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How to Identify Research Gaps: A Guided Walkthrough

Dr. Craig PalssonEnglishLiterature reviewFind research gaps and new ideas

TL;DR

1-min read

Finding a genuine gap is often the hardest part of starting a research project. In this live walkthrough, economist Dr. Craig Palsson, Associate Professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University, demonstrates a repeatable method for scanning the literature, mapping what is known and locating open questions. It is aimed at PhD scholars, master's students preparing a thesis, faculty planning new projects and anyone looking for an original research question.

Key takeaways

  • A research gap is a question existing studies have not adequately answered, such as an unstudied population or context, conflicting findings, outdated evidence, weak methods or an untested theory.
  • The SciSpace Topic Finder helps you explore areas that appear under-researched.
  • Deep Review lets you examine trends across many studies to see where attention has and has not gone.
  • Collecting gap-related findings in an AI-powered notebook keeps evidence organised before you commit to a direction.
  • An identified gap should then be shaped into a focused research question.
  • Common pitfalls include gaps that are trivial, already filled or not worth pursuing; confirm a gap by searching several databases and recent reviews, reading limitations and future work sections, and discussing it with your supervisor or peers.
Apply it

To apply this, start with Topic Finder on your broad area, test promising gaps with Deep Review, and record the evidence in a SciSpace notebook before drafting your research question.

How to do it

  1. Define what a research gap is

    Learn what counts as a research gap and the signals that help you recognise one. Knowing what to look for is the first step in how to identify research gaps.

  2. Explore with SciSpace Topic Finder

    Use the SciSpace Topic Finder to explore under-researched areas in your field. This points you toward where questions remain open.

  3. Analyse trends with Deep Review

    Run Deep Review to analyse literature trends across many studies. Trend analysis maps what is already known.

  4. Organise findings in a notebook

    Collect your gap-related findings in an AI-powered research notebook. Keeping them together makes patterns easier to see.

  5. Turn the gap into a question

    Convert the identified gap into a strong, focused research question. A focused question sets up a feasible project.

  6. Avoid common gap-analysis pitfalls

    Watch for common pitfalls in gap analysis and apply practical ways to avoid them. This keeps your gap genuine rather than apparent.

Watch the tutorial47 min

How to Identify Research Gaps: A Guided Method with AIPlay video: How to Identify Research Gaps: A Guided Method with AI

Chapters

  1. Welcome: how the Haiti earthquake led to an economics PhD
  2. Why survey fieldwork didn't give me a dissertation topic
  3. How one paragraph in a book became a dissertation topic
  4. How to find research gaps: start with a policy or event that seems interesting
  5. Where do research ideas come from? Read widely, talk to people, travel
  6. Why social science research can always make a contribution
  7. How to find a unique angle for your research question
  8. Why is finding the literature for a research gap hard?
  9. How to start a literature search with SciSpace suggested questions
  10. SciSpace Standard vs High Quality vs Deep Review search
  11. Reading AI literature summaries to spot a research gap
  12. Google Scholar vs AI research search: cited papers, no hallucinations
  13. Finding research papers in other languages with AI search
  14. How to make niche research matter: the M&M candy-coating analogy
  15. Use SciSpace Find Topics to link your research to big themes
  16. Finding hidden research gaps with SciSpace Deep Review
  17. How do you tell a genuine research gap from an unimportant one?
  18. Deep Review results: gap themes, APA citations and notebooks

Try this on SciSpace

Frequently asked questions

What is a research gap?

A research gap is a question or area that existing studies have not adequately answered. It may involve an unstudied population or context, conflicting findings, outdated evidence, methodological weaknesses or an untested theory. A useful gap is both genuinely open and important enough that filling it would add meaningful knowledge to the field.

How do I know if a research gap is real?

Search systematically across several databases and recent reviews to confirm nobody has already addressed it, read the limitations and future work sections of key papers, and check for ongoing studies. Discuss the gap with your supervisor or peers. If it survives that scrutiny and matters to the field, it is worth developing into a research question.

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