writing a graduate level literature review

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

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

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

Search for relevant literature
Evaluate sources
Identify themes, debates, and gaps
Outline the structure
Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

Quick Run-through
Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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writing a graduate level literature review

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

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

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

Download Word doc Download Google doc

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

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

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

Your university’s library catalogue
Google Scholar
Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
EconLit (economics)
Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

What question or problem is the author addressing?
What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
What are the key theories, models, and methods?
Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
What are the results and conclusions of the study?
How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

Most research has focused on young women.
There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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

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

Statistics

Null hypothesis
Statistical power
Probability distribution
Effect size
Poisson distribution

Research bias

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

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An annotated bibliography is a list of source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a paper .

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Library Catalogue

Literature reviews for graduate students

On this page, what is a literature review, literature review type definitions, literature review protocols and guidelines, to google scholar, or not to google scholar, subject headings vs. keywords, keeping track of your research, project management software, citation management software, saved searches.

Related guides:

Systematic, scoping, and rapid reviews: An overview
Academic writing: what is a literature review , a guide that addresses the writing and composition aspect of a literature review
Media literature reviews: how to conduct a literature review using news sources
Literature reviews in the applied sciences
Start your research here , literature review searching, mainly of interest to newer researchers

For more assistance, please contact the Liaison Librarian in your subject area .

Most generally, a literature review is a search within a defined range of information source types, such as, for instance, journals and books, to discover what has been already written about a specific subject or topic. A literature review is a key component of almost all research papers. However, the term is often applied loosely to describe a wide range of methodological approaches. A literature review in a first or second year course may involve browsing the library databases to get a sense of the research landscape in your topic and including 3-4 journal articles in your paper. At the other end of the continuum, the review may involve completing a comprehensive search, complete with documented search strategies and a listing of article inclusion and exclusion criteria. In the most rigorous format - a Systematic Review - a team of researchers may compile and review over 100,000 journal articles in a project spanning one to two years! These are out of scope for most graduate students, but it is important to be aware of the range of types of reviews possible.

One of the first steps in conducting a lit review is thus to clarify what kind of review you are doing, and its associated expectations.

Factors determining review approach are varied, including departmental/discipline conventions, granting agency stipulations, evolving standards for evidence-based research (and the corollary need for documented, replicable search strategies), and available time and resources.

The standards are also continually evolving in light of changing technology and evidence-based research about literature review methodology effectiveness. The availability of new tools such as large-scale library search engines and sophisticated citation management software continues to influence the research process.

Some specific types of lit reviews types include systematic reviews , scoping reviews , realist reviews , narrative reviews , mapping reviews, and qualitative systematic reviews , just to name a few. The protocols and distinctions for review types are particularly delineated in health research fields, but we are seeing conventions quickly establishing themselves in other academic fields.

The below definitions are quoted from the very helpful book, Booth, A., Papaioannou, D., & Sutton, A. (2012). Systematic approaches to a successful literature review . London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

For more definitions, try:

Grant, M.J. & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: an analysis of the 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal , 26(2), 91-108. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x
Sage Research Methods Online. A database devoted to research methodology. Includes handbooks, encyclopedia entries, and a research concepts map.
Research Methods
Report Writing
Research--Methodology
Research--Methodology--Handbooks, manuals, etc.

Note: There is unfortunately no subject heading specifically for "literature reviews" which brings together all related material.

Mapping Review : "A rapid search of the literature aiming to give a broad overview of the characteristics of a topic area. Mapping of existing research, identification of gaps, and a summary assessment of the quantity and quality of the available evidence helps to decide future areas for research or for systematic reviews." (Booth, Papaioannou & Sutton, 2012, p. 264)

Mixed Method Review : "A literature review that seeks to bring together data from quantitative and qualitative studies integrating them in a way that facilitates subsequent analysis" (Booth et al., p. 265).

Meta-analysis : "The process of combining statistically quantitative studies that have measured the same effect using similar methods and a common outcome measure" (Booth et al., p. 264).

Narrative Review: "A term used to describe a conventional overview of the literature, particularly when contrasted with a systematic review" (Booth et al., p. 265).

Note: this term is often used pejoratively, describing a review that is inadvertently guided by a confirmation bias.

Qualitative Evidence Synthesis : "An umbrella term increasingly used to describe a group of review types that attempt to synthesize and analyze findings from primary qualitative research studies" (Booth et al., p. 267).

Rapid Review : "Assessment of what is already known about a policy or practice issue, by using systematic review methods to search and critically appraise existing research" (Grant & Booth, 2009, p.96).

Note: Rapid reviews are often done when there are insufficient time and/or resources to conduct a systematic review. As stated by Butler et. al, "They aim to be rigorous and explicit in method and thus systematic but make concessions to the breadth or depth of the process by limiting particular aspects of the systematic review process" (as cited in Grant & Booth, 2009, p. 100).

Scoping Review: "A type of review that has as its primary objective the identification of the size and quality of research in a topic area in order to inform subsequent review" (Booth et al., p. 269).

Systematic Review : "A review of a clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant research and to collect and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review" (Booth et al., p. 271).

Note : a systematic review (SR) is the most extensive and well-documented type of lit review, as well as potentially the most time-consuming. The idea with SRs is that the search process becomes a replicable scientific study in itself. This level of review will possibly not be necessary (or desirable) for your research project.

Many lit review types are based on organization-driven specific protocols for conducting the reviews. These protocols provide specific frameworks, checklists, and other guidance to the generic literature review sub-types. Here are a few popular examples:

Cochrane Review - known as the "gold standard" of systematic reviews, designed by the Cochrane Collaboration. Primarily used in health research literature reviews.

Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions . "The official document that describes in detail the process of preparing and maintaining Cochrane systematic reviews".

Campbell Review - the sister organization of the Cochrane Institute which focuses on systematic reviews in the social sciences.

So you want to write a Campbell Systematic review?
Campbell Information Retrieval Guide. The details of effective information searching

Literature Reviews in Psychology

A recent article in the Annual Review of Psychology provides a very helpful guide to conducting literature reviews specifically in the field of Psychology.

How to Do a Systematic Review: A Best Practice Guide for Conducting and Reporting Narrative Reviews, Meta-Analyses, and Meta-Syntheses. (2019). Annual Review of Psychology, 70 (1), 747-770. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102803

Rapid Reviews have become increasingly common due to their flexibility, as well as the lack of time and resources available to do a comprehensive systematic review. McMaster University's National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools (NCCMT) has created a Rapid Review Guidebook , which "details each step in the rapid review process, with notes on how to tailor the process given resource limitations."

Scoping Review

There is no strict protocol for a scoping review (unlike Campbell and Cochrane reviews). The following are some recommended guidelines for scoping reviews:

Scoping Reviews from the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis
Current best practices for the conduct of scoping reviews, from the EQUATOR Network

In addition to protocols which provide holistic guidance for conducting specific kinds of reviews, there are also a vast number of frameworks, checklists, and other tools available to help focus your review and ensure comprehensiveness. Some provide broader-level guidance; others are targeted to specific parts of your reviews such as data extraction or reporting out results.

PICO or PICOC A framework for posing a researchable question (population, intervention, comparisons, outcomes, context/environment)
PRISMA Minimum items to report upon in a systematic review, as well as its extensions , such as PRISMA-ScR (for scoping reviews)
SALSA framework: frames the literature review into four parts: search (S), appraisal(AL), synthesis(S), analysis(A)
STARLITE Minimum requirements for reporting out on literature reviews.
Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) Checklists Includes a checklist for evaluating Systematic Reviews.

These are just a sampling of specific guides generated from the ever-growing literature review industry.

Much of the online discussion about the use of Google Scholar in literature reviews seems to focus more on values and ideals, rather than a technical assessment of the search engine's role. Here are some things to keep in mind.

It's good practice to use both Google Scholar and subject-specific databases (example: PsycINFO) for conducting a lit review of any type. For most graduate-level literature reviews, it is usually recommended to use both.
You should search Google Scholar through the library's website when off-campus. This way you can avoid being prompted for payment to access articles that the SFU Library already subscribes to.
Search tips for Google and Google Scholar

Google Advantages:

Allows you to cast a wide net in your search.
The most popular articles are revealed
A high volume of articles are retrieved
Google's algorithm helps compensate for poorly designed searches
Full-text indexing of articles is now being done in Google Scholar
A search feature allow you to search within articles citing your key article
Excellent for known-item searching or locating a quote/citation
Helpful when searching for very unique terminology (e.g., places and people)
Times cited tool can help identify relevant articles
Extensive searching of non-article, but academic, information items: universities' institutional repositories, US case law, grey literature , academic websites, etc.

Disadvantages:

The database is not mapped to a specific discipline
Much less search sophistication and manipulation supported
Psuedo-Boolean operators
Missing deep data (e.g., statistics)
Mysterious algorithms and unknown source coverage at odds with the systematic and transparent requirement of a literature review.
Searches are optimized (for example, by your location), thwarting the replicability criteria of most literature review types
Low level of subject and author collocation - that is, bringing together all works by one author or one sub-topic
Challenging to run searches that involve common words. A search for "art AND time", for example, might bring up results on the art of time management when you are looking for the representation of time in art. In contrast, searching by topic is readily facilitated by use of subject headings in discipline-specific databases. Google Scholar has no subject headings.
New articles might not be pushed up if the popularity of an article is prioritized
Indexes articles from predatory publishers , which may be hard to identify if working outside of your field

Unlike Google Scholar, subject specific databases such as PsycINFO , Medline , or Criminal Justice Abstracts are mapped to a disciplinary perspective. Article citations contain high-quality and detailed metadata. Metadata can be used to build specific searches and apply search limits relevant to your subject area. These databases also often offer access to specialized material in your area such as grey literature , psychological tests, statistics, books and dissertations.

For most graduate-level literature reviews, it is usually recommended to use both. Build careful searches in the subject/academic databases, and check Google Scholar as well.

For most graduate-level lit reviews, you will want to make use of the subject headings (aka descriptors) found in the various databases.

Subject headings are words or phrases assigned to articles, books, and other info items that describe the subject of their content. They are designed to succinctly capture a document's concepts, allowing the researcher to retrieve all articles/info items about that concept using one term. By identifying the subject headings associated with your research areas, and subsequently searching the database for other articles and materials assigned with that same subject heading, you are taking a significant measure to ensure the comprehensiveness of your literature review.

About subject headings:

They are applied systematically : articles and books will usually have about 3-8 subject headings assigned to their bibliographic record.
The subject headings come from a finite pool of terms - one that is updated frequently.
They are often organized in a hierarchical taxonomy , with subject headings belonging to broader headings, and/or having narrower headings beneath them. Sometimes there are related terms (lateral) as well.
They provide a standardized way to describe a concept. For instance, a subject heading of "physician" may be used to capture many of the natural language words that describe a physician such as doctor, family doctor, GP, and MD.

One way to identify subject headings (SHs) of interest to you is to start with a keyword search in a database, and see which SHs are associated with the articles of interest.

A. In the below example, we start with a keyword search for "type a" personality in PsycINFO . A more contemporary term to describe this phenomena is then found in the subject heading field:

B. Another way to identify subject headings related to your topic is to go directly to a database's thesaurus or index. For example, if we are researching depression, the PsycINFO entry for major depression suggests some narrower terms we could focus our search by.

For more in-depth help with using subject headings in a literature review, please contact the Liaison Librarian in your subject area .

NEW! Covidence . Covidence is a web-based literature review tool that will help you through the process of screening your references, data extraction, and keeping track of your work. Ideal for streamlining systematic reviews, scoping reviews, meta-analyses, and other related methods of evidence synthesis.
NVivo is a robust software package that helps with management and analysis of qualitative information.The Library's Research Commons offers extensive support for NVivo.
Research Support Software offered by the Research Commons

Citation management software such as Zotero, Mendeley, or Endnote is essential for completing a substantial lit review. Citation software is a centralized, online location for managing your sources. Specifically, it allows you to:

Access and manage your sources online, all in one place
Import references from library databases and websites
Automatically generate bibliographies and in-text citations within Microsoft Word
Share your collection of sources with others, and work collaboratively with references
De-duplicate your search results* (*Note: Mendeley is not recommended for deduplication in systematic reviews.)
Annotate your citations. Some software allows you to mark up PDFs.
Note trends in your research such as which journals or authors you cite from the most.

More information on Citation Management Software

Did you know that many databases allow you to save your search strategies? The advantages of saving and tracking your search strategies online in a literature review include:

Developing your search strategy in a methodological manner, section by section. For instance, you can run searches for all synonyms and subjects headings associated with one concept, then combine them with different concepts in various combinations.
Re-running your well-executed search in the future
Creating search alerts based on a well-designed search, allowing you to stay notified of new research in your area
Tracking and remember all of the searches you have done. Avoid inadvertently re-doing your searches by being well-documented and systematic as you go along - it's worth the extra effort!

Databases housed on the EBSCO plaform (examples: Business Source Complete, PsycINFO, Medline, Academic Search Premier) allow you to create an free account where you might save your searches:

Using the EBSCOhost Search History - Tutorial [2:08]
Creating a Search Alert in EBSCOhost - Tutorial [1:26]

Applying for Graduate School
Understanding Expectations
Developing Genre Awareness
Establishing a Project’s Value
Writing Scholarship and Research Proposals

Writing Literature Reviews

Writing Theses and Dissertations
Understanding the Publication Cycle
Understanding Authorship
Writing About Data
Explaining Research to Diverse Audiences
Writing with Integrity
Revising with Intent
Staying Motivated and Productive
Creating a Writing Toolkit
Building Grammatical Confidence

Graduate Writing: Writing Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are commonly written in graduate school, either as a standalone document or as part of a larger text (e.g., scholarship proposal, research project, thesis, dissertation), and provide an overview about what is currently known and not known about a particular research area. Literature refers primarily to the work of other scholars, captured in academic journal articles or monographs, though may include other documents too, such as government reports, white papers, and more.

Most graduate-level literature reviews are likely to be narrative reviews, but some students, especially those in health sciences , may be expected to produce a systematic review or a scoping (or mapping) review. Other literature reviews include critical reviews*, conceptual reviews, empirical reviews, meta-analysis reviews , and rapid reviews, among others.

* Critical review in different contexts may refer to an article or book critique.

While some graduate students will already be comfortable undertaking a narrative review, it is recommended that they work closely with their subject librarian when conducting any type of review for the first time. You can make an appointment with your subject librarian to learn more about how to navigate databases effectively, source grey literature, and more. Keep in mind that certain types of reviews may require academics to follow standardized procedures, both in terms of how research is undertaken and how it is written (e.g., PRISMA for scoping reviews ). Unsure of which review is right for you? Consider completing a questionnaire or reviewing resources to help make the decision-making process a bit easier.

Narrative literature reviews have several purposes. In conducting the review, the writer deepens their understanding of the present research (the literature) and, in doing so, clarifies their own research question or problem statement. A standalone literature review (sometimes referred to as a review article ) can also provide other scholars and professionals a useful overview of current research so that they can stay up to date in their field. However, one of the main purposes of the review is to provide justification for a research project by situating the project in relation to the work of other scholars.

While a narrative literature review should provide a sense of the breadth and depth of what the author has read, it is not necessary to include every single article or book that is tangentially related to the topic at hand. Instead, the text should serve the reader so that they have sufficient context to understand the issue(s) being explored.

Situating Research: Create a Research Space (CARS)

For literature reviews that are integrated into the paper’s introduction, the Create a Research Space (CARS) model , as articulated by John Swales, can be an effective method for helping to justify one’s own project. It involves the following three rhetorical moves that help establish an argument for one’s work by explaining

what is already known about a topic (what has already been found)
what is not known about a topic (the gap in the literature)
what will be/is known about a topic because of one’s project (entering the gap)

This structure is frequently used within academia, echoing a problem-solution structure that establishes an appealing rhetorical situation readers can easily understand.

While CARS provides a broad structure for organizing a narrative literature review, within the “known” section additional thought must be given to overall organization. In general, there are three main options: chronological, thematic, or methodological . Within a chronological structure, the writer follows how the topic has developed over time; within a thematic structure, the writer identifies and develops themes (and sub-themes) around which the research circles; and within a methodological structure, the writer groups studies according to how they were designed (e.g., qualitative vs. quantitative studies). In practice, many writers blend aspects of two of more of these structures when writing their reviews.

Looking to fine-tune your literature review? Select a comparable review from your field and examine how it has been structured. Ask yourself how the authors have organized the text. Do they follow CARS moves?

Looking for more information on writing literature reviews?

Hastings, C. (2016, September 27). Get lit: The literature review [Video]. YouTube . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9la5ytz9MmM
Hillary, A. (2017, December 13). I found a gap in the lit, now what? Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/i-found-gap-lit-now-what
Costanza-Robinson, M., Maxwell, A., Wright, C., & Bertollini, M.E. (2021). Gap statements . Write Like a Scientist. https://sites.middlebury.edu/middsciwriting/overview/organization/gap-statements/
Cornell University Library (2022, April 7). What is Evidence Synthesis? A Guide to Evidence Synthesis. https://guides.library.cornell.edu/evidence-synthesis/types
Guerin, C. (2013, September 1). Literature reviews – trust yourself! DoctoralWriting SIG. https://doctoralwriting.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/literature-reviews-trust-yourself/
Snyder, H. (2019). Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 104 , 333 – 339. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.039
Tay, A. (2020, December 4). How to write a superb literature review. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x
Willyard, C. (2012, March). Literature reviews made easy. gradPSYCH, 10 (2). https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2012/03/literature

Keeping the Literature Organized

One of the more challenging aspects of crafting literature reviews is managing the volume of sources that you are expected to read, interrogate, and integrate into the final text.

Citation managers , spreadsheets and annotated bibliographies are all methods by which students can keep track of their sources.

Having a system in place from the start means that it is easier to synthesize and cite the research during the drafting and revising of the review.

Looking for more information on how to keep literature organized?

Clarke, K. (2017, October 24). Organizing your literature: Spreadsheet style . Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/organizing-your-literature-spreadsheet-style
Perkel, J. (2020). Streamline your writing — and collaborations — with these reference managers. Nature, 585 , 149 – 150. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02491-2

Synthesis and the Literature Review

Synthesis is a central characteristic of literature reviews, demonstrating a writer’s ability to group sources together based on shared information. Synthesis also creates more readable text by reducing needless repetition.

Consider the examples below. Which do you prefer reading?

Example 1: Baptiste (2001) reviewed 85 instances of elderly women who experienced hip fractures following falls. He determined that in most cases, these falls were preventable. Beyond the physiological impact of these falls, the costs associated with such injuries were significant. Adams (2011) also studied instances of elderly women experiencing hip fractures in her study. According to her research, most of these falls were preventable. In 2018, Statistics Canada released a report on the costs associated with bone fractures in elderly populations, which often result in expensive hospitalizations. These injuries are often caused by falls and are largely preventable.

Example 2: The costs associated with bone fractures among elderly populations are notable as these injuries often result in expensive hospitalizations (Baptiste, 2001; Statistics Canada, 2018). However, some of these injuries may be avoidable. For instance, two studies studying hip fractures experienced by elderly women who had fallen found that most falls were preventable (Baptiste, 2001; Adams, 2011).

Did you prefer the second example? Most readers do as it communicates the same information as the first but in a more concise way. That is the power of synthesis.

Synthesis can also be understood as a form of pattern recognition that involves writers asking themselves how different sources relate to each other. Because of this focus on relationships, the following questions can also be used to generate synthesis:

Are researchers asking similar or different questions about the same topic?
Do the scholars agree? Or do they contradict each other?
What debate(s) are emerging?
Do researchers interpret data in similar or different ways?
What methodologies have been used to investigate comparable questions?
How are scholars responding to previous research?
How does the research fit into the current academic conversation?

Graduate students may also wish to use a synthesis matrix . These are useful tools that can be easily tailored to any research project and make visualizing commonalities among studies as simple as glancing at a table.

Looking for more information on how to synthesize effectively?

Frederiksen, L., & Phelps, S. F. (n.d.). Synthesizing Sources. In Literature Reviews for Education and Nursing Graduate Students . Pressbooks. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/literaturereviewsedunursing/chapter/chapter-7-synthesizing-sources/
McNeill, J. (2020, March 10). Step-by-step synthesis. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/step-step-synthesis
McWhinney, H. (2017). Writing a literature review – Part three: Synthesizing [Presentation slides]. University of Saskatchewan. https://library.usask.ca/studentlearning/documents/grad-writing/Literature_Review_Part_Three_Synthesizing.pdf
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How to Write a Literature Review

Writing a Review of Literature Superb introduction from the University of Wisconsin at Madison
Outline for Comprehensive Science Literature Reviews Written by a librarian, so the focus is on efficient searching. From Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship . For further details, see the full document .
Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students From North Carolina State University Libraries
Tips on Conducting the Literature Review From the Health Sciences Writing Centre at the University of Toronto
Literature Review Demystified From the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. Overview of the literature review including its purpose, research strategies, help for keeping track of your work, examples of published lit reviews, and books on graduate-level (and beyond) writing.

Literature Review Example/Sample

Detailed Walkthrough + Free Literature Review Template

If you’re working on a dissertation or thesis and are looking for an example of a strong literature review chapter , you’ve come to the right place.

In this video, we walk you through an A-grade literature review from a dissertation that earned full distinction . We start off by discussing the five core sections of a literature review chapter by unpacking our free literature review template . This includes:

The literature review opening/ introduction section
The theoretical framework (or foundation of theory)
The empirical research
The research gap
The closing section

We then progress to the sample literature review (from an A-grade Master’s-level dissertation) to show how these concepts are applied in the literature review chapter. You can access the free resources mentioned in this video below.

PS – If you’re working on a dissertation, be sure to also check out our collection of dissertation and thesis examples here .

FAQ: Literature Review Example

Literature review example: frequently asked questions, is the sample literature review real.

Yes. The literature review example is an extract from a Master’s-level dissertation for an MBA program. It has not been edited in any way.

Can I replicate this literature review for my dissertation?

As we discuss in the video, every literature review will be slightly different, depending on the university’s unique requirements, as well as the nature of the research itself. Therefore, you’ll need to tailor your literature review to suit your specific context.

You can learn more about the basics of writing a literature review here .

Where can I find more examples of literature reviews?

The best place to find more examples of literature review chapters would be within dissertation/thesis databases. These databases include dissertations, theses and research projects that have successfully passed the assessment criteria for the respective university, meaning that you have at least some sort of quality assurance.

The Open Access Thesis Database (OATD) is a good starting point.

How do I get the literature review template?

You can access our free literature review chapter template here .

Is the template really free?

Yes. There is no cost for the template and you are free to use it as you wish.

Psst… there’s more!

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

What will it take for you to guide me in my Ph.D research work?

Thank you so much for all this information. I am unable to download the literature review template and the excel worksheet. When I click the button it takes me to the top of the page. I would really love to use this template, thank you again!

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The Graduate Writing Guy :: Writing Tips for Grad School

Literature reviews

Writing literature reviews (or “reviews of literature” if you’re “not into the whole brevity thing ”) is one of the more challenging academic tasks you’ll have to face as a grad student. If you’re writing a thesis or dissertation, for example, the lit review chapter (usually chapter 2) might be the hardest chapter to write, perhaps rivaled only by the “discussion” chapter. And even then, part of what makes the discussion chapter difficult is that it has to integrate your own findings (or data) with the main conclusions from your lit review (I should acknowledge that my claims here apply mainly to the sciences and social sciences, since humanities papers don’t always have such clearly-defined sections).

One problem that makes lit reviews difficult to write is simply students’ lack of preparation. In my experience, many professors teaching at the undergrad level assume that, if you go to grad school, you’ll be taught how to write lit reviews there. At the same time, many professors at the grad level assume that you were already taught how to write lit reviews at the undergrad level. Obviously, this gap creates confusion, especially for students.

Another problem is that experts (like professors) often underestimate how difficult a task will be for a beginner (see, for example, this study , this study , and this study ). So, even if your professors know that writing literature reviews is a new challenge for you, they might not be aware of just how difficult the process will be (or how much scaffolding you might need).

All of this is to say: if you’re having trouble with writing a literature review for a thesis, dissertation, seminar paper, or journal article, there’s nothing wrong with you. Writing literature reviews is difficult. Having trouble doesn’t mean that you’re stupid or incapable. You just need a little guidance. And that’s why you’re visiting this page.

This page offers some of the best advice, suggestions, and materials I have to offer regarding lit reviews.

Lit Reviews: A Brief Overview

What exactly is a lit review? As Dr. Inger Mewburn states on her Thesis Whisperer site , a good lit review is:

And here’s another helpful definition from the Penn State Graduate Writing Center :

Now, to write a good lit review, or any other piece of academic writing, we need to think about the reader. On that topic, I always like to quote Dr. Jim Pryor :

Another way the reader is “mean” is that s/he will not believe anything you say simply because you assert it. Thus, you have to meticulously back up all your claims with evidence. In academic writing, there are only 3 sources of evidence that I’m aware of:

(1) your own personal observations or opinions, which don’t count for much, unless they are backed up by either…

(2) your own original data (or findings) that you collected for your study (you summarize these findings in your “results” section of such a study, not the lit review), or…

(3) the data/findings of others—that is, the research literature. This last one, (3), is the literature that you’re reviewing in your literature review (if that makes sense).

How exactly do you “review” this literature? What does “reviewing” entail? Each project or discipline might be slightly different. But generally speaking, in your lit review you want to summarize what’s already known about your topic, including any background information the reader needs to make sense of your study. Along the way, you want to point out any gaps or limitations that point to the need for further research—which is exactly why you’re conducting another study in the first place. After all, if we already knew everything about the topic, there’d be little point in conducting another study, right? But we don’t know everything about your topic. So, you point out what we don’t know—the gaps or areas of ignorance—and state that further research is needed to fill in those gaps.

The rest of this page offers helpful resources for writing literature reviews. But I’d also like to draw your attention to this helpful handout from the Penn State Graduate Writing Center, which offers a nice overview of lit reviews. In addition, my page called So You’re Writing a Thesis (or Dissertation) has a section called “The Parts of a Thesis” that contextualizes the role the lit review plays in a larger study.

Video: Lit Reviews “Crash Course” (16 min)

This video is a brief overview for people in a hurry. It goes over the basic idea of what a literature review is and gives an “orientation” to the most useful resources posted on this page. You can view the video by clicking here (opens in a new window). Note: The “ice cream” lit review document is supposed to be visible onscreen starting around 6:33 in the video, but for some reason it doesn’t appear. So I recommend downloading that document in the “Handouts” section below and following along.

Also, David Taylor, “your online writing professor,” has a nice video called “How to Write a Literature Review in 30 Minutes or Less,” which you can watch below:

However, make sure to pay close attention to what he says about re-ordering paragraphs into a logical list–what I like to call “telling a story” (the “story” he tells is about defining a problem, showing that it’s widespread, presenting solutions, etc.). And make sure to follow his advice about adding topic sentences and transition sentences. I add these cautions because, if you don’t pay attention, some of his advice could be misunderstood as suggesting that you can just paste in your annotated bibliography and add in a few transitions, and then, voila! You have a literature review. But that is not what he is saying, and doing that will not get you a very good grade in a graduate class.

Video: My 2024 Workshop on Lit Reviews (71 min)

You can view or download a recording of my workshop on literature reviews (from March 13, 2024) here or by clicking on the image below:

Note 1: The browser plays a 1-hour preview. For videos longer than 1 hour, download the file and watch it from your computer ( Steps : 1. Click on the video to open the Dropbox video page. 2. Use the “download” button, usually located on the top left of the page).

Video: My 2021 Workshop on Lit Reviews (78 min)

You can view or download a recording of my workshop on literature reviews (from March 11, 2021) here or by clicking on the image below:

Note 2: The video covers a whole range of topics, including what lit reviews are, how to find literature, how to read the literature, and so on. The part that discusses actually writing & structuring the lit review starts at approximately 52 minutes (52:48, to be exact).

Below are my PowerPoint slides from the workshop:

1 . The “Ice Cream Lit Review” is a slightly silly handout I put together to acquaint students with some basic ideas about structuring lit reviews. Note that this review is organized around a debate in the field.

2. The “Zombie” lit review is another silly handout. This review is based around themes (or subtopics) that emerge from the literature (so it’s a useful model for lit reviews organized around subtopics).

3. Also, at my workshops I’ve often shared the following handout from the Azusa Pacific University Writing Center which includes a sample mini lit review:

While this mini lit review is much shorter than almost any lit review you’re likely to write in grad school, students often find it helpful to see, in highly abbreviated form, what a lit review is supposed to accomplish.

4. Useful links and transition words . This one is relevant to academic writing in general, but students who are working on lit reviews often ask me about transition words, so it’s a good handout to include here:

Sample Lit Reviews

There is no single, universal “right way” to write a literature review. What counts as a good lit review depends a lot on your discipline, your professor/advisor, or what specific journal you’re submitting to. So, the best way to familiarize yourself with what kind of lit review you’re expected to write is to look at examples from your field, your campus, or your intended journal.

One helpful approach is to browse theses or dissertations written by recently-graduated students in your discipline. If you’re a CSULB grad student, you can do so by logging onto your single sign-on . Click on the “University Library” button and, after the Library page loads, select the “Services” drop-down menu at the top of the page and scroll down to “Thesis and Dissertation.” Click on “Thesis and Dissertation.” When the Thesis Office page loads, click on the gray “Find a Thesis or Dissertation” on the bottom left side of the page (or try this direct link ).

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL ) has a nice sample literature review with comments:

Note, however, that this is a somewhat short and basic literature review (possibly from an undergraduate paper). So, while it’s a good introductory model, the lit reviews you’ll have to write in grad school will likely be longer and more complex.

However, Purdue OWL also has some great general advice on writing literature reviews. I highly recommend the OWL’s tutorials.

Dr. Kimberly Rombach has posted an excellent “Example of a Lit Review” online . Below is a PDF version that includes some commentary by me on the first 10 pages.

The University of LaVerne has some great sample lit reviews (and tutorials) posted on the Literature Review Basics page maintained by librarian Liberty McCoy. What’s great about the samples here is that they’re all peer-reviewed articles and organized by discipline.

The APA also has a nice sample lit review that you can download here ( Note: This is one of those direct download links that automatically downloads a Word doc).

When reading samples, you can maximize your learning by “ reading like a writer ,” as discussed by Mike Bunn. Pay attention to choices made by the authors of the samples, and think about what these choices accomplish and whether or not your paper could benefit from similar choices. Such choices can include:

–What kind (or how many) headers to include

–Uses of transitions and signal words to convey arguments clearly to readers

–How many authors are cited per section

–How many sources to include overall

–How much detail (and what kinds of detail) are discussed for each source mentioned

–How sources are “integrated” or “synthesized” together; how much the sources “talk to each other” (see further comments in “Synthesizing and Integrating Sources” below).

Some Must-Read Posts from “The Thesis Whisperer”

Dr. Inger Mewburn’s fabulous Thesis Whisperer site is brimming with useful materials for grad students. Below are some of her essential posts that discuss literature reviews:

5 ways to fail your PhD (note #4: “write a bad literature review”)

5 ways to tame the literature dragon

How to become a literature searching ninja (see “Literature Search Strategies” below for more information on conducting literature searches)

Developing a Research Question

A lot of the students I work with at CSULB start working on a preliminary literature review for their thesis or dissertation even before they’ve firmly narrowed down an exact research question. That is, they start the thesis-writing process by putting together a rough draft of the literature review based on a topic (rather than a question), or on a somewhat vague question (that they’ll “polish” later). This is perfectly fine. But the final draft of your literature review will likely have been re-written so that it addresses the scholarly conversation on a specific question or set of closely-related questions. In any case, if you’re having trouble with research questions, the following resources can help:

Eastern Michigan University: Developing a Good Research Question

George Mason University: How to Write a Research Question

The Thesis Whisperer: Mind the Gap and How to Choose a Thesis Topic that Actually Matters and The PhD Piñata: Groping for Research Questions

Literature Search Strategies

If you’re mostly having trouble finding sources, here are some good sites with helpful information:

CSULB: OneSearch at CSULB: Search Tips

CSULB: Research Tools

Mississippi College: Research 101: Building better searches…Boolean & more

Elmira College: How to Do Research: A Step-By-Step Guide: 2a. Search Strategies

Southern New Hampshire University: Finding Scholarly Sources

“Google-Fu” (useful for Google Scholar searches): The Beginners Guide to Google-Fu? and Improving Your Google-Fu: How To Find Anything You Want

Literature Reading Strategies

Below are some helpful resources on reading through the literature to be discussed (or not) in your review.

Beth Azar | APA: Sink or skim? Tackle that endless pile of books and journal articles with the help of these reading tips.

Miriam E. Sweeney: How to Read for Grad School I’ve also made Dr. Sweeney’s blogpost into a handout that I often share at live workshops:

Wendy Belcher: Solution to Writing Obstacle No. 26: “I have to read just one more book before I can write.”

Summarizing and Paraphrasing Sources

In addition to the problem of structuring the whole lit review, some students struggle with summarizing articles (which is a necessary part of most lit reviews). How does one distill a 20-page journal article, for instance, into a 1-2 paragraph summary?

In the humanities (e.g. literature, philosophy), you might simply summarize the main points of an author’s argument. For example, you might realize that the argument proceeds in major “steps” or “moves,” so you might summarize each major step/move in a sentence or two. For example:

In his paper on the ethics of bank robbing, R. Hood (1954) argues that it is ethically permissible to rob banks as long as the funds are re-distributed to the poor. He defends this claim on utilitarian grounds, noting that the total happiness of the society will increase by an amount far greater than the relatively minor decrease in happiness experienced by the banks’ shareholders. He considers, then refutes, objections to this position, including objections based on non-utilitarian approaches to ethics (egoism, Kantian deontology).

For the physical and social sciences (or any “ empirical ” area of study), on the other hand, research articles almost always include a standard list of specific elements (listed below), whether or not each of these elements has its own heading or subheading in the article. Most, if not all, of these elements should be paraphrased in your summary.

These elements are:

–Purpose: What was the purpose of the study? What were the researchers trying to accomplish or figure out? For example : “This study aimed to assess the prevalence of depression and its associated factors among medical students.”

–Research questions: What exact/specific question(s) did the researchers try to answer? For example: “What is the prevalence of depression among a random sample of medical students in Karnataka, India? In this sample, what associations exist between depression and the following social factors: alcohol use, drug addiction, family problems, family history of depression, and staying away from home?”

–Methods: What type of study was it ( qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods )? What did they do exactly? ( specific tools or instruments used ) Who were the participants/what was the sample? How were they selected? What were their demographics ? (obviously, these questions will be different depending on whether the study was conducted on people, animals, or inanimate objects)? For example : “This study used quantitative methods. A stratified random sample of 400 students (54.3% males and 45.7% females) was assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory. Univariate analysis was conducted to test for associations between depression and the selected variables (social factors).”

–Findings/results: What did the researchers find out? Did they confirm or disconfirm (refute) any existing studies/findings? For example: “The overall prevalence of depression was found to be 71.25%. Among those with depression, a majority (80%) had mild and moderate depression. The study showed that 46.3% (132) of the depressed were females and 53.7% (153) were males. The prevalence of depression was found to be significantly greater among those with family problems and family history of depression.”

–Limitations & delimitations: To crudely oversimplify, limitations are potential weaknesses or blind spots of your study that are outside of your control (based on the fundamental limits of your particular method). For example : “One limitation of this study was that the Back Depression Inventory relies on self-reporting of symptoms, and self-report depends on the assumption that participants accurately report their thoughts and feelings.” Delimitations are potential weaknesses or blind spots that are inside your control. For example: “Because the researchers studied participants from only one region of India, the results may not be universalizable to other contexts.” For more on limitations and delimitations, see this helpful article from Dissertation Recipes .

–Significance: Why should we care about the findings? How are they important to the field? How does this study contribute to your argument? How will the findings of this study inform your research? For example : “The study showed that depression is highly prevalent among medical students in the area studied. The findings point to the importance of broad screening and psychiatric counseling of this vulnerable population.”

The examples above are based on this study:

Kumar, G. S., Animesh, J., & Hegde, S. (2012). Prevalence of depression and its associated factors using Beck Depression Inventory among students of a medical college in Karnataka. Indian Journal of Psychiatry , 54 (3), 223–226. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3512357/

A few notes of caution:

–By using this study as an example, I am not necessarily attesting to the quality of the research or the writing (I’m not a medical professional – who am I to judge?). I am simply using it because it was easy to locate, and it clearly and directly lists most of the elements discussed above.

–To save time, I indiscriminately plagiarized some of the exact wording used in the published study. DO NOT DO THIS in your class papers. It is an unethical action for which your professors will not grade you kindly!

–The order of items in your summary does not have to follow the order that I’ve used above.

–As stated elsewhere on this page, not all summaries in a lit review will include all of the elements I’ve listed above. These are just given as examples. Remember that, in your actual lit review, you will only include detailed summaries of a small number of articles. You will not summarize most of the literature in great detail—most of the time you’ll be simply reporting major findings, along with synthesizing and integrating your sources.

For more information on proper paraphrases and avoiding plagiarism , see my page on Avoiding Plagiarism . See also the following made-up example to give you some idea of what a completed summary might look like:

Bokanovsky and Seldin (2017) studied the psycho-social challenges facing gender and sexual minority (GSM) youth in urban schools. Their purpose was to look for correlations between depression and experiences of bullying among the target population. The sample included 100 young people from inner city schools in the Southwestern US who self-identified as belonging to a gender or sexual minority. The researchers used a mixed methods approach, administering the Beck Depression inventory (a quantitative tool) and a series of open-ended interview questions (qualitative) to all participants. They found that there was a strong correlation between bullying and experiences of depression, and that this correlation was especially pronounced among transgender participants. This study underscores the high risk of both bullying and depression among GSM youth, and points to the need for further study of this topic.

Further resources : Summarizing articles for a lit review is very similar to writing a “precis” or an abstract (although these terms have specific meanings depending on the discipline and/or the professor who’s teaching you). So, the following resources might be helpful:

Dr. Ross Matsueda (UW): Writing a useful precis for a research article

Swales & Feak on Abstracts (note—in this handout, “RP” stands for “research paper”):

The full Swales and Feak text, Academic Writing for Graduate Students , 3rd ed., can be purchased here . It’s an excellent reference, and I use it frequently in my work with graduate students.

Synthesizing and Integrating Sources

Professors often complain that students write their literature reviews as a long string of summaries: “First, Author A (2015) states X. He used Y methods and had Z many participants. He found that…

Second, Author B (2019) states that… She used X methods to…. She concluded that…”

Generally speaking, this is NOT what professors want you to do. Instead, they want you to “synthesize” (or “integrate”) the literature, meaning that you organize your literature review around key ideas (or themes), and incorporate the authors/sources into this discussion. In other words, your discussion is idea-driven (or topic-driven) rather than paper-driven.

For example, a “synthesized” literature review might include sentences like this one: “There are many schools of thought on topic X. The principal schools of thought are Y, Z, and T… One of the principal contemporary defenders of the Y position is Author A (2015), who argues that…”

This is just an example, of course. There are many different ways to structure a literature review, including arranging it chronologically (e.g. showing the historical evolution of ideas on a topic), arranging it by key positions or schools of thought in a debate (like the example given a few lines above, and like the “ice cream” lit review handout available on this page), arranging it “top-down” (e.g. a major “umbrella” topic which is divided into several subtopics), or arranging it according to some theoretical framework that you’re applying to understand the topic. Finally, many lit reviews are simply organized around “themes” that emerge from the literature. In other words, you read several articles (i.e., literature) focused on a particular topic. Five of these articles all mentioned some key idea, or subtopic, that plays an important role in the main topic. This key idea could be a “theme” that you’ll talk about in your lit review. In addition, 12 of the articles mentioned another key idea. This could be another theme. Your literature review will start with something like: “This literature review examines studies on topic X. Three key themes emerge from this examination: (1) Theme a, (2) Theme b,” and so on. See the “Zombie” lit review handout above for a model of a theme-based literature review.

Your topic, research questions, and purpose will ultimately determine what the right organizational approach is. But the right approach is pretty much NEVER going to be: “just list a series of papers, in whatever order, and summarize them one by one.” Instead, you should choose an organizational approach that best suits your topic (and any arguments or claims you make about it).

Another way to synthesize is to get papers to “talk to each other.” For example, “Johnson (2011) finds that Y is the case. His study involved a sample size of… ” (here, you’re briefly summarizing the main findings, methods, etc. of Johnson, 2011). Now, you’re going to make the Johnson paper “talk to” another paper: “In contrast, Tanizaki (2015) conducts a similar study, but has strikingly different findings from Johnson….” (now, you elaborate on Tanizaki’s study and explain the differences from Johnson’s). Finally, the synthesis: “Taken together, these studies demonstrate the need for further research on Y. For example, it is unclear whether…”

With these points in mind, here are some useful materials on “synthesizing” information in your lit review:

The “ice cream” and “Zombie” lit review handouts (these can be downloaded above, in the section called “My Workshop on Lit Reviews”).

Harvard’s Graduate School of Education: The Literature Review: A Research Journey. The video is no longer available for non-Harvard students (damn you, paywall!). But the handouts, which ARE available, are still very helpful: 1. Question , 2. Search , 3. Manage , 4. Synthesize (our main interest in this section), 5. Write .

Purdue OWL: Synthesizing sources . Includes some helpful textual examples to show you what synthesis looks like in practice.

Frederiksen and Phelps (2020). Literature Reviews for Education and Nursing Graduate Students. An Open Access Textbook (available for free here ) with lots of helpful info. The chapter on synthesis can be directly accessed here .

Many students find it helpful to make a “synthesis matrix” to record the main ideas of the articles that they’ve read. You can find helpful examples here and here , or download this sample handed out by some professors in our CSULB Education department:

Critiquing Sources

Most literature reviews are expected to include some critiques of the literature that’s being reviewed. Critiques can be made of several papers or articles at once (i.e., you can critique a body of work on a topic) or of single papers (i.e., you can “zoom in” on a particular article, usually an especially important or groundbreaking article, and summarize it, as described above, and then critique it).

Here’s an example of an author critiquing several articles at once (in this case, the specific type of critique is pointing out “gaps” in the literature):

These examples are from pp. 173-174 of Galvan, J. L. & Galvan, M. C. (2017). Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and behavioral sciences (7th ed.). Routledge.

Here’s another example of critiquing more than one article in the same passage (this example is form p. 217 of the same Galvan and Galvan text cited above; here the critique is about sample size):

Here’s an example of “zooming in” on a study (technically, two studies, but the structure would be the same for one study) and then providing a specific critique (this example is from p. 205 of Galvan):

When critiquing research, it can be helpful to ask questions such as the following (which are adapted from a page by Dr. Ali Rezaei ):

Is the significance of the problem discussed?
If necessary, are variables directly or operationally defined?
Is instrument validity discussed and coefficients given if appropriate?
Is reliability discussed in terms of type and size of reliability coefficients?
If an instrument was developed specifically for the study, are the procedures involved in its development and validation described?
Is the design appropriate for answering the questions or testing the hypotheses of the study?
Are the procedures described in sufficient detail to permit them to be replicated by another researcher?
If a pilot study was conducted, are its execution and results described as well as its impact on the subsequent study?
Are the control procedures described?
Did the researcher discuss or account for any potentially confounding variables that he or she was unable to control for?

The above are just some examples and don’t cover all the possibilities.

Here’s another way to think about critique: recall what I said up near the beginning of this page, that writing a literature review involves giving the reader necessary background and pointing out any gaps in our knowledge that justify why you’re bothering to do another study. With this point in mind, you can include critiques that help you make this point about gaps.

For example, you can start by summarizing a particular “focus” study that you’re zooming in on: “Johnson and Tanizaki (2023) studied a sample of… They found that… This study helps explain why… ”

Then, you can critique the study by pointing out the its limitations or why it still leaves room for further research: “However, this study involved participants from the East Coast only, meaning that it is unclear whether the results from this study can be generalized to West Coast participants. Thus, further study is needed…” OR “While its results are highly informative, the sample size of the study was relatively small at n=… Thus, further research is needed to establish….” These are just a couple of examples of how you can incorporate the study’s limitations into your critique, which in turn can be used to point out the need for more research work (which indirectly motivates why you are doing your own study).

The following handout collects some excerpts from Galvan and Galvan (2017) that offer useful tips on writing critiques of research literature:

The Purpose of a Literature Review

After developing your research proposal and writing a research statement, your literature review is one of the most important early tasks you will undertake for your postgraduate research degree. Many faculties and departments require postgraduate research students to write an initial literature review as part of their research proposal, which forms part of the candidature confirmation process that occurs six months into the research degree for full-time students (12 months for part-time students).

For example, a postgraduate student in history would normally write a 10,000-word research proposal—including a literature review—in the first six months of their PhD. This would be assessed in order to confirm the ongoing candidature of the student.

The literature review is your opportunity you show your supervisor (and ultimately, your examiners) that you understand the most important debates in your field, can identify the texts and authors most relevant to your particular topic, and can examine and evaluate these debates and texts both critically and in depth. You will be expected to provide a comprehensive, detailed and relevant range of scholarly works in your literature review.

In general, a literature review has a specific and directed purpose: to focus the reader’s attention on the significance and necessity of your research. By identifying a ‘gap’ in the current scholarship, you convince your readers that your own research is vital.

As the author, you will achieve these objectives by displaying your in-depth knowledge and understanding of the relevant scholarship in your field, situating your own research within this wider body of work , while critically analysing the scholarship and highlighting your own arguments in relation to that scholarship.

A well-focused, well-developed and well-researched literature review operates as a linchpin for your thesis, provides the background to your research and demonstrates your proficiency in some requisite academic skills.

The Structure of Your Literature Review

Postgraduate degrees can be made up of a long thesis (Master’s and PhD by research) or a shorter thesis and coursework (Master’s by coursework; although some Australian universities now require PhD students to undertake coursework in the first year of their degree). Some disciplines involve creative work (such as a novel or artwork) and an exegesis (such as a creative writing research or fine arts degree). Others can comprise a series of published works in the form of a ‘thesis by publication’ (most common in the science and medical fields).

The structure of a literature review will thus vary according to the discipline and the type of thesis. Some of the most common discipline-based variations are outlined in the following paragraphs.

Humanities and Social Science Degrees

Many humanities and social science theses will include a standalone literature review chapter after the introduction and before any methodology (or theoretical approaches) chapters. In these theses, the literature review might make up around 15 to 30 per cent of the total thesis length, reflecting its purpose as a supporting chapter.

Here, the literature review chapter will have an introduction, an appropriate number of discussion paragraphs and a conclusion. As with a research essay, the introduction operates as a ‘road map’ to the chapter. The introduction should outline and clarify the argument you are making in your thesis (Australian National University 2017), as readers will then have a context for the discussion and critical analysis paragraphs that follow.

The main discussion section can be divided further with subheadings, and the material organised in several possible ways: chronologically, thematically or from the better- to the lesser-known issues and arguments. The conclusion should provide a summary of the chapter overall, and should re-state your thesis statement, linking this to the gap you have identified in the literature that confirms the necessity of your research.

For some humanities’ disciplines, such as literature or history (Premaratne 2013, 236–54), where primary sources are central, the literature review may be conducted chapter-by-chapter, with each chapter focusing on one theme and set of scholarly secondary sources relevant to the primary source material.

Science and Mathematics Degrees

For some science or mathematics research degrees, the literature review may be part of the introduction. The relevant literature here may be limited in number and scope, and if the research project is experiment-based, rather than theoretically based, a lengthy critical analysis of past research may be unnecessary (beyond establishing its weaknesses or failings and thus the necessity for the current research). The literature review section will normally appear after the paragraphs that outline the study’s research question, main findings and theoretical framework. Other science-based degrees may follow the standalone literature review chapter more common in the social sciences.

Strategies for Writing an Effective Literature Review

A research thesis—whether for a Master’s degree or Doctor of Philosophy—is a long project, and the literature review, usually written early on, will most likely be reviewed and refined over the life of the thesis. This section will detail some useful strategies to ensure you write a successful literature review that meets the expectations of your supervisor and examiners.

Using a Mind Map

Before planning or writing, it can be beneficial to undertake a brainstorm exercise to initiate ideas, especially in relation to the organisation of your literature review. A mind map is a very effective technique that can get your ideas flowing prior to a more formal planning process.

A mind map is best created in landscape orientation. Begin by writing a very brief version of your research topic in the middle of the page and then expanding this with themes and sub-themes, identified by keywords or phrases and linked by associations or oppositions. The University of Adelaide provides an excellent introduction to mind mapping.

Planning is as essential at the chapter level as it is for your thesis overall. If you have begun work on your literature review with a mind map or similar process, you can use the themes or organisational categories that emerged to begin organising your content. Plan your literature review as if it were a research essay with an introduction, main body and conclusion.

Create a detailed outline for each main paragraph or section and list the works you will discuss and analyse, along with keywords to identify important themes, arguments and relevant data. By creating a ‘planning document’ in this way, you can keep track of your ideas and refine the plan as you go.

Maintaining a Current Reference List or Annotated Bibliography

It is vital that you maintain detailed and up-to-date records of all scholarly works that you read in relation to your thesis. You will need to ensure that you remain aware of current and developing research, theoretical debates and data as your degree progresses; and review and update the literature review as you work through your own research and writing.

To do this most effectively and efficiently, you will need to record precisely the bibliographic details of each source you use. Decide on the referencing style you will be using at an early stage (this is often dictated by your department or discipline, or suggested by your supervisor). If you begin to construct your reference list as you write your thesis, ensure that you follow any formatting and stylistic requirements for your chosen referencing style from the start (nothing is more onerous than undertaking this task as you are finishing your research degree).

Insert references (also known as ‘citations’) into the text or footnote section as you write your literature review, and be aware of all instances where you need to use a reference . The literature review chapter or section may appear to be overwhelmed with references, but this is just a reflection of the source-based content and purpose.

The Drawbacks of Referencing Software

We don’t recommend the use of referencing software to help you with your references because using this software almost always leads to errors and inconsistencies. They simply can’t be trusted to produce references that will be complete and accurate, properly following your particular referencing style to the letter.

Further, relying on software to create your references for you usually means that you won’t learn how to reference correctly yourself, which is an absolutely vital skill, especially if you are hoping to continue in academia.

Writing Style

Similar to structural matters, your writing style will depend to some extent on your discipline and the expectations and advice of your supervisors. Humanities- and creative arts–based disciplines may be more open to a wider variety of authorial voices. Even if this is so, it remains preferable to establish an academic voice that is credible, engaging and clear.

Simple stylistic strategies such as using the active—instead of the passive—voice, providing variety in sentence structure and length and preferring (where appropriate) simple language over convoluted or overly obscure words can help to ensure your academic writing is both formal and highly readable.

Reviewing, Rewriting and Editing

Although an initial draft is essential (and in some departments it is a formal requirement) to establish the ground for your own research and its place within the wider body of scholarship, the literature review will evolve, develop and be modified as you continue to research, write, review and rewrite your thesis. It is likely that your literature review will not be completed until you have almost finished the thesis itself, and a final assessment and edit of this section is essential to ensure you have included the most important scholarship that is relevant and necessary to your research.

It has happened to many students that a crucial piece of literature is published just as they are about to finalise their thesis, and they must revise their literature review in light of it. Unfortunately, this cannot be avoided, lest your examiners think that you are not aware of this key piece of scholarship. You need to ensure your final literature review reflects how your research now fits into the new landscape in your field after any recent developments.

Mistakes to Avoid

Some common mistakes can result in an ineffective literature review that could then flow on to the rest of your thesis. These mistakes include:

Trying to read and include everything you find on your topic. The literature review should be selective as well as comprehensive, examining only those sources relevant to your research topic.
Listing the scholarship as if you are writing an annotated bibliography or a series of summaries. Your discussion of the literature should be synthesised and holistic, and should have a logical progression that is appropriate to the organisation of your content.
Failing to integrate your examination of the literature with your own thesis topic. You need to develop your discussion of each piece of scholarship in relation to other pieces of research, contextualising your analyses and conclusions in relation to your thesis statement or research topic and focusing on how your own research relates to, complements and extends the existing scholarship.

Writing the literature review is often the first task of your research degree. It is a focused reading and research activity that situates your own research in the wider scholarship, establishing yourself as an active member of the academic community through dialogue and debate. By reading, analysing and synthesising the existing scholarship on your topic, you gain a comprehensive and in-depth understanding, ensuring a solid basis for your own arguments and contributions. If you need advice on referencing , academic writing , time management or other aspects of your degree, you may find Capstone Editing’s other resources and blog articles useful.

Australian National University. 2017. ‘Literature Reviews’. Last accessed 28 March. http://www.anu.edu.au/students/learning-development/research-writing/literature-reviews.

Premaratne, Dhilara Darshana. 2013. ‘Discipline Based Variations in the Literature Review in the PhD Thesis: A Perspective from the Discipline of History’. Education and Research Perspectives 40: 236–54.

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What is a Literature Review and What is its Purpose?

The steps in writing a literature review, examples of literature reviews in the sciences, literature review protips for graduate students.

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A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. Through a literature review, a researcher will identify related research that has been accomplished, and may explore appropriate methodology for that research. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

You need to provide context for your research in relation to what is already known. What is the existing knowledge and where does your research sit within this context? How is your project unique from other similar projects? The literature review gives you a chance to:

Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources. It analyzes, synthesizes, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Helpful Resources

If you'd like to learn more about best practices in scientific communication, try these resources:

Paeez, V. (2022). I think and write, therefore you are confused : technical writing and the language interface (1st ed.). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003194835

Kelly, A. (2020). How scientists communicate : dispatches from the frontiers of knowledge . Oxford University Press.

Step 1 - Find Literature
Step 2 - Is it Relevant?
Step 3 - Themes, Debates, Gaps
Step 4 - Develop Outline
Step 5 - Write Review

Step 1 : Search for Relevant Literature

Once you have you have clearly defined your topic and have your keywords/phrases ready, search a wide range of sources to find relevant literature, including: WorldCat Discovery (Library's catalog) to find books and documents, Google Scholar, and core databases in your field. Don't forget to search for technical reports, patents, and government documents too.

Remember to use Boolean operators (And, Or, Not) to refine your search.

You can't read everything, so try this approach to make an initial decision on articles:

Read the article abstract - if it sounds related then
Read the findings, results, or summary of the research results - if it still sounds relevant, then
Go back and read the entire article
If not, discard it and move on

When you find useful book or article, check the bibliography/references to find other relevant sources. The number of of citations an article has (i.e. the number of times other authors have cited a publication) can be an indicator of its importance to the field, but beware of self-citing and ghost citations that can make an article look more critical than it is.

When you get to the point in your search that you are seeing the same articles and authors over and over, you've done a good, comprehensive search.

Step 2 - Evaluate What You Find - Is It Relevant?

As you search, be thinking about the following questions as you do your research:

What question or problem is the author addressing?
What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
What are the key theories, models, and methods?
Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
What are the results and conclusions of the study?
How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Step 3 - Identify Themes, Debates and Gaps in the Literature

As you do your research, begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge or how it fits into the whole.

Step 4 - Develop an Outline for Review

There are various approaches to organizing a literature review:

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. Make sure you analyze patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

You can organize your literature review into subsections that address recurring, central themes or different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods, you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Or Combine Approaches

You may find it helpful to combine several of these strategies, particularly if your literature review is long. For example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically.

Step 5: Write your Review

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write:

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 draw connections, comparisons and contrasts between sources

Source: How to Write a Literature Review: Guide, Examples, & Templates, by Shona McCombes. Scribbr.com, February 22, 2019. URL: https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

Writing a good literature review can be tough. You might want to take a look at examples of literature reviews others have written

New Advances in Nanographene Chemistry New Advances in Nanographene Chemistry, by Akimitsu Narita, Xiao-Ye Wang, Xinliang Feng and Kalus Mullen. Chemical Society Reviews, 2015, 44, 6616-6643; https://doi.org/10.1039/C5CS00183H
Girls in the physics classroom Girls in the physics classroom: a review of the research on the participation of girls in physics, by Patricia Murphy and Elizabeth Whitelegg. (2006) Institute of Physics, London, UK; https://oro.open.ac.uk/6499/3/Girls_and_Physics_Report.pdf
Structural Optimization in Civil Engineering Structural Optimization in Civil Engineering: a Literature Review, by Linfeng Mei and Qian Wang. Buildings, 2021, 11(2), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings11020066
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Flaviviruses Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Flaviviruses, by Nicholas J Barrows et al. Chemical Reviews 2018, 118, 8, 4448–4482; https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.chemrev.7b00719
Get to Know Topic
Find Literature Reviews
Mine Article References, Search Authors

Become Familiar with your Topic - Handbooks and Specialized Encyclopedias

Finding introductory information for subject areas that are unfamiliar can help you identify appropriate search terms, help you familiarize yourself with materials and chemical properties, and help you focus on issues related to your research process

Handbooks, Encyclopedias and other multi-volume reference works can help, as can graduate level textbooks. To find these materials in the Library's collection, search WorldCat Discovery .

Find Literature Reviews for an In-Depth Overview

Literature reviews are particularly helpful in finding past research on a specific topic because someone else summarizes the research in an area up to a particular date, essentially doing some of your research for you, and providing some context for that research.

Some databases provide a way to limit a search to reviews in journal articles. The following databases provide access to reviews across a wide range of disciplines:

Annual Reviews This link opens in a new window Comprehensive, timely collections of critical reviews written by leading scientists covering disciplines within the biomedical/life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, and economics.
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window Comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world. Full-text coverage spans from 1743 to the present, with citation coverage dating back to 1637.

Mine Article References, Use "Cited By" Features, Search Authors

When you find relevant articles, look at the bibliographies - the references the author used to write the article. This will lead you to additional sources. Some databases offer links to these references, and to articles that cite the relevant article you found. For example:

The Web of Science database allows you to link to an authors References and do a "cited reference" search on others who have cited the original article
SciFinder provides a "Citation Mapping" feature that allows you to search backward into an author's references and forward into articles that cite the original article
Google Scholar provides a "Cited By" link to articles that cite the original article

Have you found an article that is cited repeatedly or know of key individuals in the field? Use an author search to find additional sources by these experts.

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Literature Reviews

Getting Started
Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
Finding "The Literature"
Organizing/Writing
Peer Review
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What is a literature review.

A literature review is a methodical examination of the published literature on a specific topic or research question, aimed at analyzing rather than merely summarizing scholarly works relevant to your research . It includes literature that offers background on your topic and demonstrates how it aligns with your research question.

What is the Purpose of a Literature Review?

To help define the focus of your research topic.
To identify existing research in your area of interest, pinpoint gaps in the existing literature, and avoid duplicating previous research.
To gain an understanding of past and current research as well as the current developments and controversies in your field of interest.
To recognize and assess the strengths and weaknesses of works related to your area of interest.
To evaluate the contributions of experts, theoretical approaches, methodologies, results, conclusions, and possible opportunities for future research.

A Literature Review is NOT

An annotated bibliography or research paper
A collection of broad, unrelated sources
Everything that has been written on a particular topic
Literature criticism or a book review.

Literature Review vs Annotated Bibliography

A literature review and an annotated bibliography are both tools used to assess and present scholarly research, but they serve different purposes and have distinct formats:

	Literature Review	Annotated Bibliography
Purpose	Provides an examination of a collection of scholarly work as they pertain to a specific topic of interest.	Provides a summary of the contents of each example in a collection of scholarly works.
Elements	Includes an introduction, body, conclusion, and bibliography similar to a research paper.	A selection of research and/or scholarly works each with its own summary.
Construction	Sources are logically organized and synthesized to demonstrate the author's understanding of the material.	An alphabetized list of works with a complete citation and a brief statement of the main components.
Critical Evaluation	Contains a collective critique of a body of work related to a specific topic. Assesses the strengths, weaknesses, gaps, and possible future research needs for that topic.	Any critique it contains will focus on the quality of the research and/or argument found in each scholarly work.

Where Can I Find a Lit Review?

The Literature Review portion of a scholarly article is usually close to the beginning. It often follows the introduction , or may be combined with the introduction. The writer may discuss his or her research question first, or may choose to explain it while surveying previous literature.

If you are lucky, there will be a section heading that includes " literature review ". If not, look for the section of the article with the most citations or footnotes .

Next: Steps for Conducting a Lit Review >>
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Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

2 Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

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The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

be thorough,
use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

the major achievements in the reviewed field,
the main areas of debate, and
the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

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Here we present four vidcasts that offer a broad introductory overview of graduate writing. In this context, it is helpful to think about writing as a conversation , a process , a social endeavor , and a disciplinary undertaking . Stay tuned as we continue to publish these vidcasts!

Writing at the graduate level is quite different from writing at the undergraduate level. As emerging scholars, graduate writers will need to become well-versed in the scholarly conversations taking place in the journals and at the conferences within their field. Where undergraduate writers may find themselves primarily writing for their professor as audience and to show mastery of subject matter as a purpose, graduate writers’ audience will be their colleagues in the field, and their purpose will be to engage in conversation with and to disseminate new research to those colleagues. A graduate writer’s identity as scholar requires a concurrent identity as writer.

Materials in this section cover a range of topics relevant to graduate-level writing and to the process of becoming a scholarly writer within a particular field. Two sets of vidcasts fall in the category of Intensive Writing Experience (IWE). An IWE is a concentrated program aimed at a particular group of graduate students (e.g., those new to graduate writing or those writing theses and dissertations). These programs ask writers to learn about and engage with information about and strategies to apply to writing that they can then use in their own work. The Introduction to Graduate Writing vidcast series explores how writing is a conversation, a process, a social endeavor, and discipline specific. The IWE for Thesis and Dissertation writers offers material on how to set goals for and remain motivated during a long-term project. It covers topics relevant to drafting and revising documents, such as reverse outlining, sentence concision, and flow in scholarly writing.

In addition to the vidcasts, this section of the OWL houses a number of handouts specific to graduate writing on topics such as style or organization and on genres such as literature reviews and conference proposals. These materials offer explanations and samples of the particular topic or genre being covered in the handout.

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Video: Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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Last Updated: Aug 8, 2024 11:00 AM
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Tips for Conducting Graduate Level Research

What is a Literature Review?

Types of literature reviws, organize your reviews, create an outline, literature review resources.

Literature Search Essentials
Brief Guide to Resources for Research
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Quick Reference

A literature review is a compilation of scholarly published research on a particular topic. It should explain to your readers what knowledge and ideas have been established on the topic, along with their strengths and weaknesses. In journalism and mass communication, faculty may also allow you to include professional and trade articles in your literature review.

Literature reviews can be a subsection or a stand alone bibliographic essay.

Part of a research project/paper
A chapter in a dissertation or thesis
A section in a scholarly journal article
Analysis of existing research in a research proposal
Justification in a grant application
A literature review assigned for class to understand and write about current research on a topic
An analytical essay synthesizing an annotated bibliography into a formal paper
A review article for a scholarly journal

Suggestions for Conducting the Literature Review

Organize the review around a research question or hypothesis
Summarize with a synthesis of your results
Identify gaps in the literature as well as controversy
Formulate suggestions for further research
Follow suggestions on "Research Tips & Techniques for Effective Searching" on the previous page

Argumentative Review

This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute and argument, deeply imbedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint.

Integrative Review

Probably the most common form of review in the social sciences, the integrative review is a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of the literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems.

Historical Review

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.

Methodological Review

A review does not always focus on what someone said, but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels, 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. 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?"

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.

Fink, A. (2005). Conducting research literature reviews: From the Internet to paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage.; Hart, C. (1998). Doing a literature review: Releasing the social science research imagination. Thousand Oaks, DA: Sage Publications. Jesson, J. (2011). Doing your literature review: traditional and systematic techniques. Lo Angeles, CA: Sage; Ridley, D. (2012). The literature review: A step-by-step guide for students. 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. University of Southern California Libraries. (2015). Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: 5. The Literature Review. Retrieved from http://libguides.usc.edu/c.php?g=235034&p=1559822

Decide how to organize your reviews

Since one of the purposes of the literature reviews is to provide an overview and synthesis of the information you read, grouping similar articles can provide structure to your overview.

Examples of ways to organize a literature review:

Chronological - organize by how the topic has changed over time. Define it; explain how it has evolved over time; and conclude with how it is viewed today.
Comparison to Present Hypothesis - An empirical article or meta analysis involves an hypothesis and conclusion. Organize the review to show articles supporting your hypothesis and those disagreeing with it. It enables you to effectively show strengths of the supporting research, discuss validity and methodologies that disagree with your findings, summing up with how past research leads up to and supports yours.
Broad to Specific - Begin with the general and narrow down to specific issues until you reach articles similar to your research statement.
Major Models or Major Theories - Group articles by the theoretical framework preferred by the author of the article.
Prominent Authors - Use the bibliography or references to identify prominent authors who may have started or helped develop the field that is the topic of your review.
Contrasting Thoughts - Authors have contrasting views about a topic, group the literature review by those schools of thought and contrast their different approaches.
Problem to Solution - Group quotations from articles describing problems being addressed in your research, then group by solutions proposed in the articles.

North Carolina State University, Bluford Library. (2015). Literature Review - Libquide. Retrieved from http://libguides.library.ncat.edu/content.php?pid=122999&sid=1232021 .

Once you have decided on the organization structure of your literature review, create an outline. An outline is a good way to organize you ideas, articles, quotations and references.

Create the outline based on your organization. If you have organized your review chronologically, label time periods that mark changes in the history of your topic. Example:

1. Origins 1970s

White, 1970, p 72-95
George, 1972, p 3-19
Wilder, 1972, p 45-60

2. 1980's-1990's

White, 1983, p 77-85
Underwood, 1985, p 125-140
Jemison, 1998, p 42-56

3. Current

Thorson, 2013, p 28-45
Duffy, 2014, p 67-82
Rodgers, 2015, p 27-46

As you begin reading the articles, whenever you find a good quote, mark it with the part of the outline in which it fits. Make note of the author, year and page number whenever you run across something in your reading that falls into a subsection in your review outline.

Guides for Conducting Literature Reviews

The Literature Review - University of Southern California (USC) Libguide
The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting it - Dena Taylor, University of Toronto
Literature Review Libguide - North Carolina State University
Literature Reviews - The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Learn How to Write a Review of the Literature - Writing Center, University of Wisconsin- Madison
Writing a Short Literature Review - William Ashton, PhD, York College, CUNY provides a step-by-step example for how to write a literature review.

Literature Reviews: Books

Dawidowicz, P. (2010). Literature reviews mad easy: a quick guide to success . Charlotte, NC : Information Age Pub.
Fink, A. (1998). Conducting research literature reviews: from paper to the Internet. Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage. Journalism Library, Journalism Library Reserve and Ellis Library. Q 180.55 .M4 F56 1998.
Joyner, R. L. et. al. (2013). Writing the winning thesis or dissertation : a step-by-step guide . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 3rd ed. Ellis Library LB2369 .G56 2013.
Machi, L. A. & McEvoy, B. (2009). The literature review : six steps to success . Thousand Oaks, CA : Corwin Press. Journalism Library Reserve. LB1047.3 .M33 2009.
Pan, M. L. (2008). Preparing literature reviews: qualitative and quantitative approaches. Glendale, CA : Pyrczak Pub., 3rd ed. Journalism Library Q180.55.E9 P36 2008.
Ridley, D. (2012). The literature review : a step-by-step guide for students. London ; Thousand Oaks, CA : SAGE. 2nd. ed. Ellis Library LB2369 .R525 2012.
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Next: Literature Search Essentials >>
Last Updated: Jun 19, 2024 3:22 PM
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COMMENTS

How should I approach writing a literature review at the graduate level
A literature review is a common genre for many types of writing you'll have to do as a graduate student and scholar. Not only do dissertations contain literature reviews, but most articles and grant proposals have some form of literature review included in them.
How to Write a Literature Review
Examples of literature reviews. Step 1 - Search for relevant literature. Step 2 - Evaluate and select sources. Step 3 - Identify themes, debates, and gaps. Step 4 - Outline your literature review's structure. Step 5 - Write your literature review.
Writing a Literature Review
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).
How To Write A Literature Review (+ Free Template)
As mentioned above, writing your literature review is a process, which I'll break down into three steps: Finding the most suitable literature. Understanding, distilling and organising the literature. Planning and writing up your literature review chapter. Importantly, you must complete steps one and two before you start writing up your chapter.
Literature reviews for graduate students
Academic writing: what is a literature review, a guide that addresses the writing and composition aspect of a literature review; ... For most graduate-level literature reviews, it is usually recommended to use both. Build careful searches in the subject/academic databases, and check Google Scholar as well. ...
PDF Writing an Effective Literature Review
at each of these in turn.IntroductionThe first part of any literature review is a way of inviting your read. into the topic and orientating them. A good introduction tells the reader what the review is about - its s. pe—and what you are going to cover. It may also specifically tell you.
How To Structure A Literature Review (Free Template)
Demonstrate your knowledge of the research topic. Identify the gaps in the literature and show how your research links to these. Provide the foundation for your conceptual framework (if you have one) Inform your own methodology and research design. To achieve this, your literature review needs a well-thought-out structure.
PDF LITERATURE REVIEWS
WRITING A TARGETED LITERATURE REVIEW a targeted literature review is NOT: ¡ a sophisticated evaluation of the entire literature or literatures related to your topic ¡ a set of thinly connected summaries of important related works haphazardly selected from many subfields a targeted literature review IS: ¡ a carefully curated set of sources from a small number of subfield literatures
Graduate Writing: Writing Literature Reviews
Most graduate-level literature reviews are likely to be narrative reviews, but some students, especially those in health sciences, may be expected to produce a systematic review or a scoping (or mapping) review. Other literature reviews include critical reviews*, conceptual reviews, empirical reviews, meta-analysis reviews, and rapid reviews ...
How to Write a Literature Review
From the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. Overview of the literature review including its purpose, research strategies, help for keeping track of your work, examples of published lit reviews, and books on graduate-level (and beyond) writing. Writing a Review of Literature Superb introduction from the University of Wisconsin ...
Literature Review Example (PDF + Template)
The literature review opening/introduction section; The theoretical framework (or foundation of theory) The empirical research; The research gap; The closing section; We then progress to the sample literature review (from an A-grade Master's-level dissertation) to show how these concepts are applied in the literature review chapter. You can ...
PDF Writing a Literature Review FINAL
There are several steps toward writing a strong literature review: 1. Synthesize and evaluate information. 2. Identify the main ideas of the literature. 3. Identify the main argument of the literature review. 4. Organize the main points of the literature review.
Literature reviews
Literature reviews. Writing literature reviews (or "reviews of literature" if you're "not into the whole brevity thing ") is one of the more challenging academic tasks you'll have to face as a grad student. If you're writing a thesis or dissertation, for example, the lit review chapter (usually chapter 2) might be the hardest ...
How to Research & Write a Literature Review: for Postgrads
This guide provides postgraduate students with an overview of the literature review required for most research degrees. It will advise you on the common types of literature reviews across disciplines and will outline how the purpose and structure of each may differ slightly. Various approaches to effective content organisation and writing style ...
PDF Writing Literature Reviews Graduate Writing Center
This packet will also suggest a variety of organizational patterns for literature reviews and address some major revision concerns and methods for citing sources appropriately. Goals. 1. To help you understand the functional purpose and requirements of an effective literature review. 2. To help you critically assess research materials. 3.
Writing Literature Reviews
Step 5: Write your Review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach. As you write: Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
APA Styling
A literature review paper critically summarizes previous empirical literature on a specific topic/question. Writing a literature review paper demonstrates strong familiarity with work in the field surrounding research interest. A literature review paper normally contains the following: Title page Introduction Main body List of references Some important tips to consider when writing a ...
Getting Started
The Literature Review portion of a scholarly article is usually close to the beginning. It often follows the introduction, or may be combined with the introduction.The writer may discuss his or her research question first, or may choose to explain it while surveying previous literature.. If you are lucky, there will be a section heading that includes "literature review".
Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review
Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications .For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively .Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every ...
Graduate Writing Overview
The Introduction to Graduate Writing vidcast series explores how writing is a conversation, a process, a social endeavor, and discipline specific. The IWE for Thesis and Dissertation writers offers material on how to set goals for and remain motivated during a long-term project. It covers topics relevant to drafting and revising documents, such ...
How should I approach writing a literature review at the graduate level
University Writing Center. Ekstrom Library 132. Kornhauser Library 221. University of Louisville. Louisville, Kentucky 40292
Video: Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students
Literature reviews can range from being selective to comprehensive. They can also be part of a larger work or stand alone. A course assignment is an example of a selective review. It focuses on a small segment of the literature on a topic and makes up the entire work. The literature review in a thesis or dissertation is an example of a ...
Literature Review: Conducting & Writing
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 Literature Reviews. Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts; Have an exemplary literature review? Get Help!
Conducting a Literature Review
Learn How to Write a Review of the Literature - Writing Center, University of Wisconsin- Madison; Writing a Short Literature Review - William Ashton, PhD, York College, CUNY provides a step-by-step example for how to write a literature review. Literature Reviews: Books. Dawidowicz, P. (2010). Literature reviews mad easy: a quick guide to success.
Students' Writing Skills: A Literature Review
Anita L. Ondrusek. Master of Library and Information Science Program, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, CA 3 7 698. Email: [email protected]. AA review of the professional literature on writing skills of graduate students reveals that. research on this topic occurs primarily in disciplines outside the field of library and information ...
The article by Walter & Stouck (2020). "Writing the
The article by Walter & Stouck (2 0 2 " Writing the literature review: Graduate student experiences ", has all the major sections of empirical research (abstract, introduction, literature review, methods, discussion, implications, and recommendat Without addressing the article's content specifically, how would you characterize the purpose of the literature review section?

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Literature reviews for graduate students

Writing Literature Reviews

Graduate Writing: Writing Literature Reviews

Keeping the Literature Organized

Synthesis and the Literature Review

How to Write a Literature Review

Literature Review Example/Sample

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Literature reviews

Lit Reviews: A Brief Overview

Video: Lit Reviews “Crash Course” (16 min)

Other Helpful Videos

Video: My 2024 Workshop on Lit Reviews (71 min)

Video: My 2021 Workshop on Lit Reviews (78 min)

Sample Lit Reviews

Some Must-Read Posts from “The Thesis Whisperer”

Developing a Research Question

Literature Search Strategies

Literature Reading Strategies

Summarizing and Paraphrasing Sources

Synthesizing and Integrating Sources

Critiquing Sources

Further Reading

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The Purpose of a Literature Review

The Structure of Your Literature Review

Humanities and Social Science Degrees

Science and Mathematics Degrees

Strategies for Writing an Effective Literature Review

Using a Mind Map

Maintaining a Current Reference List or Annotated Bibliography

The Drawbacks of Referencing Software

Writing Style

Reviewing, Rewriting and Editing

Mistakes to Avoid

Other guides you may be interested in

Essay Writing Part 2: How to Organise Your Research

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What is a Literature Review and What is its Purpose?

Literature Reviews

Quick Links

What is the Purpose of a Literature Review?

A Literature Review is NOT

Literature Review vs Annotated Bibliography

Where Can I Find a Lit Review?

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Acknowledgments

Funding Statement