difference between critical review and literature review

Get confused between the terms ‘Literature Review’ and ‘Critical Review’? This article provides you a detailed clarification about the meaning and effective usage of these terms in your research paper.

detailed information on each source than you would in a critical review of a single book or article. Instead, you will focus on the most important points relevant to your topic. As in a critical review, you’ll evaluate the effectiveness of the authors’ arguments.

A critical review differs from other literature reviews, such as a systematic literature review, in its depth of analysis and approach. While traditional literature reviews summarize existing knowledge, a critical review goes further by providing a detailed evaluation of each source.

Critically reviewing the literature is an indispensible skill which is used throughout a research career. This article demystifies the processes involved in systematically and critically reviewing the literature to demonstrate knowledge, identify research ideas, position research and develop theory.

Literature reviews are also known as critical literature reviews not because they are “critical” in nature, but because they present a critique, or an unbiased critical analysis, of existing research on a particular topic.

Quite simply, the literature review provides a critical discussion on the topic of interest while pointing out similarities and inconsistencies in existing relevant literature.