Writing a Literature Review

What Is a Literature Review

What Is a Literature Review?

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

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

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

Types of Literature Reviews

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

 Stand-alone literature review articles. These provide an overview and analysis

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

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

Examples of Literature Reviews

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

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

 Abstract - Brief summary of the contents of the article

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

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

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

This article has a standard breakdown of sections:

 Introduction
 Literature Review
 Data
 Some discussion sections
 Conclusion

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

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

Writing a Literature Review

What Is the Literature

The "literature" that is reviewed is the collection of publications (academic journal articles,
books, conference proceedings, association papers, dissertations, etc) written by scholars and
researchers for scholars and researchers. The professional literature is one (very significant)
source of information for researchers, typically referred to as the secondary literature, or
secondary sources. To use it, it is useful to know how it is created and how to access it.
The "Information Cycle"

The diagram below is a brief general picture of how scholarly literature is produced and used.
Research does not have a beginning or an end; researchers build on work that has already been
done in order to add to it, thus providing more resources for other researchers to build on. They
read the professional literature of their field to see what issues, questions, and problems are
current, then formulate a plan to address one or a few of those issues. Then they make a more
focused review of the literature, which they use to refine their research plan. After carrying out
the research, they present their results (presentations at conferences, published articles, etc) to
other scholars in the field, i.e. they add to the general subject reading ("the literature").

Research may not have a beginning or an end, but researchers have to begin somewhere. As
noted above, the professional literature is typically referred to as secondary sources. Primary and
tertiary sources also play important roles in research. Note, though, that these labels are not rigid
distinctions; the same resource can overlap categories.

 Primary - Direct, uninterpreted records of the subject of your research project.

Primary sources, then, are what you perform your research work on. As such, a
primary source can be almost anything, depending on the subject and purpose of
your research. Here are a very few examples of what can count as primary sources
in:
o Sciences -

 Lab reports (yours or someone else's) - Records of the results of

experiments.
  Field notes, measurements, etc (yours or someone else's) -
Records of observations of the natural world (electrons, elephants,
earthquakes, etc).
o Social Sciences -

 Historical documents - Official papers, maps, treaties, etc.

 Government publications - Census statistics, economic data,
court reports, etc.
 First-person accounts - Diaries, memoirs, letters, interviews,
surveys, speeches
 Newspapers - Some types of articles, e.g. stories on a breaking
issue, or journalists reporting the results of their investigations.
o Humanities -

 Published writings - Novels, stories, poems, essays, philosophical

treatises, etc
 Works of art - Paintings, sculptures, etc.
 Recordings - audio, video, photographic
o All/General -

 Conference proceedings - Scholars and researchers getting

together and presenting their latest ideas and findings
 Internet - Web sites that publish the author's findings or research;
e.g. your professor's home page listing research results. Note: use
extreme caution when using the Internet as a primary source …
remember, anyone with a computer and a modem can put up a web
site.
 Archives - Records (minutes of meetings, purchase invoices,
financial statements, etc.) of an organization (e.g. The Nature
Conservancy), institution (e.g. Wesleyan University), business, or
other group entity (even the Grateful Dead has an archivist on
staff).
 Artifacts - manufactured items such as clothing, furniture, tools,
buildings
 Manuscript collections - Collected writings, notes, letters, diaries,
and other unpublished works.
 Books or articles - Depending on the purpose and perspective of
your project, secondary sources can serve as primary sources for
 your research. For example, you can critique a scientist's published
theory concerning a set of phenomena, a sociologist's analysis of a
situation, or a philosopher's critique of another philosopher's
critique of yet another philosopher's treatise.

 Secondary - Books, articles, and other writings by scholars and researchers

reporting their work to others. They may be reporting the results of their own
primary research or critiquing the work of others. As such, these sources are the
focus of a literature review: this is where you go to find out in detail what has
been and is being done in a field, and thus to see how your work can contribute to
the field.

 Tertiary - Encyclopedias, indexes, textbooks, and other reference sources. In

general, there are two types of tertiary (reference) sources:
o Summaries / Introductions - Encyclopedias, dictionaries, textbooks,
yearbooks, and other sources which provide an introductory or summary
state of the art of the research in the subject areas covered. They are an
efficient means to quickly build a general framework for understanding a
field.
o Indexes to publications - Provide lists of primary and secondary sources
of more extensive information. They are an efficient means of finding
books, articles, conference proceedings, and other publications in which
scholars report the results of their research.

Work backwards. Usually, your research should begin with tertiary sources:

1. Tertiary - Start by finding background information on your topic by consulting

reference sources for introductions and summaries, and to find bibliographies or
citations of secondary and primary sources.
2. Secondary - Find books, articles, and other sources providing more extensive and
thorough analyses of a topic. Check to see what other scholars have to say about
your topic, find out what has been done and where there is a need for further
research, and discover appropriate methodologies for carrying out that research.
3. Primary - Now that you have a solid background knowledge of your topic and a
plan for your own research, you are better able to understand, interpret, and
analyze the primary source information. See if you can find primary source
evidence to support or refute what other scholars have said about your topic, or
posit an interpretation of your own and look for more primary sources or create
more original data to confirm or refute your thesis. When you present your
conclusions, you will have produced another secondary source to aid others in
their research.
Publishing the Literature

There are a variety of avenues for scholars to report the results of their research, and each has a
role to play in scholarly communication. Not all of these avenues result in official or easily
findable publications, or even any publication at all. The categories of scholarly communication
listed here are a general outline; keep in mind that they can vary in type and importance between
disciplines.

Peer Review - An important part of academic publishing is the peer review, or refereeing,
process. When a scholar submits an article to an academic journal or a book manuscript to a
university publisher, the editors or publishers will send copies to other scholars and experts in
that field who will review it. The reviewers will check to make sure the author has used
methodologies appropriate to the topic, used those methodologies properly, taken other relevant
work into account, and adequately supported the conclusions, as well as consider the relevance
and importance to the field. A submission may be rejected, or sent back for revisions before
being accepted for publication.

Peer review does not guarantee that an article or book is 100% correct. Rather, it provides a
"stamp of approval" saying that experts in the field have judged this to be a worthy contribution
to the professional discussion of an academic field.

Peer reviewed journals typically note that they are peer reviewed, usually somewhere in the first
few pages of each issue. Books published by university presses typically go through a similar
review process. Other book publishers may also have a peer review process. But the quality of
the reviewing can vary among different book or journal publishers. Use academic book reviews
or check how often and in what sources articles in a journal are cited, or ask a professor or two in
the field, to get an idea of the reliability and importance of different authors, journals, and
publishers.

Informal Sharing - In person or online, researchers discuss their ongoing projects to let others
know what they are up to or to give or receive assistance in their work. Conferences, listservs,
and online discussion boards are common avenues for these discussions. Increasingly, scholars
are using personal web sites to present their work.

Conference Presentations - Many academic organizations sponsor conferences at which

scholars read papers, display at poster sessions, or otherwise present the results of their work. To
give a presentation, scholars must submit a proposal which is reviewed by those sponsoring the
conference. Unless a presentation is published in another venue, it will likely be difficult to find
a copy, or even to know what was presented. Some subject specific indexes and other sources list
conference proceedings along with the author and contact information.

Conference Papers / Association Papers / Working Papers - Papers presented at a conference,

submitted but not yet accepted for publication, works in progress, or not otherwise published are
sometimes made available by academic associations. These are often not easy to find, but many
are indexed in subject specific indexes or available in subject databases. Sometimes a collection
of papers presented at a conference will be published in a book.

Journals - Articles in journals contain specific analyses of particular aspects of a topic. Since
journal articles can be written and published more quickly than books, academic libraries
subscribe to many journals, and the contents of these journals are indexed in a variety of sources
so others can easily find them, researchers commonly use articles to report their findings to a
wide audience. Thus journals are also a good readily available source for current information on
a topic.

 Academic/Scholarly journals - Usually (but not always) peer reviewed, they come
in a few different types:
o News/Letters journals - News reports, brief research reports, short
discussions of current issues.
o Proceedings/Transactions journals - A common venue for publishing
conference papers or other proceedings of academic conferences.
o Research journals - Articles reporting in detail the results of research.

o Review journals - Articles reviewing the literature and work done on

particular topics.
 General interest magazines - News and other magazines that report scholarly
findings for a general, nonacademic audience. These are usually written by
journalists (who are usually not academically trained in the field), but sometimes
are written by researchers (or at least by journalists with training in the field).
Magazines are not peer reviewed, and are usually not academically useful sources
of information for research purposes, but they can alert you to work being done in
your field and give you a quick summary.

Books - Books take a longer time to get from research to publication, but they can cover a
broader range of topics, or cover a topic much more thoroughly, than articles or conference
presentations. University press books typically go through some sort of a peer review process.
There is a wide range of review processes (from rigorous to none at all) among other book
publishers.

Dissertations/Theses - Graduate students working on advanced degrees typically must perform

a substantial piece of original work, and then present the results in the form of a thesis or
dissertation. Usually, only the library and/or department at the school where the work was done
has copies of the dissertation, though especially significant ones are often collected by other
libraries.

Web sites - In addition to researchers informally presenting and discussing their work on
personal web pages, there are an increasing number of peer reviewed web sites publishing
academic work. The rigor, and even existence, of peer reviewing can vary widely on the web,
and it can be difficult to determine the reliability of information presented on the web, so always
be careful in relying on a web-based information source. Do your own checking and reviewing to
make sure the web site and the information it presents are reliable.

Reference Sources - Subject encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference sources present
brief introductions to or summaries of the current work in a field or on a topic. These are
typically produced by a scholar and/or publisher serving as an editor who invites submissions for
articles from experts on the topics covered.

How to Find the Literature

Just as there are many avenues for the literature to be published and disseminated, there are
many avenues for searching for and finding the literature. There are, for example, a variety
of general and subject specific indexes which list citations to publications (books, articles,
conference proceedings, dissertations, etc). The Wesleyan Library web site has links to the
library catalog and many indexes and databases in which to search for resources, along with
subject guides to list resources appropriate for specific academic disciplines. When you find
some appropriate books, articles, etc, look in their bibliographies for other publications and also
for other authors writing about the same topics. For research assistance tailored to your topic,
you can sign up for a Personal Research Session with a librarian.

Writing a Literature Review

Writing the Review

Why Are You Writing This?

There are two primary points to remember as you are writing your literature review:

 Keep in mind your purpose(s) for the literature review, and make sure your
review specifically addresses your purpose(s). A literature review is part of a
larger project. Even a stand-alone review refers to how the topic reviewed fits into
the wider subject or discipline and points toward avenues for future research.
Depending on the type of review, your goals may be different.
o Stand-alone review: provide an overview and analysis of the current state
of research on a topic or question
o Research proposal: explicate the current issues and questions concerning a
topic to demonstrate how your proposed research will contribute to the
field
 o Research report: provide the context to which your work is a contribution.

 Write as you read, and revise as you read more. Rather than wait until you have
read everything you are planning to review, start writing as soon as you start
reading. You will need to reorganize and revise it all later, but writing a summary
of an article when you read it helps you to think more carefully about the article.
Having drafts and annotations to work with will also make writing the full review
easier since you will not have to rely completely on your memory or have to keep
thumbing back through all the articles. Your draft does not need to be in finished,
or even presentable, form. The first draft is for you, so you can tell yourself what
you are thinking. Later you can rewrite it for others to tell them what you think.

General Steps for Writing a Literature Review

Here is a general outline of steps to write a thematically organized literature review. Remember,
though, that there are many ways to approach a literature review, depending on its purpose.

1. Stage one: annotated bibliography. As you read articles, books, etc, on your topic,
write a brief critical synopsis of each. After going through your reading list, you
will have an abstract or annotation of each source you read. Later annotations are
likely to include more references to other works since you will have your previous
readings to compare, but at this point the important goal is to get accurate critical
summaries of each individual work.
2. Stage two: thematic organization. Find common themes in the works you read,
and organize the works into categories. Typically, each work you include in your
review can fit into one category or sub-theme of your main theme, but sometimes
a work can fit in more than one. (If each work you read can fit into all the
categories you list, you probably need to rethink your organization.) Write some
brief paragraphs outlining your categories, how in general the works in each
category relate to each other, and how the categories relate to each other and to
your overall theme.
3. Stage three: more reading. Based on the knowledge you have gained in your
reading, you should have a better understanding of the topic and of the literature
related to it. Perhaps you have discovered specific researchers who are important
to the field, or research methodologies you were not aware of. Look for more
literature by those authors, on those methodologies, etc. Also, you may be able to
set aside some less relevant areas or articles which you pursued initially. Integrate
the new readings into your literature review draft. Reorganize themes and read
more as appropriate.
4. Stage four: write individual sections. For each thematic section, use your draft
annotations (it is a good idea to reread the articles and revise annotations,
especially the ones you read initially) to write a section which discusses the
articles relevant to that theme. Focus your writing on the theme of that section,
 showing how the articles relate to each other and to the theme, rather than
focusing your writing on each individual article. Use the articles as evidence to
support your critique of the theme rather than using the theme as an angle to
discuss each article individually.
5. Stage five: integrate sections. Now that you have the thematic sections, tie them
together with an introduction, conclusion, and some additions and revisions in the
sections to show how they relate to each other and to your overall theme.

Specific Points to Include

More specifically, here are some points to address when writing about specific works you are
reviewing. In dealing with a paper or an argument or theory, you need to assess it (clearly
understand and state the claim) and analyze it (evaluate its reliability, usefulness, validity). Look
for the following points as you assess and analyze papers, arguments, etc. You do not need to
state them all explicitly, but keep them in mind as you write your review:

 Be specific and be succinct. Briefly state specific findings listed in an article,

specific methodologies used in a study, or other important points. Literature
reviews are not the place for long quotes or in-depth analysis of each point.
 Be selective. You are trying to boil down a lot of information into a small space.
Mention just the most important points (i.e. those most relevant to the review's
focus) in each work you review.
 Is it a current article? How old is it? Have its claims, evidence, or arguments been
superceded by more recent work? If it is not current, is it important for historical
background?
 What specific claims are made? Are they stated clearly?
 What support is given for those claims?
o What evidence, and what type (experimental, statistical, anecdotal, etc) is
offered? Is the evidence relevant? sufficient?
o What arguments are given? What assumptions are made, and are they
warranted?
 What is the source of the evidence or other information? The author's own
experiments, surveys, etc? Historical records? Government documents? How
reliable are the sources?
 Does the author take into account contrary or conflicting evidence and
arguments? How does the author address disagreements with other researchers?
 What specific conclusions are drawn? Are they warranted by the evidence?
  How does this article, argument, theory, etc, relate to other work?

These, however, are just the points that should be addressed when writing about a specific work.
It is not an outline of how to organize your writing. Your overall theme and categories within
that theme should organize your writing, and the above points should be integrated into that
organization. That is, rather than write something like:

Smith (1999) claims that blah, and provides evidence x to support it, and says it is probably
because of blip. But Smith seems to have neglected factor b.
Jones (2001) showed that blah by doing y, which, Jones claims, means it is likely because of
blot. But that methodology does not exclude other possibilities.
Johnson (2002) hypothesizes blah might be because of some other cause.

list the themes and then say how each article relates to that theme. For example:

Researchers agree that blah (Smith 1999, Jones 2001, Johnson 2002), but they do not agree on
why. Smith claims it is probably due to blip, but Jones, by doing y, tries to show it is likely
because of blot. Jones' methodology, however, does not exclude other possibilities. Johnson
hypothesizes ...

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