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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . 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.

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

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

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

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

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

What are the parts of a lit review?

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

Introduction:

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

Conclusion:

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

How should I organize my lit review?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• University of Texas Libraries

Literature Reviews

Steps in the literature review process.

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

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

Videos Tutorials about Literature Reviews

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

Recommended Reading

• Last Updated: Aug 26, 2024 5:59 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/literaturereviews

Research Methods

Chapter 3 literature review, 3.1 introduction.

The literature review is often the weak part in master theses.

There are various reasons for this.

One is that doing a proper literature review is not an easy task, and time-consuming.

It is not easy because two things may happen. - Either there is so much literature that summarizing it all is a daunting task. - Or there is little or even none to be found.

Too much literature is a luxury problem.

The way to handle this problem is by using a mind-map approach.

If your topic is, say, university performance , then zoom in on those aspects that you think are especially relevant.

If you still want to stick to the broad topic of university performance, then you can limit your search to recent items. For example, in Google Scholar you can customize the time range in a search to the last 5 years, thereby reducing the number of hits.

Likewise, refined or advanced searches can be applied in e-libraries like Ebsco and Science Direct . Still, if your research is on historic thinking on your topic, you need to adopt an alternative strategy to narrow down the number of hits.

Obviously, your objective in searching from whichever databases you are using, is in detecting the most relevant items and filtering out irrelevant ones. It takes experience, trial-and-error and common sense thinking to come to good results.

Given the sheer endless of papers, reports, books, newspaper articles and other items that can be found on any topic, the probability that two researchers – equally brilliant – on the same topic will end up with identical reference lists, is zero. For that reason, it is good practice to explicitly state your search strategies at the beginning of chapter 2.

3.2 Search Strategies: Snowballing

One strategy that saves a lot of time, is snowballing.

The idea is that in a first step, you identify, say, three of four key articles which are recent, high quality (published in A or B journals), and relevant (in the sense of being very close to your topic).

Since the authors of these articles have dealt with the same challenge of finding relevant articles, you can select articles from their lists of references. Then the snowball starts rolling and growing, as the second-wave articles again will contain some interesting references.

In this way, you will quickly acquaint yourself with the relevant theories and empirical studies in your field of interest.

The disadvantage of snowballing is that, by definition, you will travel back in time. So, make sure to start with recent articles, published no earlier than two or three years ago.

3.3 Be Selective!

We cannot emphasize enough that the review has to be critical. Often, students tend to write their literature review in the fallen-bookcase style. That is, as a collection of summaries of things that various authors have said but lacking a clear structure, leaving the reader with a why-am-I-reading-this feeling.

The messages are: - Write with an objective in mind - Structure the review - Use your own words and interpretations - Make clear why and how the items reviewed are important to your study.

3.4 Structure

With regard to the structure of your literature review, there are various way to do it. As long as the structure is clear and deliberate, it will ensure that the literature review becomes a relevant part of your thesis.

Three main structures are:

3.4.1 Chronological

This is especially relevant if you want to describe the trends in thinking on the topic over time.

For example, the views on the role of labor continue to change.

Nowadays, robotization and 3D-printing are efficient substitutes for human labor. But already in 1995, Rifkin wrote about the decline of the labor force. What can we learn from the views on the matter, over time?

Note that the snowballing-technique might miss out this old item!

Rifkin, J. (1995). The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons

3.4.2 By schools of thought

It is possible that even today, there are differing views on a certain topic.

For example, while globalization is seen as a trend of converging cultures, many researchers from empirical evidence find that cultural differences between nations persist – and are even reinforced in the face of globalization. Here, it makes sense to group the arguments of both camps, rather than use a chronological structure.

3.4.3 By (sub)topic.

Especially if your topic is broad, like in university performance , it makes sense to break down your discussion by topics.

For example, you can have sections on:

• Student performance
• Citations of university publications
• Performance of private versus public universities

3.5 Critical Review

One indicator of a critical review, is your ability to summarize the various items that you have reviewed in your own words, and in relation to one another. Reviews in the style of Johnson (2010) said “[literal quote]”, and Peters (2017) claimed “[literal quote]”, leave it very much to the reader to give it an interpretation. The value added of the researcher, is more than just selecting or collecting a number of papers. Without structure, and without paraphrasing and interpretation, the review is simply not a critical review of literature.

3.6 Role of the Literature Review in your Research

The literature review is an input to both your research questions and the design of your study.

As we have said before, in the initial stages you start reading driven by your initial research ideas, and you refine your ideas based on reading. It is a creative, circular process – rather than a linear from-goals-to-decisions process.

But once this part of the process is done, a linear type of project appears on the horizon.

The end-point of the first stage is a research model plus methodology.

The research model, in a nutshell, contains all the variables on which you need data, and the relationships between these variables.

The methodology is the way you are going to collect the data, for example doing a survey with a number of respondents in this region and that period of time.

It helps to see the literature as the bridge between the creative process (what do I want?) and the research project (how to collect and analyze the data?). The research model is, in essence, that bridge. The elements of the model are based on your research questions and the literature. We would not expect to see variables in your research model that are not discussed in the review of literature. In the same vein, why would you discuss issues in the review of literature that are not included in the research model?

There are exceptions to this black-and-white view. In your research model, you may include variables that have not been described in literature, like for example country or organization specific actors that you think are of relevance to the solution of the problem at hand (remember: it’s applied research!). You can also deliberately exclude variables that are discussed in the literature as being relevant, on the grounds of the need to focus on the issues that you think are most prevalent. Adding more variables to your research, and questions to your survey, may have consequences for the time and resources available.

3.7 Beware of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as:

• To use the ideas or words of someone else as your own
• To use someone else's work without crediting him or her
• To present as your new and original idea, a work that is derived from an existing source.

Plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.

All of following are considered plagiarism:

• Turning in someone else's work as your own
• Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
• Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
• Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
• Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
• Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work - whether you give credit or not.

Plagiarism can be avoided by properly citing sources.

Acknowledging that material has been borrowed and providing the reader with the information necessary to find that source is enough to prevent.

However, as indicated above, a soft form of plagiarism occurs if a substantial part of your thesis is based on ideas from others, and the added value in terms of discussion, interpretation and putting the reviewed items into the context of your thesis, is limited. Even if this soft form of plagiarism is not punished as such, then still the score on your literature review will be low – as it can hardly be called a critical review of literature.

3.8 Referencing

In referencing, it is mandatory to use the so-called APA-style. APA stands for American Psychological Association. A detailed overview of the APA-style can be found using this link .

Detailed information on referencing, using tools in MS Word and Mendeley is provided in the next chapter.

3.9 How To Write A Literature Review In Three Simple Steps

As a guideline, use the three-step approach:

• Step 1: Find relevant research
• Step 2: Log, catalog, & synthesize
• Step 3: Outlining & Writing up

Details on each of these three steps are in the video below.

Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library

• Collections
• Research Help

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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What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

What is the purpose of literature review , a. habitat loss and species extinction: , b. range shifts and phenological changes: , c. ocean acidification and coral reefs: , d. adaptive strategies and conservation efforts: .

• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal? 

Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review .

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

1. Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 

2. Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field.

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3. Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 

4. Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 

5. Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 

6. Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example 

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:  

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

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How to write a good literature review 

Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

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Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review 

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:  

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:  

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:  

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:  

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:  

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:  

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

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How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal?  

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The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a good literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. By combining effortless research with an easy citation process, Paperpal Research streamlines the literature review process and empowers you to write faster and with more confidence. Try Paperpal Research now and see for yourself.  

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

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Chapter 3: How to Get Started

Learning objectives.

At the conclusion of this chapter, you will be able to:

• Develop and refine a viable research question for your literature review

3.1 Topic selection

If the longest journey begins with the first step, most graduate-level literature reviews begin with choosing a relevant, appropriate, interesting topic about which to do the review.  Whether the topic is assigned, chosen from a list of possible options, or (most likely) developed on your own, a good way to begin your thinking is to take a general issue or subject and formulate it into a question. You may want to start to think about a single aspect in your field or discipline that might be interesting to pursue, such as ‘science education’ or ‘diabetes treatment.’

A good topic selection plan begins with a general orientation into the subject you are interested in pursuing in more depth. Although finding a good research question may initially feel like looking for a needle in a haystack, choosing a general topic is the first step.

Things to think about when choosing a topic area:

• Pick an area of interest; pick an area of experience; or, pick an area where you know there is a need for more research.
• It may be easier to start with “what” and “why” questions and expand on those. For example, in Nursing: what is current research on obesity and why is it significant to nursing and health sciences?  Or, in Education: what is media literacy and why is it significant to education sciences?
• If you are a teacher or other education practitioner, you might think about a current problem in the workplace such as, classroom management or parent interaction and expand from there.  Nurses may want to consider a current issue in a clinical or hospital setting, like hand washing or patient falls.

Other suggestions for choosing a topic include:

• Ask a professor, preferably one active in research, about possible topics
• Read departmental information on research interests of the faculty. Faculty research interests areas vary widely, so do some research on their past publications. Most departmental websites post faculty CVs.
• Read a research paper that interests you.  The paper’s literature review or background section will provide insight into the research question the author was seeking to address with his/her study.  Is the research incomplete, imprecise, biased, or inconsistent?  As you’re reading the paper, look for what’s missing.  These may be “gaps in the literature” that you might explore in your own study. The conclusion or discussion section at the end may also offer some questions for future exploration.  A recent blog posting in Science ( Pain, 2016 ) provides several tips from researchers and graduate students on how to effectively read these papers.
• Think about papers you enjoyed researching and writing as an undergraduate and choose a topic that reflects those interests
• Sift through the table of contents of annual reviews journals in your area of interest – such as, the Annual Review of Psychology , the Annual Review of Immunology , the Review of Research in Education , or the Annual Review of Nursing Research .
• Identify and browse journals related to your research interests. Faculty and librarians can help you identify relevant journals in your field and specific areas of interest.

Although it’s a good idea to avoid subjects that are too personal or emotional as these can interfere with an unbiased approach to the research, it’s also important to make sure you have more than a passing interest in the topic. You will be with this literature review for an extended period of time and it will be difficult to stick with it even under the best circumstances. A graduate student in psychology said, “‘My advice would be to NOT choose a topic that is an unappealing offshoot of your adviser’s work or a project that you have lukewarm feelings about in general…It’s important to remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and lukewarm feelings can turn cold quickly.’”  ( Dittman, 2005 ).

3.2 Question formulation

Now, take that general idea and begin to think about it in terms of a question. What do you really want to know about the topic?  As a warm-up exercise, try dropping a possible topic idea into one of the blank spaces below.  The questions may help bring your subject into sharper focus and provide you with the first important steps towards developing your topic. The type of paper you want to write (Definition, Analysis, Narration, etc.) can also be a useful way to begin thinking about your research question.  For example, if you’re interested in parent involvement in early childhood education, your research question might be “What are the various features of parent involvement in early childhood education?”  Or, if you want to do an evaluative literature review, your research question could be “What is the value of infant vaccination?”

• What does ___ mean? (Definition)
• What are the various features of ___? (Description)
• What are the component parts of ___? (Simple analysis)
• How is ___ made or done? (Process analysis)
• How should ___ by made or done? (Directional analysis)
• What is the essential function of ___? (Functional analysis)
• What are the causes of ___? (Causal analysis)
• What are the consequences of ___? (Causal analysis)
• What are the types of ___? (Classification)
• How is ___ like or unlike ___? (Comparison)
• What is the present status of ___? (Comparison)
• What is the significance of ___? (Interpretation)
• What are the facts about ___? (Reportage)
• How did ___ happen? (Narration)
• What kind of person is ___? (Characterization/Profile)
• What is the value of ___? (Evaluation)
• What are the essential major points or features of ___? (Summary)
• What case can be made for or against ___? (Persuasion)
• What is the relationship between  _____ and the outcome of ____? (Explorative)

For more information about how to form a research question, check out this video tutorial:

At this point, you will want to do an initial review of the existing literature to see what resources on your topic or question already exist.  Based on what you find, you may decide to alter your question in some way before going too far along a path that perhaps has already been well-covered by other scholars.

3.3 Research Question or Hypothesis?

Some things to keep in mind at this beginning stage of the research process is whether your literature review will be in the form of a research question or a hypothesis.  One way to determine that outcome is to compare the two and decide which format will work best for you.  For example, if the area you are researching is a relatively new field, and there is little or no existing literature or theory that indicates what you will find, then your literature review will likely be based on a research question .

3.3.1 Research question criteria:

The question should express a relationship between two or more variables – for example, how is  A related to B?  It should be clearly stated in a question form – such as, “How do grades (A) affect participation in class (B)?” or “How does parental education level (A) affect children’s vaccination status (B)?”  Your literature review, in turn, may become:

Grades as a classroom participation motivator: A literature review, or

Education level and vaccinations: A literature review

Your question should also imply possibilities for empirical testing–remember, metaphysical questions are not measurable and a variable that cannot be clearly defined cannot be tested.

3.3.2 Hypothesis criteria:

If, however, your literature review tests something based on the findings of a large amount of previous literature or a well-developed theory, your literature review will be to test of a hypothesis, rather than answer a question. The statement should indicate an expected relationship between variables and it must be testable.  State your hypothesis as simply and concisely as possible.  For example, if A, then B, as in: “If patient is obese, he/she will also be deaf.” ( Dhanda & Taheri, 2017 ).  Or, “For those who stutter, unusual temperament or anxiety is a causal factor.” ( Kefalianos, 2012 )

Decide what type of relationship you would like to study between the variables.  Now, try to express the relationship between the concepts as a single sentence–in the form of either a research question or a hypothesis.

3.4 Refining the question

Once you have selected your topic area and reviewed literature related to it, you may need to narrow it to something that can be realistically researched and answered. In addition to asking Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How questions, other types of questions you might begin to ask to further refine your topic include those that are: Descriptive, Differential or Comparative, Associative or Relational.

You might beginning by asking a series of PICO questions. Although the PICO method is used primarily in the health sciences, it can also be useful for narrowing/refining a research question in the social sciences as well.   A way to formulate an answerable question using the PICO model could look something like this:

• Patient, Population or Problem:  What are the characteristics of the patient or population?  For example, gender, age, other demographics. What is the situation or disease you are interested in?  For example, diabetes or classroom management
• Intervention or exposure:  What do you want to do with the patient, person, or population (e.g. treat, diagnose, observe)?  Such as, observe classroom behavior or reaction to a specific type of treatment
• Comparison:  What is the alternative to the intervention (e.g. placebo, different drug, surgery)?  For example, how does a sample group that is assigned homework compare to a similar group that is not assigned homework?
• Outcome:  What are the relevant outcomes (e.g. morbidity, death, complications)?  For example, how do lower cholesterol numbers or improved scores in spelling impact the target population?

Some examples of how the PICO method is used to refine a research question include:

• Education : “Is play-based learning an effective approach in early childhood education? – Population (early childhood) / Intervention (play-based learning),” or “Can music therapy help autistic students improve their communication skills? – Population (autistic students  / intervention (music therapy)”
• Nursing : “What is the effect of a dressing with silver in its composition on the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers? – Population (patients with diabetes) / Intervention (dressings made with silver)” or “How effective are antidepressive medications on anxiety and depression? – Intervention (antidepressants) / Population (patients with anxiety and depression)”

Another mnemonic technique used in the social sciences for narrowing a topic is SPICE .  An example of how SPICE factors can be used to develop a research question is given below:

S etting – for example, Canada P erspective – for example, Adolescents I ntervention – for example, Text message reminders C omparisons – for example, Telephone message reminders E valuation – for example, Number of homework assignments turned in after text message reminder compared to the number of assignments turned in after a telephone reminder

Likewise, developing a concept map or mind map around your topic may help you analyze your question and determine more precisely what you want to research.  Using this technique, start with the broad topic, issue, or problem, and begin writing down all the words, phrases and ideas related to that topic that come to mind and then ‘map’ them to the original idea.

This mapping technique aims to improve  the “description of the breadth and depth of literature in a domain of inquiry. It also facilitates identification of the number and nature of studies underpinning mapped relationships among concepts, thus laying the groundwork for systematic research reviews and meta-analyses.” ( Lesley, Floyd, & Oermann, 2002 ; D’Antoni & Pinto Zipp, G., 2006 ).  Its purpose, like the other methods of question refining, is to help you organize, prioritize, and integrate material into a workable research area; one that is interesting, answerable, realistic in terms of resource availability and time management, objective, scholarly, original, and clear.

Check out this YouTube video for more basic information on how to map your research question:

In addition to helping you get started with your own literature review, the techniques described here will give you some keywords and concepts that will be useful when you begin searching the literature for relevant studies and publications on your topic.

For example, perhaps your initial idea or interest is ‘how to prevent obesity.’ After an initial search of the relevant nursing literature, you realize the topic of ‘obesity’ is too broad to adequately cover in the time you have to do your literature review.  You decide to narrow your focus to ‘causes of childhood obesity.’ Using PICO factors you further narrow your search to ‘the influence of family factors on overweight children.’  A potential research question might then be “What maternal factors are associated with toddler obesity in the United States?”  You’re now ready to begin searching the literature for studies, reports, cases, and other information sources that relate to this question.

Similarly, for a broad topic like ‘school performance’ or ‘grades,’ and after an initial literature search that provides some variables, examples of a narrow research question might be:

• “To what extent does parental involvement in children’s education relate to school performance over the course of the early grades?”
• “Do parental involvement levels differ by family social, demographic, and contextual characteristics?”
• “ What forms of parent involvement are most highly correlated with children’s outcomes? What factors might influence the extent of parental involvement?” ( Early Childhood Longitudinal Program, 2011 ).

Take a general topic such as “Reading Comprehension” or “Hospital Falls” and identify a slightly more narrow concept by using the questions provided in the worksheet.

• Next refine your topic further by choosing one of the PICO factors
• Now practice writing your topic as a research question or hypothesis
• Is your question or hypothesis interesting, answerable, and clear?  Ask a classmate to read your question or hypothesis and explain to you what the research will be.

Good question? | Bad question? | Why?

Each of the questions below has advantages and disadvantages.  Based on some of the criteria for formulating a research question discussed in this section, which of the following questions seems the most viable for further study and why?  See the Answer Key for the correct responses

• Education : Do adult learners in a rural adult education setting have characteristics that are similar to adult learners in general
• Education : What are the characteristics of rural adult learners in an adult education program?
• Education : How does the U.S. Department of Education serve rural learners?

Look at these recent publications in the literature for nursing and education.  Can you spot the research question?  Which PICO factors were used in each example?

• Nursing : Workplace Hazards Faced by Nursing Assistants in the United States: A Focused Literature Review. ( Walton, A., & Rogers, B., 2017 ).
• Nursing : What are the family needs when a parent has mental health problems? Evidence from a systematic literature review. ( Wahl, et al., 2017 ).
• Education : Music in Peacebuilding: A Critical Literature Review (Sandoval, 2016).
• Nursing : Health literacy programs for older adults: A systematic literature review ( Manafo & Wong, 2012 ).
• Education : English language learners and reading instruction:  A review of the literature. ( Snyder, Witmer, & Schmitt, 2017 ).
• Nursing : Cultural interventions to treat addictions in indigenous populations: Findings from a scoping study. ( Rowan et al, 2014 ).

Test Yourself

See the Answer Key for the correct response.

Question 1: This is an effective research question: Do school breakfast programs in Washington and Oregon differ? Choose True or False

Question 2. which of the two questions below is more effective  choose a or b.

• Are females smarter than males?
• Do females aged 18-36 score higher on the Graduate Record Exam than adult males between the ages of 18-35?

Question 3. Which of the following research question is more effective? Choose A or B

•  Five methods of assessing nursing students’ critical thinking skills within the context of clinical practice are: 1) Observation, 2) Questions, 3) Conferences, 4) Problem-solving strategies, and 5) written assignments.  The literature is reviewed on each of these methods.
• Critical thinking is an important competency needed by nursing students.  Varied methods can be used for assessing critical thinking.

Question 4. This is the research question: What impact has the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program had on high school graduation rates?

What information sources will i need to find to begin my literature review choose a, b, c, or d..

• statistics on graduation rates before and after the program went into effect
• statistics on the success or failure of other retention programs
• information about government education programs before and after the era of NCLB
• all of the above

Question 5. Is the scope of this information reasonable:

I will review 30 online nursing training programs developed over a span of 10 years? Choose Yes or No

Question 6. PICO questions are a good way to narrow your research focus.  What does PICO mean? Choose 1, 2, 3, or 4

• Parents, Intermediaries, Corporations, Oscillations
• Populations, Interventions, Comparisons, Outcomes
• Problems, Instruments, Channels, Operations
• Patients, Interference, Courses, Origins

Image Attribution

Literature Reviews for Education and Nursing Graduate Students Copyright © by Linda Frederiksen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Reviewing the Literature

• First Online: 29 November 2023

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• Ahmed Ibrahim 3  

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Realizing that a grasp of the literature is fundamental to being able to produce scholarship, it follows that a sophisticated literature review is a pathway to producing sophisticated scholarship. Literature reviews have been found to increase publications, which in turn leads to increased opportunities and improved competitiveness for grants, awards, and employment among early-career researchers. The health scholar who does a thorough review of the literature quickly becomes a comparative expert in the field. The literature review sets boundaries and contexts, provides synthesis and trends, and identifies problems and gaps for further study. For health scholars, it is important to understand the importance of gaps in the literature. Gaps are areas that are ripe to explore where scholarship dissemination may be particularly effective. For a review of the literature such as you would do in the introduction section of a manuscript, you want to be sure that you have a good grasp of the current state of the literature so you can feel confident providing a brief review at the start of your introduction. However, the introduction in the manuscript is more than a summary of facts. A good writer will make it compelling.

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Ibrahim, A. (2023). Reviewing the Literature. In: Fitzgerald, A.S., Bosch, G. (eds) Education Scholarship in Healthcare. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38534-6_3

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What Is A Literature Review?

A plain-language explainer (with examples).

By:  Derek Jansen (MBA) & Kerryn Warren (PhD) | June 2020 (Updated May 2023)

If you’re faced with writing a dissertation or thesis, chances are you’ve encountered the term “literature review” . If you’re on this page, you’re probably not 100% what the literature review is all about. The good news is that you’ve come to the right place.

Literature Review 101

• What (exactly) is a literature review
• What’s the purpose of the literature review chapter
• How to find high-quality resources
• How to structure your literature review chapter
• Example of an actual literature review

What is a literature review?

The word “literature review” can refer to two related things that are part of the broader literature review process. The first is the task of  reviewing the literature  – i.e. sourcing and reading through the existing research relating to your research topic. The second is the  actual chapter  that you write up in your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s look at each of them:

Reviewing the literature

The first step of any literature review is to hunt down and  read through the existing research  that’s relevant to your research topic. To do this, you’ll use a combination of tools (we’ll discuss some of these later) to find journal articles, books, ebooks, research reports, dissertations, theses and any other credible sources of information that relate to your topic. You’ll then  summarise and catalogue these  for easy reference when you write up your literature review chapter. 

The literature review chapter

The second step of the literature review is to write the actual literature review chapter (this is usually the second chapter in a typical dissertation or thesis structure ). At the simplest level, the literature review chapter is an  overview of the key literature  that’s relevant to your research topic. This chapter should provide a smooth-flowing discussion of what research has already been done, what is known, what is unknown and what is contested in relation to your research topic. So, you can think of it as an  integrated review of the state of knowledge  around your research topic. 

What’s the purpose of a literature review?

The literature review chapter has a few important functions within your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s take a look at these:

Purpose #1 – Demonstrate your topic knowledge

The first function of the literature review chapter is, quite simply, to show the reader (or marker) that you  know what you’re talking about . In other words, a good literature review chapter demonstrates that you’ve read the relevant existing research and understand what’s going on – who’s said what, what’s agreed upon, disagreed upon and so on. This needs to be  more than just a summary  of who said what – it needs to integrate the existing research to  show how it all fits together  and what’s missing (which leads us to purpose #2, next). 

Purpose #2 – Reveal the research gap that you’ll fill

The second function of the literature review chapter is to  show what’s currently missing  from the existing research, to lay the foundation for your own research topic. In other words, your literature review chapter needs to show that there are currently “missing pieces” in terms of the bigger puzzle, and that  your study will fill one of those research gaps . By doing this, you are showing that your research topic is original and will help contribute to the body of knowledge. In other words, the literature review helps justify your research topic.  

Purpose #3 – Lay the foundation for your conceptual framework

The third function of the literature review is to form the  basis for a conceptual framework . Not every research topic will necessarily have a conceptual framework, but if your topic does require one, it needs to be rooted in your literature review. 

For example, let’s say your research aims to identify the drivers of a certain outcome – the factors which contribute to burnout in office workers. In this case, you’d likely develop a conceptual framework which details the potential factors (e.g. long hours, excessive stress, etc), as well as the outcome (burnout). Those factors would need to emerge from the literature review chapter – they can’t just come from your gut! 

So, in this case, the literature review chapter would uncover each of the potential factors (based on previous studies about burnout), which would then be modelled into a framework. 

Purpose #4 – To inform your methodology

The fourth function of the literature review is to  inform the choice of methodology  for your own research. As we’ve  discussed on the Grad Coach blog , your choice of methodology will be heavily influenced by your research aims, objectives and questions . Given that you’ll be reviewing studies covering a topic close to yours, it makes sense that you could learn a lot from their (well-considered) methodologies.

So, when you’re reviewing the literature, you’ll need to  pay close attention to the research design , methodology and methods used in similar studies, and use these to inform your methodology. Quite often, you’ll be able to  “borrow” from previous studies . This is especially true for quantitative studies , as you can use previously tried and tested measures and scales. 

How do I find articles for my literature review?

Finding quality journal articles is essential to crafting a rock-solid literature review. As you probably already know, not all research is created equally, and so you need to make sure that your literature review is  built on credible research . 

We could write an entire post on how to find quality literature (actually, we have ), but a good starting point is Google Scholar . Google Scholar is essentially the academic equivalent of Google, using Google’s powerful search capabilities to find relevant journal articles and reports. It certainly doesn’t cover every possible resource, but it’s a very useful way to get started on your literature review journey, as it will very quickly give you a good indication of what the  most popular pieces of research  are in your field.

One downside of Google Scholar is that it’s merely a search engine – that is, it lists the articles, but oftentimes  it doesn’t host the articles . So you’ll often hit a paywall when clicking through to journal websites. 

Thankfully, your university should provide you with access to their library, so you can find the article titles using Google Scholar and then search for them by name in your university’s online library. Your university may also provide you with access to  ResearchGate , which is another great source for existing research. 

Remember, the correct search keywords will be super important to get the right information from the start. So, pay close attention to the keywords used in the journal articles you read and use those keywords to search for more articles. If you can’t find a spoon in the kitchen, you haven’t looked in the right drawer. 

Need a helping hand?

How should I structure my literature review?

Unfortunately, there’s no generic universal answer for this one. The structure of your literature review will depend largely on your topic area and your research aims and objectives.

You could potentially structure your literature review chapter according to theme, group, variables , chronologically or per concepts in your field of research. We explain the main approaches to structuring your literature review here . You can also download a copy of our free literature review template to help you establish an initial structure.

In general, it’s also a good idea to start wide (i.e. the big-picture-level) and then narrow down, ending your literature review close to your research questions . However, there’s no universal one “right way” to structure your literature review. The most important thing is not to discuss your sources one after the other like a list – as we touched on earlier, your literature review needs to synthesise the research , not summarise it .

Ultimately, you need to craft your literature review so that it conveys the most important information effectively – it needs to tell a logical story in a digestible way. It’s no use starting off with highly technical terms and then only explaining what these terms mean later. Always assume your reader is not a subject matter expert and hold their hand through a journe y of the literature while keeping the functions of the literature review chapter (which we discussed earlier) front of mind.

Example of a literature review

In the video below, we walk you through a high-quality literature review from a dissertation that earned full distinction. This will give you a clearer view of what a strong literature review looks like in practice and hopefully provide some inspiration for your own. 

Wrapping Up

In this post, we’ve (hopefully) answered the question, “ what is a literature review? “. We’ve also considered the purpose and functions of the literature review, as well as how to find literature and how to structure the literature review chapter. If you’re keen to learn more, check out the literature review section of the Grad Coach blog , as well as our detailed video post covering how to write a literature review . 

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 .

16 Comments

Thanks for this review. It narrates what’s not been taught as tutors are always in a early to finish their classes.

Thanks for the kind words, Becky. Good luck with your literature review 🙂

This website is amazing, it really helps break everything down. Thank you, I would have been lost without it.

This is review is amazing. I benefited from it a lot and hope others visiting this website will benefit too.

Timothy T. Chol [email protected]

Thank you very much for the guiding in literature review I learn and benefited a lot this make my journey smooth I’ll recommend this site to my friends

This was so useful. Thank you so much.

Hi, Concept was explained nicely by both of you. Thanks a lot for sharing it. It will surely help research scholars to start their Research Journey.

The review is really helpful to me especially during this period of covid-19 pandemic when most universities in my country only offer online classes. Great stuff

Great Brief Explanation, thanks

So helpful to me as a student

GradCoach is a fantastic site with brilliant and modern minds behind it.. I spent weeks decoding the substantial academic Jargon and grounding my initial steps on the research process, which could be shortened to a couple of days through the Gradcoach. Thanks again!

This is an amazing talk. I paved way for myself as a researcher. Thank you GradCoach!

Well-presented overview of the literature!

This was brilliant. So clear. Thank you

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3 Chapter 3 The Literature Review, Theory, Problem Statement, and Hypotheses

• Published: December 2009
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This chapter discusses the literature review in a social work dissertation including strategies for researching and evaluating the literature, tips for completing a literature search, as well as analyzing, synthesizing, integrating the literature, and finally writing the literature review itself. In addition, the relevance of theory to social work research is examined, as is the development of the statement of the problem, issues in developing hypotheses, and defining and operationalizing measurable variables.

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