Literature Review
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.
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.
What is the purpose of a
literature review?
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.
Step 1 – Search for relevant
literature
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.
Literature review research question exampleWhat is the impact
of social media on body image among Generation Z?
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.
Keywords exampleSocial 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
JSTOR
EBSCO
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.
Step 2 – Evaluate and select
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.
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.
Step 3 – Identify themes,
debates, and gaps
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.
Step 4 – Outline your
literature review’s structure
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.
Thematic
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.
Step 5 – Write your literature
review
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.
Introduction
The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose
of the literature review.
Body
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
Conclusion
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.
