Finding Research Gaps in Academic Zettelkasten

c4lvorias

An academic zettelkasten requires additional meta-level work beyond the knowledge accumulated through atomic note creation. A researcher should track the state of the literature review and stay on top of the knowledge material so that research gaps emerge during zettling without effort.

Right now, I create a dedicated source note including the freewriting I do to identify what will go out from the paper (I need freewriting to decide on material that will be created from the paper) and highlights.

Als,o I don't read papers end-to-end mostly because I am new to the field I am working on. I start with reviews, dissect reviews into subproblems, and use a sandwich technique. Let me give an example.

I am reading a paper about how spatial navigation may be the intersection point towards the efforts to merge neuroscience with AI. The paper talks about the neurobiology of spatial navigation, lists major models from different schools of thought, e.g., attractor models, reinforcement learning-based models, and deep learning-based models.

I started with this paper because, as a newbie researcher, I aim to design biologically inspired algorithms and models, but I am new to the field of spatial navigation.

So after reading the neurobiology part, I paused and searched for the major neurobiology work. The main problem of the field is to understand path integration (how we use internal cues to track our path without reference to any external input)

There are 3 major cell types occurring in path integration, namely place cells, grid cells and head direction cells. Besides these, there are many intermediary cells that may intermix some variables from the cells I mentioned at first.

I am treating this part as a black box because I need to divide the path integration problem into major cell agents, understand them in detail, and then examine how they are connected in circuits.

And there are models. This is the high-ROI part of my question.

Models start from a primitive understanding, and based on the requirements, you add or change stuff.

Right now, I am keeping a "Spatial Navigation Models" canvas in my Obsidian to see existing attempts, how they have evolved, and how they are connected.

So far, I mentioned my source note (for highlights, freewriting, and keeping track of what has been read) and canvases.

I envision these types of canvases as the places where reference/research gaps will emerge. My dream is to create a web of models, and through time, the models that are not already connected will be novel contributions.

What do you think? What do you do to keep track of the literature? If you are an academic, what's your workflow in finding research questions?