How many papers should you read?

You ask your supervisor, how many papers do I need for a literature review? They say 50 minimum. So you read 50 and you barely understood 40 of them. Here is why the number is the wrong question entirely. And what you should be asking instead. Let me tell you what nobody says clearly enough. The goal of literature review is not to read certain number of papers. The goal is to understand your field well enough, identify what is known, identify what is contested, identify what is missing. Then position your research within the You can read 100 papers and still not achieve this. You could also achieve this with 40 papers that are read deeply. So the point is not the numbers, understanding this. This is what I mean. The question you should be asking is not should I read 40 papers. Instead, do I understand the key theories in my field. Can I explain the main debates and contradictions? Can I identify the gap that my research feels? Could I defend why I included these sources and excluded these ones. These questions will tell you if you are done, not the numbers of people you have read. For some of you that still need numbers. Let me give you a realistic guide. For a master's dissertation, you should need maybe 20 to 60 papers. For a PhD, you need like 50 to 200 papers. But you still need to prioritize understanding the numbers. Please, these are ranges not targets, so don't come for me. Just use them to check if you're in the right range. Stop counting the papers you have read. Instead, ask, can I explain the main debate in my field without looking at my notes. If no, read more, but read deeply. If yes, maybe you have read enough. understanding first, no numbers, maybe second. I'll see you in the next one.