Main idea

Iterative research doesn't start with exhaustive collecting but with a few carefully chosen sources: reliable, varied, close to the heart of the subject, rich enough to bring out a first conceptual structure.

This first batch isn't meant to cover the field. Its role is more modest: to produce a first state of knowledge good enough to show what it lacks. It gets the loop going — a literature review, preparing for a conference — rather than filling it.

Why it matters

It shifts how you choose the first sources: you don't judge them on how representative they are, but on their ability to make the gaps visible. One rich, structuring source is then worth more than five exhaustive sources on the same point.

And it makes starting easier: you don't need to know in advance everything you will have to read.

Nuances and limits

A poorly chosen first batch steers everything that follows: the gaps it reveals are those of its own frame. The diversity required at the outset is there precisely to limit that effect, without removing it.

Open questions

• How do you check that a first batch is varied enough before you have seen what the rest of the research will bring out?