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

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

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

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

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

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

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

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Table of contents

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

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

Download Word doc Download Google doc

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

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

Make a list of keywords

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

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

Search for relevant sources

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

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

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

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

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

For each publication, ask yourself:

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

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

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

Take notes and cite your sources

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

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

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

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.

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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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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,

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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How To Write A Literature Review - A Complete Guide

Table of Contents

A literature review is much more than just another section in your research paper. It forms the very foundation of your research. It is a formal piece of writing where you analyze the existing theoretical framework, principles, and assumptions and use that as a base to shape your approach to the research question.

Curating and drafting a solid literature review section not only lends more credibility to your research paper but also makes your research tighter and better focused. But, writing literature reviews is a difficult task. It requires extensive reading, plus you have to consider market trends and technological and political changes, which tend to change in the blink of an eye.

Now streamline your literature review process with the help of SciSpace Copilot. With this AI research assistant, you can efficiently synthesize and analyze a vast amount of information, identify key themes and trends, and uncover gaps in the existing research. Get real-time explanations, summaries, and answers to your questions for the paper you're reviewing, making navigating and understanding the complex literature landscape easier.

In this comprehensive guide, we will explore everything from the definition of a literature review, its appropriate length, various types of literature reviews, and how to write one.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a collation of survey, research, critical evaluation, and assessment of the existing literature in a preferred domain.

Eminent researcher and academic Arlene Fink, in her book Conducting Research Literature Reviews , defines it as the following:

“A literature review surveys books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated.

Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic, and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of study.”

Simply put, a literature review can be defined as a critical discussion of relevant pre-existing research around your research question and carving out a definitive place for your study in the existing body of knowledge. Literature reviews can be presented in multiple ways: a section of an article, the whole research paper itself, or a chapter of your thesis.

A literature review does function as a summary of sources, but it also allows you to analyze further, interpret, and examine the stated theories, methods, viewpoints, and, of course, the gaps in the existing content.

As an author, you can discuss and interpret the research question and its various aspects and debate your adopted methods to support the claim.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

A literature review is meant to help your readers understand the relevance of your research question and where it fits within the existing body of knowledge. As a researcher, you should use it to set the context, build your argument, and establish the need for your study.

What is the importance of a literature review?

The literature review is a critical part of research papers because it helps you:

• Gain an in-depth understanding of your research question and the surrounding area
• Convey that you have a thorough understanding of your research area and are up-to-date with the latest changes and advancements
• Establish how your research is connected or builds on the existing body of knowledge and how it could contribute to further research
• Elaborate on the validity and suitability of your theoretical framework and research methodology
• Identify and highlight gaps and shortcomings in the existing body of knowledge and how things need to change
• Convey to readers how your study is different or how it contributes to the research area

How long should a literature review be?

Ideally, the literature review should take up 15%-40% of the total length of your manuscript. So, if you have a 10,000-word research paper, the minimum word count could be 1500.

Your literature review format depends heavily on the kind of manuscript you are writing — an entire chapter in case of doctoral theses, a part of the introductory section in a research article, to a full-fledged review article that examines the previously published research on a topic.

Another determining factor is the type of research you are doing. The literature review section tends to be longer for secondary research projects than primary research projects.

What are the different types of literature reviews?

All literature reviews are not the same. There are a variety of possible approaches that you can take. It all depends on the type of research you are pursuing.

Here are the different types of literature reviews:

Argumentative review

It is called an argumentative review when you carefully present literature that only supports or counters a specific argument or premise to establish a viewpoint.

Integrative review

It is a type of literature review focused on building a comprehensive understanding of a topic by combining available theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence.

Methodological review

This approach delves into the ''how'' and the ''what" of the research question —  you cannot look at the outcome in isolation; you should also review the methodology used.

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 collect, report, and analyze data from the studies included in the review.

Meta-analysis review

Meta-analysis uses statistical methods to summarize the results of independent studies. By combining information from all relevant studies, meta-analysis can provide more precise estimates of the effects than those derived from the individual studies included within a review.

Historical review

Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, or phenomenon emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and identify future research's likely directions.

Theoretical Review

This form aims to examine the corpus of theory accumulated regarding an issue, concept, theory, and phenomenon. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories exist, the relationships between them, the degree the existing approaches have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested.

Scoping Review

The Scoping Review is often used at the beginning of an article, dissertation, or research proposal. It is conducted before the research to highlight gaps in the existing body of knowledge and explains why the project should be greenlit.

State-of-the-Art Review

The State-of-the-Art review is conducted periodically, focusing on the most recent research. It describes what is currently known, understood, or agreed upon regarding the research topic and highlights where there are still disagreements.

Can you use the first person in a literature review?

When writing literature reviews, you should avoid the usage of first-person pronouns. It means that instead of "I argue that" or "we argue that," the appropriate expression would be "this research paper argues that."

Do you need an abstract for a literature review?

Ideally, yes. It is always good to have a condensed summary that is self-contained and independent of the rest of your review. As for how to draft one, you can follow the same fundamental idea when preparing an abstract for a literature review. It should also include:

• The research topic and your motivation behind selecting it
• A one-sentence thesis statement
• An explanation of the kinds of literature featured in the review
• Summary of what you've learned
• Conclusions you drew from the literature you reviewed
• Potential implications and future scope for research

Here's an example of the abstract of a literature review

Is a literature review written in the past tense?

Yes, the literature review should ideally be written in the past tense. You should not use the present or future tense when writing one. The exceptions are when you have statements describing events that happened earlier than the literature you are reviewing or events that are currently occurring; then, you can use the past perfect or present perfect tenses.

How many sources for a literature review?

There are multiple approaches to deciding how many sources to include in a literature review section. The first approach would be to look level you are at as a researcher. For instance, a doctoral thesis might need 60+ sources. In contrast, you might only need to refer to 5-15 sources at the undergraduate level.

The second approach is based on the kind of literature review you are doing — whether it is merely a chapter of your paper or if it is a self-contained paper in itself. When it is just a chapter, sources should equal the total number of pages in your article's body. In the second scenario, you need at least three times as many sources as there are pages in your work.

Quick tips on how to write a literature review

To know how to write a literature review, you must clearly understand its impact and role in establishing your work as substantive research material.

You need to follow the below-mentioned steps, to write a literature review:

• Outline the purpose behind the literature review
• Search relevant literature
• Examine and assess the relevant resources
• Discover connections by drawing deep insights from the resources
• Structure planning to write a good literature review

1. Outline and identify the purpose of  a literature review

As a first step on how to write a literature review, you must know what the research question or topic is and what shape you want your literature review to take. Ensure you understand the research topic inside out, or else seek clarifications. You must be able to the answer below questions before you start:

• How many sources do I need to include?
• What kind of sources should I analyze?
• How much should I critically evaluate each source?
• Should I summarize, synthesize or offer a critique of the sources?
• Do I need to include any background information or definitions?

Additionally, you should know that the narrower your research topic is, the swifter it will be for you to restrict the number of sources to be analyzed.

2. Search relevant literature

Dig deeper into search engines to discover what has already been published around your chosen topic. Make sure you thoroughly go through appropriate reference sources like books, reports, journal articles, government docs, and web-based resources.

You must prepare a list of keywords and their different variations. You can start your search from any library’s catalog, provided you are an active member of that institution. The exact keywords can be extended to widen your research over other databases and academic search engines like:

• Google Scholar
• Microsoft Academic
• Science.gov

Besides, it is not advisable to go through every resource word by word. Alternatively, what you can do is you can start by reading the abstract and then decide whether that source is relevant to your research or not.

Additionally, you must spend surplus time assessing the quality and relevance of resources. It would help if you tried preparing a list of citations to ensure that there lies no repetition of authors, publications, or articles in the literature review.

3. Examine and assess the sources

It is nearly impossible for you to go through every detail in the research article. So rather than trying to fetch every detail, you have to analyze and decide which research sources resemble closest and appear relevant to your chosen domain.

While analyzing the sources, you should look to find out answers to questions like:

• What question or problem has the author been describing and debating?
• What is the definition of critical aspects?
• How well the theories, approach, and methodology have been explained?
• Whether the research theory used some conventional or new innovative approach?
• How relevant are the key findings of the work?
• In what ways does it relate to other sources on the same topic?
• What challenges does this research paper pose to the existing theory
• What are the possible contributions or benefits it adds to the subject domain?

Be always mindful that you refer only to credible and authentic resources. It would be best if you always take references from different publications to validate your theory.

Always keep track of important information or data you can present in your literature review right from the beginning. It will help steer your path from any threats of plagiarism and also make it easier to curate an annotated bibliography or reference section.

4. Discover connections

At this stage, you must start deciding on the argument and structure of your literature review. To accomplish this, you must discover and identify the relations and connections between various resources while drafting your abstract.

A few aspects that you should be aware of while writing a literature review include:

• Rise to prominence: Theories and methods that have gained reputation and supporters over time.
• Constant scrutiny: Concepts or theories that repeatedly went under examination.
• Contradictions and conflicts: Theories, both the supporting and the contradictory ones, for the research topic.
• Knowledge gaps: What exactly does it fail to address, and how to bridge them with further research?
• Influential resources: Significant research projects available that have been upheld as milestones or perhaps, something that can modify the current trends

Once you join the dots between various past research works, it will be easier for you to draw a conclusion and identify your contribution to the existing knowledge base.

5. Structure planning to write a good literature review

There exist different ways towards planning and executing the structure of a literature review. The format of a literature review varies and depends upon the length of the research.

Like any other research paper, the literature review format must contain three sections: introduction, body, and conclusion. The goals and objectives of the research question determine what goes inside these three sections.

Nevertheless, a good literature review can be structured according to the chronological, thematic, methodological, or theoretical framework approach.

Literature review samples

1. Standalone

2. As a section of a research paper

How SciSpace Discover makes literature review a breeze?

SciSpace Discover is a one-stop solution to do an effective literature search and get barrier-free access to scientific knowledge. It is an excellent repository where you can find millions of only peer-reviewed articles and full-text PDF files. Here’s more on how you can use it:

Find the right information

Find what you want quickly and easily with comprehensive search filters that let you narrow down papers according to PDF availability, year of publishing, document type, and affiliated institution. Moreover, you can sort the results based on the publishing date, citation count, and relevance.

Assess credibility of papers quickly

When doing the literature review, it is critical to establish the quality of your sources. They form the foundation of your research. SciSpace Discover helps you assess the quality of a source by providing an overview of its references, citations, and performance metrics.

Get the complete picture in no time

SciSpace Discover’s personalized suggestion engine helps you stay on course and get the complete picture of the topic from one place. Every time you visit an article page, it provides you links to related papers. Besides that, it helps you understand what’s trending, who are the top authors, and who are the leading publishers on a topic.

Make referring sources super easy

To ensure you don't lose track of your sources, you must start noting down your references when doing the literature review. SciSpace Discover makes this step effortless. Click the 'cite' button on an article page, and you will receive preloaded citation text in multiple styles — all you've to do is copy-paste it into your manuscript.

Final tips on how to write a literature review

A massive chunk of time and effort is required to write a good literature review. But, if you go about it systematically, you'll be able to save a ton of time and build a solid foundation for your research.

We hope this guide has helped you answer several key questions you have about writing literature reviews.

Would you like to explore SciSpace Discover and kick off your literature search right away? You can get started here .

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. how to start a literature review.

• What questions do you want to answer?

• What sources do you need to answer these questions?

• What information do these sources contain?

• How can you use this information to answer your questions?

2. What to include in a literature review?

• A brief background of the problem or issue

• What has previously been done to address the problem or issue

• A description of what you will do in your project

• How this study will contribute to research on the subject

3. Why literature review is important?

The literature review is an important part of any research project because it allows the writer to look at previous studies on a topic and determine existing gaps in the literature, as well as what has already been done. It will also help them to choose the most appropriate method for their own study.

4. How to cite a literature review in APA format?

To cite a literature review in APA style, you need to provide the author's name, the title of the article, and the year of publication. For example: Patel, A. B., & Stokes, G. S. (2012). The relationship between personality and intelligence: A meta-analysis of longitudinal research. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(1), 16-21

5. What are the components of a literature review?

• A brief introduction to the topic, including its background and context. The introduction should also include a rationale for why the study is being conducted and what it will accomplish.

• A description of the methodologies used in the study. This can include information about data collection methods, sample size, and statistical analyses.

• A presentation of the findings in an organized format that helps readers follow along with the author's conclusions.

6. What are common errors in writing literature review?

• Not spending enough time to critically evaluate the relevance of resources, observations and conclusions.

• Totally relying on secondary data while ignoring primary data.

• Letting your personal bias seep into your interpretation of existing literature.

• No detailed explanation of the procedure to discover and identify an appropriate literature review.

7. What are the 5 C's of writing literature review?

• Cite - the sources you utilized and referenced in your research.

• Compare - existing arguments, hypotheses, methodologies, and conclusions found in the knowledge base.

• Contrast - the arguments, topics, methodologies, approaches, and disputes that may be found in the literature.

• Critique - the literature and describe the ideas and opinions you find more convincing and why.

• Connect - the various studies you reviewed in your research.

8. How many sources should a literature review have?

When it is just a chapter, sources should equal the total number of pages in your article's body. if it is a self-contained paper in itself, you need at least three times as many sources as there are pages in your work.

9. Can literature review have diagrams?

• To represent an abstract idea or concept

• To explain the steps of a process or procedure

• To help readers understand the relationships between different concepts

10. How old should sources be in a literature review?

Sources for a literature review should be as current as possible or not older than ten years. The only exception to this rule is if you are reviewing a historical topic and need to use older sources.

11. What are the types of literature review?

• Argumentative review

• Integrative review

• Methodological review

• Systematic review

• Meta-analysis review

• Historical review

• Theoretical review

• Scoping review

• State-of-the-Art review

12. Is a literature review mandatory?

Yes. Literature review is a mandatory part of any research project. It is a critical step in the process that allows you to establish the scope of your research, and provide a background for the rest of your work.

But before you go,

• Six Online Tools for Easy Literature Review
• Evaluating literature review: systematic vs. scoping reviews
• Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review
• Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples

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Literature review

How to write a literature review in 6 steps

How do you write a good literature review? This step-by-step guide on how to write an excellent literature review covers all aspects of planning and writing literature reviews for academic papers and theses.

How to write a systematic literature review [9 steps]

How do you write a systematic literature review? What types of systematic literature reviews exist and where do you use them? Learn everything you need to know about a systematic literature review in this guide

What is a literature review? [with examples]

Not sure what a literature review is? This guide covers the definition, purpose, and format of a literature review.

• UConn Library
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
• Introduction

Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide — Introduction

• Getting Started
• How to Pick a Topic
• Strategies to Find Sources
• Evaluating Sources & Lit. Reviews
• Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
• Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
• Citation Resources
• Other Academic Writings

What are Literature Reviews?

So, what is a literature review? "A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries." Taylor, D.  The literature review: A few tips on conducting it . University of Toronto Health Sciences Writing Centre.

Goals of Literature Reviews

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?  A literature could be written to accomplish different aims:

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews .  Review of General Psychology , 1 (3), 311-320.

What kinds of sources require a Literature Review?

• A research paper assigned in a course
• A thesis or dissertation
• A grant proposal
• An article intended for publication in a journal

All these instances require you to collect what has been written about your research topic so that you can demonstrate how your own research sheds new light on the topic.

Types of Literature Reviews

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Narrative review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.

• Example : Predictors and Outcomes of U.S. Quality Maternity Leave: A Review and Conceptual Framework:  10.1177/08948453211037398  

Systematic review : "The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find." (p. 139). Nelson, L. K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders . Plural Publishing.

• Example : The effect of leave policies on increasing fertility: a systematic review:  10.1057/s41599-022-01270-w

Meta-analysis : "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing research findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occurred in different studies." (p. 197). Roberts, M. C., & Ilardi, S. S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology . Blackwell Publishing.

• Example : Employment Instability and Fertility in Europe: A Meta-Analysis:  10.1215/00703370-9164737

Meta-synthesis : "Qualitative meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic." (p.312). Zimmer, L. (2006). Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts .  Journal of Advanced Nursing , 53 (3), 311-318.

• Example : Women’s perspectives on career successes and barriers: A qualitative meta-synthesis:  10.1177/05390184221113735

Literature Reviews in the Health Sciences

• UConn Health subject guide on systematic reviews Explanation of the different review types used in health sciences literature as well as tools to help you find the right review type
• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: How to Pick a Topic >>
• Last Updated: Sep 21, 2022 2:16 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/literaturereview

How to Write a Literature Review: Six Steps to Get You from Start to Finish

Writing-a-literature-review-six-steps-to-get-you-from-start-to-finish.

Tanya Golash-Boza, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California

February 03, 2022

Writing a literature review is often the most daunting part of writing an article, book, thesis, or dissertation. “The literature” seems (and often is) massive. I have found it helpful to be as systematic as possible when completing this gargantuan task.

Sonja Foss and William Walters* describe an efficient and effective way of writing a literature review. Their system provides an excellent guide for getting through the massive amounts of literature for any purpose: in a dissertation, an M.A. thesis, or preparing a research article for publication  in any field of study. Below is a  summary of the steps they outline as well as a step-by-step method for writing a literature review.

How to Write a Literature Review

Step One: Decide on your areas of research:

Before you begin to search for articles or books, decide beforehand what areas you are going to research. Make sure that you only get articles and books in those areas, even if you come across fascinating books in other areas. A literature review I am currently working on, for example, explores barriers to higher education for undocumented students.

Step Two: Search for the literature:

Conduct a comprehensive bibliographic search of books and articles in your area. Read the abstracts online and download and/or print those articles that pertain to your area of research. Find books in the library that are relevant and check them out. Set a specific time frame for how long you will search. It should not take more than two or three dedicated sessions.

Step Three: Find relevant excerpts in your books and articles:

Skim the contents of each book and article and look specifically for these five things:

1. Claims, conclusions, and findings about the constructs you are investigating

2. Definitions of terms

3. Calls for follow-up studies relevant to your project

4. Gaps you notice in the literature

5. Disagreement about the constructs you are investigating

When you find any of these five things, type the relevant excerpt directly into a Word document. Don’t summarize, as summarizing takes longer than simply typing the excerpt. Make sure to note the name of the author and the page number following each excerpt. Do this for each article and book that you have in your stack of literature. When you are done, print out your excerpts.

Step Four: Code the literature:

Get out a pair of scissors and cut each excerpt out. Now, sort the pieces of paper into similar topics. Figure out what the main themes are. Place each excerpt into a themed pile. Make sure each note goes into a pile. If there are excerpts that you can’t figure out where they belong, separate those and go over them again at the end to see if you need new categories. When you finish, place each stack of notes into an envelope labeled with the name of the theme.

Step Five: Create Your Conceptual Schema:

Type, in large font, the name of each of your coded themes. Print this out, and cut the titles into individual slips of paper. Take the slips of paper to a table or large workspace and figure out the best way to organize them. Are there ideas that go together or that are in dialogue with each other? Are there ideas that contradict each other? Move around the slips of paper until you come up with a way of organizing the codes that makes sense. Write the conceptual schema down before you forget or someone cleans up your slips of paper.

Step Six: Begin to Write Your Literature Review:

Choose any section of your conceptual schema to begin with. You can begin anywhere, because you already know the order. Find the envelope with the excerpts in them and lay them on the table in front of you. Figure out a mini-conceptual schema based on that theme by grouping together those excerpts that say the same thing. Use that mini-conceptual schema to write up your literature review based on the excerpts that you have in front of you. Don’t forget to include the citations as you write, so as not to lose track of who said what. Repeat this for each section of your literature review.

Once you complete these six steps, you will have a complete draft of your literature review. The great thing about this process is that it breaks down into manageable steps something that seems enormous: writing a literature review.

I think that Foss and Walter’s system for writing the literature review is ideal for a dissertation, because a Ph.D. candidate has already read widely in his or her field through graduate seminars and comprehensive exams.

It may be more challenging for M.A. students, unless you are already familiar with the literature. It is always hard to figure out how much you need to read for deep meaning, and how much you just need to know what others have said. That balance will depend on how much you already know.

For people writing literature reviews for articles or books, this system also could work, especially when you are writing in a field with which you are already familiar. The mere fact of having a system can make the literature review seem much less daunting, so I recommend this system for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the prospect of writing a literature review.

*Destination Dissertation: A Traveler's Guide to a Done Dissertation

Image Credit/Source: Goldmund Lukic/Getty Images

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How to Write a Literature Review

Learn what a literature review is, where it is used, and the structure it should follow, including how to refer to studies and establish themes. We provides tips on writing a literature review, such as stating your research question, selecting key terms, and finding relevant literature on your topic.

Updated on May 17, 2023

A literature review is an overview of the existing literature on a particular topic. It provides a concise summary and critical analysis of existing publications. This justifies why the study was conducted. It also helps the reader understand the topic and see areas for future research. It can be part of a manuscript’s introduction section or a required part of an academic thesis. It can also be a standalone paper, such as a narrative review.

This article discusses what a literature review is when it’s part of a research paper. It provides strategies, tools, and tips for writing a good review.

What is a literature review, and where is it used?

A literature review is an organized summary of existing literature on a topic or research question. It’s used to help readers understand what has been done before related to the topic you’re writing on.

It shows how your study fits into the literature, why your study is needed, and what novel insights your study will bring to the literature.

In that sense, a literature review justifies your work and its potential impact. Literature reviews are also valuable for other researchers, as they can overview a specific topic.

A literature review is used in academic documents, including manuscripts, theses and dissertations, and in standalone papers such as systematic reviews and narrative reviews.

In a manuscript or dissertation, the literature review is presented as background information in the introduction section. Here, it summarizes prior research on the key concepts the paper focuses on, identifies gaps in the literature, and provides context for why the current study is needed. It focuses on summarizing articles that provide specific evidence relating to the topic of the larger manuscript and is very narrowly focused.

In contrast, a standalone literature review is a comprehensive and critical analysis of the existing research and literature on a specific topic. It synthesizes the current state of knowledge on the topic, identifies gaps, contradictions, and future directions for research. A literature review paper is typically longer, more comprehensive, and applies a study methodology.

What structure do literature reviews follow?

Literature reviews follow a logical structure, meaning every sentence logically leads to the next. They begin with a broad overview of the topic and then narrow down to specific research carried out on that topic in a way that builds on the previous information. Supporting studies are discussed one-by-one or they’re grouped by themes. They may or may not specifically indicate the authors by name. That depends on personal style and guidelines.

Referring to studies

For example, the literature review in Howden et al. (2018), reporting on a randomized controlled trial (RCT) on fitness and heart failure, first states the overall theme: sedentary aging’s association with worsening cardiovascular health. In concise sentences, it then lists the themes along with subscript numbers of the supporting literature, e.g., “...middle age is the strongest predictor of future heart failure.5–7”. No authors are named. This may be because of the referencing style (using numbers leading to the References list, unlike, for instance, APA, which uses last names), or it may be the authors’ preference.

Tramontano et al. (2021), on remote work , lists authors’ names along with the supporting research. In some cases, the names are in parentheses (per APA style) and in other cases, (e.g., ...Gonzales Vazquez and colleagues (2019) indicated...) the names represent the study. Again, it’s a combination of referencing style and authors’ preference.

Establish themes

As the literature review progresses, you synthesize the information from the articles. Articles are grouped together by theme or evidence (i.e., supporting or contrasting), with relevant citations giving support. Typically, findings are condensed and summarized concisely (i.e., in one or a couple of sentences).

For example, if you were exploring how processed food affects heart health, articles in the literature review might be grouped into categories such as heart health in general, processed foods, and the negative effects of processed foods on general heart health. You’d then summarize the key findings for each category with relevant citations.

As such, a literature review in a manuscript is not simply a chronological list of articles and their findings. Rather, it’s a report and analysis of the existing literature. It weaves a narrative that underpins your own study.

Writing your literature review

State your research question .

The first step to writing a good literature review is stating your research question.

If you’re writing a manuscript or dissertation, you likely already know what your research question is. Be sure it’s clearly presented at the end of the introductory paragraph so the reader immediately knows what the study will be about.

Select key terms

Next, identify several key words/terms/phrases that will be used to query your search for relevant literature.

For example, if your manuscript is about the effects of processed foods on heart health, you will want to use keywords such as “cardiovascular,” “processed foods,” and “heart disease” to retrieve relevant publications.

Find relevant literature on your topic

Most researchers have a specialty or a few specialties. Reading other studies should already be part of your day-to-day practice. So it’s very unusual to start a literature review from zero. You probably already have a folder full of PDFs (or, ideally, a reference manager full of well-organized articles in digital format).

For your current research, you’ll then add further literature in more specific and specialized areas. You’ll need to update your personal library. And you may find you lack sufficient publications in a certain area of research. Your literature review will address all these issues. Methods for diving in include databases, review articles, and asking colleagues and other researchers.

Online databases

Searching with databases often requires a combination of free and paid sources.

Google Scholar is probably the most commonly known search engine for academic literature because, well, it’s Google. Type titles, keywords, authors, or other entries to find papers on your topic of interest. You don’t need to create an account, but just because a publication is listed in Scholar doesn’t mean you can access the full text. Still, its powerful search features can help you rapidly narrow your search. You can then find publications in a database for which you have a subscription.

EBSCO and ProQuest are commonly available in universities’ online libraries, and databases like PubMed are comprehensive scientific collections. Some databases are open access, while others require a subscription to fully access the articles. Hopefully, you have access through your university or institution.

There are also publisher-managed search engines and databases like ScienceDirect or Scopus , as well as Wiley Online Library . These usually require a subscription.

Elicit is an AI-based search engine. Ask a research question and find relevant literature. It also suggests questions based on your input for better results. No account is needed.

Zendy is a search engine dedicated to open access journals. It’s accessible once you create an account.

Colleagues, fellow researchers

Asking your colleagues or fellow researchers in your field can be a great resource for finding additional studies. You can also look for highly cited papers in your field or search for articles from known experts in your field.

Other literature reviews, review articles, and reference lists

Previous review papers on your topic, introduction sections of articles (which contain their own literature reviews), are reference lists of papers are all great tools for finding additional articles. Look through the reference lists of previous prior review papers to locate other relevant articles.

With this approach, you’ll find yourself diving down one rabbit hole after another. And it can get overwhelming, so scan quickly, keep notes, and use a good reference manager (see below). After a while, you’ll start to see the same publications emerge. You’ll start to recognize the seminal pieces as well as highly specific studies on limited populations.

Software and reference managers

Apps like Connected Papers can help expand your collection and ensure you’re not missing any articles. With this tool, you can search for a work and then see it visualized through other articles it references, and that referenced it. It’s shown as a network of connected papers – fantastic for visual types.

Reference managers like EndNote and Mendeley are helpful tools for organizing your papers and adding citations to your manuscript. You can download them to your computer and easily search for the information you’ve read before, saving a lot of time in the writing process. While they both require creating an account, Mendeley is free. Paperpile is an excellent lighter-weight option.

Organize your sources

When you’ve compiled sufficient publications via your literature search, extract relevant information for your research question.

Identify themes

First, identify the most relevant papers for your research question. One good approach is to read the abstract and methods sections to understand the main findings.

Narrow down your list to articles that have a research question as similar as possible to yours. Then, group them by themes or evidence. For instance, group articles showing that processed foods lead to increased rates of heart disease in one section.

Include contradictory evidence to fully cover the scope of the topic. This will help you better organize the sections for your review later.

Define your key concepts

Every good review section begins with specific definitions of the concepts the paper will focus on. They should be defined in the abstract and introduction.

Write an outline

Write an outline with subheadings representing categories or themes your review will cover. Under each theme, enter a few references or key points that reflect what you want to convey to your reader in that section.

Organize the subheadings logically so that one idea flows into the next. Don’t jump back and forth between concepts. For example, if you’re establishing a common, evidence-supported definition of heart disease, focus only on that. Bringing in other diseases will confuse the reader. If you need to compare with other diseases, that’s probably cause for another subsection.

Review previous articles on your topic and check how the authors structured their introduction section to get ideas for your outline.

For longer reviews, you can use tables to present the literature and key themes more clearly for the reader. Tables are especially useful in dedicated review papers like narrative reviews.

Write your literature review

Following your outline, expand on your notes with sentences and paragraphs, including relevant citations (see the section above for examples of how these are typically written). Use clear and concise language. Make sure all your paragraphs have a dedicated topic sentence that reflects what the rest of the paragraph is about.

Start your review broadly, then use your prior research to narrow down to why your research question is needed. For example, define what heart disease is broadly, then narrow down to how specific processed foods can impact it and what still needs to be investigated (i.e., with your study).

Review your work

After finishing your first draft, revise and refine your work. Here are some key steps.

Refine your literature review

As you write, you may need to expand sections or include more evidence. Read over your review several times and determine if it’s conveying the information you want to get across clearly and adjust accordingly.

Omit unnecessary information

In scientific communication, less is more, so avoid making your review too long. Remove unnecessary information and avoid being too wordy. As a general rule, aim for just one idea per sentence and no more than around 15–20 words per sentence.

A credible citation (or citations) should support every assertion. But it can also get tempting to follow irrelevant paths that aren’t immediately relevant to the study you’re doing now.

Professional editing can also help you refine wordiness.

Check the logical structure

Check that each section in your review relates to the main research question. Check that every paragraph transitions smoothly to the next and that the ideas flow logically from one argument to the next. Ask yourself, “Does this idea directly relate to my next idea?” (and vice versa).

Also, check for consistency and completeness. Be sure you used the same wording for key concepts throughout your review and that you included all relevant evidence for your arguments.

Check for and remove/correct plagiarism

There are many ways to plagiarize , and some authors don’t even know when they’re doing it. It can be a critical mistake.

Journals use tools such as i Thenticate to detect plagiarism. And being caught plagiarizing can be a cause for a rapid rejection . Avoid plagiarizing by ensuring you cite the original source and don’t copy/paste text unless you use quotation marks. You can check for plagiarism using apps like Grammarly or Trinka , which can also help you improve your writing style and correct grammar mistakes.

Get outside perspectives

Ask a senior researcher or colleague to read your work and provide feedback or criticism. Ask junior researchers as well. Put your ego on the line for the good of rigorous science. Often, those with less experience may be able to see the more basic gaps in logic and clarity, as they bring a less honed and specialized perspective.

Check that you’ve included all references in the format required by the journal (e.g., APA, Vancouver, AMA). Use tools like Mendeley and EndNote to automatically generate a bibliography section based on the references you enter in your document. But do double-check what the software generates. It may be relying on incorrect metadata.

Good example of a literature review in a published article

Good literature reviews should be clear, concise, and informative. They should present enough information on the topic that you can understand the importance of the topic, the relevance of the literature included for the broader field, and what’s still missing from the literature (i.e., where further research is needed).

Here’s a good example:

Heart issues, sedentary lifestyle, exercise (from Howden et al. 2018)

Readable and well-structured, this review quickly highlights the negative relationship between a sedentary lifestyle and heart issues. It concisely reviews previous literature showing the relationship between exercise and heart health, so the reader understands why the study is needed.

Bonus: What’s the difference between a literature review and an annotated bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a list of references with a brief summary of the results of that reference. It can also include your personal notes on the study and why it’s relevant to your study.

Especially for students, a literature review can be confused with an annotated bibliography. Both these devices detail existing studies. However, they perform quite different functions.

Annotated bibliographies are powerful when you’re writing a dissertation or any longer research piece, as they help you keep track of everything you’ve read and why it’s relevant. You may not publish it, but you can definitely use it when you write your literature review.

So, the key differences between an annotated bibliography are:

• An annotated bibliography is a list of references with no connection established among them, while a literature review is a narrative of all the studies.
• Annotated bibliographies are organized alphabetically by reference, whereas literature reviews are organized by themes or supporting or contrasting evidence. 
• Annotated bibliographies summarize (in a few sentences) each reference, while literature reviews place the publication in context along with other publications.

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• 04 December 2020
• Correction 09 December 2020

How to write a superb literature review

Andy Tay is a freelance writer based in Singapore.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Literature reviews are important resources for scientists. They provide historical context for a field while offering opinions on its future trajectory. Creating them can provide inspiration for one’s own research, as well as some practice in writing. But few scientists are trained in how to write a review — or in what constitutes an excellent one. Even picking the appropriate software to use can be an involved decision (see ‘Tools and techniques’). So Nature asked editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews for their tips.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Updates & Corrections

Correction 09 December 2020 : An earlier version of the tables in this article included some incorrect details about the programs Zotero, Endnote and Manubot. These have now been corrected.

Hsing, I.-M., Xu, Y. & Zhao, W. Electroanalysis 19 , 755–768 (2007).

Article   Google Scholar  

Ledesma, H. A. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 14 , 645–657 (2019).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Brahlek, M., Koirala, N., Bansal, N. & Oh, S. Solid State Commun. 215–216 , 54–62 (2015).

Choi, Y. & Lee, S. Y. Nature Rev. Chem . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-020-00221-w (2020).

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Research Methods: A Student's Comprehensive Guide: Literature Reviews

• Research Approaches
• Types of Sources
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• Evaluating Sources
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• Search Strategies
• Annotated Bibliography
• Literature Reviews
• Citations This link opens in a new window

Literature Review

What is a Literature Review?  A literature review is a critical analysis of existing research related to a specific topic or research question. Rather than simply summarizing the sources, a literature review evaluates, compares, and synthesizes the literature to highlight trends, gaps, and insights that inform your research.

Purpose and Importance:  Literature reviews serve multiple key functions:

• Contextualization:  They provide background on your research topic, helping to situate your work within the broader field.
• Identification of Gaps:  A thorough review highlights areas where further research is needed, guiding your own contributions.
• Critical Evaluation:  By comparing and contrasting sources, you develop a deeper understanding of the subject and establish the credibility of your research.
• Foundation for Research:  A literature review demonstrates your knowledge of the field, forming a strong basis for your methodology and research approach.

Difference Between a Literature Review and an Annotated Bibliography:  While both a literature review and an annotated bibliography involve analyzing sources, they serve different purposes. An annotated bibliography focuses on summarizing and evaluating individual sources in isolation. In contrast, a literature review synthesizes multiple sources to form a cohesive narrative, identifying patterns, themes, and debates within the literature. The literature review also typically organizes the information thematically or methodologically rather than listing sources one by one.

Q: What is the main difference between a literature review and a systematic review? A: A literature review provides a broad overview of existing research on a topic, while a systematic review follows a structured methodology to identify, evaluate, and synthesize all relevant studies on a specific question.

Q: How do I choose the best type of literature review for my research? A: Consider your research question and objectives. A narrative review is suitable for broad overviews, while a systematic review is best for comprehensive analyses. A scoping review helps map out the existing literature, and a meta-analysis combines quantitative results from multiple studies.

Q: How many sources should I include in my literature review? A: The number of sources depends on your topic and the scope of your review. Generally, aim to include a comprehensive selection that represents the current state of research. Ensure sources are relevant and contribute to answering your research question.

Q: Can I include unpublished sources in my literature review? A:  Yes, including unpublished sources such as dissertations, theses, or reports can provide valuable insights and fill gaps in the published literature. Ensure these sources are credible and relevant.

Q: How do I ensure my literature review is critical and not just descriptive? A: Focus on evaluating and synthesizing the sources rather than just summarizing them. Analyze the strengths, weaknesses, and contributions of each study. Highlight trends, debates, and gaps in the literature.

Scribbr: How to Write a Literature Review

Gain valuable insights on how to write an impactful literature review with this comprehensive guide!

Scribbr: Tips for Writing a Literature Review

Explore practical tips and strategies for structuring a literature review in this detailed tutorial.

• Common Mistakes

Types of Literature Reviews

• Overview:  Provides a comprehensive summary of the research on a specific topic. It offers a broad overview of the field, summarizing the key findings and trends without a strict methodological approach.
• Purpose:  Useful for providing a general understanding of a topic, identifying major themes, and outlining the historical development of research.
• Overview:  Follows a structured and transparent methodology to identify, evaluate, and synthesize all relevant studies on a specific research question. It aims to minimize bias and provide a comprehensive overview of the evidence.
• Purpose:  Ideal for answering specific research questions by systematically collecting and analyzing data from multiple studies. It often includes a meta-analysis component to quantitatively summarize the results.
• Overview:  Maps the existing literature on a broad topic, identifying key concepts, gaps, and areas for further research. It is less focused on synthesizing results and more on exploring the extent and nature of the research.
• Purpose:  Useful for understanding the breadth of research on a topic, especially when the area is complex or emerging. It helps to clarify the scope of existing evidence and inform future research directions.
• Overview:  Uses statistical techniques to combine and analyze the results of multiple studies, providing a quantitative summary of the evidence. It aims to identify patterns and determine the overall effect size.
• Purpose:  Ideal for drawing general conclusions from a body of research, especially when individual studies have varying results. It provides a higher level of statistical power and precision.

Crafting a Literature Review

• Clarify Your Research Question:  Start by articulating the specific research question or objective that your literature review will address. This will help guide your search and ensure that the review remains focused.
• Set Boundaries:  Determine the scope of your review by defining parameters such as time frame, geographical area, or specific subtopics. This helps in managing the breadth of your review and maintaining relevance.
• Utilize Academic Databases:  Access scholarly articles, books, and other research materials using databases like JSTOR, PubMed, or Google Scholar.
• Expand Your Search:  Explore references in key studies, look for gray literature, and consult library catalogs to ensure a comprehensive search.
• Categorize Sources:  Group your sources by themes, methodologies, or chronological order. This organization helps in synthesizing information and presenting a coherent review.
• Use Reference Management Tools:  Tools such as Zotero or EndNote can assist in managing and sorting your sources effectively.
• Identify Patterns and Themes:  Look for recurring themes, trends, and debates within the literature. Analyze how different studies relate to one another.
• Compare and Contrast:  Evaluate the methodologies, findings, and perspectives of different sources. Highlight agreements and disagreements to provide a balanced view.
• Choose an Organizational Method:  Decide on a structure that best fits your review’s purpose:
• Chronological:  Organize by the timeline of research developments.
• Thematic:  Group by themes or topics.
• Methodological:  Arrange based on research methods used.
• Create an Outline:  Develop a clear outline based on your chosen structure to guide your writing and ensure logical flow.
• Analyze, Don’t Just Summarize:  Go beyond summarizing each source. Critically analyze how each piece of literature contributes to your understanding of the topic.
• Provide Context:  Explain how the literature connects to your research question or hypothesis. Show how your work builds on or challenges existing knowledge.
• Seek Feedback:  Share your draft with peers or mentors to obtain constructive feedback.
• Edit for Clarity:  Review your work for clarity, coherence, and completeness. Ensure that your review is logically organized and free of errors.

Example of a Literature Review

To illustrate how a literature review is structured and written, here's a simplified example based on a hypothetical research topic:  The Impact of Social Media on Adolescent Mental Health.

Introduction: The introduction provides an overview of the research topic and its significance.

Social media has become an integral part of adolescents' lives, raising concerns about its impact on mental health. This literature review examines existing research on how social media use affects adolescent well-being, focusing on both positive and negative outcomes.

Body: The body of the review is organized thematically or methodologically.

Positive Impacts of Social Media:

• Social Connectivity:  Studies highlight that social media platforms enable adolescents to maintain and strengthen social connections, providing emotional support and reducing feelings of isolation (Smith, 2021; Lee & Johnson, 2022).
• Educational Benefits:  Research indicates that social media can facilitate educational opportunities and learning through online communities and resources (Adams, 2020).

Negative Impacts of Social Media:

• Mental Health Issues:  Several studies link excessive social media use with increased levels of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem among adolescents (Brown et al., 2019; Thompson & Miller, 2021).
• Cyberbullying:  Evidence shows that social media platforms can be a breeding ground for cyberbullying, leading to significant psychological distress (Green & Taylor, 2022).

Mixed Findings:

• Variability in Effects:  Some research finds that the impact of social media on mental health varies depending on individual factors such as frequency of use, type of content consumed, and pre-existing mental health conditions (Davis, 2021; Wilson, 2022).

Discussion:   The discussion synthesizes the findings, identifies trends, and highlights gaps:

The reviewed literature reveals a complex relationship between social media and adolescent mental health. While social media can offer support and educational benefits, its negative impacts—particularly related to mental health issues and cyberbullying—are significant. Further research is needed to understand how different variables affect these outcomes and to develop strategies for mitigating negative effects.

Conclusion: The conclusion summarizes the key findings and suggests areas for future research:

In summary, social media has both positive and negative effects on adolescent mental health. Addressing these impacts requires a nuanced understanding of the various factors involved and targeted interventions to support healthy social media use. Future research should focus on longitudinal studies to better assess the long-term effects of social media on mental health.

• References:  Ensure to include a list of all sources cited in the example. In a real review, this would be formatted according to the appropriate citation style (e.g., APA, MLA).
• Formatting:  Use headings and subheadings to clearly organize each section of the review.

This example provides a framework for how a literature review should be structured and the type of content that should be included. It demonstrates the synthesis of various sources to present a cohesive narrative on the research topic.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Tip:  Ensure every source and discussion point directly relates to your research question or objective. Maintain a clear focus throughout the review.
• Tip:  Prioritize primary sources and original studies to provide a robust foundation. Use secondary sources sparingly for context or background.
• Tip:  Critically assess each study’s methodology, findings, and impact on the field. Highlight strengths and weaknesses for a balanced view.
• Tip:  Use clear headings and subheadings. Choose a logical structure (e.g., thematic, chronological) and ensure smooth transitions between sections.
• Tip:  Discuss gaps in the literature to strengthen your review and position your research within the broader field.
• Tip:  Follow the appropriate citation style meticulously. Ensure all sources are cited correctly and consistently.
• Tip:  Base conclusions on a comprehensive review of the literature. Avoid generalizations unless supported by substantial evidence from multiple sources.
• Tip:  Stay updated with recent publications and incorporate the most current research to ensure relevance and accuracy.

Literature Review Matrix

A  Literature Review Matrix  is a powerful tool that helps you organize and evaluate the sources you've gathered for your literature review. Think of it as a structured table that allows you to visually track key details from each source, helping you compare and contrast research findings, methods, and relevance to your work.

The primary goal of a Literature Review Matrix is to provide a clear and organized way to view your sources side-by-side. This makes it easier to spot patterns, identify gaps in the literature, and see how different studies connect or diverge. By using this matrix, you can:

• Summarize key information from each source.
• See the progression of research on a topic.
• Track how each source contributes to your own research goals.

When crafting your literature review, the matrix becomes a valuable reference. It offers a concise summary of each source, facilitating the synthesis of information and revealing connections between works. This organized approach helps ensure you cover all important themes and insights.

Key Components

A typical Literature Review Matrix includes:

• Author(s) & Date:  For tracking contributions and publication dates.
• Theoretical/Conceptual Framework:  Outlines the theories or concepts guiding the study.
• Research Question(s)/Hypotheses:  Identifies the focus and aims of the research.
• Methodology:  Describes the study design and methods used.
• Analysis & Results:  Summarizes the data analysis and key findings.
• Conclusions:  Highlights the main conclusions drawn from the research.
• Implications for Future Research:  Suggests areas for further investigation.
• Implications for Practice:  Discusses practical applications of the findings.

A Literature Review Matrix establishes a solid foundation for a well-organized literature review, ensuring you capture all critical insights and connections between sources. 

How to Use the Matrix

To make the most of your Literature Review Matrix, follow these steps to complete each category:

Author(s) & Date : Record the author(s) of the study and the publication date. This helps track contributions and the relevance of the research over time.

Theoretical/Conceptual Framework : Note the theories or concepts guiding the study. This provides insight into the foundation of the research and its theoretical background.

Research Question(s)/Hypotheses : Summarize the main research questions or hypotheses the study addresses. This clarifies the focus and objectives of the research.

Methodology : Describe the research design and methods used. This includes the type of study, data collection methods, and analysis techniques.

Analysis & Results : Outline the main findings and how the data was analyzed. This section highlights the key discoveries of the research.

Conclusions : Record the study’s conclusions and implications. This provides a summary of the research outcomes and their significance.

Implications for Future Research : Identify suggestions for further research proposed by the study. This helps in understanding how the research contributes to ongoing scholarly conversation.

Implications for Practice : Note any practical applications or recommendations made. This connects the research findings to real-world applications.

Accurately filling in each category of the Literature Review Matrix ensures a comprehensive and organized overview of your sources, making it easier to synthesize and integrate information into your literature review.

Why Use a Literature Review Matrix?

A Literature Review Matrix is not just a tool but a strategic aid in organizing and synthesizing your research. Here’s why it’s invaluable:

Enhanced Clarity : By laying out your sources in a matrix format, you gain a clear, visual representation of the key components of each study. This clarity helps in quickly identifying patterns, contradictions, and gaps in the literature.

Streamlined Synthesis : The matrix allows you to compare and contrast findings across multiple sources efficiently. This makes synthesizing information from different studies simpler, leading to a more cohesive and comprehensive literature review.

Efficient Writing : With all essential information organized in one place, writing your literature review becomes more straightforward. The matrix provides a structured reference that helps in drafting sections and ensuring that all relevant points are addressed.

Identification of Trends and Gaps : The matrix helps in spotting trends in research and identifying areas where further investigation is needed. This insight is crucial for framing your research questions and shaping your own study.

Improved Organization : It facilitates a systematic approach to managing your sources, reducing the risk of overlooking important details and ensuring that your review is well-organized and thorough.

Using a Literature Review Matrix enhances the efficiency and quality of your literature review process. It’s a powerful tool that supports clarity, synthesis, and effective writing, ultimately contributing to a more insightful and organized review.

• << Previous: Annotated Bibliography
• Next: Structure >>
• Last Updated: Sep 20, 2024 3:27 PM
• URL: https://tsu.libguides.com/researchmethods

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

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

Table of Contents

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

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

Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review .

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

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

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

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

Find academic papers related to your research topic faster. Try Research on Paperpal

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

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

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

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

Literature review example 

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

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:  

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

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

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

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

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

Strengthen your literature review with factual insights. Try Research on Paperpal for free!

How to write a good literature review 

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

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

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

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

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

Write and Cite as yo u go with Paperpal Research. Start now for free!

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

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

Conducting a literature review 

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

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:  

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

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:  

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

Select Databases for Searches:  

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

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:  

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

Review the Literature:  

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

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:  

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

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• Ask a question: Get started with a new document on paperpal.com. Click on the “Research | Cite” feature and type your question in plain English. Paperpal will scour over 250 million research articles, including conference papers and preprints, to provide you with accurate insights and citations. 

• Review and Save: Paperpal summarizes the information, while citing sources and listing relevant reads. You can quickly scan the results to identify relevant references and save these directly to your built-in citations library for later access. 
• Cite with Confidence: Paperpal makes it easy to incorporate relevant citations and references in 10,000+ styles into your writing, ensuring your arguments are well-supported by credible sources. This translates to a polished, well-researched literature review. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References 

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

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Writing A High-Quality Literature Review

5 Time-Saving Tips & Tools You Should Know About

By:  David Phair  (PhD) and  Amy Murdock  (PhD) | May 2022

O ne of the fundamental chapters of any dissertation or thesis is the literature review . However, students often struggle to write this chapter, especially if it’s their first time engaging in a formal research project. At Grad Coach, we’ve worked with thousands of students to help them craft their literature reviews. In this article, we’ll share five time-saving tips and tools to help you approach this chapter the smart way.

Overview: Writing The Literature Review

• Develop a (rough) outline before you start writing
• Look at existing literature reviews in your topic area
• Write first , then edit and clean up
• Insert your citations and references as you write
• Ask a (non-expert) friend to review your writing

1. Develop an outline before you start writing

As with all chapters in your dissertation or thesis, it’s a good idea to create a rough outline or structure of the literature review, before you really start writing. The purpose of this is to ensure that the foundation of your literature review is solid in terms of the topics, key points identified, and the order in which they’re presented.

If you start writing from the very beginning without an idea of the overall structure, you’re likely to end up with a muddled mess . This practice is sometimes also sometimes referred to as creating the skeleton outline because you are organizing the bones of your chapter which you’ll later flesh out with the content of the chapter.

Broadly speaking, a literature review chapter will usually take the following shape:

• Introduction – This short section should outline the purpose and content of your chapter.
• If you haven’t already included it in your introduction chapter, then you should next provide the definitions of any jargon/specialist terminology and key variables  and constructs .
• Chronological , which is based on the date of the publications. This is good for showing how the topic has evolved over time.
• Thematic , where the chapter’s structure is grouped by variables of interest or core themes. This is appropriate when identifying and discussing variables of interest and is most commonly used.
• Methodological – when the chapter is grouped based on methodologies, such as quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods.
• Conclusion – Here you’ll provide the key takeaways from the chapter and highlight the research gap that provides the basis for your study.

Although creating a loosely structured outline of the literature review before you start writing is important, remember that it is just there to guide you and help you stay organized. That is, you don’t have to stick with the structure you’ve created at the beginning, and you can change things up, add, expand or rearrange as you go.

PS – check out our free literature review template to help fast-track your outline.

2. Look at existing literature reviews in your area

As a general rule of thumb, it’s always wise to look at existing literature reviews that cover similar topics to yours to check how they’ve been organized and presented. Doing this will help you further develop a suitable structure because it will give you ideas and help you identify the “norms” in your discipline.

There are a few common ways to find these existing literature reviews. For example, you can look at existing dissertations and theses from your own university’s dissertation database /library. Doing so will give you valuable insight into the style and structural norms of your university. Similarly, you can search through public dissertation databases such as EBSCO, Open Access, and Proquest , and many university libraries offer access to these public databases, too.

Next, you can search for literature review-type journal articles such as narrative , systematic literature review ( SLR ) or meta-analyses . To find some of these articles you can go to Google Scholar and search using the terms “review” + your topic – for example, “review organizational performance”.

Another benefit of working through existing literature reviews is that it can help ensure that you’ve covered as much relevant material as possible to develop your own literature review. In other words, it can help you spot any studies you’ve missed. However, be cautious about choosing articles that are old or dated beyond the past five years, as the topic of study may have developed since then and those findings may no longer be accurate or relevant.

Need a helping hand?

3. Write first. Clean up later.

Once you’ve digested all the literature and have a loose outline planned, it’s important to not get stuck in the mindset of only being able to write the literature review once you’ve figured it all out and know exactly what you’re going to say. This will only land you up with writer’s block .

Once you have a loose outline or structure, just get your thoughts on paper and you can neaten things up later, add, remove, etc. In short, don’t try to say things perfectly from the start because you may never actually start writing. This may seem strange or counter-intuitive to some, but there’s a strong logic behind approaching the literature review (and the rest of the chapters) this way.

#4. Insert citations and references as you write

As you start writing, remember that the literature review chapter needs to be extremely rich with sources (i.e. references to high-quality journal articles and studies). In fact, it should be the most citation-intense chapter in your dissertation or thesis. To this end, it’s prudent to always incorporate the citations as you write up your chapter. Don’t leave it until later, because if you leave it too long, you’re likely to end up missing key references, forget who said what, and your literature review chapter will be short on sources, which will limit the rigor of the chapter.

One way to make this activity easier is to use a reference manager such as Mendeley or Zotero . Reference management software will help ensure that your in-text citations are aligned between the chapter and the reference list , and that everything’s in the correct format (e.g. Harvard, APA , etc).

5. Ask a (non-expert) friend to review your writing

As you spend more time writing your chapters, it’s easy to start confusing the trees for the forest. Therefore, it’s always wise to ask a friend (that’s not a subject expert) to review your drafts and give you feedback, particularly regarding the readability of the work. While your literature review will likely get quite technical, you need to make sure that it’s written at a level that a non-expert can follow. In other words, you need to write for the “intelligent layman” . This is where a friend’s feedback can really help.

When having a friend review your draft, it’s a good idea to ask them to highlight the parts that are difficult to follow in the chapter. Ideally, you should also ask them to give you a summary of what they understood, in their own words. This will help you identify which points are well-articulated or coherent and which aren’t. This activity has similarities to the document reviews that we conduct at Grad Coach, and it’s particularly helpful for catching overly tech nical jargon that may not be comprehensible to a non-expert.

In short, be sure to seek feedback on your writing from outsiders. Since you’ll be shoulder-deep in your topic, it’s easy to write up a literature review chapter that is difficult for the reader to follow. You’ll often make assumptions about what the reader knows and is thinking, which can make the chapter hard to digest. People see things differently and can help you uncover your blind spots , identify important questions, etc. Therefore, an outsider’s input can greatly help you improve the readability, clarity , and comprehensibility of your literature review.

Let’s Recap…

In this article, we covered 5 time-saving tips for writing a literature review:

Be sure to also check out our literature review chapter example , where we walk you through a sample literature review, step by step.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment. Alternatively, if you’d like hands-on help with your literature review, be sure to check out our 1-on-1 coaching service .

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What is a literature review?

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

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

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

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

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1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

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

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

2. Decide on the scope of your review

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

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

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

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

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

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

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

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

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

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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Writing a Literature Review

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

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

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

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

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

What are the parts of a lit review?

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

Introduction:

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

Conclusion:

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

How should I organize my lit review?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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There are a few strategies you can employ when writing a literature review. Depending on your research question and scope, you may organize your literature review chronologically, critically examining the evolution of a topic over time. Or you may organize it topically because there are several areas off which your research builds.

I like to use a Building a House metaphor. Your literature review is the foundation upon which you will construct your own analysis, and that foundation must be strong. You may need a few different rooms (sub-sections/topics) that examine related scholarship. And depending on the conclusions you form from your own empirical research, that foundation may need to be modified to incorporate the scholarship connected to your conclusions.

Our colleagues at the University of Arizona Libraries made this citational justice tutorial , which includes the video below. The video addresses how we, as scholars, can work to incorporate historically marginalized perspectives in our research.

• Citations as a tool for racial equity, inclusion, and justice From the Rockefeller Inclusive Science Initiative, this discusses how conscientiously citing works from BIPOC academics is just one of many ways to actively confront racial and ethnic disparities within STEMM, but it represents an important step towards inclusion, equity, and justice.
• Inclusive Citation, Inclusive Academy From Equity Unbound, this is an archived webinar discussing how might we modify our daily scholarship practices and interrogate them in order to improve our processes and move towards a more socially just academic environment.
• More Than Personal Communication: Templates For Citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers An openly accessible article that introduces citation templates for Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers.
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Top 10 Tips for Writing a Literature Review

Conducting a thorough critique of the literature is incredibly important, but as a writer, you may feel daunted by the enormity of the task. Following these 10 tips can help you focus your writing efforts. These tips can also help you write a literature review that moves beyond summarizing the research and toward critiquing it well.

Going beyond a summary and creating a discussion of published work can be accomplished through the thorough tracking of sources and the source highlights and links. While this can sound tricky and time consuming when referencing hundreds of source materials ranging from journal articles and books to research papers and videos, reference manager and writing tools like Citavi can help streamline this process (and more as we’ll cover in the upcoming tips).

Tip 1. Understand what a literature review is.

A literature review is a well-reasoned, evidence-based, scholarly argument that demonstrates the need for your study. While your literature review will contain a great deal of information, it is not (primarily) an informative text. Keeping this in mind at the outset can lead you toward a critique that situates your study within the scholarly discourse relevant to your research topic.

Learn more in the on-demand webinar Conducting and Constructing a Literature Review for Maximum Impact .

Tip 2. Write a draft of your research problem statement.

A well-written literature review thoroughly analyzes and critiques the key concepts or quantitative variables central to your research topic. These key concepts or variables are generally expressed in a problem statement, so having a problem statement drafted can help you align your literature review to your research topic. For instance, rather than writing about “Burnout in Education,” your problem statement could lead you to focus your review on “Burnout in K-12 School Leaders.” This narrowed focus makes your literature review relevant and, importantly, doable.

Learn more about writing a compelling argument and developing your voice in the free on-demand trainings from the Research and Technical Writing Institute .

Tip 3. Create an outline of your literature review.

Even though your outline is likely to change, create a document with headings that describe the pockets of literature you will review. In the above example about burnout in school leaders, you might have a heading called "Factors Influencing Burnout." You might already know that some factors to consider are lack of work/life balance, lack of resources, and dissatisfaction with pay and benefits. Create those subheadings.

If you use a reference manager like Citavi, you can breeze through this step! With Citavi, you can save your sources directly in the program, create your literature review outline within the knowledge organizer, then export it to Word.

Tip 4. Use your outline to guide your search.

The headings in your lit review outline can be used as keywords to search for relevant literature. Remember to document your search strategy and use synonyms. You might also locate a systematic review on your research topic, which is rich with references. If you have Citavi, data bases like Scopus and EBSCCO integrate with the software – letting you easily search for sources. You can also use the Citavi Picker which helps bring sources in from sites like Google Scholar by identifying ISBNs and DOIs on web pages and sending reference information to your Citavi project.

Tip 5. Organize your research articles.

We recommend using reference management software such as Citavi to organize your research articles. This saves you tremendous time as Citavi helps you methodically manage quotes, sources, notes, and articles.

If that isn’t an option, create folders and save your research articles as the in-text citation (e.g., an article by Parker et al. 2021 would be saved as such). Having one folder for all of your articles is the equivalent of piling your desk with stacks of articles that you can't remember if you have read or not. If you organize your research articles, you will be able to review all of the articles that relate to a specific topic in your literature review.

Learn more in this on-demand webinar Organizing Information in Your Field of Study .

Tip 6. Use an annotation table to document relevant study information.

This step is critical to literature review success. You will search for trends in the literature. Therefore, you need to extract relevant information from articles and group this information together to analyze it. Writers often begin by sharing the results of one study, then the next, and so on, without offering up any synthesis of the literature. Synthesis is the result of analysis, and analysis needs to encompass articles that are grouped in some way. In the burnout example above, you may have extracted several findings that demonstrate that lack of work/life balance is a major factor in school leader burnout. You will want to state this finding clearly and review all of the articles about it together, so go ahead and group them in an annotation table at this stage.

An alternative to the annotation table is Citavi’s knowledge organizer which essentially replaces an annotation table. This feature in Citavi lets you save notes, memos, and quotes from articles in the knowledge organizer while still linking to the original source. Even better, you can add categories to your notes, memos, and sources based on your keywords and themes.

Tip 7. Analyze your annotation table.

Once you have annotated several articles, analyze them for patterns, discrepancies, and gaps. A pattern could be a similar finding that you have noticed across several studies. It could also be a pattern of participants (e.g., the phenomenon has mostly been studied in female-identifying participants) or methodology (e.g., 10 of the 12 studies are quantitative). Often, we can infer from a pattern to identify a gap in the literature. Using NVivo in your literature review can help you find the patterns and themes in your literature, piece together which researchers often write together, and keep you organized throughout the process of synthesizing literature.

Learn more in the on-demand webinar Accelerating your Literature Review with Citavi & NVivo 14 .

Tip 8. Write clear and concise synthesis statements.

So, you located a pattern, discrepancy, or gap in the literature, what next? Make sure that you state your finding clearly and concisely in the form of a synthesis statement. For instance, "Much of the research regarding school leader burnout focuses on the reasons why school leaders burnout" is a synthesis statement. Reporting that a single author "X" found something interesting is not.

Tip 9. Place your synthesis statements “front and center” in your writing.

As you report your findings, place your synthesis statements as topic sentences (main ideas) of the paragraphs you write. Then put the evidence you pull from your studies to support that main idea. A hallmark of well-synthesized writing is that paragraphs weave information from several studies together around a central claim. Using the MEAL plan structure (Main Idea, Evidence, Analysis, Link) can help you craft paragraphs that are cohesive and analytical — hallmarks of good literature review writing.

Learn more in this on-demand webinar from the Research and Technical Writing Institute, Developing Your Voice: How to Paraphrase, Make Claims, and Synthesize Literature .

Tip 10. Schedule time for revision.

When you are writing your literature review, you are wielding large amounts of information, and you are likely writing in complex ways that are likely new to you. As with all writing, expect that you will need to revise your work. Schedule time and, if necessary, ask for help about areas that you need to revise. Then, systematically, dive into your writing (e.g., do not revise for everything at once).

The above tips are important because they provide much-needed structure for you as you write your literature review. Often, writers set out with vague notions about what a literature review is, and the process begins to feel amorphous. These tips, and reference management software like Citavi , can help you break the process of writing a literature review down, organize your notes and sources, automatically create citations, and bring focus to the writing process. Return to this list again and again if you feel lost in “literature review land.” They will help you regain your footing and return to your writing with a renewed sense of clarity.

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Recent Articles

Literature Reviews

What this handout is about.

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

Introduction

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

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

What is a literature review, then?

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

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

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

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

Why do we write literature reviews?

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

Who writes these things, anyway?

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

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

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

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

Find models

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

Narrow your topic

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

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

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

Consider whether your sources are current

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

Strategies for writing the literature review

Find a focus.

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

Convey it to your reader

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

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

Consider organization

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

First, cover the basic categories

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

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

Organizing the body

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Begin composing

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

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

Use evidence

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

Be selective

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

Use quotes sparingly

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

Summarize and synthesize

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

Keep your own voice

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

Use caution when paraphrasing

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

Revise, revise, revise

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

Works consulted

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Tips for writing a literature review

What to consider before you start writing, and practical tips for when you do.

Often when you author a research paper, you will need to write a literature review to position your own research within existing knowledge. Before we go into our tips for writing a literature review, make sure you understand what a literature review is .

A literature review is a piece of writing proving the author’s understanding of previously published research on a specific topic.

If a literature review is beautifully written, it meets the following two objectives.

Supply a concise overview of the current knowledge, theories, and methods on the topic. And present the potential gaps in the existing research.

Brings forward the author’s own critical evaluations and discussions on the topic.

Before you start writing your literature review

Now you understand what a literature review is, here are some things you should consider before you start the process of writing your literature review.

What is your topic?

Firstly, before you start searching for literature, you need to decide on a clearly defined topic.

If you are writing a literature review that is part of your research paper, you will need to relate this to your research objectives and questions.

Starting your literature search

You could approach your search for literature by making a list of keywords that relate to core concepts in your chosen field. As you begin your literature search, you may discover more terms to add to your list.

Using your keyword list, you can then start searching for your sources. It is important to use multiple sources when searching for literature, to avoid missing any key research.

Here are a couple of tips for when you start searching for literature:

When you are deciding whether an article is relevant to your literature review, read the abstract.

If it is a useful piece of literature for your review, check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

Post information

Related posts, insights topics, selecting your literature.

You won’t be able to review all the relevant literature, related to your literature review’s topic. You will need to assess which research is most relevant. Below are some things to consider whilst you narrow down on your chosen literature.

Have you read all the major research and theories related to your chosen topic? Be careful not to miss any.

Is the literature credible? You could find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar . The higher the citation count, the more influential the research has been in the subject field.

How does the literature relate to other literature in the subject field? Does it oppose established theories, or add to the current thinking? Think about the literature’s position within your chosen topic.

What is the scope of your review? The scope of your literature review needs to be defined so that it is manageable. You do not want the scope to be too large, or too small. If your chosen literature review topic is about a well-established subject, you might want to consider focusing on the recent advances – this will help keep the scope manageable.

Practical top tips

When you are collating your research articles, use multiple search engines and databases to make sure you do not miss any important ones.

Organization is key when it comes to your sources. Make sure you use referencing software from the start and be organized throughout the process of writing your literature review.

Planning your literature review

Before you start writing your literature review, you need to think about your strategy. Below are some of the approaches you could consider (you can combine multiple strategies in your literature review).

Chronological

Methodological

Theoretical

After deciding on your strategy, you should start collating the key points that you wish to cover in your literature review. Planning these will help you present a thought out, organized literature review.

Writing your literature review

Just like any other academic piece of writing, your literature review will have an introduction, a main body, and a conclusion. Below we have outlined some advice you could follow when you are ready to begin your writing journey.

Introduction

The introduction needs to clearly state your focus topic and purpose of your literature review. It should also be able to reach a large audience of non-specialists. To do this, make sure that the research you include in your introduction is broad. This will help increase your literature review’s impact.

The core body of your literature review should be made up of the key points that you want to cover. These key points will become sections, with each section covering a key point. You could use subheadings to present each of the sections.

Presenting your literature review in a thought out, organized way will allow the key trends to be identified by your readers. It will also help develop an engaging storyline to your literature review.

Remember that you need to give your own thoughts, interpretations and discussions in the main body of your literature review. This also includes pointing out any gaps in the literature – don’t be afraid to point out the weaknesses of your chosen sources.

This is where you should summarize your key findings from your literature review, and emphasize their significance. If your literature review is part of your research paper, make sure you reiterate how your research is contributing to the subject field. Or, you could discuss how you have drawn on existing research, theories and methods to build a strategy for your own research – this may lead on nicely to your methodology section.

Where to next?

If you’ve found these tips helpful, take a look at:  

What is a literature review? – 8 key items to follow when you write your literature review.

Increase the impact of your literature review – understand how to promote your research and increase its impact.

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