:

 

Understanding your question topic

If you’ve been handed a question, you may be needing some help in understanding your topic and getting to grips with the literature. Your teacher/lecturer may also have given you a lengthy reading list of books, of which only 5% will be relevant. Let Consensus get you up to speed on the topic by understanding key concepts by finding the most important/references to get you started on reading:

Consensus will put key references at the top of your page. Without having to apply any filters, Consensus provided a Nature Reviews Primer, European and Canadian Guidelines, and two papers providing definitions, prevalence rates, causes and treatments, perfect to get you up to speed. Or, save yourself even more time, and turn on Consensus Pro and repeat the search:

You can also use the find concepts prompt below for a simpler breakdown:

Or, you may be given a list of questions to choose from. You want to make sure that the question you choose and the content involved will be interesting or within your scope/ability. Again, type in each question to get a flavour for what you may need to research.

“What should be discussed when writing about [question]”

Now, you have a quick overview of your topic, and key references to get you started.

Saving your reference list & key searches

At this stage, it’s a good idea to set up your list of useful papers and searches. The advantage of this is that:

1. You can quickly refer to key papers, and use Ask paper to ask questions
2. You can quickly export all the references you need to your reference software
3. You can quickly re-enter the search at a later date without having to re-type or remember the exact words, and easily apply filters or tweaks to the search

Check out our guide on saving lists of search and paper results in Consensus. Later, we’ll show you how you can quickly export your references into your reference software.

Creating the outline structure and topics to research

Now we have our question, initial literature and key concepts ready to begin writing. Next, we can assist our outline of the literature review, to make sure we address all relevant aspects. For example, let’s say our title was about genetic factors and environmental factors in obesity. We could ask:

 

You now have a clear structure to answer the question, with subheadings and brief outlines of the key sections you need to consider in your writing. You can also see that in each section/subheading in the outline will also include key references. You can use these as a starting point for your reading. Make sure to save these references to your list for later. You can also export the Consensus Pro output into your word processor, ready to begin research and writing. Make sure to consider the type of essay you are writing when performing your search, as this will alter the response provided and the outline of the review. For example:

Compare and contrast:

Mechanisms:

Knowledge-based / discussion:

Argumentative:

Pros and cons:

For the obesity example, the first few sections are relatively similar, as they introduce the topic and discuss genetic and environmental factors. But, the latter sections are tailored to the essay type in question. Use this to your advantage to ensure you structure your essay correctly.

“Provide an outline for a literature review about the [review format, e.g.benefits and risks, mechanisms, pros and cons] of [topic]”

You can extract this structure and use it as your starting point to write your review in your word processor (e.g., Google Docs or Microsoft Word).

 

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Building your review 

Now you have your outline, you can take each of the sections outlined in the last search, and use these as new searches in Consensus. By using targeted searches, you can gather detailed information and relevant references for every section of your review. Consensus allows you to break down complex topics into manageable parts, ensuring you cover all critical areas comprehensively. This approach will help you create a well-organized, thoroughly researched, and academically sound review. For example, take the genetic and environmental factors in obesity example above: 

We can ask about the second subheading from the Consensus Pro output:

 

You can continually do this to hone in on specific topics and get into highly detailed literature, all from a broad start. For example, take a subheading from the Consensus Pro output for the Genetic Factors Contributing to Obesity search above:

Within a couple of clicks, we have a highly detailed picture from an initially broad overview, with details on monogenic forms of obesity. You can repeat the above process for each subheading to get more and more granular in terms of detail. As you may guess, we could identify even more about monogenic obesity by searching with another subheading:

Make sure to also use the related searches beneath the references to expand your thinking and generate more insightful results, building out each of your topics.

This quick, yet incredibly powerful tip allows you to explore and find topics within your essay that you may not have even been aware of. From just a single word (in this case, “obesity”), we can map out the underlying structure of the topic (see figure above). This will also allow you to better conceptually understand your question and ultimately, write a much more comprehensive review.

Next, we will cover some useful tips when constructing each section of the review.

Definitions and meanings

For most written pieces, the introduction will include definitions of key terms. We can use Consensus to help us here:

You will now be given a set of key terms and definitions relating to your topic, along with the reference for it, so you can correctly cite in your review. Make sure to save these references to your list. If you’re unsure about a definition, you can put it back into the Search to learn a bit more. For example, if you were unsure on what a gene-environment interaction is:

You can use this prompt for extra definitions relating to your later sections, for example: 

Obtaining key summary data

Depending on the review and suggestions for your review outline created earlier, your introduction may also need some strong summary data or key facts. In our obesity review, we should include data on disease prevalence:

Make sure to apply the Published since date filter to get recent estimates for prevalence:

Repeat this for other key data points, such as the social impact or cost of obesity.

Writing out the review

We can then move onto the next section of the introduction:

The advantage of Consensus is that you can obtain this information in the format that most suits your learning style:

“Provide [notes, bullet points, a summary] on [topic], in simple words”

 

We are now using the subheading sections identified in the Consensus Pro outputs from the ‘building your review’ section as new searches in Consensus to start adding in detail. We can repeat this for each of our subheadings, ensuring that we have a framework of insights and references for each of our sections. With this, we can begin to write our review in our word processing document.

Critical appraisal and discussion

Discovering nuance and context

Now we have structure to our review, we can start to search and consider nuance and context. For example, whether prevalence, outcomes or treatments differ based on demographics, country, or study design: 

“How does [variable] vary by [variable]?”

“How does [variable] vary between [variable 1] and [variable 2]?”

Identifying nuance can help to provide a detailed and insightful review.

Analyzing a paper

You’ll need to discuss important research and studies in your review. You can use the new Ask paper feature to help you understand each key paper. Ask to summarize the findings, explore the methods used, explain complex terms, and more. Turn on Ask Paper available to only be provided with references where you can use it.

Finding references to support a claim or idea

Perhaps you’ve read in a paper about a theory or idea by another academic, but they did not provide a citation, or, your reading has led you to a thought or a new idea. But is it backed by any evidence? We can use Consensus to get an answer in seconds:

If we put in the opposite statement, we can see that Consensus informs us that the statement is not supported, with strong evidence against this:

It can therefore be a good idea to enter both prompts, which can allow you to build up a picture of the for and against arguments for a statement. You can also use this prompt to find a specific reference, such as if you find that you have made some statements that are not supported by a reference, and you cannot remember where the statement originated from:

This can work very well if you are looking for references for a statement within a specific niche or context. If there are no directly relevant papers, Consensus will provide this in the output, with the next most relevant papers, with an explanation why. For example:

Remember, this prompt does not address whether the statement is generally well supported. It may be that there are only one or two references supporting this, compared to many references supporting the opposite statement. So, make sure not to use this prompt out of context, and be aware of the overall literature.

Obtain multiple viewpoints for the discussion 

In academia, some topics have an overarching general consensus and agreement, whereas others may be more inconclusive. At the boundaries of existing knowledge, there can be a number of ideas or theories. A key aspect of any review is ensuring that the range of views in the literature are considered in proportion to the amount of supporting evidence. Of course, there may be other academic views that you’ve not considered or are unaware of. Again, Consensus can help with identifying these:

Dealing with our own confirmation bias

Good scientists are willing to change their stance or opinion on a topic, given new evidence that contradicts it. Of course, as we become more familiar and more knowledgeable on a topic, we may well form strong beliefs, that, perhaps, we should be less confident, following further publications. We can use Consensus to help us to identify and consider conflicting viewpoints to our own, with limitations in and contrasting evidence against our belief:

As we start to draw our own conclusions, this approach to writing a review can help us to be good academics and researchers, and build a more critical review.

Identifying strengths and limitations in the evidence 

An important aspect of academic work is acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of a piece of work. We could do this for the quality of evidence on a topic, a type of measurement tool (e.g. ELISA, a questionnaire), a trial or cohort. We can use Consensus to help us identify what these may be.

We can now discuss these insights in the review, and as above, further investigate the points of most interest. We can use this prompt in other ways, such as to assess specific research methods: 

To assess study designs:

Or to assess specific studies or cohorts:

We advise performing a combined search of both limitations and strengths in a single search, to provide a balanced response.

Unanswered questions and further research

Few fields are closed books. Even as a new study comes in with conclusive results, it often opens up more questions than it answers. Therefore any good review will include research recommendations to address the unanswered questions.

Policy/practical implications of the review findings

Any good review also provides a summary of what the literature and its findings mean for policy or practice.

 

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References: Finding key, extra, or specific papers

Depending on your essay, you may need to find some primary research papers (e.g. a clinical trial or an observational study, rather than a review). Use these helpful tips to find relevant papers for your review.

Find a specific trial or observational study based on its design

A key outline of a study is PICO: population, intervention/exposure, comparator/control, and outcome. We can use this structure in our search to find studies meeting this design. For example:

Make sure to use the Study types filter for an observational study or experimental study for more specific insights.

Find high-impact papers

You can find prominent papers in your topic in two ways. One, apply a minimum citation number in the Citations filter: 

The number of citations of a high-impact paper will vary by subject and age of the publication, but generally, papers with at least 50-100 citations are pretty important, and anything over 500-1000 are very important.

Two, select from high-quality journals only using the Journals SJR quartile rating filter:

Snowballing: check citations of older/high-impact papers

Look through the citations of one of the key papers from your searches to find recent relevant studies. This works particularly well for papers at least a few years old, or highly influential papers. An easy way to find these is to filter by the number of citations to find high impact and influential papers.

 

 

Check references of key/recent papers

Look at the references of one of the key papers from your searches to find older relevant studies. This often works well for more recent papers, such as those with specific study designs that you wish to find more of, as they will often cite any similar previous studies, as well as any important papers.

 

 

Exporting references from Consensus to your reference software

References – make use of lists. Along the way, make sure to save the useful references from your searches to a list, and also save useful searches. If you want to be really organised, you can even create a list for each section of your review.

Save all to a list and then export references to Zotero, or download as CSV or RIS files. On the page of a paper, you can also click on the Zotero plugin to automatically save that paper. Or, if you see a useful reference during your searches, just click on the Zotero button or export to quickly add it to your reference software.

You can then easily use the reference in your document (i.e. Google Docs or Word).

 

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Summary

In summary, Consensus is a powerful tool for assisting with writing a literature review or dissertation by providing structured support across the entire process. Consensus can help with generating potential review questions, constructing the review outline, finding key definitions and references, and constructing the content for each section of the review, including key aspects such as critical appraisal, future research needs and implications, all while upholding academic standards. By using the prompts in this guide, Consensus enables users to build a comprehensive understanding of their topic, identifying gaps in research, and critically assessing evidence. Consensus can help to explore alternative viewpoints, obtain nuanced insights, and recognize strengths and limitations in studies. Additionally, users can save searches and key references for easier citation management and organization. While Consensus won’t write the review for you, it acts as a valuable support throughout the writing process, making complex academic research more accessible and manageable. With careful application of its features, Consensus can support the development of well-informed and academically sound writing.