short note on literature review process

• University of Texas Libraries

Literature Reviews

Steps in the literature review process.

• What is a literature review?
• Define your research question
• Determine inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Choose databases and search
• Review Results
• Synthesize Results
• Analyze Results
• Librarian Support
• You may need to some exploratory searching of the literature to get a sense of scope, to determine whether you need to narrow or broaden your focus
• Identify databases that provide the most relevant sources, and identify relevant terms (controlled vocabularies) to add to your search strategy
• Finalize your research question
• Think about relevant dates, geographies (and languages), methods, and conflicting points of view
• Conduct searches in the published literature via the identified databases
• Check to see if this topic has been covered in other discipline's databases
• Examine the citations of on-point articles for keywords, authors, and previous research (via references) and cited reference searching.
• Save your search results in a citation management tool (such as Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote)
• De-duplicate your search results
• Make sure that you've found the seminal pieces -- they have been cited many times, and their work is considered foundational 
• Check with your professor or a librarian to make sure your search has been comprehensive
• Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of individual sources and evaluate for bias, methodologies, and thoroughness
• Group your results in to an organizational structure that will support why your research needs to be done, or that provides the answer to your research question  
• Develop your conclusions
• Are there gaps in the literature?
• Where has significant research taken place, and who has done it?
• Is there consensus or debate on this topic?
• Which methodological approaches work best?
• For example: Background, Current Practices, Critics and Proponents, Where/How this study will fit in 
• Organize your citations and focus on your research question and pertinent studies
• Compile your bibliography

Note: The first four steps are the best points at which to contact a librarian. Your librarian can help you determine the best databases to use for your topic, assess scope, and formulate a search strategy.

Videos Tutorials about Literature Reviews

This 4.5 minute video from Academic Education Materials has a Creative Commons License and a British narrator.

Recommended Reading

• Last Updated: Oct 26, 2022 2:49 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/literaturereviews

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Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

Literature Reviews

• Getting Started

Selecting a topic

Remember the goal of your literature review, planning your research, popular vs. scholarly, finding scholarly journal articles, finding or requesting full-text articles, why not just use google scholar, finding books, open access resources, manage your own downloads and citations, using your own method, managing your citations, organizing your notes: synthesis matrix.

• Literature Review as a Product: Organizing your Writing
• Finding Examples of Literature Reviews
• General Resources

Need help? Ask a librarian or chat

Ask A Librarian  for help finding sources, narrowing or expanding your topic, and more!​

• Research Desk: 314-246-6950
• Toll-free: 800-985-4279
• Visit us:  Library hours
• Search our FAQs or email us 

One of the most important steps in research is selecting a good research topic.  This page on the Capstone Research Guide will guide you through selecting a topic, writing a thesis statement and/or research questions, selecting keywords, and recommended databases for preliminary research.

The goal of the literature review is to provide an analysis of the literature and research already published on your subject. You want to read as much as possible on your topic to gain a foundation of the information which already exists and analyze that information to understand how it all relates. This gives you the opportunity to identify possible gaps in the research or justify your own research in relation to what already exists. 

This page will walk through the steps in: 

• Planning your research 
• Collecting your research 
• Organizing your notes 

After you have chosen your topic, you will want to make a plan for all of the places you should look for information. This will allow you to organize your search and keep track of information as you find it. In a document, make a list of possible places you might find information on your topic. This list might include: 

• Library databases - See section "Finding scholarly journal articles" below
• Research facilities - Are there organizations or institutions which publish and share research in your field of study?
• Open Access Journals - See section "Open Access Journals" below
• Webster University library catalog - See section "Finding books" below
• The catalogs of other libraries - See section "Finding books" below

Keep in mind that a literature review necessitates the use of scholarly research. These are peer-reviewed articles written by graduate or post-graduate students, educators, researchers, or professionals in the field. These types of articles wil include standard citations for the works they reference in their research. 

What is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal article?

Scholarly articles are sometimes "peer-reviewed" or "refereed" because they are evaluated by other scholars or experts in the field before being accepted for publication.  A scholarly article is commonly an experimental or research study, or an in-depth theoretical or literature review. It is usually many more pages than a magazine article.

The clearest and most reliable indicator of a scholarly article is the presence of references or citations. Look for a list of works cited, a reference list, and/or numbered footnotes or endnotes. Citations are not merely a check against plagiarism. They set the article in the context of a scholarly discussion and provide useful suggestions for further research. 

Many of our databases allow you to limit your search to just scholarly articles. This is a useful feature, but it is not 100% accurate in terms of what it includes and what it excludes. You should still check to see if the article has references or citations.

The table below compares some of the differences between magazines (e.g. Psychology Today) and journals (e.g Journal of Abnormal Psychology).

How to find scholarly, peer-reviewed articles

• FAQ: How do I find peer-reviewed or scholarly articles?
• FAQ: How can I tell if an article is peer-reviewed?

To get a sense of the available research, you may want to start with a multidisciplinary article database such as  Academic Search Premier  or Business Source Complete (for management and business).  Then, you may want to do a more thorough search in additional specialized sources--see the link below.

• Academic Search Premier (EBSCO) A scholarly multidisciplinary database of periodical articles, most with full-text, through Ebscohost.
• Business Source Complete (EBSCO) A great starting point for articles on business and management topics including peer-reviewed journals and classic publications such Harvard Business Review. Also contains SWOT, industry, and market research reports.
• Additional specialized sources for finding journal articles Select the areas that correspond to your topic or academic program to find specialized journal article databases.

From a library database

When the PDF or HTML full-text is not available in one of our databases, use the "Full Text Finder" button. Full Text Finder will allow you to link to the article in another database. If no full text is available you may request an electronic copy of the article through Interlibrary Loan .

From another source (e.g. online, Google Scholar)

Many articles that you find online may require payment ( aka  paywall) to download the article. In many cases the library can get the article for you for free to keep you from having to pay out of pocket. For more information, please visit our: 

• Request Articles and Books page For information on how to request items depending on your campus or location
• Ask a Librarian Reach out to us in person or via phone, email or 24/7 chat. We are here to help

While  Google Scholar can be a useful source for finding journal articles, there are advantages found in using Webster University Libraries' databases, including:

• Features that let you customize your search
• Access to more full text materials
• Integration with other library services (e.g., chat, delivery services, etc.).

For more information on using Google Scholar, view the FAQ:  How can I connect Google Scholar to the Library?

Do not forget books when you are surveying the literature. They often provide historical information and overviews of current research in a topic area.

• Search for books in the Library Catalog
• Find an electronic book on a topic
• MOBIUS Catalog Here you can borrow from a consortium system of college & university libraries in Missouri and other states. (Some public libraries have also joined MOBIUS.)

Here you can search a large catalog of books and other materials owned by U.S libraries and some worldwide locations. This source shows local libraries where a given book is housed and also indicates if there is an ebook available.  

When something is published as an open access resource, it is published online and can be accessed for free with few or no copyright restrictions. Open access resources allows you to search, download, and cite researchers who have chosen to publish open access without paying for each article.

Searching through open access resources might be a great option for your research once you have exhausted the databases. Please note that sometimes, an open resource repository can be difficult to search through as often there are fewer ways to limit the search. 

• About Open Access guide This research guide provides information about Open Access (OA) and Open Educational Resources (OER) and includes a list of resources by discipline.

As you download articles and begin to identify helpful resources, you will need to develop a method of keeping track of this research. No matter the method you choose to use, make sure that: 

• Any article you've downloaded is saved in a labeled folder which is easy to access
• Any citation you have created is saved and accessible
• EBSCO tools If using an EBSCO database, this document provides information on how to create folders and save links to articles within the database.

You can certainly create a system for organizing your downloads, citations, and other electronic notes. Use the file storage system on your computer, or cloud computing software like  Google Drive  or  Dropbox . Create folders specifically for your project and save everything you think you might use. The benefit of managing your research this way is that these options are often free and allow you to have access to materials beyond your time as a Webster student.

There are a number of software programs available that help students store references and notes, create bibliographies, etc. While not needed for every assignment, they are useful for when you are gathering a large number of articles and other resources for projects such as capstone papers, theses, and dissertations. Some of the main citation management software applications are listed here.

Because the purpose of the literature review is to analyze the research on the topic and find relationships between resources, simply reading the resources and keeping notes may not be enough to help you see the connections between the resources. 

One option is to create a document with a chart used solely to compare the ideas and methods of various scholars and researchers. This is called a synthesis matrix . Before starting a matrix, you may want to identify a couple subtopics or themes to track within the articles you read. Other themes will reveal themselves as you read the literature and can be added to the chart. 

Below, you will find some examples of synthesis matrixes. Use inspiration from any of them to design  your own matrix which works best for your style and ideas. No matter the design of your matrix, some of the items you may want to compare across resources are: 

Publishing Date : Show how an idea has developed over time due to continuous research. 

Research Methods : Discuss findings based upon research type. You might ask yourself: How does the method used to collect the data impact the findings of the study? 

• Themes : Which topics are covered in the article and what does the author believe about that topic? 
• Literature Review: Synthesizing Multiple Sources (Indiana University Bloomington)
• Synthesis Matrix (NC State University)
• Writing a Literature Review and Using a Synthesis Matrix PDF Document created by North Carolina State University and posted by Wayne State University University.
• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: Literature Review as a Product: Organizing your Writing >>
• Last Updated: Apr 30, 2024 4:39 PM
• URL: https://library.webster.edu/litreview

Research Process :: Step by Step

• Introduction
• Select Topic
• Identify Keywords
• Background Information
• Develop Research Questions
• Refine Topic
• Search Strategy
• Popular Databases
• Evaluate Sources
• Types of Periodicals
• Reading Scholarly Articles
• Primary & Secondary Sources
• Organize / Take Notes
• Writing & Grammar Resources
• Annotated Bibliography
• Literature Review
• Citation Styles
• Paraphrasing
• Privacy / Confidentiality
• Research Process
• Selecting Your Topic
• Identifying Keywords
• Gathering Background Info
• Evaluating Sources

Organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory. You are not trying to list all the material published, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or research question.  

What is a literature review?

A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate assignment, but more often it is part of the introduction to an essay, research report, or thesis. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries

A literature review must do these things:

• be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question you are developing
• synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
• identify areas of controversy in the literature
• formulate questions that need further research

Ask yourself questions like these:

• What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my literature review helps to define?
• What type of literature review am I conducting? Am I looking at issues of theory? methodology? policy? quantitative research (e.g. on the effectiveness of a new procedure)? qualitative research (e.g., studies of loneliness among migrant workers)?
• What is the scope of my literature review? What types of publications am I using (e.g., journals, books, government documents, popular media)? What discipline am I working in (e.g., nursing psychology, sociology, medicine)?
• How good was my information seeking? Has my search been wide enough to ensure I've found all the relevant material? Has it been narrow enough to exclude irrelevant material? Is the number of sources I've used appropriate for the length of my paper?
• Have I critically analyzed the literature I use? Do I follow through a set of concepts and questions, comparing items to each other in the ways they deal with them? Instead of just listing and summarizing items, do I assess them, discussing strengths and weaknesses?
• Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my perspective?
• Will the reader find my literature review relevant, appropriate, and useful?

Ask yourself questions like these about each book or article you include:

• Has the author formulated a problem/issue?
• Is it clearly defined? Is its significance (scope, severity, relevance) clearly established?
• Could the problem have been approached more effectively from another perspective?
• What is the author's research orientation (e.g., interpretive, critical science, combination)?
• What is the author's theoretical framework (e.g., psychological, developmental, feminist)?
• What is the relationship between the theoretical and research perspectives?
• Has the author evaluated the literature relevant to the problem/issue? Does the author include literature taking positions she or he does not agree with?
• In a research study, how good are the basic components of the study design (e.g., population, intervention, outcome)? How accurate and valid are the measurements? Is the analysis of the data accurate and relevant to the research question? Are the conclusions validly based upon the data and analysis?
• In material written for a popular readership, does the author use appeals to emotion, one-sided examples, or rhetorically-charged language and tone? Is there an objective basis to the reasoning, or is the author merely "proving" what he or she already believes?
• How does the author structure the argument? Can you "deconstruct" the flow of the argument to see whether or where it breaks down logically (e.g., in establishing cause-effect relationships)?
• In what ways does this book or article contribute to our understanding of the problem under study, and in what ways is it useful for practice? What are the strengths and limitations?
• How does this book or article relate to the specific thesis or question I am developing?

Text written by Dena Taylor, Health Sciences Writing Centre, University of Toronto

http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review

• << Previous: Annotated Bibliography
• Next: Step 5: Cite Sources >>
• Last Updated: Apr 19, 2024 12:43 PM
• URL: https://libguides.uta.edu/researchprocess

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• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

Why write a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1: search for relevant literature, step 2: evaluate and select sources, step 3: identify themes, debates and gaps, step 4: outline your literature review’s structure, step 5: write your literature review, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list if you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models and methods? Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible, and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly-visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat – this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organise your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole.
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources.
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

In the conclusion, you should summarise the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasise their significance.

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarise yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

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A literature review surveys prior research published in books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE : Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

• An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
• Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
• An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

• Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
• Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
• Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
• Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

• Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
• Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
• History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
• Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
• Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

• Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
• You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
• Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
• Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
• Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
• Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
• Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

• How are they organizing their ideas?
• What methods have they used to study the problem?
• What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
• What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
• How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

• Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
• Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
• Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

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1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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How To Structure Your Literature Review

3 options to help structure your chapter.

By: Amy Rommelspacher (PhD) | Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | November 2020 (Updated May 2023)

Writing the literature review chapter can seem pretty daunting when you’re piecing together your dissertation or thesis. As  we’ve discussed before , a good literature review needs to achieve a few very important objectives – it should:

• Demonstrate your knowledge of the research topic
• Identify the gaps in the literature and show how your research links to these
• Provide the foundation for your conceptual framework (if you have one)
• Inform your own  methodology and research design

To achieve this, your literature review needs a well-thought-out structure . Get the structure of your literature review chapter wrong and you’ll struggle to achieve these objectives. Don’t worry though – in this post, we’ll look at how to structure your literature review for maximum impact (and marks!).

But wait – is this the right time?

Deciding on the structure of your literature review should come towards the end of the literature review process – after you have collected and digested the literature, but before you start writing the chapter. 

In other words, you need to first develop a rich understanding of the literature before you even attempt to map out a structure. There’s no use trying to develop a structure before you’ve fully wrapped your head around the existing research.

Equally importantly, you need to have a structure in place before you start writing , or your literature review will most likely end up a rambling, disjointed mess. 

Importantly, don’t feel that once you’ve defined a structure you can’t iterate on it. It’s perfectly natural to adjust as you engage in the writing process. As we’ve discussed before , writing is a way of developing your thinking, so it’s quite common for your thinking to change – and therefore, for your chapter structure to change – as you write. 

Need a helping hand?

Like any other chapter in your thesis or dissertation, your literature review needs to have a clear, logical structure. At a minimum, it should have three essential components – an  introduction , a  body   and a  conclusion . 

Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

1: The Introduction Section

Just like any good introduction, the introduction section of your literature review should introduce the purpose and layout (organisation) of the chapter. In other words, your introduction needs to give the reader a taste of what’s to come, and how you’re going to lay that out. Essentially, you should provide the reader with a high-level roadmap of your chapter to give them a taste of the journey that lies ahead.

Here’s an example of the layout visualised in a literature review introduction:

Your introduction should also outline your topic (including any tricky terminology or jargon) and provide an explanation of the scope of your literature review – in other words, what you  will   and  won’t   be covering (the delimitations ). This helps ringfence your review and achieve a clear focus . The clearer and narrower your focus, the deeper you can dive into the topic (which is typically where the magic lies). 

Depending on the nature of your project, you could also present your stance or point of view at this stage. In other words, after grappling with the literature you’ll have an opinion about what the trends and concerns are in the field as well as what’s lacking. The introduction section can then present these ideas so that it is clear to examiners that you’re aware of how your research connects with existing knowledge .

2: The Body Section

The body of your literature review is the centre of your work. This is where you’ll present, analyse, evaluate and synthesise the existing research. In other words, this is where you’re going to earn (or lose) the most marks. Therefore, it’s important to carefully think about how you will organise your discussion to present it in a clear way. 

The body of your literature review should do just as the description of this chapter suggests. It should “review” the literature – in other words, identify, analyse, and synthesise it. So, when thinking about structuring your literature review, you need to think about which structural approach will provide the best “review” for your specific type of research and objectives (we’ll get to this shortly).

There are (broadly speaking)  three options  for organising your literature review.

Option 1: Chronological (according to date)

Organising the literature chronologically is one of the simplest ways to structure your literature review. You start with what was published first and work your way through the literature until you reach the work published most recently. Pretty straightforward.

The benefit of this option is that it makes it easy to discuss the developments and debates in the field as they emerged over time. Organising your literature chronologically also allows you to highlight how specific articles or pieces of work might have changed the course of the field – in other words, which research has had the most impact . Therefore, this approach is very useful when your research is aimed at understanding how the topic has unfolded over time and is often used by scholars in the field of history. That said, this approach can be utilised by anyone that wants to explore change over time .

For example , if a student of politics is investigating how the understanding of democracy has evolved over time, they could use the chronological approach to provide a narrative that demonstrates how this understanding has changed through the ages.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you structure your literature review chronologically.

• What is the earliest literature published relating to this topic?
• How has the field changed over time? Why?
• What are the most recent discoveries/theories?

In some ways, chronology plays a part whichever way you decide to structure your literature review, because you will always, to a certain extent, be analysing how the literature has developed. However, with the chronological approach, the emphasis is very firmly on how the discussion has evolved over time , as opposed to how all the literature links together (which we’ll discuss next ).

Option 2: Thematic (grouped by theme)

The thematic approach to structuring a literature review means organising your literature by theme or category – for example, by independent variables (i.e. factors that have an impact on a specific outcome).

As you’ve been collecting and synthesising literature , you’ll likely have started seeing some themes or patterns emerging. You can then use these themes or patterns as a structure for your body discussion. The thematic approach is the most common approach and is useful for structuring literature reviews in most fields.

For example, if you were researching which factors contributed towards people trusting an organisation, you might find themes such as consumers’ perceptions of an organisation’s competence, benevolence and integrity. Structuring your literature review thematically would mean structuring your literature review’s body section to discuss each of these themes, one section at a time.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when structuring your literature review by themes:

• Are there any patterns that have come to light in the literature?
• What are the central themes and categories used by the researchers?
• Do I have enough evidence of these themes?

PS – you can see an example of a thematically structured literature review in our literature review sample walkthrough video here.

Option 3: Methodological

The methodological option is a way of structuring your literature review by the research methodologies used . In other words, organising your discussion based on the angle from which each piece of research was approached – for example, qualitative , quantitative or mixed  methodologies.

Structuring your literature review by methodology can be useful if you are drawing research from a variety of disciplines and are critiquing different methodologies. The point of this approach is to question  how  existing research has been conducted, as opposed to  what  the conclusions and/or findings the research were.

For example, a sociologist might centre their research around critiquing specific fieldwork practices. Their literature review will then be a summary of the fieldwork methodologies used by different studies.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself when structuring your literature review according to methodology:

• Which methodologies have been utilised in this field?
• Which methodology is the most popular (and why)?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the various methodologies?
• How can the existing methodologies inform my own methodology?

3: The Conclusion Section

Once you’ve completed the body section of your literature review using one of the structural approaches we discussed above, you’ll need to “wrap up” your literature review and pull all the pieces together to set the direction for the rest of your dissertation or thesis.

The conclusion is where you’ll present the key findings of your literature review. In this section, you should emphasise the research that is especially important to your research questions and highlight the gaps that exist in the literature. Based on this, you need to make it clear what you will add to the literature – in other words, justify your own research by showing how it will help fill one or more of the gaps you just identified.

Last but not least, if it’s your intention to develop a conceptual framework for your dissertation or thesis, the conclusion section is a good place to present this.

Example: Thematically Structured Review

In the video below, we unpack a literature review chapter so that you can see an example of a thematically structure review in practice.

Let’s Recap

In this article, we’ve  discussed how to structure your literature review for maximum impact. Here’s a quick recap of what  you need to keep in mind when deciding on your literature review structure:

• Just like other chapters, your literature review needs a clear introduction , body and conclusion .
• The introduction section should provide an overview of what you will discuss in your literature review.
• The body section of your literature review can be organised by chronology , theme or methodology . The right structural approach depends on what you’re trying to achieve with your research.
• The conclusion section should draw together the key findings of your literature review and link them to your research questions.

If you’re ready to get started, be sure to download our free literature review template to fast-track your chapter outline.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

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27 Comments

Great work. This is exactly what I was looking for and helps a lot together with your previous post on literature review. One last thing is missing: a link to a great literature chapter of an journal article (maybe with comments of the different sections in this review chapter). Do you know any great literature review chapters?

I agree with you Marin… A great piece

I agree with Marin. This would be quite helpful if you annotate a nicely structured literature from previously published research articles.

Awesome article for my research.

I thank you immensely for this wonderful guide

It is indeed thought and supportive work for the futurist researcher and students

Very educative and good time to get guide. Thank you

Great work, very insightful. Thank you.

Thanks for this wonderful presentation. My question is that do I put all the variables into a single conceptual framework or each hypothesis will have it own conceptual framework?

Thank you very much, very helpful

This is very educative and precise . Thank you very much for dropping this kind of write up .

Pheeww, so damn helpful, thank you for this informative piece.

I’m doing a research project topic ; stool analysis for parasitic worm (enteric) worm, how do I structure it, thanks.

comprehensive explanation. Help us by pasting the URL of some good “literature review” for better understanding.

great piece. thanks for the awesome explanation. it is really worth sharing. I have a little question, if anyone can help me out, which of the options in the body of literature can be best fit if you are writing an architectural thesis that deals with design?

I am doing a research on nanofluids how can l structure it?

Beautifully clear.nThank you!

Lucid! Thankyou!

Brilliant work, well understood, many thanks

I like how this was so clear with simple language 😊😊 thank you so much 😊 for these information 😊

Insightful. I was struggling to come up with a sensible literature review but this has been really helpful. Thank you!

You have given thought-provoking information about the review of the literature.

Thank you. It has made my own research better and to impart your work to students I teach

I learnt a lot from this teaching. It’s a great piece.

I am doing research on EFL teacher motivation for his/her job. How Can I structure it? Is there any detailed template, additional to this?

You are so cool! I do not think I’ve read through something like this before. So nice to find somebody with some genuine thoughts on this issue. Seriously.. thank you for starting this up. This site is one thing that is required on the internet, someone with a little originality!

I’m asked to do conceptual, theoretical and empirical literature, and i just don’t know how to structure it

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The process of writing a literature review

Writing a literature review is a complex and non-linear process. It usually involves reiterations of all or any of the following steps:

Conducting a Library search for sources

• Taking notes while critically reading and analysing the literature
• Structuring the literature review
• Styling the language of the literature review.

One of the first and important steps in carrying out a literature review is to conduct an effective Library search which will help you identify the most relevant sources for your research topic.

If you need some assistance with searching the literature strategically, you might want to work through the Strategies and Resources for Searching the Literature module in this collection. Amongst other things, this module will help you to effectively:

• form key words or descriptors for your topic
• create a search query
• find different and relevant types of resources
• use more advanced searching techniques.

Taking notes

Taking effective notes is another key part of the process of writing up your literature review.

There is a variety of ways that one can use to take notes. These include:

• highlighting and writing notes in margins
• drawing a diagram or a mind map
• using the Cornell note-taking system .

In this module, we will focus on using an annotated bibliography as a note-taking technique.

Using an annotated bibliography to take notes

An annotated bibliography can be a useful way of taking notes as you read the literature and think about what you are reading. It allows you to collect both a summary of the key points from different readings as well as a critical assessment of the literature. It also allows you to provide comments about how a text relates both to your own research and to other literature.

An annotated bibliography has two main sections:

• A reference (bibliographic information or citation) in your chosen citation style.
• An annotation (description and comments on the source). The annotation usually provides:
• a summary of the key points or arguments the source makes
• a reflection on how the source contributes to your field of knowledge and how it might be useful in your own research
• a critical analysis or evaluation of the ideas presented.

What to include in a summary?

When writing an annotated bibliography, start with a summary or description for each source. As you read, take notes in your own words of the aim of the research, the methodologies that have been used, the main arguments and overall findings, and the scope and limitations of the study. This will form the basis of your summary which will be in the form of a coherent 50–100-word paragraph or just two or three sentences.

How to reflect on the relevance of a source to your own research?

Writing a reflection for your annotated bibliography includes writing a few sentences explaining in what ways the source is useful for, or relates to, the overall theme of your research. This section of the annotation will be particularly helpful when you come to building an argument for your research in your literature review.

Ask yourself:

• What does this source contribute to the ideas I am developing in my research or to the argument/s I am making?

It is worth mentioning that while your reflection states your personal ideas and evaluations, it should still be objective and unemotional.

What to include in a critical analysis?

• What are the strengths and limitations of the source in terms of aim, methodology, and findings?
• Are the findings sound, logical and well researched?
• Is the source original, important and of a high standard?
• How does this source add to the research in the field?
• Where is its place — and relationship — in the wider field of research and scholarly discussions?

Research and Writing Skills for Academic and Graduate Researchers Copyright © 2022 by RMIT University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to write a Literature Review: Literature review process

• Literature review process
• Purpose of a literature review
• Evaluating sources
• Managing sources
• Request a literature search
• Selecting the approach to use
• Quantitative vs qualitative method
• Summary of different research methodologies
• Research design vs research methodology
• Diagram: importance of research
• Attributes of a good research scholar

Step 1: Select a topic

• Select a topic you can manage in the time frame you have to complete your project.
• Establish your research questions and organize your literature into logical categories around the subject/ topic areas of your questions.  Your research questions must be specific enou gh to guide you to the relevant literature.
• Make sure you understand the concept of ‘broader’ and ‘narrower’ terms.  The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to get a good survey of the literature.

Step 2: Identify the most relevant sources on your topic

Use a variety of resources - locate books , journals , and documents that contain useful information and ideas on your topic. Internet sites , theses & dissertations , conference papers , ePrints and government or industry reports can also be included. Do not rely solely on electronic full-text material which is more easily available. Reference sources such as dictionaries can assist in defining terminology, and encyclopaedias may provide useful introductions to your topic by experts in the field and will list key references.

Step 3 : Search and refine

• Unisa has a number of databases that provide full text access to articles, that allow you to refine your search to ‘peer reviewed’ journals.  These are scholarly journals which go through a rigorous process of quality assessment by several researchers or subject specialists in the academic community before they are accepted for publication. 
• Use the And, Or, Not operators, Wildcards and Logical Brackets when searching in the databases.  For instance, you can use And to narrow your search while the operator OR expands your search.  Not, on the other hand, helps to exclude irrelevant information from your search results.  Please click here for more information on searching.

Literature review process - an overview

Step 3: search and refine.

• Unisa has a number of  databases  that provide full text access to articles, that allow you to refine your search to ‘peer reviewed’ journals.  These are scholarly journals which go through a rigorous process of quality assessment by several researchers or subject specialists in the academic community before they are accepted for publication. 
• Use the  And, Or, Not  operators,  Wildcards  and  Logical Brackets  when searching in the databases.  For instance, you can use  And  to narrow your search while  the  operator  OR  expands your search.   Not,  on the other hand,   helps to exclude   irrelevant information from your search results.  Please click  here  for more information on searching.

How do I write a literature review

See the chapter below for a helpful overview of the literature review process, especially the sections on how to analyse the literature you have gathered and how to write up your literature review:

Literature Reviews and Bibliographic Searches. 2006. In V. Desai, & R. Potter (Eds.),  Doing Development Research.  (pp. 209-222). London, England: SAGE Publications, Ltd. Available at:  http://0-dx.doi.org.oasis.unisa.ac.za/10.4135/9781849208925.n22     (A student will be prompted at some stage for his/ her student number and myUnisa password. A staff member will be prompted at some stage for his/ her Unisa Network username and login password).

This book is available in the  Sage Research Methods Online  database.

Step 4: Read and analyse

Group the sources into the  themes  and  sub-themes  of your topic.  As you read widely but selectively in your topic area, consider what themes or issues connect your sources together.

• Do they present one or different solutions?
• Is there an aspect of the field that is missing?
• How well do they present the material and do they portray it according to an appropriate theory?
• Do they reveal a trend in the field?
• A raging debate?
• Pick one of these themes to focus the organization of your review.

Step 5: Write the literature review

You can organize the review in many ways; for example, you can center the review  historically  (how the topic has been dealt with over time); or center it on the  theoretical positions  surrounding your topic (those for a position vs. those against, for example); or you can focus on how each of your sources contributes to your understanding of your project.

Your literature review should include:

• an  introduction  which explains how your review is organized.
• a  body  which contains the  headings  and  subheadings  that provide a map to show the various perspectives of your argument. In other words the body contains the evaluation of the materials you want to include on your topic.
• a  summary .

Some of the information on this page is indebted to the sources below:

Caldwell College Library

Monmouth University Library

University of Cape Town Libraries

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• Research Guides

How to Write a Literature Review

Literature reviews: a recap.

• Reading Journal Articles
• Does it Describe a Literature Review?
• 1. Identify the Question
• 2. Review Discipline Styles
• Searching Article Databases
• Finding Full-Text of an Article
• Citation Chaining
• When to Stop Searching
• 4. Manage Your References
• 5. Critically Analyze and Evaluate
• 6. Synthesize
• 7. Write a Literature Review

So, the lit review is an integral part of the research process that helps you: 

Photo Credit: UO Communications

It's part of what's called the "scholarly conversation," the network of research studies that tell the story of relationships and connections in a discipline. Your research will become part of this conversation.

Literature reviews may appear as the introduction to a journal article or as an in-depth "review article" or as part of a graduate student's dissertation or thesis. Literature Reviews can also be published as a standalone publication, for example see Tewell's  A Decade of Critical Information Literacy: A Review of the Literature ).

• << Previous: What's a Literature Review?
• Next: Reading Journal Articles >>
• Last Updated: Jan 10, 2024 4:46 PM
• URL: https://researchguides.uoregon.edu/litreview

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How to Write a Literature Review

Learn what a literature review is, where it is used, and the structure it should follow, including how to refer to studies and establish themes. We provides tips on writing a literature review, such as stating your research question, selecting key terms, and finding relevant literature on your topic.

Updated on May 17, 2023

A literature review is an overview of the existing literature on a particular topic. It provides a concise summary and critical analysis of existing publications. This justifies why the study was conducted. It also helps the reader understand the topic and see areas for future research. It can be part of a manuscript’s introduction section or a required part of an academic thesis. It can also be a standalone paper, such as a narrative review.

This article discusses what a literature review is when it’s part of a research paper. It provides strategies, tools, and tips for writing a good review.

What is a literature review, and where is it used?

A literature review is an organized summary of existing literature on a topic or research question. It’s used to help readers understand what has been done before related to the topic you’re writing on.

It shows how your study fits into the literature, why your study is needed, and what novel insights your study will bring to the literature.

In that sense, a literature review justifies your work and its potential impact. Literature reviews are also valuable for other researchers, as they can overview a specific topic.

A literature review is used in academic documents, including manuscripts, theses and dissertations, and in standalone papers such as systematic reviews and narrative reviews.

In a manuscript or dissertation, the literature review is presented as background information in the introduction section. Here, it summarizes prior research on the key concepts the paper focuses on, identifies gaps in the literature, and provides context for why the current study is needed. It focuses on summarizing articles that provide specific evidence relating to the topic of the larger manuscript and is very narrowly focused.

In contrast, a standalone literature review is a comprehensive and critical analysis of the existing research and literature on a specific topic. It synthesizes the current state of knowledge on the topic, identifies gaps, contradictions, and future directions for research. A literature review paper is typically longer, more comprehensive, and applies a study methodology.

What structure do literature reviews follow?

Literature reviews follow a logical structure, meaning every sentence logically leads to the next. They begin with a broad overview of the topic and then narrow down to specific research carried out on that topic in a way that builds on the previous information. Supporting studies are discussed one-by-one or they’re grouped by themes. They may or may not specifically indicate the authors by name. That depends on personal style and guidelines.

Referring to studies

For example, the literature review in Howden et al. (2018), reporting on a randomized controlled trial (RCT) on fitness and heart failure, first states the overall theme: sedentary aging’s association with worsening cardiovascular health. In concise sentences, it then lists the themes along with subscript numbers of the supporting literature, e.g., “...middle age is the strongest predictor of future heart failure.5–7”. No authors are named. This may be because of the referencing style (using numbers leading to the References list, unlike, for instance, APA, which uses last names), or it may be the authors’ preference.

Tramontano et al. (2021), on remote work , lists authors’ names along with the supporting research. In some cases, the names are in parentheses (per APA style) and in other cases, (e.g., ...Gonzales Vazquez and colleagues (2019) indicated...) the names represent the study. Again, it’s a combination of referencing style and authors’ preference.

Establish themes

As the literature review progresses, you synthesize the information from the articles. Articles are grouped together by theme or evidence (i.e., supporting or contrasting), with relevant citations giving support. Typically, findings are condensed and summarized concisely (i.e., in one or a couple of sentences).

For example, if you were exploring how processed food affects heart health, articles in the literature review might be grouped into categories such as heart health in general, processed foods, and the negative effects of processed foods on general heart health. You’d then summarize the key findings for each category with relevant citations.

As such, a literature review in a manuscript is not simply a chronological list of articles and their findings. Rather, it’s a report and analysis of the existing literature. It weaves a narrative that underpins your own study.

Writing your literature review

State your research question .

The first step to writing a good literature review is stating your research question.

If you’re writing a manuscript or dissertation, you likely already know what your research question is. Be sure it’s clearly presented at the end of the introductory paragraph so the reader immediately knows what the study will be about.

Select key terms

Next, identify several key words/terms/phrases that will be used to query your search for relevant literature.

For example, if your manuscript is about the effects of processed foods on heart health, you will want to use keywords such as “cardiovascular,” “processed foods,” and “heart disease” to retrieve relevant publications.

Find relevant literature on your topic

Most researchers have a specialty or a few specialties. Reading other studies should already be part of your day-to-day practice. So it’s very unusual to start a literature review from zero. You probably already have a folder full of PDFs (or, ideally, a reference manager full of well-organized articles in digital format).

For your current research, you’ll then add further literature in more specific and specialized areas. You’ll need to update your personal library. And you may find you lack sufficient publications in a certain area of research. Your literature review will address all these issues. Methods for diving in include databases, review articles, and asking colleagues and other researchers.

Online databases

Searching with databases often requires a combination of free and paid sources.

Google Scholar is probably the most commonly known search engine for academic literature because, well, it’s Google. Type titles, keywords, authors, or other entries to find papers on your topic of interest. You don’t need to create an account, but just because a publication is listed in Scholar doesn’t mean you can access the full text. Still, its powerful search features can help you rapidly narrow your search. You can then find publications in a database for which you have a subscription.

EBSCO and ProQuest are commonly available in universities’ online libraries, and databases like PubMed are comprehensive scientific collections. Some databases are open access, while others require a subscription to fully access the articles. Hopefully, you have access through your university or institution.

There are also publisher-managed search engines and databases like ScienceDirect or Scopus , as well as Wiley Online Library . These usually require a subscription.

Elicit is an AI-based search engine. Ask a research question and find relevant literature. It also suggests questions based on your input for better results. No account is needed.

Zendy is a search engine dedicated to open access journals. It’s accessible once you create an account.

Colleagues, fellow researchers

Asking your colleagues or fellow researchers in your field can be a great resource for finding additional studies. You can also look for highly cited papers in your field or search for articles from known experts in your field.

Other literature reviews, review articles, and reference lists

Previous review papers on your topic, introduction sections of articles (which contain their own literature reviews), are reference lists of papers are all great tools for finding additional articles. Look through the reference lists of previous prior review papers to locate other relevant articles.

With this approach, you’ll find yourself diving down one rabbit hole after another. And it can get overwhelming, so scan quickly, keep notes, and use a good reference manager (see below). After a while, you’ll start to see the same publications emerge. You’ll start to recognize the seminal pieces as well as highly specific studies on limited populations.

Software and reference managers

Apps like Connected Papers can help expand your collection and ensure you’re not missing any articles. With this tool, you can search for a work and then see it visualized through other articles it references, and that referenced it. It’s shown as a network of connected papers – fantastic for visual types.

Reference managers like EndNote and Mendeley are helpful tools for organizing your papers and adding citations to your manuscript. You can download them to your computer and easily search for the information you’ve read before, saving a lot of time in the writing process. While they both require creating an account, Mendeley is free. Paperpile is an excellent lighter-weight option.

Organize your sources

When you’ve compiled sufficient publications via your literature search, extract relevant information for your research question.

Identify themes

First, identify the most relevant papers for your research question. One good approach is to read the abstract and methods sections to understand the main findings.

Narrow down your list to articles that have a research question as similar as possible to yours. Then, group them by themes or evidence. For instance, group articles showing that processed foods lead to increased rates of heart disease in one section.

Include contradictory evidence to fully cover the scope of the topic. This will help you better organize the sections for your review later.

Define your key concepts

Every good review section begins with specific definitions of the concepts the paper will focus on. They should be defined in the abstract and introduction.

Write an outline

Write an outline with subheadings representing categories or themes your review will cover. Under each theme, enter a few references or key points that reflect what you want to convey to your reader in that section.

Organize the subheadings logically so that one idea flows into the next. Don’t jump back and forth between concepts. For example, if you’re establishing a common, evidence-supported definition of heart disease, focus only on that. Bringing in other diseases will confuse the reader. If you need to compare with other diseases, that’s probably cause for another subsection.

Review previous articles on your topic and check how the authors structured their introduction section to get ideas for your outline.

For longer reviews, you can use tables to present the literature and key themes more clearly for the reader. Tables are especially useful in dedicated review papers like narrative reviews.

Write your literature review

Following your outline, expand on your notes with sentences and paragraphs, including relevant citations (see the section above for examples of how these are typically written). Use clear and concise language. Make sure all your paragraphs have a dedicated topic sentence that reflects what the rest of the paragraph is about.

Start your review broadly, then use your prior research to narrow down to why your research question is needed. For example, define what heart disease is broadly, then narrow down to how specific processed foods can impact it and what still needs to be investigated (i.e., with your study).

Review your work

After finishing your first draft, revise and refine your work. Here are some key steps.

Refine your literature review

As you write, you may need to expand sections or include more evidence. Read over your review several times and determine if it’s conveying the information you want to get across clearly and adjust accordingly.

Omit unnecessary information

In scientific communication, less is more, so avoid making your review too long. Remove unnecessary information and avoid being too wordy. As a general rule, aim for just one idea per sentence and no more than around 15–20 words per sentence.

A credible citation (or citations) should support every assertion. But it can also get tempting to follow irrelevant paths that aren’t immediately relevant to the study you’re doing now.

Professional editing can also help you refine wordiness.

Check the logical structure

Check that each section in your review relates to the main research question. Check that every paragraph transitions smoothly to the next and that the ideas flow logically from one argument to the next. Ask yourself, “Does this idea directly relate to my next idea?” (and vice versa).

Also, check for consistency and completeness. Be sure you used the same wording for key concepts throughout your review and that you included all relevant evidence for your arguments.

Check for and remove/correct plagiarism

There are many ways to plagiarize , and some authors don’t even know when they’re doing it. It can be a critical mistake.

Journals use tools such as i Thenticate to detect plagiarism. And being caught plagiarizing can be a cause for a rapid rejection . Avoid plagiarizing by ensuring you cite the original source and don’t copy/paste text unless you use quotation marks. You can check for plagiarism using apps like Grammarly or Trinka , which can also help you improve your writing style and correct grammar mistakes.

Get outside perspectives

Ask a senior researcher or colleague to read your work and provide feedback or criticism. Ask junior researchers as well. Put your ego on the line for the good of rigorous science. Often, those with less experience may be able to see the more basic gaps in logic and clarity, as they bring a less honed and specialized perspective.

Check that you’ve included all references in the format required by the journal (e.g., APA, Vancouver, AMA). Use tools like Mendeley and EndNote to automatically generate a bibliography section based on the references you enter in your document. But do double-check what the software generates. It may be relying on incorrect metadata.

Good example of a literature review in a published article

Good literature reviews should be clear, concise, and informative. They should present enough information on the topic that you can understand the importance of the topic, the relevance of the literature included for the broader field, and what’s still missing from the literature (i.e., where further research is needed).

Here’s a good example:

Heart issues, sedentary lifestyle, exercise (from Howden et al. 2018)

Readable and well-structured, this review quickly highlights the negative relationship between a sedentary lifestyle and heart issues. It concisely reviews previous literature showing the relationship between exercise and heart health, so the reader understands why the study is needed.

Bonus: What’s the difference between a literature review and an annotated bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a list of references with a brief summary of the results of that reference. It can also include your personal notes on the study and why it’s relevant to your study.

Especially for students, a literature review can be confused with an annotated bibliography. Both these devices detail existing studies. However, they perform quite different functions.

Annotated bibliographies are powerful when you’re writing a dissertation or any longer research piece, as they help you keep track of everything you’ve read and why it’s relevant. You may not publish it, but you can definitely use it when you write your literature review.

So, the key differences between an annotated bibliography are:

• An annotated bibliography is a list of references with no connection established among them, while a literature review is a narrative of all the studies.
• Annotated bibliographies are organized alphabetically by reference, whereas literature reviews are organized by themes or supporting or contrasting evidence. 
• Annotated bibliographies summarize (in a few sentences) each reference, while literature reviews place the publication in context along with other publications.

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Researching the Literature Review

• 1. Get Started
• 2. Find Articles

Tracking Your Searches

Mind mapping, note taking tables, reading tips, writing as a conversation, writing center resources, how do you take notes.

• 4. Keep Current
• 5. Manage References
• 6. Done Yet?
• 7. Get Help

One way to begin taking notes is to keep track of what you are searching for.  Many databases help you do this by allowing you to save searches and set up email alerts .  Saving searches allows you to watch the development of your search over time and to make sure you are not simply repeating the same search over and over.  Copy and paste or print out the search page to help think of ways your search could or should change over time.  This example is from the EbscoHost version of Medline, but many databases have a similar option.

Viewing the search history and saving searches

Mind mapping is a popular way to brainstorm about your topic or to take notes about an article or presentation.  Start with the main topic in the center and then think of a variety of related subtopics that you want to explore.  Mind maps allow you to be flexible and to see alternative ideas you may not initially have considered.

You can either use paper and pencil or you can use a variety of free or commercial products to create mind maps.  See some suggested options below.  (This mind map was made with the free version of XMind.)

• Wikipedia's List of Mind Mapping Software
• Note Taking Table Template

Some of us think in a more linear way and find it useful to enter notes in tables rather than in mind or concept maps.  This table is one illustration of what types of information you can gather from the articles or books that you read.  If this table is helpful, you can download the handout version linked above.

Learning how to read academic literature, both articles and books, takes practices.  Here are some tips to help you become a more focused reader:

One way to think about writing a literature review is as a dialogue between authors who have previously written about various aspects of your topic.  You will create this dialog by discussing the agreements and disagreements between those authors, and you will illustrate what they have not yet talked about or researched. 

Use this illustration not as an exact recipe for how to write, but as a guide for how to incorporate some of these writing strategies.

• OSU Graduate Writing Center

Need more writing help? Try the OSU Writing Center.  In addition to providing free help, particularly with brainstorming and organization, they also have writing assistants who are specifically trained to work with graduate students.  Plan ahead as it can often take several sessions to work through something as major as a thesis writing project.

Which of these tools do you most commonly use to take notes?

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• Next: 4. Keep Current >>
• Last Updated: Dec 21, 2023 2:15 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/literaturereview

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Writing a Literature Review

• What is a Literature Review?
• Step 1: Choosing a Topic
• Step 2: Finding Information
• Step 3: Evaluating Content
• Step 4: Taking Notes
• Step 5: Synthesizing Content
• Step 6: Writing the Review
• Step 7: Citing Your Sources
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Note Taking Tips!

• Notetaking Systems: California Polytechnic State University

At this point in the process, you have committed to a topic, found resources on it, and now are trying to glean information from those sources. The page linked above provides some note taking tips, ways to avoid plagiarism, and 5 different note taking styles (also described below). Pick the style that works best for you.

The Cornell Method

The outline method, the mapping method, the charting method, the sentence method.

• Cornell Learning Strategies Center Resources including Note-Taking Method

The Cornell Method uses a two-column approach to note taking.

• The first column measures about 2.5 inches.
• The second column (the larger of the two) measures about 6 inches.
• The larger column is the space to take your notes in.
• The smaller column is to be used to create cue words or keywords that describe the information they are taking notes about.
• At the very bottom of the sheet is a two-inch wide space used to summarize in one or two sentences the main concept or idea taken from the resource.

Cornell Notes - wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes

• How to take Cornell notes - YouTube

The Outline Method is a very structed way of note-taking.

• The left side of the sheet contains general ideas.
• As you work your way to the right, the information grows increasely more detailed.
• The relationship between ideas and information is carried out through the indentation.

The Mapping Method is a very visual way of organizing your notes and information.

• It makes use of graphical representation of information content.
• It involves writing down the concept or terms and radiating the related ideas out of the center.
• You can use lines and symbols to build and link the related ideas.
• It can also be used as a way of brainstorming.

The Charting Method utilizes a chart-structure as a way of organizing your notes.

• Determine the points/topics/subjects that you are trying to find information about.
• Set up your paper in advance by columns headed by these points/topics/subjects.
• As you read through a source (a book, article, website, etc.), record information (words, phrases, main ideas, etc.) under the the appropriate column.

The Sentence Method is the most basic notes-taking method.

• As you research, write down any new ideas or bits of information as a sentence.
• Number each sentence as you move down the page.
• << Previous: Step 3: Evaluating Content
• Next: Step 5: Synthesizing Content >>
• Last Updated: Apr 1, 2024 9:42 AM
• URL: https://libguides.llu.edu/literaturereview