Staring down a mountain of PDFs, every PhD candidate and independent researcher knows the struggle. Identifying a genuine, researchable gap in the literature is the critical hurdle between reading and contributing. AI can transform this daunting task from a scavenger hunt into a systematic investigation. From Overwhelm to Orchestrated Inquiry The key principle is to move beyond asking an AI "find gaps." Instead, guide it to perform a structured methodology inventory . This framework directs the AI to analyze your collected literature not just for what was found, but how it was found. By categorizing studies by their methodological approaches, you can quickly spot overused methods, under-explored techniques, or populations and contexts that have been systematically overlooked. For example, a sociology researcher might instruct their AI to inventory methods used in studies on urban community resilience.…