system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why are some published work not followed up by more publications by authors?

Hello. I will try to clarify my question, as I could not find a way to describe it properly within a title's length.

I am starting a PhD in the fall and am currently doing a literature review of my topic, looking for where to start with my own research. I came across a handful of journal articles which presented interesting work, with lots of potential for future work, however they were not followed by any subsequent publications (that I could find by tracking papers citing the aforementioned work).

So I was wondering, since there could be many reason for a researcher to stop working on a project, how does one know if the idea was a dead end or if the project was aborted for a different reason?

I hope my question is clear and relevant, I am still discovering how academic research works and am not aware of how everything works in this world.
gpt
One of the main reasons is that much research is done (meaning: the legwork part of the research) by graduate students and postdocs with temporary positions. When they move on to a new position or leave academia, they tend to work on different things.