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I am writing a scientific paper and I won't be able to go in the details of a certain topic. I am considering to write something like: "The topic XXX is beyond the scope of this paper.". I know that this is a common practice in research and it will not be a problem to write such a phrase. However, since I think that it is a good idea to direct the reader towards useful literature about the XXX topic. For this reason, I was wondering how to write that in English. The alternatives I have in mind are:

  1. A complete survey of the topic XXX is beyond the scope of this paper [1,2,3].
  2. A complete survey of the topic XXX is beyond the scope of this paper and the reader is directed to [1,2,3] for further details.
  3. A complete survey of the topic XXX is beyond the scope of this paper and the reader is referred to the literature for further details [1,2,3].

*where [1,2,3] are just examples of the referred literature

Unfortunately, I don't like any of them so far but I prefer 3. Could you help me with finding a solution?

Thanks.

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    I don't see a problem with any of your suggestions. They all convey your intent and that is what you want. The answers (so far) of J.J and ObscureOwl also seem fine.
    – Buffy
    Feb 2, 2020 at 16:18

4 Answers 4

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A complete survey of the topic XXX is beyond the scope of this paper (see [1,2,3] for an overview).

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  • Thanks, I like it more.
    – desmond13
    Feb 3, 2020 at 9:50
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Ideally you'd be able to point to a survey paper.

For a more extensive survey of topic XXX, see [1].

That's a bit more precise than saying "start reading [1,2,3] and you'll be able to figure it out from there".

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Short and sweet: "XXX is out of scope here, more details can be found in [1, 2, 3]." Or perhaps "XXX is out of scope in this paper, an overview is [2], some details can be found in [1, 3]."

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All of your suggestions seem fine to me, except for

A complete survey of the topic XXX is beyond the scope of this paper [1,2,3].

This looks like you want to express that references [1], [2], and [3] explain or maybe conclude that the preceding statement (topic XXX is beyond the scope of your paper) is true.

The intended meaning could be figured out, but it would still come across as very sloppy writing, as if you were not sufficiently interested in putting together a reasonable text.

If you are fighting for the last few characters due to space restrictions, you can still move the referencing bracket a little bit forward in your sentence for things to make sense again:

A complete survey of the topic XXX [1,2,3] is beyond the scope of this paper.

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