- 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
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- Last Updated: Oct 26, 2022 2:49 PM
- URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/literaturereviews
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- How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates
How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates
Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes .
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 that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .
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 summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.
Table of contents
What is the purpose of 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, free lecture slides, frequently asked questions, introduction.
- Quick Run-through
- Step 1 & 2
When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely 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 its scholarly context
- Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
- Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
- Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
- Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.
Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.
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.
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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 problem and questions .
Make a list of keywords
Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. 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 as 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 useful 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 also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.
Make sure to 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.
You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.
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?
- 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 use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.
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 is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation 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.
To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you 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 organizing the body of a literature review. 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 summarizing sources in order.
Try to analyze 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 organize 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.
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, you can follow these tips:
- 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 sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts
In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.
When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !
This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.
Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.
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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 thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.
There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:
- To familiarize 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 thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .
A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .
An annotated bibliography is a list of source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a paper .
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How to Write a Literature Review in 5 Simple Steps
- peachyessay
- July 8, 2021
- Blogs , Reviews
If you are a college or graduate student, you will almost certainly be required to produce a thesis or dissertation. Likewise, if you’re a corporate office employee, you may be required to conduct research.
Writing an academic paper does not have to be difficult if you understand the various components, why they are important, and how to write them. The literature review is one of the first and most crucial tasks in producing an academic paper.
What is a Literature Review?
A literature review is a collection of scholarly publications that explore the issue under consideration. A literature review allows you to highlight essential ideas and methodologies while also highlighting gaps in whatever research currently exists because it provides an overview of existing research. This lays a solid basis for the rest of your paper.
It should be noted that a literature review might also be a stand-alone paper that you are required to prepare. This is the situation when you are asked to investigate the existing state of research on your issue and then analyze and synthesize your results.
How to Write a Literature Review
Because the literature review is the foundation of your research, it is critical to write a clear and thorough evaluation. The steps below will assist you in doing so:
Choose your research fields
Decide what areas you want to explore before you start looking for articles or books. Then, even if you come across great books on other topics, make sure you only get articles and books in those fields. A current literature study I’m working on, for example, investigates impediments to higher education for undocumented students.
Look for relevant literature
Conduct a thorough bibliographic search for books and journals in your field. First, read the abstracts online and download and/or print the papers relevant to your field of study. Then, find appropriate books in the library and check them out. Set a time limit for how long you will search. It should only take two or three devoted sessions.
Evaluate your sources and choose the most pertinent ones
Because you will not have time to read every single article you come across, you must decide which sources are most relevant to your research issue. First, consult the most reputable sources and then read significant theories and landmark studies.
Examine the contents of each book and article for the following five items:
- Claims, conclusions, and findings of the constructs under consideration
- Terminology definitions
- Requests for follow-up studies related to your project
- Observed gaps in the literature
- Disagreement regarding the constructions you’re looking into
- Determine major issues, disputes, and research gaps.
After you’ve gathered your sources, it’s time to organize them. This can be accomplished by first identifying any underlying themes. These can take the following forms:
Trends or patterns : Are there methods that are getting more or less popular over time?
Themes : Are there any repeating themes that stand out to you in all of the literature you’ve read?
Disagreements, inconsistencies, or debates : What are the places where your sources disagree?
Publications of historical significance : What other research or idea is having a significant impact on how the field is evolving?
Research gaps : What topics haven’t been thoroughly covered in the background literature you’ve compiled? What flaws do you believe should be addressed in your paper?
Create an outline
It is generally ideal for creating an outline for academic papers before you begin writing. This allows you to organize your thoughts and discoveries into a logical totality.
After all, you don’t want your literature review to look like a shopping list that aggregates every piece of material you find without considering how it all fits together.
An introduction, major body, and conclusion should be included in your outline.
Make a list of the contents of your literature review
Now that you have your outline in place, you can begin writing your literature review .
Establish the goal of your literature review in the opening. Then, you can clarify whether the literature review is part of a bigger effort or if it is a standalone piece in this section.
You will begin to elaborate on the ideas you made in your outline in the document’s body. To make the paragraphs more obvious, use subheadings.
How Should a Literature Review be Organized?
Here are the approaches to the structuring of literature review
In a thematic outline, you will organize your information around a single theme. Different areas of your study may be divided into subsections that focus on specific aspects of your topic.
Chronological
This method allows you to demonstrate the evolution of your topic across time. While this is useful for demonstrating how theories evolve, make sure to include your own interpretation of trends, turning points, or disagreements, demonstrating how they contributed shape where the subject is headed. One method is to interpret how or why specific developments occurred.
Methodological
In this style, you will examine the various research methodologies employed by your sources, contrasting how they arrived at results or suggestions. In addition, you can talk about how and why the different sources choose particular methodologies, such as whether the source is sociological, cultural, or historical.
Theoretical
A theoretical framework allows you to concentrate on explaining the various models, ideas, and essential concepts associated with your issue.
Outline of the Literature Review
Here are the components of the literature review outline.
Introduction
The introduction defines the issue and specifies the appropriate context for the literature review. It also describes the structure of the material you create and provides the author’s (your) reasons for reviewing the chosen sources.
The main body
The main body is where you organize the sources by topics, present insights, and explain connections between your chosen topic and a broader field of the same issue. Furthermore, this section shifts the emphasis from broad perspectives to a single aspect of the investigation.
The conclusion section highlights key topics discussed in the body of the literature and assesses the relevance of the sources provided. You can also consider the disciplines and routes for future research here and blind spots and missing elements in existing knowledge. Finally, don’t forget to tie your previous work to the academic knowledge that is currently available.
What Should the Literature Review Contain?
The following material should be included in your literature review:
All significant discoveries connected to your topic, with suitable citations
Existing disputes or contentious conversations
Sources of Literature
Journal articles
Journal articles are a great place to start when writing a lit review. These are useful, particularly for current information. These are frequently used in Lit Reviews since they offer concise, up-to-date information. In all reputable journals, peer-reviewed or refereed research is published only after it has been reviewed by other researchers in the field.
A good source for a Lit Review in general. Because books take longer to publish than journal articles, they are typically out of date. Also, because textbooks are designed for teaching rather than research, they are unlikely to be effective in your Lit Review. Still, they do provide an excellent beginning point for finding better, more extensive materials.
Proceedings of a Conference
This is a fantastic resource for a Literature Review. These are excellent for finding out about new research or study that hasn’t been published yet. Furthermore, they provide information on which researchers are active in specific fields, which can be useful for tracking down their other work.
Reports from the government and corporations
This is a fantastic resource for a Literature Review. Many government agencies and businesses commission or conduct research. Depending on your topic of study, their published findings can be a valuable source of knowledge.
For a Lit Review, this is not a good source. Newspaper articles tend to target a general (not specialized) audience; hence, they will not be of use to your Lit Review. Journalists aren’t usually scholars, which means they aren’t specialists on the topics they write about; hence newspaper stories aren’t scholarly sources.
Dissertations and theses
It’s a good place to start if you’re writing a lit review. These can be valuable sources of data. Using student-created research has a number of drawbacks: 1) they are frequently unpublished and only available through interlibrary loan; 2) the student conducting the research may not be a seasoned researcher. Their conclusions should be regarded with greater skepticism than previously published research.
Using this as a source for your literature review is not a smart move. One of the fastest-growing sources of information is the Internet. You cannot categorize the information provided by electronic sources, but here are some tips for using them: 1) acknowledge that anyone can post information on the Internet, so the quality may vary, and 2) information posted on the web for general audiences may not be appropriate data for your Lit Review (general audiences tend to need less detail and scholarly information).
For a Lit Review, this is not a good source. Magazines aimed at a wide audience, such as Time, Us, and National Enquirer, will not provide you with the information you require. Specialized magazines (for example, business magazines for management students) may be more useful. Magazines, on the other hand, are often only beneficial as a starting point for your study because they contain news or broad information about discoveries, policies, and other topics that may then be further studied in more specialized sources.
What is the difference between a literature review and an annotated bibliography?
A Lit Review is arranged around a guiding topic or thesis and written in an expository essay, with an introduction, body, and conclusion. An annotated Works Cited list, on the other hand, is just an alphabetized list of sources with summaries and evaluations (annotations). While a single source may only appear once in an annotated Works Cited list, it may be mentioned multiple times in a Lit Review, depending on its significance in the area or its relationship to other sources. Finally, a Lit Review has its own set of in-text citations and a Works Cited list.
What distinguishes a literature review from a regular research paper?
A literature review can be written as a stand-alone piece or as part of larger research work (such as a chapter in an honors thesis). The Lit Review is primarily concerned with sources, while the paper’s body is concerned with the topic you are researching. In other words, a research article uses expert sources as support for your thesis, whereas a Literature Review discusses the sources.
What are the Characteristics of a Literature Review?
These are some of the features you should look for in a Lit Review:
- A Works Cited list that includes all sources cited in the Lit Review is required. Sources not directly cited in the Lit Review should not be listed in the Works Cited list.
- A Lit Review is divided into subtopics rather than individual sources. Thus, you can cite numerous references in the same paragraph in a typical Lit Review, and you can mention the same reference in more than one paragraph if the source discusses more than one of the Lit Review’s subtopics.
- Typically, each source is only briefly discussed. Your contribution is to organize the concepts from the sources into a coherent argument or narrative that incorporates your views.
- With each reference, you should concentrate on citing the original material. This may necessitate a close examination of the citation. You should chase down and use the reference if the reference author links to another source whose thoughts are relevant or fascinating. The practice of citing a source that you haven’t read directly is known as “grandfathering,” and it’s not allowed. You should never cite a source that you haven’t read.
Here are a few pitfalls to avoid when reviewing the literature.
Trying to go through everything!
As you may have already realized, attempting to be comprehensive will result in your inability to complete the reading! The goal of the Lit Review is not to list as many books, papers, and reports as feasible. The purpose of the Lit Review is to present a survey of the most relevant and noteworthy published work that relates to your research, rather than a synopsis of all published work that related to your topic. The Lit Review should include the most relevant related studies and demonstrate an understanding of both key past research and practices in the subject and promising current research and practices.
Reading but not writing!
Reading is easier than writing. Many people would prefer to sit down and read an article than sit down and craft what they have already read. Isn’t it true that writing necessitates a greater amount of effort? Writing, on the other hand, can help you comprehend and reveal connections regarding the works you have perused, so don’t wait until you’ve “finished” reading to begin writing – after all, you’ll probably certainly keep reading until your research project is completed. Also, the first draft should not be considered the final or near-final version. Allow yourself as many changes as you need to adjust your ideas and material in order to better comprehend the context of your research challenge.
Not preserving bibliographic data
Once you’re ready to create your Works Cited list, you’ll realize you didn’t save the materials you’ll need, and you never finished referencing your work. Until you go to the library and research all the sources you read and then look over your writing for references to which sources you borrowed information from, the only way to figure out where your information came from is to spend time at the library tracking down all the sources you referenced. Keeping these notes will help you avoid this nightmare in the future. It is always a good idea to cite your sources.
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Write a Literature Review
1. narrow your topic and select papers accordingly, 2. search for literature, 3. read the selected articles thoroughly and evaluate them, 4. organize the selected papers by looking for patterns and by developing subtopics, 5. develop a thesis or purpose statement, 6. write the paper, 7. review your work.
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Consider your specific area of study. Think about what interests you and what interests other researchers in your field.
Talk to your professor, brainstorm, and read lecture notes and recent issues of periodicals in the field.
Limit your scope to a smaller topic area (ie. focusing on France's role in WWII instead of focusing on WWII in general).
- Four Steps to Narrow Your Research Topic (Video) This 3-minute video provides instructions on how to narrow the focus of your research topic.
- Developing a Research Question + Worksheet Use this worksheet to develop, assess, and refine your research questions. There is also a downloadable PDF version.
Define your source selection criteria (ie. articles published between a specific date range, focusing on a specific geographic region, or using a specific methodology).
Using keywords, search a library database.
Reference lists of recent articles and reviews can lead to other useful papers.
Include any studies contrary to your point of view.
Evaluate and synthesize the studies' findings and conclusions.
Note the following:
- Assumptions some or most researchers seem to make
- Methodologies, testing procedures, subjects, material tested researchers use
- Experts in the field: names/labs that are frequently referenced
- Conflicting theories, results, methodologies
- Popularity of theories and how this has/has not changed over time
- Findings that are common/contested
- Important trends in the research
- The most influential theories
Tip: If your literature review is extensive, find a large table surface, and on it place post-it notes or filing cards to organize all your findings into categories.
- Move them around if you decide that (a) they fit better under different headings, or (b) you need to establish new topic headings.
- Develop headings/subheadings that reflect the major themes and patterns you detected
Write a one or two sentence statement summarizing the conclusion you have reached about the major trends and developments you see in the research that has been conducted on your subject.
- Templates for Writing Thesis Statements This template provides a two-step guide for writing thesis statements. There is also a downloadable PDF version.
- 5 Types of Thesis Statements Learn about five different types of thesis statements to help you choose the best type for your research. There is also a downloadable PDF version.
- 5 Questions to Strengthen Your Thesis Statement Follow these five steps to strengthen your thesis statements. There is also a downloadable PDF version.
Follow the organizational structure you developed above, including the headings and subheadings you constructed.
Make certain that each section links logically to the one before and after.
Structure your sections by themes or subtopics, not by individual theorists or researchers.
- Tip: If you find that each paragraph begins with a researcher's name, it might indicate that, instead of evaluating and comparing the research literature from an analytical point of view, you have simply described what research has been done.
Prioritize analysis over description.
- For example, look at the following two passages and note that Student A merely describes the literature, whereas Student B takes a more analytical and evaluative approach by comparing and contrasting. You can also see that this evaluative approach is well signaled by linguistic markers indicating logical connections (words such as "however," "moreover") and phrases such as "substantiates the claim that," which indicate supporting evidence and Student B's ability to synthesize knowledge.
Student A: Smith (2000) concludes that personal privacy in their living quarters is the most important factor in nursing home residents' perception of their autonomy. He suggests that the physical environment in the more public spaces of the building did not have much impact on their perceptions. Neither the layout of the building nor the activities available seem to make much difference. Jones and Johnstone make the claim that the need to control one's environment is a fundamental need of life (2001), and suggest that the approach of most institutions, which is to provide total care, may be as bad as no care at all. If people have no choices or think that they have none, they become depressed.
Student B: After studying residents and staff from two intermediate care facilities in Calgary, Alberta, Smith (2000) came to the conclusion that except for the amount of personal privacy available to residents, the physical environment of these institutions had minimal if any effect on their perceptions of control (autonomy). However, French (1998) and Haroon (2000) found that availability of private areas is not the only aspect of the physical environment that determines residents' autonomy. Haroon interviewed 115 residents from 32 different nursing homes known to have different levels of autonomy (2000). It was found that physical structures, such as standardized furniture, heating that could not be individually regulated, and no possession of a house key for residents limited their feelings of independence. Moreover, Hope (2002), who interviewed 225 residents from various nursing homes, substantiates the claim that characteristics of the institutional environment such as the extent of resources in the facility, as well as its location, are features which residents have indicated as being of great importance to their independence.
- How to Integrate Critical Voice into Your Literature Review (Video)
- Look at the topic sentences of each paragraph. If you were to read only these sentences, would you find that your paper presented a clear position, logically developed, from beginning to end? The topic sentences of each paragraph should indicate the main points of your literature review.
- Make an outline of each section of the paper and decide whether you need to add information, to delete irrelevant information, or to re-structure sections.
- Read your work out loud. That way you will be better able to identify where you need punctuation marks to signal pauses or divisions within sentences, where you have made grammatical errors, or where your sentences are unclear.
- Since the purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate that the writer is familiar with the important professional literature on the chosen subject, check to make certain that you have covered all of the important, up-to-date, and pertinent texts. In the sciences and some of the social sciences it is important that your literature be quite recent; this is not so important in the humanities.
- Make certain that all of the citations and references are correct and that you are referencing in the appropriate style for your discipline. If you are uncertain which style to use, ask your professor.
- Check to make sure that you have not plagiarized either by failing to cite a source of information, or by using words quoted directly from a source. (Usually if you take three or more words directly from another source, you should put those words within quotation marks, and cite the page.)
- Text should be written in a clear and concise academic style; it should not be descriptive in nature or use the language of everyday speech.
- There should be no grammatical or spelling errors.
- Sentences should flow smoothly and logically.
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- Next: Resources for Gathering and Reading the Literature >>
- Last Updated: Nov 8, 2022 9:19 AM
- URL: https://guides.lib.uoguelph.ca/LiteratureReview
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Graduate Research: Guide to the Literature Review
- "Literature review" defined
- Research Communication Graphic
- Literature Review Steps
- Evaluating information
- Search techniques
- Citing Styles
- Ethical Use of Information
- Research Databases
- Get Full Text
- Reading a Scholarly Article
- Author Rights
- Selecting a publisher
Introduction to Research Process: Literature Review Steps
When seeking information for a literature review or for any purpose, it helps to understand information-seeking as a process that you can follow. 5 Each of the six (6) steps has its own section in this web page with more detail. Do (and re-do) the following six steps:
1. Define your topic. The first step is defining your task -- choosing a topic and noting the questions you have about the topic. This will provide a focus that guides your strategy in step II and will provide potential words to use in searches in step III.
2. Develop a strategy. Strategy involves figuring out where the information might be and identifying the best tools for finding those types of sources. The strategy section identifies specific types of research databases to use for specific purposes.
3. Locate the information . In this step, you implement the strategy developed in II in order to actually locate specific articles, books, technical reports, etc.
4. Use and Evaluate the information. Having located relevant and useful material, in step IV you read and analyze the items to determine whether they have value for your project and credibility as sources.
5. Synthesize. In step V, you will make sense of what you've learned and demonstrate your knowledge. You will thoroughly understand, organize and integrate the information --become knowledgeable-- so that you are able to use your own words to support and explain your research project and its relationship to existing research by others.
6. Evaluate your work. At every step along the way, you should evaluate your work. However, this final step is a last check to make sure your work is complete and of high quality.
Continue below to begin working through the process.
5. Eisenberg, M. B., & Berkowitz, R. E. (1990). Information Problem-Solving: the Big Six Skills Approach to Library & Information Skills Instruction . Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
1. Define your topic.
I. Define your topic
A. Many students have difficulty selecting a topic. You want to find a topic you find interesting and will enjoy learning more about.
B. Students often select a topic that is too broad. You may have a broad topic in mind initially and will need to narrow it.
1. To help narrow a broad topic :
a. Brainstorm.
1). Try this technique for brainstorming to narrow your focus.
a) Step 1. Write down your broad topic.
b) Step 2. Write down a "specific kind" or "specific aspect" of the topic you identified in step 1.
c) Step 3. Write down an aspect --such as an attribute or behavior-- of the "specific kind" you identified in step 2.
d) Step 4. Continue to add levels of specificity as needed to get to a focus that is manageable. However, you may want to begin researching the literature before narrowing further to give yourself the opportunity to explore what others are doing and how that might impact the direction that you take for your own research.
2) Three examples of using the narrowing technique. These examples start with very, very broad topics, so the topic at step 3 or 4 in these examples would be used for a preliminary search in the literature in order to identify a more specific focus. Greater specificity than level 3 or 4 will ultimately be necessary for developing a specific research question. And we may discover in our preliminary research that we need to alter the direction that we originally were taking.
a) Example 1.
Step 1. information security
Step 2. protocols
Step 3. handshake protocol
Brainstorming has brought us to focus on the handshake protocol.
b) Example 2.
Step 1. information security
Step 2. single sign-on authentication
Step 3. analyzing
Step 4. methods
Brainstorming has brought us to focus on methods for analyzing the security of single sign-on authentication
c) Example 3. The diagram below is an example using the broad topic of "software" to show two potential ways to begin to narrow the topic.
C. Once you have completed the brainstorming process and your topic is more focused, you can do preliminary research to help you identify a specific research question .
1) Examine overview sources such as subject-specific encyclopedias and textbooks that are likely to break down your specific topic into sub-topics and to highlight core issues that could serve as possible research questions. [See section II. below on developing a strategy to learn how to find these encyclopedias]
2). Search the broad topic in a research database that includes scholarly journals and professional magazines (to find technical and scholarly articles) and scan recent article titles for ideas. [See section II. below on developing a strategy to learn how to find trade and scholarly journal articles]
D. Once you have identified a research question or questions, ask yourself what you need to know to answer the questions. For example,
1. What new knowledge do I need to gain?
2. What has already been answered by prior research of other scholars?
E. Use the answers to the questions in C. to identify what words to use to describe the topic when you are doing searches.
1. Identify key words
a. For example , if you are investigating "security audits in banking", key terms to combine in your searches would be: security, audits, banking.
2. Create a list of alternative ways of referring to a key word or phrase
a.For example , "information assurance" may be referred to in various ways such as: "information assurance," "information security," and "computer security."
b. Use these alternatives when doing searches.
3. As you are searching, pay attention to how others are writing about the topic and add new words or phrases to your searches if appropriate.
2. Develop a strategy.
II. Develop a strategy for finding the information.
A. Start by considering what types of source might contain the information you need . Do you need a dictionary for definitions? a directory for an address? the history of a concept or technique that might be in a book or specialized encyclopedia? today's tech news in an online tech magazine or newspaper? current research in a journal article? background information that might be in a specialized encyclopedia? data or statistics from a specific organization or website? Note that you will typically have online access to these source types.
B. This section provides a description of some of the common types of information needed for research.
1. For technical and business analysis , look for articles in technical and trade magazines . These articles are written by information technology professionals to help other IT professionals do their jobs better. Content might include news on new developments in hardware or software, techniques, tools, and practical advice. Technical journals are also likely to have product ads relevant to information technology workers and to have job ads. Examples iof technical magazines include Network Computing and IEEE Spectrum .
2. To read original research studies , look for articles in scholarly journals and conference proceedings . They will provide articles written by information technology professionals who are reporting original research; that is, research that has been done by the authors and is being reported for the first time. The audience for original research articles is other information technology scholars and professionals. Examples of scholarly journals include Journal of Applied Security Research , Journal of Management Information Systems , IEEE Transactions on Computers , and ACM Transactions on Information and System Security .
3. For original research being reported to funding agencies , look for technical reports on agency websites. Technical reports are researcher reports to funding agencies about progress on or completion of research funded by the agency.
4. For in-depth, comprehensive information on a topic , look for book-length volumes . All chapters in the book might be written by the same author(s) or might be a collection of separate papers written by different authors.
5. To learn about an unfamiliar topic , use textbooks , specialized encyclopedias and handbooks to get get overviews of topics, history/background, and key issues explained.
6. For instructions for hardware, software, networking, etc., look for manuals that provide step-by-step instructions.
7. For technical details about inventions (devices, instruments, machines), look for patent documents .
C. NOTE - In order to search for and find original research studies, it will help if you understand how information is produced, packaged and communicated within your profession. This is explained in the tab "Research Communication: Graphic."
3. Locate the information.
III. Locate the information
A. Use search tools designed to find the sources you want. Types of sources were described in section II. above.
Always feel free to Ask a librarian for assistance when you have questions about where and how locate the information you need.
B. Evaluate the search results (no matter where you find the information)
1. Evaluate the items you find using at least these 5 criteria:
a. accuracy -- is the information reliable and error free?
1) Is there an editor or someone who verifies/checks the information?
2) Is there adequate documentation: bibliography, footnotes, credits?
3) Are the conclusions justified by the information presented?
b. authority -- is the source of the information reputable?
1) How did you find the source of information: an index to edited/peer-reviewed material, in a bibliography from a published article, etc.?
2) What type of source is it: sensationalistic, popular, scholarly?
c. objectivity -- does the information show bias?
1) What is the purpose of the information: to inform, persuade, explain, sway opinion, advertise?
2) Does the source show political or cultural biases?
d. currency -- is the information current? does it cover the time period you need?
e. coverage -- does it provide the evidence or information you need?
2. Is the search producing the material you need? -- the right content? the right quality? right time period? right geographical location? etc. If not, are you using
a. the right sources?
b. the right tools to get to the sources?
c. are you using the right words to describe the topic?
3. Have you discovered additional terms that should be searched? If so, search those terms.
4. Have you discovered additional questions you need to answer? If so, return to section A above to begin to answer new questions.
4. Use and evaluate the information.
IV. Use the information.
A. Read, hear or view the source
1. Evaluate: Does the material answer your question(s)? -- right content? If not, return to B.
2. Evaluate: Is the material appropriate? -- right quality? If not, return to B.
B. Extract the information from the source : copy/download information, take notes, record citation, keep track of items using a citation manager.
1. Note taking (these steps will help you when you begin to write your thesis and/or document your project.):
a. Write the keywords you use in your searches to avoid duplicating previous searches if you return to search a research database again. Keeping track of keywords used will also save you time if your search is interrupted or you need return and do the search again for some other reason. It will help you remember which search terms worked successfully in which databases
b. Write the citations or record the information needed to cite each article/document you plan to read and use, or make sure that any saved a copy of the article includes all the information needed to cite it. Some article pdf files may not include all of the information needed to cite, and it's a waste of your valuable time to have to go back to search and find the items again in order to be able to cite them. Using citation management software such as EndNote will help keep track of citations and help create bibliographies for your research papers.
c. Write a summary of each article you read and/or why you want to use it.
5. Synthesize.
V. Synthesize.
A. Organize and integrate information from multiple sources
B. Present the information (create report, speech, etc. that communicates)
C. Cite material using the style required by your professor or by the venue (conference, publication, etc.). For help with citation styles, see Guide to Citing Sources . A link to the citing guide is also available in the "Get Help" section on the left side of the Library home page
6. Evaluate your work.
VI. Evaluate the paper, speech, or whatever you are using to communicate your research.
A. Is it effective?
B. Does it meet the requirements?
C. Ask another student or colleague to provide constructive criticism of your paper/project.
- << Previous: Research Communication Graphic
- Next: Evaluating information >>
- Last Updated: Jan 27, 2023 8:13 AM
- URL: https://library.dsu.edu/graduate-research
Karl E. Mundt Library, Dakota State University, Madison, South Dakota 57042 605-256-5203
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by Yen Cabag | 5 comments
If you’re a college or graduate student, you will likely have to write a thesis or dissertation. As an employee in a corporate office, you may also be called on to do some research.
Writing an academic paper doesn’t have to be daunting when you know the different components, why they matter, and how to write them. The literature review is one of the first steps to writing an academic paper, and also one of the most important.
What Is a Literature Review?
A literature review is a compilation of scholarly sources that discuss the topic you are researching. Because it serves as an overview of existing research, a literature review lets you highlight relevant principles and methods, while also identifying gaps in whatever research currently exists. This builds a strong foundation for everything else in your paper.
Note that a literature review may also be a stand-alone paper you are assigned to write. This is the case when you are called on to look into the current state of research around your topic, and to analyze and synthesize your findings.
Writing a literature review requires you to collect, evaluate, and analyze existing publications, including journal articles and books that relate to the research question you have chosen.
Purpose of a Literature Review
The literature review is an important part of the research process. It serves the following critical functions:
- It helps familiarize you with the topic.
- It helps you construct a theoretical framework and come up with a methodology for your research.
- It lets you place yourself within the context of other theorists and researchers.
- It shows readers how your paper adds to an existing debate or addresses a given gap that you highlight from existing research.
In addition, if you’re a nonfiction author, you might want to write up a literature review to survey the existing research surrounding your topic, so you can be sure to fill any gaps and address new reader needs.
What Should Be Included in the Literature Review?
Your literature review should include the following information:
- All relevant findings related to your subject, with their sources properly cited
- Any existing debates or controversial discussions
- Any gaps in the existing research that you can meet in your research
How to Write a Literature Review
Since the literature review forms the backbone of your research, writing a clear and thorough review is essential. The steps below will help you do so:
1. Search for relevant information and findings.
In research, information published on a given subject is called “literature” or “background literature.” Assuming you already have a clearly-defined topic, the first step you need to take is searching for the relevant literature.
Before the boom of the internet, searching for relevant literature involved going to the library and weeding through tons of journal articles or research papers on a subject. These days, you can quickly access these articles and other publications with a simple internet search.
Because of this, your first step will include listing down the keywords that will help you find the results you need. List down everything that is related to your research topic. For example, if your research question is “What effect does social media have on depression?” you might include specific keywords like “Facebook” and “Instagram” to find more results.
Also, because the Internet is overflowing with information and not all of it may be relevant, you will have to learn how to do an efficient search. This includes learning technical search phrases that let you refine your results.
One of the most important tools is the term “site:” which lets you specify which website to search in.
For example, when you type “site: www.usa.gov ” followed by a space and then the keyword, the search will be done automatically only on the U.S. Data and Statistics website.
Other tools include what we call boolean operators or search terms, which can help you focus your search:
- AND – helps you find sources that have more than one keyword
- OR – helps you find sources containing one of a given number of keywords
- NOT – lets you exclude results that contain certain keywords
Some examples of useful databases where you can search for articles and journals are:
- Google Scholar
- Project Muse – for social sciences and humanities topics
- Medline – for biomedicine and life sciences research subjects
- EconLit – for economic research
- Inspec – for computer science, physics, and engineering topics
2. Evaluate your sources and select the most relevant ones.
Because you will not have the time to read every single article you find, you need to evaluate which sources will be the most relevant to your research question. First, look through the most credible sources, and also be sure to read major theories and landmark studies.
For publications that may not be too clear in terms of credibility or undisputed authority, the following questions can help you evaluate them:
- What problem does this article address?
- What are its key concepts and how does the author define them?
- What key theories, models, or methods does the author use? Do they use established frameworks or a more innovative slant?
- What conclusions does the author reach in this study?
- How does this article relate to other publications in the same field? Does it add to, confirm, or refute other articles?
- How does this article add to your understanding of your research question? What key insights and arguments can you glean from it?
- What are its strengths and weaknesses?
- How many times has it been cited on Google Scholar? (This helps you determine how influential the article is in its field: the higher the citation count, the greater its influence.)
3. Identify key topics, debates, and research gaps.
After you’ve compiled your sources, it’s time to start organizing them. You can do this by first identifying any underlying themes. These can come in the form of:
- Patterns or trends: Are there approaches that are becoming more or less well-known over time?
- Themes: Are there recurring concepts that stand out to you from all the literature you compiled?
- Conflicts, contradictions, or debates: In what areas do your sources disagree?
- Landmark publications : What other study or theory is greatly impacting the way the field is developing?
- Research gaps: What areas have not been covered in detail in the background literature you compiled? What weaknesses do you think should be addressed in your paper?
4. Prepare your outline.
For academic papers, it’s always best to formulate your outline before you begin writing. This helps you organize your thoughts and all your findings into a coherent whole.
After all, you don’t want your literature review to look like a shopping list that simply compiles every piece of information you found, without any thought as to how they all come together.
Your outline should include an introduction, main body, and conclusion.
5. Write the contents of your literature review.
With your outline in place, you can now start to write your literature review.
For the introduction, establish the purpose of your literature review. Here you can explain whether the literature review is part of a larger work or if it’s a stand-alone piece.
In the body of the paper, you will start to elaborate on the points you put in your outline. Use subheadings to make the paragraphs clearer.
These additional tips will also help you make a literature review that adds value to others:
- Summarize your findings: When writing your literature review, don’t just copy and paste whatever you find. Summarize and paraphrase as much as possible.
- Analyze: Then, add your own analysis. A literature review is valuable because of the insights you provide.
- Evaluate critically: Be sure to remain as objective as possible.
- Structure your paragraphs: Keep each paragraph to one main theme, and include transitional sentences to make each paragraph flow neatly to the next.
- State your references: As you write, be sure to note down which sources gave which ideas or findings. Depending on the requirements, you can use the AP Style or Chicago Style of referencing.
How Do You Structure a Literature Review?
You can structure your literature review in the following ways:
- Thematic : In a thematic outline, you will be compiling your information to revolve around a specific theme. Different parts of your research may go into different subsections that focus on certain parts of your topic.
- Chronological : This approach lets you show the development of your topic over time. While this is helpful in showing how theories change, be sure to add your own analysis of patterns, turning points, or debates, showing how they helped shape where the field is going. One way of doing this is interpreting how or why the specific developments happened.
- Methodological: In this format, you will be looking at the different research methods your sources used, comparing how they arrived at conclusions or recommendations. You can discuss how and why the different sources opted for those methods, perhaps looking at whether the source is sociological, cultural, or historical.
- Theoretical: A theoretical framework lets you focus on discussing the different models, theories, and key concepts surrounding your topic.
Writing a Lit Review
Writing a literature review does not have to be a tedious process as long as you know what you need to do.
Knowing how to choose sources will save you a lot of time and energy, and analyzing the information as you read it will also let you write more efficiently, resulting in a literature review that is useful for your own research.
Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:
- How to Write a Research Paper: The Complete Guide for Students
- 31 Best Online Research Tools
- 10 of the Best Citation Generators to Make Your Research Easier
- How to Write a Thesis Statement
Yen Cabag is the Blog Writer of TCK Publishing. She is also a homeschooling mom, family coach, and speaker for the Charlotte Mason method, an educational philosophy that places great emphasis on classic literature and the masterpieces in art and music. She has also written several books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion is to see the next generation of children become lovers of reading and learning in the midst of short attention spans.
This article is very useful and has helped me understand better how to approach my literature review. Thank you
Wonderfully concise, easily understood and makes me feel I can do this! Thank you Yen, you have filled my day with hope and confidence.
We’re so glad Yen’s post has helped you! :)
It has really helped me to do my research thank you.
You’re very welcome, we’re so happy to help!
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5 Steps to Writing a Hassle-Free Literature Review
When you're tasked with writing a lengthy academic study such as a journal article, thesis or dissertation, a literature review will likely be a part of that process. The literature review portion of your research is perhaps one of the most difficult sections to write. A well-written literature review will provide a summary of the scholarly sources you've used in your research. It will also summarize the current knowledge and scholarship surrounding the topic you've chosen to study in more depth, including any patterns, themes, or gaps that are in the research. If the research you plan to conduct will fill any of these gaps, the literature review should mention that, as well.
Depending on the type of writing that will be required, your literature review could be a separate chapter, or it could part of the introduction or part of the theoretical framework . In some cases, a literature review might be written on its own as a survey of scholarly knowledge on a topic. However, in either case, here are the five steps to writing a hassle-free literature review.
Step 1—Narrow your topic
One of the first and easiest mistakes to make when writing a literature review is to start with a topic that is too broad. Since the literature review will provide a foundation for your research, it needs to be narrowed enough to provide a solid one.
For example, let's say you want to research the topic of childhood obesity. Obviously, there will be hundreds of scholarly sources that focus on that topic, so trying to summarize all of them would be not only difficult—it would be useless for the purposes of your own research.
However, you can break that topic down even further to narrow the scope of your research. For example, instead, you could research "childhood obesity and social development among middle-school-aged children." With this narrowed topic, the scholarly research you find will include all (or most) of the important keywords of your research: childhood obesity, social development, middle school. That makes your search for pertinent, relevant research a much easier task.
Step 2—Gather your sources and pick the right ones to use
Now that you have a narrowed topic, step two will be much easier than it would have been otherwise. In this step, you find recent, relevant research that includes your keywords and informs your knowledge on the topic. While reading the most recent scholarly articles or books, you'll begin to notice certain studies or theories that the authors consistently refer to as a foundation for their own study. This is usually a good indicator that you should include those previous studies and theories in your own literature review, to provide your readers with a summary of the most relevant ideas surrounding that topic.
To put it simply—determining which sources you will include in your literature review is really a matter of: 1) knowing how to identify the important, foundational ("landmark") studies that have been conducted and 2) knowing how to identify current, relevant studies.
Landmark studies
If you're researching in a field you've studied extensively already, you're likely to already know the relevant research that is important to note, otherwise known as "landmark studies." For example, in the field of Education, the early childhood development research of Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, and John Dewey are foundational in almost any research related to a child's development. Therefore, many literature reviews will mention them and briefly summarize what they added to the scholarly knowledge foundational to the topic.
Current studies
While it's impossible to read everything that's published relating to a topic—even a narrow one—you can find the relevant research by noticing the attention it's getting and the number of times it's been cited in other studies. You can use several websites to discover how many times an article has been cited and this article provides easy links and instructions on how to do this.
However, just because an article or book has been often cited doesn't mean you have to use it for your own research. You can find other relevant articles by looking through abstracts and determining if the research is both credible and useful for your own. You should also use this opportunity to see if there is perhaps a gap in the research—something that needs to be explored that hasn't been thoroughly explored by other researchers. Or, is there a different approach you want to take in your own methodology that will close a gap or answer a question that is still out there in the scholarly writing available on your topic?
Step 3—Find connections, patterns, disagreements, pivotal changes and gaps
Now that you've determined which sources you plan to use, you can begin reading over them in more detail to look for connections, patterns, disagreements, pivotal changes and gaps in the literature. It's important at this step to find trends that keep showing up as you read, as well as themes that arise. You'll also want to note where different researchers agree or disagree, and why there is a discrepancy in their understanding or hypotheses.
You might also find that a certain past study changed scholarly discourse in a major way. That would be a pivotal moment to note in your literature review, since it is foundational in the overall scholarship surrounding the topic.
Finally, you want to find and acknowledge any gaps you note in the literature. For example, for our "childhood obesity and social development among middle-school-aged children," you might find that none of the research you've come across seems to take into account comorbidity of obesity and mental health issues in middle-school-aged children. Therefore, it's a gap in the research that you can address in your literature review and potentially fill in your research.
Step 4—Determine how you will organize your literature review
Now that you know which sources you plan to use to compile your literature review (and thus, inform your own research), it's important to organize the summary of these sources to make your analysis easier for your reader to follow.
Chronological
This is one of the easiest and most popular ways to organize a literature review. It's easy to do because you simply mention each source in the order it was published, beginning with the earlier, landmark studies. However, the problem with this organizational structure is it's easy to just list your summaries, one after the other, without pointing out any patterns or themes that occur among them. You'll need to focus on showing how the scholarship has changed and evolved over the years, as well as mention any important turning points that might have occurred.
Theoretical
Since the sources you have been reading have all resulted in a theoretical analysis or hypothesis, you can organize your literature review from a theoretical standpoint, showing how the framework was built. If there is a certain theoretical approach to your topic of study that you prefer above others, this might be the best way for you to organize your literature review.
Thematic organization of your literature review is the best way to approach it if you want to point out various themes that have come up in your exploration of the topic. For example, returning to our previously mentioned topic, "childhood obesity and social development among middle-school-aged children," we might find multiple themes that arise, such as "forming friendships," "self-confidence," "bullying," and "family bonds." If we want to study the topic within these four themes or parameters, a thematic-organized literature review will be the best bet.
Methodological
Methodological organization for your literature review will focus on the various methodologies used in prior studies and mention each based on that factor. For example, you might first look at quantitative studies that were done on the topic, then look at qualitative ones, comparing the results of both. Or, you might first analyze literature that shows empirical methodologies, then analyze a more theoretical approach.
Step 5—Write your literature review
Now that you've gone through the other steps, this should be the easy part. As you write, remember that your task is to summarize and synthesize all relevant scholarly work on your topic, while also analyzing any gaps, patterns, inconsistencies, or themes that emerge.
Note that as you write, you need to remain as critical and objective as possible in your overview of literature. If you feel that there were biases and you have a substantial case to make with it, include your analysis on that fact. If you feel that certain studies had stronger methodologies or frameworks than others, mention that, as well. The point of a literature review is to let your reader know that you have researched your topic in depth and have a credible, solid foundation from which to continue that study or pose hypotheses connected to it.
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Literature Review: Conducting & Writing
- Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.
2. decide on the scope of your review., 3. select the databases you will use to conduct your searches., 4. conduct your searches and find the literature. keep track of your searches, 5. review the literature..
- Finding "The Literature"
- Organizing/Writing
- Chicago: Notes Bibliography
- Sample Literature Reviews
Disclaimer!!
Conducting a literature review is usually recursive, meaning that somewhere along the way, you'll find yourself repeating steps out-of-order.
That is actually a good sign.
Reviewing the research should lead to more research questions and those questions will likely lead you to either revise your initial research question or go back and find more literature related to a more specific aspect of your research question.
Your literature review should be guided by a central research question. Remember, it is not a collection of loosely related studies in a field but instead 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.
How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover?
Tip: This may depend on your assignment. How many sources does the assignment require?
Make a list of the databases you will search. Remember to include comprehensive databases such as WorldCat and Dissertations & Theses, if you need to.
Where to find databases:
- Find Databases by Subject UWF Databases categorized by discipline
- Find Databases via Research Guides Librarians create research guides for all of the disciplines on campus! Take advantage of their expertise and see what discipline-specific search strategies they recommend!
- Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
- Write down the searches you conduct in each database so that you may duplicate them if you need to later (or avoid dead-end searches that you'd forgotten you'd already tried).
- Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
- Ask your professor or a scholar in the field if you are missing any key works in the field.
- Use RefWorks to keep track of your research citations. See the RefWorks Tutorial if you need help.
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:
- Again, review the abstracts carefully.
- Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
- << Previous: Home
- Next: Finding "The Literature" >>
- Last Updated: Jan 15, 2023 5:54 PM
- URL: https://libguides.uwf.edu/litreview
Literature Reviews: 5. Write the Review
- Library Basics
- 1. Choose Your Topic
- How to Find Books
- Types of Clinical Study Designs
- Types of Literature
- 3. Search the Literature
- 4. Read & Analyze the Literature
- 5. Write the Review
- Keeping Track of Information
- Style Guides
- Books, Tutorials & Examples
Qualities of A Good Lit Review
Create an outline, then summarize & synthesize.
Draft an outline for your review. Read more about developing an outline here at the Purdue OWL site.
Summarize & Synthesize
- Place each work in the context of its contribution to the understanding of the topic.
- Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration, noting contradictory studies.
- Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
- Point the way forward for further research.
Choose How to Organize Your Paper
Before writing, you should consider a few different ways of organizing or categorizing the literature you've looked at and consider prioritizing the readings, or grouping them by methodology or theme.
1. Chronologically – Organizing your sources by the date of publication can show how scholarly perspective on a topic has changed over time.
2. Thematically – Organizing by theme puts all of the sources with a similar focus together, making it very easy to see where differences in perspective emerge.
3. Methodologically – Organizing by method, much like organizing by theme, puts similar sources together and illustrates what effect method has on final product.
At a loss for words?
- Academic Phrasebank Check out this phrasebank of terms and phrases to use in your research papers.
Elements of the Literature Review
There are many different ways to organize your references in a literature review, but most reviews contain certain basic elements.
Objectives - Clearly describe the purpose of the paper and state your objectives in completing the literature review.
Background/Introduction – Give an overview of your research topic and what prompted it.
Methods - Describe step by step how your performed your evaluation of the materials.
Discussion/Body - The body contains the evaluation or synthesis of the materials. Discuss and compare common themes and gaps in the literature. You may also want to include a section on "questions for further research" and discuss what issues the review has sparked about the topic/field or offer suggestions for future studies that build on your current findings.
Conclusion – A summary of your analysis and evaluation of the reviewed works and how it is related to its parent discipline, scientific endeavor, or profession.
Bibliography - A list of the papers you discussed, aka References. To learn more about different citation styles, visit the "Manage References and Citations" tab.
Writing Tips
Once you actually begin to write the review, stick to your outline and keep these tips in mind:
- Consider your audience. Are you engaging with specialists in one discipline? Or generalists in more than one discipline?
- When writing for a more general audience, avoid jargon and strive for "plain English."
- When writing for a very specialized audience, consider using "plain English" anyway.
- Short paragraphs are easier to read than long paragraphs.
- Subheadings and subsections can help to underscore the structure of your review.
- Do more than just summarize the readings. A lit review is not an annotated bibliography.
- Resist the temptation to refer to *all* the readings you've evaluated. To begin with, focus on readings you've identified as essential or representative.
- Tell the reader how the literature intersects with your project -- how your project complements the existing literature.
- Be objective.
- << Previous: 4. Read & Analyze the Literature
- Next: Keeping Track of Information >>
- Last Updated: Mar 11, 2022 2:42 PM
- URL: https://research.library.gsu.edu/litrev
Research Paper Guide
How To Write A Literature Review
Learn How To Write A Literature Review In Simple Steps
Published on: Dec 21, 2017
Last updated on: Dec 15, 2022
On This Page On This Page
A literature review requires a lot of research work. Most students contemplate it as the hardest and complicated part while writing a research paper . Besides, you may also have to write it as a stand-alone assignment.
Drafting a strong literature review is considered the foundation of any research. It helps to evaluate existing research and tells your teacher how your research is relevant to the respective field. Moreover, it also discusses new insights that your research will contribute to the field of study.
Thus, a writer needs to be well prepared to utilize multiple scholarly sources to find the required research material. An organizational plan must also be developed to combine both the summary and synthesis of the previous literature.
Keep on reading this complete guide to learning how to write a literature review paper in simple steps.
What is a Literature Review?
A literature review is the research and evaluation of the available literature in your chosen topic area. It includes a survey of scholarly sources to provide an overview of the current research and available data and knowledge.
These sources include books, journal articles, and newspapers, that relate to your research question.
Moreover, it not only summarizes the sources. But it also analyzes, interprets, and evaluates the relevant theories, methods, points of view, and gaps in the existing literature.
However, this does not mean that a literature review is based on previous searches only. The writer discusses the research question and its various aspects and discusses the relevant study to support this claim.
What is the Importance of a Good Literature Review?
Some of the key reasons to add a literature review into your research paper, thesis, and dissertation include:
- It shows that the writer is familiar with the topic and the relevant literature.
- It helps to develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research.
- It positions a writer in relation to other researchers and scholars.
- It enables you to identify a research gap and contribute to filling that void by contributing to the field.
- It resolves any conflicts between the previous studies.
The length of a literature review usually depends on the length of the research project. For example, if you are writing a research paper of 10 pages. You will have to include 5 to 6 sources in your literature review.
However, consulting with the professor about proper requirements beforehand is a better way to avoid any last-minute issues.
Types of Literature Review
Here are the types of literature review.
How to Write a Literature Review?
To write a good literature review for a research paper, follow the given steps.
1. Search Relevant Literature
The first important step before starting a review section is to have a clearly defined topic.
Writing a literature review for a research paper requires you to search for literature. It should be relevant to your research problem and questions. Similarly, use the keywords to search for different sources.
To find the relevant journals and articles, look for the following useful academic databases.
- The institution's library catalog
- Google Scholar
However, for writing a review as a stand-alone assignment, develop a research question that gives direction to your search.
Such a question must be answered without gathering original data. Instead, you should answer it by reviewing the existing material.
Furthermore, create a list of keywords related to the topic and research question. Find useful articles and check for the reference list to come up with more authentic sources.
You probably would not be able to cover everything on the chosen topic. Thus, begin by reading the abstract to identify whether the article is relevant or not.
Also, take enough time to evaluate the sources. Make a list of citations and ensure there are no repetitive authors, articles, or publications in the literature review.
2. Analyze and Select Sources
Obviously, it is impossible to read each and every single thing written about the research topic. Instead, you have to analyze the sources that are most relevant to your research questions.
Answer the below questions while analyzing each source.
- What is the question or problem that the writer has been discussing?
- How are the key concepts are defined?
- What theories, approaches, and methods are addressed?
- Does the research study follow an established or innovative approach?
- What are the key findings of the research work?
- How is the literature related to other publications?
- Does the study pose any challenges to the existing literature?
- What are the possible contributions to the field knowledge?
- Discuss the key arguments.
- Elaborate on the strengths and weaknesses of the research work.
Make sure you are using credible and authentic sources. Also, read the important publications and articles to justify your argument.
Moreover, the scope of the literature review largely depends on the topic and discipline. For example, science students only evaluate recent literary work to write their reviews. Nevertheless, the humanities students also have to study and discuss the historical research and perspective about the topic.
Begin the writing process along with searching and reading the relevant sources. Note down important information to use in the text of your literature review.
It is better to cite your sources at this stage to avoid the risk of plagiarism. Moreover, it can also help in developing an annotated bibliography .
3. Identify Connections
Start organizing the argument and structure of a literature review. For this, you have to identify the connection between the sources that are used while writing an abstract .
Based on your evaluation, you can look for the following things:
- Trends or Patterns: What theories and methods can become more or less popular over time?
- Themes: What concepts repeatedly occur?
- Debate and Conflicts: What conflicts do the sources have?
- Gaps: What is missing in the literature and what elements further need to be addressed?
- Influential Literature: Are there any influential research work available that can change the direction of the field?
These elements will help you identify your contribution to the existing knowledge.
4. Decide the Structure
There are various approaches that can be used to organize the literature review. Depending upon the length, it can follow a chronological, thematic, methodological, or theoretical framework.
The approaches to organizing a review are discussed below in detail.
It is the simplest approach to structure your literature review. However, do not just summarize and list the sources. Instead, analyze the critical debates, research, and patterns that have shaped the direction of the field. Also, discuss your interpretation of the developments.
This type of approach helps to organize the review into subsections. Each section will discuss a different aspect of the chosen topic.
It helps to compare the outcomes of gathering sources from different research methods. It may include the analysis of:
- Results emerged from a qualitative vs quantitative approach.
- Discussion of the topic through an empirical and theoretical approach.
- Division of the literature into historical, and cultural sources.
A literature review is often used to discuss various theories and key concepts. By using this approach, you can argue the relevance of a particular theoretical method. Similarly, you can also combine different theories to make a new framework for your research.
5. Write Your Literature Review
Like any other academic paper, a literature review format must have three sections: introduction, body section, and a conclusion. What to include in each section depends on the aims and objectives of your literature review.
5.1 Literature Review Introduction
It is the first paragraph that clearly defines the purpose and focus of the review.
If your literature review is part of your thesis or dissertation, restate the research question. Similarly, briefly summarize the whole context by highlighting literature gaps.
If you are writing a standalone literature review, provide background information on the topic. Also, discuss the scope of the literature and your research objectives. However, don’t forget to mention the results that you will draw from the literature.
5.2 Literature Review Body
Divide the body into subsections for each theme or a methodological approach. While writing the body of a literature review, keep in mind the following things.
- Provide an overview of the key points of each source and combine them coherently.
- Do not just paraphrase other’s research, make your own interpretations where possible.
- Discuss the significance of your findings in relation to your research.
- State the strengths and weaknesses of the sources.
- Make use of the transitions and topic sentences to write well-structured body paragraphs.
5.3 Literature Review Conclusion
Summarize your key findings and emphasize their significance in the conclusion section.
While writing a conclusion for a dissertation or thesis, demonstrate the research gaps and your contributions. Also, discuss how you have developed the research framework by using the theories and methods.
However, a conclusion of a stand-alone literature review will discuss the overall implications and suggestions for future research.
6. Edit And Proofread
Once you are done with the writing process, don’t forget to edit and proofread your paper. It will help you ensure that the paper does not miss anything important and is free from grammatical, and spelling mistakes.
Have a look at the below-given document to learn writing a literature review.
Writing Literature Review for a Research Paper
Sample Literature Review
The above guide will definitely help you understand what a literature review is and how to write one. Here are some literature review examples and samples for you to learn the detailed structure.
Effects of Communication Styles on Marital Satisfaction
Divorce, Fertility, and Labor Force Participation
View Literature Review for a Qualitative Research Paper Here
View Literature Review for a Scientific Research Paper
Critical Thinking and Transferability: A Review of the Literature
Common Mistakes to Avoid
The following are some common mistakes that should be avoided while writing a perfect literature review.
- Students do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources.
- Sources of your literature review are not related to the research problem.
- Excessive reliance on secondary sources rather than relevant primary data.
- Accepting other research findings as valid rather than critically examining the research design and analysis.
- Not describing the search procedures to identify the review of the literature.
- Only considering statistical results as valid rather than integrating the chi-squared or meta-analytic methods.
- Not considering the research findings and interpretations found in the literature.
There is a considerable amount of effort that goes into the literature review writing process. It is a complicated academic assignment that you get at high school, college, or university.
Some students lack good writing skills and for some, it is just a boring task. Thus, they look for professional help to deal with such a complex assignment.
This detailed guide will help you learn how to do a literature review in no time. However, you can take help from our top essay writing service that can help you write perfect literature reviews for research papers.
The expert writers at MyPerfectWords.com have the right skills and experience to deliver your order within the given deadline.
By choosing our essay writer , you will realize that buying a literature review has never been easier than it is now. We can also provide you with an example of a literature review to get a better idea.
Moreover, you can easily buy a well-written review by contacting our support team that is available 24/7. Simply, place your order now and get a high-quality literature review at affordable rates.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many sources should a literature review have.
To write a paper, 10 sources are needed in the literature review. To have 100 pages of text (in the body), you need at least 100 sources for your research.
How do you start an introduction to a literature review?
The literature review in the introduction should introduce, establish the significance of the study, provide an overview of relevant literature to show context for research, and identify knowledge gaps. It will also illustrate how it can advance our understanding of a topic using studies that have been conducted before.
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Nova Allison is a Digital Content Strategist with over eight years of experience. Nova has also worked as a technical and scientific writer. She is majorly involved in developing and reviewing online content plans that engage and resonate with audiences. Nova has a passion for writing that engages and informs her readers.
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Basics of Literature Review | 5 Simple Steps · Chapters. View all · Chapters · Description · Chapters. View all · Comments 55 · Transcript
Steps in the Literature Review Process · Define the research question (for more) · Determine inclusion/exclusion criteria · Choose databases and
What is the purpose of a literature review? · Examples of literature reviews · Step 1 – Search for relevant literature · Step 2 – Evaluate and
Claims, conclusions, and findings of the constructs under consideration · Terminology definitions · Requests for follow-up studies related to your
Write a Literature Review · 1. Narrow your topic and select papers accordingly · 2. Search for literature · 3. Read the selected articles
Introduction to Research Process: Literature Review Steps · 1. Define your topic. The first step is defining your task -- choosing a topic and
1. Search for relevant information and findings. · 2. Evaluate your sources and select the most relevant ones. · 3. Identify key topics, debates, and research
When you're tasked with writing a lengthy academic study such as a journal article, thesis or dissertation, a literature review will likely
Home · Steps for Conducting a Lit Review. 1. Choose a topic. Define your research question. 2. Decide on the scope of your review. 3. · Finding "
Literature Reviews: 5. Write the Review · IntroductionToggle Dropdown. Library Basics · 1. Choose Your Topic · 2. Identify Databases & Resources to
1. Search Relevant Literature · 2. Analyze and Select Sources · 3. Identify Connections · 4. Decide the Structure · 5. Write Your Literature Review.