literature review about note taking

Writing a Literature Review

• What is a Literature Review?
• Step 1: Choosing a Topic
• Step 2: Finding Information
• Step 3: Evaluating Content
• Step 4: Taking Notes
• Step 5: Synthesizing Content
• Step 6: Writing the Review
• Step 7: Citing Your Sources
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Note Taking Tips!

• Notetaking Systems: California Polytechnic State University

At this point in the process, you have committed to a topic, found resources on it, and now are trying to glean information from those sources. The page linked above provides some note taking tips, ways to avoid plagiarism, and 5 different note taking styles (also described below). Pick the style that works best for you.

The Cornell Method

The outline method, the mapping method, the charting method, the sentence method.

• Cornell Learning Strategies Center Resources including Note-Taking Method

The Cornell Method uses a two-column approach to note taking.

• The first column measures about 2.5 inches.
• The second column (the larger of the two) measures about 6 inches.
• The larger column is the space to take your notes in.
• The smaller column is to be used to create cue words or keywords that describe the information they are taking notes about.
• At the very bottom of the sheet is a two-inch wide space used to summarize in one or two sentences the main concept or idea taken from the resource.

Cornell Notes - wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes

• How to take Cornell notes - YouTube

The Outline Method is a very structed way of note-taking.

• The left side of the sheet contains general ideas.
• As you work your way to the right, the information grows increasely more detailed.
• The relationship between ideas and information is carried out through the indentation.

The Mapping Method is a very visual way of organizing your notes and information.

• It makes use of graphical representation of information content.
• It involves writing down the concept or terms and radiating the related ideas out of the center.
• You can use lines and symbols to build and link the related ideas.
• It can also be used as a way of brainstorming.

The Charting Method utilizes a chart-structure as a way of organizing your notes.

• Determine the points/topics/subjects that you are trying to find information about.
• Set up your paper in advance by columns headed by these points/topics/subjects.
• As you read through a source (a book, article, website, etc.), record information (words, phrases, main ideas, etc.) under the the appropriate column.

The Sentence Method is the most basic notes-taking method.

• As you research, write down any new ideas or bits of information as a sentence.
• Number each sentence as you move down the page.
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University of Tasmania, Australia

Literature reviews.

• What is a literature review?
• How to develop a researchable question
• How to find the literature
• Taking notes
• How to bring it all together: examples, templates, links, guides

Preview the text to check for relevance. 

• the abstract
• introduction
• look at any charts, tables, graphs, diagrams

Check the number of times the article has been cited by others. The more times cited, the more important it might be. 

Read more deeply and let this guide the development of your question.

You may find that the more you read, your question changes or you discover a bigger topic or subtopics. 

Do not waste your time using a highlighter. Annotate the page and take notes. 

There are no shortcuts in this part of the process. 

For more information on managing your reading, go to the Study Toolkit in MyLO and check out the Academic Reading  and Writing module. 

Taking Notes

Use a synthesis matrix for note taking. This table c an be as simple or as complicated as you need

Advantages of using a synthesis matrix:

• allows you to  sort the ideas and thoughts while analysing and synthesising the research.
• helps make planning the structure and paragraph order easier 
• allows for paraphrasing and summarising before actually writing
• provides a clearer view of the relationship between different sources
• aids in identifying themes and patterns in the findings and conclusions.
• gives a glance view of each area under scrutiny

  The organisation/headings will change depending on the focus of your review. 

Using a spreadsheet will also help organise your reading and matrix. 

You will find some examples of a synthesis matrix to download at the bottom of this page. 

Example 1. 

C. Hartigan University of Tasmania

Example 2: Organised by themes.

from:  The Thesis Whisperer:Using a matrix to organise your notes

Example 3: Literature Review preparation.

Watch this short clip for some more ideas.  ( N.B. Ignore the APA referencing in this clip)

• Synthesis matrix
• Literature Review Prep: Synthesis matrix: Johns Hopkins University
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The Impacts of Digital Note-Taking on Classroom Instruction: A Literature Review

• Conference paper
• First Online: 17 December 2020
• Cite this conference paper

• Harrison Hao Yang 11 , 12 ,
• Yinghui Shi 11 ,
• Huiyun Yang 11 &
• Qiuyu Pu 11  

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1302))

Included in the following conference series:

• International Conference on Technology in Education

1638 Accesses

As an essential part of classroom activities, note-taking can benefit students in learning the materials. Recently, the widespread use of electronic devices, such as laptops, tablet PCs, and smartphones in classroom instruction has gradually moved away from traditional notes such as pen and paper to digital note-taking based on portable electronic devices. Although note-taking with digital devices has been widely used in education, there has been a lack of systematic review on digital note-taking studies. The present study made a comprehensive analysis of relevant studies from four aspects, including theoretical studies, technical studies, studies on users, and empirical studies. Discussion and conclusion are also provided in this paper.

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Acknowledgment

This study was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Humanities and Social Science project (Project No.: 18YJC880074).

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Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China

Harrison Hao Yang, Yinghui Shi, Huiyun Yang & Qiuyu Pu

State University of New York at Oswego, New York, USA

Harrison Hao Yang

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Correspondence to Harrison Hao Yang .

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Yang, H.H., Shi, Y., Yang, H., Pu, Q. (2020). The Impacts of Digital Note-Taking on Classroom Instruction: A Literature Review. In: Lee, LK., U, L.H., Wang, F.L., Cheung, S.K.S., Au, O., Li, K.C. (eds) Technology in Education. Innovations for Online Teaching and Learning. ICTE 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1302. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4594-2_6

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Published : 17 December 2020

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Researching the Literature Review

• 1. Get Started
• 2. Find Articles

Tracking Your Searches

Mind mapping, note taking tables, reading tips, writing as a conversation, writing center resources, how do you take notes.

• 4. Keep Current
• 5. Manage References
• 6. Done Yet?
• 7. Get Help

One way to begin taking notes is to keep track of what you are searching for.  Many databases help you do this by allowing you to save searches and set up email alerts .  Saving searches allows you to watch the development of your search over time and to make sure you are not simply repeating the same search over and over.  Copy and paste or print out the search page to help think of ways your search could or should change over time.  This example is from the EbscoHost version of Medline, but many databases have a similar option.

Viewing the search history and saving searches

Mind mapping is a popular way to brainstorm about your topic or to take notes about an article or presentation.  Start with the main topic in the center and then think of a variety of related subtopics that you want to explore.  Mind maps allow you to be flexible and to see alternative ideas you may not initially have considered.

You can either use paper and pencil or you can use a variety of free or commercial products to create mind maps.  See some suggested options below.  (This mind map was made with the free version of XMind.)

• Wikipedia's List of Mind Mapping Software
• Note Taking Table Template

Some of us think in a more linear way and find it useful to enter notes in tables rather than in mind or concept maps.  This table is one illustration of what types of information you can gather from the articles or books that you read.  If this table is helpful, you can download the handout version linked above.

Learning how to read academic literature, both articles and books, takes practices.  Here are some tips to help you become a more focused reader:

One way to think about writing a literature review is as a dialogue between authors who have previously written about various aspects of your topic.  You will create this dialog by discussing the agreements and disagreements between those authors, and you will illustrate what they have not yet talked about or researched. 

Use this illustration not as an exact recipe for how to write, but as a guide for how to incorporate some of these writing strategies.

• OSU Graduate Writing Center

Need more writing help? Try the OSU Writing Center.  In addition to providing free help, particularly with brainstorming and organization, they also have writing assistants who are specifically trained to work with graduate students.  Plan ahead as it can often take several sessions to work through something as major as a thesis writing project.

Which of these tools do you most commonly use to take notes?

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The process of writing a literature review

Writing a literature review is a complex and non-linear process. It usually involves reiterations of all or any of the following steps:

Conducting a Library search for sources

• Taking notes while critically reading and analysing the literature
• Structuring the literature review
• Styling the language of the literature review.

One of the first and important steps in carrying out a literature review is to conduct an effective Library search which will help you identify the most relevant sources for your research topic.

If you need some assistance with searching the literature strategically, you might want to work through the Strategies and Resources for Searching the Literature module in this collection. Amongst other things, this module will help you to effectively:

• form key words or descriptors for your topic
• create a search query
• find different and relevant types of resources
• use more advanced searching techniques.

Taking notes

Taking effective notes is another key part of the process of writing up your literature review.

There is a variety of ways that one can use to take notes. These include:

• highlighting and writing notes in margins
• drawing a diagram or a mind map
• using the Cornell note-taking system .

In this module, we will focus on using an annotated bibliography as a note-taking technique.

Using an annotated bibliography to take notes

An annotated bibliography can be a useful way of taking notes as you read the literature and think about what you are reading. It allows you to collect both a summary of the key points from different readings as well as a critical assessment of the literature. It also allows you to provide comments about how a text relates both to your own research and to other literature.

An annotated bibliography has two main sections:

• A reference (bibliographic information or citation) in your chosen citation style.
• An annotation (description and comments on the source). The annotation usually provides:
• a summary of the key points or arguments the source makes
• a reflection on how the source contributes to your field of knowledge and how it might be useful in your own research
• a critical analysis or evaluation of the ideas presented.

What to include in a summary?

When writing an annotated bibliography, start with a summary or description for each source. As you read, take notes in your own words of the aim of the research, the methodologies that have been used, the main arguments and overall findings, and the scope and limitations of the study. This will form the basis of your summary which will be in the form of a coherent 50–100-word paragraph or just two or three sentences.

How to reflect on the relevance of a source to your own research?

Writing a reflection for your annotated bibliography includes writing a few sentences explaining in what ways the source is useful for, or relates to, the overall theme of your research. This section of the annotation will be particularly helpful when you come to building an argument for your research in your literature review.

Ask yourself:

• What does this source contribute to the ideas I am developing in my research or to the argument/s I am making?

It is worth mentioning that while your reflection states your personal ideas and evaluations, it should still be objective and unemotional.

What to include in a critical analysis?

• What are the strengths and limitations of the source in terms of aim, methodology, and findings?
• Are the findings sound, logical and well researched?
• Is the source original, important and of a high standard?
• How does this source add to the research in the field?
• Where is its place — and relationship — in the wider field of research and scholarly discussions?

Research and Writing Skills for Academic and Graduate Researchers Copyright © 2022 by RMIT University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Writing the Literature Review

• Getting Started
• Step 1: Choose A Topic
• Step 2: Find Information
• Step 3: Evaluate
• Step 4: Take Notes
• Step 5: Synthesize
• Step 6: Stay Organized
• Write the Review

Taking Good Notes

Here are some important tips for notetaking:

• Use index cards to keep notes and track sources of information used in your paper
• Include all of the citation information (i.e., author, title, publisher, date, page numbers, etc.) you will need to write your Works Cited page
• Record the citation information in the format your instructor requires (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc). When it comes time to write your Works Cited page, it will be easier to organize your sources alphabetically
• Use only one side to record notes
• Record only one idea, fact or quote from one source on a notecard. It will be easier to rearrange them later when it comes time to organize your paper.
• Include a heading for the topic of the card
• Include the original source of the information. If you have created numbered Work Cited cards for each source, you will only need to include the source number
• Include the page number where you found the information
• Use abbreviations, acronyms, or incomplete sentences to record information (as long you will understand them later). This will speed up the notetaking process
•  Extract only the information that answers your research questions.
• Summarize the main idea of the article, then outline its main points
• Paraphrase  or record notes in your own words
• If you plan to use an exact quote, make sure you copy the quotation  exactly  as it appears in the original source. Enclose the quote in quotation marks and note the name of the person you are quoting

From: The Research Process: Step-by-Step: Notetaking, created by Ann Williams 

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Study Skills

Research skills.

• Searching the literature
• Note making for dissertations
• Research Data Management
• Copyright and licenses
• Publishing in journals
• Publishing academic books
• Depositing your thesis
• Research metrics
• Build your online profile
• Finding support

Note making for dissertations: First steps into writing

Note making (as opposed to note taking) is an active practice of recording relevant parts of reading for your research as well as your reflections and critiques of those studies. Note making, therefore, is a pre-writing exercise that helps you to organise your thoughts prior to writing. In this module, we will cover:

• The difference between note taking and note making
• Seven tips for good note making
• Strategies for structuring your notes and asking critical questions
• Different styles of note making

To complete this section, you will need:

• Approximately 20-30 minutes.
• Access to the internet. All the resources used here are available freely.
• Some equipment for jotting down your thoughts, a pen and paper will do, or your phone or another electronic device.

Note taking v note making

When you think about note taking, what comes to mind? Perhaps trying to record everything said in a lecture? Perhaps trying to write down everything included in readings required for a course?

• Note taking is a passive process. When you take notes, you are often trying to record everything that you are reading or listening to. However, you may have noticed that this takes a lot of effort and often results in too many notes to be useful.  
• Note making , on the other hand, is an active practice, based on the needs and priorities of your project. Note making is an opportunity for you to ask critical questions of your readings and to synthesise ideas as they pertain to your research questions. Making notes is a pre-writing exercise that develops your academic voice and makes writing significantly easier.

Seven tips for effective note making

Note making is an active process based on the needs of your research. This video contains seven tips to help you make brilliant notes from articles and books to make the most of the time you spend reading and writing.

• Transcript of Seven Tips for Effective Notemaking

Question prompts for strategic note making

You might consider structuring your notes to answer the following questions. Remember that note making is based on your needs, so not all of these questions will apply in all cases. You might try answering these questions using the note making styles discussed in the next section.

• Question prompts for strategic note making
• Background question prompts
• Critical question prompts
• Synthesis question prompts

Answer these six questions to frame your reading and provide context.

• What is the context in which the text was written? What came before it? Are there competing ideas?
• Who is the intended audience?
• What is the author’s purpose?
• How is the writing organised?
• What are the author’s methods?
• What is the author’s key argument and conclusions?

Answer these six questions to determine your critical perspectivess and develop your academic voice.

• What are the most interesting/compelling ideas (to you) in this study?
• Why do you find them interesting? How do they relate to your study?
• What questions do you have about the study?
• What could it cover better? How could it have defended its research better?
• What are the implications of the study? (Look not just to the conclusions but also to definitions and models)
• Are there any gaps in the study? (Look not just at conclusions but definitions, literature review, methodology)

Answer these five questions to compare aspects of various studies (such as for a literature review. 

• What are the similarities and differences in the literature?
• Critically analyse the strengths, limitations, debates and themes that emerg from the literature.
• What would you suggest for future research or practice?
• Where are the gaps in the literature? What is missing? Why?
• What new questions should be asked in this area of study?

Styles of note making

• Linear notes . Great for recording thoughts about your readings. [video]
• Mind mapping : Great for thinking through complex topics. [video]

Further sites that discuss techniques for note making:

• Note-taking techniques
• Common note-taking methods
• Strategies for effective note making  

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Writing a Literature Review in Social Sciences

• 1. Get Started
• 2. Select / Refine a Topic
• 2.1 Find Review Articles
• 3. Search Literature
• 3.1 Find Scholarly Journals
• 3.2 Find Theses or Dissertations
• 3.3 Track Citations
• 4. Evaluate Literature

Checklist for Managing References

Citation management tools, checklist for taking notes, apps for note-taking.

• 6. Keep Current
• 7. Prepare First Draft & Revise
• 7.1 Grammar & Writing
• FSU Resources

Source: www.jisc.ac.uk  

• Use a citation management tool to organize the materials
• No citation management tools are perfect. It is still your responsibility to check your citations  with the required publishing style to ensure that the citations are formatted properly for your paper

For information on citation management tools including the comparison chart, see our Citation Guide .

• Identify the main points of a text that support your working thesis 
• Organize your thoughts
• Organize the evidence to support the working thesis
• create a table to map how different sources relate to one another  or
• create a literature reivew summary table 

               E.g., 

•   Literature Review Matrix Template   (From Walden Univ.) 
• Literature Review Summary Table (From Texas Dept. of State Health Services)
• Write in your own words 

Some citation management tools have a note-taking feature. You may also want to use one of the apps for note-taking. 

• Evernote "Evernote lets you take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists, record voice reminders--and makes these notes completely searchable." iOS and Android. **FREE**
• GoodReader This PDF reader allows users to mark-up and annotate PDFS, along with providing easy access to dropbox. iOS only. $6.99.
• Squid Take notes naturally with a pen and erase with your finger on active pen-enabled devices
• Speech to Text apps A review article on various speech recognition tools
• << Previous: 4. Evaluate Literature
• Next: 6. Keep Current >>
• Last Updated: Aug 11, 2023 11:32 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.fsu.edu/lit_rev

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• my research
• contributions and comments

beginning the literature review – taking notes

The purpose of the literature review shapes the way that noting is done.

And the purpose is to situate your study in the field – that is, to establish a space for the work you are going to do – and to find concepts and approaches that are helpful, that you can build on. It is also important to understand key debates and differences in the field so that you can position yourself in relation to them. The literature review thus typically discusses a field of knowledge production and key concepts and lines of argument within it.

The literature review is not finished in the first year of doctoral study, and the ways in which texts are used to develop a research proposal in year one may not be the same as their use in the final thesis text when the findings and argument are known. But whether it’s early or later literature work, there is always noting to do.

There is one major maxim about noting – it’s not rewriting the book or the article. That’s a waste of time and it misses the point.

So what’s the point then?

Let’s imagine you have a text that you have just read. It’s important to understand first of all what the writer is claiming and arguing. You should be able to explain to someone else in a very short space of time what the text is about. Putting the text away, and then saying/writing a few sentences means that you have to summarise and synthesise what you’ve read, as well as translate it into your own words. This process of making sense of the text, of interpreting it, is important not only for your immediate understanding, but also for the ways in which you can use this understanding to make your own arguments later.

So the first step in noting is to write the argument and the claim of the paper in no more than three to four sentences . This requires a bit of disciplined thinking. But the sentences don’t have to be perfect, they just need to work for you.

And, because the articles you read for your literature review are going to be related to your study in some way, it is also helpful to note how.

So, some questions to consider are: (1) Is the text located in the same field, or another one? This is important because you may want to argue that part of your contribution is to bring understandings from another field into your own, or that you are doing interdisciplinary research.

(2) What aspect of your topic does the text address? This is important to know because if you are going to argue that your research fills a space you want to have a clear idea of what is already there and how your work might be different. Its significance lies in the particular contribution.

(3) What definition is offered of the topic? It is often the case that there are differing understandings of what appears to be the same thing, so being able to define what you take to be the meaning of the topic – and why – and who else uses this definition, if anyone – is important.

(4) If the text is in the same or a different field, what concepts and language are brought to bear on the topic that might be helpful to you? It is not possible for any research to do everything, and so we all build on others’ work. We refer to this borrowing through citations: these are the textual signposts to the things that we take as building blocks for our own research.

(5) What kind of text is this? Is it theory building? A think piece? A meta-study or systematic review? An empirical piece of work? How does this kind of research connect with your study? It may be that this is a piece of research which uses the same kind of approach that you are thinking about. If empirical, then you will want to take note of the epistemological tradition, the methodology, site, methods and sample because it may be that this is where the difference in what you are doing can be located. It may be that you want to work in a different empirical tradition altogether, using an approach unlike this one, in which case you need to know how your work will differ. But it may be that this is work that you want to build on. If it is a meta-study or a systematic review, is the conclusion helpful in creating the space for your study? Or will any of the categorizations of the field or the research traditions be helpful to you either to argue for the space for your work or perhaps to develop your research design? If it is theory building, what does this approach allow the writer to see and say? What is included and excluded? How might this be helpful to you, and/or how might it help create the warrant for your study?

(6) What categorisations are offered? What are the key concepts and framings that are used? Are any of these useful in your work? Will you need to present some kind of critique of any of them in your literature review? Can these categorisations be expressed as key words?

(7) What connections does this text make? Are there new literatures in the reference list that you need to look at? Does the text offer new insights for your research?

It is important when answering these – and other questions that you may want to ask of a text – that you do not write reams. It is possible – desirable even – to write three or four sentences about the overall argument or claim, and then write a small number of phrases in answer to any of questions (1)–(7). These can simply be bullet points.

Both the sentences and bullets can be entered into any of the digital referencing systems – they are then searchable and retrievable even after years. I am still searching for and finding notes I entered in Endnote some fifteen years ago.

Crucially, once you have these kinds of systematic notes you can then group the articles in different ways. Texts can for example be clumped together around definitions, different aspects of the topic – we might call these themes in the literature – methods, theoretical approaches or epistemological traditions.

In the next blog I want to talk some more about the process of grouping – or making patterns of – your noted texts.

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About pat thomson

23 responses to beginning the literature review – taking notes.

These posts are so clear and helpful. I recommend the blog to all students.

Also, I would completely commend the note taking and pattern grouping above- something like Endnote can be extremely helpful when writing around your subject e.g. in journals, to construct and develop your arguments.

Thanks a lot! This is very helpful 🙂

thank you Pat,

Please do not stop writing these posts, they are such a god send…. you fill all those little questions that everyone assumes you know but you really dont know, and are too afraid to ask.

Q: regarding being systematic when reading: Is there any chance you might give some advice on what tools are useful for helping the grouping and pattern finding. Ive used a programme called inspirations which is given to dyslexic students as it has a spacial display which you can flip to give an linear outline, but i fear it wont stand up to the rigors of 200 + papers for a phd lit review… Ive heard that excel may be useful, or Nvivo the qualitative package ( proxy documents), do you have any gems of gold which might just hit the problem on the head?

many thanks

I don’t know the answer to this, but I think you should try emailing Ben at litreview HQ

http://www.literaturereviewhq.com/6-tips-on-how-to-choose-reference-management-software/

I just use word tables and endnote keywords but I’m sure there’s something better.

Sent from my iPad

ah a reply, sorry i didnt get the notification odd? thanks for the reply though. Looks a useful blog. Could you tell me what word tables are? or give a picture of one? thanks.

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Thanks so much, this is incredibly helpful!

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Hi Pat. This was quite an unteresting read. However, often I think that you could squeeze more out of a paper, or even more, a book, than the gist in a few sentences. This is my real challenge: to record, in a structured way that allows me to arrange to notes, all the points that I find in a text. Another, but related, challenge is to record also relevant references that the text contains. All to gather information to set up a literature review for a phd. Could you provide a few samples of notes you’ve made yourself when reading papers? I know it’s quite personal, but it would be really useful to see how a “pro” does it.

Ill have a think about this. I wrote something more extended about reading an academic book which does look at more in depth reading. Part of the issue is how much starting a literature review is squeezing and how much is scoping first and then going back to squeeze more out of specific pieces…

Only saw your reply now. Would it be possible somewhere to read what you wrote about reading a book?

Yes there are three posts on this blog called how to read an academic book. The first one has a subtitle about a mango!! If you go to book on the wordle at the side of the blog, and click on book, it’ll get you to these posts.

Reblogged this on petermalling's Blog and commented: About note taking for lit.review. From the interesting Patter blog

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Thank you very much,your post has answered many questions that I had in my mind related to literature review writing, but one question is still lingering in my mind.Which part of research paper should be read to extract information for the literature review?Pls help.

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Reblogged this on Melanie and the typewriter and commented: Another brilliant PhD post by Pat Thomson, make sure you read it!

Yoooo! Your work is very helpful.

Reblogged this on and commented: Excellent advice for lit review!

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How to Write a Literature Review

• Where to Search
• Search Strategies This link opens in a new window
• Further Reading

When you take notes try splitting your notes page in two.

Write your summary of the authors conclusions and evidence in one of the columns.

In the other column, note your reactions to what you have read.

Comment on the methodology used.

Make connections between your project and what you are reading.

Compare and contrast the views of other authors.

Make a note of what you think about the material.

Even "These arguments are confusing" or "I don't understand this" may be useful when you are criticising the work.

This two column system has several advantages:

It keeps you thinking about the major issues and ideas.

You will be able to differentiate between your views and the work of others, thus reducing the risk of plagiarism.

An alternative to the two columns is to use two colours of pen - one for your ideas and the other for quotes and paraphrases. If you prefer writing your notes on file cards, this may be a better choice.

It doesn't really matter how you organize and write notes as long as you:

Keep track of the difference between your ideas and those of other authors

Make sure your notes are legible

Provide clear references for all resources you work with, including page numbers, so you can find it again or cite it in the review.

Image source: Trounce. GFDL. Wikimedia Commons. 2008.

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• Next: Write the Review >>
• Last Updated: Feb 7, 2024 10:34 AM
• URL: https://libguides.lvc.edu/literaturereview

Write a Literature Review

• Seven Steps to Writing a Literature Review

Finding the literature

Organizing the literature, reading effectively, note-taking, note-taking worksheets for literature.

• Resources for Writing and Revising
• Other Useful Resources

Ask Us: Chat, email, visit or call

Get assistance

The library offers a range of helpful services.  All of our appointments are free of charge and confidential.

• Book an appointment
• 3 Steps to Create a Search Formula (Video)
• Boolean Operators Cheat Sheet
• Search Modifiers Cheat Sheet
• Find Grey Literature
• Four Steps to Narrow Your Research Topic (Video) This 3-minute video provides instructions on how to narrow the focus of your research topic.
• Zotero: How to Organize Your References (Video)
• Reading Critically
• Note-taking and Writing Tips to Avoid Accidental Plagiarism (Video)
• Grouping Topics or Conversations in your Literature Review This handout describes the analogy of a banquet hall as a useful strategy for organizing and structuring your literature review. This handout has an accompanying video on Youtube called Writing the Literature Review: A Banquet Hall Analogy.
• Single Source - Note-taking Analysis Worksheet Use this handout to record essential information for every article that you read. You can refer to these notes when writing a research paper or literature review.
• Multiple Sources - Note-taking Analysis Worksheet This table is designed to help you organize all your sources (e.g., books, articles, government documents) based on common themes, topics, methods, theories, etc. List your sources and group common themes to compare their information. For printing, select 11x17 ledger paper size.
• Theory, Model, or Method-Building - Single Source - Note-taking Analysis Worksheet Use this handout to record essential information for every article that you read. You can refer to these notes when developing and/or justifying a new theory, model, or research method.
• Theory and Model-Building - Multiple Sources - Note-taking Analysis Worksheet This table is designed for theory-building, model-building, or methods-building. This table is designed to help you organize all your notes on different theories/models/methods (depending on your type of research) in order to strengthen your knowledge. Use the filters (downward arrow) to group common themes and compare information.
• << Previous: Seven Steps to Writing a Literature Review
• Next: Resources for Writing and Revising >>
• Last Updated: Jan 8, 2024 2:25 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uoguelph.ca/LiteratureReview

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Main Navigation Menu

Writing a literature review.

• Definitions
• Establish the scope of your review
• Finding sources

Taking notes

Annotate with zotero.

• Organizing the review
• Writing the review
• Practical Tips

Why take notes?

• Identify and remember key points
• Help recall and concentration
• Use in research and writing
• See connections between sources
• Avoid plagiarism

More ideas about notetaking

• Check sources against each other -- look for inconsistencies and agreements
• Read the abstract first -- then read the introduction and conclusion
• Take notes on items that relate to your thesis  
• Think as you read
• Can you restate the main point of the article?
• What evidence or logic does the article use?
• What is your assessment of the claims made in the articles?
• Write down any original ideas prompted by reading the article

Lipson, C. (2005).  How to write a BA thesis: A practical guide from your first ideas to your finished paper. University of Chicago Press.

Ridley, D. (2008). The literature review: A step-by-step guide for students. Sage.

The free citation manager Zotero also has features for note taking and annotating your sources if they are saved as PDFs. You can create notes, tags, highlight, and more. Check out the library's video tutorials on using Zotero to keep notes for your sources:

• Creating Notes
• Creating Tags
• Annotating PDFs in Zotero
• << Previous: Finding sources
• Next: Organizing the review >>
• Last Updated: Mar 13, 2024 8:36 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.ucmo.edu/literaturereview

Literature reviews

• Starting your literature review
• Introduction

Structuring your reading

When to stop reading, how to organise a literature review, writing your literature review.

• Developing your literature review
• Writing systematic reviews

Useful links for literature reviews

• Study Advice Helping students to achieve study success with guides, video tutorials, seminars and one-to-one advice sessions.

• Doing your literature review (video) Watch this brief video tutorial for more on the topic.
• Doing your literature review (transcript) Read the transcript.
• Literature searching guide A guide to finding articles, books and other materials on your subject. Includes tips on constructing a comprehensive search using search operators (AND/OR), truncation and wildcards.
• Doing your literature search video - University of Reading Brief video on literature searching from our Academic Liaison Librarians.
• Royal Literary Fund: Writing a Literature Review A guide to writing literature reviews from the Royal Literary Fund
• What it means to be a critical student A brief and very useful video tutorial from the University of Leicester.
• Reading and notemaking LibGuide Expert guidance on managing your reading and making effective notes.
• Dissertations and major projects LibGuide Expert guidance on planning, researching and writing dissertations and major projects.

If you have thought about the areas you need to research and have conducted some searches for literature, you should be ready to set down some draft topic headings to structure your literature review.

Select one of your headings and choose a few key texts to read first - three is ideal to start with. Remember that you may eventually be writing about the same text under different headings, so bear that in mind when you are reading and making notes.

When you have finished reading your chosen texts, write a draft section summarising and commenting on what you have read, taking special care to show how it is relevant to your research. Then look to see what you need to discuss further, and do more reading to enable you to plug the gaps.

Try to set limits on how long you will spend reading. Then plan backwards from your deadline and decide when you need to move on to other parts of your investigation e.g. gathering the data.

You need to show you have read the major and important texts in your topic, and that you have also explored the most up-to-date research. If you have demonstrated both of these, you are on the right lines.

If you keep coming across very similar viewpoints and your reading is no longer providing new information, this is a sign you have reached saturation point and should probably stop.

Be guided by your research questions. When reading, ask yourself, "How does this relate to my investigation?" If you are going off into unrelated areas, stop reading and refocus on your topic.

Another thing you can do is to group what you have read into different topics or themes . These can provide useful headings when you come to write up your literature review. Use different coloured highlighters to identify which topic or heading each article fits into.

Be selective - you don't have to include everything you have read in your literature review. Only include research which is relevant and which helps you understand more about your own investigation. What you leave out won't be wasted as it helped you refine your understanding of the wider issues and identify what was relevant to your own investigation.

You don't have to refer to everything in the same depth in your literature review. You are usually expected to prioritise recent research. Some scientific research that was crucial in the past is now out of date. For instance, there may be a few older studies that were important in starting research in the field, but their methods have been surpassed by more accurate methods. You only need to demonstrate your awareness of these older, dated studies in a few sentences, then move on to discussing in greater depth the up-to-date methods and why they are more accurate.

Like an essay, a literature review has an introduction, main body, and conclusion.

Introduction : This explains the broad context of your research area and the main topics you are investigating. It briefly highlights the relevant issues or debates that have characterised your field of research.

It should also include some signposting for the reader, explaining the organisation / sequence of topics covered, and the scope of your survey.

Main body : An analysis of the literature according to a number of themes or topics that overlap with your research. It may have headings.

You can write your literature review one section at a time, but make sure you read through them all to check they link together and tell a coherent "story".

This should show how your research builds on what has been done before. Based on previous research, you provide justifications for what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how you are going to do it.

Conclusion : This should summarise the current state of the research in your field as analysed in the main body. It should identify any gaps or problems with the existing research, and explain how your investigation is going to address these gaps or build on the existing research.

• The structure of a literature review (Royal Literary Fund) Guidance on structuring a literature review.
• << Previous: Starting your literature review
• Next: Developing your literature review >>
• Last Updated: May 14, 2024 8:47 AM
• URL: https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/literaturereview

OneNote in Research

digital research notebooks to support research life

Recent Posts

• Affordances for Research
• Project Managing
• Web collecting and analysing

Doing a literature review

• Handwriting collection, conversion and analysis

You can do in-depth literature reviews , analysing your selected texts with several tools:

• Publication files can be organised through the library collector
• Relevant pieces of text can be extracted to a review matrix, for clear readability .
• Words can be  hyperlinked to any other page, paragraph, file or external URL
• Paragraphs can be commented with outlines, using text, audio and video
• Excerpts, at a paragraph level, can also be tagged with processual or personalised tags, e.g.: comment, discuss with others, to dos, relevant, etc. and  coded
• Specific tags and codes can be searched and summary reports automatically generated – e.g. paragraphs tagged as relevant or any code.

Check out our Research Training and Digital Research Notebooks Design

What’s Included: Literature Review Template

This template is structure is based on the tried and trusted best-practice format for formal academic research projects such as dissertations and theses. The literature review template includes the following sections:

• Before you start – essential groundwork to ensure you’re ready
• The introduction section
• The core/body section
• The conclusion /summary
• Extra free resources

Each section is explained in plain, straightforward language , followed by an overview of the key elements that you need to cover. We’ve also included practical examples and links to more free videos and guides to help you understand exactly what’s required in each section.

The cleanly-formatted Google Doc can be downloaded as a fully editable MS Word Document (DOCX format), so you can use it as-is or convert it to LaTeX.

PS – if you’d like a high-level template for the entire thesis, you can we’ve got that too .

FAQs: Literature Review Template

What format is the template (doc, pdf, ppt, etc.).

The literature review chapter template is provided as a Google Doc. You can download it in MS Word format or make a copy to your Google Drive. You’re also welcome to convert it to whatever format works best for you, such as LaTeX or PDF.

What types of literature reviews can this template be used for?

The template follows the standard format for academic literature reviews, which means it will be suitable for the vast majority of academic research projects (especially those within the sciences), whether they are qualitative or quantitative in terms of design.

Keep in mind that the exact requirements for the literature review chapter will vary between universities and degree programs. These are typically minor, but it’s always a good idea to double-check your university’s requirements before you finalize your structure.

Is this template for an undergrad, Master or PhD-level thesis?

This template can be used for a literature review at any level of study. Doctoral-level projects typically require the literature review to be more extensive/comprehensive, but the structure will typically remain the same.

Can I modify the template to suit my topic/area?

Absolutely. While the template provides a general structure, you should adapt it to fit the specific requirements and focus of your literature review.

What structural style does this literature review template use?

The template assumes a thematic structure (as opposed to a chronological or methodological structure), as this is the most common approach. However, this is only one dimension of the template, so it will still be useful if you are adopting a different structure.

Does this template include the Excel literature catalog?

No, that is a separate template, which you can download for free here . This template is for the write-up of the actual literature review chapter, whereas the catalog is for use during the literature sourcing and sorting phase.

How long should the literature review chapter be?

This depends on your university’s specific requirements, so it’s best to check with them. As a general ballpark, literature reviews for Masters-level projects are usually 2,000 – 3,000 words in length, while Doctoral-level projects can reach multiples of this.

Can I include literature that contradicts my hypothesis?

Yes, it’s important to acknowledge and discuss literature that presents different viewpoints or contradicts your hypothesis. So, don’t shy away from existing research that takes an opposing view to yours.

How do I avoid plagiarism in my literature review?

Always cite your sources correctly and paraphrase ideas in your own words while maintaining the original meaning. You can always check our plagiarism score before submitting your work to help ease your mind. 

Do you have an example of a populated template?

We provide a walkthrough of the template and review an example of a high-quality literature research chapter here .

Can I share this literature review template with my friends/colleagues?

Yes, you’re welcome to share this template in its original format (no editing allowed). If you want to post about it on your blog or social media, all we ask is that you reference this page as your source.

Do you have templates for the other dissertation/thesis chapters?

Yes, we do. You can find our full collection of templates here .

Can Grad Coach help me with my literature review?

Yes, you’re welcome to get in touch with us to discuss our private coaching services , where we can help you work through the literature review chapter (and any other chapters).

Information indigestion? The search for a perfect note taking system.

For the last 20 years I’ve been on a quest to find the perfect academic note taking system.

I abandoned paper in 2005 when I realised my notebooks were the place my ideas went to die. Although writing into a notebook felt useful at the time it was hard to find stuff later. Flipping fruitlessly through hundreds of pages of bad hand writing was frustrating. When I did find the notes, they didn’t make much sense without the source material. Scribbling notes on printouts solved this problem and created another: filing. I’d either remember the author or the title – maybe sometimes just the topic or idea. You can’t file a piece of paper under four categories at once.

I’ll admit, over the last fifteen years, I’ve wondered at people who cling stubbornly to their paper ways. Digital notes have all sorts of obvious advantages. The search function replaces filing and you virtually eliminate the ‘transaction cost’ of transcribing notes from paper to screen. It all sounds great – but there’s a reason there’s heaps of database products on the market and none have dominated. They don’t really solve the note taking problem.

I’ve been a relentless digital note taking booster, but I have a confession to make. All the time I was telling people that digital notes were better, I had the nagging suspicion something was not working. I frequently found myself overwhelmed when I sat down to write. I had everything I needed, but the annotations and slabs of text I’d accumulated just didn’t seem that useful.

This is not a tool problem. I say this after trying and discarding almost every digital tool on the market.

In an attempt to replicate the success I had with writing on printouts, I’ve taken notes in a bunch of conventional citation managers: Endnote, Zotero, Mendeley and Papers2. I felt even more scattered taking notes this way than I did writing in a notebook. By splintering my notes, I splintered my thinking.

The next step was to try digital databases. Theoretically, a database can help you find relationships and connections. By running a search, you can see related things together and spark ideas. I’ve used many databases – Evernote, DevonThink, OneNote, Readwise, Pocket and Notion just to name a few. To be honest with you, even though I have briefly evangelised some of these products, I’m unconvinced any are worth the effort.

Some databases have great features – like the machine learning assisted searching in Devon Think – but maintaining a notes database properly is a lot of work. The best thing about digital databases is also the biggest problem: they  are frictionless. By enabling you to store, and move data around, effortlessly, it’s oh so easy to put a lot of stuff in there without an organising principle.

The end result? Information Indigestion.

Unless you are very careful about naming conventions, tagging and pruning, your notes quickly become a hot mess of digital clutter. I’ve come to the conclusion that a notes database you spend a lot of time managing is worse than a notebook you never read.

Note taking is basically a way of squeezing insights out of information: the process is often more important than the product itself .  This doesn’t mean notes are pointless, but it’s important to remember they are a means, not an end. The ‘meat computer’ on top of our necks is pretty good at making connections and ideas. Notes are there to help.

My best advice is to let go of the need to have a perfect ‘system’ and develop a ‘good enough’ set of solutions that work for you. Below is a set of notes on how I take notes. It’s not pretty, but it works.

I don’t suggest you adopt ‘my system’ – because it’s not a system. It’s a bunch of hacks and work arounds. Maybe some of them will be useful to you. Or maybe, by sharing how messy I am behind the scenes, you will feel better about your own ad hoc solutions!

Notes for writing

One of the key things we teach at our world famous thesis bootcamp program is how to write without constantly rummaging around for notes. People reach for their notes in an attempt to make  sentences perfectly correct the first time. But all this rummaging derails the creative process. People can write four or five times faster by free writing first, and using their notes to check information later.

The notes you need for writing are more than just what you’ve read: you need to process ideas, facts, findings and insights from data. I find the best way to take notes for writing is to write them straight into a file: one that has a name and a specific purpose. The file acts as a grounding tool to focus the note taking. I write the actual notes either as a comment, or in a different font. These notes are really premade ‘chunks’ of text for the final paper. Think whole sentences with subjects, objects and verbs . I weave these notes into the writing as I generate text and edit.

If you want to try this ‘just in time’ approach, it’s best to use a fit for purpose tool like Scrivener. Scrivener has a built in notes pane next to your main text. It also has the capacity to store PDF files with the text so a curated list of relevant source material is always available as you write. In this way, Scrivener helps you digitally replicate the ‘scribble on the side of a print out’ type of note taking.

Scrivener helps a lot, but you will still end up with a splintered note problem. Every piece of writing becomes a digital version of a bulging manila folder, full of newspaper clippings. Some of those clippings are potentially useful in other projects, but they are now locked in a file. You can’t search the notes in multiple Scrivener files at once… but hey, good enough, right?

Notes for your literature review

Literature reviews require a special kind of note taking. These days, the literature on anything, even a tiny field like mine, is vast and anxiety provoking. You must read and synthesise vast amounts of information. You won’t use everything you read, at least directly, and part of the job is to decide what is relevant to include in the text and what will remain in the background. Sometimes people produce an extended bibliography that includes things they read, but didn’t cite, so keeping track of what you decided not to use can be important.

You’ll need a couple of specialised literature wrangling tools in your belt.

While some people like the Cornell template to turn notes into writing , I prefer  the literature review matrix method: an idea I picked up originally from the ‘My Studious life’ blog . A literature review matrix is simply a table with the individual paper names as the columns and questions you are trying to answer as rows (if you are having trouble imagining what I’m talking about, there’s a live example here ). The advantage of a matrix is it’s cumulative – you can add columns as you read and synthesize the insights by simply reading along the rows to compare what different authors said about the same thing. This method is excellent for spotting areas where the literature is sparse, because some rows simply get more fleshed out than others.

Katherine Firth, Shaun Lehmann and I subsequently documented this idea and some variations more fully in two books: How to fix your academic writing trouble and Level up your essays . I have a free cheat sheet for the method here . I use google sheets to make them as I find Excel and MS Word have too many formatting issues. But lately I’ve been experimenting with using Google forms for long term projects. The form helps me capture the ideas sequentially:

And then auto-generates a matrix you can review to see where ideas intersect:

I’m excited by new tools that work on a social graph principle, like the amazing Connected Papers . I think this is the future of literature reviewing in an age of endless information and I am here for it!

Notes for teaching and presentations

Presentation notes are extremely valuable. This kind of hybrid writing/note taking practice is very audience focussed. Teaching forces you to think about sequencing and comprehension. Presentations force you to think about how to make your ideas into stories. If you are really stuck on a piece of writing, a good trick can be to make a powerpoint presentation and write notes under it.

My principle here is to take the path of least resistence. I simply write everything on the slide, then transfer most of it to the notes pane so I don’t end up with a wall of text. Invariably, I end up recycling those notes back into papers and articles. For high stakes  talks, or when I am not as across the material as I would like to be, I make a written script in plain language – these are even more useful. Here’s the script I used for my PhD confirmation,   which I immediately turned into my introduction chapter.

Notes not bound to a task or project

Like all academics, I’m a curious person and like to read stuff in my areas of interest for no particular purpose – other than idle nerdery. I want to record some of this reading, but I don’t want to invest too much effort in the note taking process. Notes with no obvious purpose are the most difficult to manage. They are why a database still has a place in your arsenal of organising tools. In fact, you’ll probably need more than one database tool to manage academic work.

I use Pocket to clip things from the web and I don’t even bother tagging or filing this information. I indiscriminately grab everything interesting, then run a search in there if I have a specific problem to solve. I am still using OmniFocus to organise my email and projects, and I use the notes pane there to take notes of meetings.

I use Notion to keep my professional contact list organised. I think this is the best of the structured databases I’ve tried because it’s essentially a personal wikipedia. I don’t use Notion for my own notes as I have gone back to hand writing (see below), but if you hate hand writing, like my son, it’s worth a try. I introduced Thesiswhisperer Jnr to Notion when he started Uni and he happily uses it for all his lecture notes. I have observed him turning these notes into writing and it seems to work well for that purpose.

For a long time I used Evernote for random thoughts and ideas, but lately retired it because paper works just as well –  maybe even better (gasp!). My friend and ‘ On the Reg’ Podcast colleague, Dr Jason Downs started using the Bullet Journal method or #bujo. I always copy Jason, so I bought myself a notebook, sharpened a pencil and got to work.

I’ve found the #bujo extremely useful for jotting notes, drawing diagrams and maintaining daily to do lists. I often write notes in there that I end up transfering into presentations and papers. It’s not the purpose of this post to tell you exactly how to implement the #bujo method for yourself. There are vast amounts written about it and some helpful videos on the Bullet Journal Youtube channel, like this one:

My only #bujo suggestion is to start simply.

The key difference between the #bujo and a normal notebookis that a #bujo has numbered pages and an index at the front. Even if you only implement this page numbering principle, it will make your notebooks 1000 times more useful and no longer the place where ideas go to die! If you want to hear more about the #bujo method, tune in to the On The Reg podcast that was released in early April – Jason and I discuss it at length.

I hope this extended meditation on the note taking process was useful for you. I’m interested in your hacks and solutions so I’ve turned the comments on for this one. If you are interested in sharing your own hacks, or chat to me on Twitter.

In note taking solidarity!

PS: If you love reading about productivity, listen to the ‘ On the Reg’ Podcast with me and Jason Downs where we have been boring for Australia about academic productivity for nearly 17 hours so far! The episode on University Bullshit and the CRAP framework for dealing with it has been super popular for some reason 🙂 – you can also listen to our latest on how we have implemented #bujo . Subscription options can be found on our Buzzsprout page .

Tools mentioned in this post

Endnote , Zotero , Mendeley , Papers (I don’t recommend the new version, it’s not as good as the old one), Evernote , DevonThink , OneNote , Readwise , Pocket   Notion And OmniFocus

More posts like this on the Whisperer

Use the Cornell template to turn your notes into writing

How to stop ‘flipping’ and write a good To Do list

Help! I’m drowning in my own notes!

Other resources and posts

Connected Papers – the best thing that’s happened to literature reviewing in 30 years.

I like the ‘everything notebook’ idea by Raul Panchero-Vega

Turn your notes into writing SECOND EDITION on Katherine Firth’s Research Degree Insiders blog

Book by Mason Curry: Daily Rituals: how great minds make time, find inspiration .

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Jason Downs and I have our first ‘On the Reg’ podcast book – on TextExpander . This book shows you how to use TextExpander to reduce your everyday cognitive load.

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The Thesis Whisperer is written by Professor Inger Mewburn, director of researcher development at The Australian National University . New posts on the first Wednesday of the month. Subscribe by email below. Visit the About page to find out more about me, my podcasts and books. I'm on most social media platforms as @thesiswhisperer. The best places to talk to me are LinkedIn , Mastodon and Threads.

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