SOSX®, AI-enabled systems thinking, for any sector.
The SOSX book series
Mapping the Field
For researchers, from literature to grant
Written for researchers, from literature review to grant. It accompanies SOSX Research.
A companion to Seeing the Whole System, applied to research itself. It treats a body of literature as a system that can be mapped, reads gaps and contradictions as structural features rather than accidents, and follows the map all the way to the most consequential document most researchers ever write: the grant application.
It opens with the reading-list problem: the pile that grows faster than anyone can read it. From there: citation as a flow, research fashion as a reinforcing loop, the citation-integrity gate (a reference is earned, not remembered), gap claims that survive a reviewer, and the grant craft: decomposing a question against the rubric and building evidence chains a blind, hostile panel cannot pull apart.
The shape is the series' shape: the field as a system, then the practice, then the machine. Part II runs from a search protocol to the moment you press submit, seeds, verification and snowballing, the citation-integrity gate, structured expert elicitation for when the literature will not answer, gap claims a reviewer can test, choosing between research directions, three chapters of grant craft with a work plan carrying critical path and float, and the blind hostile panel. Part III describes what the machine does with all of it, and SOSX Research: literature searched, connected, understood, the same mapping discipline applied to research literature.
It stands on its own; you do not need the central book first, though the two are better together.
Inside the book
Part I, The field as a system
Chapters 1–8. The anatomy of a field, papers, claims, methods and groups; what counts as knowledge, and the traditions a method carries with it; citation as a flow through which standing accumulates; research fashion as a reinforcing loop; replication and review as the correcting loops, and their limits; what the field knows that no single paper says; scoping a review honestly; and the iceberg of a literature.
Part II, The practice
Chapters 9–20. Mapping a literature by hand (seeds, verification, snowballing; the citation-integrity gate, because a reference is earned rather than remembered; structured expert elicitation for when the literature will not answer; gap claims that survive a reviewer; connecting the map through contradictions, convergences and gaps; from map to research questions; choosing between research directions; three chapters of grant craft) decomposing the question against the rubric, evidence chains, and a work plan with critical path and float; the blind hostile panel, and what happens after you press submit; and research integrity when the machine helps.
Part III, The machine
Chapters 21–24. The six-step flow retold for a literature question, what academic trust requires of grounding, credibility and audit, a method-by-method account of what the machine does with the discipline, and SOSX Research: literature searched, connected, understood, the same mapping discipline applied across disciplines.
Part IV, One spine, many domains
Chapter 25. The same discipline, many fields: the survey that connects this book back to the rest of the series.
Plus a glossary and further reading in the appendices.
From the series’ shared figure library, the same illustrations you’ll find in the book.
And for the whole argument in one place, start with the central book: SOSX: Seeing the Whole System.