Researchers conducting searches and reviews of relevant literature face an increasingly complex and voluminous task. In extending the body of relevant knowledge, it has always been important to work hard to gather, organize, analyze, and assimilate existing information from the literature, particularly from one’s home discipline. With the increasing abundance of potentially significant research being reported in related fields, and even in what are traditionally deemed to be nonrelated fields of study, the researcher’s task is ever more daunting, if a thorough job is desired. In new streams of research, the researcher’s task may be even more tedious and complex. Trying to ferret out relevant work that others have reported may be difficult, at best, and perhaps even near impossible if traditional, largely manual reviews of published literature are required. Even with a legion of dedicated graduate students or helpful colleagues, trying to cover all potentially relevant published work is problematic.

Questions for Discussion
1. How can text mining be used to ease the task of literature review?
2. What are the common outcomes of a text mining project on a specific collection of journal articles? Can you think of other potential outcomes not mentioned in this case?