research literature review humanities

Writing a Literature Review in the Arts and Humanities

• 1. Get Started
• 2.1 Find Review Articles
• 3.1 Find Scholarly Journals
• 3.2 Find Theses or Dissertations
• 3.3 Track Citations
• 4. Evaluate Literature
• 5. Take Notes & Manage References
• 6. Keep Current
• 7. Prepare First Draft & Revise

Humanities Librarian

Process of Literature Review

This guide was created to help FSU students in the arts and humanities with writing a literature review.

Whether you are writing a literature review for your term paper, research article, or thesis/dissertation, we hope you will find some helpful tips for completing the task.

Each tab in this guide was designed to correspond to each stage of the literature review process. However, research and writing are iterative processes; they do not necessarily follow a linear process. You may find yourself cycling through stages more than once, perhaps going back to your topic after a first reading of articles and books you have discovered. The outline here is meant only as a guide for thinking about the process.

What is a Literature Review?

A Literature Review IS.. .

• a selective, integrated analysis and synthesis of what has been researched and published on a particular topic
• a process, typically starting from selecting a topic to review and concluding with writing a manuscript to report the published works on the topic
• an iterative process: you may have to keep coming back to previous stage(s) to refine your topic, modify the search statements, and/or revise a working thesis, etc.

A Good Literature Review IS NOT...

• a mere summary of what you have read on a topic
• a summary of everything that is reported on a topic
• an annotated bibliography 

         ...BUT IS

• a critical summary of relevant and selective literature on the topic
• written in clear language
• a piece of research on its own

         ...AND DOES

• situate and focus your research in context
• use credible and most relevant sources
• add value to the existing knowledge on the topic

FSU Reading Writing Center

The Florida State University Reading-Writing Center and Digital Studio offers writing support to all FSU students across all the disciplines.

• FSU Reading-Writing Center (RWC) an inclusive resource for FSU students of all majors, programs, and backgrounds. Whether you are working on a project, a paper, or any range of writing, the RWC is excited to assist you in any stage of your work process.

Video Tutorials

•   Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students  (9:38)
•   From North Carolina State University Libraries
• Writing the Literature Reviews: Step-by-Step Tutorial for Graduate Students  : Part 1 (5:21)  
•    From Univ. of Maryland University College

These tutorials are hosted on YouTube and may include advertising. FSU Libraries do not endorse ads promoted by YouTube.

Guide Authors

This guide was authored by Abby Scheel in 2017. Adam Beauchamp maintains the guide and is the point of contact for inquiries.

Except where otherwise noted, the content in this guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License . 

• Next: 1. Get Started >>
• Last Updated: Sep 20, 2023 11:38 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.fsu.edu/litreview_arthum

© 2022 Florida State University Libraries | 116 Honors Way | Tallahassee, FL 32306 | (850) 644-2706

Literature Reviews

What this handout is about.

This handout will explain what literature reviews are and offer insights into the form and construction of literature reviews in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

Introduction

OK. You’ve got to write a literature review. You dust off a novel and a book of poetry, settle down in your chair, and get ready to issue a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” as you leaf through the pages. “Literature review” done. Right?

Wrong! The “literature” of a literature review refers to any collection of materials on a topic, not necessarily the great literary texts of the world. “Literature” could be anything from a set of government pamphlets on British colonial methods in Africa to scholarly articles on the treatment of a torn ACL. And a review does not necessarily mean that your reader wants you to give your personal opinion on whether or not you liked these sources.

What is a literature review, then?

A literature review discusses published information in a particular subject area, and sometimes information in a particular subject area within a certain time period.

A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. It might give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations. Or it might trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates. And depending on the situation, the literature review may evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant.

But how is a literature review different from an academic research paper?

The main focus of an academic research paper is to develop a new argument, and a research paper is likely to contain a literature review as one of its parts. In a research paper, you use the literature as a foundation and as support for a new insight that you contribute. The focus of a literature review, however, is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of others without adding new contributions.

Why do we write literature reviews?

Literature reviews provide you with a handy guide to a particular topic. If you have limited time to conduct research, literature reviews can give you an overview or act as a stepping stone. For professionals, they are useful reports that keep them up to date with what is current in the field. For scholars, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the writer in his or her field. Literature reviews also provide a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. Comprehensive knowledge of the literature of the field is essential to most research papers.

Who writes these things, anyway?

Literature reviews are written occasionally in the humanities, but mostly in the sciences and social sciences; in experiment and lab reports, they constitute a section of the paper. Sometimes a literature review is written as a paper in itself.

Let’s get to it! What should I do before writing the literature review?

If your assignment is not very specific, seek clarification from your instructor:

• Roughly how many sources should you include?
• What types of sources (books, journal articles, websites)?
• Should you summarize, synthesize, or critique your sources by discussing a common theme or issue?
• Should you evaluate your sources?
• Should you provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history?

Find models

Look for other literature reviews in your area of interest or in the discipline and read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or ways to organize your final review. You can simply put the word “review” in your search engine along with your other topic terms to find articles of this type on the Internet or in an electronic database. The bibliography or reference section of sources you’ve already read are also excellent entry points into your own research.

Narrow your topic

There are hundreds or even thousands of articles and books on most areas of study. The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to get a good survey of the material. Your instructor will probably not expect you to read everything that’s out there on the topic, but you’ll make your job easier if you first limit your scope.

Keep in mind that UNC Libraries have research guides and to databases relevant to many fields of study. You can reach out to the subject librarian for a consultation: https://library.unc.edu/support/consultations/ .

And don’t forget to tap into your professor’s (or other professors’) knowledge in the field. Ask your professor questions such as: “If you had to read only one book from the 90’s on topic X, what would it be?” Questions such as this help you to find and determine quickly the most seminal pieces in the field.

Consider whether your sources are current

Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. In the sciences, for instance, treatments for medical problems are constantly changing according to the latest studies. Information even two years old could be obsolete. However, if you are writing a review in the humanities, history, or social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be what is needed, because what is important is how perspectives have changed through the years or within a certain time period. Try sorting through some other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to consider what is currently of interest to scholars in this field and what is not.

Strategies for writing the literature review

Find a focus.

A literature review, like a term paper, is usually organized around ideas, not the sources themselves as an annotated bibliography would be organized. This means that you will not just simply list your sources and go into detail about each one of them, one at a time. No. As you read widely but selectively in your topic area, consider instead what themes or issues connect your sources together. Do they present one or different solutions? Is there an aspect of the field that is missing? How well do they present the material and do they portray it according to an appropriate theory? Do they reveal a trend in the field? A raging debate? Pick one of these themes to focus the organization of your review.

Convey it to your reader

A literature review may not have a traditional thesis statement (one that makes an argument), but you do need to tell readers what to expect. Try writing a simple statement that lets the reader know what is your main organizing principle. Here are a couple of examples:

The current trend in treatment for congestive heart failure combines surgery and medicine. More and more cultural studies scholars are accepting popular media as a subject worthy of academic consideration.

Consider organization

You’ve got a focus, and you’ve stated it clearly and directly. Now what is the most effective way of presenting the information? What are the most important topics, subtopics, etc., that your review needs to include? And in what order should you present them? Develop an organization for your review at both a global and local level:

First, cover the basic categories

Just like most academic papers, literature reviews also must contain at least three basic elements: an introduction or background information section; the body of the review containing the discussion of sources; and, finally, a conclusion and/or recommendations section to end the paper. The following provides a brief description of the content of each:

• Introduction: Gives a quick idea of the topic of the literature review, such as the central theme or organizational pattern.
• Body: Contains your discussion of sources and is organized either chronologically, thematically, or methodologically (see below for more information on each).
• Conclusions/Recommendations: Discuss what you have drawn from reviewing literature so far. Where might the discussion proceed?

Organizing the body

Once you have the basic categories in place, then you must consider how you will present the sources themselves within the body of your paper. Create an organizational method to focus this section even further.

To help you come up with an overall organizational framework for your review, consider the following scenario:

You’ve decided to focus your literature review on materials dealing with sperm whales. This is because you’ve just finished reading Moby Dick, and you wonder if that whale’s portrayal is really real. You start with some articles about the physiology of sperm whales in biology journals written in the 1980’s. But these articles refer to some British biological studies performed on whales in the early 18th century. So you check those out. Then you look up a book written in 1968 with information on how sperm whales have been portrayed in other forms of art, such as in Alaskan poetry, in French painting, or on whale bone, as the whale hunters in the late 19th century used to do. This makes you wonder about American whaling methods during the time portrayed in Moby Dick, so you find some academic articles published in the last five years on how accurately Herman Melville portrayed the whaling scene in his novel.

Now consider some typical ways of organizing the sources into a review:

• Chronological: If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials above according to when they were published. For instance, first you would talk about the British biological studies of the 18th century, then about Moby Dick, published in 1851, then the book on sperm whales in other art (1968), and finally the biology articles (1980s) and the recent articles on American whaling of the 19th century. But there is relatively no continuity among subjects here. And notice that even though the sources on sperm whales in other art and on American whaling are written recently, they are about other subjects/objects that were created much earlier. Thus, the review loses its chronological focus.
• By publication: Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on biological studies of sperm whales if the progression revealed a change in dissection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies.
• By trend: A better way to organize the above sources chronologically is to examine the sources under another trend, such as the history of whaling. Then your review would have subsections according to eras within this period. For instance, the review might examine whaling from pre-1600-1699, 1700-1799, and 1800-1899. Under this method, you would combine the recent studies on American whaling in the 19th century with Moby Dick itself in the 1800-1899 category, even though the authors wrote a century apart.
• Thematic: Thematic reviews of literature are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time. However, progression of time may still be an important factor in a thematic review. For instance, the sperm whale review could focus on the development of the harpoon for whale hunting. While the study focuses on one topic, harpoon technology, it will still be organized chronologically. The only difference here between a “chronological” and a “thematic” approach is what is emphasized the most: the development of the harpoon or the harpoon technology.But more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. For instance, a thematic review of material on sperm whales might examine how they are portrayed as “evil” in cultural documents. The subsections might include how they are personified, how their proportions are exaggerated, and their behaviors misunderstood. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point made.
• Methodological: A methodological approach differs from the two above in that the focusing factor usually does not have to do with the content of the material. Instead, it focuses on the “methods” of the researcher or writer. For the sperm whale project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of whales in American, British, and French art work. Or the review might focus on the economic impact of whaling on a community. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed. Once you’ve decided on the organizational method for the body of the review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out. They should arise out of your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period. A thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue.

Sometimes, though, you might need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. Put in only what is necessary. Here are a few other sections you might want to consider:

• Current Situation: Information necessary to understand the topic or focus of the literature review.
• History: The chronological progression of the field, the literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Methods and/or Standards: The criteria you used to select the sources in your literature review or the way in which you present your information. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed articles and journals.

Questions for Further Research: What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

Begin composing

Once you’ve settled on a general pattern of organization, you’re ready to write each section. There are a few guidelines you should follow during the writing stage as well. Here is a sample paragraph from a literature review about sexism and language to illuminate the following discussion:

However, other studies have shown that even gender-neutral antecedents are more likely to produce masculine images than feminine ones (Gastil, 1990). Hamilton (1988) asked students to complete sentences that required them to fill in pronouns that agreed with gender-neutral antecedents such as “writer,” “pedestrian,” and “persons.” The students were asked to describe any image they had when writing the sentence. Hamilton found that people imagined 3.3 men to each woman in the masculine “generic” condition and 1.5 men per woman in the unbiased condition. Thus, while ambient sexism accounted for some of the masculine bias, sexist language amplified the effect. (Source: Erika Falk and Jordan Mills, “Why Sexist Language Affects Persuasion: The Role of Homophily, Intended Audience, and Offense,” Women and Language19:2).

Use evidence

In the example above, the writers refer to several other sources when making their point. A literature review in this sense is just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence to show that what you are saying is valid.

Be selective

Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the review’s focus, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological.

Use quotes sparingly

Falk and Mills do not use any direct quotes. That is because the survey nature of the literature review does not allow for in-depth discussion or detailed quotes from the text. Some short quotes here and there are okay, though, if you want to emphasize a point, or if what the author said just cannot be rewritten in your own words. Notice that Falk and Mills do quote certain terms that were coined by the author, not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. But if you find yourself wanting to put in more quotes, check with your instructor.

Summarize and synthesize

Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each paragraph as well as throughout the review. The authors here recapitulate important features of Hamilton’s study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study’s significance and relating it to their own work.

Keep your own voice

While the literature review presents others’ ideas, your voice (the writer’s) should remain front and center. Notice that Falk and Mills weave references to other sources into their own text, but they still maintain their own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with their own ideas and their own words. The sources support what Falk and Mills are saying.

Use caution when paraphrasing

When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author’s information or opinions accurately and in your own words. In the preceding example, Falk and Mills either directly refer in the text to the author of their source, such as Hamilton, or they provide ample notation in the text when the ideas they are mentioning are not their own, for example, Gastil’s. For more information, please see our handout on plagiarism .

Revise, revise, revise

Draft in hand? Now you’re ready to revise. Spending a lot of time revising is a wise idea, because your main objective is to present the material, not the argument. So check over your review again to make sure it follows the assignment and/or your outline. Then, just as you would for most other academic forms of writing, rewrite or rework the language of your review so that you’ve presented your information in the most concise manner possible. Be sure to use terminology familiar to your audience; get rid of unnecessary jargon or slang. Finally, double check that you’ve documented your sources and formatted the review appropriately for your discipline. For tips on the revising and editing process, see our handout on revising drafts .

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Jones, Robert, Patrick Bizzaro, and Cynthia Selfe. 1997. The Harcourt Brace Guide to Writing in the Disciplines . New York: Harcourt Brace.

Lamb, Sandra E. 1998. How to Write It: A Complete Guide to Everything You’ll Ever Write . Berkeley: Ten Speed Press.

Rosen, Leonard J., and Laurence Behrens. 2003. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook , 5th ed. New York: Longman.

Troyka, Lynn Quittman, and Doug Hesse. 2016. Simon and Schuster Handbook for Writers , 11th ed. London: Pearson.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing a Literature Review

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

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.

• USC Libraries
• Research Guides

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• 5. The Literature Review
• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Applying Critical Thinking
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Research Process Video Series
• Executive Summary
• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Insiderness
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Writing Concisely
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Generative AI and Writing
• USC Libraries Tutorials and Other Guides
• Bibliography

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

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

Importance of a Good Literature Review

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

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

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

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

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

Types of Literature Reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

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

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

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

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

II.  Development of the Literature Review

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

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

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

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

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

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

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

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

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

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

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

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

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

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

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

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

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

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

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

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

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

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

Yet Another Writing Tip

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

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

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

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

• << Previous: Theoretical Framework
• Next: Citation Tracking >>
• Last Updated: May 9, 2024 11:05 AM
• URL: https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide

University of Denver

University libraries, research guides, literature reviews for the humanities, social sciences, & sciences: search strategies and tips.

• Literature Review Resources

Search Strategies and Tips

• Humanities Resources
• Social Sciences Resources
• Science Resources
• Evaluating Sources
• Citing & Organizing Sources

1.       Search Strategies

a.        Formulate a research question:

What has been written about retention of Hispanics in higher education?

b.       Identify databases, both subject specific and interdisciplinary, for example:

                i.       Brainstorm keywords and identify subject headings/descriptors, for example:

Keywords : retention -> graduates, graduation

  higher education -> college, university

  hispanics -> latino, latina

Relevant ERIC descriptors:  Retention; Academic persistence; Drop out prevention; Academic achievement; School holding power; Hispanic American students.

                ii.       Keep track of search strategies.

               iii.       Do multiple searches with different combinations of keywords and subject headings/descriptors, such as:

hispanic american students and (retention or graduat*)

               iv.       Search for literature reviews on topic. 

  In databases with a methodology limiter, such as PsycInfo or Medline, type in your search:

and then scroll down to limit by methodology:

For databases without methodology limiters or subject headings/descriptors for the concept, try combining your search terms with phrases such as:  literature review, systematic review, meta anlysis, review article, recent studie, and so forth.

                v.       Keeping current using alerts and RSS feeds.

c.        Identify key authors and works to establish the foundation for your argument's place in the ongoing academic/scholarly conversation.

d.       " Cited by" - this feature allows you to identify who has cited specific works in their own research. This can also help you find more current publications citing sources important to your own research.  In Google Scholar, for  example:

e.        Mine reference lists for additional materials that may be relevant to your topic.

f.        Depending upon your topic, you m ay want to identify popular/non-scholarly authors and texts that may be relevant to your argument.

g.       Be sure to check with your personal contacts, such as faculty and colleagues, for additional authors or publications that may be important to your work.

h.       Browsing the library shelves by call number can be another means of discovering relevant literature.

i.       Consult your reference librarians for research help throughout the process.

Librarian Profile

Science & Engineering Librarian

• << Previous: Literature Review Resources
• Next: Humanities Resources >>
• Last Updated: Nov 17, 2022 10:45 AM
• URL: https://libguides.du.edu/litreview

• Search Menu
• Advance articles
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Open Access
• Why Publish?
• About Research Evaluation
• Editorial Board
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Journals Career Network
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Dispatch Dates
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

• Introduction
• Scoping review
• Approaches and instruments to assess the societal impact of SSH
• Methods for SSH research impact assessment
• Main distinctions
• Acknowledgements
• < Previous

Methods for mapping the impact of social sciences and humanities — A literature review

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

David Budtz Pedersen, Jonas Følsgaard Grønvad, Rolf Hvidtfeldt, Methods for mapping the impact of social sciences and humanities — A literature review, Research Evaluation , Volume 29, Issue 1, January 2020, Pages 4–21, https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvz033

• Permissions Icon Permissions

This article explores the current literature on ‘research impact’ in the social sciences and humanities (SSH). By providing a comprehensive review of available literature, drawing on national and international experiences, we take a systematic look at the impact agenda within SSH. The primary objective of this article is to examine key methodological components used to assess research impact comparing the advantages and disadvantages of each method. The study finds that research impact is a highly complex and contested concept in the SSH literature. Drawing on the strong methodological pluralism emerging in the literature, we conclude that there is considerable room for researchers, universities, and funding agencies to establish impact assessment tools directed towards specific missions while avoiding catch-all indicators and universal metrics.

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Recommend to your Library

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1471-5449
• Print ISSN 0958-2029
• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

• UWF Libraries

Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

• Sample Literature Reviews
• Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
• Finding "The Literature"
• Organizing/Writing
• APA Style This link opens in a new window
• Chicago: Notes Bibliography This link opens in a new window
• MLA Style This link opens in a new window

Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts

Have an exemplary literature review.

• Literature Review Sample 1
• Literature Review Sample 2
• Literature Review Sample 3

Have you written a stellar literature review you care to share for teaching purposes?

Are you an instructor who has received an exemplary literature review and have permission from the student to post?

Please contact Britt McGowan at [email protected] for inclusion in this guide. All disciplines welcome and encouraged.

• << Previous: MLA Style
• Next: Get Help! >>
• Last Updated: Mar 22, 2024 9:37 AM
• URL: https://libguides.uwf.edu/litreview

WashU Libraries

Research approaches in the humanities, social sciences, or sciences.

• Conducting Research in 6 Steps
• Social Sciences

Subject Librarians

The staff at Reference Help Desk can also help you finding appropriate sources for background information.  You are also welcome to contact a Subject Librarian for assistance:

Subject Librarians, alphabetical listing

Subject Librarians, subject listing

Researching in the Humanities

The fields in the Humanities discipline generally include the visual and performing arts, philosophy, literature, religion, history, languages, art history, and classics.  Although research methods differ among the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the Sciences, any research project in any discipline starts with curiosity and a hypothesis.  Often research topics are interdisciplinary and may include multiple subject areas and methods from more than just one discipline.

When beginning a research project in the humanities, you must develop a deep knowledge base in a subject area, choose original sources to examine, locate and evaluate sources that also explore your areas of interest, and then come to your own original conclusions. Libraries can help you find the material you need to get started.  The research guides listed on the right are created by WUSTL Subject Librarians.  Subject Librarians have expertise in both searching techniques and academic fields, and their online guides suggest resources for the different phases of the research process: 1) Use background sources to establish your knowledge base.  These could be subject encyclopedias, key works in a field, bibliographies, etc. 2) Select original sources, commonly referred to as primary sources, for your analysis.  Primary sources are simply original works, e.g., novels, photographs, diaries, correspondence, advertisements, eyewitness accounts. 3) Find articles, reviews, and books that analyze primary sources.  These are known as secondary sources. Then, synthesize all this information with your own thinking and draw your original conclusions, thus creating new research in the field.

Recommended Research Guides

• A Guide to African and African-American Studies by Rudolph Clay Last Updated Apr 30, 2024 444 views this year
• A Guide to American History by Michael Schaefer Last Updated May 13, 2024 1455 views this year
• A Guide to Comparative Literature by Walter Schlect Last Updated Apr 30, 2024 522 views this year
• A Guide to East Asian Studies by Joan Wang Last Updated May 13, 2024 320 views this year
• A Guide to English and American Literature by Kris Helbling Last Updated May 13, 2024 419 views this year
• A Guide to Germanic Studies by Walter Schlect Last Updated Apr 30, 2024 316 views this year
• A Guide to Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies by AJ Robinson Last Updated Apr 30, 2024 252 views this year
• A Guide to Philosophy Resources by Michael Schaefer Last Updated Apr 30, 2024 418 views this year
• A Guide to Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology (PNP) Resources by Sam Lindgren Last Updated May 6, 2024 392 views this year
• A Guide to Religious Studies by Michael Schaefer Last Updated Apr 30, 2024 452 views this year
• Romance Languages & Literatures Subject Guide by Lino Mioni Last Updated Apr 30, 2024 61 views this year
• A Guide to Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies by AJ Robinson Last Updated Apr 30, 2024 250 views this year
• A Guide to World History by Michael Schaefer Last Updated Apr 30, 2024 374 views this year
• << Previous: Conducting Research in 6 Steps
• Next: Social Sciences >>
• Last Updated: Apr 30, 2024 3:33 PM
• URL: https://libguides.wustl.edu/researchapproaches

Book Reviews

• Best Starting Places
• Social Sciences
• Reviews of Older Literary Works

Print Indexes

• Philosopher's Index (1963-1990) Four issues per year and annual index. Book review section at back of each issue, starting with 1970.

Finding Scholarly Reviews of Humanities Books

Use the following databases to find scholarly reviews of books in the humanities including: art, literature, religion, philosophy, and classics.

• America: History and Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window Indexes literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. The database indexes 1,700 journals and also includes citations and links to book and media reviews. Strong English-language journal coverage is balanced by an international perspective on topics and events, including abstracts in English of articles published in more than 40 languages. Publication dates of coverage: 1964 to present.
• Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) This link opens in a new window The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) indexes scholarship in the fields of English language and literature, folklore, and English-language film and television studies.
• Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) This link opens in a new window This database indexes about 1,700 arts and humanities journals. Dates of coverage: 1975 to present. Adjust settings to expand your searching to include the Social Sciences Citation Index, the Science Citation Index, the Book Citation Index, and others.
• Historical Abstracts with Full Text (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more. Indexes more than 1,700 academic historical journals in over 40 languages. Publication dates of coverage: 1955 to present.
• Humanities and Social Sciences Index Retrospective (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window The Humanities and Social Sciences Index Retrospective provides citations from periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, as well as citations of over 240,000 book reviews. Dates of coverage: 1907-1984.
• Humanities Source This link opens in a new window Humanities Source includes full text access to journals. It combines various Humanities related databases, including the American Humanities Index.
• Philosopher's Index This link opens in a new window Philosopher's Index contains citations and abstracts of scholarly research in all areas of philosophy and related fields. Included are information about journal articles, books, book chapters such as contributions to anthologies, and book reviews. The publication dates covered are from 1940 to present, and the full text of items is often available.
• Religion Database (ATLA) This link opens in a new window The Religion Database, sponsored by the American Theological Library Association, is the premier index to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion. Dates of coverage: 1949 to the present.
• << Previous: Best Starting Places
• Next: Sciences >>
• Last Updated: Jan 24, 2024 12:25 PM
• URL: https://guides.nyu.edu/book-reviews

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• My Account Login
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Open access
• Published: 14 May 2024

Fake News: a conceptual model for risk management

• João Varela da Costa   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0009-4534-7132 1 , 2 ,
• Silvia Bogea Gomes 1 , 2 &
• Miguel Mira da Silva 1 , 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  625 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

• Business and management
• Information systems and information technology

This article proposes a model based on a systematic literature review (SLR) that investigates the intersection of Fake News, Risk, and Risk Management. Employing Design Science Research as the primary methodology, it introduces a conceptual model to mitigate Fake News-related risks in specific communities. The model uses ArchiMate to depict a community as an organisational entity, exemplifying its practicality through a Fake News instance from the Central European Digital Media Observatory. The research undergoes rigorous evaluation using the Bunge-Wand-Weber Model, ensuring its consistency and value to the scientific community. This evaluation formalises the proposed conceptual model, offering a structured framework systematically mapping Fake News concepts to mitigate associated risks and disinformation. This study contributes to the Fake News management discourse, providing a practical risk management tool to counter the phenomenon.

Introduction

The swift rise of digitalisation has offered a transformative view to organisations and new technological advancements. It has also transformed our relationship with information and how we use and perceive technology to communicate. It is essential to remember that digitalisation has brought new and different digital risks to our communities and organisations. A common digital threat associated with digitisation is disinformation, which is the spread of false or misleading information online through the use of Fake News (FN). FN can be a medium for the dissemination of disinformation. It is crucial to understand that disinformation threatens the integrity of information, manipulating public opinion and the decision-making process Christodoulou & Iordanou ( 2021 ). Moreover, its false and misleading nature presents a genuine threat to societies, with its impact going beyond the spreading of disinformation, potentially eroding public trust, influencing critical decision-making, and affecting individual and organisational reputation Huber et al. ( 2021 ).

As an example of the harm and distress caused due to FN, we have the bombardment of disinformation produced with ideological interference in world political events over the past decade, with examples of its effects in critical political events such as Brexit in the UK, the 2016 US election of Donald J. Trump, years where FN hit its peak Yerlikaya & Aslan ( 2020 ). This example highlights how disinformation can rapidly spread, which means it can reach a larger audience, making it increasingly challenging to control and mitigate its impact.

A comprehensive systematic literature review (SLR) on fake news, digital risk, and risk management enabled us to map out the fake news concepts mentioned in the literature and their connections to digital risk. We were able to define fake news, identify its main concepts, and establish the relationships between them. In summary, the SLR seeks to demonstrate that FN is indeed an instantiation of digital risk and paved the way for studying its concepts and developing conceptual modelling here presented.

Given the vast terminology used to define FN, it was essential to present a conceptual model that used the concepts of FN in its multitude of different definitions to provide a metamodel that seeks to understand and decompose the concepts in a rich and diversified manner that reflects the diversity of definitions found in the literature. This article, therefore, aims to build a comprehensive conceptual model derived from the literature that provides clarity to stakeholders, mainly the law enforcement agencies that seek to mitigate the impact of FN in a community.

This research follows the methodology and guidelines of Design Science Research for Information Systems Hevner et al. ( 2010 ), where the conceptual model is the central artefact, and the community is modelled as an organisation using ArchiMate modelling language for enterprise architecture. Furthermore, this research seeks to demonstrate through an instance of FN present in the Central European Digital Media Observatory.(CEDMO) archive to fully understand the model applicability and resilience in a given community.

Research Background

This section comprises three integral parts: Risk, Fake News and the interplay between Digital Risk and Fake News.

The concept of risk has been thoroughly investigated, and the term has different definitions. Renn, O argues that the terms encapsulate different definitions that are not commonly accepted Renn ( 1998 ). The International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) defines risk as an uncertain consequence of an event or activity concerning something that humans value Renn ( 2009 ). This definition conflates with the Rosa ( 1998 ), Rosa ( 2003 ), where the authors state that risk is a situation or event where something of human value (including humans) is at stake, thus having an uncertain outcome. The ontological work Aven et al. ( 2011 ) also agrees that the two previous references express the same idea.

For this work, the authors adopted the definition provided by industry-standard 31 000 for risk management, which is more attainable, stating that risk is defined as the effect of uncertainty on objectives and goals.These uncertainties can arise from various sources, such as ambiguity in decision-making, economic conditions, technological advancements, and legal and regulatory changes. It is important to note that risk has three crucial components - the likelihood of a given event to occur, its consequences or impacts that derive from an event, and, lastly, the uncertainty encompassing these two factors Dali & Lajtha ( 2012 ).

Understanding these components is essential for making informed decisions in the context of risk management. The likelihood of an event signifies the probability of its occurrence, ranging from highly unlikely to almost certain. Consequences, on the other hand, can be of positive or negative outcomes that follow the materialisation of an event. These outcomes have an impact to an organisation and can span a spectrum, enveloping gains, and losses. An effective risk management strategy considers the potential financial implication and evaluates broader repercussions on reputation, operational efficiency, and strategic alignment.

It is worth mentioning that the concept of uncertainty interlinks the likelihood and consequences of an event, highlighting the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of risks. This uncertainty stems from the complexity of interrelated factors, the intricacies of cause-and-effect relationships, and the unpredictability of external influences. It is, therefore, evident that organisations must recognise that risk are not isolated incidents but rather interconnected elements that can trigger a chain of reactions. Consequently, embracing risk management as an ongoing strategy instead of one-time task allows organisations to adapt and respond to the evolving landscape of uncertainties continuously. It is possible to conclude that risk management has become pivotal aspect of modern organisations Dali & Lajtha ( 2012 ).

Furthermore, in the current degree of digitalisation, the ever presence of cyber risk poses a significant challenge to individuals, organisations, and critical infrastructures. The consequences of risk related incidents, has the potential to arouse cyber incidents with extensive and long-lasting impacts on critical infrastructure, emphasising the significance of proactive risk management measures Strupczewski ( 2021 ). The emergence of contemporary technological strides in digitalisation has ushered in novel prospects for business augmentation, process refinement, and heightened efficiencies. Concurrently, this paradigm shift has engendered a heightened susceptibility to the pernicious encroachments of cyber threats precipitated by the intricate interlinking of our intricate system architectures.

Emphasising this dynamic juncture, it becomes paramount to underscore the imperative of formulating an all-encompassing scheme that addresses preserving delicate information and fortifying digital ecosystems’ robustness. Considering the rapidly evolving cyber terrain, the delineation of a holistic approach assumes a pivotal role in mitigating risks and nurturing the resilience indispensable to the sustenance of digital domains Donaldson et al. ( 2015 ). Furthermore, it is imperative not to disregard the interconnected risk of disseminating false information, commonly called fake news. This phenomenon capitalises on technological advancements and interlinked systems to propagate deceptive narratives, misleading individuals. In light of the escalating sophistication and persistence of cyberattacks, comprehending the diverse dimensions of digital risk emerges as an indispensable consideration Singer & Friedman ( 2014 ).

The literature contains different terms that help solidify the definition of FN, which is the broader terminology of this work. Its spread intentionally or unintentionally has severe consequences, especially if widely believed and followed by individuals, and can potentially erode public trust in institutions or media. Effective dissemination is often granted through effecting spreading online with particular emphasis on social media. Generally speaking, state and private actors responsible for spreading disinformation have developed techniques to propagate falsehoods; such techniques may include using automatic bots that indulge in creating effective dissemination networks and infiltrating real social media accounts Aswad ( 2020 ).

When considering the scope of FN, it is fundamental to remember that it does not limit its action solely to social networks; on the contrary, it refers to false or counterfeit material reported in a newspaper, newscast or periodical. It is, therefore, possible to conclude that the spreading of false information takes different forms and uses different means of propagation Ferreira et al. ( 2020 ).

Another aspect to consider when talking about FN is the intention behind the actor responsible for the spreading of disinformation. Should the intention be to deliberately misinform the receptor then it can be classified as disinformation. On the other hand, if the intention to disinformed is null, and should it be the result of a mistake or error then it is defined as misinformation. Misinformation may also refer to information that is incomplete Huber et al. ( 2021 ). The intention is amplified by private interests seeking political or financial rewards, that micro-target vulnerable individuals as seeds to further spread misinformation Bastick ( 2021 ).

There are various definitions of disinformation, including the one provided by the European Commission in its 2018 Code of Practice on Disinformation. According to this definition, disinformation is any false or misleading information created, presented, and spread to make money or deceive the public. This type of information can harm individuals and society as a whole and may pose a threat to democratic political processes and public goods, such as the protection of citizens’ health, the environment, and security within the European Union, Comission ( 2018 ).

According to the United Nations Counter Disinformation Report, there is no clear definition of disinformation. The report states that this phenomenon reflects the new and rapidly evolving communications landscape and technologies that enable the dissemination of unprecedented content at exceptional speeds. This undermines the public trust in institutions and contributes to a polarised society, creating grounds for populism and authoritarianism, General Assembly ( 2022 ).

To fully grasp the phenomenon of FN, it is vital to comprehend its two most associated terminology of information: misinformation and disinformation. It is also essential to comprehend that FN is the broader concept encompassing both realities that can be considered news that provides financial gain or discredit someone. Secondly, they may be referred to as news with a factual context but are presented distorted; and lastly, news that people do not like is classified as FN. These three dimensions are essential, valid, and acceptable definitions Huber et al. ( 2021 ).

Digital Risk and Fake News

Technology is undoubtedly a double-edged sword, both an enabler and a potential catalyst for digit al risks. In an age where information spreads unprecedentedly, the rampant propagation of fake news and disinformation has become a significant concern. This trend calls for a paradigm shift in how organisations and communities approach risk management and resilience.

As enterprises adapt their strategies to navigate the complexities of the digital landscape, they must recognise the intricate connection between technology and disinformation. Developing robust risk management practices and protocols is no longer sufficient in cybersecurity and data breaches. Instead, organisations must broaden their perspective and include combating the menace of FN as an integral part of their risk mitigation efforts Kaidalova et al. ( 2018 ).This strategy includes introduction of new technology to detect patterns, FN in its different shapes and forms disinformation Truică & Apostol ( 2023 ). It may be hard to regulate and control the spread of fake news due to the decentralised nature of the internet, were information crosses borders and spreads quickly. FN, misinformation, and disinformation, of digital disinformation has caused a new wave of concern across communities, having severe consequences that range from political dispute, generating discursive struggles, mostly from hyper partisan outlets Soares & Recuero ( 2021 ).

Organisations must proactively implement comprehensive strategies to fortify their defences against the pervasive threat of FN. The first crucial step is identifying the sources and channels through which FN spreads. Employing advanced algorithms and machine learning techniques can aid in tracking the origins of false information and its dissemination patterns, enabling organisations to respond swiftly and effectively with the removal of accounts that actively spread disinformation is a step forward towards a more resilient online environment. It is important to remember that due to the decentralised nature of the internet this might be a very challenging task Ali et al. ( 2022 ).

The fusion of technology and the associated disinformation caused by FN requires a paradigm shift in risk management. As organisations grapple with complex challenges posed by disinformation it becomes imperative to develop strategies for the swift detection of disinformation and structure an appropriate response for a constructive mitigation of risk despite the hurdles presented by the decentralised nature of the internet, thus paving the way for a more discerning and secure digital future.

Literature Review

This section intends to present the identified concepts and illustrate them, present its definition and consequent reference in the extracted literature (see Table 1 ).

Research Design

This section will first introduce Enterprise Architecture and ArchiMate modelling language. Secondly, it will demonstrate how the identified concepts of FN identified in a previously developed SLR are represented in ArchiMate, illustrating its layer and consequent ArchiMate Concept. Lastly, this section will introduce the proposed conceptual model of FN.

Enterprise Architecture

Known as a strategic discipline focusing on designing and managing an organisation’s overall structure, processes, systems, and technology and making them align with a given organisation’s business goals and objectives - Enterprise Architecture, henceforth EA, aims at providing a holistic view for an organisation. A structured view lets stakeholders understand how different components and resources interact and support the organisation mission Lankhorst & Lankhorst ( 2009 ).

EA encompasses different important domains, this includes the business, data, application, and technology architectures. Furthermore, it also ensures that these domains are coherently integrated in a way that leads to organisational improvement, with special emphasis in the efficiency, agility, and decision-making process es within an organisation. A common adopted framework is TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) that provides a structured approach to develop and maintain and architecture Lankhorst & Lankhorst ( 2009 ).

Many organisations behave as enterprises, as enterprises can be considered a type of organisation Bogea Gomes et al. ( 2023 ). FN poses a significant threat to enterprises, undermining their reputation and credibility in the eyes of consumers. Businesses must navigate this landscape carefully, implementing robust fact-checking measures and transparent communication strategies to mitigate potential damage to their brand Petratos ( 2021 ).

ArchiMate is a widely used EA modelling language and notation standard developed by The Open Group, currently in its 3.0 specification. It is a systematic and consistent way to describe, analyse and visualise the different aspects of an enterprise Org ( 2019 ).

To fully recognise ArchiMate central value to enterprise modelling it is necessary to acknowledge its Full Framework, which includes the identification of different layers and aspects presented in the Fig. 1 below. It is important to refer that out of the layers that are illustrated below, only the motivational, the strategy and business layers were used to develop the proposed conceptual model.

Source: Org ( 2019 ).

The common identified strength of ArchiMate modelling language, lies on the ability to represent complex relationships between various architectural elements, e.g., business processes, applications, data, and technological infrastructure Org ( 2019 ).

Mapping Fake News Concepts onto ArchiMate

The following section depicts a table with the concepts identified in the literature, the same concept representation in ArchiMate here with some being decomposed for the illustration of different perspectives surrounding the same concept. The last column of Table 2 presents a definition of each ArchiMate Concept in accordance with the Open Group Standard specification 3.0 Org, O( 2019 ). Also, Table 3 , presented below, illustrates the different ArchiMate relationships used in the conceptual model, which uses the same specification.

The ArchiMate modelling language was used to create the model, depicting the mitigation of the impact of FN in a community. The conceptual model aimed to model a community as an organisation, and thus, using ArchiMate was deemed appropriate to represent the concepts derived from the literature, their relationships, and notations. The colour scheme was used to differentiate between the ArchiMate language layers. In the text below, bold terms represent concepts and their relationships. Italicised terms represent ArchiMate elements.

Fake News , mapped here in the strategy layer as a Course of Action , represents the inner purpose of a malicious actor to spread disinformation, thus having a clear goal or plan for damaging the reputation of a third party, organisation or individual. A strategic plan is taken into action, prevailing a scenario of misinformation, where the main goal is to disseminate fabricated and misleading information.

Note that for each instance of FN, an associated Impact is illustrated in the motivation layer. On the other hand, an impact leads to an Outcome or end-result. The impact affects the perception of the truth, distortion of reality through disinformation campaigns, erosion of public trust, social division, economic effects, health risks, political manipulation, crisis response, disruption, media credibility damage and other potential regulatory factors Petratos ( 2021 ).

Another critical aspect of paramount representation in the conceptual model is Context , which is also present in the motivation layer. For each instance of FN, there is one or more associated contexts, characterised in ArchiMate as Meaning - referring to the significance or purpose associated with different elements of FN. Moreover, behind a context of disinformation, it personifies an Intention (also in the motivation layer) that illustrates the motive of the perpetrator or actor, represented in the ArchiMate concept of Driver - a condition that motivates the agent of disinformation to spread false information Huber et al. ( 2021 ).

The Agent is a decomposed concept, a decision made by the researchers in order to provide a clear understanding of the two different meanings of the concept - Fake News Agent refers to an actor or organisation responsible for plotting and deploying a disinformation campaign and spreading FN - present in the Motivation layer as a Stakeholder ; and the Affected Agent - illustrated in the business layer as a Business Role intent to epitomise the individual or organisation that is directly or indirectly affected by the impact of FN Huber et al. ( 2021 ); Yerlikaya & Aslan ( 2020 ).

The concept of Source is also present at the business layers as a Business Role , referring to the origin of FN. A decision was made to represent the source as a Business Role , rather than a Business Actor , as the source is a role that can be played by different individuals, not necessarily the same actor. Also related to the concept of Source is the Content originating from the different newscasts and outlets and social media present in the business layer as a Business Service , serving the Source with false information that feeds the spreading Lazar & Paun ( 2020 ); Yerlikaya & Aslan ( 2020 ).

A concept that stands out due to its importance is Verifiability , essentially referring to the investigation taken by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA), fact-checkers, and journalists alike regarding the veracity of the news. This concept is represented in the business layer as a Business Process , as it is intended to represent a much-needed sequence of actions required to verify the information Huber et al. ( 2021 ).

Also, on the business layer is the concept of Medium , illustrating the means by which disinformation is spread, this could be done through many different forms (e.g., social media, news outlets, television, etc.). This concept is represented as a Business Interface , as it is a point of confluence and access trigging the source, associated with FN event, and broadly introducing the content of disinformation to the public.

Lastly, we have another decomposed concept in the business layer - Event . The concept was decomposed into two concepts - Fake News Event , illustrating the instantiation of FN represented in ArchiMate as Business Event denoting a state of change and a behavioural aspect that characterises FN, meaning an event that has a beginning and an end; and Type of Event referring to the category of FN represented as a Business Function an activity with a sole function of categorising FN.

Fake News Conceptual Model

Figure 2 below illustrates the proposed conceptual model, for details regarding its ArchiMate notation, definitions, and modelling justification decision please refer to the previous subsections.

Fake News conceptual model following the ArchiMate specification notation as Org ( 2019 ).

Demonstration

This section presents a demonstration of the proposed model into a real instantiation of FN. Furthermore, it also presents the mapping instantiated concepts, and an instantiated conceptual model in ArchiMate.

Fake News Through and Instantiation

In order to find a credible instance of FN, the authors resorted to the Central European Digital Media Observatory (CEDMO) archive. CEDMO is a European independent and non-partisan multidisciplinary hub that identifies and researches FN activities across the continent. It works closely with fact-checkers from different member states having regional hubs in different regions that work closely to decrease the impact of disinformation, strengthen transparency, understand enhanced media, and rebuild trust in media Observatory ( 2023 ).

The chosen instance of FN is titled “BREAKING: COVID-19 Vaccine Can Cause Blindness". This was broadly propagated in social media with particular emphasis on spreading through X (formerly known as Twitter). The full post, dated the 5th of May 2023, suggested that scientific research demonstrated that COVID-19 vaccination was responsible for blindness. The post gain traction when an alternative health blogger Erin Elizabeth retweeted becoming one of the top spreaders of the anti-vaccine content online. The post was later considered by independent fact checkers as being of misleading nature as no evidence suggesting an association between the covid-19 vaccination blindness Goldhamer ( 2023 ).

Essentially, the post focused on the study findings to argue that vaccinations caused retinal vascular disease (RVO), thus demonstrating that vaccinated patients had significantly increased risk of RVO, nevertheless, and according to CEDMO consortium factcheckers, the post failed to mention there is not a strong correlation and clear link between vaccination and the referred eye problem. Thus, conclusions suggest that the evidence is not very strong, and moreover the RVO is also not a very common disease, making the post-affirmation unfunded and misleading Goldhamer ( 2023 ).

On making a swift reflection on the consequences and impact of this post, it is indeed possible to understand its significant effect on the online community. Like any other piece of misinformation, the problem is not solely on the actual post but on its societal consequences, and this is more true should we consider the high rate of sharing and retweeting contributing to an exacerbated effect of disinformation on a mass scale.

Mapping the Instantiation onto the SLR Concepts

Table 4 presented below serves as a visual representation of the relationships between the identified instantiated concepts of FN and the SLR Concepts in ArchiMate.

Table 4 presents the instantiated concepts of FN derived from the chosen event of FN previously presented in the above subsection. A single event of FN produces several instances that are of possible consideration for our model. It is essential to understand that this work solely seeks to model one instance. When reading the entire article presented in the CEDMO fact-checking repository, we quickly realised that different instances are suitable for modelling. The provided content was initially spread through X, re-shared by other users in the same social network and reproduced in other social media such as Facebook and Instagram. Later, it was also reproduced in the blog of an alternative health blogger - Erin Elizabeth and others Goldhamer ( 2023 ).

A decision was made amongst the authors to solely demonstrate in the bellow instantiated conceptual model the first instance, meaning the moment that the disinformation was first shared by Mario Nawfal on the social network X. Having this into consideration, the above table derived the instantiated concepts of FN presented on the left column on Table 4 . Please note that the instantiated concepts illustrated on the left column map with the concepts of the right column.

Instantiated Conceptual Model

This subsection explains the flow of disinformation. This characterisation is based on the intrinsic intention to fuel conspiracy theories Goldhamer ( 2023 ). The below paragraphs show the concepts in bold and the relationship between concepts are italicised . It also presents on Fig. 3 the instantiated conceptual model.

Fake News Instantiated conceptual model following the ArchiMate specification notation as Org (2019).

The first instance of the spreading of disinformation to the general public regarding Covid- 19 vaccination, and its possible connection with blindness occurs in X, having been triggered by an individual, thus represented in the model as Individual: Source it Assigns a stakeholder known as Mario Nawfal an entrepreneur and alternative health advocate represented as a stakeholder as he directly benefits from the impact of this instantiation in society. The concept is illustrated as Mario Nawfal Alternative Health Advocate: Fake News Agent . The Impact Brings Risk to a community, illustrated as role Community: Affected Agent representing the different affected communities. The intention questions the judgments of the scientific community, introducing doubts regarding the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and generating alarm. Cifuentes-Faura ( 2020 ); Vasconcellos-Silva & Castiel ( 2020 ).

A Fake News impact Characterised by its context, represented as Covid-19: Context and it is Instantiated by an event characterised and defined by the CEDMO and AFP factchecker as Covid-19 Vaccines Blindness: Fake News Event. The instantiation is then Spread through a the social network X a chosen Medium for propagation of FN, represented in the model by its instantiation X:Medium . The Medium is associated to a specific Content - Mario Nawfal Post, represented in the model as Mario Nawfal Post: Content that is then classified and defined as disinformation, illustrated as Disinformation: Type Event . Lastly, the source of FN Is Linked with the Intention to mislead the general public, represented as Mislead General Public:Intention .

This section elucidates the researchers’ systematic approach to evaluating the conceptual and instantiation models introduced in the previous section. The study embraced the Bunge-Wand-Weber Model (BWW model) for evaluation–a comprehensive framework for appraising a First Normal Form (1NF) conceptual model and its instantiation within a database system - an ontological approach for evaluation proposed by Fettke & Loos ( 2003 ). This approach offers a structured and rigorous methodology for assessing the quality and efficacy of a database schema in faithfully representing real-world information, ensuring a methodical and well-rounded evaluation process. We aim to adapt this methodology, initially designed for database assessment, to evaluate our models, leveraging its proven effectiveness for our research purposes.

The first step towards the application of this framework was the delineation of the following research questions (RQ):

RQ1 - Is there any instantiated concept that is not mapped onto a SLR concept in ArchiMate?

RQ2 - Is there any instantiated concept maps more than one SLR concept in ArchiMate?

RQ3 - Does each SLR concept in ArchiMate map onto each instantiated concept?

RQ4 - Does each SLR concept in ArchiMate maps onto one or more than instantiated concept?

The below Fig. 4 illustrates the four ontology deficiencies identified by the suggest ontological approach Fettke & Loos ( 2003 ) the interpretating whether the instantiated concepts are mapped onto the constructed conceptual model.

Source: Fettke and Loos ( 2003 ).

The proposed RQs reflect and illustrate the ontological deficiencies identified by Fettke, P., Loos, P.(2023) Fettke & Loos ( 2003 ). To further assess and evaluate our model, the authors seek to answer the RQs by applying the BWW model framework designed to address three key aspects:

An intricate examination of the conceptual mapping found in Table 4 of this paper.

The identification and rectification of any constructive deficiencies in the proposed model.

The applications of the normalisation process onto the instantiated model.

To answer this RQ we firstly looked at both models presented in the Figs. 2 and 3 to assess if each of the concepts of the instantiation mapped onto one and only one SLR concepts in ArchiMate. As we previously demonstrated in the Table 4 , each of the instantiation concept maps onto one and only one SLR concept in ArchiMate.

We then decided to re-examine the FN instantiation description, focusing our analysis on CEDMO’s fact-check repository Goldhamer ( 2023 ). In particular, we delve deeper into “Disinformation" as a Type of Event, engaging in a thorough discussion regarding the classification of this concept, ultimately arriving at a consensus that “disinformation" indeed serves as the appropriate classification for the type of event. Other possible classifications include misleading information, which according to the developed SLR can happen intentionally or unintentionally and can occur in various forms, as information or communication presented leading people to form an incorrect understanding or conclusion.

The selective nature of the information presented by the fake news agent Mario Nawfal suggest the misusage of scientific information, with author taking advantage of information from a scientific paper to quote facts out of context and presenting it in a way that amplifies fear and uncertainty towards vaccines and general health care practices Goldhamer ( 2023 ). One can argue that the intention behind the spreading of fake news can differ from the one presented in the model (e.g., discredit of vaccination campaigns, reputational damage to the national health service, etc.), nevertheless the authors decided that the best way to represent a more generic intention and thus keep misleading the general public as the main intention behind the spreading of disinformation.

The represented models do not show associations between one instantiated concept and two or more SLR concepts in ArchiMate. In other words, there is no redundancy of concepts represented in our model, as each concept has a clear definition and differs from other represented concepts. It is essential to differentiate decomposed concepts that only represent one SLR concept. There are undoubtedly two concepts that were decomposed: Agent and Event.

There is indeed a difference between decomposition and redundancy. A decomposition happens because a concept holds more than one meaning in the literature (e.g., the concept of the agent is divided between the affected agent and the agent that spreads FN), whereas redundancy happens when there is a concept that represents the exact meaning of another. Having observed this reality, the authors decided to interpret the definition provided by the SLR ? and decomposed the concept to avoid misrepresenting the different meanings of the different concepts in the literature.

RQ3 -Is there any SLR concept in ArchiMate that does not map onto any instantiated concept?

The suggested problem patent in RQ3 is a problem of excess conceptual representation illustrated in Fig. 4 , where the instance would have less concepts than the ones patent in the conceptual model. To avoid this problem the authors supported their conceptual representation into a previously developed SLR. The idea was to have a solid definition of the concepts before defining the conceptual model, thus ensuring that for each concept correspond one instantiated concept.

Furthermore, it is important to understand that the identification of the instantiated concepts derived from pure interpretation of the description of the instantiation in its source patent CEDMO Repository Observatory ( 2023 ) and briefly summarise in the demonstration (section 5) of this paper.

In conclusion for each instantiation there is a SLR Concept that corresponds and therefore there is no isolated SLR concept in ArchiMate present in our model.

RQ4 - Is there any SLR concept in ArchiMate that maps onto more than one instantiated concept?

Each instantiated concept maps into only one SLR concept in ArchiMate in a one-to-one relationship. In practice, if we want to reduce redundancy and apply the BWW model according to Fettke & Loos ( 2003 ), we will first have to determine which instantiated concepts would require normalisation by creating an interdependent relationship between an instantiated concept and a derived one. In other words, we would have to look at the present model in Fig. 3 and first decide which instantiated concept we would like to normalise. Should we, for example, decide upon the x: medium instantiated concept, we would have to create another Business Interface and provide a composed relationship between concepts.

The suggested alteration would mean that we would have to add a composed relationship to the X: medium instantiated concept with, for example, X Post: medium. Note that the composition relationship would indicate that the post only exists if the X: medium concept exists, or in other words should X: medium cease to exist the X post: medium would also cease to exist.

Should we decide upon this normalisation, this relationship would only be a complement to the original model and would not necessarily add any extra value to the instantiated conceptual model; therefore, in order to ensure robustness, a decision was made to keep the model more straightforward and only represent the X: medium instantiated concept. In conclusion there was the possibility that two instantiated concepts would be associated with one SLR concept in ArchiMate, though to ensure having simpler model and a robust one a decision was made not to make alterations to the model.

This paper proposed a conceptual model to identify and analyse the risk associated with the impact of Fake News and Disinformation, which can cause reputational damage to individuals, organisations, and brands in the community Flostrand et al. ( 2020 ). It is, therefore, important to take steps to study the phenomenon of Fake News and invest in policies, techniques and frameworks that aid in mitigating the associated risk.

The risk of FN is also strongly related to the digital environment of a given community. The conceptual module here presented aims at aiding policymakers, legal enforcement agencies, and business organisations in providing a comprehensive framework that firstly contributes to the verification of the veracity of the information, provides a means to identify the agent (s) of disinformation and relates the context with the different mediums of propagation and spreading of the news.

The work presented here opted to use Design Science Research as a prime method to design a conceptual model, demonstrate through a credible instantiation and evaluate the proposed model using a credible framework. It is important to understand that this research work would only be possible due to the strong foundation of a developed systematic literature review that aimed at defining the terminology between the cross of - Fake News and Risk terminology.

Furthermore, this work demonstrates the conceptual model in ArchiMate utilising the case of “BREAKING: COVID-19 Vaccine Can Cause Blindness." Future work involves refining this conceptual model by employing other case studies to ensure a comprehensive perspective on FN risk management.

The results of this study are a practical conceptual model and a systematic mapping of the concepts of FN and the proposed instantiation. Moreover, the evaluation that followed the proposal indicated a solid and robust model, with the evaluation suggesting that common mistakes such as mapping incompleteness, redundancy, excess and overload are not present in the model. It is vital to notice the relevance of the design decisions contributing to this result.

An evident limitation of this research work is its reliability to the adopted SLR view and strategy and subsequent interpretation, so our results also depend on its accuracy. It would strongly benefit our research if we could have a Multivocal Literature Review that considers the academic literature and the grey literature present in online libraries.

Data availability

All data concerning the Systematic Literature Review may be provided by the authors upon request. The conceptual model was modelled in Archi Software Tool, all files can be made available upon request.

Ali, I, Ayub, MNB, Shivakumara, P & Noor, NFBM (2022) Fake news detection techniques on social media: A survey. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing 2022

Alonso García S, Gómez García G, Sanz Prieto M, Moreno Guerrero AJ, Rodrígue Jiménez C (2020) The impact of term fake news on the scientific community. scientific performance and mapping in web of science. Soc. Sci. 9:73

Article   Google Scholar  

Aswad, E. M. (2020) In a world of" fake news," what’s a social media platform to do? Utah L. Rev. 1009

Aven T, Renn O, Rosa EA (2011) On the ontological status of the concept of risk. Saf. Sci. 49:1074–1079

Baccarella CV, Wagner TF, Kietzmann JH, McCarthy IP (2018) Social media? it’s serious! understanding the dark side of social media. Eur. Manag. J. 36:431–438

Bastick Z (2021) Would you notice if fake news changed your behavior? an experiment on the unconscious effects of disinformation. Comput. Hum. Behav. 116:106633

Benoliel, U & Becher, SI (2022) Termination without explanation contracts. U Il. L Rev. 1059

Berthon P, Treen E, Pitt L (2018) How truthiness, fake news and post-fact endanger brands and what to do about it. NIM Mark. Intell. Rev. 10:18–23

Google Scholar  

Bogea Gomes S, Santoro FM, Mira da Silva M, Pinto P, Guizzardi G (2023) Towards a core ontology of organisational transformation. Appl. Ontol. 18:31–70

Boyd K (2022) Trusting scientific experts in an online world. Synthese 200:14

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Caramancion, KM (2021) The demographic profile most at risk of being disinformed. in 2021 ieee International Iot, Electronics and Mechatronics Conference (iemtronics) (pp. 1–7)

Chiang TH, Liao C-S, Wang W-C (2022) Impact of artificial intelligence news source credibility identification system on effectiveness of media literacy education. Sustainability 14:4830

Christodoulou E, Iordanou K (2021) Democracy under attack: challenges of addressing ethical issues of ai and big data for more democratic digital media and societies. Front. Political Sci. 3:682945

Cifuentes-Faura, J (2020) Fake news during covid-19: how to detect them? Comunicación 100–103

Comission, E (2018) Eu code of practice on disinformation. Policy and Legislation, European Comission

Dali A, Lajtha C (2012) Iso 31000 risk management–"the gold standard”. EDPACS 45:1–8

De Magistris G, Russo S, Roma P, Starczewski JT, Napoli C (2022) An explainable fake news detector based on named entity recognition and stance classification applied to COVID-19. Information 13:137

De Regt A, Montecchi M, Lord Ferguson S (2020) A false image of health: how fake news and pseudo-facts spread in the health and beauty industry. J. Prod. Brand Manag. 29:168–179

Donaldson, S, Siegel, S, Williams, CK & Aslam, A (2015) Enterprise cybersecurity: how to build a successful cyberdefense program against advanced threats (Apress, 2015)

Espaliú-Berdud, C (2022) Legal and criminal prosecution of disinformation in spain in the context of the european union. Profesional de la información 31

Ferreira CC, Robertson J, Kirsten M (2020) The truth (as i see it): philosophical considerations influencing a typology of fake news. J. Prod. Brand Manag. 29:150–158

Fettke, P & Loos, P (2003) Ontological evaluation of reference models using the bunge-wand-weber model. AMCIS 2003 Proceedings 384

Flostrand A, Pitt L, Kietzmann J (2020) Fake news and brand management: a delphi study of impact, vulnerability and mitigation. J. Prod. Brand Manag. 29:246–254

General Assembly, S-G (2022) Countering disinformation for the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. report, United Nations

Goldhamer, M Central european digital media observatory - archives, covid-19 vaccine link to blindness unfounded (2023) https://cedmohub.eu/covid-19-vaccine-link-to-blindness-unfounded/

Habgood-Coote J (2019) Stop talking about fake news! Inquiry 62:1033–1065

Hevner, A, Chatterjee, S, Hevner, A & Chatterjee, S (2010) Design science research in information systems. Design research in information systems: theory and practice 9–22

Huber, E, Pospisil, B & Haidegger, W. Modus operandi in fake news. In 2021 IEEE Conference on Cognitive and Computational Aspects of Situation Management (CogSIMA) , 127–132 (IEEE, 2021)

Islam MR, Liu S, Wang X, Xu G (2020) Deep learning for misinformation detection on online social networks: a survey and new perspectives. Soc. Netw. Anal. Min. 10:1–20

Jain, D. K., Kumar, A. & Shrivastava, A (2022) Canardeep: a hybrid deep neural model with mixed fusion for rumour detection in social data streams. Neural Computing and Applications 1–12

Kaidalova J, Kurt S, Ulf S (2018) How digital transformation affects enterprise architecture management–a case study. Int. J. Inf. Syst. Proj. Manag. 6:5–18

Koohikamali, M & Sidorova, A (2017) Information re-sharing on social network sites in the age of fake news. Informing Science 20

Kousika, N, BM, D et al. (2021) A system for fake news detection by using supervised learning model for social media contents. In 2021 5th International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Control Systems (ICICCS), 1042–1047 (IEEE, 2021)

Lankhorst, M & Lankhorst, M (2009) Introduction to enterprise architecture. Enterprise Architecture at Work: Modelling, Communication and Analysis 1–11

Lawson MA, Kakkar H (2022) Of pandemics, politics, and personality: The role of conscientiousness and political ideology in the sharing of fake news. J. Exp. Psychol.: Gen. 151:1154

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Lazar, IM & Paun, AC (2020) A predictive model for estimating citizens’ beliefs regarding the risk perception of dissemination and dispersal of fake content. Cognition, Brain, Behavior 24

Macagno F (2022) Argumentation profiles and the manipulation of common ground. the arguments of populist leaders on twitter. J. Pragmat. 191:67–82

Marres N (2018) Why we can’t have our facts back. Engaging Sci., Technol., Soc. 4:423–443

Article   ADS   Google Scholar  

Mehta D, Dwivedi A, Patra A, Anand Kumar M (2021) A transformer-based architecture for fake news classification. Soc. Netw. Anal. Min. 11:1–12

Naeem SB, Bhatti R, Khan A (2021) An exploration of how fake news is taking over social media and putting public health at risk. Health Inf. Libraries J. 38:143–149

Observatory, CEDM (2023). Central european digital media observatory - archives. https://cedmohub.eu/fact-checking/archives/

Org, O (2019). Archimate® 3.1 specification, a standard of the open group

Paka WS, Bansal R, Kaushik A, Sengupta S, Chakraborty T (2021) Cross-sean: A cross-stitch semi-supervised neural attention model for covid-19 fake news detection. Appl. Soft Comput. 107:107393

Petratos PN (2021) Misinformation, disinformation, and fake news: Cyber risks to business. Bus. Horiz. 64:763–774

Pv S, Bhanu SMS (2020) Ubcadet: detection of compromised accounts in twitter based on user behavioural profiling. Multimed. Tools Appl. 79:19349–19385

Renn O (1998) Three decades of risk research: accomplishments and new challenges. J. Risk Res. 1:49–71

Renn, O (2009) White paper on risk governance: Towards and integrative approach. Tech. Rep., International Risk Governance Council (IRGC)

Rooke M (2021) Alternative media framing of covid-19 risks. Curr. Sociol. 69:584–602

Roozenbeek J, Van Der Linden S (2019) The fake news game: actively inoculating against the risk of misinformation. J. risk Res. 22:570–580

Rosa EA (1998) Metatheoretical foundations for post-normal risk. J. risk Res. 1:15–44

Rosa EA (2003) The logical structure of the social amplification of risk framework (sarf): Metatheoretical foundations and policy implications. Soc. Amplif. risk 47:47–49

Scardigno R, Mininni G (2020) The rhetoric side of fake news: a new weapon for anti-politics? World futures 76:81–101

Schroeder, DT, Pogorelov, K & Langguth, J (2019) Fact: a framework for analysis and capture of twitter graphs. In 2019 Sixth International Conference on Social Networks Analysis, Management and Security (SNAMS) , 134–141 (IEEE, 2019)

Singer, PW & Friedman, A. Cybersecurity: What everyone needs to know (oup usa, 2014)

Soares FB, Recuero R (2021) Hashtag wars: Political disinformation and discursive struggles on twitter conversations during the 2018 brazilian presidential campaign. Soc. Media+ Soc. 7:20563051211009073

Strupczewski G (2021) Defining cyber risk. Saf. Sci. 135:105143

Truică C-O, Apostol E-S (2023) It’s all in the embedding! fake news detection using document embeddings. Mathematics 11:508

Van Bavel, JJ, Harris, EA, Päarnamets, P, Rathje, S, Doell, KC, Tucker, JA (2022) Political psychology in the digital (mis) information age: A model of news belief and sharing": Corrigendum

Vasconcellos-Silva, PR & Castiel, LD (2020) Covid-19, fake news, and the sleep of communicative reason producing monsters: the narrative of risks and the risks of narratives. Cadernos de Saúde Pública 36

Viviani M, Pasi G (2017) Credibility in social media: opinions, news, and health information–a survey. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev.: Data Min. Knowl. Discov. 7:e1209

Yang J, Tian Y (2021) "others are more vulnerable to fake news than i am”: Third-person effect of covid-19 fake news on social media users. Computers Hum. Behav. 125:106950

Yerlikaya T, Aslan ST (2020) Social media and fake news in the post-truth era. Insight Turk. 22:177–196

Zhang C, Gupta A, Kauten C, Deokar AV, Qin X (2019) Detecting fake news for reducing misinformation risks using analytics approaches. Eur. J. Operational Res. 279:1036–1052

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work has been partially supported by European Union’s HE research and innovation program FERMI under the grant agreement No. 101073980 and the Portuguese Technologies Institute - INOV - Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores Inovação.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Computer Science and Engineering Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal

João Varela da Costa, Silvia Bogea Gomes & Miguel Mira da Silva

INOV INESC Inovação, Lisbon, Portugal

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

JVC conducted the research, conceived the ArchiMate model, conducted the demonstration and evaluation, and wrote the draft of the manuscript. SBG validated the ArchiMate Model and its instantiation.MMS coordinated the study, participated in the design of the research protocol, and oriented the evaluation process. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to João Varela da Costa .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors report declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies involving human participants performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Varela da Costa, J., Bogea Gomes, S. & Mira da Silva, M. Fake News: a conceptual model for risk management. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 625 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03096-0

Download citation

Received : 24 October 2023

Accepted : 18 April 2024

Published : 14 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03096-0

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

• Prospective Students
• Current Students
• Faculty / Staff
• Make a Gift

• Campus Life

Thesis Research: Getting Started

This workshop is packed with essential information about the research process to help you get started with your thesis project. Learn about research tools and strategies that will help you gather sources for your literature review. You’ll also find out how to get the most out of databases such as Dissertations and Theses Global, and Web of Science (covers science, social sciences, and humanities content).

After registering you will receive a confirmation email with a calendar file attachment to add the event to your Outlook, Google, Apple, or other online calendar.  One hour before the event start time, you will also receive the information you need to join.

• Featured Events
• Search All Events
• Academic Calendar
• News Center
• Communications Center