literature review tutorial

Literature Reviews

• Introduction
• Tutorials and resources
• Step 1: Literature search
• Step 2: Analysis, synthesis, critique
• Step 3: Writing the review

If you need any assistance, please contact the library staff at the Georgia Tech Library Help website . 

Literature review tutorials

There are many helpful Literature Review video tutorials online. Here is an excellent, succinct (10 min) introduction to how to succeed at a literature review:

Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students from NC State University Libraries on Vimeo .

For a longer, high quality in-depth look at how literature reviews come together, see this set of  literature review tutorials  from RMIT University.

Literature review resources

We recommend these resources for more information.

This literature review tutorial is from SAGE Research Methods, which has additional resources for learning about literature reviews.

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• Next: Step 1: Literature search >>
• Last Updated: Apr 2, 2024 11:21 AM
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Methodology

• 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 . Revised on September 11, 2023.

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.

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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, other interesting articles, 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.

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

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

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

Download Word doc Download Google doc

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

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

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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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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

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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• Library Guides
• Literature Reviews
• Getting Started

Literature Reviews: Getting Started

What is a literature review.

A literature review is an overview of the available research for a specific scholarly topic. Literature reviews summarize existing research to answer a review question, provide context for new research, or identify important gaps in the existing body of literature.

An incredible amount of academic literature is published each year; by some estimates nearly three million articles .

Sorting through and reviewing that literature can be complicated, so this Research Guide provides a structured approach to make the process more manageable.

THIS GUIDE IS AN OVERVIEW OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW PROCESS:

• Getting Started (asking a research question | defining scope)
• Choosing a Type of Review
• Searching the Literature
• Organizing the Literature
• Writing the Literature Review (analyzing | synthesizing)

A  literature search  is a systematic search of the scholarly sources in a particular discipline. A  literature review   is the analysis, critical evaluation and synthesis of the results of that search. During this process you will move from a review  of  the literature to a review  for   your research.   Your synthesis of the literature is your unique contribution to research.

WHO IS THIS RESEARCH GUIDE FOR?

— those new to reviewing the literature

— those that need a refresher or a deeper understanding of writing literature reviews

You may need to do a literature review as a part of a course assignment, a capstone project, a master's thesis, a dissertation, or as part of a journal article. No matter the context, a literature review is an essential part of the research process. 

Literature Review Process

Purpose of a Literature Review

What is the purpose of a literature review.

A literature review is typically performed for a specific reason. Even when assigned as an assignment, the goal of the literature review will be one or more of the following:

• To communicate a project's novelty by identifying a research gap

• An overview of research issues , methodologies or results relevant to field
• To explore the  volume and types of available studies
• To establish familiarity with current research before carrying out a new project
• To resolve conflicts amongst contradictory previous studies

Reviewing the literature helps you understand a research topic and develop your own perspective.

A LITERATURE REVIEW IS NOT :

• An annotated bibliography – which is a list of annotated citations to books, articles and documents that includes a brief description and evaluation for each entry
• A literary review – which is a critical discussion of the merits and weaknesses of a literary work
• A book review – which is a critical discussion of the merits and weaknesses of a particular book

Attribution

Thanks to Librarian Jamie Niehof at the University of Michigan for providing permission to reuse and remix this Literature Reviews guide.

Workshop Materials

• Materials from OSU Literature Review Workshop
• Last Updated: Sep 23, 2024 11:11 AM
• URL: https://info.library.okstate.edu/literaturereviews

Organizing and Creating Information

• Citation and Attribution

What Is a Literature Review?

Review the literature, write the literature review, further reading, learning objectives, attribution.

This guide is designed to:

• Identify the sections and purpose of a literature review in academic writing
• Review practical strategies and organizational methods for preparing a literature review

A literature review is a summary and synthesis of scholarly research on a specific topic. It should answer questions such as:

• What research has been done on the topic?
• Who are the key researchers and experts in the field?
• What are the common theories and methodologies?
• Are there challenges, controversies, and contradictions?
• Are there gaps in the research that your approach addresses?

The process of reviewing existing research allows you to fine-tune your research question and contextualize your own work. Preparing a literature review is a cyclical process. You may find that the research question you begin with evolves as you learn more about the topic.

Once you have defined your research question , focus on learning what other scholars have written on the topic.

In order to  do a thorough search of the literature  on the topic, define the basic criteria:

• Databases and journals: Look at the  subject guide  related to your topic for recommended databases. Review the  tutorial on finding articles  for tips. 
• Books: Search BruKnow, the Library's catalog. Steps to searching ebooks are covered in the  Finding Ebooks tutorial .
• What time period should it cover? Is currency important?
• Do I know of primary and secondary sources that I can use as a way to find other information?
• What should I be aware of when looking at popular, trade, and scholarly resources ? 

One strategy is to review bibliographies for sources that relate to your interest. For more on this technique, look at the tutorial on finding articles when you have a citation .

Tip: Use a Synthesis Matrix

As you read sources, themes will emerge that will help you to organize the review. You can use a simple Synthesis Matrix to track your notes as you read. From this work, a concept map emerges that provides an overview of the literature and ways in which it connects. Working with Zotero to capture the citations, you build the structure for writing your literature review.

How do I know when I am done?

A key indicator for knowing when you are done is running into the same articles and materials. With no new information being uncovered, you are likely exhausting your current search and should modify search terms or search different catalogs or databases. It is also possible that you have reached a point when you can start writing the literature review.

Tip: Manage Your Citations

These citation management tools also create citations, footnotes, and bibliographies with just a few clicks:

Zotero Tutorial

Endnote Tutorial

Your literature review should be focused on the topic defined in your research question. It should be written in a logical, structured way and maintain an objective perspective and use a formal voice.

Review the Summary Table you created for themes and connecting ideas. Use the following guidelines to prepare an outline of the main points you want to make. 

• Synthesize previous research on the topic.
• Aim to include both summary and synthesis.
• Include literature that supports your research question as well as that which offers a different perspective.
• Avoid relying on one author or publication too heavily.
• Select an organizational structure, such as chronological, methodological, and thematic.

The three elements of a literature review are introduction, body, and conclusion.

Introduction

• Define the topic of the literature review, including any terminology.
• Introduce the central theme and organization of the literature review.
• Summarize the state of research on the topic.
• Frame the literature review with your research question.
• Focus on ways to have the body of literature tell its own story. Do not add your own interpretations at this point.
• Look for patterns and find ways to tie the pieces together.
• Summarize instead of quote.
• Weave the points together rather than list summaries of each source.
• Include the most important sources, not everything you have read.
• Summarize the review of the literature.
• Identify areas of further research on the topic.
• Connect the review with your research.
• DeCarlo, M. (2018). 4.1 What is a literature review? In Scientific Inquiry in Social Work. Open Social Work Education. https://scientificinquiryinsocialwork.pressbooks.com/chapter/4-1-what-is-a-literature-review/
• Literature Reviews (n.d.) https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/literature-reviews/ Accessed Nov. 10, 2021

This guide was designed to: 

• Identify the sections and purpose of a literature review in academic writing 
• Review practical strategies and organizational methods for preparing a literature review​

Content on this page adapted from: 

Frederiksen, L. and Phelps, S. (2017).   Literature Reviews for Education and Nursing Graduate Students.  Licensed CC BY 4.0

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How to Write a Literature Review - A Self-Guided Tutorial

• Literature Reviews: A Recap
• Reading Journal Articles
• Does it describe a Literature Review?
• 1. Identify the question
• 2. Review discipline styles
• Searching article databases - video
• Finding the article full-text
• Citation trails
• When to stop searching
• Citation Managers
• 5. Critically analyze and evaluate
• 6. Synthesize
• 7. Write literature review
• Additional Resources

UC Merced Librarians

This guide will help you to:

• Define a literature review.
• Recognize that different fields of study have their own way to perform and write literature reviews.
• Prepare to search the literature.
• Read critically -- analyze and synthesize.
• Prepare to write a literature review.

At the end of the tutorial, you will find a quiz that you can submit through Canvas for course credit. 

Graphic from Literature Review (2009) by Machi and McEvoy. 

Long description of "Literature Review Process" for web accessibility

Literature Review - A Self-Guided Tutorial was created by Bronwen K. Maxson, with contributions from Kathleen Hanna, Sara Lowe and Ted Polley (IUPUI University Library), and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License .

Content used in this tutorial adapted from Writing at the University of Toronto's "The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It"  and The Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill's "Literature Reviews."

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• Last Updated: Sep 17, 2024 12:56 PM
• URL: https://libguides.ucmerced.edu/literature-review

• University of La Verne
• Subject Guides

Literature Review Basics

• Tutorials & Samples
• Literature Review Introduction
• Writing Literature Reviews
• Primary & Secondary Sources

Literature Review Tutorials

• Literature Reviews: An Overview for Students What is a literature review? What purpose does it serve in research? What should you expect when writing one? Find out here in this guide from NCSU libraries.
• Write a Lit Review from Virginia Commonwealth University Follow this guide to learn how to write a literature review, beginning with a synthesis matrix.
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide This guide will help you understand what is a Literature Review, why it is important and how it is done. Also includes information on Annotated Bibliographies.
• Writing a Literature Review from the University of Toledo Covers what a lit review is, lit review types, writing a lit review and further readings.
• The Literature Review Process A guide from the University of North Texas on selecting a topic, searching the literature, plan before reviewing, reviewing the literature and writing the review.
• The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Permission granted to use this guide.

Sample Literature Reviews

• Business Literature Review Example One Sharing economy: A comprehensive literature review
• Business Literature Review Example Two Internet marketing: a content analysis of the research
• Education Literature Review Sample One Teachers’ perception of STEM integration and education: a systematic literature review
• Education Literature Review Sample Two Issues and Challenges for Teaching Successful Online Courses in Higher Education: A Literature Review
• Psychology Literature Review Sample One Psychological Correlates of University Students’ Academic Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
• Psychology Literature Review Sample Two Misuse of Prescription Stimulants Among College Students: A Review of the Literature and Implications for Morphological and Cognitive Effects on Brain Functioning
• Public Administration Literature Review Sample One Considering the Environment in Transportation Planning: Review of Emerging Paradigms and Practice in the United States
• Public Administration Literature Review Sample Two Assessing the impact of research on policy: a literature review
• Sociology Literature Review Sample One Employment Among Current and Former Welfare Recipients: A Literature Review
• Sociology Literature Review Sample Two Deployment and family functioning: A literature review of US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Technology Literature Review Sample One Social media and innovation: A systematic literature review and future research directions
• Technology Literature Review Sample Two Blockchain as a disruptive technology for business: A systematic review
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YSN Doctoral Programs: Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

• Biomedical Databases
• Global (Public Health) Databases
• Soc. Sci., History, and Law Databases
• Grey Literature
• Trials Registers
• Data and Statistics
• Public Policy
• Google Tips
• Recommended Books
• Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

What is a literature review?

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

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

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

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

APA7 Style resources

APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

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

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

2. Decide on the scope of your review

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

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

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

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

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

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

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

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

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

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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• Literature Reviews
• Tools & Visualizations
• Literature Review Examples
• Videos, Books & Links

Resources from Writing Centers & Libraries

• AU Writing Center
• Learn How to Write a Literature Review
• Integrating Writing: Assessing Sources/Writing a Literature Review
• Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

Click to Chat with a Librarian

Text: (571) 248-7542

CREDO Instruct Tutorial

• Presenting Research and Data: Tutorial: Synthesizing Information This CREDO Instruct tutorial is a granular, multi-step tutorial addressing the synthesis of information. It details annotated bibliographies, outlines, and literature reviews as part of the process.

American University Tutorial

Video Tutorials from Other Universities

• Western Universities | Lit Review Tutorial This 43-second tutorial provides a brief description on literature reviews and how they might fit into a thesis or dissertation. The transcript is available below the embedded tutorial.
• NC State | Literature Reviews: A Guide for Graduate Students This longer tutorial (9:38 minutes) is intended for graduate students. It covers the purpose and types of literature reviews, defines "the literature," and describes the process of reviewing and writing. A transcript of the video is available.
• University of West Florida | What is a Literature Review?: A Tutorial This quick-paced 3:26 minute video explains what a literature review IS and what it IS NOT. Covers relevant concepts like synthesis and perspective.

Books Available at AU

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• Last Updated: Jul 30, 2024 3:43 PM
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University Library

Write a literature review.

• Examples and Further Information

1. Introduction

Not to be confused with a book review, a literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic.

2. Components

Similar to primary research, development of the literature review requires four stages:

• Problem formulation—which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues?
• Literature search—finding materials relevant to the subject being explored
• Data evaluation—determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic
• Analysis and interpretation—discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature

Literature reviews should comprise the following elements:

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

In assessing each piece, consideration should be given to:

• Provenance—What are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence (e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings)?
• Objectivity—Is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness—Which of the author's theses are most/least convincing?
• Value—Are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

3. Definition and Use/Purpose

A literature review may constitute an essential chapter of a thesis or dissertation, or may be a self-contained review of writings on a subject. In either case, its purpose is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to the understanding of the subject under review
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration
• Identify new ways to interpret, and shed light on any gaps in, previous research
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort
• Point the way forward for further research
• Place one's original work (in the case of theses or dissertations) in the context of existing literature

The literature review itself, however, does not present new primary scholarship.

• Next: Examples and Further Information >>

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License except where otherwise noted.

Land Acknowledgement

The land on which we gather is the unceded territory of the Awaswas-speaking Uypi Tribe. The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, comprised of the descendants of indigenous people taken to missions Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista during Spanish colonization of the Central Coast, is today working hard to restore traditional stewardship practices on these lands and heal from historical trauma.

The land acknowledgement used at UC Santa Cruz was developed in partnership with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band Chairman and the Amah Mutsun Relearning Program at the UCSC Arboretum .

• University of Oregon Libraries
• Research Guides

How to Write a Literature Review

Who is my subject librarian.

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

This guide has a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) License.

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

• Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License Deed

This guide is organized around the 7 steps in the graphic to the left to help you understand the process of writing a literature review.

This guide will help you to

• Define a literature review
• Recognize that different fields of study have their own way to perform and write literature reviews
• Prepare to search the literature
• Read critically -- analyze and synthesize
• Prepare to write a literature review

At the end of the tutorial, you will find a quiz that you can submit through Canvas for course credit. 

Graphic from Literature Review (2009) by Machi  and McEvoy.

Text description of "Literature Review Process" for web accessibility

If you have questions related to a field or discipline, consider reaching out to a Subject Librarian by email, phone, or by scheduling an appointment for a free consultation:

• Subject Librarians
• Next: What's a Literature Review? >>
• Last Updated: Aug 12, 2024 11:48 AM
• URL: https://researchguides.uoregon.edu/litreview

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• Research Guides

Literature Review: A Self-Guided Tutorial

• 7. Write literature review
• Literature Reviews: A Recap
• Peer Review
• Reading the Literature
• Using Concept Maps
• Developing Research Questions
• Considering Strong Opinions
• 2. Review discipline styles
• Super Searching
• Finding the Full Text
• Citation Searching This link opens in a new window
• When to stop searching
• Citation Management
• Annotating Articles Tip
• 5. Critically analyze and evaluate
• How to Review the Literature
• Using a Synthesis Matrix

Write literature review

Unlike an annotated bibliography that summarizes sources in a list, a literature review discusses the themes, trends, and theories in a prose format. Your job in writing a literature review is to evaluate and synthesize the literature in order to make connections among scholarly works and to find gaps in the literature that your research could address.

The "Begin Composing" portion of the Literature Review page from the Writing Center at UNC - Chapel Hill provides several effective strategies for writing the literature review:

• Include only the most important points from each source. You want to summarize, not quote from, the sources.
• Include your own conclusions from analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing what you learned from these articles.
• Be sure that you are accurately representing the scholars' works in your own words.

Refer back to the examples in section 2 to observe how these scholars have organized and written their literature reviews.

• << Previous: Using a Synthesis Matrix
• Last Updated: Jul 30, 2024 4:12 PM
• URL: https://libguides.williams.edu/literature-review

Literature Review Guide: Tutorials

• What is a Literature Review?
• How to start?
• Picking your research question and searching
• Search strategies and Databases
• How to organise the review
• Examples of Literature Reviews
• Library summary

(Smart Student) Writing an effective Literature Review

UCD Writing Centre tutorial

Tutorials for creating Literature reviews

• Advice from a Ph.D researcher
• Texas University

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds 'Final Chapter' toolkit for dissertation students includes some useful tips from staff and students alike.

Critical analysis templates from Sage

• << Previous: Search strategies and Databases
• Next: Videos >>
• Last Updated: Sep 6, 2024 3:37 PM
• URL: https://ait.libguides.com/literaturereview

Education: Lit Review + Methods

• Getting Started
• News and Data Sources
• Children's Literature
• Lit Review + Methods
• Praxis Prep
• Need help? Off campus?

What is a Literature Review?

A literature review is a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the principal research about the topic being studied. Your literature review should contain the following information:

• The most pertinent studies and important past and current research and practices in the field
• An overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic
• An explanation to your readers as to how your research fits within a larger field of study.

The review helps form the intellectual framework for the study.

17 - what is a literature review  from  Joshua Vossler  on  Vimeo .

Why do a Literature Review?

At its core, a literature provides a summary of existing knowledge on a subject or topic and identifies areas where research is lacking: missing information, incomplete studies or studies that draw conflicting conclusions, or perhaps even outdated methods of research.

This can be especially helpful if you intend to conduct research of your own on this topic; by explaining where the previous studies have fallen short or leave openings for further examination, you provide a strong foundation and justification for the research project you intend to embark on.

Literature reviews can stand on their own as an article or assignment for a class, or they can serve as an introduction to a larger work, such as an article describing a study or even a book. They can also vary in granularity: a literature review in the beginning of an article might only summarize the largest or most influential studies, while an academic literature review will not only describe the research so far but look for common themes, analyze the quality of the research, and explain gaps where further research is needed.

Elements of a Successful Literature Review

When preparing your literature review, keep these questions in mind:

• What is your literature review about?
• Why are you studying this topic?
• How will you organize your sources?  (You could group them by themes or subtopics, or perhaps keep them in chronological order. The way you present your sources is important, so make sure you think hard about this!)
• What are the major themes/subtopics that you discovered when reading your sources?
• Where could more research be done to increase our understanding of this topic?

For each individual source, be prepared to analyze:

• Who were the key researchers and what are their qualifications?
• How was the research conducted?
• The similarities and differences between this source and the others in your literature review
• How this source contributes to greater understanding of the topic as a whole
• Any questions you have about the research done, which could identify opportunities for further study

When preparing your literature review, examine these elements and determine which ones would be best for your paper. (Tip: If you're not sure which parts of the literature review to include, ask your professor!)

Electronic Resources Librarian

• << Previous: Children's Literature
• Next: Praxis Prep >>
• Last Updated: Sep 25, 2024 11:33 AM
• URL: https://library.usca.edu/Ed

How To Structure Your Literature Review

3 options to help structure your chapter.

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

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

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

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

But wait – is this the right time?

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

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

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

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

Need a helping hand?

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

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

1: The Introduction Section

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

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

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

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

2: The Body Section

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

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

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

Option 1: Chronological (according to date)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Option 2: Thematic (grouped by theme)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Option 3: Methodological

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

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

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

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

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

3: The Conclusion Section

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

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

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

Example: Thematically Structured Review

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

Let’s Recap

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

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

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

Psst… there’s more!

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

29 Comments

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

I agree with you Marin… A great piece

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

Awesome article for my research.

I thank you immensely for this wonderful guide

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

Very educative and good time to get guide. Thank you

Great work, very insightful. Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, very helpful

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beautifully clear.nThank you!

Lucid! Thankyou!

Brilliant work, well understood, many thanks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Asking questions are actually fastidious thing if you are not understanding anything fully, but this article presents good understanding yet.

thank you SOOO much it is really helpful ..

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• Research guides

Writing a Literature Review

Useful guides/tutorials, guides/tutorials.

A search on Google will retrieve numerous guides and tutorials focused on researching and writing literature reviews. Some are general, i.e. not subject nor level-specific while others focus on literature reviews in a specific discipline and/or on a particular level, i.e. undergraduate, or graduate. Below are a few examples:

Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students  (NCSU Libraries) What is a literature review? What purpose does it serve in research? What should you expect when writing one? Find out here.

Writing the Literature Review in Three Parts (YouTube videos):

Part One: Step-by-Step Tutorial for Graduate Students

Part Two: Step-by-Step Tutorial for Graduate Students

Part Three: Outline and Write the Review of Literature

The Literature Review (Massey University) This video lecture explains how to write a Literature Review, and examines which elements are required in one.

Literature Reviews (The Writing Center, U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Explains what literature reviews are and offer insights into the form and construction of literature reviews in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

Literature Review Advice This is a short talk about what should be in an academic literature review such as the one you might produce in a final year project. 

• << Previous: Phase 6: Writing the Literature Review
• Next: Citation Management >>
• Last Updated: Dec 5, 2023 2:26 PM
• Subjects: Education , General
• Tags: literature_review , literature_review_in_education

Subject and Course Guides

Tutorial: how to write a literature review, tutorial: how to wrtie a literature review, need a review.

• 1. Research and the scholarly argument
• 2. What is a llterature review?
• 3. How to read a scholarly article
• 4. Writing and incorporating your ideas: Paraphrasing, quoting, and summarizing

After completing this tutorial, you will be able to 

• name various characteristics associated with research
• define the purpose of and strategies for creating a literature search
• refine a research topic and form a research argument
• identify ways to enhance flow and logic in writing

Activities include

All modules have a combination of the following types of actives:

• videos (between 3-5 minutes)
• interactive tutorials (approximately 10-15 slides) 
• graded quizzes (5 questions with results sent via email)

How long will this take? 

• The entire series should take between 45 minutes to an hour.

Who this tutorial is for?

Graduate students in the humanities and social sciences.

Prior to taking this tutorial

Consider reviewing the following tutorials 

• Tutorial: Using the Library Level 1; for Humanities and Social Sciences
• Tutorial: Using the Library Level 2; for Humanities and Social Sciences
• Next: 1. Research and the scholarly argument >>
• Last Updated: Aug 16, 2023 1:09 PM
• URL: https://libguides.wmich.edu/litreview

SOC 200 - Sims: How to Write a Lit Review

• What are Literature Reviews?
• How to Write a Lit Review
• How to Choose a Topic
• Finding the Literature

How to write a literature review

Below are the steps you should follow when crafting a lit review for your class assignment.

• It's preferable if you can select a topic that you find interesting, because this will make the work seem less like work. 
• It's also important to select a topic that many researchers have already explored. This way, you'll actually have "literature" to "review."
• Sometimes, doing a very general search and reading other literature reviews can reveal a topic or avenue of research to you. 
• It's important to gain an understanding of your topic's research history, in order to properly comprehend how and why the current (emerging) research exists.
• One trick is to look at the References (aka Bibliographies aka Works Cited pages) of any especially relevant articles, in order to expand your search for those same sources. This is because there is often overlap between works, and if you're paying attention, one source can point you to several others.
• One method is to start with the most recently-published research and then use their citations to identify older research, allowing you to piece together a timeline and work backwards. 
• Chronologically : discuss the literature in order of its writing/publication. This will demonstrate a change in trends over time, and/or detail a history of controversy in the field, and/or illustrate developments in the field.
• Thematically : group your sources by subject or theme. This will show the variety of angels from which your topic has been studied. This method works well if you are trying to identify a sub-topic that has so far been overlooked by other researchers.
• Methodologically : group your sources by methodology. For example, divide the literature into categories like qualitative versus quantitative, or by population or geographical region, etc. 
• Theoretically : group your sources by theoretical lens. Your textbook should have a section(s) dedicated to the various theories in your field. If you're unsure, you should ask your professor.
• Are there disagreements on some issues, and consensus on others?
• How does this impact the path of research and discovery?
• Many articles will have a Limitations section, or a Discussion section, wherein suggestions are provided for next steps to further the research.
• These are goldmines for helping you see a possible outlook of the situation. 
• Identifying any gaps in the literature that are of a particular interest to your research goals will help you justify why your own research should be performed. 
• Be selective about which points from the source you use. The information should be the most important and the most relevant. 
• Use direct quotes sparingly, and don't rely too heavily on summaries and paraphrasing. You should be drawing conclusions about how the literature relates to your own analysis or the other literature. 
• Synthesize your sources. The goal is not to make a list of summaries, but to show how the sources relate to one another and to your own analysis. 
• At the end, make suggestions for future research. What subjects, populations, methodologies, or theoretical lenses warrant further exploration? What common flaws or biases did you identify that could be corrected in future studies? 
• Common citation styles for sociology classes include APA and ASA.

Understanding how a literature review is structured will help you as you craft your own. 

Below is information and example articles that you should review, in order to comprehend why they are written a certain way.

Below are some very good examples of Literature Reviews:

Cyberbullying: How Physical Intimidation Influences the Way People are Bullied

Use of Propofol and Emergence Agitation in Children

Eternity and Immortality in Spinoza's 'Ethics'

As you read these, take note of the sections that comprise the main structure of each one:

• Introduction 
• Summarize sources
• Synthesize sources

Below are some articles that provide very good examples of an "Introduction" section, which includes a "Review of the Literature."

• Sometimes, there is both an Introduction section, and a separate Review of the Literature section (oftentimes, it simply depends on the publication)

Krimm, H., & Lund, E. (2021). Efficacy of online learning modules for teaching dialogic reading strategies and phonemic awareness.  Language, Speech & Hearing Services in Schools,  52 (4), 1020-1030.  https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_LSHSS-21-00011

Melfsen, S., Jans, T., Romanos, M., & Walitza, S. (2022). Emotion regulation in selective mutism: A comparison group study in children and adolescents with selective mutism.  Journal of Psychiatric Research,  151 , 710-715.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2022.05.040

Citation Resources

• MU Library's Citing Sources page
• Purdue OWL's APA Guide
• APA Citation Style - Quick Guide
• Purdue OWL's ASA Guide
• ASA Citation Style - Quick Tips

Suggested Reading

• How to: Conduct a Lit Review (from Central Michigan University)
• Purdue OWL Writing Lab's Advice for Writing a Lit Review

How to Read a Scholarly Article

 read:.

• Things to consider when reading a scholarly article This helpful guide, from Meriam Library at California State University in Chico, explains what a scholarly article is and provides tips for reading them.

  Watch:

• How to read a scholarly article (YouTube) This tutorial, from Western University, quickly and efficiently describes how to read a scholarly article.
• << Previous: What are Literature Reviews?
• Next: How to Choose a Topic >>
• Last Updated: Sep 25, 2024 2:23 PM
• URL: https://libguides.marshall.edu/soc200-sims

• Locations and Hours
• UCLA Library
• Research Guides
• Research Tips and Tools

Getting Started: Information Research Tips

• Literature Reviews
• Flow of Information
• Major Online Encyclopedias
• Dictionaries

Literature Review Tips, Guidelines, and Resources

• Broadening a Topic
• Narrowing a Topic
• How to Read a Citation
• How to Read a Call Number
• About Journal Articles
• Article Databases
• Citing and Writing
• Library Lingo

What is a literature review?

• A critical look at the research relevant to your research project.
• A discussion of how the relevant literature addresses the themes and concepts in your paper.
• A contextual overview of the work of previous authors, how they relate to each other, and how they relate to your research project.
• An analysis of the gaps in the existing literature which your research hopes to fill.
• A rationale for the relevance of your work to ongoing scholarly conversations.

What does a literature review do?

A literature review is not a list of summaries; it is an essential component of your project that:

• puts your work in context.
• establishes your credibility with your intended audiences.
• demonstrates how your current work builds upon and/or deviates from earlier publications.

A literature review should:

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

A few questions to ask yourself (and answer for your reader):

• What is the gap in the literature/problem with previous research?
• What conflict or unanswered question, untested population, untried method in existing research does your experiment address?
• What findings of others are you challenging or extending?
• What is the scope of my literature review?
• What types of publications am I using (e.g., journals, books, government documents, popular media)? What discipline am I working in (e.g., nursing psychology, sociology, medicine)?
• Have I critically analyzed the literature I use?
• Do I follow through a set of concepts and questions, comparing items to each other in the ways they deal with them?
• Instead of just listing and summarizing items, do I assess them, discussing strengths and weaknesses?
• Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my perspective?

Tips for finding literature reviews

One of the best ways to figure out how literature reviews work in your field is to find a few of them.

• Ask your advisor or mentor for excellent examples of literature reviews. If possible, ask for an example from an undergraduate thesis, a masters or doctoral thesis, and a peer-reviewed journal article.
• You can also ask a librarian to help you find example literature reviews!
• Check out ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global and other databases to search for dissertations in your field. These will usually contain a literature review.
• Search for “annual review” journals in your field, e.g., The Annual Review of Sociology
• Search on your topic using a database (e.g., Web of Science ) that allows you to filter specifically for review articles.

These tips and guidelines on writing literature reviews were adapted from: 

• "How to Write a Literature Review"  
• “The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It.” (University of Toronto's Health Sciences Writing Center)
• Literature Reviews in the Health and Life Sciences (University of Utah Library)
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• Next: Broadening a Topic >>
• Last Updated: Aug 22, 2024 3:43 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.ucla.edu/start

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• Literature review: getting started

Choose, define and refine your topic

Do you have the question or topic for your literature review clearly defined? A lot of time and effort can be wasted unless you do. View this video to break through that starting barrier, find a direction and get your literature review on track.

Let’s explore the levels of thinking that are required for writing a good critical literature review. Writing a critical literature review requires more than just setting forth lots of facts collected from different sources. Benjamin Bloom developed his taxonomy - that is a classification system - of cognitive levels. The lower levels of knowledge, comprehension and application are simply knowing stuff, understanding what it is about, and knowing how to use it.

At tertiary level, however, we are expected to work at the levels above this, namely analysis where you pull an idea or a concept apart to find out what it is about; synthesis is where you take different ideas from different sources and combine them into a new understanding, and you do a lot of this in a literature review. And finally, evaluation, where you keep a critical eye open, make judgements on what you read or hear, and even accept or reject the ideas with your reasoning of why you did so.

This is something you need to do in a critical literature review. You are encouraged to be judicious on the validity or the importance of a writer’s opinion, as long as you have sound arguments in support of your decisions. The point here is: you need to do more than to collect and organise already existing information. This means that you are operating within the lower three levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, and this is less than what you are expected to do in higher education. You need to create a new overall understanding or a new insight into an issue. Creating new knowledge is what the upper three levels are about. In a literature review, you are not creating new knowledge in terms of experimental data, of course, but you are creating your own interpretation of the information that is available.

It is most important to choose your topic wisely in the first place. Choose a topic that actually is arguable. If there is no dissent or controversy about an issue, procedure or theory, you will find that you’ll be reproducing accepted facts and there will be no room - or reason - to take a stand one way or the other. On some topics, not all researchers are of all the same opinion. They may agree in part, but vary on the details, or they may in fact be diametrically opposed. These disagreements are to be relished, rather than avoided, because it affords plenty of room to make sense of it yourself, and that makes the topic much more interesting.

If you were to choose something in the area of mental health for example, such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, there is little point telling your readers what these conditions entail - this has already been done. The extent to which these conditions could be moderated with diet for example, is still opened to question. And this question is, therefore, worth exploring.

If you can, choose a topic that has relevance and importance. This does not mean that it has to about finding the cure for cancer. The question of whether handwashing with soap and water is better than hand rubbing with anti-bacterial gel, for example, may sound insignificant at first, but it is hugely relevant to a wide number of health professionals. Therefore, this question matters! And, incidentally, there is a broad spectrum of opinions about this question on both sides.

Finally, just to keep yourself on track, turn your topic into a question. A general topic - such as the benefits of hand rubbing - does not imply a specific focus, and you can easily end up collecting a large amount of information on this subject. If you turn your topic into a question such as, “is hand rubbing more effective than handwashing?”, or more specifically, “is hand rubbing the more effective method in the operating theatre environment?”, this gives you something to to respond to; it keeps you on a defined path.

When told to choose something controversial, this means simply arguable, and something for which there is not one widely accepted point of view. It does not necessarily mean to choose one of the socially controversial topics, such as abortion or euthanasia. In fact, I would be very wary of doing so, unless you feel equipped to argue using philosophy, ethics, social theory or theology. Many of these issues have a large moral component and for an academics essay, you would be expected to draw on these sources to make your points.

Whether you feel something is right or wrong is not enough in an academic text. These emotive topics can easily diverge from the field of medical science into ethics, unless you define your question very clearly to keep them there. Lastly, it is a literature review and not a commonwealth-funded task force - you don’t need to solve the problem, or even come up with recommendations necessarily. For a literature review, you are required to say what the experts have already said on your chosen issue. Just find what is already out there in the literature, and help your reader make sense of the wide variety of the perspectives.

Cluster your literature around common themes or threads of ideas. Structure your writing thematically and not author by author. This allows you to compare, contrast, and make sense of the different authors’ perspectives on one point./ And if you find there are a lot of authors with some contribution to one point, then maybe that point needs to be teased out into sub-themes.

Try not hide behind what the literature is saying. Remember, it is up to you to interpret it and make sense of it for your reader. Listing what they have found or believe is part of a literature review, but in itself is not enough, you need to clarify what the reader is to take away from this body of research.

Never be afraid to narrow your topic. You have a word limit, which is enough to make one meaningful point, but not to include detail for its own sake. It is better to dig deep into a topic rather than be broad and superficial. Make your question more specific, such as, “is hand-rubbing more effective in operating theatres?”, or “can diet moderate schizophrenia at onset?”.

You may have to limit you question many times before you submit your draft. This does not diminish the quality of your research, it actually enhances it. So, think long and hard about your question, because this provides the guidelines for your writing and your research. You need to have clear guidelines so that you can research with purpose and efficiency, even if these guidelines get modified at a later date. Otherwise a lot of time and energy will be wasted, either, looking at irrelevant material, or material that cannot fit into your review.

The research timeline

Do you spend hours (if not weeks) printing off more information than you will ever need for your assignment? Thorough research is important but some students get stuck at this stage. Stop the madness and watch this video to see how to keep the research process efficient, effective and moving forward.

If you’re writing on a topic that you know little about, it is worthwhile to get acquainted with the area before you define your question. This means reading generally and broadly but with the aim of moving towards a more targeted search. Avoid getting comfortable in this general reading phase, you need to move beyond this as soon as you can by defining the question yourself – even a tentative one – so that you can start making progress.

If necessary, set a date to turn your contemplation into action. Once you’ve defined a question, you have automatically narrowed the field. You will start to know what you are looking for, and will feel less overwhelmed by the massive amount of information at your fingertips. If you are feeling overwhelmed, it is likely that you do not have a clear enough idea of what you are looking for. Then, you need to revisit and perhaps refine your question.

After your general reading and defining some question, time for a brainstorm. Put everything down on a large sheet of paper. Use mind maps or lists to see what you can explore. But a mind map will lose form very quickly, if there is no purpose or question underpinning it.

Reading, writing, refining and redefining your topic are all cyclic and interlinked parts of your research process. Don’t wallow in the information collecting phase for too long though; the writing process clarifies your thoughts and therefore the outline of the review. When you know what you are looking for, you can go back to the literature.

This may open up new avenues to explore, which again, may mean redefining your question. The notes you make are only raw material only when you put them into paragraph form, and until then, they have no place or function. The only thing more effective than defining a question is to start getting something down on paper, and this will really make your searches more targeted, because your information gaps will be made obvious.

Even if you don’t feel ready to call it your first draft, call it “draft minus 10”. The process of writing is a huge part of clarifying your own thoughts, and giving your writing a direction. The early stages of mainly researching will transition to mainly writing with very specific searching. But on the whole, writing and researching have a symbiotic interaction throughout.

After all, a bird does not build its nest by collecting a huge number of twigs, stop, and frantically assemble them in one day. However, many students research and write their essays just in that way. The bird starts with the basic structure of their nest early on, and collects and build things as needed. We could learn from this example in our own writing – put pen to paper as soon as possible. Writing is part of the research process, it is not the end point.

You have now complete the Literature Review module. We hope you have enjoyed the content. For more study skill resources, visit the RMIT Learning Lab.

Writing a literature review Many students find that writing a literature review can be a difficult task. Like essays, the literature review must follow a set structure. This tutorial shows you how to write a critical examination of the most relevant, recent and scholarly research of a topic that is not just a summary of the articles you have read.

Researching your assignment Research skills are also an important part of tertiary study. If you want to learn how to search smarter not harder, try the Researching your assignment tutorials.

• Structuring the literature review
• Writing a literature review
• Writing with authority

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Literature reviews

• Introduction

Why write a literature review?

What is a literature review, how do i get started, searching for sources.

• Undertaking your literature review
• Developing your literature review
• Writing systematic reviews

Useful links for literature reviews

• Study Advice Helping students to achieve study success with guides, video tutorials, seminars and appointments.

• Doing your literature review (video) Watch this brief video tutorial for more on the topic.
• Doing your literature review (transcript) Read the transcript.
• Literature searching guide A guide to finding articles, books and other materials on your subject. Includes tips on constructing a comprehensive search using search operators (AND/OR), truncation and wildcards.
• Doing your literature search video - University of Reading Brief video on literature searching from our Academic Liaison Librarians.
• Royal Literary Fund: Writing a Literature Review A guide to writing literature reviews from the Royal Literary Fund
• What it means to be a critical student A brief and very useful video tutorial from the University of Leicester.
• Reading and notemaking LibGuide Expert guidance on managing your reading and making effective notes.
• Dissertations and major projects LibGuide Expert guidance on planning, researching and writing dissertations and major projects.

Before getting started on sourcing and reviewing the background literature for a research project, it is important to understand the role that a literature review plays in the research process, and how it can be helpful later on for placing your own findings in context. Knowing the job that a literature review does means you can be more targeted and systematic in your literature searching. The guidance on this page will explain what you need to know about the purpose of a literature review and how to begin scoping your search.  

New discoveries don't materialise out of nowhere; they build upon the findings of previous experiments and investigations. A literature review shows how the investigation you are conducting fits with what has gone before and puts it into context.

If you are doing a thesis, dissertation, or a long report it is likely that you will need to include a literature review. If you are doing a lab write-up or a shorter report, some background reading may be required to give context to your work, but this is usually included as an analysis in the introduction and discussion sections.

A literature review is a select analysis of existing research which is relevant to your topic, showing how it relates to your investigation. It explains and justifies how your investigation may help answer some of the questions or gaps in this area of research.

A literature review is not a straightforward summary of everything you have read on the topic and it is not a chronological description of what was discovered in your field.

A longer literature review may  have headings  to help group the relevant research into themes or topics. This gives a focus to your analysis, as you can group similar studies together and compare and contrast their approaches, any weaknesses or strengths in their methods, and their findings.

One common way to approach a literature review is to  start out broad and then become more specific . Think of it as an inverted triangle:

• First briefly explain the broad issues related to your investigation; you don't need to write much about this, just demonstrate that you are aware of the breadth of your subject.
• Then narrow your focus to deal with the studies that overlap with your research.
• Finally, hone in on any research which is directly related to your specific investigation. Proportionally you spend most time discussing those studies which have most direct relevance to your research.

• What research has already been done on this topic?
• What are the sub-areas of the topic you need to explore?
• What other research (perhaps not directly on the topic) might be relevant to your investigation?
• How do these sub-topics and other research overlap with your investigation?

Note down all your initial thoughts on the topic. You can use a spidergram or list to help you identify the areas you want to investigate further. It is important to do this before you start reading so that you don't waste time on unfocussed and irrelevant reading.

It's easy to think that the best way to search for texts is to use the Internet - to 'Google it'. There are useful online tools that you may use, like Google Scholar. However, for most literature reviews you will need to focus on academically authoritative texts like academic books, journals, research reports, government publications. Searching Google will give you thousands of hits, few of them authoritative, and you will waste time sorting through them.

A better idea is to use databases. These are available through the Library in paper and electronic (usually online) forms.

Use journal articles: They normally have the most up-to-date research and you will be expected to refer to them in your literature review. The Library has a guide on finding journal articles. 

The Library also has an Academic Liaison Librarian for each subject and guides to finding information in your subject. 

You may find review articles that survey developments in your field. These are very useful for identifying relevant sources - but do go back to the original texts and develop your own critical analysis if possible.

Another good way to find sources is to look at the reference lists in articles or books already identified as relevant to your topic. You will be expected to prioritise recent research, but it's also important to acknowledge the standard texts in your field. An easy way to identify these is to check reference lists to see which texts are frequently cited.

• Finding journal articles A guide from the Library about how to find articles for your research.
• Literature searching Includes tips on planning and conducting an effective search for literature using techniques such as search operators (AND/OR), truncation and wildcards.
• Doing your literature search - University of Reading Short video tutorial on literature searching from the Library.
• Subject guides Guides to specialist resources in subjects studied at the University.
• Keeping up-to-date (Library) Library guide to keeping up to date with new publications in your subject.
• Contact your Academic Liaison Librarian
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• Next: Undertaking your literature review >>
• Last Updated: Jun 21, 2024 10:30 AM
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Video: Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students

What is a literature review? What purpose does it serve in research? What should you expect when writing one? Find out here

Writing a literature review is an inevitable part of being a graduate student. So, before spending hours of your time working on a project involving a literature review, it helps to understand what a "literature review" is, and why it is important. 

You may need to do a literature review as a part of a course assignment, a capstone project, or a master's thesis or dissertation. No matter the context, a literature review is an essential part of the research process. 

Some important functions of a literature review are that it helps you to understand a research topic and develop your own perspective on a problem. Not only that, it lets you show your instructor or thesis committee what you know about the topic. 

Your instructor or advisor may assume you know what a literature review is and that you understand what they are expecting from you. You might hear phrases like: "What does the literature show us?" "Connect your ideas to the literature." "Survey the literature on the topic." 

Well, before you can review the literature, you need to make sure you know what is meant by "the literature." A good definition of the literature is that it is a collection of all the scholarly writings on a topic. These writings can be in the form of scholarly, peer reviewed articles, books, and other sources like conference proceedings. These may be called annual meetings or conventions. The literature also includes dissertations written by other graduate students. Collectively, these make up the literature. 

Visually, the literature might look like this. Often there are major works that have been written on a topic, and then other, later, works that build on them. These later works tend to be extending or responding to the original papers in some way. Basically, the literature is a continuously evolving network of scholarly works that interact with each other. 

As you do your own research, you'll begin to understand the relationships in this evolving web and how your own ideas connect to it. 

I'm John Classen, Associate Professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at North Carolina State University. Research is about telling a story, kind of like a chain story where each writer starts with a partial story created by others and takes it where the imagination leads. The existing literature is the story so far. You have to know where you are before you can go forward. But research is not just one linear story; many different lines of study contribute to the story you are trying to write. 

Your job in the literature review is to see where all the loose ends are in the various fields that are most closely related to what you want to do and to figure out what needs to be done next. The background to any good story has to be explained carefully or the reader doesn't know why one thing is important and something else is not; the reader has to understand what's going on. 

In the same way, researchers need the background in the literature of their discipline to know what's going on in their field of study. So, how do you turn a network of articles into a cohesive review of the literature? How do you find and tell the "story" behind your research topic? 

Reviewing the literature is like participating in a conversation. As you read and evaluate articles you begin to understand how they are connected and how they form the story that the authors are telling. Then you start to formulate your own response or contribution. 

This process - discovering relationships in the literature and developing and connecting your own ideas to it - is what helps you turn a network of articles into a coherent review of the literature. 

So what does a literature review look like? There are different types of literature reviews that you may encounter, or be required to write, while in graduate school. Literature reviews can range from being selective to comprehensive. They can also be part of a larger work or stand alone. 

A course assignment is an example of a selective review. It focuses on a small segment of the literature on a topic and makes up the entire work. The literature review in a thesis or dissertation is an example of a comprehensive review that is part of a larger work. 

Most research articles begin with a selective literature review to establish the context for the research reported in the paper. Often this is part of the introduction. Other literature reviews are meant to be fairly comprehensive and also to stand alone. This means that the entire article is devoted to reviewing the literature. 

A literature review that introduces an article can look like this. Here is an article about cognitive behavioral therapy. Here is the literature review, in this article it is part of the introduction. You can tell that the introduction includes a literature review because it discusses important research that has already been published on this topic. 

Here is an example of a stand alone literature review article, in this case, about employment. The article's title states that this is a review of the literature on the topic. However, not all review articles will have the term 'literature review' in their title. In-depth review articles like this are an excellent starting place for research on a topic. 

So, at this point, you may be asking yourself just what's involved in writing a literature review? And how do I get started? 

Writing a literature review is a process with several key steps. Let's look at each part of this process in more detail. 

Your first step involves choosing, exploring, and focusing a topic. At this stage you might discover that you need to tweak your topic or the scope of your research as you learn more about the topic in the literature. Then, of course, you'll need to do some research using article databases, the library catalog, Google Scholar, and other sources to find scholarly information. 

All along you'll be using your brain. You'll want to evaluate what you find and select articles, books, and other publications that will be the most useful. Then, you will need to read through these articles and try to understand, analyze, and critique what you read. 

While researching and organizing your paper, you'll collect a lot of information from many different sources. You can use citation management software like RefWorks, EndNote, or Zotero to help you stay organized. Then, of course, you'll need to write and revise your paper and create your final bibliography. 

One more thing: Writing a literature review is a process, but it is not always a linear process. One step does lead to another, but sometimes your research or reading will point you back to earlier steps as you learn more about your topic and the literature. 

At this point you might be wondering how do I actually review the literature I find? Let's look at what it means to review the literature. 

In the most general sense it means that you collect and read all the relevant papers and other literature on your topic. You want to provide an overview but also highlight key concepts and important papers. As you read you may start by describing and summarizing each article. Then you can start to make connections by comparing and contrasting those papers. 

You will also need to evaluate, analyze, and organize the information from your reading. When you work with the literature you will read and critically examine articles and books to see what's important or out of scope and analyze arguments for strengths and weaknesses. 

When working with the literature it is important to look for relationships between publications. Some of the important relationships between publications that you discover might include major themes and important concepts, as well as critical gaps and disagreements. 

But don't fall into the trap of making your review a laundry list of summaries of the works you read. A literature review is not an annotated bibliography. 

Your goal should be to go one step further and integrate and synthesize what you find in the literature into something new. Ideally, you will create your own conceptual map or outline of the literature on your topic. 

For example, let's say as you read you discover three major concepts that are important in the literature and relevant to your research. You should then identify how the literature - that is, the content in individual articles, books, and other publications - relates to the concepts you discovered. Some publications may be relevant to several concepts; others may apply to only one concept. What's important is that you develop and present your own organization and understanding of the literature. 

Then, when you write your literature review you will end up with a document that is organized by the concepts and relationships you found and developed based on your reading and thinking. Your review will not only cover what's been published on your topic, but will include your own thoughts and ideas. You will be telling the specific story that sets the background and shows the significance of your research. 

Researching and writing a good literature review is a challenging and sometimes intimidating process. Don't be afraid to seek assistance, whether from your adviser or instructor, campus writing center, or your librarian. Many librarians have subject specialties and can be especially helpful in identifying valuable resources and showing you how to obtain relevant information.

Video added on January 15, 2020

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A Tutorial on Indicating Responses and Their Importance in Mand Training

• Technical and Tutorials
• Published: 19 September 2024

Cite this article

• Sarah E. Frampton   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9279-7998 1 ,
• Judah B. Axe   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6182-2145 2 ,
• Caleb R. Davis 2 , 3 ,
• Olga Meleshkevich   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9510-0896 2 , 4 &
• Mei-Hua Li   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0672-9340 2 , 5  

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One of the most critical intervention strategies when working with individuals with significant language delays associated with autism spectrum disorder and related developmental delays is teaching mands. For mand training to be effective, an establishing operation (EO) must be in effect, yet EOs are often difficult to observe. Before learning to mand, an individual may point to or approach a reinforcer, which likely indicates an EO related to that reinforcer, and may be considered an indicating response (IR). Observing an IR before prompting a mand increases the likelihood that the prompt is delivered when an EO is in effect and that the response is truly a mand. Missing from the literature is a consistent definition of IRs and a robust set of guidelines for using them in practice. In this tutorial, we review the terms and topographies of IRs in the literature to arrive at a definition of IRs. We then provide practical, research-based recommendations for using IRs during mand training, as well as assessing, selecting, teaching, and replacing IRs. Last, we provide tools and resources related to decision making and data collection with respect to IRs.

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In this case, the intended listener for this tact is the speaker (i.e., the behavior analyst). The listener may then take “effective action” (Skinner, 1957 , p. 88) by more rapidly responding to the environmental conditions indicative of an EO, thereby strengthening the behavior of the client. By tacting, the speaker makes themselves a more efficacious mand trainer.

We came to this number through data collection for an unpublished systematic review of mand training studies. We acknowledge there are possibly more terms and examples. Our point is to acknowledge the inconsistency.

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We thank Dr. Matt Normand and Dr. Caio Miguel for their thoughtful comments regarding the intricacies of verbal behavior.

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Frampton, S.E., Axe, J.B., Davis, C.R. et al. A Tutorial on Indicating Responses and Their Importance in Mand Training. Behav Analysis Practice (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-024-00965-7

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