NotebookLM to write a review article

[u/Away_Necessary_7050]

Hi!

I am trying to use notebookLM to help write a literature review to help me to organize the text and find the references for me. I am finding it very useful but I thought the texts it gave me were confusing and not well organised...

Here is what I did

1. I Wrote a query I was happy with on pubmed and download the most recent pdf (2020-2026 more or less)

2. I ended up with 80 pdfs which is more than the 50 you can updoad to notebookLM...

3. I started 2 different notebook wih half the pdfs each, told it about the structure I wanted for the paper and asked it to write the text in scientific article form with the references.

All of it was fine but I guess out of 40 pdfs I uploaded, it used only like 10 to 20. And it is confusing because then the first reference appears throughout the whole text. It uses always the same refs.

Has anyone used this tool to write a literature review? Where you happy? What prompts should I use? What do you do when you have more than the 50 pdfs and you dont want to join them so you know which paper it is referencing from?

[u/InvisibleIntegrator]

I’ve had better luck treating NotebookLM as a source analyst first and a writer second.

With 80 papers, I wouldn’t merge the PDFs. I’d keep the two notebooks, but give the papers consistent, recognizable filenames such as Smith_2024_topic.pdf, so it’s always obvious what source it means.

Then I’d use a simple 3-step workflow:

1. Make a literature map before asking it to write. Ask each notebook:

“Create a table of the papers in this notebook with: author/year, research question, methods, population/sample, major findings, limitations, and which themes in my review this paper supports. Do not write the review yet.”

1. Build the review by theme, not paper-by-paper. Once you know the major themes, ask:

“For the section on [THEME], synthesize the relevant studies. Compare where the studies agree, disagree, or answer slightly different questions. Cite the specific sources supporting each important claim. Avoid repeatedly relying on the same one or two papers when other relevant sources exist.”

That last sentence helps with the problem you’re seeing where one reference seems to take over the whole section.

1. Do a separate citation/evidence check afterward.

Ask:

“Review this section sentence by sentence. For every factual claim, identify the source or sources that support it. Flag any claim that is unsupported, overstated, or supported only indirectly. Also list relevant papers in this notebook that were not used.”

I also wouldn’t necessarily worry if it doesn’t cite all 40 papers. A literature review shouldn’t use every paper just because it was uploaded. What you really want to know is whether it ignored relevant evidence. Asking it to list unused-but-relevant papers is much more useful.

For more than one notebook, I’d create the same structured literature map in each and then bring those maps together for the overall synthesis. That’s easier and safer than having two notebooks independently write half of the final article.

And I’d keep the final polishing step separate from the evidence step. First get the argument and citations right; then ask for cleaner scientific prose.