We’re wired to process visuals faster than the written word. By using visual literature maps to review research, you can rapidly form connections and enhance your understanding of your research topic.
You can use Litmaps to:
See article connections and relative importance
Distinguish high-impact, historical, and cutting-edge work
Organize your topics and sub-topics
How to Prioritize your Articles on your Litmap
Use Litmaps to quickly identify different kinds of research contributions, whether that's the latest work in a field, the historical papers to know, or novel contributions. You can do this by altering how the articles are visualized, based on the X and Y axes, as well as the size of the nodes themselves.
Below is a breakdown of the most common types of articles researchers look for, and how to set your Map up to visually spot them in Litmaps. Click on the legend at the bottom left of the Map to update these measures:
Set your... to find: | X-axis | Y-axis | Node | Look for articles: |
Review papers | Date | Reference Count | Citation Count | Towards the top left |
High-impact work | Date | Citation Count | - | Towards the top |
Cutting-edge papers | Momentum | Map Relevance | - | Towards the top right |
Papers most relevant to your topic | Date | Map Relevance | - | Towards the top |
Update the axes or nodes based on what types of articles you're looking for. Change these so that articles are visualized based on different measures. Here are the different options available in Litmaps:
Fixed: All articles given equal size/weight, to simplify your visualization
Cited Count: The article's number of citations
Ref Count: The article's number of references
Momentum: Cited Count adjusted for recency of publication. Click the additional settings to adjust the slider. This will help you distinguish new articles that have a significant impact based on citation, despite how recent they are.
Map Relevance: The article's number of citations within this map. This helps you find which articles are most tightly connected to your topic.