literature review of academic journal

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing a Literature Review

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

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

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 This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.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

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

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

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

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

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

What are the parts of a lit review?

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

Introduction:

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

Conclusion:

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

How should I organize my lit review?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• 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.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

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.

Don't submit your assignments before you do this

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students. Free citation check included.

Try for free

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

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

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

Download Word doc Download Google doc

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

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

Make a list of keywords

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

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

Search for relevant sources

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

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

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

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

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

For each publication, ask yourself:

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

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

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

Take notes and cite your sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chronological

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

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

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

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

Methodological

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

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

Theoretical

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

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

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

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

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

As you write, you can follow these tips:

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

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

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

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

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

Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint

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 .  

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved August 21, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, what is a theoretical framework | guide to organizing, what is a research methodology | steps & tips, how to write a research proposal | examples & templates, get unlimited documents corrected.

✔ Free APA citation check included ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

• 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

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

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• CAREER FEATURE
• 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

Credit: Getty

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.

WENTING ZHAO: Be focused and avoid jargon

Assistant professor of chemical and biomedical engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

When I was a research student, review writing improved my understanding of the history of my field. I also learnt about unmet challenges in the field that triggered ideas.

For example, while writing my first review 1 as a PhD student, I was frustrated by how poorly we understood how cells actively sense, interact with and adapt to nanoparticles used in drug delivery. This experience motivated me to study how the surface properties of nanoparticles can be modified to enhance biological sensing. When I transitioned to my postdoctoral research, this question led me to discover the role of cell-membrane curvature, which led to publications and my current research focus. I wouldn’t have started in this area without writing that review.

Collection: Careers toolkit

A common problem for students writing their first reviews is being overly ambitious. When I wrote mine, I imagined producing a comprehensive summary of every single type of nanomaterial used in biological applications. It ended up becoming a colossal piece of work, with too many papers discussed and without a clear way to categorize them. We published the work in the end, but decided to limit the discussion strictly to nanoparticles for biological sensing, rather than covering how different nanomaterials are used in biology.

My advice to students is to accept that a review is unlike a textbook: it should offer a more focused discussion, and it’s OK to skip some topics so that you do not distract your readers. Students should also consider editorial deadlines, especially for invited reviews: make sure that the review’s scope is not so extensive that it delays the writing.

A good review should also avoid jargon and explain the basic concepts for someone who is new to the field. Although I trained as an engineer, I’m interested in biology, and my research is about developing nanomaterials to manipulate proteins at the cell membrane and how this can affect ageing and cancer. As an ‘outsider’, the reviews that I find most useful for these biological topics are those that speak to me in accessible scientific language.

Bozhi Tian likes to get a variety of perspectives into a review. Credit: Aleksander Prominski

BOZHI TIAN: Have a process and develop your style

Associate professor of chemistry, University of Chicago, Illinois.

In my lab, we start by asking: what is the purpose of this review? My reasons for writing one can include the chance to contribute insights to the scientific community and identify opportunities for my research. I also see review writing as a way to train early-career researchers in soft skills such as project management and leadership. This is especially true for lead authors, because they will learn to work with their co-authors to integrate the various sections into a piece with smooth transitions and no overlaps.

After we have identified the need and purpose of a review article, I will form a team from the researchers in my lab. I try to include students with different areas of expertise, because it is useful to get a variety of perspectives. For example, in the review ‘An atlas of nano-enabled neural interfaces’ 2 , we had authors with backgrounds in biophysics, neuroengineering, neurobiology and materials sciences focusing on different sections of the review.

After this, I will discuss an outline with my team. We go through multiple iterations to make sure that we have scanned the literature sufficiently and do not repeat discussions that have appeared in other reviews. It is also important that the outline is not decided by me alone: students often have fresh ideas that they can bring to the table. Once this is done, we proceed with the writing.

I often remind my students to imagine themselves as ‘artists of science’ and encourage them to develop how they write and present information. Adding more words isn’t always the best way: for example, I enjoy using tables to summarize research progress and suggest future research trajectories. I’ve also considered including short videos in our review papers to highlight key aspects of the work. I think this can increase readership and accessibility because these videos can be easily shared on social-media platforms.

ANKITA ANIRBAN: Timeliness and figures make a huge difference

Editor, Nature Reviews Physics .

One of my roles as a journal editor is to evaluate proposals for reviews. The best proposals are timely and clearly explain why readers should pay attention to the proposed topic.

It is not enough for a review to be a summary of the latest growth in the literature: the most interesting reviews instead provide a discussion about disagreements in the field.

Careers Collection: Publishing

Scientists often centre the story of their primary research papers around their figures — but when it comes to reviews, figures often take a secondary role. In my opinion, review figures are more important than most people think. One of my favourite review-style articles 3 presents a plot bringing together data from multiple research papers (many of which directly contradict each other). This is then used to identify broad trends and suggest underlying mechanisms that could explain all of the different conclusions.

An important role of a review article is to introduce researchers to a field. For this, schematic figures can be useful to illustrate the science being discussed, in much the same way as the first slide of a talk should. That is why, at Nature Reviews, we have in-house illustrators to assist authors. However, simplicity is key, and even without support from professional illustrators, researchers can still make use of many free drawing tools to enhance the value of their review figures.

Yoojin Choi recommends that researchers be open to critiques when writing reviews. Credit: Yoojin Choi

YOOJIN CHOI: Stay updated and be open to suggestions

Research assistant professor, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon.

I started writing the review ‘Biosynthesis of inorganic nanomaterials using microbial cells and bacteriophages’ 4 as a PhD student in 2018. It took me one year to write the first draft because I was working on the review alongside my PhD research and mostly on my own, with support from my adviser. It took a further year to complete the processes of peer review, revision and publication. During this time, many new papers and even competing reviews were published. To provide the most up-to-date and original review, I had to stay abreast of the literature. In my case, I made use of Google Scholar, which I set to send me daily updates of relevant literature based on key words.

Through my review-writing process, I also learnt to be more open to critiques to enhance the value and increase the readership of my work. Initially, my review was focused only on using microbial cells such as bacteria to produce nanomaterials, which was the subject of my PhD research. Bacteria such as these are known as biofactories: that is, organisms that produce biological material which can be modified to produce useful materials, such as magnetic nanoparticles for drug-delivery purposes.

Synchronized editing: the future of collaborative writing

However, when the first peer-review report came back, all three reviewers suggested expanding the review to cover another type of biofactory: bacteriophages. These are essentially viruses that infect bacteria, and they can also produce nanomaterials.

The feedback eventually led me to include a discussion of the differences between the various biofactories (bacteriophages, bacteria, fungi and microalgae) and their advantages and disadvantages. This turned out to be a great addition because it made the review more comprehensive.

Writing the review also led me to an idea about using nanomaterial-modified microorganisms to produce chemicals, which I’m still researching now.

PAULA MARTIN-GONZALEZ: Make good use of technology

PhD student, University of Cambridge, UK.

Just before the coronavirus lockdown, my PhD adviser and I decided to write a literature review discussing the integration of medical imaging with genomics to improve ovarian cancer management.

As I was researching the review, I noticed a trend in which some papers were consistently being cited by many other papers in the field. It was clear to me that those papers must be important, but as a new member of the field of integrated cancer biology, it was difficult to immediately find and read all of these ‘seminal papers’.

That was when I decided to code a small application to make my literature research more efficient. Using my code, users can enter a query, such as ‘ovarian cancer, computer tomography, radiomics’, and the application searches for all relevant literature archived in databases such as PubMed that feature these key words.

The code then identifies the relevant papers and creates a citation graph of all the references cited in the results of the search. The software highlights papers that have many citation relationships with other papers in the search, and could therefore be called seminal papers.

My code has substantially improved how I organize papers and has informed me of key publications and discoveries in my research field: something that would have taken more time and experience in the field otherwise. After I shared my code on GitHub, I received feedback that it can be daunting for researchers who are not used to coding. Consequently, I am hoping to build a more user-friendly interface in a form of a web page, akin to PubMed or Google Scholar, where users can simply input their queries to generate citation graphs.

Tools and techniques

Most reference managers on the market offer similar capabilities when it comes to providing a Microsoft Word plug-in and producing different citation styles. But depending on your working preferences, some might be more suitable than others.

Reference managers

Here is a comparison of the more popular collaborative writing tools, but there are other options, including Fidus Writer, Manuscript.io, Authorea and Stencila.

Collaborative writing tools

*Markdown and LaTex are code-based formatting languages favoured by physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists who code on a regular basis, and less popular in other disciplines such as biology and chemistry.

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).

Download references

Related Articles

• Research management

How to harness AI’s potential in research — responsibly and ethically

Career Feature 23 AUG 24

Partners in drug discovery: how to collaborate with non-governmental organizations

Time to refocus for South Korean science

Nature Index 21 AUG 24

South Korean science on the global stage

How South Korea can build better gender diversity into research

The citation black market: schemes selling fake references alarm scientists

News 20 AUG 24

Senior Researcher-Experimental Leukemia Modeling, Mullighan Lab

Memphis, Tennessee

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (St. Jude)

Assistant or Associate Professor (Research-Educator)

The Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics in the Wayne State University School of Medicine (http://genetics.wayne.edu/) is expanding its high-...

Detroit, Michigan

Wayne State University

Postdoctoral Fellow – Cancer Immunotherapy

Tampa, Florida

H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute

Postdoctoral Associate - Specialist

Houston, Texas (US)

Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)

Postdoctoral Associate- CAR T Cells, Synthetic Biology

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

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

Literature reviews as independent studies: guidelines for academic practice

• Original Paper
• Open access
• Published: 14 October 2022
• Volume 16 , pages 2577–2595, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Sascha Kraus   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4886-7482 1 , 2 ,
• Matthias Breier 3 ,
• Weng Marc Lim 4 , 8 , 22 ,
• Marina Dabić 5 , 6 ,
• Satish Kumar 7 , 8 ,
• Dominik Kanbach 9 , 10 ,
• Debmalya Mukherjee 11 ,
• Vincenzo Corvello 12 ,
• Juan Piñeiro-Chousa 13 ,
• Eric Liguori 14 ,
• Daniel Palacios-Marqués 15 ,
• Francesco Schiavone 16 , 17 ,
• Alberto Ferraris 18 , 21 ,
• Cristina Fernandes 19 , 20 &
• João J. Ferreira 19  

86k Accesses

355 Citations

4 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

Review articles or literature reviews are a critical part of scientific research. While numerous guides on literature reviews exist, these are often limited to the philosophy of review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures, triggering non-parsimonious reporting and confusion due to overlapping similarities. To address the aforementioned limitations, we adopt a pragmatic approach to demystify and shape the academic practice of conducting literature reviews. We concentrate on the types, focuses, considerations, methods, and contributions of literature reviews as independent, standalone studies. As such, our article serves as an overview that scholars can rely upon to navigate the fundamental elements of literature reviews as standalone and independent studies, without getting entangled in the complexities of review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures.

Similar content being viewed by others

Literature Reviews: An Overview of Systematic, Integrated, and Scoping Reviews

On being ‘systematic’ in literature reviews

Overview of the Integrative Review

Explore related subjects.

• Artificial Intelligence

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

A literature review – or a review article – is “a study that analyzes and synthesizes an existing body of literature by identifying, challenging, and advancing the building blocks of a theory through an examination of a body (or several bodies) of prior work (Post et al. 2020 , p. 352). Literature reviews as standalone pieces of work may allow researchers to enhance their understanding of prior work in their field, enabling them to more easily identify gaps in the body of literature and potential avenues for future research. More importantly, review articles may challenge established assumptions and norms of a given field or topic, recognize critical problems and factual errors, and stimulate future scientific conversations around that topic. Literature reviews Footnote 1 come in many different formats and purposes:

Some review articles conduct a critical evaluation of the literature, whereas others elect to adopt a more exploratory and descriptive approach.

Some reviews examine data, methodologies, and findings, whereas others look at constructs, themes, and theories.

Some reviews provide summaries by holistically synthesizing the existing research on a topic, whereas others adopt an integrative approach by assessing related and interdisciplinary work.

The number of review articles published as independent or standalone studies has been increasing over time. According to Scopus (i.e., search database ), reviews (i.e., document type ) were first published in journals (i.e., source type ) as independent studies in 1945, and they subsequently appeared in three digits yearly from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, four digits yearly from the early 2000s to the late 2010s, and five digits in the year 2021 (Fig.  1 ). This increase is indicative that reviewers and editors in business and management research alike see value and purpose in review articles to such a level that they are now commonly accepted as independent, standalone studies. This development is also reflected in the fact that some academic journals exclusively publish review articles (e.g., the Academy of Management Annals , or the  International Journal of Management Reviews ), and journals publishing in various fields often have special issues dedicated to literature reviews on certain topic areas (e.g., the Journal of Management and the Journal of International Business Studies ).

Full-year publication trend of review articles on Scopus (1945–2021)

One of the most important prerequisites of a high-quality review article is that the work follows an established methodology, systematically selects and analyzes articles, and periodically covers the field to identify latest developments (Snyder 2019 ). Additionally, it needs to be reproducible, well-evidenced, and transparent, resulting in a sample inclusive of all relevant and appropriate studies (Gusenbauer and Haddaway 2020; Hansen et al. 2021 ). This observation is in line with Palmatier et al. ( 2018 ), who state that review articles provide an important synthesis of findings and perspectives in a given body of knowledge. Snyder ( 2019 ) also reaffirmed this rationale, pointing out that review articles have the power to answer research questions beyond that which can be achieved in a single study. Ultimately, readers of review articles stand to gain a one-stop, state-of-the-art synthesis (Lim et al. 2022a ; Popli et al. 2022) that encapsulates critical insights through the process of re-interpreting, re-organizing, and re-connecting a body knowledge (Fan et al. 2022 ).

There are many reasons to conduct review articles. Kraus et al. ( 2020 ) explicitly mention the benefits of conducting systematic reviews by declaring that they often represent the first step in the context of larger research projects, such as doctoral dissertations. When carrying out work of this kind, it is important that a holistic overview of the current state of literature is achieved and embedded into a proper synthesis. This allows researchers to pinpoint relevant research gaps and adequately fit future conceptual or empirical studies into the state of the academic discussion (Kraus et al., 2021 ). A review article as an independent or standalone study is a viable option for any academic – especially young scholars, such as doctoral candidates – who wishes to delve into a specific topic for which a (recent) review article is not available.

The process of conducting a review article can be challenging, especially for novice scholars (Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic 2015 ). Therefore, it is not surprising that numerous guides have been written in an attempt to improve the quality of review studies and support emerging scholars in their endeavors to have their work published. These guides for conducting review articles span a variety of academic fields, such as engineering education (Borrego et al. 2014 ), health sciences (Cajal et al. 2020 ), psychology (Laher and Hassem 2020 ), supply chain management (Durach et al. 2017 ), or business and entrepreneurship (Kraus et al. 2020 ; Tranfield et al. 2003 ) – the latter were among the first scholars to recognize the need to educate business/management scholars on the roles of review studies in assembling, ascertaining, and assessing the intellectual territory of a specific knowledge domain. Furthermore, they shed light on the stages (i.e., planning the review, conducting the review, reporting, and dissemination) and phases (i.e., identifying the need for a review, preparation of a proposal for a review, development of a review protocol, identification of research, selection of studies, study quality assessment, data extraction and monitoring progress, data synthesis, the report and recommendations, and getting evidence into practice) of conducting a systematic review. Other scholars have either adapted and/or developed new procedures (Kraus et al. 2020 ; Snyder 2019 ) or established review protocols such as the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram (Moher et al. 2015 ). The latter provides a checklist that improves transparency and reproducibility, thus reducing questionable research practices. The declarative and procedural knowledge of a checklist allows users to derive value from (and, in some cases, produce) methodological literature reviews.

Two distinct and critical gaps or issues provide impetus for our article. First, while the endeavors of the named scholars are undoubtedly valuable contributions, they often encourage other scholars to explain the methodology of their review studies in a non-parsimonious way ( 1st issue ). This can become problematic if this information distracts and deprives scholars from providing richer review findings, particularly in instances in which publication outlets impose a strict page and/or word limit. More often than not, the early parts (i.e., stages/phases, such as needs, aims, and scope) of these procedures or protocols are explained in the introduction, but they tend to be reiterated in the methodology section due to the prescription of these procedures or protocols. Other parts of these procedures or protocols could also be reported more parsimoniously, for example, by filtering out documents, given that scientific databases (such as Scopus or Web of Science ) have since been upgraded to allow scholars to select and implement filtering criteria when conducting a search (i.e., criterion-by-criterion filtering may no longer be necessary). More often than not, the procedures or protocols of review studies can be signposted (e.g., bracket labeling) and disclosed in a sharp and succinct manner while maintaining transparency and replicability.

Other guides have been written to introduce review nomenclatures (i.e., names/naming) and their equivalent philosophical underpinnings. Palmatier et al. ( 2018 ) introduced three clearly but broadly defined nomenclatures of literature reviews as independent studies: domain-based reviews, theory-based reviews, and method-based reviews. However, such review nomenclatures can be confusing due to their overlapping similarities ( 2nd issue ). For example, Lim et al. ( 2022a ) highlighted their observation that the review nomenclatures associated with domain-based reviews could also be used for theory-based and method-based reviews.

The two aforementioned issues – i.e., the lack of a parsimonious understanding and the reporting of the review methodology , and the confusion emerging from review nomenclatures – are inarguably the unintended outcomes of diving into an advanced (i.e., higher level) understanding of literature review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures from a philosophical perspective (i.e., underpinnings) without a foundational (i.e., basic level) understanding of the fundamental (i.e., core) elements of literature reviews from a pragmatic perspective. Our article aims to shed light on these issues and hopes to provide clarity for future scholarly endeavors.

Having a foundational understanding of literature reviews as independent studies is (i) necessary when addressing the aforementioned issues; (ii) important in reconciling and scaffolding our understanding, and (iii) relevant and timely due to the proliferation of literature reviews as independent studies. To contribute a solution toward addressing this gap , we aim to demystify review articles as independent studies from a pragmatic standpoint (i.e., practicality). To do so, we deliberately (i) move away from review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures, and (ii) invest our attention in developing a parsimonious, scaffolded understanding of the fundamental elements (i.e., types, focuses, considerations, methods, and contributions) of review articles as independent studies.

Three contributions distinguish our article. It is worth noting that pragmatic guides (i.e., foundational knowledge), such as the present one, are not at odds with extant philosophical guides (i.e., advanced knowledge), but rather they complement them. Having a foundational knowledge of the fundamental elements of literature reviews as independent studies is valuable , as it can help scholars to (i) gain a good grasp of the fundamental elements of literature reviews as independent studies ( 1st contribution ), and (ii) mindfully adopt or adapt existing review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures to better suit the circumstances of their reviews (e.g., choosing and developing a well-defined review nomenclature, and choosing and reporting on review considerations and steps more parsimoniously) ( 2nd contribution ). Therefore, this pragmatic guide serves as (iii) a foundational article (i.e., preparatory understanding) for literature reviews as independent studies ( 3rd contribution ). Following this, extant guides using a philosophical approach (i.e., advanced understanding) could be relied upon to make informed review decisions (e.g., adoption, adaptation) in response to the conventions of extant review procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures (Fig.  2 ).

Foundational and advanced understanding of literature reviews as independent studies

2 Fundamental elements of literature reviews as independent studies

A foundational understanding of literature reviews as independent studies can be acquired through the appreciation of five fundamental elements – i.e., types, focuses, considerations, methods, and contributions – which are illustrated in Fig.  3 and summarized in the following sections.

Fundamental elements of literature reviews as independent studies

There are two types of literature reviews as independent studies: systematic literature reviews ( SLRs ) and non-systematic literature reviews ( non-SLRs ). It is important to recognize that SLRs and non-SLRs are not review nomenclatures (i.e., names/naming) but rather review types (i.e., classifications).

In particular, SLRs are reviews carried out in a systematic way using an adopted or adapted procedure or protocol to guide data curation and analysis, thus enabling transparent disclosure and replicability (Lim et al. 2022a ; Kraus et al. 2020 ). Therefore, any review nomenclature guided by a systematic methodology is essentially an SLR. The origin of this type of literature review can be traced back to the evidence-based medicine movement in the early 1990s, with the objective being to overcome the issue of inconclusive findings in studies for medical treatments (Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic 2015 ).

In contrast, non-SLRs are reviews conducted without any systematic procedure or protocol; instead, they weave together relevant literature based on the critical evaluations and (subjective) choices of the author(s) through a process of discovery and critique (e.g., pointing out contradictions and questioning assertions or beliefs); they are shaped by the exposure, expertise, and experience (i.e., the “3Es” in judgement calls) of the author(s). Therefore, non-SLRs are essentially critical reviews of the literature (Lim and Weissmann 2021 ).

2.2 Focuses

Unlike Palmatier et al. ( 2018 ) who considered domain-based reviews, theory-based reviews, and method-based reviews as review nomenclatures, we consider domain , theory , and method as three substantive focuses that can take center stage in literature reviews as independent studies. This is in line with our attempt to move away from review nomenclatures when providing a foundational understanding of literature reviews as independent studies.

A review that is domain-focused can examine: (i) a  concept (e.g., customer engagement; Lim et al. 2022b ; digital transformation; Kraus et al. 2021 ; home sharing; Lim et al. 2021 ; sharing economy; Lim 2020 ), (ii) a context (e.g., India; Mukherjee et al. 2022a ), (iii) a discipline (e.g., entrepreneurship; Ferreira et al. 2015 ; international business; Ghauri et al. 2021 ), (iv) a field (e.g., family business; Lahiri et al. 2020 ; Rovelli et al. 2021 ; female entrepreneurship; Ojong et al. 2021 ), or (v) an outlet (e.g., Journal of Business Research ; Donthu et al. 2020 ; Management International Review ; Mukherjee et al. 2021 ; Review of Managerial Science ; Mas-Tur et al. 2020 ), which typically offer broad, overarching insights.

Domain-focused hybrids , such as the between-domain hybrid (e.g., concept-discipline hybrid, such as digital transformation in business and management; Kraus et al. 2022 ; religion in business and entrepreneurship; Kumar et al. 2022a ; personality traits in entrepreneurship; Salmony and Kanbach 2022 ; and policy implications in HR and OB research; Aguinis et al., 2022 ) and the within-domain hybrid (e.g., the concept-concept hybrid, such as customer engagement and social media; Lim and Rasul 2022 ; and global business and organizational excellence; Lim 2022 ; and the discipline-discipline hybrid, such as neuromarketing; Lim 2018 ) are also common as they can provide finer-grained insights.

A review that is theory-focused can explore a standalone theory (e.g., theory of planned behavior; Duan and Jiang 2008 ), as well as a theory in conjunction with a domain , such as the concept-theory hybrid (e.g., behavioral control and theory of planned behavior; Lim and Weissmann 2021 ) and the theory-discipline hybrid (e.g., theory of planned behavior in hospitality, leisure, and tourism; Ulker-Demirel and Ciftci 2020 ), or a theory in conjunction with a method (e.g., theory of planned behavior and structural equation modeling).

A review that is method-focused can investigate a standalone method (e.g., structural equation modeling; Deng et al. 2018 ) or a method in conjunction with a domain , such as the method-discipline hybrid (e.g., fsQCA in business and management; Kumar et al. 2022b ).

2.3 Planning the review, critical considerations, and data collection

The considerations required for literature reviews as independent studies depend on their type: SLRs or non-SLRs.

For non-SLRs, scholars often rely on the 3Es (i.e., exposure, expertise, and experience) to provide a critical review of the literature. Scholars who embark on non-SLRs should be well versed with the literature they are dealing with. They should know the state of the literature (e.g., debatable, underexplored, and well-established knowledge areas) and how it needs to be deciphered (e.g., tenets and issues) and approached (e.g., reconciliation proposals and new pathways) to advance theory and practice. In this regard, non-SLRs follow a deductive reasoning approach, whereby scholars initially develop a set of coverage areas for reviewing a domain, theory, or method and subsequently draw on relevant literature to shed light and support scholarly contentions in each area.

For SLRs, scholars often rely on a set of criteria to provide a well-scoped (i.e., breadth and depth), structured (i.e., organized aspects), integrated (i.e., synthesized evidence) and interpreted/narrated (i.e., describing what has happened, how and why) systematic review of the literature. Footnote 2 In this regard, SLRs follow an inductive reasoning approach, whereby a set of criteria is established and implemented to develop a corpus of scholarly documents that scholars can review. They can then deliver a state-of-the-art overview, as well as a future agenda for a domain, theory, or method. Such criteria are often listed in philosophical guides on SLR procedures (e.g., Kraus et al. 2020 ; Snyder 2019 ) and protocols (e.g., PRISMA), and they may be adopted/adapted with justifications Footnote 3 . Based on their commonalities they can be summarized as follows:

Search database (e.g., “Scopus” and/or “Web of Science”) can be defined based on justified evidence (e.g., by the two being the largest scientific databases of scholarly articles that can provide on-demand bibliographic data or records; Pranckutė 2021 ). To avoid biased outcomes due to the scope covered by the selected database, researchers could utilize two or more different databases (Dabić et al. 2021 ).

Search keywords may be developed by reading scholarly documents and subsequently brainstorming with experts. The expanding number of databases, journals, periodicals, automated approaches, and semi-automated procedures that use text mining and machine learning can offer researchers the ability to source new, relevant research and forecast the citations of influential studies. This enables them to determine further relevant articles.

Boolean operators (e.g., AND, OR) should be strategically used in developing the  string   of search keywords (e.g., “engagement” AND “customer” OR “consumer” OR “business”). Furthermore, the correct and precise application of quotation marks is important but is very frequently sidestepped, resulting in incorrect selection processes and differentiated results.

Search period (e.g., between a specified period [e.g., 2000 to 2020] or up to the latest full year at the time or writing [e.g., up to 2021]) can be defined based on the justified scope of study (e.g., contemporary evolution versus historical trajectory).

Search field (e.g., “article title, abstract, keywords”) can be defined based on justified assumptions (e.g., it is assumed that the focus of relevant documents will be mentioned in the article title, abstract, and/or keywords).

Subject area (e.g., “business, management, and accounting”) can be defined based on justified principles (e.g., the focus of the review is on the marketing discipline, which is located under the “business, management, and accounting” subject area in Scopus).

Publication stage (e.g., “final”) can be defined based on justified grounds (e.g., enabling greater accuracy in replication).

Document type (e.g., “article” and/or “review”), which reflects the type of scientific/practical contributions (e.g., empirical, synthesis, thought), can be defined based on justified rationales (e.g., articles selected because they are peer-reviewed; editorials not selected because they are not peer-reviewed).

Source type (e.g., “journal”) can be defined based on justified reasons (e.g., journals selected because they publish finalized work; conference proceedings not selected because they are work in progress, and in business/management, they are usually not being considered as full-fledged “publications”).

Language (e.g., “English”) can be determined based on justified limitations (e.g., nowadays, there are not many reasons to use another language besides the academic lingua franca English). Different spellings should also be considered, as the literature may contain both American and British spelling variants (e.g., organization and organisation). Truncation and wildcards in searches are recommended to capture both sets of spellings. It is important to note that each database varies in its symbology.

Quality filtering (e.g., “A*” and “A” or “4*”, “4”, and “3”) can be defined based on justified motivations (e.g., the goal is to unpack the most originally and rigorously produced knowledge, which is the hallmark of premier journals, such as those ranked “A*” and “A” by the Australian Business Deans Council [ABDC] Journal Quality List [JQL] and rated “4*”, “4”, and “3” by the Chartered Association of Business Schools [CABS] Academic Journal Guide [AJG]).

Document relevance (i.e., within the focus of the review) can be defined based on justified judgement (e.g., for a review focusing on customer engagement, articles that mention customer engagement as a passing remark without actually investigating it would be excluded).

Others: Screening process should be accomplished by beginning with the deduction of duplicate results from other databases, tracked using abstract screening to exclude unfitting studies, and ending with the full-text screening of the remaining documents.

Others: Exclusion-inclusion criteria interpretation of the abstracts/articles is obligatory when deciding whether or not the articles dealt with the matter. This step could involve removing a huge percentage of initially recognized articles.

Others: Codebook building pertains to the development of a codebook of the main descriptors within a specific field. An inductive approach can be followed and, in this case, descriptors are not established beforehand. Instead, they are established through the analysis of the articles’ content. This procedure is made up of several stages: (i) the extraction of important content from titles, abstracts, and keywords; (ii) the classification of this content to form a reduced list of the core descriptors; and (iii) revising the codebook in iterations and combining similar categories, thus developing a short list of descriptors (López-Duarte et al. 2016 , p. 512; Dabić et al. 2015 ; Vlacic et al. 2021 ).

2.4 Methods

Various methods are used to analyze the pertinent literature. Often, scholars choose a method for corpus analysis before corpus curation. Knowing the analytical technique beforehand is useful, as it allows researchers to acquire and prepare the right data in the right format. This typically occurs when scholars have decided upon and justified pursuing a specific review nomenclature upfront (e.g., bibliometric reviews) based on the problem at hand (e.g., broad domain [outlet] with a large corpus [thousands of articles], such as a premier journal that has been publishing for decades) (Donthu et al. 2021 ). However, this may not be applicable in instances where (i) scholars do not curate a corpus of articles (non-SLRs), and (ii) scholars only know the size of the corpus of articles once that corpus is curated (SLRs). Therefore, scholars may wish to decide on a method of analyzing the literature depending on (i) whether they rely on a corpus of articles (i.e., yes or no), and (ii) the size of the corpus of articles that they rely on to review the literature (i.e., n  = 0 to ∞).

When analytical techniques (e.g., bibliometric analysis, critical analysis, meta-analysis) are decoupled from review nomenclatures (e.g., bibliometric reviews, critical reviews, meta-analytical reviews), we uncover a toolbox of the following methods for use when analyzing the literature:

Bibliometric analysis measures the literature and processes data by using algorithm, arithmetic, and statistics to analyze, explore, organize, and investigate large amounts of data. This enables scholars to identify and recognize potential “hidden patterns” that could help them during the literature review process. Bibliometrics allows scholars to objectively analyze a large corpus of articles (e.g., high hundreds or more) using quantitative techniques (Donthu et al. 2021 ). There are two overarching categories for bibliometric analysis: performance analysis and science mapping. Performance analysis enables scholars to assess the productivity (publication) and impact (citation) of the literature relating to a domain, method, or theory using various quantitative metrics (e.g., average citations per publication or year, h -index, g -index, i -index). Science mapping grants scholars the ability to map the literature in that domain, method, or theory based on bibliographic data (e.g., bibliographic coupling generates thematic clusters based on similarities in shared bibliographic data [e.g., references] among citing articles; co-citation analysis generates thematic clusters based on commonly cited articles; co-occurrence analysis generates thematic clusters based on bibliographic data [e.g., keywords] that commonly appear together; PageRank analysis generates thematic clusters based on articles that are commonly cited in highly cited articles; and topic modeling generates thematic clusters based on the natural language processing of bibliographic data [e.g., article title, abstract, and keywords]). Footnote 4 Given the advancement in algorithms and technology, reviews using bibliometric analysis are considered to be smart (Kraus et al. 2021 ) and technologically-empowered (Kumar et al. 2022b ) SLRs, in which a review has harnessed the benefits of (i) the machine learning of the bibliographic data of scholarly research from technologically-empowered scientific databases, and (ii) big data analytics involving various science mapping techniques (Kumar et al. 2022c ).

Content analysis allows scholars to analyze a small to medium corpus of articles (i.e., tens to low hundreds) using quantitative and qualitative techniques. From a quantitative perspective , scholars can objectively carry out a content analysis by quantifying a specific unit of analysis . A useful method of doing so involves adopting, adapting, or developing an organizing framework . For example, Lim et al. ( 2021 ) employed an organizing (ADO-TCM) framework to quantify content in academic literature based on: (i) the categories of knowledge; (ii) the relationships between antecedents, decisions, and outcomes; and (iii) the theories, contexts, and methods used to develop the understanding for (i) and (ii). The rapid evolution of software for content analysis allows scholars to carry out complex elaborations on the corpus of analyzed articles, so much so that the most recent software enables the semi-automatic development of an organizing framework (Ammirato et al. 2022 ). From a qualitative perspective , scholars can conduct a content analysis or, more specifically, a thematic analysis , by subjectively organizing the content into themes. For example, Creevey et al. ( 2022 ) reviewed the literature on social media and luxury, providing insights on five core themes (i.e., luxury brand strategy, luxury brand social media communications, luxury consumer attitudes and perceptions, engagement, and the influence of social media on brand performance-related outcomes) generated through a content (thematic) analysis. Systematic approaches for inductive concept development through qualitative research are similarly applied in literature reviews in an attempt to reduce the subjectivity of derived themes. Following the principles of the approach by Gioia et al. ( 2012 ), Korherr and Kanbach ( 2021 ) develop a taxonomy of human-related capabilities in big data analytics. Building on a sample of 75 studies for the literature review, 33 first-order concepts are identified. These are categorized into 15 second-order themes and are finally merged into five aggregate dimensions. Using the same procedure, Leemann and Kanbach ( 2022 ) identify 240 idiosyncratic dynamic capabilities in a sample of 34 studies for their literature review. They then categorize these into 19 dynamic sub-capabilities. The advancement of technology also makes it possible to conduct content analysis using computer assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDA) software (e.g., ATLAS.ti, Nvivo, Quirkos) (Lim et al. 2022a ).

Critical analysis allows scholars to subjectively use their 3Es (i.e., exposure, expertise, and experience) to provide a critical evaluation of academic literature. This analysis is typically used in non-SLRs, and can be deployed in tandem with other analyses, such as bibliometric analysis and content analysis in SLRs, which are used to discuss consensual, contradictory, and underexplored areas of the literature. For SLRs, scholars are encouraged to engage in critical evaluations of the literature so that they can truly contribute to advancing theory and practice (Baker et al. 2022 ; Lim et al. 2022a ; Mukherjee et al. 2022b ).

Meta-analysis allows scholars to objectively establish a quantitative estimate of commonly studied relationships in the literature (Grewal et al. 2018 ). This analysis is typically employed in SLRs intending to reconcile a myriad of relationships (Lim et al. 2022a ). The relationships established are often made up of conflicting evidence (e.g., a positive or significant effect in one study, but a negative or non-significant effect in another study). However, through meta-analysis, scholars are able to identify potential factors (e.g., contexts or sociodemographic information) that may have led to the conflict.

Others: Multiple correspondence analysis helps to map the field, assessing the associations between qualitative content within a matrix of variables and cases. Homogeneity Analysis by Means of Alternating Least Squares ( HOMALS ) is also considered useful in allowing researchers to map out the intellectual structure of a variety of research fields (Gonzalez-Loureiro et al. 2015 ; Gonzalez-Louriero 2021; Obradović et al. 2021 ). HOMALS can be performed in R or used along with a matrix through SPSS software. In summary, the overall objective of this analysis is to discover a low dimensional representation of the original high dimensional space (i.e., the matrix of descriptors and articles). To measure the goodness of fit, a loss function is used. This function is used minimally, and the HOMALS algorithm is applied to the least squares loss functions in SPSS. This analysis provides a proximity map, in which articles and descriptors are shown in low-dimensional spaces (typically on two axes). Keywords are paired and each couple that appears together in a large number of articles is shown to be closer on the map and vice-versa.

When conducting a literature review, software solutions allow researchers to cover a broad range of variables, from built-in functions of statistical software packages to software orientated towards meta-analyses, and from commercial to open-source solutions. Personal preference plays a huge role, but the decision as to which software will be the most useful is entirely dependent on how complex the methods and the dataset are. Of all the commercial software providers, we have found the built-in functions of (i) R and VOSviewer most useful in performing bibliometric analysis (Aria and Cuccurullo 2017 ; R Core Team 2021 ; Van Eck and Waltman 2014 ) and (ii) Stata most useful in performing meta-analytical tasks.

Many different analytical tools have been used. These include simple document counting, citation analysis, word frequency analysis, cluster analysis, co-word analysis, and cooperation analysis (Daim et al. 2006 ). Software has also been produced for bibliometric analysis, such as the Thomson Data Analyzer (TDA), which Thomson Reuters created, and CiteSpace developed by Chen ( 2013 ). VOSviewer helps us to construct and visualize bibliometric networks, which can include articles, journals, authors, countries, and institutions, among others (Van Eck and Waltman 2014 ). These can be organized based on citations, co-citations, bibliographic coupling, or co-authorship relations. In addition, VOSviewer provides text mining functions, which can be used to facilitate a better understanding of co-occurrence networks with regards to the key terms taken from a body of scientific literature (Donthu et al. 2021 ; Wong 2018 ). Other frequently used tools include for bibliometric analysis include Bibliometrix/Biblioshiny in R, CitNetExplorer, and Gephi, among others.

2.5 Contributions

Well-conducted literature reviews may make multiple contributions to the literature as standalone, independent studies.

Generally, there are three primary contributions of literature reviews as independent studies: (i) to provide an overview of current knowledge in the domain, method, or theory, (ii) to provide an evaluation of knowledge progression in the domain, method, or theory, including the establishment of key knowledge, conflicting or inconclusive findings, and emerging and underexplored areas, and (iii) to provide a proposal for potential pathways for advancing knowledge in the domain, method, or theory (Lim et al. 2022a , p. 487). Developing theory through literature reviews can take many forms, including organizing and categorizing the literature, problematizing the literature, identifying and exposing contradictions, developing analogies and metaphors, and setting out new narratives and conceptualizations (Breslin and Gatrell 2020 ). Taken collectively, these contributions offer crystalized, evidence-based insights that both ‘mine’ and ‘prospect’ the literature, highlighting extant gaps and how they can be resolved (e.g., flags paradoxes or theoretical tensions, explaining why something has not been done, what the challenges are, and how these challenges can be overcome). These contributions can be derived through successful bibliometric analysis, content analysis, critical analysis, and meta-analysis.

Additionally, the deployment of specific methods can bring in further added value. For example, a performance analysis in a bibliometric analysis can contribute to: (i) objectively assessing and reporting research productivity and impact ; (ii) ascertaining reach for coverage claims ; (iii) identifying social dominance and hidden biases ; (iv) detecting anomalies ; and (v) evaluating ( equitable ) relative performance ; whereas science mapping in bibliometric analysis can contribute to: (i) objectively discovering thematic clusters of knowledge ; (ii) clarifying nomological networks ; (iii) mapping social patterns ; (iv) tracking evolutionary nuances ; and (v) recognizing knowledge gaps (Mukherjee et al. 2022b , p. 105).

3 Conclusion

Independent literature reviews will continue to be written as a result of their necessity, importance, relevance, and urgency when it comes to advancing knowledge (Lim et al. 2022a ; Mukherjee et al. 2022b ), and this can be seen in the increasing number of reviews being published over the last several years. Literature reviews advance academic discussion. Journal publications on various topics and subject areas are becoming more frequent sites for publication. This trend will only heighten the need for literature reviews. This article offers directions and control points that address the needs of three different stakeholder groups: producers (i.e., potential authors), evaluators (i.e., journal editors and reviewers), and users (i.e., new researchers looking to learn more about a particular methodological issue, and those teaching the next generation of scholars). Future producers will derive value from this article’s teachings on the different fundamental elements and methodological nuances of literature reviews. Procedural knowledge (i.e., using control points to assist in decision-making during the manuscript preparation phase) will also be of use. Evaluators will be able to make use of the procedural and declarative knowledge evident in control points as well. As previously outlined, the need to cultivate novelty within research on business and management practices is vital. Scholars must also be supported to choose not only safe mining approaches; they should also be encouraged to attempt more challenging and risky ventures. It is important to note that abstracts often seem to offer a lot of potential, stating that authors intend to make large conceptual contributions, broadening the horizons of the field.

Our article offers important insights also for practitioners. Noteworthily, our framework can support corporate managers in decomposing and better understanding literature reviews as ad-hoc and independent studies about specific topics that matter for their organization. For instance, practitioners can understand more easily what are the emerging trends within their domain of interest and make corporate decisions in line with such trends.

This article arises from an intentional decoupling from philosophy, in favor of adopting a more pragmatic approach. This approach can assist us in clarifying the fundamental elements of literature reviews as independent studies. Five fundamental elements must be considered: types, focuses, considerations, methods, and contributions. These elements offer a useful frame for scholars starting to work on a literature review. Overview articles (guides) such as ours are thus invaluable, as they equip scholars with a solid foundational understanding of the integral elements of a literature review. Scholars can then put these teachings into practice, armed with a better understanding of the philosophy that underpins the procedures, protocols, and nomenclatures of literature reviews as independent studies.

Data availability

Our manuscript has no associate data.

Our focus here is on standalone literature reviews in contrast with literature reviews that form the theoretical foundation for a research article.

Scoping reviews, structured reviews, integrative reviews, and interpretive/narrative reviews are commonly found in review nomenclature. However, the philosophy of these review nomenclatures essentially reflects what constitutes a good SLR. That is to say, a good SLR should be well scoped, structured, integrated, and interpreted/narrated. This observation reaffirms our position and the value of moving away from review nomenclatures to gain a foundational understanding of literature reviews as independent studies.

Given that many of these considerations can be implemented simultaneously in contemporary versions of scientific databases, scholars may choose to consolidate them into a single (or a few) step(s), where appropriate, so that they can be reported more parsimoniously. For a parsimonious but transparent and replicable exemplar, see Lim ( 2022 ).

Where keywords are present (e.g., author keywords or keywords derived from machine learning [e.g., natural language processing]), it is assumed that each keyword represents a specific meaning (e.g., topic [concept, context], method), and that a collection of keywords grouped under the same cluster represents a specific theme.

Aguinis H, Jensen SH, Kraus S (2022) Policy implications of organizational behavior and human resource management research. Acad Manage Perspect 36(3):1–22

Article   Google Scholar  

Ammirato S, Felicetti AM, Rogano D, Linzalone R, Corvello V (2022) Digitalising the systematic literature review process: The My SLR platform. Knowl Manage Res Pract. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14778238.2022.2041375

Aria M, Cuccurullo C (2017) bibliometrix: An R-tool for comprehensive science mapping analysis. J Informetrics 11(4):959–975

Baker WE, Mukherjee D, Perin MG (2022) Learning orientation and competitive advantage: A critical synthesis and future directions. J Bus Res 144:863–873

Boell SK, Cecez-Kecmanovic D (2015) On being ‘systematic’ in literature reviews. J Inform Technol 30:161–173

Borrego M, Foster MJ, Froyd JE (2014) Systematic literature reviews in engineering education and other developing interdisciplinary fields. J Eng Educ 103(1):45–76

Breslin D, Gatrell C (2020) Theorizing through literature reviews: The miner-prospector continuum. Organizational Res Methods. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428120943288 (in press)

Cajal B, Jiménez R, Gervilla E, Montaño JJ (2020) Doing a systematic review in health sciences. Clínica y Salud 31(2):77–83

Chen C (2013) Mapping scientific frontiers: The quest for knowledge visualization. Springer Science & Business Media

Creevey D, Coughlan J, O’Connor C (2022) Social media and luxury: A systematic literature review. Int J Manage Reviews 24(1):99–129

Dabić M, González-Loureiro M, Harvey M (2015) Evolving research on expatriates: what is ‘known’after four decades (1970–2012). Int J Hum Resource Manage 26(3):316–337

Dabić M, Vlačić B, Kiessling T, Caputo A, Pellegrini M(2021) Serial entrepreneurs: A review of literature and guidance for future research.Journal of Small Business Management,1–36

Daim TU, Rueda G, Martin H, Gerdsri P (2006) Forecasting emerging technologies: Use of bibliometrics and patent analysis. Technol Forecast Soc Chang 73(8):981–1012

Deng L, Yang M, Marcoulides KM (2018) Structural equation modeling with many variables: A systematic review of issues and developments. Front Psychol 9:580

Donthu N, Kumar S, Pattnaik D (2020) Forty-five years of Journal of Business Research: A bibliometric analysis. J Bus Res 109:1–14

Donthu N, Kumar S, Mukherjee D, Pandey N, Lim WM (2021) How to conduct a bibliometric analysis: An overview and guidelines. J Bus Res 133:285–296

Duan W, Jiang G (2008) A review of the theory of planned behavior. Adv Psychol Sci 16(2):315–320

Google Scholar  

Durach CF, Kembro J, Wieland A (2017) A new paradigm for systematic literature reviews in supply chain management. J Supply Chain Manage 53(4):67–85

Fan D, Breslin D, Callahan JL, Szatt-White M (2022) Advancing literature review methodology through rigour, generativity, scope and transparency. Int J Manage Reviews 24(2):171–180

Ferreira MP, Reis NR, Miranda R (2015) Thirty years of entrepreneurship research published in top journals: Analysis of citations, co-citations and themes. J Global Entrepreneurship Res 5(1):1–22

Ghauri P, Strange R, Cooke FL (2021) Research on international business: The new realities. Int Bus Rev 30(2):101794

Gioia DA, Corley KG, Hamilton AL (2012) Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the gioia methodology. Organizational Res Methods 16(1):15–31

Gonzalez-Loureiro M, Dabić M, Kiessling T (2015) Supply chain management as the key to a firm’s strategy in the global marketplace: Trends and research agenda. Int J Phys Distribution Logistics Manage 45(1/2):159–181. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPDLM-05-2013-0124

Grewal D, Puccinelli N, Monroe KB (2018) Meta-analysis: Integrating accumulated knowledge. J Acad Mark Sci 46(1):9–30

Hansen C, Steinmetz H, Block J(2021) How to conduct a meta-analysis in eight steps: a practical guide.Management Review Quarterly,1–19

Korherr P, Kanbach DK (2021) Human-related capabilities in big data analytics: A taxonomy of human factors with impact on firm performance. RMS. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-021-00506-4 (in press)

Kraus S, Breier M, Dasí-Rodríguez S (2020) The art of crafting a systematic literature review in entrepreneurship research. Int Entrepreneurship Manage J 16(3):1023–1042

Kraus S, Durst S, Ferreira J, Veiga P, Kailer N, Weinmann A (2022) Digital transformation in business and management research: An overview of the current status quo. Int J Inf Manag 63:102466

Kraus S, Jones P, Kailer N, Weinmann A, Chaparro-Banegas N, Roig-Tierno N (2021) Digital transformation: An overview of the current state of the art of research. Sage Open 11(3):1–15

Kraus S, Mahto RV, Walsh ST (2021) The importance of literature reviews in small business and entrepreneurship research. J Small Bus Manage. https://doi.org/10.1080/00472778.2021.1955128 (in press)

Kumar S, Sahoo S, Lim WM, Dana LP (2022a) Religion as a social shaping force in entrepreneurship and business: Insights from a technology-empowered systematic literature review. Technol Forecast Soc Chang 175:121393

Kumar S, Sahoo S, Lim WM, Kraus S, Bamel U (2022b) Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) in business and management research: A contemporary overview. Technol Forecast Soc Chang 178:121599

Kumar S, Sharma D, Rao S, Lim WM, Mangla SK (2022c) Past, present, and future of sustainable finance: Insights from big data analytics through machine learning of scholarly research. Ann Oper Res. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-021-04410-8 (in press)

Laher S, Hassem T (2020) Doing systematic reviews in psychology. South Afr J Psychol 50(4):450–468

Leemann N, Kanbach DK (2022) Toward a taxonomy of dynamic capabilities – a systematic literature review. Manage Res Rev 45(4):486–501

Lahiri S, Mukherjee D, Peng MW (2020) Behind the internationalization of family SMEs: A strategy tripod synthesis. Glob Strategy J 10(4):813–838

Lim WM (2018) Demystifying neuromarketing. J Bus Res 91:205–220

Lim WM (2020) The sharing economy: A marketing perspective. Australasian Mark J 28(3):4–13

Lim WM (2022) Ushering a new era of Global Business and Organizational Excellence: Taking a leaf out of recent trends in the new normal. Global Bus Organizational Excellence 41(5):5–13

Lim WM, Rasul T (2022) Customer engagement and social media: Revisiting the past to inform the future. J Bus Res 148:325–342

Lim WM, Weissmann MA (2021) Toward a theory of behavioral control. J Strategic Mark. https://doi.org/10.1080/0965254X.2021.1890190 (in press)

Lim WM, Kumar S, Ali F (2022a) Advancing knowledge through literature reviews: ‘What’, ‘why’, and ‘how to contribute’. Serv Ind J 42(7–8):481–513

Lim WM, Rasul T, Kumar S, Ala M (2022b) Past, present, and future of customer engagement. J Bus Res 140:439–458

Lim WM, Yap SF, Makkar M (2021) Home sharing in marketing and tourism at a tipping point: What do we know, how do we know, and where should we be heading? J Bus Res 122:534–566

López-Duarte C, González-Loureiro M, Vidal-Suárez MM, González-Díaz B (2016) International strategic alliances and national culture: Mapping the field and developing a research agenda. J World Bus 51(4):511–524

Mas-Tur A, Kraus S, Brandtner M, Ewert R, Kürsten W (2020) Advances in management research: A bibliometric overview of the Review of Managerial Science. RMS 14(5):933–958

Moher D, Shamseer L, Clarke M, Ghersi D, Liberati A, Petticrew M, Shekelle P, Stewart LA (2015) Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 statement. Syst Reviews 4(1):1–9

Mukherjee D, Kumar S, Donthu N, Pandey N (2021) Research published in Management International Review from 2006 to 2020: A bibliometric analysis and future directions. Manage Int Rev 61:599–642

Mukherjee D, Kumar S, Mukherjee D, Goyal K (2022a) Mapping five decades of international business and management research on India: A bibliometric analysis and future directions. J Bus Res 145:864–891

Mukherjee D, Lim WM, Kumar S, Donthu N (2022b) Guidelines for advancing theory and practice through bibliometric research. J Bus Res 148:101–115

Obradović T, Vlačić B, Dabić M (2021) Open innovation in the manufacturing industry: A review and research agenda. Technovation 102:102221

Ojong N, Simba A, Dana LP (2021) Female entrepreneurship in Africa: A review, trends, and future research directions. J Bus Res 132:233–248

Palmatier RW, Houston MB, Hulland J (2018) Review articles: Purpose, process, and structure. J Acad Mark Sci 46(1):1–5

Post C, Sarala R, Gatrell C, Prescott JE (2020) Advancing theory with review articles. J Manage Stud 57(2):351–376

Pranckutė R (2021) Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The titans of bibliographic information in today’s academic world. Publications 9(1):12

R Core Team (2021) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL https://www.R-project.org/ Accessed 20th July 2022

Rovelli P, Ferasso M, De Massis A, Kraus S(2021) Thirty years of research in family business journals: Status quo and future directions.Journal of Family Business Strategy,100422

Salmony FU, Kanbach DK (2022) Personality trait differences across types of entrepreneurs: a systematic literature review. RMS 16:713–749

Snyder H (2019) Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines. J Bus Res 104:333–339

Tranfield D, Denyer D, Smart P (2003) Towards a methodology for developing evidence-informed management knowledge by means of systematic review. Br J Manag 14(3):207–222

Ulker-Demirel E, Ciftci G (2020) A systematic literature review of the theory of planned behavior in tourism, leisure and hospitality management research. J Hospitality Tourism Manage 43:209–219

Van Eck NJ, Waltma L (2014) CitNetExplorer: A new software tool for analyzing and visualizing citation networks. J Informetrics 8(4):802–823

Vlačić B, Corbo L, Silva e, Dabić M (2021) The evolving role of artificial intelligence in marketing: A review and research agenda. J Bus Res 128:187–203

Wong D (2018) VOSviewer. Tech Serv Q 35(2):219–220. https://doi.org/10.1080/07317131.2018.1425352

Download references

Open access funding provided by Libera Università di Bolzano within the CRUI-CARE Agreement.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Faculty of Economics & Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy

Sascha Kraus

Department of Business Management, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

School of Business, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland

Matthias Breier

Sunway University Business School, Sunway University, Sunway City, Malaysia

Weng Marc Lim

Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

Marina Dabić

School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Department of Management Studies, Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur, Jaipur, India

Satish Kumar

Faculty of Business, Design and Arts, Swinburne University of Technology, Kuching, Malaysia

Weng Marc Lim & Satish Kumar

Chair of Strategic Management and Digital Entrepreneurship, HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, Leipzig, Germany

Dominik Kanbach

School of Business, Woxsen University, Hyderabad, India

College of Business, The University of Akron, Akron, USA

Debmalya Mukherjee

Department of Engineering, University of Messina, Messina, Italy

Vincenzo Corvello

Department of Finance, Santiago de Compostela University, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Juan Piñeiro-Chousa

Rowan University, Rohrer College of Business, Glassboro, NJ, USA

Eric Liguori

School of Engineering Design, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain

Daniel Palacios-Marqués

Department of Management and Quantitative Studies, Parthenope University, Naples, Italy

Francesco Schiavone

Paris School of Business, Paris, France

Department of Management, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

Alberto Ferraris

Department of Management and Economics & NECE Research Unit in Business Sciences, University of Beira Interior, Covilha, Portugal

Cristina Fernandes & João J. Ferreira

Centre for Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

Cristina Fernandes

Laboratory for International and Regional Economics, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia

School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sascha Kraus .

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

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

Rights and permissions

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

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Kraus, S., Breier, M., Lim, W.M. et al. Literature reviews as independent studies: guidelines for academic practice. Rev Manag Sci 16 , 2577–2595 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-022-00588-8

Download citation

Received : 15 August 2022

Accepted : 07 September 2022

Published : 14 October 2022

Issue Date : November 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-022-00588-8

Share this article

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

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

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Literature reviews
• Bibliometrics
• Meta Analysis
• Contributions

JEL classification

• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

How to Write a Literature Review

What is a literature review.

• What Is the Literature
• Writing the Review

A literature review is much more than an annotated bibliography or a list of separate reviews of articles and books. It is a critical, analytical summary and synthesis of the current knowledge of a topic. Thus it should compare and relate different theories, findings, etc, rather than just summarize them individually. In addition, it should have a particular focus or theme to organize the review. It does not have to be an exhaustive account of everything published on the topic, but it should discuss all the significant academic literature and other relevant sources important for that focus.

This is meant to be a general guide to writing a literature review: ways to structure one, what to include, how it supplements other research. For more specific help on writing a review, and especially for help on finding the literature to review, sign up for a Personal Research Session .

The specific organization of a literature review depends on the type and purpose of the review, as well as on the specific field or topic being reviewed. But in general, it is a relatively brief but thorough exploration of past and current work on a topic. Rather than a chronological listing of previous work, though, literature reviews are usually organized thematically, such as different theoretical approaches, methodologies, or specific issues or concepts involved in the topic. A thematic organization makes it much easier to examine contrasting perspectives, theoretical approaches, methodologies, findings, etc, and to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of, and point out any gaps in, previous research. And this is the heart of what a literature review is about. A literature review may offer new interpretations, theoretical approaches, or other ideas; if it is part of a research proposal or report it should demonstrate the relationship of the proposed or reported research to others' work; but whatever else it does, it must provide a critical overview of the current state of research efforts. 

Literature reviews are common and very important in the sciences and social sciences. They are less common and have a less important role in the humanities, but they do have a place, especially stand-alone reviews.

Types of Literature Reviews

There are different types of literature reviews, and different purposes for writing a review, but the most common are:

• Stand-alone literature review articles . These provide an overview and analysis of the current state of research on a topic or question. The goal is to evaluate and compare previous research on a topic to provide an analysis of what is currently known, and also to reveal controversies, weaknesses, and gaps in current work, thus pointing to directions for future research. You can find examples published in any number of academic journals, but there is a series of Annual Reviews of *Subject* which are specifically devoted to literature review articles. Writing a stand-alone review is often an effective way to get a good handle on a topic and to develop ideas for your own research program. For example, contrasting theoretical approaches or conflicting interpretations of findings can be the basis of your research project: can you find evidence supporting one interpretation against another, or can you propose an alternative interpretation that overcomes their limitations?
• Part of a research proposal . This could be a proposal for a PhD dissertation, a senior thesis, or a class project. It could also be a submission for a grant. The literature review, by pointing out the current issues and questions concerning a topic, is a crucial part of demonstrating how your proposed research will contribute to the field, and thus of convincing your thesis committee to allow you to pursue the topic of your interest or a funding agency to pay for your research efforts.
• Part of a research report . When you finish your research and write your thesis or paper to present your findings, it should include a literature review to provide the context to which your work is a contribution. Your report, in addition to detailing the methods, results, etc. of your research, should show how your work relates to others' work.

A literature review for a research report is often a revision of the review for a research proposal, which can be a revision of a stand-alone review. Each revision should be a fairly extensive revision. With the increased knowledge of and experience in the topic as you proceed, your understanding of the topic will increase. Thus, you will be in a better position to analyze and critique the literature. In addition, your focus will change as you proceed in your research. Some areas of the literature you initially reviewed will be marginal or irrelevant for your eventual research, and you will need to explore other areas more thoroughly. 

Examples of Literature Reviews

See the series of Annual Reviews of *Subject* which are specifically devoted to literature review articles to find many examples of stand-alone literature reviews in the biomedical, physical, and social sciences. 

Research report articles vary in how they are organized, but a common general structure is to have sections such as:

• Abstract - Brief summary of the contents of the article
• Introduction - A explanation of the purpose of the study, a statement of the research question(s) the study intends to address
• Literature review - A critical assessment of the work done so far on this topic, to show how the current study relates to what has already been done
• Methods - How the study was carried out (e.g. instruments or equipment, procedures, methods to gather and analyze data)
• Results - What was found in the course of the study
• Discussion - What do the results mean
• Conclusion - State the conclusions and implications of the results, and discuss how it relates to the work reviewed in the literature review; also, point to directions for further work in the area

Here are some articles that illustrate variations on this theme. There is no need to read the entire articles (unless the contents interest you); just quickly browse through to see the sections, and see how each section is introduced and what is contained in them.

The Determinants of Undergraduate Grade Point Average: The Relative Importance of Family Background, High School Resources, and Peer Group Effects , in The Journal of Human Resources , v. 34 no. 2 (Spring 1999), p. 268-293.

This article has a standard breakdown of sections:

• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Some discussion sections

First Encounters of the Bureaucratic Kind: Early Freshman Experiences with a Campus Bureaucracy , in The Journal of Higher Education , v. 67 no. 6 (Nov-Dec 1996), p. 660-691.

This one does not have a section specifically labeled as a "literature review" or "review of the literature," but the first few sections cite a long list of other sources discussing previous research in the area before the authors present their own study they are reporting.

• Next: What Is the Literature >>
• Last Updated: Jan 11, 2024 9:48 AM
• URL: https://libguides.wesleyan.edu/litreview

• Schools & departments

Literature review

A general guide on how to conduct and write a literature review.

Please check course or programme information and materials provided by teaching staff, including your project supervisor, for subject-specific guidance.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a piece of academic writing demonstrating knowledge and understanding of the academic literature on a specific topic placed in context.  A literature review also includes a critical evaluation of the material; this is why it is called a literature review rather than a literature report. It is a process of reviewing the literature, as well as a form of writing.

To illustrate the difference between reporting and reviewing, think about television or film review articles.  These articles include content such as a brief synopsis or the key points of the film or programme plus the critic’s own evaluation.  Similarly the two main objectives of a literature review are firstly the content covering existing research, theories and evidence, and secondly your own critical evaluation and discussion of this content. 

Usually a literature review forms a section or part of a dissertation, research project or long essay.  However, it can also be set and assessed as a standalone piece of work.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

…your task is to build an argument, not a library. Rudestam, K.E. and Newton, R.R. (1992)Surviving your dissertation: A comprehensive guide to content and process. California: Sage, p49.

In a larger piece of written work, such as a dissertation or project, a literature review is usually one of the first tasks carried out after deciding on a topic.  Reading combined with critical analysis can help to refine a topic and frame research questions.  Conducting a literature review establishes your familiarity with and understanding of current research in a particular field before carrying out a new investigation. After doing a literature review, you should know what research has already been done and be able to identify what is unknown within your topic.

When doing and writing a literature review, it is good practice to:

• summarise and analyse previous research and theories;
• identify areas of controversy and contested claims;
• highlight any gaps that may exist in research to date.

Conducting a literature review

Focusing on different aspects of your literature review can be useful to help plan, develop, refine and write it.  You can use and adapt the prompt questions in our worksheet below at different points in the process of researching and writing your review.  These are suggestions to get you thinking and writing.

Developing and refining your literature review (pdf)

Developing and refining your literature review (Word)

Writing a literature review has a lot in common with other assignment tasks.  There is advice on our other pages about thinking critically, reading strategies and academic writing.  Our literature review top tips suggest some specific things you can do to help you submit a successful review.

Literature review top tips (pdf)

Literature review top tips (Word rtf)

Our reading page includes strategies and advice on using books and articles and a notes record sheet grid you can use.

Reading at university

The Academic writing page suggests ways to organise and structure information from a range of sources and how you can develop your argument as you read and write.

Academic writing

The Critical thinking page has advice on how to be a more critical researcher and a form you can use to help you think and break down the stages of developing your argument.

Critical thinking

As with other forms of academic writing, your literature review needs to demonstrate good academic practice by following the Code of Student Conduct and acknowledging the work of others through citing and referencing your sources.  

Good academic practice

As with any writing task, you will need to review, edit and rewrite sections of your literature review.  The Editing and proofreading page includes tips on how to do this and strategies for standing back and thinking about your structure and checking the flow of your argument.

Editing and proofreading

Guidance on literature searching from the University Library

The Academic Support Librarians have developed LibSmart I and II, Learn courses to help you develop and enhance your digital research skills and capabilities; from getting started with the Library to managing data for your dissertation.

Searching using the library’s DiscoverEd tool: DiscoverEd

Finding resources in your subject: Subject guides

The Academic Support Librarians also provide one-to-one appointments to help you develop your research strategies.

1 to 1 support for literature searching and systematic reviews

Advice to help you optimise use of Google Scholar, Google Books and Google for your research and study: Using Google

Managing and curating your references

A referencing management tool can help you to collect and organise and your source material to produce a bibliography or reference list. 

Referencing and reference management

Information Services provide access to Cite them right online which is a guide to the main referencing systems and tells you how to reference just about any source (EASE log-in may be required).

Cite them right

Published study guides

There are a number of scholarship skills books and guides available which can help with writing a literature review.  Our Resource List of study skills guides includes sections on Referencing, Dissertation and project writing and Literature reviews.

Study skills guides

This article was published on 2024-02-26

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: 

How to write a good literature review 

• 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.

What is the purpose of literature review?

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: 

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

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. 

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

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. 

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

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. 

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

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!    

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 you 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. 

Whether you’re exploring a new research field or finding new angles to develop an existing topic, sifting through hundreds of papers can take more time than you have to spare. But what if you could find science-backed insights with verified citations in seconds? That’s the power of Paperpal’s new Research feature!  

How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal?

Paperpal, an AI writing assistant, integrates powerful academic search capabilities within its writing platform. With the Research feature, you get 100% factual insights, with citations backed by 250M+ verified research articles, directly within your writing interface with the option to save relevant references in your Citation Library. By eliminating the need to switch tabs to find answers to all your research questions, Paperpal saves time and helps you stay focused on your writing.   

Here’s how to use the Research feature:  

• Ask a question: Get started with a new document on paperpal.com. Click on the “Research” 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 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.  

Frequently asked questions

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 . 

Paperpal is an AI writing assistant that help academics write better, faster with real-time suggestions for in-depth language and grammar correction. Trained on millions of research manuscripts enhanced by professional academic editors, Paperpal delivers human precision at machine speed.  

Try it for free or upgrade to  Paperpal Prime , which unlocks unlimited access to premium features like academic translation, paraphrasing, contextual synonyms, consistency checks and more. It’s like always having a professional academic editor by your side! Go beyond limitations and experience the future of academic writing.  Get Paperpal Prime now at just US$19 a month!

Related Reads:

• Empirical Research: A Comprehensive Guide for Academics 
• How to Write a Scientific Paper in 10 Steps 
• How Long Should a Chapter Be?
• How to Use Paperpal to Generate Emails & Cover Letters?

6 Tips for Post-Doc Researchers to Take Their Career to the Next Level

Self-plagiarism in research: what it is and how to avoid it, you may also like, academic integrity vs academic dishonesty: types & examples, dissertation printing and binding | types & comparison , what is a dissertation preface definition and examples , the ai revolution: authors’ role in upholding academic..., the future of academia: how ai tools are..., how to write a research proposal: (with examples..., how to write your research paper in apa..., how to choose a dissertation topic, how to write a phd research proposal, how to write an academic paragraph (step-by-step guide).

Libraries | Research Guides

Literature reviews, what is a literature review, learning more about how to do a literature review.

• Planning the Review
• The Research Question
• Choosing Where to Search
• Organizing the Review
• Writing the Review

A literature review is a review and synthesis of existing research on a topic or research question. A literature review is meant to analyze the scholarly literature, make connections across writings and identify strengths, weaknesses, trends, and missing conversations. A literature review should address different aspects of a topic as it relates to your research question. A literature review goes beyond a description or summary of the literature you have read. 

• Sage Research Methods Core This link opens in a new window SAGE Research Methods supports research at all levels by providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. SAGE Research Methods is the ultimate methods library with more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences, including the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online from any scholarly publisher. – Publisher

• Next: Planning the Review >>
• Last Updated: Jul 8, 2024 11:22 AM
• URL: https://libguides.northwestern.edu/literaturereviews

New change to library operations

All Main Library and Weaver Library doors lock 15 minutes before closing.

Conduct a literature review

What is a literature review.

A literature review is a summary of the published work in a field of study. This can be a section of a larger paper or article, or can be the focus of an entire paper. Literature reviews show that you have examined the breadth of knowledge and can justify your thesis or research questions. They are also valuable tools for other researchers who need to find a summary of that field of knowledge.

Unlike an annotated bibliography, which is a list of sources with short descriptions, a literature review synthesizes sources into a summary that has a thesis or statement of purpose—stated or implied—at its core.

How do I write a literature review?

Step 1: define your research scope.

• What is the specific research question that your literature review helps to define?
• Are there a maximum or minimum number of sources that your review should include?

Ask us if you have questions about refining your topic, search methods, writing tips, or citation management.

Step 2: Identify the literature

Start by searching broadly. Literature for your review will typically be acquired through scholarly books, journal articles, and/or dissertations. Develop an understanding of what is out there, what terms are accurate and helpful, etc., and keep track of all of it with citation management tools . If you need help figuring out key terms and where to search, ask us .

Use citation searching to track how scholars interact with, and build upon, previous research:

• Mine the references cited section of each relevant source for additional key sources
• Use Google Scholar or Scopus to find other sources that have cited a particular work

Step 3: Critically analyze the literature

Key to your literature review is a critical analysis of the literature collected around your topic. The analysis will explore relationships, major themes, and any critical gaps in the research expressed in the work. Read and summarize each source with an eye toward analyzing authority, currency, coverage, methodology, and relationship to other works. The University of Toronto's Writing Center provides a comprehensive list of questions you can use to analyze your sources.

Step 4: Categorize your resources

Divide the available resources that pertain to your research into categories reflecting their roles in addressing your research question. Possible ways to categorize resources include organization by:

• methodology
• theoretical/philosophical approach

Regardless of the division, each category should be accompanied by thorough discussions and explanations of strengths and weaknesses, value to the overall survey, and comparisons with similar sources. You may have enough resources when:

• You've used multiple databases and other resources (web portals, repositories, etc.) to get a variety of perspectives on the research topic.
• The same citations are showing up in a variety of databases.

Additional resources

Undergraduate student resources.

• Literature Review Handout (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
• Learn how to write a review of literature (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Graduate student and faculty resources

• Information Research Strategies (University of Arizona)
• Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students (NC State University)
• Oliver, P. (2012). Succeeding with Your Literature Review: A Handbook for Students [ebook]
• Machi, L. A. & McEvoy, B. T. (2016). The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success [ebook]
• Graustein, J. S. (2012). How to Write an Exceptional Thesis or Dissertation: A Step-by-Step Guide from Proposal to Successful Defense [ebook]
• Thomas, R. M. & Brubaker, D. L. (2008). Theses and Dissertations: A Guide to Planning, Research, and Writing

Research Methods

• Getting Started
• Literature Review Research
• Research Design
• Research Design By Discipline
• SAGE Research Methods
• Teaching with SAGE Research Methods

Literature Review

• What is a Literature Review?
• What is NOT a Literature Review?
• Purposes of a Literature Review
• Types of Literature Reviews
• Literature Reviews vs. Systematic Reviews
• Systematic vs. Meta-Analysis

Literature Review  is a comprehensive survey of the works published in a particular field of study or line of research, usually over a specific period of time, in the form of an in-depth, critical bibliographic essay or annotated list in which attention is drawn to the most significant works.

Also, we can define a literature review as the collected body of scholarly works related to a topic:

• Summarizes and analyzes previous research relevant to a topic
• Includes scholarly books and articles published in academic journals
• Can be an specific scholarly paper or a section in a research paper

The objective of a Literature Review is to find previous published scholarly works relevant to an specific topic

• Help gather ideas or information
• Keep up to date in current trends and findings
• Help develop new questions

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.
• Helps focus your own research questions or problems
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Suggests unexplored ideas or populations
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Tests assumptions; may help counter preconceived ideas and remove unconscious bias.
• Identifies critical gaps, points of disagreement, or potentially flawed methodology or theoretical approaches.
• Indicates potential directions for future research.

All content in this section is from Literature Review Research from Old Dominion University 

Keep in mind the following, a literature review is NOT:

Not an essay 

Not an annotated bibliography  in which you summarize each article that you have reviewed.  A literature review goes beyond basic summarizing to focus on the critical analysis of the reviewed works and their relationship to your research question.

Not a research paper   where you select resources to support one side of an issue versus another.  A lit review should explain and consider all sides of an argument in order to avoid bias, and areas of agreement and disagreement should be highlighted.

A literature review serves several purposes. For example, it

• provides thorough knowledge of previous studies; introduces seminal works.
• helps focus one’s own research topic.
• identifies a conceptual framework for one’s own research questions or problems; indicates potential directions for future research.
• suggests previously unused or underused methodologies, designs, quantitative and qualitative strategies.
• identifies gaps in previous studies; identifies flawed methodologies and/or theoretical approaches; avoids replication of mistakes.
• helps the researcher avoid repetition of earlier research.
• suggests unexplored populations.
• determines whether past studies agree or disagree; identifies controversy in the literature.
• tests assumptions; may help counter preconceived ideas and remove unconscious bias.

As Kennedy (2007) notes*, it is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the original studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally that become part of the lore of field. In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews.

Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are several approaches to how they can be done, depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study. Listed below are definitions of types of literature reviews:

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

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

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

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

Systematic Review      This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review. Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?"

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

* Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature."  Educational Researcher  36 (April 2007): 139-147.

All content in this section is from The Literature Review created by Dr. Robert Larabee USC

Robinson, P. and Lowe, J. (2015),  Literature reviews vs systematic reviews.  Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 39: 103-103. doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.12393

What's in the name? The difference between a Systematic Review and a Literature Review, and why it matters . By Lynn Kysh from University of Southern California

Systematic review or meta-analysis?

A  systematic review  answers a defined research question by collecting and summarizing all empirical evidence that fits pre-specified eligibility criteria.

A  meta-analysis  is the use of statistical methods to summarize the results of these studies.

Systematic reviews, just like other research articles, can be of varying quality. They are a significant piece of work (the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at York estimates that a team will take 9-24 months), and to be useful to other researchers and practitioners they should have:

• clearly stated objectives with pre-defined eligibility criteria for studies
• explicit, reproducible methodology
• a systematic search that attempts to identify all studies
• assessment of the validity of the findings of the included studies (e.g. risk of bias)
• systematic presentation, and synthesis, of the characteristics and findings of the included studies

Not all systematic reviews contain meta-analysis. 

Meta-analysis is the use of 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 of health care than those derived from the individual studies included within a review.  More information on meta-analyses can be found in  Cochrane Handbook, Chapter 9 .

A meta-analysis goes beyond critique and integration and conducts secondary statistical analysis on the outcomes of similar studies.  It is a systematic review that uses quantitative methods to synthesize and summarize the results.

An advantage of a meta-analysis is the ability to be completely objective in evaluating research findings.  Not all topics, however, have sufficient research evidence to allow a meta-analysis to be conducted.  In that case, an integrative review is an appropriate strategy. 

Some of the content in this section is from Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: step by step guide created by Kate McAllister.

• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: Research Design >>
• Last Updated: Jul 15, 2024 10:34 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.udel.edu/researchmethods

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• J Grad Med Educ
• v.8(3); 2016 Jul

The Literature Review: A Foundation for High-Quality Medical Education Research

a  These are subscription resources. Researchers should check with their librarian to determine their access rights.

Despite a surge in published scholarship in medical education 1 and rapid growth in journals that publish educational research, manuscript acceptance rates continue to fall. 2 Failure to conduct a thorough, accurate, and up-to-date literature review identifying an important problem and placing the study in context is consistently identified as one of the top reasons for rejection. 3 , 4 The purpose of this editorial is to provide a road map and practical recommendations for planning a literature review. By understanding the goals of a literature review and following a few basic processes, authors can enhance both the quality of their educational research and the likelihood of publication in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education ( JGME ) and in other journals.

The Literature Review Defined

In medical education, no organization has articulated a formal definition of a literature review for a research paper; thus, a literature review can take a number of forms. Depending on the type of article, target journal, and specific topic, these forms will vary in methodology, rigor, and depth. Several organizations have published guidelines for conducting an intensive literature search intended for formal systematic reviews, both broadly (eg, PRISMA) 5 and within medical education, 6 and there are excellent commentaries to guide authors of systematic reviews. 7 , 8

• A literature review forms the basis for high-quality medical education research and helps maximize relevance, originality, generalizability, and impact.
• A literature review provides context, informs methodology, maximizes innovation, avoids duplicative research, and ensures that professional standards are met.
• Literature reviews take time, are iterative, and should continue throughout the research process.
• Researchers should maximize the use of human resources (librarians, colleagues), search tools (databases/search engines), and existing literature (related articles).
• Keeping organized is critical.

Such work is outside the scope of this article, which focuses on literature reviews to inform reports of original medical education research. We define such a literature review as a synthetic review and summary of what is known and unknown regarding the topic of a scholarly body of work, including the current work's place within the existing knowledge . While this type of literature review may not require the intensive search processes mandated by systematic reviews, it merits a thoughtful and rigorous approach.

Purpose and Importance of the Literature Review

An understanding of the current literature is critical for all phases of a research study. Lingard 9 recently invoked the “journal-as-conversation” metaphor as a way of understanding how one's research fits into the larger medical education conversation. As she described it: “Imagine yourself joining a conversation at a social event. After you hang about eavesdropping to get the drift of what's being said (the conversational equivalent of the literature review), you join the conversation with a contribution that signals your shared interest in the topic, your knowledge of what's already been said, and your intention.” 9

The literature review helps any researcher “join the conversation” by providing context, informing methodology, identifying innovation, minimizing duplicative research, and ensuring that professional standards are met. Understanding the current literature also promotes scholarship, as proposed by Boyer, 10 by contributing to 5 of the 6 standards by which scholarly work should be evaluated. 11 Specifically, the review helps the researcher (1) articulate clear goals, (2) show evidence of adequate preparation, (3) select appropriate methods, (4) communicate relevant results, and (5) engage in reflective critique.

Failure to conduct a high-quality literature review is associated with several problems identified in the medical education literature, including studies that are repetitive, not grounded in theory, methodologically weak, and fail to expand knowledge beyond a single setting. 12 Indeed, medical education scholars complain that many studies repeat work already published and contribute little new knowledge—a likely cause of which is failure to conduct a proper literature review. 3 , 4

Likewise, studies that lack theoretical grounding or a conceptual framework make study design and interpretation difficult. 13 When theory is used in medical education studies, it is often invoked at a superficial level. As Norman 14 noted, when theory is used appropriately, it helps articulate variables that might be linked together and why, and it allows the researcher to make hypotheses and define a study's context and scope. Ultimately, a proper literature review is a first critical step toward identifying relevant conceptual frameworks.

Another problem is that many medical education studies are methodologically weak. 12 Good research requires trained investigators who can articulate relevant research questions, operationally define variables of interest, and choose the best method for specific research questions. Conducting a proper literature review helps both novice and experienced researchers select rigorous research methodologies.

Finally, many studies in medical education are “one-offs,” that is, single studies undertaken because the opportunity presented itself locally. Such studies frequently are not oriented toward progressive knowledge building and generalization to other settings. A firm grasp of the literature can encourage a programmatic approach to research.

Approaching the Literature Review

Considering these issues, journals have a responsibility to demand from authors a thoughtful synthesis of their study's position within the field, and it is the authors' responsibility to provide such a synthesis, based on a literature review. The aforementioned purposes of the literature review mandate that the review occurs throughout all phases of a study, from conception and design, to implementation and analysis, to manuscript preparation and submission.

Planning the literature review requires understanding of journal requirements, which vary greatly by journal ( table 1 ). Authors are advised to take note of common problems with reporting results of the literature review. Table 2 lists the most common problems that we have encountered as authors, reviewers, and editors.

Sample of Journals' Author Instructions for Literature Reviews Conducted as Part of Original Research Article a

Common Problem Areas for Reporting Literature Reviews in the Context of Scholarly Articles

Locating and Organizing the Literature

Three resources may facilitate identifying relevant literature: human resources, search tools, and related literature. As the process requires time, it is important to begin searching for literature early in the process (ie, the study design phase). Identifying and understanding relevant studies will increase the likelihood of designing a relevant, adaptable, generalizable, and novel study that is based on educational or learning theory and can maximize impact.

Human Resources

A medical librarian can help translate research interests into an effective search strategy, familiarize researchers with available information resources, provide information on organizing information, and introduce strategies for keeping current with emerging research. Often, librarians are also aware of research across their institutions and may be able to connect researchers with similar interests. Reaching out to colleagues for suggestions may help researchers quickly locate resources that would not otherwise be on their radar.

During this process, researchers will likely identify other researchers writing on aspects of their topic. Researchers should consider searching for the publications of these relevant researchers (see table 3 for search strategies). Additionally, institutional websites may include curriculum vitae of such relevant faculty with access to their entire publication record, including difficult to locate publications, such as book chapters, dissertations, and technical reports.

Strategies for Finding Related Researcher Publications in Databases and Search Engines

Search Tools and Related Literature

Researchers will locate the majority of needed information using databases and search engines. Excellent resources are available to guide researchers in the mechanics of literature searches. 15 , 16

Because medical education research draws on a variety of disciplines, researchers should include search tools with coverage beyond medicine (eg, psychology, nursing, education, and anthropology) and that cover several publication types, such as reports, standards, conference abstracts, and book chapters (see the box for several information resources). Many search tools include options for viewing citations of selected articles. Examining cited references provides additional articles for review and a sense of the influence of the selected article on its field.

Box Information Resources

• Web of Science a
• Education Resource Information Center (ERIC)
• Cumulative Index of Nursing & Allied Health (CINAHL) a
• Google Scholar

Once relevant articles are located, it is useful to mine those articles for additional citations. One strategy is to examine references of key articles, especially review articles, for relevant citations.

Getting Organized

As the aforementioned resources will likely provide a tremendous amount of information, organization is crucial. Researchers should determine which details are most important to their study (eg, participants, setting, methods, and outcomes) and generate a strategy for keeping those details organized and accessible. Increasingly, researchers utilize digital tools, such as Evernote, to capture such information, which enables accessibility across digital workspaces and search capabilities. Use of citation managers can also be helpful as they store citations and, in some cases, can generate bibliographies ( table 4 ).

Citation Managers

Knowing When to Say When

Researchers often ask how to know when they have located enough citations. Unfortunately, there is no magic or ideal number of citations to collect. One strategy for checking coverage of the literature is to inspect references of relevant articles. As researchers review references they will start noticing a repetition of the same articles with few new articles appearing. This can indicate that the researcher has covered the literature base on a particular topic.

Putting It All Together

In preparing to write a research paper, it is important to consider which citations to include and how they will inform the introduction and discussion sections. The “Instructions to Authors” for the targeted journal will often provide guidance on structuring the literature review (or introduction) and the number of total citations permitted for each article category. Reviewing articles of similar type published in the targeted journal can also provide guidance regarding structure and average lengths of the introduction and discussion sections.

When selecting references for the introduction consider those that illustrate core background theoretical and methodological concepts, as well as recent relevant studies. The introduction should be brief and present references not as a laundry list or narrative of available literature, but rather as a synthesized summary to provide context for the current study and to identify the gap in the literature that the study intends to fill. For the discussion, citations should be thoughtfully selected to compare and contrast the present study's findings with the current literature and to indicate how the present study moves the field forward.

To facilitate writing a literature review, journals are increasingly providing helpful features to guide authors. For example, the resources available through JGME include several articles on writing. 17 The journal Perspectives on Medical Education recently launched “The Writer's Craft,” which is intended to help medical educators improve their writing. Additionally, many institutions have writing centers that provide web-based materials on writing a literature review, and some even have writing coaches.

The literature review is a vital part of medical education research and should occur throughout the research process to help researchers design a strong study and effectively communicate study results and importance. To achieve these goals, researchers are advised to plan and execute the literature review carefully. The guidance in this editorial provides considerations and recommendations that may improve the quality of literature reviews.

• Interlibrary Loan and Scan & Deliver
• Course Reserves
• Purchase Request
• Collection Development & Maintenance
• Current Negotiations
• Ask a Librarian
• Instructor Support
• Library How-To
• Research Guides
• Research Support
• Study Rooms
• Research Rooms
• Partner Spaces
• Loanable Equipment
• Print, Scan, Copy
• 3D Printers
• Poster Printing
• OSULP Leadership
• Strategic Plan

Scholarly Articles: How can I tell?

• Journal Information

Literature Review

• Author and affiliation
• Introduction
• Specialized Vocabulary
• Methodology
• Research sponsors
• Peer-review

The literature review section of an article is a summary or analysis of all the research the author read before doing his/her own research. This section may be part of the introduction or in a section called Background. It provides the background on who has done related research, what that research has or has not uncovered and how the current research contributes to the conversation on the topic. When you read the lit review ask:

• Does the review of the literature logically lead up to the research questions?
• Do the authors review articles relevant to their research study?
• Do the authors show where there are gaps in the literature?

The lit review is also a good place to find other sources you may want to read on this topic to help you get the bigger picture.

• << Previous: Journal Information
• Next: Author and affiliation >>
• Last Updated: Apr 15, 2024 3:26 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/ScholarlyArticle

Contact Info

121 The Valley Library Corvallis OR 97331–4501

Phone: 541-737-3331

Services for Persons with Disabilities

In the Valley Library

• Oregon State University Press
• Special Collections and Archives Research Center
• Undergrad Research & Writing Studio
• Graduate Student Commons
• Tutoring Services
• Northwest Art Collection

Digital Projects

• Oregon Explorer
• Oregon Digital
• ScholarsArchive@OSU
• Digital Publishing Initiatives
• Atlas of the Pacific Northwest
• Marilyn Potts Guin Library  
• Cascades Campus Library
• McDowell Library of Vet Medicine

• Search Menu
• Sign in through your institution
• Advance Articles
• Adult congenital heart disease
• Arrhythmia and electrophysiology
• Cardiovascular genetics
• Coronary artery disease
• Epidemiology and prevention
• Heart failure
• Hypertension
• Interventional cardiology and cardiac surgery
• Special populations
• Translational basic science
• Valvular heart disease
• Vascular and cardiac imaging
• Vascular medicine
• Miscellaneous
• ESC Content Collections
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Why publish with EHJ Open?
• Open Access Options
• Self-Archiving Policy
• About European Heart Journal Open
• About European Society of Cardiology
• ESC Publications
• Editorial Board
• Advertising & Corporate Services
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

Introduction, lead author biography, data availability.

• < Previous

Efficacy of renal denervation as an adjunct to pulmonary vein isolation for atrial fibrillation treatment: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Conflict of interest: none declared.

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Karish Thavabalan, Majed Sheikh, YuZhi Phuah, Sanjay K Rajput, Noor Fatima, Aman Sutaria, Jonathan J H Bray, Mahmood Ahmad, Hannah Glatzel, Reubeen Ahmad, Lily Snell, Niraj S Kumar, Carmen-Lucía García-Pérez, Luciano Candilio, Rui Providencia, Efficacy of renal denervation as an adjunct to pulmonary vein isolation for atrial fibrillation treatment: a systematic review and meta-analysis, European Heart Journal Open , Volume 4, Issue 4, July 2024, oeae065, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehjopen/oeae065

• Permissions Icon Permissions

Catheter ablation, consisting of pulmonary vein isolation (PVI), is the most effective treatment modality for the management of symptomatic patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Unfortunately, this procedure has a considerable relapse rate, ranging from 15 to 50% depending on AF type and other patient factors. Hypertension (HTN) is associated with a higher risk of developing AF and can also be managed with a catheter-based procedure—renal denervation (RDN). This meta-analysis aimed to compare the effect of PVI with and without RDN in hypertensive patients with AF.

OVID MEDLINE and Embase were searched on 1 February 2023 and trials that reported the effects of RDN on AF recurrence in hypertensive patients were included. A total of 637 patients across 8 randomised controlled trials were included. The results from the pooled analysis showed that when compared with PVI alone, RDN added to PVI: (1) Lowered AF recurrence [RR 0.67 (0.53, 0.85), P = 0.001, I 2 = 23%, NNT = 5.9 patients]; (2) Reduced both systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure, with medium effect size, as reflected by standardised mean differences of 0.5 ( P = 0.02, I 2 = 80%) and 0.43 ( P = 0.006, I 2 = 60%), respectively; and (3) was not associated with a decrease in estimated glomerular filtration rate (+7.19 mL/min/1.73 m 2 , P = 0.15, I 2 = 89%).

Adding RDN to PVI in patients with AF and resistant HTN was associated with a reduction of blood pressure levels and AF recurrence. Consideration to RDN should be given as an adjunctive treatment for patients with AF and resistant HTN.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the commonest cardiac arrhythmia, with its global prevalence expected to rise dramatically over the next 40 years. By 2060, it is estimated that 17.9 million patients will be diagnosed with AF in the European Union alone, over double the current figure. 1 AF is also associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular mortality as well as significant costs for inpatient stays, outpatient and emergency department attendances, diagnostic tests and treatment. 1

Hypertension (HTN) is one of the most prevalent risk factors involved in the pathogenesis of AF, with data from the ARIC study suggesting that more than one-fifth of AF cases are attributable to HTN. 2 Hence, haemodynamic control has been a focus of research in the prevention and treatment of drug-refractory AF. Renal denervation (RDN) has been shown to reduce blood pressure in patients with uncontrolled or resistant HTN. 3

The pulmonary veins contain triggers that can cause AF, and pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) is a therapeutic option for this arrhythmia. 4 This catheter-based procedure involves electrically isolating the four pulmonary veins from the left atrial myocardium. 5 However, despite PVI being a successful means of reducing the burden of AF, around 15–50% of patients will have AF recurrence in the first year, necessitating reintervention. 6 , 7

It is therefore plausible that RDN added to PVI in patients with AF and HTN, may lead to a better blood pressure control, hence reducing further the risk of AF recurrence. This analysis aimed to compare the effect of PVI with and without RDN in hypertensive patients with AF. Primary outcomes of interest were AF recurrence and blood pressure control. Additionally, the overall safety of the procedures and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) were examined as secondary outcomes.

Literature search and screening

The research question was framed using the PICO structure: Patients—Patients with AF and HTN; Intervention—PVI + RDN; Control—PVI; Outcome—Procedural efficacy and safety outcomes.

Two online databases were searched (OVID MEDLINE and Embase) for articles using the following search terms: ((RDN OR renal sympathetic denervation OR catheter-based RDN OR kidney denervation OR renal denervation OR renal artery denervation) AND (atrial fibrillation OR AF)).

The inclusion criteria were: (1) randomised controlled trials, (2) published in English language, and (3) reporting on the recurrence rate of AF in patients with primary HTN following PVI ± RDN.

The exclusion criteria included: non-English language studies, non-peer-reviewed studies, observational and cohort studies, case series and reports, animal studies, abstract-only manuscripts, editorial comments, and opinion pieces.

A PRISMA flowchart of the literature screen can be found in Figure 1 . 8

PRISMA flow diagram.

Quality assessment of included studies

The Cochrane Risk of Bias (RoB 1.0) tool for randomised trials and a funnel plot were used to assess bias. 9 , 10 In regard to the funnel plot, the risk ratio (RR) of the studies and the 95% confidence interval (CI) limits were plotted against their standard errors. Funnel plots were visually assessed for evidence of small study bias.

Data extraction

Data extraction was done using a standardised form that included the primary author and year of publication, study design, sample size, age, gender, follow-up period, baseline characteristics of study participants, AF recurrence and follow-up blood pressures, and complications. Study authors were contacted for additional information on trial data and results when these were not available on the original publication.

Data analysis

RevMan version 5.3 software (Cochrane Collaboration) was used for the pooled analysis. Inverse-variance random effects models were used for both dichotomous and continuous data as characteristics like age and gender differed across studies. RRs were used to compare effects for dichotomous data, whereas mean difference (MD) and standardised mean difference (SMD) were used to compare continuous data. Where SMD was used, it is important to note that the RevMan version 5.3 software implements the Hedges’ adjusted g formulation, which is very similar to Cohen's d , but includes an adjustment for small sample bias. The SMD represents the difference between the means of a variable, expressed not in its original unit, but in the unit of standard deviation. SMDs of 0.2, 0.5, and 0.8 are usually interpreted as associated with small, medium, and large effect sizes, respectively.

Regarding continuous data, if studies failed to report standard deviations (SDs), these values were estimated using the confidence intervals for the means reported. 11

To further investigate for heterogeneity across studies, inconsistency index ( I 2 ) tests were used. An I 2 value above 50% and P -value ≤ 0.10 from the χ 2 test was considered to indicate potential heterogeneity. 12 Where this was the case, sensitivity analysis was performed by removing the study deemed to have the highest risk of bias. If this was not possible or if considerable heterogeneity remained, then each study was removed in turn, and the effect on the values was observed.

Study characteristics

There was a total of 637 patients across 8 randomised control trials (RCTs), of which 6 were multicentre, with 329 patients in the PVI + RDN group and 308 patients in the PVI alone group. Criteria for definition of resistant hypertension differed across studies (i.e. different BP cut-off levels and different number and type of used anti-hypertensive agents). The baseline characteristics of the included studies are summarised in Table 1 . 13–18

(A) Efficacy Outcomes

Baseline characteristics of included studies

RCT, randomised controlled trial; PVI, pulmonary vein isolation; RDN, renal denervation; DBP, diastolic blood pressure; SBP, Systolic blood pressure; eGFR, estimated glomerular filtration rate; HTN, hypertension; AF, atrial fibrillation; BP, blood pressure; SD, standard deviation.

a Pokushalov (2014) reported grouped results from two different RCTs.

b This study reported data as median and interquartile range.

Atrial fibrillation recurrence

The pooled analysis showed that AF recurrence was significantly lower in the PVI + RDN (33.3%) group in contrast to the PVI (50.2%) group [RR = 0.67 (0.53, 0.85), P = 0.001, I 2 = 23%] ( Figure 2 ). The number needed to treat (NNT) to prevent recurrence was 5.9 patients. 19

Effect of renal denervation on atrial fibrillation recurrence.

Blood pressure

All included trials reported follow-up data on blood pressure. One of the trials included patients with drug-controlled HTN and thus was excluded from the meta-analysis. 14 Kiuchi (2018) reported blood pressure as ambulatory as opposed to in-office. 15 To account for the difference in measurements of the outcome, SMDs were used. 10 Twelve-month follow-up data was used here.

The pooled results showed a significant decrease in systolic blood pressure (SBP), with medium effect size, as reflected by an SMD of 0.5 in the PVI + RDN group compared with the PVI alone group ( P < 0.05). Similarly, diastolic blood pressure (DBP) was reduced by an SMD of 0.43 ( P = 0.006) ( Figure 3A and C ). There was a high heterogeneity in both the SBP and DBP pooled analyses with I 2 values of 80 and 60%, respectively, and χ 2 test P -values ≤ 0.10.

Effect of renal denervation on blood pressure. Forest plots of standardised mean difference for ( A ) systolic blood pressure, ( B ) systolic blood pressure sensitivity analysis after HFIB-1 removal, ( C ) diastolic blood pressure, and ( D ) diastolic blood pressure sensitivity analysis after HFIB-1 removal.

Sensitivity analysis was conducted through the removal of the HFIB-1 trial ( Figure 3B and D ). This trial was removed to try and adjust for publication bias ( Figure 4 ). The results indicated a significant difference of P = 0.0002 for SBP and a significant difference of P < 0.00001 for DBP. Though the SBP and DBP pooled analyses heterogeneity decreased to I 2 of 69 and 22% respectively, considerable heterogeneity remained in the pooled SBP data ( Figure 3B and D ).

(B) Safety Outcomes

Funnel plot analysis.

Estimated glomerular filtration rate

Baseline and follow-up eGFR data for both PVI + RDN and PVI groups were reported in three trials. 14 , 15 , 18 The pooled analysis was conducted using the most recent follow-up data. There was an MD in eGFR of +7.19 mL/min/1.73 m 2 in the PVI + RDN group compared with the PVI alone group, but the difference was not significant ( P = 0.15) ( Figure 5A ). Owing to the large heterogeneity ( I 2 = 89%), a sensitivity analysis was conducted. Following the removal of Kirstein (2022), the results indicated a significant difference ( P < 0.00001) and reduced heterogeneity ( I 2 = 38%) ( Figure 5B ). This effect was not observed following the removal of any of the other papers.

Effect of renal denervation on estimated glomerular filtration rate. Forest plots of mean difference for ( A ) estimated glomerular filtration rate and ( B ) estimated glomerular filtration rate sensitivity analysis (Kirstein 2022 not included in pooled analysis).

Procedural complications

Five trials reported data on peri- and post-procedural complications in both groups. 15–18 Kiuchi (2016) reported complications only in the PVI + RDN group and Pokushalov (2014) failed to specify the group in which the single complication (cardiac tamponade following PVI) occurred. 13 , 14

Steinberg (2019) and Pokushalov (2014) attributed all complications to the PVI procedure. 13 , 16 Procedural complications specifically related to RDN were reported in the HFIB-1 and Kirstein (2022) trials. Renal artery stenosis in the PVI + RDN group was reported in 3/13 (23.1%) patients in the HFIB-1 trial and 1/39 (2.56%) patients in the Kirstein’s (2022) study. 17 , 18 Participant recruitment for the HFIB-1 trial was terminated early due to complications. 17

Kirstein (2022) reported 12 non-fatal, peri-procedural complications in 9 patients across both groups (4/39 in the RDN + PVI group and 5/22 in the PVI group), but failed to specify what these events were. 18 Steinberg (2019) reported eight non-fatal major adverse cardiac events in each group. 16 Despite specifying what these events were, it failed to report how many patients experienced each event ( Table 2 ).

Peri- and post-procedural complications

PVI, pulmonary vein isolation; RDN, renal denervation; NR, not reported.

Risk of bias

In certain studies, the method of random sequence generation and allocation concealment was not clearly defined. 13–15 There was the potential for performance bias in all the studies as the same operators performed both PVI and RDN, thus they were not blinded to the groups. Attrition bias was low for all studies except Kirstein (2022), with very low numbers lost to follow-up. In the Kirstein (2022) trial, there were 11 withdrawals and 5 missed visits during the follow-up period and no evidence of an intention-to-treat analysis being carried out. 18 HFIB-1 was terminated prematurely due to a large number of renovascular complications. 17 Therefore, pooled outcomes that included this study should be assessed with caution. All studies were unclear bias in at least one risk of bias domain ( Figure 6 ).

Cochrane RoB for randomized trials

The funnel plot for AF recurrence results show that study RRs are symmetrical around the overall RR and lie within or on the 95% CI limits, indicating a low risk of publication bias ( Figure 4 ).

This meta-analysis examined the findings from eight trials investigating the effects of RDN as an adjunct to PVI in the treatment of AF in patients with drug-resistant HTN. The pooled results showed that RDN alongside PVI significantly reduced 12-month AF recurrence, 12-month SBP and DBP.

HTN is the main risk factor for AF and currently the mainstay of treatment is a combination of lifestyle modification and drug therapy. 20 HTN is believed to have a neurogenic component, where the kidneys play an important role. It has been shown that the activation of efferent sympathetic renal nerve fibres results in: (i) renin release via β1 adrenoreceptor activation in the juxtaglomerular cells, with downstream activation of the renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system, (ii) increase in renal tubular sodium reabsorption via α adrenoceptors, and (iii) decrease in renal blood flow. 21 Ultimately, this leads to sodium and water retention, and increased systemic vascular resistance, which induces left atrial fibrosis and conduction block in the left atrium, and may potentially result in AF development. 22

Numerous studies have looked into the use of RDN in HTN treatment. 23 Blood pressure lowering effects are thought to be achieved by the ablation of renal sympathetic nerve fibres within the adventitial layer of the renal arteries. Consequently, reducing sensory input from the kidneys to the cerebral hypothalamic centres and modulating sympathetic outflow to kidneys, heart, and peripheral blood vessels. 24 Ultimately, this reduces cardiac stimulation and leads to reduced cardiac fibrosis, hypertrophy, and arrhythmogenicity. 25 Catheter ablation through PVI has been an effective modality in reducing recurrence of AF especially in patients with resistant AF to medical therapy. 26 By reducing sympathetic activity, RDN may have a concurrent anti-arrhythmic feature which might further reduce recurrence of AF post-catheter ablation.

Several clinical studies investigating RDN and PVI compared with PVI alone are ongoing. One of these trials is the prospective, randomised, controlled, multicentre ASAF trial ( ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02115100). It aims to explore the time to first detection of AF > 30 s, in patients with paroxysmal or persistent AF with uncontrolled HTN or signs of sympathetic overdrive. Recruitment to this trial has been completed and the results would be of high impact. Another ongoing prospective, controlled, and randomised trial is the Ultrasound-Based Renal Sympathetic Denervation as Adjunctive Upstream Therapy During Atrial Fibrillation Ablation (ULTRA-HFIB) ( ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04182620) which aims to recruit 160 patients undergoing AF ablation procedure. This trial aims to determine the role of RDN plus PVI in the prevention of AF recurrence and aims to be completed by December 2023.

Clinical implications

RDN in adjunct to PVI has been shown to reduce AF recurrence and blood pressure and thus should be considered for the treatment of patients with AF and drug-resistant HTN. Though some studies reported peri-procedural complications arising from the RDN process (e.g. renal artery stenosis), differences in reporting across studies did not allow us to performed a pooled analysis. Importantly, the three trials reporting on eGFR suggested no harm or deterioration occurring as a result of RDN.

Limitations

The main limitation of this meta-analysis is likely biases arising from individual included studies. Several measures were taken to mitigate the effect of biases including: (1) not including studies with duplicated patient populations; (2) funnel plot analysis to probe for publication bias; and (3) ensuring consistency in inclusion criteria. Despite this, other forms of bias such as language bias, arising from only including English language studies were still likely present. Another limitation is the inclusion of small, potentially underpowered studies. Yet, incorporating these smaller studies is important since they are likely to reflect any heterogeneity that might manifest in clinical settings. 27

All systematic reviews published on this topic, except for one, include duplicated patient populations by incorporating data from at least two trials by Pokushalov and colleagues (2012, 2014) and Romanov (2017). 13 , 28 , 29 Our review includes only Pokushalov (2014), as it encompasses also the participants from the 2012 trial. Romanov (2017) was excluded as it was a sub-analysis of patients from the two trials published by Pokushalov and colleagues with data from implantable cardiac monitors. This study stands as the first meta-analysis on this topic to exclusively include RCTs, to ensure that only higher quality evidence was utilised. It also incorporates the most recent data from the Kirstein (2022) trial. Notably, this is the only trial to date to conclude that RDN did not improve AF outcomes and is one of only two trials to report peri-procedural complications of RDN, thereby somewhat mitigating outcome-reporting bias. 18

None of the trials used invasive sham controls, considered by many to be a requirement for trials investigating device-based HTN therapies. 30 However, there is also evidence to suggest that the use of sham controls is no more effective than extensive use of 24-h ambulatory SBP. 31

This meta-analysis revealed that RDN alongside PVI significantly reduced 12-month AF recurrence, 12-month SBP and DBP. It would be valuable to expand the consideration of RDN as a treatment option for AF, in addition to PVI in patients with drug-resistant HTN. Given the potential benefits of RDN, additional trials in this area would be beneficial to further clarify the efficacy and safety of this approach in the AF population.

Karish Thavabalan is a final year MBBS student at UCL having graduated from Imperial College Business School with a 1st Class degree in Management. Passionate about advancing cardiovascular care, his expertise lies in the intersection of renal denervation and atrial fibrillation treatment. With a commitment to evidence-based medicine, his work aims to contribute valuable insights to the evolving field, fostering innovation and enhancing therapeutic strategies for individuals battling atrial fibrillation.

All data used in this article were retrieved from the eight included randomized controlled trials, and are available in the published versions of the manuscripts.

RP is supported by the UCL BHF Research Accelerator AA/18/6/34223, NIHR grant NIHR129463 and UKRI/ERC/HORIZON 10103153 Aristoteles.

Krijthe BP , Kunst A , Benjamin EJ , Lip GYH , Franco OH , Hofman A , Witteman JC , Stricker BH , Heeringa J . Projections on the number of individuals with atrial fibrillation in the European Union, from 2000 to 2060 . Eur Heart J 2013 ; 34 : 2746 – 2751 .

Google Scholar

Huxley RR , Lopez FL , Folsom AR , Agarwal SK , Loehr LR , Soliman EZ , Maclehose R , Konety S , Alonso A . Absolute and attributable risks of atrial fibrillation in relation to optimal and borderline risk factors . Circulation 2011 ; 123 : 1501 – 1508 .

Singh S , Rout A , Garg A . Renal denervation in hypertension: an updated meta-analysis of the randomized controlled trials . Catheter Cardiovasc Interv 2023 ; 102 : 663 – 671 .

Haïssaguerre M , Jaïs P , Shah DC , Takahashi A , Hocini M , Quiniou G , Garrigue S , Le Mouroux A , Le Métayer P , Clémenty J . Spontaneous initiation of atrial fibrillation by ectopic beats originating in the pulmonary veins . N Engl J Med 1998 ; 339 : 659 – 666 .

Wenker S , van Lieshout C , Frederix G , van der Heijden J , Loh P , Chamuleau SAJ , van Slochteren F . MRI-guided pulmonary vein isolation for atrial fibrillation: what is good enough? An early health technology assessment . Open Heart 2019 ; 6 : e001014 .

Verma A , Jiang C , Betts TR , Chen J , Deisenhofer I , Mantovan R , Macle L , Morillo CA , Haverkamp W , Weerasooriya R , Albenque JP , Nardi S , Menardi E , Novak P , Sanders P ; STAR AF II Investigators . Approaches to catheter ablation for persistent atrial fibrillation . N Engl J Med 2015 ; 372 : 1812 – 1822 .

Kuck K-H , Fürnkranz A , Chun KRJ , Metzner A , Ouyang F , Schlüter M , Elvan A , Lim HW , Kueffer FJ , Arentz T , Albenque JP , Tondo C , Kühne M , Sticherling C , Brugada J ; FIRE AND ICE Investigators . Cryoballoon or radiofrequency ablation for symptomatic paroxysmal atrial fibrillation: reintervention, rehospitalization, and quality-of-life outcomes in the fire and ice trial . Eur Heart J 2016 ; 37 : 2858 – 2865 .

Page MJ , McKenzie JE , Bossuyt PM , Boutron I , Hoffmann TC , Mulrow CD , Shamseer L , Tetzlaff JM , Akl EA , Brennan SE , Chou R , Glanville J , Grimshaw JM , Hróbjartsson A , Lalu MM , Li T , Loder EW , Mayo-Wilson E , McDonald S , McGuinness LA , Stewart LA , Thomas J , Tricco AC , Welch VA , Whiting P , Moher D . The Prisma 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews . BMJ 2021 ; 372 : n71 .

Higgins JP , Altman DG , Gotzsche PC , Juni P , Moher D , Oxman AD , Savovic J , Schulz KF , Weeks L , Sterne JAC . The Cochrane Collaboration's tool for assessing risk of bias in randomised trials . BMJ 2011 ; 343 : d5928 .

Sterne JA , Sutton AJ , Ioannidis JP , Terrin N , Jones DR , Lau J , Carpenter J , Rücker G , Harbord RM , Schmid CH , Tetzlaff J , Deeks JJ , Peters J , Macaskill P , Schwarzer G , Duval S , Altman DG , Moher D , Higgins JP . Recommendations for examining and interpreting funnel plot asymmetry in meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials . BMJ 2011 ; 343 : d4002 .

Higgins JP , Thomas J , Chandler J , Cumpston M , Li T , Page MJ , Welch VA . Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions. 2019. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119536604 (20 Feb 2023).

Higgins JP , Thompson SG , Deeks JJ , Altman DG . Measuring inconsistency in meta-analyses . BMJ 2003 ; 327 : 557 – 560 .

Pokushalov E , Romanov A , Katritsis DG , Artyomenko S , Bayramova S , Losik D , Baranova V , Karaskov A , Steinberg JS . Renal denervation for improving outcomes of catheter ablation in patients with atrial fibrillation and hypertension: early experience . Heart Rhythm 2014 ; 11 : 1131 – 1138 .

Kiuchi MG , Chen S , e Silva GR , Paz LMR , Kiuchi T , de Paula Filho AG , Souto GLL . Pulmonary vein isolation alone and combined with renal sympathetic denervation in chronic kidney disease patients with refractory atrial fibrillation . Kidney Res Clin Pract 2016 ; 35 : 237 – 244 .

Kiuchi MG , Chen S , Hoye NA , Pürerfellner H . Pulmonary vein isolation combined with spironolactone or renal sympathetic denervation in patients with chronic kidney disease, uncontrolled hypertension, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, and a Pacemaker . J Interv Card Electrophysiol 2018 ; 51 : 51 – 59 .

Steinberg JS , Shabanov V , Ponomarev D , Losik D , Ivanickiy E , Kropotkin E , Polyakov K , Ptaszynski P , Keweloh B , Yao CJ , Pokushalov EA , Romanov AB . Effect of renal denervation and catheter ablation vs catheter ablation alone on atrial fibrillation recurrence among patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and hypertension . JAMA 2020 ; 323 : 248 – 255 .

Turagam MK , Whang W , Miller MA , Neuzil P , Aryana A , Romanov A , Cuoco FA , Mansour M , Lakkireddy D , Michaud GF , Dukkipati SR , Cammack S , Reddy VY . Renal sympathetic denervation as upstream therapy during atrial fibrillation ablation . JACC Clin Electrophysiol 2021 ; 7 : 109 – 123 .

Kirstein B , Tomala J , Mayer J , Ulbrich S , Wagner M , Pu L , Piorkowski J , Hankel A , Huo Y , Gaspar T , Richter U , Hindricks G , Piorkowski C . Effect of concomitant renal denervation and cardiac ablation on atrial fibrillation recurrence—RDN+AF study . J Cardiovasc Electrophysiol 2023 ; 34 : 44 – 53 .

Sean P , Kane P . Number needed to treat (NNT) calculator. 2018. https://clincalc.com/Stats/NNT.aspx (20 Apr 2023).

Mancia G , Kreutz R , Brunström M , Burnier M , Grassi G , Januszewicz A , Muiesan ML , Tsioufis K , Agabiti-Rosei E , Algharably EAE , Azizi M , Benetos A , Borghi C , Hitij JB , Cifkova R , Coca A , Cornelissen V , Cruickshank JK , Cunha PG , Danser AHJ , Pinho RM , Delles C , Dominiczak AF , Dorobantu M , Doumas M , Fernández-Alfonso MS , Halimi JM , Járai Z , Jelaković B , Jordan J , Kuznetsova T , Laurent S , Lovic D , Lurbe E , Mahfoud F , Manolis A , Miglinas M , Narkiewicz K , Niiranen T , Palatini P , Parati G , Pathak A , Persu A , Polonia J , Redon J , Sarafidis P , Schmieder R , Spronck B , Stabouli S , Stergiou G , Taddei S , Thomopoulos C , Tomaszewski M , Van de Borne P , Wanner C , Weber T , Williams B , Zhang ZY , Kjeldsen SE . 2023 ESH guidelines for the management of arterial hypertension The Task Force for the management of arterial hypertension of the European Society of Hypertension: endorsed by the European Renal Association (ERA) and the International Society of Hypertension (ISH) . J Hypertension 2023 ; 41 : 1874 – 2071 .

Lauder L , Kandzari DE , Lüscher TF , Mahfoud F . Renal denervation in the management of hypertension . EuroIntervention 2024 ; 20 : e467 – e478 .

DiBona GF , Esler M . Translational medicine: the antihypertensive effect of renal denervation . Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 2010 ; 298 : R245 – R253 .

Al Raisi SI , Pouliopoulos J , Swinnen J , Thiagalingam A , Kovoor P . Renal artery denervation in resistant hypertension: the good, the bad and the future . Heart Lung Circ 2020 ; 29 : 94 – 101 .

Rao A , Krishnan N . Update on renal sympathetic denervation for the treatment of hypertension . Cur Cardiol Rep 2022 ; 24 : 1261 – 1271 .

Hering D , Lambert EA , Marusic P , Walton AS , Krum H , Lambert GW , Esler MD , Schlaich MP . Substantial reduction in single sympathetic nerve firing after renal denervation in patients with resistant hypertension . Hypertension 2013 ; 61 : 457 – 464 .

Pappone C , Augello G , Sala S , Gugliotta F , Vicedomini G , Gulletta S , Paglino G , Mazzone P , Sora N , Greiss I , Santagostino A , LiVolsi L , Pappone N , Radinovic A , Manguso F , Santinelli V . A randomized trial of circumferential pulmonary vein ablation versus antiarrhythmic drug therapy in paroxysmal atrial fibrillation . J Am Coll Cardiol 2006 ; 48 : 2340 – 2347 .

Borm GF , Lemmers O , Fransen J , Donders R . The evidence provided by a single trial is less reliable than its statistical analysis suggests . J Clin Epidemiol 2009 ; 62 : 711 – 715 . e1 .

Pokushalov E , Romanov A , Corbucci G , Artyomenko S , Baranova V , Turov A , Shirokova N , Karaskov A , Mittal S , Steinberg JS . A randomized comparison of pulmonary vein isolation with versus without concomitant renal artery denervation in patients with refractory symptomatic atrial fibrillation and resistant hypertension . J Am Coll Cardiol 2012 ; 60 : 1163 – 1170 .

Romanov A , Pokushalov E , Ponomarev D , Strelnikov A , Shabanov V , Losik D , Karaskov A , Steinberg JS . Pulmonary vein isolation with concomitant renal artery denervation is associated with reduction in both arterial blood pressure and atrial fibrillation burden: data from implantable cardiac monitor . Cardiovasc Ther 2017 ; 35 : e12264-4 .

Mahfoud F , Schmieder RE , Azizi M , Pathak A , Sievert H , Tsioufis C , Zeller T , Bertog S , Blankestijn PJ , Böhm M , Burnier M , Chatellier G , Durand Zaleski I , Ewen S , Grassi G , Joner M , Kjeldsen SE , Lobo MD , Lotan C , Lüscher TF , Parati G , Rossignol P , Ruilope L , Sharif F , van Leeuwen E , Volpe M , Windecker S , Witkowski A , Wijns W . Proceedings from the 2nd European Clinical Consensus Conference for device-based therapies for hypertension: state of the art and considerations for the future . Eur Heart J 2017 ; 38 : 3272 – 3281 .

Fadl Elmula FE , Feng Y-M , Jacobs L , Larstorp AC , Kjeldsen SE , Persu A , Staessen JA ; European Network COordinating research on Renal Denervation (ENCOReD) . Sham or no sham control: that is the question in trials of renal denervation for resistant hypertension. A systematic meta-analysis . Blood Press 2017 ; 26 : 195 – 203 .

Author notes

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Journals Career Network

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 2752-4191
• Copyright © 2024 European Society of Cardiology
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

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

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

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

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

Book Review: Coaching Copyright

Coaching Copyright is a welcome addition to the body of literature focusing on copyright educators who are, by extension, coaches. The book follows a logical order, starting with the title topic, offering a framework to address issues, and then positioning this framework within an instructional context. The next chapters cover ways to connect with your audience, succeeded by employing the framework for particular audiences and topics, and ending with a report about a Library Science course. This publication concentrates on the people who teach copyright within academic libraries in the United States. The target audience is wide, regardless of formal job positions, and its utility stretches far beyond the core subject.

Keywords: copyright, instruction, coaching, education, teaching, copyright education, higher education

Myers, C. (2019). Coaching up the chain of command. In K. L. Smith and E. L. Ellis (Eds.), Coaching copyright (pp. 149–161). ALA Editions.

Smith, K. L. (2014). Owning and using scholarship: IP handbook for teachers and researchers. Association of College and Research Libraries. http://hdl.handle.net/1808/24738

Smith, K. L., & Ellis, E.L. (Eds.). (2019). Coaching copyright. ALA Editions.

Copyright (c) 2024 Emilie Regina Algenio

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

How to Cite

• Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)

Most read articles by the same author(s)

• Emilie Regina Algenio, Making the Transition as the New Copyright Librarian , Journal of Copyright in Education & Librarianship: Vol. 2 No. 1 (2018): Journal of Copyright in Education and Librarianship: Kraemer Copyright Conference Proceedings

Make a Submission

Information.

• For Readers
• For Authors
• For Librarians

Latest publications

Editorialteamsidebar, editorial board.

[email protected]

The University of Kansas Libraries

ISSN: 2473-8336

• OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine
•   OBM ICM Home
•  Aims & Scope
•  Editorial Board
•  Reviewer Board
•  Editorial Policies
•  Selected Topics Board
•  Instructions for Authors
•  Sections
•  Special Issues
•  Collections
•  Current Issue: 2024
•  Article Processing Charge
•  Indexing and Archiving
•  Copyright License
•  Data Archive and Copyright License
•  Contact Us

(ISSN 2573-4393)

OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine is an international peer-reviewed Open Access journal published quarterly online by LIDSEN Publishing Inc. It covers all evidence-based scientific studies on integrative, alternative and complementary approaches to improving health and wellness.

Topics contain but are not limited to:

• Acupuncture
• Acupressure
• Bioelectromagnetics applications
• Pharmacological and biological treatments including their efficacy and safety
• Diet, nutrition and lifestyle changes
• Herbal medicine
• Manual healing methods (e.g., massage, physical therapy)
• Kinesiology
• Mind/body interventions
• Preventive medicine
• Research in integrative medicine
• Education in integrative medicine
• Related policies

The journal publishes a variety of article types: Original Research, Review, Communication, Opinion, Comment, Conference Report, Technical Note, Book Review, etc.

There is no restriction on paper length, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive. Authors should present their results in as much detail as possible, as reviewers are encouraged to emphasize scientific rigor and reproducibility.

Publication Speed (median values for papers published in 2023) : Submission to First Decision: 5.9 weeks ; Submission to Acceptance: 14.7 weeks ; Acceptance to Publication: 8 days (1-2 days of FREE language polishing included)

Trauma in Schools: A Review of the Impact of Childhood Trauma and Assessment of a Potential Intervention

University of South Carolina Union 1, 401 East Main Street, Union, SC, USA

Academic Editor:  Brandis Ansley

Collection:   Stress, Burnout, and Trauma in Schools: Coping Strategies for Teachers, Staff, and Students

Received:  March 02, 2023 |  Accepted:  May 10, 2024 |  Published:  May 24, 2024

OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine 2024 , Volume 9, Issue 2, doi: 10.21926/obm.icm.2402030

Recommended citation:  Schafer ES. Trauma in Schools: A Review of the Impact of Childhood Trauma and Assessment of a Potential Intervention. OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine 2024 ; 9(2): 030; doi:10.21926/obm.icm.2402030.

© 2024 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is correctly cited.

According to the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), nearly 30 million children in the United States have experienced one or more types of significant childhood trauma. In the average public school, this statistic translates to as many as half of the students in a given teacher’s classroom. Children exposed to the toxic stress of trauma often experience negative consequences that affect their academic, psychological, socioemotional, and behavioral health. To aid educators in addressing this reality, trauma-informed care practices have increasingly begun to be translated into professional development opportunities for educators. Using the theoretical frameworks of trauma theory and transformational learning theory, this review of the literature provides a brief overview of trauma theory, the short- and long-term effects on children, the mechanisms involved in how trauma affects developmental outcomes, and the relevance of trauma in an educational setting. It also reviews the implementation of trauma-informed care as professional development in educational settings, examines research on educators’ awareness of beliefs and attitudes, and reviews how/whether knowledge and change in attitudes affect behavioral change.

Graphical abstract

Childhood trauma; trauma-informed care; school; adverse childhood experiences (ACEs); education; professional development

1. Introduction

1. Teicher MH. Scars that won’t heal: The neurobiology of child abuse. Sci Am. 2002; 286: 68-75. [ CrossRef ]

2. Bethell CD, Newacheck P, Hawes E, Halfon N. Adverse childhood experiences: Assessing the impact on health and school engagement and the mitigating role of resilience. Health Aff. 2014; 33: 2106-2115. [ CrossRef ]

3. Felitti VJ, Anda RF. The relationship of adverse childhood experiences to adult medical disease, psychiatric disorders, and sexual behavior: Implications for healthcare. In: The hidden epidemic: The impact of early life trauma on health and disease. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; 2010. pp. 77-87. [ CrossRef ]

4. Perfect MM, Turley MR, Carlson JS, Yohanna J, Saint Gilles MP. School-related outcomes of traumatic event exposure and traumatic stress symptoms in students: A systematic review of research from 1990 to 2015. Sch Ment Health. 2016; 8: 7-43. [ CrossRef ]

5. Perry BD. The neuroarcheology of childhood maltreatment: The neurodevelopmental costs of adverse childhood events. In: The cost of maltreatment: Who pays? We all do. San Diego, CA: Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute; 2000. pp. 15-37.

6. Finkelhor D, Ormrod R, Turner H, Hamby SL. The victimization of children and youth: A comprehensive, national survey. Child Maltreat. 2005; 10: 5-25. [ CrossRef ]

7. Finkelhor D, Turner HA, Shattuck A, Hamby SL. Violence, crime, and abuse exposure in a national sample of children and youth: An update. JAMA Pediatr. 2013; 167: 614-621. [ CrossRef ]

8. Sacks V, Murphey D. The prevalence of adverse childhood experiences, nationally, by state, and by race or ethnicity [Internet]. Rockville, MD: ChildTrends; 2018. Available from: <a href="https://www.childtrends.org/publications/prevalence-adverse-childhood-experiences-nationally-state-race-ethnicity">https://www.childtrends.org/publications/prevalence-adverse-childhood-experiences-nationally-state-race-ethnicity</a>.

9. Blaustein ME. Childhood trauma and a framework for intervention. In: Supporting and educating traumatized students: A guide for school-based professionals. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2013. pp. 3-21. [ CrossRef ]

10. MacLochlainn J, Kirby K, McFadden P, Mallett J. An evaluation of whole-school trauma-informed training intervention among post-primary school personnel: A mixed methods study. J Child Adolesc Trauma. 2022; 15: 925-941. [ CrossRef ]

11. Avery JC, Morris H, Galvin E, Misso M, Savaglio M, Skouteris H. Systematic review of school-wide trauma-informed approaches. J Child Adolesc Trauma. 2021; 14: 381-397. [ CrossRef ]

12. Craig SE. Trauma-sensitive schools: Learning communities transforming children's lives, K-5. New York, NY: Teachers College Press; 2015.

13. Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health. 2018 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) [Internet]. Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health; 2019. Available from: <a href="https://www.childhealthdata.org/">https://www.childhealthdata.org/</a>.

14. Child Welfare Information Gateway. Understanding the effects of maltreatment on brain development [Internet]. Washington, D.C.: Child Welfare Information Gateway; 2015. Available from: <a href="https://ocfcpacourts.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Understanding_the_effects_of_maltreatment_000938.pdf">https://ocfcpacourts.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Understanding_the_effects_of_maltreatment_000938.pdf</a>.

15. Felitti VJ. The relationship of adult health status to childhood abuse and household dysfunction. Am J Prev Med. 1998; 14: 245-258. [ CrossRef ]

16. Garrett K. Childhood trauma and its affects on health and learning. Educ Dig. 2014; 79: 4-9.

17. Shern DL, Blanch AK, Steverman SM. Toxic stress, behavioral health, and the next major era in public health. Am J Orthopsychiatry. 2016; 86: 109-123. [ CrossRef ]

Several terms or phrases used in the current review require definition. The terms for childhood trauma, in particular, are varied in the literature. The following section provides explanations for what is meant by each term in this document.

18. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC-Kaiser ACE Study [Internet]. Atlanta, GA: Center for Disease Control and Prevention; 2018. Available from: <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/about.html">https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/about.html</a>.

19. National Child Traumatic Stress Network. About child trauma [Internet]. Los Angeles, CA: National Child Traumatic Stress Network; 2018. Available from: <a href="https://www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/about-child-trauma">https://www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/about-child-trauma</a>.

20. Hertel R, Frausto L, Harrington R. The compassionate schools pilot project report. Olympia, WA: Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction; 2009.

21. Parker J, Olson S, Bunde J. The impact of trauma-based training on educators. J Child Adolesc Trauma. 2020; 13: 217-227. [ CrossRef ]

• Educator/teacher: For the purposes of this review, these terms are used interchangeably to refer to public school personnel who are the primary teachers in a K-12 classroom.

22. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Key Concepts [Internet]. Cambridge, MA: Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University; 2018. Available from: <a href="http://www.developingchild.harvard.edu/">http://www.developingchild.harvard.edu</a>.

23. Zelazo PD, Müller U. Executive function in typical and atypical development. In: Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell; 2002. pp. 445-469. [ CrossRef ]

24. Meiklejohn J, Phillips C, Freedman ML, Griffin ML, Biegel G, Roach A, et al. Integrating mindfulness training into K-12 education: Fostering the resilience of teachers and students. Mindfulness. 2012; 3: 291-307. [ CrossRef ]

25. Goldstein S, Brooks RB. Resilience in children. New York, NY: Springer; 2005. [ CrossRef ]

26. Shonkoff JP, Garner AS, Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child, Family Health Committee on Early Childhood Adoption, Dependent Care, Section on Developmental, et al. The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics. 2012; 129: e232-e246. [ CrossRef ]

27. Huckshorn K, LeBel JL. Trauma-informed care. In: Modern community mental health: An interdisciplinary approach. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2013. pp. 62-83.

Two theoretical frameworks provided the foundation for this review: trauma theory and transformational learning theory. Trauma theory provides the foundational understanding of the need for TIC training. Transformational learning theory explains how professional development can change teachers’ perceptions of trauma-impacted students and, in turn, their interactions with students.

1.1 Trauma Theory

28. Anda RF, Felitti VJ, Bremner JD, Walker JD, Whitfield C, Perry BD, et al. The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood: A convergence of evidence from neurobiology and epidemiology. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2006; 256: 174-186. [ CrossRef ]

29. Cook A, Spinazzola J, Ford J, Lanktree C, Blaustein M, Cloitre M, et al. Complex trauma. Psychiatr Ann. 2005; 35: 390-398. [ CrossRef ]

30. Van der Kolk B. The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York, NY: Viking Press; 2014.

31. Perry BD. Stress, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorders in children: An introduction [Internet]. Houston, TX: The ChildTrauma Academy; 2007. Available from: <a href="https://vibrantcouplescounseling.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ptsd_caregivers-3.pdf">https://vibrantcouplescounseling.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ptsd_caregivers-3.pdf</a>.

32. Plumb JL, Bush KA, Kersevich SE. Trauma-sensitive schools: An evidence-based approach. Sch Social Work J. 2016; 40: 37-60.

1.2 Transformational Learning Theory

33. Mezirow J. Perspective transformation. Adult Educ Q. 1978; 28: 100-110. [ CrossRef ]

34. Mezirow J. Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 1991.

35. Merriam SB, Baumgartner LM. Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide. 3rd ed. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons; 2007.

36. Simsek A. Transformational learning. Boston, MA: Springer; 2012. [ CrossRef ]

37. Guskey TR. Professional development and teacher change. Teach Teach. 2002; 8: 381-391. [ CrossRef ]

This scoping review of the literature includes, as a rationale for trauma-informed care training, a brief overview of trauma theory, the short- and long-term effects on children, the mechanisms involved in how trauma affects developmental outcomes, and the relevance of trauma in an educational setting. It then reviews the implementation of trauma-informed care as professional development in educational settings, examines research on educators’ awareness of beliefs and attitudes, and reviews how/whether knowledge and change in attitudes affect behavioral change. Finally, it includes a specific example of how a TIC training program was implemented and assessed.

2. Overview of Trauma Theory

38. Van der Kolk B. Developmental trauma disorder-a more specific diagnosis than posttraumatic stress disorder should be considered for children with complex trauma histories. Psychiatr Ann. 2017; 35: 401-408. [ CrossRef ]

39. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association; 2013. [ CrossRef ]

Figure 1 Domains of Impairment in Children Exposed to Trauma.

2.1 Prevalence of Trauma

Table 1 Prevalence of ACEs by Category from 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey.

Note : Reprinted from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/acestudy/about.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fviolenceprevention%2Facestudy%2Fabout.html .

Table 2 Prevalence of ACEs by Category in 2010 from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

Note : Reprinted from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/acestudy/ace-brfss.html .

2.2 Impact of Trauma

40. Teicher MH, Rabi K, Sheu YS, Seraphin SB, Andersen SL, Anderson CM, et al. Neurobiology of childhood trauma and adversity. In: The impact of early life trauma on health and disease: The hidden epidemic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 2010. pp. 112-122. [ CrossRef ]

41. De Bellis MD, Zisk A. The biological effects of childhood trauma. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin. 2014; 23: 185-222. [ CrossRef ]

42. Gooding HC, Milliren CE, Austin SB, Sheridan MA, McLaughlin KA. Child abuse, resting blood pressure, and blood pressure reactivity to psychosocial stress. J Pediatr Psychol. 2016; 41: 5-14. [ CrossRef ]

43. Shenk CE, Noll JG, Peugh JL, Griffin AM, Bensman HE. Contamination in the prospective study of child maltreatment and female adolescent health. J Pediatr Psychol. 2016; 41: 37-45. [ CrossRef ]

44. Paras ML, Murad MH, Chen LP, Goranson EN, Sattler AL, Colbenson KM, et al. Sexual abuse and lifetime diagnosis of somatic disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA. 2009; 302: 550-561. [ CrossRef ]

45. Kroska EB, Roche AI, O’Hara MW. Childhood trauma and somatization: Identifying mechanisms for targeted intervention. Mindfulness. 2018; 9: 1845-1856. [ CrossRef ]

46. Van der Kolk BA. Psychological trauma. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association Publishing; 2003.

47. Schilling EA, Aseltine RH, Gore S. Adverse childhood experiences and mental health in young adults: A longitudinal survey. BMC Public Health. 2007; 7: 30. [ CrossRef ]

48. Turner HA, Finkelhor D, Ormrod R. The effect of lifetime victimization on the mental health of children and adolescents. Soc Sci Med. 2006; 62: 13-27. [ CrossRef ]

49. Edwards VJ, Holden GW, Felitti VJ, Anda RF. Relationship between multiple forms of childhood maltreatment and adult mental health in community respondents: Results from the adverse childhood experiences study. Am J Psychiatry. 2003; 160: 1453-1460. [ CrossRef ]

50. Zatti C, Rosa V, Barros A, Valdivia L, Calegaro VC, Freitas LH, et al. Childhood trauma and suicide attempt: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies from the last decade. Psychiatry Res. 2017; 256: 353-358. [ CrossRef ]

2.3 Potential Intervention

51. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. National Center for Trauma-Informed Care: The trauma-informed approach [Internet]. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; 2019. Available from: <a href="https://www.samhsa.gov/nctic/trauma-interventions">https://www.samhsa.gov/nctic/trauma-interventions</a>.

• Realize the widespread impact of trauma and understand the potential paths for recovery.
• Recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma in students.
• Respond by fully integrating knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, and practices.

The next section presents one such school-wide philosophy.

3. Trauma-Informed Schools

52. Ford JD, Elhai JD, Connor DF, Frueh BC. Poly-victimization and risk of posttraumatic, depressive, and substance use disorders and involvement in delinquency in a national sample of adolescents. J Adolesc Health. 2010; 46: 545-552. [ CrossRef ]

53. Greenwald R. The role of trauma in conduct disorder. J Aggress Maltreat Trauma. 2022; 6: 5-23. [ CrossRef ]

54. Dorado JS, Martinez M, McArthur LE, Leibovitz T. Healthy environments and response to trauma in schools (HEARTS): A whole-school, multi-level, prevention and intervention program for creating trauma-informed, safe and supportive schools. Sch Ment Health. 2016; 8: 163-176. [ CrossRef ]

55. Alisic E. Teachers' perspectives on providing support to children after trauma: A qualitative study. Sch Psychol Q. 2012; 27: 51-59. [ CrossRef ]

56. Davis M, Costigan T, Schubert K. Promoting lifelong health and well-being: Staying the course to promote health and prevent the effects of adverse childhood and community experiences. Acad Pediatr. 2017; 17: S4-S6. [ CrossRef ]

57. Cole S, Eisner A, Gregory M, Ristuccia J. Helping traumatized children learn: Safe, supportive learning environments that benefit all children [Internet]. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Advocates for Children Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative; 2013. Available from: <a href="https://traumasensitiveschools.org/">https://traumasensitiveschools.org/</a>.

58. Wolpow R, Johnson MM, Hertel R, Kincaid SO. The heart of learning and teaching: Compassion, resiliency, and academic success. Olympia, WA: Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction; 2009.

59. Bronfenbrenner U. The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1979. [ CrossRef ]

60. Prewitt E. New elementary and secondary education law includes specific “trauma-informed practices” provisions [Internet]. PACEsConnection; 2016. Available from: <a href="https://www.pacesconnection.com/g/aces-in-education/blog/new-elementary-and-secondary-education-law-includes-specific-trauma-informed-practices-provisions">https://www.pacesconnection.com/g/aces-in-education/blog/new-elementary-and-secondary-education-law-includes-specific-trauma-informed-practices-provisions</a>.

61. Overstreet S, Chafouleas SM. Trauma-informed schools: Introduction to the special issue. 2016; 8: 1-6. [ CrossRef ]

4. Professional Development and Educator Knowledge and Attitudes

62. Cranton P, King KP. Transformative learning as a professional development goal. New Perspect Des Implement Prof Dev Teach. 2003; 2003: 31-38. [ CrossRef ]

63. Mizell H. Why professional development matters [Internet]. Oxford, OH: Learning Forward; 2010. Available from: <a href="https://learningforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/professional-development-matters.pdf">https://learningforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/professional-development-matters.pdf</a>.

64. King KP. Both sides now: Examining transformative learning and professional development of educators. Innov Higher Educ. 2004; 29: 155-174. [ CrossRef ]

• An experience that does not align to the learner’s existing understanding, prompting a dilemma of cognitive dissonance.
• Critical reflection on how one’s beliefs or assumptions created a discrepancy between what was perceived and what was true based on the new information (This can be accompanied by the emotions of guilt or embarrassment).
• Reflective discussion with colleagues about the conflict to come to a new understanding.
• Integration of new knowledge into an innovative perspective, culminating in implementing plans for action and behavior changes.

Compassionate Schools training seeks to provide educators the opportunity to experience transformational learning via exposure to a new trauma-informed lens through which to view students. When educators hear how trauma can present in their classroom, they may experience guilt for their previous poor handling of situations or discomfort with the ignorance uncovered by their new awareness. If this dissonance prompts self-reflection, critical analysis and discussion, concluding with a change in perspective, the first three stages of transformational learning have occurred. For example, a teacher may have had many interactions with a withdrawn, seemingly unengaged student. After several attempts to gain his attention, the teacher may conclude the student is uninterested, distracted, and/or lazy. If the student’s behavior continues, the teacher may feel justified in confirming her suspicion. When this teacher is confronted with the reality of the student’s traumatic history and the science of trauma theory, she may experience the necessary discomfort to question her previously held beliefs about the student and reevaluate his behavior in light of the new knowledge (i.e. that the student is overwhelmed, afraid of failure, or unable to self-regulate).

5. Relationship among Knowledge, Attitude, and Behavioral Change

65. Desimone LM. Improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development: Toward better conceptualizations and measures. Educ Res. 2009; 38: 181-199. [ CrossRef ]

66. Kennedy MM. How does professional development improve teaching? Rev Educ Res. 2016; 86: 945-980. [ CrossRef ]

67. Cranton P. Teaching for transformation. In: New directions for adult and continuing education. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass; 2002. pp. 63-72. [ CrossRef ]

Although trauma-informed care in schools has strong theoretical foundations and increasing implementation across the U.S., to date there is not a significant body of literature evaluating the effectiveness of trauma-informed professional development for educators. The next section details the few relevant studies that have been conducted.

6. Research on Trauma-Informed Care Professional Development

68. Anderson EM, Blitz LV, Saastamoinen M. Exploring a school-university model for professional development with classroom staff: Teaching trauma-informed approaches. Sch Community J. 2015; 25: 113-134.

69. Goodwin-Glick KL. Impact of trauma-informed care professional development on school personnel perceptions of knowledge, dispositions, and behaviors toward traumatized students. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University; 2017.

70. Baker CN, Brown SM, Wilcox PD, Overstreet S, Arora P. Development and psychometric evaluation of the attitudes related to trauma-informed care (ARTIC) scale. Sch Ment Health. 2016; 8: 61-76. [ CrossRef ]

6.1 Compassionate Schools Spartanburg, SC

The mock house simulation is an opportunity for educators to experience a first-hand representation of the potential home life of a student who could be in their classroom. The CPTC staff combined data and evidence from multiple Spartanburg DSS/CPS cases to recreate a home ‘scene’ in several rooms. Participants were led through the different areas of the home (front porch, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedrooms) with the instruction to note evidence of child maltreatment and trauma.

7. Limitations

71. Chafouleas SM, Johnson AH, Overstreet S, Santos NM. Toward a blueprint for trauma-informed service delivery in schools. Sch Ment Health. 2016; 8: 144-162. [ CrossRef ]

72. Maynard BR, Farina A, Dell NA, Kelly MS. Effects of trauma‐informed approaches in schools: A systematic review. Campbell Syst Rev. 2019; 15: e1018. [ CrossRef ]

73. Thomas MS, Crosby S, Vanderhaar J. Trauma-informed practices in schools across two decades: An interdisciplinary review of research. Rev Res Educ. 2019; 43: 422-452. [ CrossRef ]

8. Conclusions

It is undisputed that the experience of trauma is prevalent among the student body of our schools. As this review has shown, a primary intervention strategy of providing TIC professional development to school faculty, staff, and administration has much promise. Teachers need to be given both the understanding of how trauma impacts their students as well as the relevant tools and skills necessary to help them address it well. TIC professional development provides administration and educators a common language with which to discuss prevention, intervention, and even discipline. Many of the TIC trainings also include sessions devoted to self-care, boundaries, vicarious trauma, and compassion fatigue. These can prove invaluable to schools in the fight to inoculate teachers against increasing burnout. Students who have experienced the uniquely distressing pain of complex trauma deserve to interact with school staff who have an understanding of its impact on them. In turn, educators deserve to be well-prepared for entering the often-difficult journey of teaching survivors of childhood trauma.

Author Contributions

The author did all the research work of this study.

Competing Interests

The author has declared that no competing interests exist.

• Teicher MH. Scars that won’t heal: The neurobiology of child abuse. Sci Am. 2002; 286: 68-75. [ CrossRef ]
• Bethell CD, Newacheck P, Hawes E, Halfon N. Adverse childhood experiences: Assessing the impact on health and school engagement and the mitigating role of resilience. Health Aff. 2014; 33: 2106-2115. [ CrossRef ]
• Felitti VJ, Anda RF. The relationship of adverse childhood experiences to adult medical disease, psychiatric disorders, and sexual behavior: Implications for healthcare. In: The hidden epidemic: The impact of early life trauma on health and disease. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; 2010. pp. 77-87. [ CrossRef ]
• Perfect MM, Turley MR, Carlson JS, Yohanna J, Saint Gilles MP. School-related outcomes of traumatic event exposure and traumatic stress symptoms in students: A systematic review of research from 1990 to 2015. Sch Ment Health. 2016; 8: 7-43. [ CrossRef ]
• Perry BD. The neuroarcheology of childhood maltreatment: The neurodevelopmental costs of adverse childhood events. In: The cost of maltreatment: Who pays? We all do. San Diego, CA: Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute; 2000. pp. 15-37.
• Finkelhor D, Ormrod R, Turner H, Hamby SL. The victimization of children and youth: A comprehensive, national survey. Child Maltreat. 2005; 10: 5-25. [ CrossRef ]
• Finkelhor D, Turner HA, Shattuck A, Hamby SL. Violence, crime, and abuse exposure in a national sample of children and youth: An update. JAMA Pediatr. 2013; 167: 614-621. [ CrossRef ]
• Sacks V, Murphey D. The prevalence of adverse childhood experiences, nationally, by state, and by race or ethnicity [Internet]. Rockville, MD: ChildTrends; 2018. Available from: https://www.childtrends.org/publications/prevalence-adverse-childhood-experiences-nationally-state-race-ethnicity .
• Blaustein ME. Childhood trauma and a framework for intervention. In: Supporting and educating traumatized students: A guide for school-based professionals. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2013. pp. 3-21. [ CrossRef ]
• MacLochlainn J, Kirby K, McFadden P, Mallett J. An evaluation of whole-school trauma-informed training intervention among post-primary school personnel: A mixed methods study. J Child Adolesc Trauma. 2022; 15: 925-941. [ CrossRef ]
• Avery JC, Morris H, Galvin E, Misso M, Savaglio M, Skouteris H. Systematic review of school-wide trauma-informed approaches. J Child Adolesc Trauma. 2021; 14: 381-397. [ CrossRef ]
• Craig SE. Trauma-sensitive schools: Learning communities transforming children's lives, K-5. New York, NY: Teachers College Press; 2015.
• Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health. 2018 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) [Internet]. Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health; 2019. Available from: https://www.childhealthdata.org/ .
• Child Welfare Information Gateway. Understanding the effects of maltreatment on brain development [Internet]. Washington, D.C.: Child Welfare Information Gateway; 2015. Available from: https://ocfcpacourts.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Understanding_the_effects_of_maltreatment_000938.pdf .
• Felitti VJ. The relationship of adult health status to childhood abuse and household dysfunction. Am J Prev Med. 1998; 14: 245-258. [ CrossRef ]
• Garrett K. Childhood trauma and its affects on health and learning. Educ Dig. 2014; 79: 4-9.
• Shern DL, Blanch AK, Steverman SM. Toxic stress, behavioral health, and the next major era in public health. Am J Orthopsychiatry. 2016; 86: 109-123. [ CrossRef ]
• Center for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC-Kaiser ACE Study [Internet]. Atlanta, GA: Center for Disease Control and Prevention; 2018. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/about.html .
• National Child Traumatic Stress Network. About child trauma [Internet]. Los Angeles, CA: National Child Traumatic Stress Network; 2018. Available from: https://www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/about-child-trauma .
• Hertel R, Frausto L, Harrington R. The compassionate schools pilot project report. Olympia, WA: Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction; 2009.
• Parker J, Olson S, Bunde J. The impact of trauma-based training on educators. J Child Adolesc Trauma. 2020; 13: 217-227. [ CrossRef ]
• Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Key Concepts [Internet]. Cambridge, MA: Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University; 2018. Available from: http://www.developingchild.harvard.edu .
• Zelazo PD, Müller U. Executive function in typical and atypical development. In: Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell; 2002. pp. 445-469. [ CrossRef ]
• Meiklejohn J, Phillips C, Freedman ML, Griffin ML, Biegel G, Roach A, et al. Integrating mindfulness training into K-12 education: Fostering the resilience of teachers and students. Mindfulness. 2012; 3: 291-307. [ CrossRef ]
• Goldstein S, Brooks RB. Resilience in children. New York, NY: Springer; 2005. [ CrossRef ]
• Shonkoff JP, Garner AS, Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child, Family Health Committee on Early Childhood Adoption, Dependent Care, Section on Developmental, et al. The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics. 2012; 129: e232-e246. [ CrossRef ]
• Huckshorn K, LeBel JL. Trauma-informed care. In: Modern community mental health: An interdisciplinary approach. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2013. pp. 62-83.
• Anda RF, Felitti VJ, Bremner JD, Walker JD, Whitfield C, Perry BD, et al. The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood: A convergence of evidence from neurobiology and epidemiology. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2006; 256: 174-186. [ CrossRef ]
• Cook A, Spinazzola J, Ford J, Lanktree C, Blaustein M, Cloitre M, et al. Complex trauma. Psychiatr Ann. 2005; 35: 390-398. [ CrossRef ]
• Van der Kolk B. The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York, NY: Viking Press; 2014.
• Perry BD. Stress, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorders in children: An introduction [Internet]. Houston, TX: The ChildTrauma Academy; 2007. Available from: https://vibrantcouplescounseling.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ptsd_caregivers-3.pdf .
• Plumb JL, Bush KA, Kersevich SE. Trauma-sensitive schools: An evidence-based approach. Sch Social Work J. 2016; 40: 37-60.
• Mezirow J. Perspective transformation. Adult Educ Q. 1978; 28: 100-110. [ CrossRef ]
• Mezirow J. Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 1991.
• Merriam SB, Baumgartner LM. Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide. 3rd ed. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons; 2007.
• Simsek A. Transformational learning. Boston, MA: Springer; 2012. [ CrossRef ]
• Guskey TR. Professional development and teacher change. Teach Teach. 2002; 8: 381-391. [ CrossRef ]
• Van der Kolk B. Developmental trauma disorder-a more specific diagnosis than posttraumatic stress disorder should be considered for children with complex trauma histories. Psychiatr Ann. 2017; 35: 401-408. [ CrossRef ]
• American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association; 2013. [ CrossRef ]
• Teicher MH, Rabi K, Sheu YS, Seraphin SB, Andersen SL, Anderson CM, et al. Neurobiology of childhood trauma and adversity. In: The impact of early life trauma on health and disease: The hidden epidemic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 2010. pp. 112-122. [ CrossRef ]
• De Bellis MD, Zisk A. The biological effects of childhood trauma. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin. 2014; 23: 185-222. [ CrossRef ]
• Gooding HC, Milliren CE, Austin SB, Sheridan MA, McLaughlin KA. Child abuse, resting blood pressure, and blood pressure reactivity to psychosocial stress. J Pediatr Psychol. 2016; 41: 5-14. [ CrossRef ]
• Shenk CE, Noll JG, Peugh JL, Griffin AM, Bensman HE. Contamination in the prospective study of child maltreatment and female adolescent health. J Pediatr Psychol. 2016; 41: 37-45. [ CrossRef ]
• Paras ML, Murad MH, Chen LP, Goranson EN, Sattler AL, Colbenson KM, et al. Sexual abuse and lifetime diagnosis of somatic disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA. 2009; 302: 550-561. [ CrossRef ]
• Kroska EB, Roche AI, O’Hara MW. Childhood trauma and somatization: Identifying mechanisms for targeted intervention. Mindfulness. 2018; 9: 1845-1856. [ CrossRef ]
• Van der Kolk BA. Psychological trauma. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association Publishing; 2003.
• Schilling EA, Aseltine RH, Gore S. Adverse childhood experiences and mental health in young adults: A longitudinal survey. BMC Public Health. 2007; 7: 30. [ CrossRef ]
• Turner HA, Finkelhor D, Ormrod R. The effect of lifetime victimization on the mental health of children and adolescents. Soc Sci Med. 2006; 62: 13-27. [ CrossRef ]
• Edwards VJ, Holden GW, Felitti VJ, Anda RF. Relationship between multiple forms of childhood maltreatment and adult mental health in community respondents: Results from the adverse childhood experiences study. Am J Psychiatry. 2003; 160: 1453-1460. [ CrossRef ]
• Zatti C, Rosa V, Barros A, Valdivia L, Calegaro VC, Freitas LH, et al. Childhood trauma and suicide attempt: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies from the last decade. Psychiatry Res. 2017; 256: 353-358. [ CrossRef ]
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. National Center for Trauma-Informed Care: The trauma-informed approach [Internet]. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; 2019. Available from: https://www.samhsa.gov/nctic/trauma-interventions .
• Ford JD, Elhai JD, Connor DF, Frueh BC. Poly-victimization and risk of posttraumatic, depressive, and substance use disorders and involvement in delinquency in a national sample of adolescents. J Adolesc Health. 2010; 46: 545-552. [ CrossRef ]
• Greenwald R. The role of trauma in conduct disorder. J Aggress Maltreat Trauma. 2022; 6: 5-23. [ CrossRef ]
• Dorado JS, Martinez M, McArthur LE, Leibovitz T. Healthy environments and response to trauma in schools (HEARTS): A whole-school, multi-level, prevention and intervention program for creating trauma-informed, safe and supportive schools. Sch Ment Health. 2016; 8: 163-176. [ CrossRef ]
• Alisic E. Teachers' perspectives on providing support to children after trauma: A qualitative study. Sch Psychol Q. 2012; 27: 51-59. [ CrossRef ]
• Davis M, Costigan T, Schubert K. Promoting lifelong health and well-being: Staying the course to promote health and prevent the effects of adverse childhood and community experiences. Acad Pediatr. 2017; 17: S4-S6. [ CrossRef ]
• Cole S, Eisner A, Gregory M, Ristuccia J. Helping traumatized children learn: Safe, supportive learning environments that benefit all children [Internet]. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Advocates for Children Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative; 2013. Available from: https://traumasensitiveschools.org/ .
• Wolpow R, Johnson MM, Hertel R, Kincaid SO. The heart of learning and teaching: Compassion, resiliency, and academic success. Olympia, WA: Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction; 2009.
• Bronfenbrenner U. The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1979. [ CrossRef ]
• Prewitt E. New elementary and secondary education law includes specific “trauma-informed practices” provisions [Internet]. PACEsConnection; 2016. Available from: https://www.pacesconnection.com/g/aces-in-education/blog/new-elementary-and-secondary-education-law-includes-specific-trauma-informed-practices-provisions .
• Overstreet S, Chafouleas SM. Trauma-informed schools: Introduction to the special issue. 2016; 8: 1-6. [ CrossRef ]
• Cranton P, King KP. Transformative learning as a professional development goal. New Perspect Des Implement Prof Dev Teach. 2003; 2003: 31-38. [ CrossRef ]
• Mizell H. Why professional development matters [Internet]. Oxford, OH: Learning Forward; 2010. Available from: https://learningforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/professional-development-matters.pdf .
• King KP. Both sides now: Examining transformative learning and professional development of educators. Innov Higher Educ. 2004; 29: 155-174. [ CrossRef ]
• Desimone LM. Improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development: Toward better conceptualizations and measures. Educ Res. 2009; 38: 181-199. [ CrossRef ]
• Kennedy MM. How does professional development improve teaching? Rev Educ Res. 2016; 86: 945-980. [ CrossRef ]
• Cranton P. Teaching for transformation. In: New directions for adult and continuing education. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass; 2002. pp. 63-72. [ CrossRef ]
• Anderson EM, Blitz LV, Saastamoinen M. Exploring a school-university model for professional development with classroom staff: Teaching trauma-informed approaches. Sch Community J. 2015; 25: 113-134.
• Goodwin-Glick KL. Impact of trauma-informed care professional development on school personnel perceptions of knowledge, dispositions, and behaviors toward traumatized students. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University; 2017.
• Baker CN, Brown SM, Wilcox PD, Overstreet S, Arora P. Development and psychometric evaluation of the attitudes related to trauma-informed care (ARTIC) scale. Sch Ment Health. 2016; 8: 61-76. [ CrossRef ]
• Chafouleas SM, Johnson AH, Overstreet S, Santos NM. Toward a blueprint for trauma-informed service delivery in schools. Sch Ment Health. 2016; 8: 144-162. [ CrossRef ]
• Maynard BR, Farina A, Dell NA, Kelly MS. Effects of trauma‐informed approaches in schools: A systematic review. Campbell Syst Rev. 2019; 15: e1018. [ CrossRef ]
• Thomas MS, Crosby S, Vanderhaar J. Trauma-informed practices in schools across two decades: An interdisciplinary review of research. Rev Res Educ. 2019; 43: 422-452. [ CrossRef ]

As a result of the significant disruption that is being caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are very aware that many researchers will have difficulty in meeting the timelines associated with our peer review process during normal times. Please do let us know if you need additional time. Our editor office will continue to remind you of the original timelines but we intend to be highly flexible at this time.

To receive the table of contents of newly released issues of OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine, add your e-mail address in the box below, and click on subscribe.

• Notice: In accordance with the development strategy of LIDSEN Publishing Inc., its journals do not accept any type of advertising for now. If there is a change in plans, further notice will be given here. " style="font-size: 15px;cursor:pointer;">Advertising

UBC Sauder research introducing the SHIFT Framework honoured with 2024 Sheth Foundation/Journal of Marketing Award

Professor Katherine White and Assistant Professor Rishad Habib from Toronto Metropolitan University (UBC Sauder PhD alumni 2021) accepting the 2024 Sheth Foundation/Journal of Marketing Award

Related Links

White, habib, and hardisty win the 2024 sheth foundation/journal of marketing award, how to shift consumer behaviors to be more sustainable: a literature review and guiding framework, katherine white, david hardisty, marketing & behavioural science division.

The research paper that introduces the SHIFT Framework, a pioneering and comprehensive approach to fostering sustainable consumer behaviors, has been honoured with the American Marketing Association (AMA)’s 2024 Sheth Foundation/Journal of Marketing Award. UBC Sauder authors Professor Katherine White and Associate Professor David Hardisty, along with Assistant Professor Rishad Habib from Toronto Metropolitan University (UBC Sauder PhD alumni 2021), received the award at the 2024 AMA Summer Academic Conference in Boston.

The annual Sheth Foundation/Journal of Marketing Award honours a Journal of Marketing article that has made long-term contributions to the field of marketing. An article is eligible for consideration to receive the award in the fifth year after its publication. The criteria for selection include the quality of the article’s contribution to theory and practice, its originality, its technical competence (if relevant), and its impact on the field of marketing.

The research paper “ How to SHIFT Consumer Behaviors to be More Sustainable: A Literature Review and Guiding Framework ” introduces the SHIFT Framework, an acronym representing five routes, or psychological factors, to help consumers adopt and foster more sustainable behaviour: Social influence, Habits, Individual self, Feelings and cognition, and Tangibility.

In making the announcement of the award winner, the selection committee noted that the SHIFT framework “has profoundly impacted marketing practice, influencing a wide array of stakeholders such as businesses, non-profits, and government organizations, with collaborations ranging from big brands to city governments and startups. This work has facilitated the application of the framework in various educational settings, including executive education, undergraduate, and PhD courses, where it’s used to develop and test sustainable behavior change strategies. Furthermore, the framework’s concepts have been distilled into accessible articles for a managerial audience in such publications like Harvard Business Review and The Conversation. Over 50 organizations, including major corporations and non-profits, have utilized the SHIFT Framework, showcasing its widespread application and dissemination through diverse channels such as conferences, webinars, and academic presentations.”

To learn more about the SHIFT Framework and to hear the authors present their findings, visit the AMA website here .

Stay in touch

Join our monthly newsletter and stay up-to-date on our innovative academic programs, world-leading faculty and research, and student and alumni achievements.