You are not searching for a gap in the literature. You are creating one through how you interpret it.

This idea often surprises PhD students.

Most are taught to “go find a research gap” as if it were a missing brick in a well-built wall—something objectively absent, waiting to be discovered.

So they dive into hundreds of papers, scanning for untouched topics like prospectors hunting for gold. What they usually find instead is frustration:

• Everything seems already studied.
• The remaining gaps feel trivial.
• Nothing looks worthy of a dissertation.

The problem is not your effort.

It is your mental model.

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Gaps Are Not Objects. They Are Arguments.

A research gap is not a natural phenomenon.

It does not exist independently in the literature, waiting patiently for you to uncover it.

A gap is a claim.

It is something you construct by showing that:

Even when we combine everything the literature currently knows, a critical problem still remains unresolved.

This is a persuasive act, not a scavenger hunt.

You are not proving something is missing. You are proving that what exists is insufficient.

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Stop Being a Searcher. Start Being an Architect.

The traditional mindset is:

“The wall is already built. I just need to find a missing brick.”

The reality is different.

The literature is not a finished building. It is a pile of scattered materials.

Your task is to reassemble them and then say:

“Look — without this structural support, the entire argument collapses.”

That structural support is your research gap.

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The Literature Review Is Your Gap-Creation Tool

A mediocre literature review is a catalog:

• Paper A says this
• Paper B says that
• Paper C confirms both

Conclusion: everyone is smart.

A powerful literature review is intentional. It guides the reader toward a problem that must be addressed.

It does this not by summarizing, but by interpreting.

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Three Moves That Create Real Research Gaps

1. Problematization — Challenge the Foundation

Ask:

• What assumptions do existing studies rely on?
• Are those assumptions still valid today?
• Were they ever valid?

If you show that:

The foundation itself is unstable

You open a deep gap.

Not because something is missing — but because what exists cannot stand anymore.

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2. Synthesis — Combine to Reveal Conflict

A single paper may look perfect.

But what happens when you put two strong papers side by side?

• Do they contradict each other?
• Do they define the same concept differently?
• Do their results point in opposite directions?

That tension is not noise.

It is your entry point.

Gaps often live between papers, not inside them.

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3. Transposition — Move Ideas Across Contexts

A theory may be fully validated in Field X.

But ask:

• What if we apply it to Field Y?
• Would it still hold?
• Would it fail in an interesting way?

If no one has explored this shift seriously, you have created a gap — not by absence, but by repositioning.

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Why This Perspective Changes Everything

When you realize that gaps are created, not found—moving beyond the passive reading trap described in Why Most PhD Students Get Stuck in Engine One:

• You stop waiting for permission to think
• You stop feeling late to the field
• You stop assuming “smart people already solved everything”

You move from:

“What hasn’t been studied?”

to:

“What doesn’t make sense yet?”

That is a far more powerful question.

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What This Means for PhD Students

If you are stuck in literature review:

• You may be reading correctly
• But interpreting passively

Try this shift:

• Don’t ask what papers say
• Ask what they assume
• Don’t ask what they solve
• Ask what they cannot solve together

Your dissertation will not emerge from a database search.

It will emerge from how you connect and challenge what you’ve read.

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Final Thought

A great literature review is not a summary.

It is an argument.

And the gap is not what you discover at the end.

It is what you convince the reader must exist.

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