A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question. That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.
A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment. Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.
Why is it important?
A literature review is important because it:
APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers
Your literature review should be guided by your central research question. The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.
How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover?
Make a list of the databases you will search.
Where to find databases:
Some questions to help you analyze the research:
Tips:
Researchers often face challenges when choosing the appropriate type of literature review for their study. Regardless of the type of research design and the topic of a research problem , they encounter numerous queries, including:
What is the right type of literature review my study demands?
If you’re also dealing with such a hefty questionnaire, this article is of help. Read through this piece of guide to get an exhaustive understanding of the different types of literature reviews and their step-by-step methodologies along with a dash of pros and cons discussed.
Heading from scratch!
A literature review provides a comprehensive overview of existing knowledge on a particular topic, which is quintessential to any research project. Researchers employ various literature reviews based on their research goals and methodologies. The review process involves assembling, critically evaluating, and synthesizing existing scientific publications relevant to the research question at hand. It serves multiple purposes, including identifying gaps in existing literature, providing theoretical background, and supporting the rationale for a research study.
Literature review in research serves several key purposes, including:
Literature review plays a crucial role in guiding the research process , from providing the background of the study to research dissemination and contributing to the synthesis of the latest theoretical literature review findings in academia.
However, not all types of literature reviews are the same; they vary in terms of methodology, approach, and purpose. Let's have a look at the various types of literature reviews to gain a deeper understanding of their applications.
A narrative literature review, also known as a traditional literature review, involves analyzing and summarizing existing literature without adhering to a structured methodology. It typically provides a descriptive overview of key concepts, theories, and relevant findings of the research topic.
Unlike other types of literature reviews, narrative reviews reinforce a more traditional approach, emphasizing the interpretation and discussion of the research findings rather than strict adherence to methodological review criteria. It helps researchers explore diverse perspectives and insights based on the research topic and acts as preliminary work for further investigation.
Source:- https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Steps-of-writing-a-narrative-review_fig1_354466408
The first step in conducting a narrative literature review is to clearly define the research question or topic of interest. Defining the scope and purpose of the review includes — What specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? What are the main objectives of the research? Refine your research question based on the specific area you want to explore.
Once the research question is defined, you can conduct a comprehensive literature search. Explore and use relevant databases and search engines like SciSpace Discover to identify credible and pertinent, scholarly articles and publications.
Before choosing the right set of studies, it’s vital to determine inclusion (studies that should possess the required factors) and exclusion criteria for the literature and then carefully select papers. For example — Which studies or sources will be included based on relevance, quality, and publication date?
*Important (applies to all the reviews): Inclusion criteria are the factors a study must include (For example: Include only peer-reviewed articles published between 2022-2023, etc.). Exclusion criteria are the factors that wouldn’t be required for your search strategy (Example: exclude irrelevant papers, preprints, written in non-English, etc.)
Once the relevant studies are shortlisted, evaluate the methodology, findings, and limitations of each source and jot down key themes, patterns, and contradictions. You can use efficient AI tools to conduct a thorough literature review and analyze all the required information.
Now, you can weave together the reviewed studies, underscoring significant findings such that new frameworks, contrasting viewpoints, and identifying knowledge gaps.
This is an important step before crafting a narrative review — summarize the main findings of the review and discuss their implications in the relevant field. For example — What are the practical implications for practitioners? What are the directions for future research for them?
Organize the review into coherent sections and structure your review logically, guiding the reader through the research landscape and offering valuable insights. Use clear and concise language to convey key points effectively.
A well-structured, narrative analysis or literature review typically includes the following components:
Paper title: Examining Moral Injury in Clinical Practice: A Narrative Literature Review
Source: SciSpace
You can also chat with the papers using SciSpace ChatPDF to get a thorough understanding of the research papers.
While narrative reviews offer flexibility, academic integrity remains paramount. So, ensure proper citation of all sources and maintain a transparent and factual approach throughout your critical narrative review, itself.
A systematic literature review is one of the comprehensive types of literature review that follows a structured approach to assembling, analyzing, and synthesizing existing research relevant to a particular topic or question. It involves clearly defined criteria for exploring and choosing studies, as well as rigorous methods for evaluating the quality of relevant studies.
It plays a prominent role in evidence-based practice and decision-making across various domains, including healthcare, social sciences, education, health sciences, and more. By systematically investigating available literature, researchers can identify gaps in knowledge, evaluate the strength of evidence, and report future research directions.
Source:- https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Steps-of-Systematic-Literature-Review_fig1_321422320
Here are the key steps involved in conducting a systematic literature review
Clearly define the research question or objective of the review. It helps to centralize the literature search strategy and determine inclusion criteria for relevant studies.
Design a comprehensive search strategy to identify relevant studies. It involves scrutinizing scientific databases and all relevant articles in journals. Plus, seek suggestions from domain experts and review reference lists of relevant review articles.
Employ predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria to systematically screen the identified studies. This screening process also typically involves multiple reviewers independently assessing the eligibility of each study.
Extract key information from selected studies using standardized forms or protocols. It includes study characteristics, methods, results, and conclusions.
Evaluate the methodological quality and potential biases of included studies. Various tools (BMC medical research methodology) and criteria can be implemented for critical evaluation depending on the study design and research quetions .
Analyze and synthesize review findings from individual studies to draw encompassing conclusions or identify overarching patterns and explore heterogeneity among studies.
Interpret the findings about the research question, considering the strengths and limitations of the research evidence. Draw conclusions and implications for further research.
Craft a detailed report of the systematic literature review adhering to the established guidelines of PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses). This ensures transparency and reproducibility of the review process.
By following these steps, a systematic literature review aims to provide a comprehensive and unbiased summary of existing evidence, help make informed decisions, and advance knowledge in the respective domain or field.
A well-structured systematic literature review typically consists of the following sections:
*Important (applies to all the reviews): Remember, the specific structure of your literature review may vary depending on your topic, research question, and intended audience. However, adhering to a clear and logical hierarchy ensures your review effectively analyses and synthesizes knowledge and contributes valuable insights for readers.
Paper title: Systematic Reviews: Understanding the Best Evidence For Clinical Decision-making in Health Care: Pros and Cons.
Read this detailed article on how to use AI tools to conduct a systematic review for your research!
A scoping literature review is a methodological review type of literature review that adopts an iterative approach to systematically map the existing literature on a particular topic or research area. It involves identifying, selecting, and synthesizing relevant papers to provide an overview of the size and scope of available evidence. Scoping reviews are broader in scope and include a diverse range of study designs and methodologies especially focused on health services research.
The main purpose of a scoping literature review is to examine the extent, range, and nature of existing studies on a topic, thereby identifying gaps in research, inconsistencies, and areas for further investigation. Additionally, scoping reviews can help researchers identify suitable methodologies and formulate clinical recommendations. They also act as the frameworks for future systematic reviews or primary research studies.
Scoping reviews are primarily focused on —
While Scoping reviews are not as rigorous as systematic reviews, however, they still follow a structured approach. Here are the steps:
Identify the research question: Define the broad topic you want to explore.
Identify Relevant Studies: Conduct a comprehensive search of relevant literature using appropriate databases, keywords, and search strategies.
Select studies to be included in the review: Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, determine the appropriate studies to be included in the review.
Data extraction and charting : Extract relevant information from selected studies, such as year, author, main results, study characteristics, key findings, and methodological approaches. However, it varies depending on the research question.
Collate, summarize, and report the results: Analyze and summarize the extracted data to identify key themes and trends. Then, present the findings of the scoping review in a clear and structured manner, following established guidelines and frameworks .
A scoping literature review typically follows a structured format similar to a systematic review. It includes the following sections:
In short, a scoping review helps map the literature on developing or emerging topics and identifying gaps. It might be considered as a step before conducting another type of review, such as a systematic review. Basically, acts as a precursor for other literature reviews.
Paper title: Health Chatbots in Africa Literature: A Scoping Review
Check out the key differences between Systematic and Scoping reviews — Evaluating literature review: systematic vs. scoping reviews
Integrative Literature Review (ILR) is a type of literature review that proposes a distinctive way to analyze and synthesize existing literature on a specific topic, providing a thorough understanding of research and identifying potential gaps for future research.
Unlike a systematic review, which emphasizes quantitative studies and follows strict inclusion criteria, an ILR embraces a more pliable approach. It works beyond simply summarizing findings — it critically analyzes, integrates, and interprets research from various methodologies (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods) to provide a deeper understanding of the research landscape. ILRs provide a holistic and systematic overview of existing research, integrating findings from various methodologies. ILRs are ideal for exploring intricate research issues, examining manifold perspectives, and developing new research questions.
Paper Title: An Integrative Literature Review: The Dual Impact of Technological Tools on Health and Technostress Among Older Workers
A Rapid Literature Review (RLR) is the fastest type of literature review which makes use of a streamlined approach for synthesizing literature summaries, offering a quicker and more focused alternative to traditional systematic reviews. Despite employing identical research methods, it often simplifies or omits specific steps to expedite the process. It allows researchers to gain valuable insights into current research trends and identify key findings within a shorter timeframe, often ranging from a few days to a few weeks — unlike traditional literature reviews, which may take months or even years to complete.
An effective structure of an RLR typically includes the following sections:
Paper Title: What Is the Impact of ChatGPT on Education? A Rapid Review of the Literature
Literature Review Type | Narrative | Systematic | Integrative | Rapid | Scoping |
Approach | The traditional approach lacks a structured methodology | Systematic search, including structured methodology | Combines diverse methodologies for a comprehensive understanding | Quick review within time constraints | Preliminary study of existing literature |
How Exhaustive is the process? | May or may not be comprehensive | Exhaustive and comprehensive search | A comprehensive search for integration | Time-limited search | Determined by time or scope constraints |
Data Synthesis | Narrative | Narrative with tabular accompaniment | Integration of various sources or methodologies | Narrative and tabular | Narrative and tabular |
Purpose | Provides description of meta analysis and conceptualization of the review | Comprehensive evidence synthesis | Holistic understanding | Quick policy or practice guidelines review | Preliminary literature review |
Key characteristics | Storytelling, chronological presentation | Rigorous, traditional and systematic techniques approach | Diverse source or method integration | Time-constrained, systematic approach | Identifies literature size and scope |
Example Use Case | Historical exploration | Effectiveness evaluation | Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed combination | Policy summary | Research literature overview |
Online scientific databases.
Platforms such as SciSpace , PubMed , Scopus , Elsevier , and Web of Science provide access to a vast array of scholarly literature, facilitating the search and data retrieval process.
Tools like SciSpace Citation Generator , EndNote, Zotero , and Mendeley assist researchers in organizing, annotating, and citing relevant literature, streamlining the review process altogether.
Automate the literature review process by using tools like SciSpace literature review which helps you compare and contrast multiple papers all on one screen in an easy-to-read matrix format. You can effortlessly analyze and interpret the review findings tailored to your study. It also supports the review in 75+ languages, making it more manageable even for non-English speakers.
Goes without saying — literature review plays a pivotal role in academic research to identify the current trends and provide insights to pave the way for future research endeavors. Different types of literature review has their own strengths and limitations, making them suitable for different research designs and contexts. Whether conducting a narrative review, systematic review, scoping review, integrative review, or rapid literature review, researchers must cautiously consider the objectives, resources, and the nature of the research topic.
If you’re currently working on a literature review and still adopting a manual and traditional approach, switch to the automated AI literature review workspace and transform your traditional literature review into a rapid one by extracting all the latest and relevant data for your research!
There you go!
Narrative reviews give a general overview of a topic based on the author's knowledge. They may lack clear criteria and can be biased. On the other hand, systematic reviews aim to answer specific research questions by following strict methods. They're thorough but time-consuming.
A systematic review collects and analyzes existing research to provide an overview of a topic, while a meta-analysis statistically combines data from multiple studies to draw conclusions about the overall effect of an intervention or relationship between variables.
A systematic review thoroughly analyzes existing research on a specific topic using strict methods. In contrast, a scoping review offers a broader overview of the literature without evaluating individual studies in depth.
A systematic review thoroughly examines existing research using a rigorous process, while a rapid review provides a quicker summary of evidence, often by simplifying some of the systematic review steps to meet shorter timelines.
A systematic review carefully examines many studies on a single topic using specific guidelines. Conversely, an integrative review blends various types of research to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the topic.
People often treat writing the literature review in an academic paper as a formality. Usually, this means simply listing various studies vaguely related to their work and leaving it at that.
But this overlooks how important the literature review is to a well-written experimental report or research paper. As such, we thought we’d take a moment to go over what a literature review should do and why you should give it the attention it deserves.
Common in the social and physical sciences, but also sometimes required in the humanities, a literature review is a summary of past research in your subject area.
Sometimes this is a standalone investigation of how an idea or field of inquiry has developed over time. However, more usually it’s the part of an academic paper, thesis or dissertation that sets out the background against which a study takes place.
There are several reasons why we do this.
In a college paper, you can use a literature review to demonstrate your understanding of the subject matter. This means identifying, summarizing and critically assessing past research that is relevant to your own work.
The literature review also plays a big role in justifying your study and setting your research question . This is because examining past research allows you to identify gaps in the literature, which you can then attempt to fill or address with your own work.
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It can help to think of the literature review as the foundations for your study, since the rest of your work will build upon the ideas and existing research you discuss therein.
A crucial part of this is formulating a theoretical framework , which comprises the concepts and theories that your work is based upon and against which its success will be judged.
Conducting a literature review before beginning research also lets you see how similar studies have been conducted in the past. By examining the strengths and weaknesses of existing research, you can thus make sure you adopt the most appropriate methods, data sources and analytical techniques for your own work.
The significance of any results you achieve will depend to some extent on how they compare to those reported in the existing literature. When you come to write up your findings, your literature review will therefore provide a crucial point of reference.
If your results replicate past research, for instance, you can say that your work supports existing theories. If your results are different, though, you’ll need to discuss why and whether the difference is important.
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The purpose of a literature review is to:
VIDEO: What is the role of a literature review in research? What's it mean to "review" the literature? Get the big picture of what to expect as part of the process. This video is published under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY-NC-SA US license. License, credits, and contact information can be found here: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/litreview/
What is the purpose of a literature review.
There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:
Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.
A rhetorical tautology is the repetition of an idea of concept using different words.
Rhetorical tautologies occur when additional words are used to convey a meaning that has already been expressed or implied. For example, the phrase “armed gunman” is a tautology because a “gunman” is by definition “armed.”
A logical tautology is a statement that is always true because it includes all logical possibilities.
Logical tautologies often take the form of “either/or” statements (e.g., “It will rain, or it will not rain”) or employ circular reasoning (e.g., “she is untrustworthy because she can’t be trusted”).
You may have seen both “appendices” or “appendixes” as pluralizations of “ appendix .” Either spelling can be used, but “appendices” is more common (including in APA Style ). Consistency is key here: make sure you use the same spelling throughout your paper.
The purpose of a lab report is to demonstrate your understanding of the scientific method with a hands-on lab experiment. Course instructors will often provide you with an experimental design and procedure. Your task is to write up how you actually performed the experiment and evaluate the outcome.
In contrast, a research paper requires you to independently develop an original argument. It involves more in-depth research and interpretation of sources and data.
A lab report is usually shorter than a research paper.
The sections of a lab report can vary between scientific fields and course requirements, but it usually contains the following:
A lab report conveys the aim, methods, results, and conclusions of a scientific experiment . Lab reports are commonly assigned in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
The abstract is the very last thing you write. You should only write it after your research is complete, so that you can accurately summarize the entirety of your thesis , dissertation or research paper .
If you’ve gone over the word limit set for your assignment, shorten your sentences and cut repetition and redundancy during the editing process. If you use a lot of long quotes , consider shortening them to just the essentials.
If you need to remove a lot of words, you may have to cut certain passages. Remember that everything in the text should be there to support your argument; look for any information that’s not essential to your point and remove it.
To make this process easier and faster, you can use a paraphrasing tool . With this tool, you can rewrite your text to make it simpler and shorter. If that’s not enough, you can copy-paste your paraphrased text into the summarizer . This tool will distill your text to its core message.
Revising, proofreading, and editing are different stages of the writing process .
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 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.
Avoid citing sources in your abstract . There are two reasons for this:
There are some circumstances where you might need to mention other sources in an abstract: for example, if your research responds directly to another study or focuses on the work of a single theorist. In general, though, don’t include citations unless absolutely necessary.
An abstract is a concise summary of an academic text (such as a journal article or dissertation ). It serves two main purposes:
Abstracts are often indexed along with keywords on academic databases, so they make your work more easily findable. Since the abstract is the first thing any reader sees, it’s important that it clearly and accurately summarizes the contents of your paper.
In a scientific paper, the methodology always comes after the introduction and before the results , discussion and conclusion . The same basic structure also applies to a thesis, dissertation , or research proposal .
Depending on the length and type of document, you might also include a literature review or theoretical framework before the methodology.
Whether you’re publishing a blog, submitting a research paper , or even just writing an important email, there are a few techniques you can use to make sure it’s error-free:
If you want to be confident that an important text is error-free, it might be worth choosing a professional proofreading service instead.
Editing and proofreading are different steps in the process of revising a text.
Editing comes first, and can involve major changes to content, structure and language. The first stages of editing are often done by authors themselves, while a professional editor makes the final improvements to grammar and style (for example, by improving sentence structure and word choice ).
Proofreading is the final stage of checking a text before it is published or shared. It focuses on correcting minor errors and inconsistencies (for example, in punctuation and capitalization ). Proofreaders often also check for formatting issues, especially in print publishing.
The cost of proofreading depends on the type and length of text, the turnaround time, and the level of services required. Most proofreading companies charge per word or page, while freelancers sometimes charge an hourly rate.
For proofreading alone, which involves only basic corrections of typos and formatting mistakes, you might pay as little as $0.01 per word, but in many cases, your text will also require some level of editing , which costs slightly more.
It’s often possible to purchase combined proofreading and editing services and calculate the price in advance based on your requirements.
There are many different routes to becoming a professional proofreader or editor. The necessary qualifications depend on the field – to be an academic or scientific proofreader, for example, you will need at least a university degree in a relevant subject.
For most proofreading jobs, experience and demonstrated skills are more important than specific qualifications. Often your skills will be tested as part of the application process.
To learn practical proofreading skills, you can choose to take a course with a professional organization such as the Society for Editors and Proofreaders . Alternatively, you can apply to companies that offer specialized on-the-job training programmes, such as the Scribbr Academy .
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Scribbr specializes in editing study-related documents . We proofread:
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You can find all the citation styles and locales used in the Scribbr Citation Generator in our publicly accessible repository on Github .
“A substantive, thorough, sophisticated literature review is a precondition for doing substantive, thorough, sophisticated research”. Boote and Baile 2005
Authors of manuscripts treat writing a literature review as a routine work or a mere formality. But a seasoned one knows the purpose and importance of a well-written literature review. Since it is one of the basic needs for researches at any level, they have to be done vigilantly. Only then the reader will know that the basics of research have not been neglected.
The aim of any literature review is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of existing knowledge in a particular field without adding any new contributions. Being built on existing knowledge they help the researcher to even turn the wheels of the topic of research. It is possible only with profound knowledge of what is wrong in the existing findings in detail to overpower them. For other researches, the literature review gives the direction to be headed for its success.
As per the common belief, literature reviews are only a summary of the sources related to the research. And many authors of scientific manuscripts believe that they are only surveys of what are the researches are done on the chosen topic. But on the contrary, it uses published information from pertinent and relevant sources like
and many more for a field of study or theory or a particular problem to do the following:
By doing the above on the relevant information, it provides the reader of the scientific manuscript with the following for a better understanding of it:
The importance of literature review in scientific manuscripts can be condensed into an analytical feature to enable the multifold reach of its significance. It adds value to the legitimacy of the research in many ways:
22. It helps the readers to identify the following for further reading of the scientific manuscript:
A profound literature review with many relevant sources of reference will enhance the chances of the scientific manuscript publication in renowned and reputed scientific journals .
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Creation of new body of knowledge. One of the key advantages of literature review is that it creates new body of knowledge. Through careful evaluation and critical summarisation, researchers can create a new body of knowledge and enrich the field of study. Answers to a range of questions. Literature reviews help researchers analyse the existing ...
Upon completion of the literature review, a researcher should have a solid foundation of knowledge in the area and a good feel for the direction any new research should take. Should any additional questions arise during the course of the research, the researcher will know which experts to consult in order to quickly clear up those questions.
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 ...
"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 ...
Most literature reviews are embedded in articles, books, and dissertations. In most research articles, there are set as a specific section, usually titled, "literature review", so they are hard to miss.But, sometimes, they are part of the narrative of the introduction of a book or article. This section is easily recognized since the author is engaging with other academics and experts by ...
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.
Literature review is approached as a process of engaging with the discourse of scholarly communities that will help graduate researchers refine, define, and express their own scholarly vision and voice. This orientation on research as an exploratory practice, rather than merely a series of predetermined steps in a systematic method, allows the ...
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).
A literature review is not only a summary of key sources, but has an organizational pattern which combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories.A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem.
A literature review is a critical summary and evaluation of the existing research (e.g., academic journal articles and books) on a specific topic. It is typically included as a separate section or chapter of a research paper or dissertation, serving as a contextual framework for a study. Literature reviews can vary in length depending on the ...
Writing an interdisciplinary literature review involves searching for possible points of overlap, identifying multiple different gaps, and unifying separate sets of ideas. The complexities of interdisciplinary research become more apparent the greater the distance between fields. Researchers are likely to find more similarities among literature ...
Key Takeaways. Writing a literature review is important for the following reasons: It demonstrates that you understand the issue you're investigating. A literature review allows you to develop a more theoretical framework for your research. It justifies your research and shows the gaps present in the current literature.
The systematic literature review (SLR) is one of the important review methodologies which is increasingly becoming popular to synthesize literature in any discipline in general and management in particular. In this article, we explain the SLR methodology and provide guidelines for performing and documenting these studies. Through systematic ...
Therefore, this paper discusses the purposes of LRs in dissertations and theses. Second, the paper considers five steps for developing a review: defining the main topic, searching the literature, analyzing the results, writing the review and reflecting on the writing. Ultimately, this study proposes a twelve-item LR checklist.
A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing research, studies, articles, books, and other relevant sources on a specific topic or subject. It serves as a foundational step in the research process, helping researchers understand the current state of knowledge, identify gaps in the literature, and establish a context ...
A literature review is an integrated analysis-- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question. That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.
1. Narrative Literature Review. A narrative literature review, also known as a traditional literature review, involves analyzing and summarizing existing literature without adhering to a structured methodology. It typically provides a descriptive overview of key concepts, theories, and relevant findings of the research topic.
Reason #3: Setting a Theoretical Framework. It can help to think of the literature review as the foundations for your study, since the rest of your work will build upon the ideas and existing research you discuss therein. A crucial part of this is formulating a theoretical framework, which comprises the concepts and theories that your work is ...
A formal literature review is an evidence-based, in-depth analysis of a subject. There are many reasons for writing one and these will influence the length and style of your review, but in essence a literature review is a critical appraisal of the current collective knowledge on a subject. Rather than just being an exhaustive list of all that ...
The purpose of a literature review is to: Provide a foundation of knowledge on a topic; Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication and give credit to other researchers; Identify inconstancies: gaps in research, conflicts in previous studies, open questions left from other research;
The sections of a lab report can vary between scientific fields and course requirements, but it usually contains the following: Title: expresses the topic of your study Abstract: summarizes your research aims, methods, results, and conclusions Introduction: establishes the context needed to understand the topic Method: describes the materials and procedures used in the experiment
Importance of literature review in research: The importance of literature review in scientific manuscripts can be condensed into an analytical feature to enable the multifold reach of its significance. It adds value to the legitimacy of the research in many ways: Provides the interpretation of existing literature in light of updated ...
A literature review reporting strategies to prevent type 2 diabetes among youth ( Brackney & Cutshall, 2015) is included and addresses the second priority to address obesity. The National Association of School Nurses (NASN) research priorities focus on the impact of school nursing in a number of areas. NASN also recommends systematic reviews as ...