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

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

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

What are Literature Reviews?

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

Goals of Literature Reviews

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

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

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

What kinds of sources require a Literature Review?

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

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

Types of Literature Reviews

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Literature Reviews in the Health Sciences

• UConn Health subject guide on systematic reviews Explanation of the different review types used in health sciences literature as well as tools to help you find the right review type
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• Last Updated: Sep 21, 2022 2:16 PM
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• v.8(3); 2016 Jul

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

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

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

The Literature Review Defined

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

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

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

Purpose and Importance of the Literature Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

Approaching the Literature Review

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

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

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

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

Locating and Organizing the Literature

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

Human Resources

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

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

Strategies for Finding Related Researcher Publications in Databases and Search Engines

Search Tools and Related Literature

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

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

Box Information Resources

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

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

Getting Organized

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

Citation Managers

Knowing When to Say When

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

Putting It All Together

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

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

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

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

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Writing a Literature Review

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

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

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

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

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

What are the parts of a lit review?

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

Introduction:

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

Conclusion:

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

How should I organize my lit review?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

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

A good literature review doesn’t just summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

Why write a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1: search for relevant literature, step 2: evaluate and select sources, step 3: identify themes, debates and gaps, step 4: outline your literature review’s structure, step 5: write your literature review, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

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

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

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

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

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

Download Word doc Download Google doc

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

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

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

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

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

Search for relevant sources

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

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

You can use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

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

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

For each publication, ask yourself:

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

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

You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

Take notes and cite your sources

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

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

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

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

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

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

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

There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

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

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

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

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

Methodological

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

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

Theoretical

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

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

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

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

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

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

As you write, make sure to follow these tips:

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

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

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

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 dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarise yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

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Research Methods

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

Literature Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

A literature review is important because it:

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

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

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

Not an essay 

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

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

A literature review serves several purposes. For example, it

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Systematic review or meta-analysis?

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

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

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

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

Not all systematic reviews contain meta-analysis. 

Meta-analysis is the use of statistical methods to summarize the results of independent studies. By combining information from all relevant studies, meta-analysis can provide more precise estimates of the effects of health care than those derived from the individual studies included within a review.  More information on meta-analyses can be found in  Cochrane Handbook, Chapter 9 .

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

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

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

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Literature Review - what is a Literature Review, why it is important and how it is done

What are literature reviews, goals of literature reviews, types of literature reviews, about this guide/licence.

• Strategies to Find Sources
• Evaluating Literature Reviews and Sources
• Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
• Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
• Citation Resources
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• Useful Resources

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

Source NC State University Libraries. This video is published under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY-NC-SA US license.

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?

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

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

When do you need to write a Literature Review?

• When writing a prospectus or a thesis/dissertation
• When writing a research paper
• When writing a grant proposal

In all these cases you need to dedicate a chapter in these works to showcase what have been written about your research topic and to point out how your own research will shed a new light into these body of scholarship.

Literature reviews are also written as standalone articles as a way to survey a particular research topic in-depth. This type of literature reviews look at a topic from a historical perspective to see how the understanding of the topic have change through time.

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

• Narrative Review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.
• Book review essays/ Historiographical review essays : This is a type of review that focus on a small set of research books on a particular topic " to locate these books within current scholarship, critical methodologies, and approaches" in the field. - LARR
• Systematic review : "The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find." (p. 139). Nelson, L.K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders . San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing.
• Meta-analysis : "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing research findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occurred in different studies." (p. 197). Roberts, M.C. & Ilardi, S.S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology . Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.
• Meta-synthesis : "Qualitative meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic." (p.312). Zimmer, L. (2006). "Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts," Journal of Advanced Nursing , 53(3), 311-318.

Guide adapted from "Literature Review" , a guide developed by Marisol Ramos used under CC BY 4.0 /modified from original.

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• Last Updated: Jul 3, 2024 10:56 AM
• URL: https://lit.libguides.com/Literature-Review

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Literature Reviews

What is a literature review.

• Literature Review Process

Purpose of a Literature Review

• Choosing a Type of Review
• Developing a Research Question
• Searching the Literature
• Searching Tips
• ChatGPT [beta]
• Documenting your Search
• Using Citation Managers
• Concept Mapping
• Writing the Review
• Further Resources

The Library's Subject Specialists are happy to help with your literature reviews!  Find your Subject Specialist here . 

If you have questions about this guide, contact Librarian  Jamie Niehof ([email protected]).

A literature review is an overview of the available research for a specific scientific topic. Literature reviews summarize existing research to answer a review question, provide context for new research, or identify important gaps in the existing body of literature.

An incredible amount of academic literature is published each year, by estimates over two million articles .

Sorting through and reviewing that literature can be complicated, so this Research Guide provides a structured approach to make the process more manageable.

THIS GUIDE IS AN OVERVIEW OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW PROCESS:

• Getting Started (asking a research question | defining scope)
• Organizing the Literature
• Writing the Literature Review (analyzing | synthesizing)

A  literature search  is a systematic search of the scholarly sources in a particular discipline. A  literature review   is the analysis, critical evaluation and synthesis of the results of that search. During this process you will move from a review  of  the literature to a review  for   your research.   Your synthesis of the literature is your unique contribution to research.

WHO IS THIS RESEARCH GUIDE FOR?

— those new to reviewing the literature

— those that need a refresher or a deeper understanding of writing literature reviews

You may need to do a literature review as a part of a course assignment, a capstone project, a master's thesis, a dissertation, or as part of a journal article. No matter the context, a literature review is an essential part of the research process. 

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A LITERATURE REVIEW?

A literature review is typically performed for a specific reason. Even when assigned as an assignment, the goal of the literature review will be one or more of the following:

• To communicate a project's novelty by identifying a research gap

• An overview of research issues , methodologies or results relevant to field
• To explore the  volume and types of available studies
• To establish familiarity with current research before carrying out a new project
• To resolve conflicts amongst contradictory previous studies

Reviewing the literature helps you understand a research topic and develop your own perspective.

A LITERATURE REVIEW IS NOT :

• An annotated bibliography – which is a list of annotated citations to books, articles and documents that includes a brief description and evaluation for each entry
• A literary review – which is a critical discussion of the merits and weaknesses of a literary work
• A book review – which is a critical discussion of the merits and weaknesses of a particular book
• Next: Choosing a Type of Review >>
• Last Updated: May 9, 2024 11:44 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.umich.edu/litreview

Libraries | Research Guides

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

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

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

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

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What Is A Literature Review?

A plain-language explainer (with examples).

By:  Derek Jansen (MBA) & Kerryn Warren (PhD) | June 2020 (Updated May 2023)

If you’re faced with writing a dissertation or thesis, chances are you’ve encountered the term “literature review” . If you’re on this page, you’re probably not 100% what the literature review is all about. The good news is that you’ve come to the right place.

Literature Review 101

• What (exactly) is a literature review
• What’s the purpose of the literature review chapter
• How to find high-quality resources
• How to structure your literature review chapter
• Example of an actual literature review

What is a literature review?

The word “literature review” can refer to two related things that are part of the broader literature review process. The first is the task of  reviewing the literature  – i.e. sourcing and reading through the existing research relating to your research topic. The second is the  actual chapter  that you write up in your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s look at each of them:

Reviewing the literature

The first step of any literature review is to hunt down and  read through the existing research  that’s relevant to your research topic. To do this, you’ll use a combination of tools (we’ll discuss some of these later) to find journal articles, books, ebooks, research reports, dissertations, theses and any other credible sources of information that relate to your topic. You’ll then  summarise and catalogue these  for easy reference when you write up your literature review chapter. 

The literature review chapter

The second step of the literature review is to write the actual literature review chapter (this is usually the second chapter in a typical dissertation or thesis structure ). At the simplest level, the literature review chapter is an  overview of the key literature  that’s relevant to your research topic. This chapter should provide a smooth-flowing discussion of what research has already been done, what is known, what is unknown and what is contested in relation to your research topic. So, you can think of it as an  integrated review of the state of knowledge  around your research topic. 

What’s the purpose of a literature review?

The literature review chapter has a few important functions within your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s take a look at these:

Purpose #1 – Demonstrate your topic knowledge

The first function of the literature review chapter is, quite simply, to show the reader (or marker) that you  know what you’re talking about . In other words, a good literature review chapter demonstrates that you’ve read the relevant existing research and understand what’s going on – who’s said what, what’s agreed upon, disagreed upon and so on. This needs to be  more than just a summary  of who said what – it needs to integrate the existing research to  show how it all fits together  and what’s missing (which leads us to purpose #2, next). 

Purpose #2 – Reveal the research gap that you’ll fill

The second function of the literature review chapter is to  show what’s currently missing  from the existing research, to lay the foundation for your own research topic. In other words, your literature review chapter needs to show that there are currently “missing pieces” in terms of the bigger puzzle, and that  your study will fill one of those research gaps . By doing this, you are showing that your research topic is original and will help contribute to the body of knowledge. In other words, the literature review helps justify your research topic.  

Purpose #3 – Lay the foundation for your conceptual framework

The third function of the literature review is to form the  basis for a conceptual framework . Not every research topic will necessarily have a conceptual framework, but if your topic does require one, it needs to be rooted in your literature review. 

For example, let’s say your research aims to identify the drivers of a certain outcome – the factors which contribute to burnout in office workers. In this case, you’d likely develop a conceptual framework which details the potential factors (e.g. long hours, excessive stress, etc), as well as the outcome (burnout). Those factors would need to emerge from the literature review chapter – they can’t just come from your gut! 

So, in this case, the literature review chapter would uncover each of the potential factors (based on previous studies about burnout), which would then be modelled into a framework. 

Purpose #4 – To inform your methodology

The fourth function of the literature review is to  inform the choice of methodology  for your own research. As we’ve  discussed on the Grad Coach blog , your choice of methodology will be heavily influenced by your research aims, objectives and questions . Given that you’ll be reviewing studies covering a topic close to yours, it makes sense that you could learn a lot from their (well-considered) methodologies.

So, when you’re reviewing the literature, you’ll need to  pay close attention to the research design , methodology and methods used in similar studies, and use these to inform your methodology. Quite often, you’ll be able to  “borrow” from previous studies . This is especially true for quantitative studies , as you can use previously tried and tested measures and scales. 

How do I find articles for my literature review?

Finding quality journal articles is essential to crafting a rock-solid literature review. As you probably already know, not all research is created equally, and so you need to make sure that your literature review is  built on credible research . 

We could write an entire post on how to find quality literature (actually, we have ), but a good starting point is Google Scholar . Google Scholar is essentially the academic equivalent of Google, using Google’s powerful search capabilities to find relevant journal articles and reports. It certainly doesn’t cover every possible resource, but it’s a very useful way to get started on your literature review journey, as it will very quickly give you a good indication of what the  most popular pieces of research  are in your field.

One downside of Google Scholar is that it’s merely a search engine – that is, it lists the articles, but oftentimes  it doesn’t host the articles . So you’ll often hit a paywall when clicking through to journal websites. 

Thankfully, your university should provide you with access to their library, so you can find the article titles using Google Scholar and then search for them by name in your university’s online library. Your university may also provide you with access to  ResearchGate , which is another great source for existing research. 

Remember, the correct search keywords will be super important to get the right information from the start. So, pay close attention to the keywords used in the journal articles you read and use those keywords to search for more articles. If you can’t find a spoon in the kitchen, you haven’t looked in the right drawer. 

Need a helping hand?

How should I structure my literature review?

Unfortunately, there’s no generic universal answer for this one. The structure of your literature review will depend largely on your topic area and your research aims and objectives.

You could potentially structure your literature review chapter according to theme, group, variables , chronologically or per concepts in your field of research. We explain the main approaches to structuring your literature review here . You can also download a copy of our free literature review template to help you establish an initial structure.

In general, it’s also a good idea to start wide (i.e. the big-picture-level) and then narrow down, ending your literature review close to your research questions . However, there’s no universal one “right way” to structure your literature review. The most important thing is not to discuss your sources one after the other like a list – as we touched on earlier, your literature review needs to synthesise the research , not summarise it .

Ultimately, you need to craft your literature review so that it conveys the most important information effectively – it needs to tell a logical story in a digestible way. It’s no use starting off with highly technical terms and then only explaining what these terms mean later. Always assume your reader is not a subject matter expert and hold their hand through a journe y of the literature while keeping the functions of the literature review chapter (which we discussed earlier) front of mind.

Example of a literature review

In the video below, we walk you through a high-quality literature review from a dissertation that earned full distinction. This will give you a clearer view of what a strong literature review looks like in practice and hopefully provide some inspiration for your own. 

Wrapping Up

In this post, we’ve (hopefully) answered the question, “ what is a literature review? “. We’ve also considered the purpose and functions of the literature review, as well as how to find literature and how to structure the literature review chapter. If you’re keen to learn more, check out the literature review section of the Grad Coach blog , as well as our detailed video post covering how to write a literature review . 

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

16 Comments

Thanks for this review. It narrates what’s not been taught as tutors are always in a early to finish their classes.

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Well-presented overview of the literature!

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What is a literature review? [with examples]

What is a literature review?

The purpose of a literature review, how to write a literature review, the format of a literature review, general formatting rules, the length of a literature review, literature review examples, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, related articles.

A literature review is an assessment of the sources in a chosen topic of research.

In a literature review, you’re expected to report on the existing scholarly conversation, without adding new contributions.

If you are currently writing one, you've come to the right place. In the following paragraphs, we will explain:

• the objective of a literature review
• how to write a literature review
• the basic format of a literature review

Tip: It’s not always mandatory to add a literature review in a paper. Theses and dissertations often include them, whereas research papers may not. Make sure to consult with your instructor for exact requirements.

The four main objectives of a literature review are:

• Studying the references of your research area
• Summarizing the main arguments
• Identifying current gaps, stances, and issues
• Presenting all of the above in a text

Ultimately, the main goal of a literature review is to provide the researcher with sufficient knowledge about the topic in question so that they can eventually make an intervention.

The format of a literature review is fairly standard. It includes an:

• introduction that briefly introduces the main topic
• body that includes the main discussion of the key arguments
• conclusion that highlights the gaps and issues of the literature

➡️ Take a look at our guide on how to write a literature review to learn more about how to structure a literature review.

First of all, a literature review should have its own labeled section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where the literature can be found, and you should label this section as “Literature Review.”

➡️ For more information on writing a thesis, visit our guide on how to structure a thesis .

There is no set amount of words for a literature review, so the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, it will be short.

Take a look at these three theses featuring great literature reviews:

• School-Based Speech-Language Pathologist's Perceptions of Sensory Food Aversions in Children [ PDF , see page 20]
• Who's Writing What We Read: Authorship in Criminological Research [ PDF , see page 4]
• A Phenomenological Study of the Lived Experience of Online Instructors of Theological Reflection at Christian Institutions Accredited by the Association of Theological Schools [ PDF , see page 56]

Literature reviews are most commonly found in theses and dissertations. However, you find them in research papers as well.

There is no set amount of words for a literature review, so the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, then it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, then it will be short.

No. A literature review should have its own independent section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where the literature review can be found, and label this section as “Literature Review.”

The main goal of a literature review is to provide the researcher with sufficient knowledge about the topic in question so that they can eventually make an intervention.

The Guide to Literature Reviews

• What is a Literature Review?
• Introduction

What is the purpose of a literature review?

The importance of literature reviews: industry examples, important reminders.

• Guidelines for Writing a Literature Review
• How to Organize a Literature Review?
• Software for Literature Reviews
• Using Artificial Intelligence for Literature Reviews
• How to Conduct a Literature Review?
• Common Mistakes and Pitfalls in a Literature Review
• Methods for Literature Reviews
• What is a Systematic Literature Review?
• What is a Narrative Literature Review?
• What is a Descriptive Literature Review?
• What is a Scoping Literature Review?
• What is a Realist Literature Review?
• What is a Critical Literature Review?
• Meta Analysis vs. Literature Review
• What is an Umbrella Literature Review?
• Differences Between Annotated Bibliographies and Literature Reviews
• Literature Review vs. Theoretical Framework
• How to Write a Literature Review?
• How to Structure a Literature Review?
• How to Make a Cover Page for a Literature Review?
• How to Write an Abstract for a Literature Review?
• How to Write a Literature Review Introduction?
• How to Write the Body of a Literature Review?
• How to Write a Literature Review Conclusion?
• How to Make a Literature Review Bibliography?
• How to Format a Literature Review?
• How Long Should a Literature Review Be?
• Examples of Literature Reviews
• How to Present a Literature Review?
• How to Publish a Literature Review?

The Purpose of Literature Reviews

A literature review has various purposes, one of the most important is the identification of knowledge gaps in a specific topic. It also helps to understand the current state of knowledge of a research topic and guides the researcher into unexplored terrain. A good literature review helps answer questions such as how will this research contribute to the scientific community and why is this something new and interesting worth further investigation. For example, qualitative researchers may find that some topics have been covered quantitatively but not qualitatively.

A useful analogy when conducting a literature review is to think of a forest, where a researcher must describe the forest and not every tree inside it. In a literature review, researchers are essentially telling a story about the research problem they are addressing, why this research problem is important, and how they contribute new understanding of this problem. They develop their arguments in a research project based on the existing literature, constructing a narrative supported by the findings of their study. This first research step involves strict organization and a strong critical analysis of the previous literature. It also serves as a foundation for selecting and assessing the most effective methodologies and methods. For example, whether in-depth interviews or focus groups have worked better for similar research or if a grounded theory methodology is better than a narrative methodology for the study.

Researchers can write an entire paper that is based only on a comprehensive literature review, summarizing research around a topic and providing guidelines for further research. More commonly, however, the literature review is presented at the beginning of an empirical study to lay the foundation on which the researcher's subsequent data collection and analysis is based. Researchers conduct literature reviews to avoid reinventing the wheel and ensure they are looking at the most updated existing knowledge on their topic of research. Reviewing relevant articles provides a solid foundation and context for the research, helping to establish where the new research fits within the existing body of work.

A literature review also helps build a theoretical framework , which guides the study and helps interpret the findings. By engaging with existing conclusions, theories, and models, a researcher ensures the study is connected to a broader scholarly conversation and the research topic is approached with a well-informed perspective. A literature review is the primary means through which researchers construct their arguments to justify the need for their research. Rather than "only" summarizing previous research, the literature review should clearly explain the author's reasoning for why studying this topic or research problem is important and contributes novel and interesting knowledge.

Another critical purpose of a literature review is to contextualize the new research within the existing body of knowledge. The researcher can demonstrate relevance by comparing their research objectives with those of previous studies. This comparison helps them understand how their new study addresses gaps or adds new insights. For example, a qualitative study on workplace motivation might build upon existing research, adding depth to our understanding of employee experiences and the nuances of motivational factors.

Finally, a researcher doing a thorough literature review of previous research can provide a roadmap for future studies. By conducting the review, the researcher will discover the gaps of knowledge that can be filled by their research as well as discover roadmaps of knowledge that other researchers can uptake. For example, in the field of education, a literature review might reveal a lack of qualitative studies on the different, numerous experiences of students with a disability, prompting further research in this area overall. The literature review solidifies the research focus and enhances the quality and relevance of the study.

When it comes to conducting a literature review for a qualitative study, it is important to recognize that the literature review is a highly iterative process, often occurring before, during, and after data analysis. While some highly inductive qualitative studies may delay engaging with a literature review until after their data has been analyzed, no researcher begins their study with a purely "blank mind" and has no familiarity with any relevant literature. For example, researchers read relevant literature to understand what is currently known about their research problem and what questions remain unanswered. In addition, reading key studies can provide researchers with "sensitizing concepts", or ideas about key concepts worth pursuing further in one's research and data collection (Blumer, 1969). After data has been analyzed, it is also crucial to revisit the literature in light of one's findings and highlight how these findings contribute to broader scholarly conversation. In other words, regardless of when qualitative researchers engage with the literature review, all researchers need to engage in literature reviews to understand current conversations around their topic and discern how they can contribute something new and interesting to this ongoing conversation.

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Literature reviews play an essential role across various industries. From general overviews to building a theoretical foundation using existing theories, literature reviews focus on extant literature and shine a light on areas that need further investigation. The following examples illustrate the significance of literature reviews in healthcare, business and marketing, environmental studies, and education.

In healthcare research, a sophisticated literature review may reveal gaps in understanding patient experiences with chronic illnesses or other aspects such as experiences when dealing with medical professionals. Researchers can develop more patient-centred care practices by conducting a systematic literature review and critical evaluation of empirical evidence. Another example is how researchers can have a baseline of knowledge of the emotional impact of diabetes management in young adults if they conduct narrative literature reviews. This helps refine their research questions or research methods to focus specifically on an age group and avoid the redundancy of studying well-covered topics such as general diabetes management. These are just some examples of literature review objectives that a healthcare researcher may have.

Business and marketing

In business and marketing research, the purpose of a literature review is immensely valuable. Business and marketing literature may show extensive quantitative data on consumer behaviour trends but that lack qualitative insights into consumer decision-making processes. Qualitative research , such as in-depth interviews with consumers, can uncover the underlying motivations and attitudes that drive purchasing decisions, thereby highlighting the value of a literature review for advancing marketing strategies. For example, when investigating consumer behaviour toward eco-friendly products, a literature review can reveal gaps such as a limited understanding of purchasing motivations among millennials. This allows researchers to focus their own research on this particular topic, refining their research questions to address specific factors influencing millennials' purchasing decisions. After doing a comprehensive literature review, researchers can determine additional focus areas and direct research efforts to explore emerging trends.

Environmental studies

In environmental qualitative research , literature reviews are critical. For example, when exploring community perceptions of renewable energy projects, reviewing relevant literature can identify a limited understanding of local cultural influences on these perceptions. This allows researchers to refine their research questions to delve into cultural factors affecting community acceptance. Literature reviews also help identify theoretical frameworks , such as social acceptance theory, to guide analysis and interpretation . This ensures that the research paper is original and adds valuable insights into renewable energy adoption. Understanding the current research landscape helps researchers pinpoint additional focus areas, such as the role of local leadership in shaping perceptions, and direct research efforts accordingly.

Qualitative education research is essential when examining the impact of teaching methods on student experience. The literature review can identify gaps, such as a lack of understanding about how specific pedagogical approaches influence diverse student populations. This helps the researcher address specific factors that influence student engagement. Another example is when literature reviews highlight the need for more qualitative studies on the experiences of minority students in higher education. This enables them to understand student challenges and develop interventions to support their success.

A literature review is indispensable across various industries because it provides a comprehensive understanding of existing research, identifies gaps, and lays the groundwork for new studies. It ensures that research efforts are not duplicated and promotes the advancement of knowledge. It also offers a well-informed basis for interpreting new findings. Researchers can contribute meaningful insights and innovations to their fields by critically evaluating and synthesizing existing literature. Whether in healthcare, business, environmental studies, education, or any other area, literature reviews drive progress and ensure that research remains relevant and impactful.

Literature reviews foster academic dialogue by highlighting underexplored areas and suggesting directions for future research. This ongoing exchange of ideas and findings enhances the collective understanding within each industry, promoting collaboration and continuous improvement. The different approaches of literature reviews are different approaches to ensure a thorough examination of the topic, providing a solid foundation for empirical studies and theoretical advancements.

Ultimately, literature reviews are more than just a preliminary step in the research process; they are pivotal in shaping the trajectory of scholarly inquiry and practical applications. Literature reviews help bridge the gap between theory and practice, by grounding new research in a well-established context. The literature review validates new research and strengthens its relevance and impact across diverse fields.

• Blumer. H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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University Libraries

Literature review.

• What is a Literature Review?
• What is Its Purpose?
• 1. Select a Topic
• 2. Set the Topic in Context
• 3. Types of Information Sources
• 4. Use Information Sources
• 5. Get the Information
• 6. Organize / Manage the Information
• 7. Position the Literature Review
• 8. Write the Literature Review

A literature review is a comprehensive summary of previous research on a topic. The literature review surveys scholarly articles, books, and other sources relevant to a particular area of research.  The review should enumerate, describe, summarize, objectively evaluate and clarify this previous research.  It should give a theoretical base for the research and help you (the author) determine the nature of your research.  The literature review acknowledges the work of previous researchers, and in so doing, assures the reader that your work has been well conceived.  It is assumed that by mentioning a previous work in the field of study, that the author has read, evaluated, and assimiliated that work into the work at hand.

A literature review creates a "landscape" for the reader, giving her or him a full understanding of the developments in the field.  This landscape informs the reader that the author has indeed assimilated all (or the vast majority of) previous, significant works in the field into her or his research. 

 "In writing the literature review, the purpose is to convey to the reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. The literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (eg. your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries.( http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review )

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• Writing Tips

What is the Purpose of a Literature Review?

4-minute read

• 23rd October 2023

If you’re writing a research paper or dissertation , then you’ll most likely need to include a comprehensive literature review . In this post, we’ll review the purpose of literature reviews, why they are so significant, and the specific elements to include in one. Literature reviews can:

1. Provide a foundation for current research.

2. Define key concepts and theories.

3. Demonstrate critical evaluation.

4. Show how research and methodologies have evolved.

5. Identify gaps in existing research.

6. Support your argument.

Keep reading to enter the exciting world of literature reviews!

What is a Literature Review?

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 subject and nature of the study, with most being about equal length to other sections or chapters included in the paper. Essentially, the literature review highlights previous studies in the context of your research and summarizes your insights in a structured, organized format. Next, let’s look at the overall purpose of a literature review.

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Literature reviews are considered an integral part of research across most academic subjects and fields. The primary purpose of a literature review in your study is to:

Provide a Foundation for Current Research

Since the literature review provides a comprehensive evaluation of the existing research, it serves as a solid foundation for your current study. It’s a way to contextualize your work and show how your research fits into the broader landscape of your specific area of study.  

Define Key Concepts and Theories

The literature review highlights the central theories and concepts that have arisen from previous research on your chosen topic. It gives your readers a more thorough understanding of the background of your study and why your research is particularly significant .

Demonstrate Critical Evaluation 

A comprehensive literature review shows your ability to critically analyze and evaluate a broad range of source material. And since you’re considering and acknowledging the contribution of key scholars alongside your own, it establishes your own credibility and knowledge.

Show How Research and Methodologies Have Evolved

Another purpose of literature reviews is to provide a historical perspective and demonstrate how research and methodologies have changed over time, especially as data collection methods and technology have advanced. And studying past methodologies allows you, as the researcher, to understand what did and did not work and apply that knowledge to your own research.  

Identify Gaps in Existing Research

Besides discussing current research and methodologies, the literature review should also address areas that are lacking in the existing literature. This helps further demonstrate the relevance of your own research by explaining why your study is necessary to fill the gaps.

Support Your Argument

A good literature review should provide evidence that supports your research questions and hypothesis. For example, your study may show that your research supports existing theories or builds on them in some way. Referencing previous related studies shows your work is grounded in established research and will ultimately be a contribution to the field.  

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Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide: Literature Reviews?

• Literature Reviews?
• Strategies to Finding Sources
• Keeping up with Research!
• Evaluating Sources & Literature Reviews
• Organizing for Writing
• Writing Literature Review
• Other Academic Writings

What is a Literature Review?

So, what is a literature review .

"A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available or a set of summaries." - Quote from Taylor, D. (n.d)."The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting it".

• Citation: "The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting it"

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Each field has a particular way to do reviews for academic research literature. In the social sciences and humanities the most common are:

• Narrative Reviews: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific research topic and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weaknesses, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section that summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.
• Book review essays/ Historiographical review essays : A type of literature review typical in History and related fields, e.g., Latin American studies. For example, the Latin American Research Review explains that the purpose of this type of review is to “(1) to familiarize readers with the subject, approach, arguments, and conclusions found in a group of books whose common focus is a historical period; a country or region within Latin America; or a practice, development, or issue of interest to specialists and others; (2) to locate these books within current scholarship, critical methodologies, and approaches; and (3) to probe the relation of these new books to previous work on the subject, especially canonical texts. Unlike individual book reviews, the cluster reviews found in LARR seek to address the state of the field or discipline and not solely the works at issue.” - LARR

What are the Goals of Creating a Literature Review?

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 
• Baumeister, R.F. & Leary, M.R. (1997). "Writing narrative literature reviews," Review of General Psychology , 1(3), 311-320.

When do you need to write a Literature Review?

• When writing a prospectus or a thesis/dissertation
• When writing a research paper
• When writing a grant proposal

In all these cases you need to dedicate a chapter in these works to showcase what has been written about your research topic and to point out how your own research will shed new light into a body of scholarship.

Where I can find examples of Literature Reviews?

Note:  In the humanities, even if they don't use the term "literature review", they may have a dedicated  chapter that reviewed the "critical bibliography" or they incorporated that review in the introduction or first chapter of the dissertation, book, or article.

• UCSB electronic theses and dissertations In partnership with the Graduate Division, the UC Santa Barbara Library is making available theses and dissertations produced by UCSB students. Currently included in ADRL are theses and dissertations that were originally filed electronically, starting in 2011. In future phases of ADRL, all theses and dissertations created by UCSB students may be digitized and made available.

Where to Find Standalone Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are also written as standalone articles as a way to survey a particular research topic in-depth. This type of literature review looks at a topic from a historical perspective to see how the understanding of the topic has changed over time. 

• Find e-Journals for Standalone Literature Reviews The best way to get familiar with and to learn how to write literature reviews is by reading them. You can use our Journal Search option to find journals that specialize in publishing literature reviews from major disciplines like anthropology, sociology, etc. Usually these titles are called, "Annual Review of [discipline name] OR [Discipline name] Review. This option works best if you know the title of the publication you are looking for. Below are some examples of these journals! more... less... Journal Search can be found by hovering over the link for Research on the library website.

Social Sciences

• Annual Review of Anthropology
• Annual Review of Political Science
• Annual Review of Sociology
• Ethnic Studies Review

Hard science and health sciences:

• Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science
• Annual Review of Materials Science
• Systematic Review From journal site: "The journal Systematic Reviews encompasses all aspects of the design, conduct, and reporting of systematic reviews" in the health sciences.
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• Next: Strategies to Finding Sources >>
• Last Updated: Mar 5, 2024 11:44 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.ucsb.edu/litreview

Frequently asked questions

What is the purpose of a literature review.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

Frequently asked questions: Academic writing

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:

• 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
• Results: reports all descriptive and inferential statistical analyses
• Discussion: interprets and evaluates results and identifies limitations
• Conclusion: sums up the main findings of your experiment
• References: list of all sources cited using a specific style (e.g. APA)
• Appendices: contains lengthy materials, procedures, tables or figures

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 .

• Revising is making structural and logical changes to your text—reformulating arguments and reordering information.
• Editing refers to making more local changes to things like sentence structure and phrasing to make sure your meaning is conveyed clearly and concisely.
• Proofreading involves looking at the text closely, line by line, to spot any typos and issues with consistency and correct them.

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:

• The abstract should focus on your original research, not on the work of others.
• The abstract should be self-contained and fully understandable without reference to other sources.

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:

• To help potential readers determine the relevance of your paper for their own research.
• To communicate your key findings to those who don’t have time to read the whole paper.

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:

• Take a break : Set your work aside for at least a few hours so that you can look at it with fresh eyes.
• Proofread a printout : Staring at a screen for too long can cause fatigue – sit down with a pen and paper to check the final version.
• Use digital shortcuts : Take note of any recurring mistakes (for example, misspelling a particular word, switching between US and UK English , or inconsistently capitalizing a term), and use Find and Replace to fix it throughout the document.

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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Chapter 2: The Importance of Theory and Literature

There is nothing more practical than a good theory.

— Kurt Lewin, 1951, p. 169

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, students should be able to do the following:

• Outline the main assumptions of positivist, interpretive, critical, and pragmatic paradigms.
• Explain why decolonization is necessary for learning about Indigenous knowledges.
• Define and differentiate between theoretical frameworks and theories.
• Distinguish between deductive and inductive reasoning and explain how the role of theory differs in qualitative and quantitative research.
• Formulate social research questions.
• Explain the importance of a literature review.
• Locate appropriate literature and evaluate sources of information found on the internet.

INTRODUCTION

In chapter 1, you were introduced to scientific reasoning as a desirable alternative to learning about the social world through tradition, common sense, authority, and personal experience. In addition, you learned to distinguish between basic and applied research and that research methods are used to collect data for a variety of purposes (e.g., to explore, describe, explain, or evaluate some phenomenon). In this chapter, you will learn about paradigms that shape our views of social research and alternative worldviews in the form of Indigenous knowledges. You will learn about theoretical frameworks and the importance of theory and prior research for informing the development of new research. Finally, this chapter helps you locate and evaluate sources of information you find in the library and on the internet.

INQUIRY PARADIGMS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

At the most general level, a paradigm is a set of “basic beliefs” or a “worldview” that helps us make sense of the world, including our own place in it (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). Earl Babbie and Jason Edgerton (2024) define a paradigm as “a theoretical perspective including a set of assumptions about reality that guide research questions” (Some Social Science Paradigms section). As a broad framework, a paradigm includes assumptions about the nature of knowledge (a branch of philosophy called epistemology), assumptions about the nature of reality or the way things are (a branch of philosophy called ontology), and assumptions about how we go about solving problems and gathering information (a system of principles or practices collectively known as methodology). The assumptions are interrelated in the sense that how one views the nature of reality (an ontological stance) influences beliefs about one’s relationship to that reality (an epistemological stance) and how one would go about examining that reality (a methodological stance) (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). This will become clearer as we compare the assumptions of four distinct and competing inquiry paradigms.

Positivist Paradigm

French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857) first used the term social physics (later called sociology ) to describe a positivist science of society that could teach us about the social world through research and theorizing (Ritzer & Stepnisky, 2021) . The positivist paradigm is a belief system aimed at discovering universal laws based on the assumption that a singular reality exists independent of individuals and their role in it. Positivism rests on a worldview like that of the natural sciences, which stresses objectivity and truth as discovered through direct empirical methods. In its most extreme form, positivism will accept as knowledge-only events that can verified through sensory experience (Bell et al., 2022). The goal of positivism is to explain events and relationships via a search for antecedent causes that produce outcomes. Within a positivist paradigm, the search for empirical truth begins with what is already known about an area. From that starting point, probable causes are “deduced” using logical reasoning, and then theories are tested for accuracy. Systematic observation and experimental methods are commonly employed modes of inquiry and the data obtained is quantifiable.

Interpretive Paradigm

The interpretive paradigm (also called constructivism) arose in part as a critique of positivism for its failure to recognize the importance of subjectivity in human-centred approaches. The interpretive paradigm worldview rests on the assumption that reality is socially constructed in the form of mental representations created and recreated by people through their experiences and interactions in social contexts (Lincoln et al., 2024). As such, “multiple realities exist” for any given individual (Guba, 1996), and these individual realities are largely “self-created” (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). The focus of the interpretive paradigm is on understanding individuals’ perceptions of reality, including how events and interactions come to have meaning for them, rather than identifying objective phenomena or social facts that exist outside of individuals and relationships. This generally necessitates a qualitative research strategy, such as ethnography, which brings the researcher into close contact with those being studied for prolonged periods of time; as a result, relationships develop and insight is gained from within those relationships. As Palys and Atchison (2014) put it, “good theory is not imposed; rather, it emerges from direct observation and contact with people in context” (p. 23).

Critical Paradigm

Another worldview that emphasizes interpretation and understanding is the critical paradigm . The critical paradigm rests on an assumption that “human nature operates in a world that is based on a struggle for power” (Lincoln et al., 2024, p. 81). The critical paradigm focuses specifically on determining the role power plays in the creation of knowledge, frequently using qualitative strategies. The critical approach is more of a critique concerning how and why particular views become the dominant ones and how privilege and oppression interact, often as the result of defining characteristics such as gender, race and ethnicity, and social class (Lincoln et al., 2024). Beyond examining inequality, there is also an emphasis on “praxis,” whereby scholars provide knowledge that can help to end powerlessness (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2022). To the extent that research can identify ways in which groups are disadvantaged and identify the causes of subordination, it can also be used to help resolve the inequities. Various theoretical perspectives and theories stem from a critical-interpretative stance including feminist inquiry, critical race theory, critical disabilities studies, and queer theory. [1]

Pragmatic Paradigm

Finally, in contrast to the dichotomy between the objectivity of positivism and the subjectivity of interpretive approaches, an impartial outlook is offered by a more recent paradigm called the pragmatic paradigm . The pragmatic view “arises out of actions, situations, and consequences rather than antecedent conditions” and is concerned with “applications—what works—and solutions to problems” (Creswell & Creswell, 2023, p. 11). This problem-centred worldview is not based in any philosophy, nor does it necessitate the use of a certain form of reasoning or research technique. It does, however, emphasize the importance of methodology for solving problems and advocates for the use of combined qualitative and quantitative approaches for a more complete understanding. Historically, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches has proven problematic given the opposing assumptions upon which each approach is based. The pragmatic paradigm offers a solution to the dichotomy. As John W. Creswell and J. David Creswell (2023) note, “pragmatists do not see the world as an absolute unity. In a similar way, mixed methods researchers look to many approaches for collecting and analyzing data rather than subscribing to any one way (e.g., quantitative or qualitative)” (p. 12). Thus, the starting point is the issue or research problem, which itself suggests the most applicable means for further research exploration. Mixed method approaches to research that are grounded in a pragmatic paradigm are discussed in more detail in chapter 11.

Test Yourself

• Which paradigm seeks to discover universal laws?
• Which paradigm is most concerned with objective reality?
• Which paradigm is problem-centred?
• Which paradigm rests on the assumption that reality is socially constructed?

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGES AND RESEARCH PARADIGMS

It is important to note that the paradigms discussed thus far have philosophical and research underpinnings based on dominant Euro-Western modes of thought. Indigenous scholars highlight the value of reclaiming alternative worldviews stemming from the silenced cultural perspectives of groups that are marginalized, underprivileged, and/or have suffered European colonization (e.g., see Battiste, 2000; Belanger & Hanrahan, 2022; Quinless, 2022; Smith, 2021; Warrior, 1995). “ Indigenous knowledges are diverse learning processes that come from living intimately with the land, working with the resources surrounding the land base, and the relationships that it has fostered over time and place. These are physical, social, and spiritual relationships that continue to be the foundations of its world views and ways of knowing that define their relationships with each other and others” (Battiste, 2013, p. 33). These Indigenous, sometimes called “traditional,” knowledges contain a wealth of pragmatic lessons in diverse areas from environmental conservation to cultural protocols and familial relationships.

The loss of language stemming from forced assimilation via structural mechanisms such as residential schools and Eurocentric educational systems poses challenges for the maintenance of Indigenous knowledges, though elders continue to play a vital role in the verification and transmission of Indigenous cultures. Note that researchers and their methods used to research Indigenous knowledges have historically been mainly non-Indigenous, and hence even the discourse of the colonized is shaped “through imperial eyes” (Smith, 2021). By employing decolonized methods, involving Indigenous researchers, including Indigenous peoples as active participants in research processes, listening to the teachings of elders, and recognizing the role that non-Indigenous researchers and Western methodologies have played in shaping the discourse on colonized Others, we can begin to remove the Eurocentric lens. The term colonized Other is used here to refer to Indigenous peoples in Canada who have experienced European colonization, but it can also be used more collectively to include those who are “disenfranchised” and “dispossessed” elsewhere in the world (e.g., those living in marginalized communities in underdeveloped countries) as described by Chilisa (2020, p. 9).

Decolonization is not one type of methodology but rather is “a process of conducting research in such a way that the worldviews of those who have suffered a long history of oppression and marginalization are given space to communicate from their frames of reference” (Chilisa, 2020, p. 11). For example, instead of asking volunteers to complete a questionnaire worded by the researcher to learn about participants’ views and experiences as prescribed by traditional social science methods, a former student of one of the authors named Reith Charlesworth (2016) spent several months developing relationships and establishing trust with program attendees before participating in a sharing circle she co-facilitated with an Indigenous social worker. The sharing circle included a feast and provided the opportunity for women to tell stories that ultimately helped Reith better understand social and structural barriers experienced by young Indigenous mothers in a parenting program at iHuman Youth Society in Edmonton, Alberta. [2]

Since Indigenous knowledge structures encompass a dynamic array of beliefs and lived experiences held by various individuals identifying with vastly different tribal groups in many different locations, it is difficult to identify common features. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization defines local and Indigenous knowledge as the

understandings, skills and philosophies developed by societies with long histories of interaction with their natural surroundings. For rural and Indigenous Peoples, local knowledge informs decision-making about fundamental aspects of day-to-day life. This knowledge is integral to a cultural complex that also encompasses language, systems of classification, resource use practices, social interactions, ritual and spirituality.” (UNESCO, 2024)

In her book on Indigenous methodologies, Margaret Kovach (2021) explains:

The scope and basis of an Indigenous epistemology encompasses: multiple sources of knowledge, more commonly recognized as holism (scope); a tangible and intangible animate world that is process oriented and cyclical, such as that expressed in verb-oriented language (e.g., with ing endings), which comprise many Indigenous languages (basis); and a web of interdependent, contextual, relationships over time, such as with place, family and community (basis)(p. 68).

Whereas the aim of a positivist paradigm is to discover universal laws, an Indigenous research paradigm seeks to challenge colonized ways of thinking and to employ decolonized research methods that enable a respectful reclaiming of Indigenous cultures and knowledges. Because Indigenous knowledges are largely maintained through oral transmission and cultural practices, Indigenous methodologies also include ceremonies and formal protocols, and they are amenable to narrative inquiry as in the case of sharing circles and storytelling (Kovach, 2021). When it comes to employing Indigenous research methods, the fundamental point to remember is that the research process and the resulting data and knowledge stemming from it are integrally based on “relational actions”—that is, the personal relationships and connections that are formed with Indigenous communities based on trust (Kovach, 2021).

• What are Indigenous knowledges?
• In research, what does decolonization mean?

Activity: Understanding Research Paradigms

Theoretical frameworks and theories.

Positivist, interpretive, critical, and pragmatic paradigms all offer a broad worldview from which theoretical frameworks emerge. Theoretical frameworks are perspectives based on core assumptions that provide a foundation for examining the social world at different levels. Theoretical frameworks that operate at the macro level tend to focus on “larger social forces,” while those dealing with the micro level are aimed at understanding “individual experiences” (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2022, p. 4).

Within the discipline of sociology, the functionalist, conflict, interactionist, feminist, and postmodern frameworks provide different lenses from which we can view society. The functionalist framework is a macro-level perspective that views society as being made up of certain structures—such as the family, education, and religion—that are essential for maintaining social order and stability. For example, a primary function of the family is to provide for the social, emotional, and economic well-being of its members and to serve as a key agent of socialization. The functionalist framework is rooted in positivism in its focus on observables in the form of social facts and universal truths. The conflict framework is also a macro-level perspective, but it is rooted in the critical paradigm in its examination of power and its emphasis on the prevalence of inequality in society as groups compete for scarce resources. Karl Marx (1818–1883), considered a key founder of this perspective, emphasized the central role of the economy in the creation of conflict and explained how workers in society are exploited and alienated under systems of capitalism (Ritzer & Stepnisky, 2021).

The symbolic interactionist framework is a micro-level perspective attributed to the early work of sociologists George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) and Herbert Blumer (1900–1987). The symbolic interactionist framework depicts society as consisting of individuals engaged in a variety of communications based on shared understandings (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2022). The emphasis here is on how individuals create meaning using symbols and language. Note how this framework emerges from interpretivism, with its emphasis on the importance of subjective meaning for individuals that is constructed and interpreted within interactions. For example, although two siblings in a familial union understand and relate to each other based on common features, such as a shared language and upbringing, they also each experience and recall events somewhat differently, based on their unique perspectives and relations toward one another. The symbolic interactionist perspective often guides qualitative researchers as they design strategies for uncovering meaning in groups and contexts.

With roots in the critical paradigm, the feminist framework [3]   rests on the premise that men and women should be treated equal in all facets of social life (e.g., family, employment, law, and policy). The feminist framework includes a diverse range of perspectives (e.g., radical, socialist, post-colonial), operates at both the micro and macro levels, and is especially helpful in demonstrating ways in which society is structured by gender and how gender roles differentially impact males and females. For example, feminist scholars are quick to point out that women in relationships with men continue to adhere to traditional gender role expectations, doing more than their share of housework and experiencing less free time compared to their partners (e.g., Bianchi, 2011; Guppy & Luongo, 2015). Even in egalitarian relationships (based on equality in principle) where both partners are Canadian academics working outside of the home, women assume more of the caregiving and household obligations at the expense of work-life balance (Wilton & Ross, 2017). COVID-19 exacerbated  gender inequalities with Canadian women spending close to 50 hours per week more than men on childcare during the pandemic (Johnston et al., 2020).

Finally, emerging post-World War II, the postmodern framework emphasizes the ways in which society has changed dramatically, particularly in relation to technological advances. The postmodern framework speaks out against singular monolithic structures and forces. It traces the intersectional features of inequality, including race, class, and gender, and focuses specifically on the effects of the digital age. This framework complicates dualistic boundaries between the micro and macro (arguing that they are one and the same) and calls into question the singular truths of earlier frameworks such as Marxism and functionalism. Postmodern perspectives are especially helping in guiding research in areas of media literacy, globalization, and environmental studies.

Drilling down another layer, within broader theoretical perspectives, we can locate particular theories . Within the functionalist framework, for example, we find Robert Merton’s (1938) strain theory of deviance, which explains how people adapt when there is a discrepancy between societal goals (what we are supposed to aspire to) and the legitimate means for obtaining them. Or, within the symbolic interactionist perspective, we can locate Edwin Lemert’s (1951) labelling theory of deviance, which explains a process whereby people may come to view themselves as lifelong deviants. Theories are discussed in more detail in the next section.

THE ROLE OF THEORY IN RESEARCH

A theory “is a set of propositions intended to explain a fact or a phenomenon” (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2022, p. 9). The propositions are usually expressed as statements that reflect the main assumptions of the theory. For example, Edwin Sutherland’s (1947) differential association theory is a theory about crime, and it is explained in nine propositions. To give you a sense of the theory, the first proposition is that “criminal behaviour is learned”; the second is that “criminal behaviour is learned in interactions with other persons in a process of communication” (p. 6). Taken together, the propositions in differential association theory explain how crime is learned through interactions with others in much the same way as non-criminal behaviour is learned. That is, members of small groups with whom we spend time and who we feel are important may teach us the techniques and motives needed to develop criminal tendencies.

Deductive Forms of Reasoning

Theory doesn’t happen in isolation from research; it can both inform the research process and develop from it. Theory that informs the research process is known as deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is a “theory-driven approach that typically concludes with [empirical] generalizations based on research findings” (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2022, p. 26). A deductive approach to social research is often a “top-down” linear one that begins with a research idea that is grounded in theory. A hypothesis or “testable research statement that includes at least two variables” is derived from the theory and this sets the stage for data collection (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2022, p. 29). A variable is a “categorical concept for properties of people or entities that can differ and change” (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2022, pp. 25–26; as discussed in more detail in chapter 4). In a study on crime, criminal behaviour (e.g., the presence or absence of it) or a certain type of crime is likely to be a main variable of interest, along with another variable regularly associated with crime, such as age, sex, or race. For example, based on a theory of aggression, a hypothesis could be that men are more likely than women to commit physical assaults.

Activity: Deductive Research Process

Testing hypotheses derived from theories.

Based on the tenets of Sutherland’s (1947) differential association theory, Reiss and Rhodes (1964) “deduced” that delinquent boys are likely to engage in the same acts of deviance as their closest friends, since these are the people from whom they learn the techniques, motives, and definitions favourable to committing crimes. Specifically, they tested a hypothesis that the probability of an individual committing a delinquent act (e.g., auto theft, an assault, and vandalism) would be dependent upon his two closest friends also committing that act. The researchers looked at six different delinquent acts among 299 triads (i.e., groups of three), wherein each boy reported on his delinquency and indicated whether he committed the act alone or in the presence of others. In support of the theory, Reiss and Rhodes (1964) found that boys who committed delinquent acts were more likely to have close friends that committed the same acts. Figure 2.2 summarizes the logic of a typical research process based on deductive reasoning.

Inductive Forms of Reasoning

An inductive reasoning approach is more “bottom-up,” beginning with observations and ending with the discovery of patterns and themes that are usually informed by theory or help establish and thereby “induce” new theory (see figure 2.3).

For example, Lowe and McClement (2011) examined the experience of spousal bereavement through interviews with young Canadian women whose husbands passed away. Over the course of data collection, the researchers identified various common themes including “elements of losses” such as the loss of companionship and the loss of hopes and dreams for the future. They also identified a notion of “who am I?” as the widows relayed their attempts to redefine themselves as single, in relation to other men, with their friends, and as single parents. Although the lived experience of young Canadian widows as a specific group of interest had not been previously explored, the researchers interpreted their findings within the context of previous studies and theoretical frameworks, such as Bowman’s (1997) earlier research on facing the loss of dreams and Shaffer’s (1993) dissertation research on rebuilding identity following the loss of a spouse. Lowe and McClement (2011) also identified the importance of making connections through memories as a means of adapting, suggesting a direction for additional research and the potential for an eventual theory on the development of relationships following the loss of a spouse.

The Role of Theory in Quantitative and Qualitative Research

Note that the role and use of theory differs depending on whether the study is quantitative (i.e., based on deductive reasoning) or qualitative (i.e., based on inductive reasoning). Recall from chapter 1 that qualitative research often seeks to provide an in-depth understanding of a research issue from the perspective of those who are affected first-hand. The research process begins with an interest in an area such as cannabis use and a research question (e.g., What do parents perceive their role to be in the education of cannabis use?). Data collection is often undertaken through a technique such as qualitative interviews, where researchers ask open-ended questions to learn as much as possible from interviewees. For example, Haines-Saah et al. (2018) asked parents of adolescent drug users what their experiences were like talking to their children about drug use. Theory is usually brought into an analysis to help make sense of the responses collected. In some cases, new theory develops out of the research findings. The “discovery of theory from data systematically obtained from social research” is better known as grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 2007, p. 2) since it is intricately linked to the data and context within which it developed. In most instances of qualitative research, theory plays a central role at various stages (e.g., in the formulation of the research question, in the initial stages of data coding, and especially toward the end of the data-analysis process). Findings from the cannabis study were interpreted in theoretical frameworks of risk and responsibility, as parents discussed cannabis use largely from a health narrative of drugs negatively impacting a developing brain or a blame narrative where parents viewed themselves as the primary agents of prevention (Haines-Saah et al., 2018).

In contrast, theory is the starting point for most quantitative studies. On one hand, a theory provides a set of interrelated ideas that organize the existing knowledge in a meaningful way and help to explain it (Cozby et al., 2020). For example, demographic transition theory helps to identify universal stages of population change as countries progress from pre-industrial societies through to post-industrial economies (Landry, 1934; Notestein, 1945). In countries characterized by the more advanced industrial stage of development, birth rates are low, corresponding to people having fewer children due to various considerations (e.g., birth control, female participation in the workforce, reliance on exported manufactured goods, greater emphasis on higher educational attainment). Despite the specificity of economic and social issues that vary from one country to the next, we can still identify broader commonalities such a declining birth rate coupled with an already low death rate in all countries that have reached the industrial stage of development, including Canada. Hence, this early theory is still useful today for explaining differences between countries in early industrial, industrial, and post-industrial stages of development.

In addition, a theory provides a focal point that draws our attention to issues and events in a manner that helps to generate new interest and knowledge (Cozby et al., 2020). For example, conflict theorists showed us how capitalism and its focus on economic productivity is linked to major environmental issues, including the high extraction of natural resources and the high accumulation of waste (Schnaiberg, 1980). Schnaiberg’s early framing of capitalism as a “treadmill of production” spawned additional interest in the study of modern industry, highlighting ways in which environmental issues are constructed as “proeconomic” measures in part because of alliances formed between capitalists, workers, and the state (Gould et al., 2008). Conflict theorists also direct our attention to the capitalist “treadmill of accumulation,” which, in its reliance on ever-increasing amounts of expansion and exploitation, renders attempts at sustainable capitalism largely unattainable from an environmental standpoint (Foster et al., 2010). With ongoing concerns about carbon emissions, conflict theorists are now asking the question: How much is enough? suggesting we need to aim for carbon minimalism through efforts at simplicity and sufficiency if we hope to tackle the climate crisis (Alter, 2024).

On the other hand, using theory as a starting point necessitates the development of specific propositions and the prior classifications of key concepts and assumptions before data collection begins. As Mathew David and Carole D. Sutton (2011) explain,

there are advantages and disadvantages here. Those who seek to classify their qualities prior to data collection can be accused of imposing their own priorities, while those who seek to allow classifications to emerge during the research process are thereby unable to use the data collection period to test their subsequent theories. They too can then be accused of imposing their own priorities because it is hard to confirm or disprove their interpretations as no ‘testing’ has been done. (p. 92)

You will learn more about the criteria used to evaluate research in chapter 4. For now, consider that both approaches, while different, have equal merit and drawbacks. Inductive and deductive approaches are probably best viewed as different components of the same research cycle, with some researchers beginning with theories and ending with observations, and others doing the reverse (Wallace, 1971).

Research on the Net

Classical Social  Theory Course

Classical social theory remains highly relevant today, guiding and informing the research of social scientists around the world. Professors at the University of Amsterdam have developed a free online course on Classical Social Theory for anyone interested in learning more about the works of influential social science theorists from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim.

• What is theory?
• What does a hypothesis contain?
• In what ways is a research process based on deductive reasoning different from one based on inductive reasoning?
• How do the role and use of theory differ in a qualitative versus quantitative study?
• What is grounded theory?

FORMULATING RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Although most of this chapter has focused on the role of theory for guiding the development of research and helping to inform research outcomes, research begins even before this, with a general area of interest. Every research study begins with a topic of interest. As a general worldview can be narrowed into a specific theory, a general area of interest can be shaped into a specific research question. Think about the last time you were asked to write an essay on a topic of interest or if you are considering continuing your studies into graduate school, what a general area of interest might entail. For a student in sociology, a broad area of interest could be the family, gender and sexualities, deviance, globalization, or social inequality. A student in psychology is more likely to consider the areas of developmental psychology, cognition, neuropsychology, or clinical testing, to name a few. Someone in anthropology may have a starting interest that lends itself more to archaeology, physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, or linguistics.

Locating a Topic of Interest

Within a broad area of interest, there are topics or issues that are focus points for research. For example, a sociologist specializing in social inequality might wish to learn more about the distribution of poverty in Canada or the barriers to housing experienced by those who are homeless. A developmental psychologist may be studying the intellectual, emotional, or perceptual development of children. Someone in anthropological linguistics might be interested in the evolution of language dialects or the loss of a mother tongue over time. Regardless of the topic you choose, your research interest is likely to centre on social groups (e.g., homeless people, children with developmental delays, Indigenous peoples who speak an endangered language) or social structures, policies, and processes that affect groups (e.g., barriers to housing, definitions of poverty, cannabis legislation, health benefit coverage).

Framing an Interest into a Social Research Question

Recall from chapter 1 that a social research question is designed to explore, describe, explain, or critically evaluate a topic of interest. This means as you develop your topic of interest, you need to consider how the wording of the question suggests the most appropriate course of action for answering it. A social research question is “a question about the social world that one seeks to answer through the collection and analysis of firsthand, verifiable, empirical data” (Schutt, 2022, p. 33). A question beginning with “What is it like to …” often implies an exploratory purpose, inductive reasoning, and a qualitative research method. A question beginning with “Why” may presuppose a search for causes, and this is generally undertaken for an explanatory purpose based on deductive reasoning and a quantitative method, such as an experiment. Alternatively, “Why” might also imply inductive reasoning that is designed to get the essence of a first-hand experience using a qualitative approach. Research questions that are designed to evaluate a program or service are likely to be formulated along the lines of “Is this working?” Program evaluations are often based on qualitative methods, but the approaches and methods vary considerably and may include mixed methods, depending on the nature of the program or policy. Descriptive studies, often resting on a research question such as “What are its main features?” tend to be heavily represented in the quantitative realm (especially when the data are gathered through surveys). However, like evaluation research, descriptive studies are amenable to qualitative methods, especially in the case of field observation, which can produce highly descriptive forms of data.

Framing an interest is not a process that occurs instantly; rather it is one that you develop over time, eventually shaping your interest into a manageable research question that will direct a study that contributes to the existing body of knowledge. You will need to start with a general area, select a topic, issue, or focus within that area, and then look at the literature before refining your topic into a central social research question. Figure 2.4 provides two examples of the progression from a general area to a more specific question.

• What does a research study begin with?
• What is a social research question?

THE IMPORTANCE OF A LITERATURE REVIEW

If you plan to conduct research, you will need to be familiar with what is already known about your research interest before you finalize your research question. It is important that you at least examine the literature relevant to your topic of interest before you commit to a specific research question. You are likely to modify your research question once you learn more about the topic from a literature review.

A literature review is essential for these reasons:

• First, a literature review tells you how much has already been done in this area. For example, if you are interested in carrying out a study on the portrayal of gender stereotypes in the media, it is important for you to know that you are going to be delving into an area that has been heavily researched for decades. There are literally millions of previous studies on the gender stereotypes in movies, on television, in magazines, and on the internet. In this case, your research question would not be exploratory in nature. One of your next steps with this topic would be to narrow your focus (e.g., perhaps you are more interested in male stereotypes portrayed in magazine advertisements).
• Second, a literature review helps familiarize you with what is already known in the area. Continuing with an interest in stereotyped depictions of males, the literature can help you learn more about the construction of masculinity and how the male body is depicted in advertising. For example, Mishkind, Rodin, Silberstein, & Striegel-Moore (1986) note that advertising has increasingly come to celebrate a young, lean, and highly muscular body. This helps you choose an area that most interests you and that you can build upon with your own research (or that you can identify for an area of future research).
• Third, a literature review helps you understand the debates and main points of interest within an area of study. Existing literature can inform you about how the portrayal of gender stereotypes in the media can lead people to become dissatisfied with their body image or engage in extreme practices and measures designed to obtain an ideal body image (e.g., dieting, fitness, cosmetic surgery). The literature can also help you understand similarities and differences in the ways in which men and women are portrayed, or how depictions of men have changed over time. These considerations may further shape the direction you elect to take with a current or future research project.
• Fourth, a literature review highlights what still needs to be done in an area of interest. By examining previous research, you can find out researchers’ suggestions for additional studies, where replications would be helpful, or areas that still need to be addressed. The discussion section at the end of most academic articles typically includes a few sentences that explicitly address how the current study could have been improved upon and/or point out a direction for future research. This is where you will obtain a sense of how you could design a study that builds on the existing literature but also contributes something new.
• Lastly, a literature review can help you define important theories and concepts as well as establish guidelines for how you will need to carry out your own study . For example, if you wish to clarify how male bodies are shown in magazine advertisements, it would be practical to locate examples by other researchers that have already established standard ways to describe and code the body of a central character in an advertisement appearing in magazines.

Research is a conversation

As the following video illustrates, when you are tasked with coming up with a research question, it is important to remember that you are entering into a discussion with other academics who have come before you.

Research is a Conversation by UNLV University Libraries is licensed under CC BY-NC . [Video transcript –  See Appendix D 2.1 ]

In what ways is a literature review essential in the development of a research question?

LOCATING RELEVANT LITERATURE

Resist the temptation to simply search the public internet with your preferred browser for any available resources you can find on your topic of interest. Search engines like Google prioritize links that are from paid sponsors, so the resources that appear first are likely not the most relevant or even appropriate references for your area of interest. Meanwhile, many of the research articles you find using a search engine like Google are behind a paywall requiring that you pay to read more relevant content published by academic publishers. In addition to commercial interests, the public internet also suffers from a lack of quality control; the information you glean from web pages you find on the internet can be obsolete, and worse, fraught with errors.

The best sources of information for a literature review include periodicals, books, and book chapters located in or accessed through a library in a post-secondary institution. You can probably browse an online catalogue system for your post-secondary institution’s library from any computer, if you can access the internet and you are officially registered as a student.

Searching for Books

Books are especially useful when researching specific theories, research methodologies, and the historic context of a topic. Sometimes edited volumes of books contain short research papers written by different authors, which can also be useful when conducting academic research. The search engine on your library’s home page is where you can find books (including eBooks). If you know the title of the book you are looking for, simply type the title into the search box. Putting the title in quotes (e.g., “The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada”) will locate that exact title in the results if it is available. If you instead want to explore what is out there on your topic, enter some relevant keywords. In library databases you will want to put an AND  between each different keyword that you search for. For example, if you try searching for a book using the combined keywords male AND stereotypes , you will probably locate a list of starting resources. If there are more than 50 books on this topic, you might try male AND stereotypes AND media to narrow your search a bit further. You can also search for words with similar meanings by putting an OR  between the terms that you use in brackets, for instance, (male OR masculine OR masculinity) AND stereotypes AND media . After doing a search, most library catalogues will give you options to the left of your results to limit to just books or eBooks, as well as limiting by publication date and to books on general subject areas.

Searching for Periodicals

Periodicals (including magazines, newspapers, and scholarly journals) are publications that contain articles written by different authors. Periodicals are released  periodically at regular intervals such as daily, weekly, monthly, semi-annually, or annually. Popular press periodicals (e.g., Maclean’s, Reader’s Digest , newspapers, and news websites) contain articles that are less scientific and more general-interest focused than scholarly articles published in peer-reviewed periodicals. Scholarly journals published by academic and professional organizations (e.g., universities) are the form of periodical most often cited by your instructors as credible sources for you to use in writing essays and research reports. Scholarly journals contain articles on basic research authored by academics and researchers with expertise in their respective areas. Articles found in scholarly journals have undergone considerable scrutiny in a competitive selection process that rests on peer review and evaluation prior to publication. This helps to ensure that only up-to-date, high-quality research based on sound practices makes it to the publication stage. Examples of Canadian sociological periodicals include the Canadian Journal of Sociology and the Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology . Note that there are hundreds of periodicals spanning a range of related disciplines (e.g., Canadian Journal of Criminology , Canadian Journal of Economics , Canadian Journal of Political Science , and Canadian Psychology ) and more specialized topics (e.g., Sex Roles , Child Abuse and Neglect , Contemporary Drug Problems , Educational Gerontology ).

Similar to books, in many cases, you can access journals online using the search box on a university library’s homepage or through a database available on a library’s website. If an article is available in “full text,” you can usually download the entire article onto a storage device, so you can later retrieve it for further reading. Comprehensive databases for locating articles on research in the social sciences include Social Sciences Citation Index (part of Web of Science), Academic Search Complete, PsychINFO, SocINDEX, Sociological Abstracts, Criminal Justice Abstracts, and Anthropology Plus. For example, Academic Search Complete is dubbed one of the most comprehensive multidiscipline full-text databases, containing 5,812 full-text journals and magazines on a range of subjects, including psychology, religion, and philosophy (EBSCO Information Services, 2024).

Searching for Government Information

Depending on your research topic, you may find it helpful to reference research findings and statistics provided by governments. Governments at all levels hire researchers to conduct research on a range of topics to help inform public policy and address societal issues. This is one case where you will have to search for information that is available publicly on the internet. Websites like Statistics Canada and Government of Canada Publications contain a lot of content, however, and can be difficult to search. One strategy that can help with this is to perform a site search using Google. Simply enter site:  into Google followed by the domain of the website you would like to search along with relevant keywords to locate information on that site containing those words. For instance, site:statcan.gc.ca affordable housing  will locate statistics and analysis on housing needs available through Statistics Canada.

Research in Action

Fact Checking and Source Evaluation 

It is not enough to simply locate sources of information on an area of interest and assume that you have appropriate materials for learning about the area of interest. While academic journals undergo a peer-review process that helps to provide a check on the quality, accuracy, and currency of the published materials, the internet has little or no quality control. If you use the internet to find sources of information, such as webpages with links to various articles and other resources, it is important to evaluate that information before using it to inform your research.

SIFT & PICK 

Librarians at MacEwan University Library (2023) suggest you assess the quality of information you find through this SIFT and PICK strategy:

Review the Library’s SIFT and PICK handout [PDF] to learn more.

AFP Fact Check is a department within a larger news agency called Agence France-Press (AFP) dedicated to verifying and providing accurate news coverage. Here, you can find trending stories and search for topics such as “vaccination” to locate the most recent forms of misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine reported as news.  Visit AFP Canada for exclusively Canadian coverage.

• What are the best sources of information for a literature review?

CHAPTER SUMMARY

• Outline the main assumptions of positivist, interpretative, critical, and pragmatic paradigms. The positivist paradigm emphasizes objectivity and the importance of discovering truth using empirical methods. The interpretive paradigm stresses the importance of subjective understanding and discovering meaning as it exists for the people experiencing it. The critical paradigm focuses on the role of power in the creation of knowledge. The pragmatic paradigm begins with a research problem and determines a course of action for studying it based on what seems most appropriate given that research problem.
• Explain why decolonization is necessary for learning about Indigenous knowledges. For Indigenous knowledges to be derived from Indigenous sources in an authentic and respectful manner, those who have suffered colonization need to be given the space to communicate on their own terms from their frames of reference, as opposed to trying to obtain information via research methods that are based on Euro-Western influences.
• Define and differentiate between theoretical frameworks and theories. Theoretical frameworks are perspectives based on core assumptions that provide a foundation for examining the social world at different levels. For example, theoretical frameworks at the macro level tend to focus on broader social forces, while those at the micro level emphasize individual experiences. Theories develop from theoretical perspectives, and they include propositions that are intended to explain a fact or phenomenon of interest.
• Distinguish between deductive and inductive reasoning and explain how the role of theory differs in qualitative and quantitative research. Deductive reasoning is a top-down, theory-driven approach that concludes with generalizations based on research findings. Inductive reasoning is a bottom-up approach that begins with observations and typically ends with theory construction. Inductive approaches to reasoning guide qualitative research processes, while deductive approaches guide the stages of quantitative research. Theory tends to be the starting point for quantitative research, while it is interspersed throughout and emphasized more in the later stages of qualitative research.
• Formulate social research questions. Based on a broad area of interest and a careful literature review, a researcher eventually shapes a research interest into a social research question, which is a question about the social world that is answered through the collection and analysis of data. For example, a researcher might begin with an interest in gender that develops into an examination of the effects of body size on income for male and female workers, as demonstrated earlier in the chapter.
• Explain the importance of a literature review. A literature review is the starting point for formulating social research questions. A literature review helps to identify what is already known about and still needs to be done in an area of interest. A literature review also points out debates and issues in an area of interest, along with the most relevant concepts and means for going about studying the issue in more depth.
• Locate appropriate literature and evaluate sources of information found on the internet. Appropriate literature sources include periodicals, books, and government documents, most of which can be accessed online through the library at post-secondary institutions. You should evaluate the quality of information gleaned from websites prior to using that information as a primary source in a literature review. Evaluating information on the internet generally takes the form of asking questions that centre on the source, timeliness, accuracy, and relevance of the site. For example, in assessing accuracy, you can ask “Is the information free of spelling, grammatical, and technical errors?” and “Where did the information come from?”

RESEARCH REFLECTION

• Read Margaret Kovach’s (2018) chapter titled Doing Indigenous methodologies: A letter to a research class in N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (5th ed., pp. 108–150). Sage. Based on your reading, explain why the author claims it is not possible to do Indigenous methodologies. Also note the ways in which Indigenous methodologies are relational in nature.
• Identify a general area of interest to you. Within that area of interest, develop two social research questions—one that implies an exploratory purpose and one that implies an explanatory purpose. Which paradigm introduced at the beginning of the chapter do you think best represents the research questions you developed? Explain why this is the case.
• In what ways is an article found in a scholarly journal likely to be more appropriate as a reference source for a research topic than one located using a search engine such as Bing or Google?

LEARNING THROUGH PRACTICE

Objective: To assess information on the internet

Directions:

• Use Google to locate a website that contains relevant information on a topic of interest.
• Who created the site and what are their credentials?
• What are the qualifications of authors associated with the site?
• Is it possible to verify the accuracy of any of the claims made on this site?
• Is an educational purpose for this site evident?
• Is the site objective (or free from bias)?
• Is the site free of advertisements?
• Can you tell when the site was created?
• Was the site updated recently?
• Are there properly cited references on the site?
• Are there any errors on site (e.g., spelling, grammatical)?
• What rating would you give this site out of 100, if 100 percent is “perfect” and 0 stands for “without any merit.” Explain why you think the site deserves this rating based on the questions listed above.

RESEARCH RESOURCES

• To learn more about social theorists and the underpinnings of social theory, refer to Ritzer, G., and Stepnisky, J. (2021). S ociological theory (11th ed.). Sage.
• For an introduction to Indigenous ways of knowing, as well as historical and contemporary issues involving Canada’s First Peoples, refer to Belanger, Y. D. and Hanrahan, M. (2022). Ways of knowing: An introduction to Indigenous studies in Canada (4th ed.). Top Hat.
• To learn about decolonizing strategies and the potential for Indigenizing education, read Cote-Meek, S., and Moeke-Pickering, T. (2020). Decolonizing and Indigenizing education in Canada . Canadian Scholars Press.
• To learn how Indigenous knowledge structures inform research conducted by Indigenous scholars, see Kovach, M. (2021). Indigenous methodologies: Characteristics, conversations and contexts . University of Toronto Press.
• For more information on feminist inquiry, critical race theory, critical disabilities studies, and queer theory , refer to The Sage handbook of qualitative research (6th ed.) (2024), edited by Norman K. Denzin, Yvonna S. Lincoln, Michael D. Giardina, and Gaile S. Cannella. ↵
• The sharing circle was part of a larger community-based project carried out by Reith Charlesworth during the winter of 2016, under the supervision of Brianna Olson, an Anishnaabe (First Nations) Métis woman/social worker who was iHuman’s program manager, and Dr. Alissa Overend, Reith’s research mentor at MacEwan University. Dr. Diane Symbaluk taught the foundational research methods course for this project in the fall of 2015 and set up/oversaw student placements as the faculty coordinator for the 2015–2016 calendar year. ↵
• An in-depth discussion of feminist perspectives is beyond the scope of this book. To learn about feminist standpoints and their relationships to research methodology, I recommend The handbook of feminist research: Theory and praxis (2nd ed.), edited by Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber (2012). For insight into conceptions of power, refer to The Power of Feminist Theory: Domination, Resistance, Solidarity , by Amy Allen (1999). ↵

A theoretical perspective including a set of assumptions about reality that guide research questions.

A worldview that upholds the importance of discovering truth through direct experience using empirical methods.

A worldview that rests on the assumption that reality is socially constructed and must be understood from the perspective of those experiencing it.

A worldview that is critical of paradigms that fail to acknowledge the role of power in the creation of knowledge and that is aimed at bringing about empowering change.

A worldview that rests on the assumption that reality is best understood in terms of the practical consequences of actions undertaken to solve problems.

Diverse learning processes that come from living intimately with the land and working with the resources surrounding the land base and the relationships that it has fostered over time and place.

A process of conducting research in such a way that the worldview of those who have suffered a long history of oppression and marginalization are given space to communicate from their frames of reference.

A perspective based on core assumptions.

The level of broader social forces.

The level of individual experiences and choices.

A set of propositions intended to explain a fact or phenomenon.

A theory-driven approach that typically concludes with empirical generalizations based on research findings.

A testable statement that contains at least two variables.

A categorical concept for properties of people or events that can differ and change.

A bottom-up approach beginning with observations and ending with the discovery of patterns and themes informed by theory.

Theory discovered from the systematic observation and analysis of data.

A question about the social world that is answered through the collection and analysis of first-hand, verifiable, empirical data.

Publications that contain articles written by different authors and are released at regular intervals.

Research Methods: Exploring the Social World in Canadian Context Copyright © 2024 by Diane Symbaluk & Robyn Hall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What is a literature review?

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

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

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

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

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1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

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

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

2. Decide on the scope of your review

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

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

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

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

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

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

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

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

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

Tips: 

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

Description.

A literature review, also called a review article or review of literature, surveys the existing research on a topic. The term "literature" in this context refers to published research or scholarship in a particular discipline, rather than "fiction" (like American Literature) or an individual work of literature. In general, literature reviews are most common in the sciences and social sciences.

Literature reviews may be written as standalone works, or as part of a scholarly article or research paper. In either case, the purpose of the review is to summarize and synthesize the key scholarly work that has already been done on the topic at hand. The literature review may also include some analysis and interpretation. A literature review is  not  a summary of every piece of scholarly research on a topic.

Why are literature reviews useful?

Literature reviews can be very helpful for newer researchers or those unfamiliar with a field by synthesizing the existing research on a given topic, providing the reader with connections and relationships among previous scholarship. Reviews can also be useful to veteran researchers by identifying potentials gaps in the research or steering future research questions toward unexplored areas. If a literature review is part of a scholarly article, it should include an explanation of how the current article adds to the conversation. (From: https://researchguides.drake.edu/englit/criticism)

How is a literature review different from a research article?

Research articles: "are empirical articles that describe one or several related studies on a specific, quantitative, testable research question....they are typically organized into four text sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion." Source: https://psych.uw.edu/storage/writing_center/litrev.pdf)

Steps for Writing a Literature Review

1. Identify and define the topic that you will be reviewing.

The topic, which is commonly a research question (or problem) of some kind, needs to be identified and defined as clearly as possible.  You need to have an idea of what you will be reviewing in order to effectively search for references and to write a coherent summary of the research on it.  At this stage it can be helpful to write down a description of the research question, area, or topic that you will be reviewing, as well as to identify any keywords that you will be using to search for relevant research.

2. Conduct a Literature Search

Use a range of keywords to search databases such as PsycINFO and any others that may contain relevant articles.  You should focus on peer-reviewed, scholarly articles . In SuperSearch and most databases, you may find it helpful to select the Advanced Search mode and include "literature review" or "review of the literature" in addition to your other search terms.  Published books may also be helpful, but keep in mind that peer-reviewed articles are widely considered to be the “gold standard” of scientific research.  Read through titles and abstracts, select and obtain articles (that is, download, copy, or print them out), and save your searches as needed. Most of the databases you will need are linked to from the Cowles Library Psychology Research guide .

3. Read through the research that you have found and take notes.

Absorb as much information as you can.  Read through the articles and books that you have found, and as you do, take notes.  The notes should include anything that will be helpful in advancing your own thinking about the topic and in helping you write the literature review (such as key points, ideas, or even page numbers that index key information).  Some references may turn out to be more helpful than others; you may notice patterns or striking contrasts between different sources; and some sources may refer to yet other sources of potential interest.  This is often the most time-consuming part of the review process.  However, it is also where you get to learn about the topic in great detail. You may want to use a Citation Manager to help you keep track of the citations you have found. 

4. Organize your notes and thoughts; create an outline.

At this stage, you are close to writing the review itself.  However, it is often helpful to first reflect on all the reading that you have done.  What patterns stand out?  Do the different sources converge on a consensus?  Or not?  What unresolved questions still remain?  You should look over your notes (it may also be helpful to reorganize them), and as you do, to think about how you will present this research in your literature review.  Are you going to summarize or critically evaluate?  Are you going to use a chronological or other type of organizational structure?  It can also be helpful to create an outline of how your literature review will be structured.

5. Write the literature review itself and edit and revise as needed.

The final stage involves writing.  When writing, keep in mind that literature reviews are generally characterized by a  summary style  in which prior research is described sufficiently to explain critical findings but does not include a high level of detail (if readers want to learn about all the specific details of a study, then they can look up the references that you cite and read the original articles themselves).  However, the degree of emphasis that is given to individual studies may vary (more or less detail may be warranted depending on how critical or unique a given study was).   After you have written a first draft, you should read it carefully and then edit and revise as needed.  You may need to repeat this process more than once.  It may be helpful to have another person read through your draft(s) and provide feedback.

6. Incorporate the literature review into your research paper draft. (note: this step is only if you are using the literature review to write a research paper. Many times the literature review is an end unto itself).

After the literature review is complete, you should incorporate it into your research paper (if you are writing the review as one component of a larger paper).  Depending on the stage at which your paper is at, this may involve merging your literature review into a partially complete Introduction section, writing the rest of the paper around the literature review, or other processes.

These steps were taken from: https://psychology.ucsd.edu/undergraduate-program/undergraduate-resources/academic-writing-resources/writing-research-papers/writing-lit-review.html#6.-Incorporate-the-literature-r

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2.3 Reviewing the Research Literature

Learning objectives.

• Define the research literature in psychology and give examples of sources that are part of the research literature and sources that are not.
• Describe and use several methods for finding previous research on a particular research idea or question.

Reviewing the research literature means finding, reading, and summarizing the published research relevant to your question. An empirical research report written in American Psychological Association (APA) style always includes a written literature review, but it is important to review the literature early in the research process for several reasons.

• It can help you turn a research idea into an interesting research question.
• It can tell you if a research question has already been answered.
• It can help you evaluate the interestingness of a research question.
• It can give you ideas for how to conduct your own study.
• It can tell you how your study fits into the research literature.

What Is the Research Literature?

The research literature in any field is all the published research in that field. The research literature in psychology is enormous—including millions of scholarly articles and books dating to the beginning of the field—and it continues to grow. Although its boundaries are somewhat fuzzy, the research literature definitely does not include self-help and other pop psychology books, dictionary and encyclopedia entries, websites, and similar sources that are intended mainly for the general public. These are considered unreliable because they are not reviewed by other researchers and are often based on little more than common sense or personal experience. Wikipedia contains much valuable information, but the fact that its authors are anonymous and its content continually changes makes it unsuitable as a basis of sound scientific research. For our purposes, it helps to define the research literature as consisting almost entirely of two types of sources: articles in professional journals, and scholarly books in psychology and related fields.

Professional Journals

Professional journals are periodicals that publish original research articles. There are thousands of professional journals that publish research in psychology and related fields. They are usually published monthly or quarterly in individual issues, each of which contains several articles. The issues are organized into volumes, which usually consist of all the issues for a calendar year. Some journals are published in hard copy only, others in both hard copy and electronic form, and still others in electronic form only.

Most articles in professional journals are one of two basic types: empirical research reports and review articles. Empirical research reports describe one or more new empirical studies conducted by the authors. They introduce a research question, explain why it is interesting, review previous research, describe their method and results, and draw their conclusions. Review articles summarize previously published research on a topic and usually present new ways to organize or explain the results. When a review article is devoted primarily to presenting a new theory, it is often referred to as a theoretical article .

Figure 2.6 Small Sample of the Thousands of Professional Journals That Publish Research in Psychology and Related Fields

Most professional journals in psychology undergo a process of peer review . Researchers who want to publish their work in the journal submit a manuscript to the editor—who is generally an established researcher too—who in turn sends it to two or three experts on the topic. Each reviewer reads the manuscript, writes a critical review, and sends the review back to the editor along with his or her recommendations. The editor then decides whether to accept the article for publication, ask the authors to make changes and resubmit it for further consideration, or reject it outright. In any case, the editor forwards the reviewers’ written comments to the researchers so that they can revise their manuscript accordingly. Peer review is important because it ensures that the work meets basic standards of the field before it can enter the research literature.

Scholarly Books

Scholarly books are books written by researchers and practitioners mainly for use by other researchers and practitioners. A monograph is written by a single author or a small group of authors and usually gives a coherent presentation of a topic much like an extended review article. Edited volumes have an editor or a small group of editors who recruit many authors to write separate chapters on different aspects of the same topic. Although edited volumes can also give a coherent presentation of the topic, it is not unusual for each chapter to take a different perspective or even for the authors of different chapters to openly disagree with each other. In general, scholarly books undergo a peer review process similar to that used by professional journals.

Literature Search Strategies

Using psycinfo and other databases.

The primary method used to search the research literature involves using one or more electronic databases. These include Academic Search Premier, JSTOR, and ProQuest for all academic disciplines, ERIC for education, and PubMed for medicine and related fields. The most important for our purposes, however, is PsycINFO , which is produced by the APA. PsycINFO is so comprehensive—covering thousands of professional journals and scholarly books going back more than 100 years—that for most purposes its content is synonymous with the research literature in psychology. Like most such databases, PsycINFO is usually available through your college or university library.

PsycINFO consists of individual records for each article, book chapter, or book in the database. Each record includes basic publication information, an abstract or summary of the work, and a list of other works cited by that work. A computer interface allows entering one or more search terms and returns any records that contain those search terms. (These interfaces are provided by different vendors and therefore can look somewhat different depending on the library you use.) Each record also contains lists of keywords that describe the content of the work and also a list of index terms. The index terms are especially helpful because they are standardized. Research on differences between women and men, for example, is always indexed under “Human Sex Differences.” Research on touching is always indexed under the term “Physical Contact.” If you do not know the appropriate index terms, PsycINFO includes a thesaurus that can help you find them.

Given that there are nearly three million records in PsycINFO, you may have to try a variety of search terms in different combinations and at different levels of specificity before you find what you are looking for. Imagine, for example, that you are interested in the question of whether women and men differ in terms of their ability to recall experiences from when they were very young. If you were to enter “memory for early experiences” as your search term, PsycINFO would return only six records, most of which are not particularly relevant to your question. However, if you were to enter the search term “memory,” it would return 149,777 records—far too many to look through individually. This is where the thesaurus helps. Entering “memory” into the thesaurus provides several more specific index terms—one of which is “early memories.” While searching for “early memories” among the index terms returns 1,446 records—still too many too look through individually—combining it with “human sex differences” as a second search term returns 37 articles, many of which are highly relevant to the topic.

Depending on the vendor that provides the interface to PsycINFO, you may be able to save, print, or e-mail the relevant PsycINFO records. The records might even contain links to full-text copies of the works themselves. (PsycARTICLES is a database that provides full-text access to articles in all journals published by the APA.) If not, and you want a copy of the work, you will have to find out if your library carries the journal or has the book and the hard copy on the library shelves. Be sure to ask a librarian if you need help.

Using Other Search Techniques

In addition to entering search terms into PsycINFO and other databases, there are several other techniques you can use to search the research literature. First, if you have one good article or book chapter on your topic—a recent review article is best—you can look through the reference list of that article for other relevant articles, books, and book chapters. In fact, you should do this with any relevant article or book chapter you find. You can also start with a classic article or book chapter on your topic, find its record in PsycINFO (by entering the author’s name or article’s title as a search term), and link from there to a list of other works in PsycINFO that cite that classic article. This works because other researchers working on your topic are likely to be aware of the classic article and cite it in their own work. You can also do a general Internet search using search terms related to your topic or the name of a researcher who conducts research on your topic. This might lead you directly to works that are part of the research literature (e.g., articles in open-access journals or posted on researchers’ own websites). The search engine Google Scholar is especially useful for this purpose. A general Internet search might also lead you to websites that are not part of the research literature but might provide references to works that are. Finally, you can talk to people (e.g., your instructor or other faculty members in psychology) who know something about your topic and can suggest relevant articles and book chapters.

What to Search For

When you do a literature review, you need to be selective. Not every article, book chapter, and book that relates to your research idea or question will be worth obtaining, reading, and integrating into your review. Instead, you want to focus on sources that help you do four basic things: (a) refine your research question, (b) identify appropriate research methods, (c) place your research in the context of previous research, and (d) write an effective research report. Several basic principles can help you find the most useful sources.

First, it is best to focus on recent research, keeping in mind that what counts as recent depends on the topic. For newer topics that are actively being studied, “recent” might mean published in the past year or two. For older topics that are receiving less attention right now, “recent” might mean within the past 10 years. You will get a feel for what counts as recent for your topic when you start your literature search. A good general rule, however, is to start with sources published in the past five years. The main exception to this rule would be classic articles that turn up in the reference list of nearly every other source. If other researchers think that this work is important, even though it is old, then by all means you should include it in your review.

Second, you should look for review articles on your topic because they will provide a useful overview of it—often discussing important definitions, results, theories, trends, and controversies—giving you a good sense of where your own research fits into the literature. You should also look for empirical research reports addressing your question or similar questions, which can give you ideas about how to operationally define your variables and collect your data. As a general rule, it is good to use methods that others have already used successfully unless you have good reasons not to. Finally, you should look for sources that provide information that can help you argue for the interestingness of your research question. For a study on the effects of cell phone use on driving ability, for example, you might look for information about how widespread cell phone use is, how frequent and costly motor vehicle crashes are, and so on.

How many sources are enough for your literature review? This is a difficult question because it depends on how extensively your topic has been studied and also on your own goals. One study found that across a variety of professional journals in psychology, the average number of sources cited per article was about 50 (Adair & Vohra, 2003). This gives a rough idea of what professional researchers consider to be adequate. As a student, you might be assigned a much lower minimum number of references to use, but the principles for selecting the most useful ones remain the same.

Key Takeaways

• The research literature in psychology is all the published research in psychology, consisting primarily of articles in professional journals and scholarly books.
• Early in the research process, it is important to conduct a review of the research literature on your topic to refine your research question, identify appropriate research methods, place your question in the context of other research, and prepare to write an effective research report.
• There are several strategies for finding previous research on your topic. Among the best is using PsycINFO, a computer database that catalogs millions of articles, books, and book chapters in psychology and related fields.
• Practice: Use the techniques discussed in this section to find 10 journal articles and book chapters on one of the following research ideas: memory for smells, aggressive driving, the causes of narcissistic personality disorder, the functions of the intraparietal sulcus, or prejudice against the physically handicapped.

Adair, J. G., & Vohra, N. (2003). The explosion of knowledge, references, and citations: Psychology’s unique response to a crisis. American Psychologist, 58 , 15–23.

Research Methods in Psychology Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Literature Review: Purpose of a Literature Review

• Literature Review
• Purpose of a Literature Review
• Work in Progress
• Compiling & Writing
• Books, Articles, & Web Pages
• Types of Literature Reviews
• Departmental Differences
• Citation Styles & Plagiarism
• Know the Difference! Systematic Review vs. Literature Review

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
• Identify the need for additional research (justifying your research)
• Identify the relationship of works in the context of their contribution to the topic and other works
• Place your own research within the context of existing literature, making a case for why further study is needed.

Videos & Tutorials

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/

Elements in a Literature Review

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Beginner’s Guide to Research

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Last updated : July 18, 2024

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Most professors will require the use of academic (AKA peer-reviewed) sources for student writing. This is because these sources, written for academic audiences of specific fields, are helpful for developing your argument on many topics of interest in the academic realm, from history to biology. While popular sources like news articles also often discuss topics of interest within academic fields, peer-reviewed sources offer a depth of research and expertise that you cannot find in popular sources. Therefore, knowing how to (1) identify popular vs. academic sources, (2) differentiate between primary and secondary sources, and (3) find academic sources is a vital step in writing research. Below are definitions of the two ways scholars categorize types of sources based on when they were created (i.e. time and place) and how (i.e. methodology):

Popular vs. academic sources:

• Popular sources are publicly accessible periodicals–newspapers, magazines, and blogs–such as The Washington Post or The New Yorker . These sources are most often written for non-academic audiences, but can be helpful for finding general information and a variety of opinions on your topic.
• Academic sources , known also as peer reviewed or scholarly articles, are those that have undergone peer review before being published. Typically, these articles are written for other scholars in the field and are published in academic journals, like Feminist Studies or The American Journal of Psychology . Literature reviews, research projects, case studies, and notes from the field are common examples.

Primary vs. secondary sources:

• Primary sources are articles written by people directly involved in what they were writing about, including: News reports and photographs, diaries and novels, films and videos, speeches and autobiographies, as well as original research and statistics.
• Secondary sources , on the other hand, are second hand accounts written about a topic based on primary sources. Whether a journal article or other academic publication is considered a secondary source depends on how you use it.

How to Find Academic Sources

Finding appropriate academic sources from the hundreds of different journal publications can be daunting. Therefore, it is important to find databases –digital collections of articles–relevant to your topic to narrow your search. Albertson’s Library has access to several different databases, which can be located by clicking the “Articles and Databases” tab on the website’s homepage, and navigating to “Databases A-Z” to refine your search. Popular databases include: Academic Search Premier and Proquest Central (non-specific databases which include a wide variety of articles), JSTOR (humanities and social sciences, from literature to history), Web of Science (formal sciences and natural sciences such as biology and chemistry), and Google Scholar (a web search engine that searches scholarly literature and academic sources). If you are unable to access articles from other databases, make sure you’re signed in to Alberton’s Library through Boise State!

Performing a Database Search

Databases include many different types of sources besides academic journals, however, including book reviews and other periodicals. Using the search bar , you can limit search results to those containing specific keywords or phrases like “writing center” or “transfer theory.” Utilizing keywords in your search–names of key concepts, authors, or ideas–rather than questions is the most effective way to find articles in databases. When searching for a specific work by title, placing the title in quotation marks will ensure your search includes only results in that specific word order. In the example below, search terms including the author (“Virginia Woolf”) and subject (“feminism”) are entered into the popular database EBSCOhost:

Refining Your Search Results

Many databases have a bar on the left of the screen where you can further refine your results. For example, if you are only interested in finding complete scholarly articles, or peer-reviewed ones, you can toggle these different options to further limit your search. These options are located under the “Refine Results” bar in EBSCOhost, divided into different sections, with a display of currently selected search filters and filter options to refine your search based on your specific needs, as seen in the figure below:

Search results can also be limited by subject : If you search “Romeo and Juliet” on Academic Search Premier to find literary analysis articles for your English class, you’ll find a lot of other sources that include this search term, such as ones about theater production or ballets based on Shakespeare’s play. However, if you’re writing a literary paper on the text of the play itself, you might limit your search results to “fiction” to see only articles that discuss the play within the field of literature. Alternatively, for a theater class discussing the play, you might limit your search results to “drama.”

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Title: a network analysis approach to conlang research literature.

Abstract: The field of conlang has evidenced an important growth in the last decades. This has been the product of a wide interest in the use and study of conlangs for artistic purposes. However, one important question is what it is happening with conlang in the academic world. This paper aims to have an overall understanding of the literature on conlang research. With this we aim to give a realistic picture of the field in present days. We have implemented a computational linguistic approach, combining bibliometrics and network analysis to examine all publications available in the Scopus database. Analysing over 2300 academic publications since 1927 until 2022, we have found that Esperanto is by far the most documented conlang. Three main authors have contributed to this: Garvía R., Fiedler S., and Blanke D. The 1970s and 1980s have been the decades where the foundations of current research have been built. In terms of methodologies, language learning and experimental linguistics are the ones contributing to most to the preferred approaches of study in the field. We present the results and discuss our limitations and future work.

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