# Literature Review Prompt for Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)

> A copy-ready NotebookLM literature review prompt: turn your papers into a themed synthesis with agreements, conflicts, gaps and a citation on every claim.

https://www.kortex-notebooklm.com/prompts/literature-review

[All prompts](/prompts)

# Literature Review Prompt for Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)

By **Juli** Updated Oct 26, 2026

The best literature review prompt for Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) asks for themes, not paper-by-paper summaries. Add your papers to one notebook, tick the ones in scope, paste the prompt below and replace \[TOPIC\]. You get the main themes across the sources, where they agree and clash, a comparison table, open gaps and a citation on every claim.

## The literature review prompt

```
Act as a research assistant writing the synthesis section of a literature review on [TOPIC].
Use only the selected sources. Do not summarize the papers one by one; organize everything by theme.

1. Name the 4 to 6 main themes across the sources, one line each.
2. For each theme, write one paragraph covering:
   - what the sources agree on
   - where they disagree, and the likely reason (method, sample, date or definitions)
   - which sources are strongest on it, and why
3. Add a table with the columns: Source | Research question | Method | Sample | Key finding | Limitation.
4. List 3 to 5 gaps the sources leave open, phrased as research questions.
5. End with the 3 sources a newcomer should read first.

Cite a source for every claim. If the sources do not cover something, write "Not covered in the sources" instead of filling the gap.
```

## When to use it

Run it once the papers for a review sit in one notebook and you are about to start drafting. It works best with five or more sources, because themes and disagreements only show up across several papers. A free notebook holds up to 50 sources, each up to 500,000 words or 200 MB, so most reviews fit in one notebook. Untick anything off-topic first, such as your own notes or a methods textbook, so the synthesis covers only the literature.

## What it returns

Expect a short list of themes, then one paragraph per theme that names the papers on each side of a disagreement. The table gives you one row per source, which is the part most people paste straight into their notes. The gaps come back as questions, ready for a “future research” paragraph. Treat the whole answer as a map to check, not a section to submit: open the citations behind any claim you plan to use and confirm the wording against the paper.

Once a prompt like this works for you, the slow part is finding it again for the next review.

Run this literature review prompt on every project without retyping it

Kortex adds a Prompts button to Gemini Notebook: save this prompt once, then insert it into the chat box of any notebook in one click. The free plan keeps 10 prompts; Pro has no limit. Free on Chrome.

[Add Kortex to Chrome, free](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/kortex/hdapplggdhndkblofffknpmnnnnbncbn)[See the prompt library](/features#templates)

## Variations

**Chronological review.** Use this when the field changed over time and the story is how thinking moved.

```
Using only the selected sources on [TOPIC], trace how the field's thinking changed over time. Group the papers into 3 to 5 periods. For each period, give the dominant view, the papers that set it, and what later work challenged. Cite every claim.
```

**Methods comparison.** Use this when a reviewer asks you to justify your own method.

```
Compare the research methods used across the selected sources on [TOPIC]. Make a table with the columns: Source | Design | Data | Sample size | Strength | Weakness. Then say which method the strongest findings rely on and which findings rest on weak designs. Cite every row.
```

**Draft in academic prose.** Use this when you want a first draft of the section, not notes.

```
Write a 700-word synthesis of the selected sources on [TOPIC] in formal academic prose. Organize it by theme, open each paragraph with a topic sentence, and end with the main gap. Name the author and year from each source when you refer to it, and cite every claim.
```

Check every author and year against the paper itself before you keep the draft. For the wider research workflow, from collecting papers to writing, see [how to use Gemini Notebook for research](/blog/notebooklm-for-research), or browse [30 more prompts](/blog/best-notebooklm-prompts) grouped by job.

Keep your whole review toolkit in one folder

Save the main prompt and each variation as separate prompts in Kortex, tag them by project, and insert whichever one you need next. Kortex only stores and inserts the prompt; Gemini Notebook writes the answer from your sources.

[Add Kortex to Chrome, free](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/kortex/hdapplggdhndkblofffknpmnnnnbncbn)[Browse all prompts](/prompts)

## More research prompts

-   [Book summary](/prompts/book-summary)
-   [Research paper breakdown](/prompts/research-paper)
-   [Summary you can act on](/prompts/summarize)
-   [All prompts](/prompts)

## Give your notebooks a home.

Install Kortex in under a minute. It works inside the Gemini Notebook you already use, free forever for the basics.

[Add to Chrome](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/kortex/hdapplggdhndkblofffknpmnnnnbncbn) [Read the docs](/docs)

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