What's the best way to communicate research gaps and limitations?

I remember my 1st guide saying in my 1st Semester of Bachelors who mentioned i.e., "Before you begin to understand "How" of something, rather focus on "What" and "Why"." Above statement doesn't go out of fashion in any sense any time even if that's research work or outside that too for achieving any goal in life. Hence, it's very necessary to understand the terminalogy for the research work you're doing. Otherwise, there's a big chance that research gaps will automatically pop up to your eyes and you won't able to recover once you start working on "How".

As discussed Transparency, Transparency, Transparency! This is the more important any thing, don't hide data points or information. Instead show everything this way other can trust but validate themselves.

It is very important that the limitations of the findings of the research be communicated as close to the ultimate conclusions of it as possible. When it comes to less experienced members of the audience (paper or talk), it's common that they won't have the tools to grasp the complexity of the results, likely only retaining the conclusions. For example, the following statement: "a new paper suggests that boiling tap water and then filtering it removes as much as 90% of three of the most common plastic contaminants" contains a number of important qualifiers that are included to diminish the overexcitement that can come when results aren't properly contextualized. Not *all* microplastics, just three common ones. Not 90%, just "as much as".

I learned the importance of providing evidences and examples from a reviewer's comment on one of my research papers. The reviewer asked me to go beyond just stating the purpose and findings of the studies I was citing in my lit review: they asked me to expound on the methods, participant profile, and limitations of these studies as well.

Providing context of your research question and then link it to the research gap and limitations is a great way to show the big picture of the topic. For example, this is why we did this, our hypothesis stated X but our data shows Y. Then move on to explaining what assumptions were made and provide references of the same. This tells the reader that you made well educated assumptions from published literature and that certain assumptions proved to be wrong. Not exaggerating your results and writing a well thought discussion tells the reader that you have thought through the different possibilities and acknowledge your limitations. This makes them trust you.

I think this point is more important and should not be mentioned as the last one. We should own our own limitations. Every project has some gaps and weak spots. But by being aware of them and knowing how can we proceed and make the project better is how we turn the weak spot into a plus. I always talk from this perspective when I talk about "what is missing" in my project.

Providing recommendations is arguably the most insightful approach to communicate research gaps and limitations. It not only identifies existing deficiencies but also propels the field toward unexplored avenues of research. The next time you carry out a review, endeavor to include a robust list of recommendations for future studies.

Writing blogs in less academic jargon to capture greater audience. I am sure you know the famous TV show quiz about competing with the 5th grader. Apparently the 5th fraders seems to be a horizon for general knowledge. Always consider that your audiences don't know anything about your work so you need to explain in detail and use vocabulary that are understood by the fifth grader.