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How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

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 that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

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

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of 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, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

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

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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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 problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

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

• 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 useful 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 also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

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

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

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

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

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chronological

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

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

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

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

Methodological

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

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

Theoretical

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

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

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.

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

As you write, you can follow these tips:

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

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

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

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.

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.

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 credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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15 Literature Review Examples

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Literature reviews are a necessary step in a research process and often required when writing your research proposal . They involve gathering, analyzing, and evaluating existing knowledge about a topic in order to find gaps in the literature where future studies will be needed.

Ideally, once you have completed your literature review, you will be able to identify how your research project can build upon and extend existing knowledge in your area of study.

Generally, for my undergraduate research students, I recommend a narrative review, where themes can be generated in order for the students to develop sufficient understanding of the topic so they can build upon the themes using unique methods or novel research questions.

If you’re in the process of writing a literature review, I have developed a literature review template for you to use – it’s a huge time-saver and walks you through how to write a literature review step-by-step:

Get your time-saving templates here to write your own literature review.

Literature Review Examples

For the following types of literature review, I present an explanation and overview of the type, followed by links to some real-life literature reviews on the topics.

1. Narrative Review Examples

Also known as a traditional literature review, the narrative review provides a broad overview of the studies done on a particular topic.

It often includes both qualitative and quantitative studies and may cover a wide range of years.

The narrative review’s purpose is to identify commonalities, gaps, and contradictions in the literature .

I recommend to my students that they should gather their studies together, take notes on each study, then try to group them by themes that form the basis for the review (see my step-by-step instructions at the end of the article).

Example Study

Title: Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations

Citation: Vermeir, P., Vandijck, D., Degroote, S., Peleman, R., Verhaeghe, R., Mortier, E., … & Vogelaers, D. (2015). Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations. International journal of clinical practice , 69 (11), 1257-1267.

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ijcp.12686  

Overview: This narrative review analyzed themes emerging from 69 articles about communication in healthcare contexts. Five key themes were found in the literature: poor communication can lead to various negative outcomes, discontinuity of care, compromise of patient safety, patient dissatisfaction, and inefficient use of resources. After presenting the key themes, the authors recommend that practitioners need to approach healthcare communication in a more structured way, such as by ensuring there is a clear understanding of who is in charge of ensuring effective communication in clinical settings.

Other Examples

• Burnout in United States Healthcare Professionals: A Narrative Review (Reith, 2018) – read here
• Examining the Presence, Consequences, and Reduction of Implicit Bias in Health Care: A Narrative Review (Zestcott, Blair & Stone, 2016) – read here
• A Narrative Review of School-Based Physical Activity for Enhancing Cognition and Learning (Mavilidi et al., 2018) – read here
• A narrative review on burnout experienced by medical students and residents (Dyrbye & Shanafelt, 2015) – read here

2. Systematic Review Examples

This type of literature review is more structured and rigorous than a narrative review. It involves a detailed and comprehensive plan and search strategy derived from a set of specified research questions.

The key way you’d know a systematic review compared to a narrative review is in the methodology: the systematic review will likely have a very clear criteria for how the studies were collected, and clear explanations of exclusion/inclusion criteria. 

The goal is to gather the maximum amount of valid literature on the topic, filter out invalid or low-quality reviews, and minimize bias. Ideally, this will provide more reliable findings, leading to higher-quality conclusions and recommendations for further research.

You may note from the examples below that the ‘method’ sections in systematic reviews tend to be much more explicit, often noting rigid inclusion/exclusion criteria and exact keywords used in searches.

Title: The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review  

Citation: Roman, S., Sánchez-Siles, L. M., & Siegrist, M. (2017). The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review. Trends in food science & technology , 67 , 44-57.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092422441730122X  

Overview: This systematic review included 72 studies of food naturalness to explore trends in the literature about its importance for consumers. Keywords used in the data search included: food, naturalness, natural content, and natural ingredients. Studies were included if they examined consumers’ preference for food naturalness and contained empirical data. The authors found that the literature lacks clarity about how naturalness is defined and measured, but also found that food consumption is significantly influenced by perceived naturalness of goods.

• A systematic review of research on online teaching and learning from 2009 to 2018 (Martin, Sun & Westine, 2020) – read here
• Where Is Current Research on Blockchain Technology? (Yli-Huumo et al., 2016) – read here
• Universities—industry collaboration: A systematic review (Ankrah & Al-Tabbaa, 2015) – read here
• Internet of Things Applications: A Systematic Review (Asghari, Rahmani & Javadi, 2019) – read here

3. Meta-analysis

This is a type of systematic review that uses statistical methods to combine and summarize the results of several studies.

Due to its robust methodology, a meta-analysis is often considered the ‘gold standard’ of secondary research , as it provides a more precise estimate of a treatment effect than any individual study contributing to the pooled analysis.

Furthermore, by aggregating data from a range of studies, a meta-analysis can identify patterns, disagreements, or other interesting relationships that may have been hidden in individual studies.

This helps to enhance the generalizability of findings, making the conclusions drawn from a meta-analysis particularly powerful and informative for policy and practice.

Title: Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s Disease Risk: A Meta-Meta-Analysis

Citation: Sáiz-Vazquez, O., Puente-Martínez, A., Ubillos-Landa, S., Pacheco-Bonrostro, J., & Santabárbara, J. (2020). Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease risk: a meta-meta-analysis. Brain sciences, 10(6), 386.

Source: https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10060386  

O verview: This study examines the relationship between cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Researchers conducted a systematic search of meta-analyses and reviewed several databases, collecting 100 primary studies and five meta-analyses to analyze the connection between cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease. They find that the literature compellingly demonstrates that low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels significantly influence the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

• The power of feedback revisited: A meta-analysis of educational feedback research (Wisniewski, Zierer & Hattie, 2020) – read here
• How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis (Ritchie & Tucker-Drob, 2018) – read here
• A meta-analysis of factors related to recycling (Geiger et al., 2019) – read here
• Stress management interventions for police officers and recruits (Patterson, Chung & Swan, 2014) – read here

Other Types of Reviews

• Scoping Review: This type of review is used to map the key concepts underpinning a research area and the main sources and types of evidence available. It can be undertaken as stand-alone projects in their own right, or as a precursor to a systematic review.
• Rapid Review: This type of review accelerates the systematic review process in order to produce information in a timely manner. This is achieved by simplifying or omitting stages of the systematic review process.
• Integrative Review: This review method is more inclusive than others, allowing for the simultaneous inclusion of experimental and non-experimental research. The goal is to more comprehensively understand a particular phenomenon.
• Critical Review: This is similar to a narrative review but requires a robust understanding of both the subject and the existing literature. In a critical review, the reviewer not only summarizes the existing literature, but also evaluates its strengths and weaknesses. This is common in the social sciences and humanities .
• State-of-the-Art Review: This considers the current level of advancement in a field or topic and makes recommendations for future research directions. This type of review is common in technological and scientific fields but can be applied to any discipline.

How to Write a Narrative Review (Tips for Undergrad Students)

Most undergraduate students conducting a capstone research project will be writing narrative reviews. Below is a five-step process for conducting a simple review of the literature for your project.

• Search for Relevant Literature: Use scholarly databases related to your field of study, provided by your university library, along with appropriate search terms to identify key scholarly articles that have been published on your topic.
• Evaluate and Select Sources: Filter the source list by selecting studies that are directly relevant and of sufficient quality, considering factors like credibility , objectivity, accuracy, and validity.
• Analyze and Synthesize: Review each source and summarize the main arguments  in one paragraph (or more, for postgrad). Keep these summaries in a table.
• Identify Themes: With all studies summarized, group studies that share common themes, such as studies that have similar findings or methodologies.
• Write the Review: Write your review based upon the themes or subtopics you have identified. Give a thorough overview of each theme, integrating source data, and conclude with a summary of the current state of knowledge then suggestions for future research based upon your evaluation of what is lacking in the literature.

Literature reviews don’t have to be as scary as they seem. Yes, they are difficult and require a strong degree of comprehension of academic studies. But it can be feasibly done through following a structured approach to data collection and analysis. With my undergraduate research students (who tend to conduct small-scale qualitative studies ), I encourage them to conduct a narrative literature review whereby they can identify key themes in the literature. Within each theme, students can critique key studies and their strengths and limitations , in order to get a lay of the land and come to a point where they can identify ways to contribute new insights to the existing academic conversation on their topic.

Ankrah, S., & Omar, A. T. (2015). Universities–industry collaboration: A systematic review. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 31(3), 387-408.

Asghari, P., Rahmani, A. M., & Javadi, H. H. S. (2019). Internet of Things applications: A systematic review. Computer Networks , 148 , 241-261.

Dyrbye, L., & Shanafelt, T. (2016). A narrative review on burnout experienced by medical students and residents. Medical education , 50 (1), 132-149.

Geiger, J. L., Steg, L., Van Der Werff, E., & Ünal, A. B. (2019). A meta-analysis of factors related to recycling. Journal of environmental psychology , 64 , 78-97.

Martin, F., Sun, T., & Westine, C. D. (2020). A systematic review of research on online teaching and learning from 2009 to 2018. Computers & education , 159 , 104009.

Mavilidi, M. F., Ruiter, M., Schmidt, M., Okely, A. D., Loyens, S., Chandler, P., & Paas, F. (2018). A narrative review of school-based physical activity for enhancing cognition and learning: The importance of relevancy and integration. Frontiers in psychology , 2079.

Patterson, G. T., Chung, I. W., & Swan, P. W. (2014). Stress management interventions for police officers and recruits: A meta-analysis. Journal of experimental criminology , 10 , 487-513.

Reith, T. P. (2018). Burnout in United States healthcare professionals: a narrative review. Cureus , 10 (12).

Ritchie, S. J., & Tucker-Drob, E. M. (2018). How much does education improve intelligence? A meta-analysis. Psychological science , 29 (8), 1358-1369.

Roman, S., Sánchez-Siles, L. M., & Siegrist, M. (2017). The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review. Trends in food science & technology , 67 , 44-57.

Sáiz-Vazquez, O., Puente-Martínez, A., Ubillos-Landa, S., Pacheco-Bonrostro, J., & Santabárbara, J. (2020). Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease risk: a meta-meta-analysis. Brain sciences, 10(6), 386.

Vermeir, P., Vandijck, D., Degroote, S., Peleman, R., Verhaeghe, R., Mortier, E., … & Vogelaers, D. (2015). Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations. International journal of clinical practice , 69 (11), 1257-1267.

Wisniewski, B., Zierer, K., & Hattie, J. (2020). The power of feedback revisited: A meta-analysis of educational feedback research. Frontiers in Psychology , 10 , 3087.

Yli-Huumo, J., Ko, D., Choi, S., Park, S., & Smolander, K. (2016). Where is current research on blockchain technology?—a systematic review. PloS one , 11 (10), e0163477.

Zestcott, C. A., Blair, I. V., & Stone, J. (2016). Examining the presence, consequences, and reduction of implicit bias in health care: a narrative review. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations , 19 (4), 528-542

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Montessori Values for your Classroom
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What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of literature review? 
• a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction: 
• b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes: 
• c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs: 
• d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts: 

How to write a good literature review 

• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal? 
• Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review?

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

What is the purpose of literature review?

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

1. Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 

2. Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field. 

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3. Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 

4. Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 

5. Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 

6. Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

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Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

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Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

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• Ask a question: Get started with a new document on paperpal.com. Click on the “Research” feature and type your question in plain English. Paperpal will scour over 250 million research articles, including conference papers and preprints, to provide you with accurate insights and citations. 
• Review and Save: Paperpal summarizes the information, while citing sources and listing relevant reads. You can quickly scan the results to identify relevant references and save these directly to your built-in citations library for later access. 
• Cite with Confidence: Paperpal makes it easy to incorporate relevant citations and references into your writing, ensuring your arguments are well-supported by credible sources. This translates to a polished, well-researched literature review. 

The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a good literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. By combining effortless research with an easy citation process, Paperpal Research streamlines the literature review process and empowers you to write faster and with more confidence. Try Paperpal Research now and see for yourself.  

Frequently asked questions

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

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Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

2 Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

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How To Write A Literature Review - A Complete Guide

Table of Contents

A literature review is much more than just another section in your research paper. It forms the very foundation of your research. It is a formal piece of writing where you analyze the existing theoretical framework, principles, and assumptions and use that as a base to shape your approach to the research question.

Curating and drafting a solid literature review section not only lends more credibility to your research paper but also makes your research tighter and better focused. But, writing literature reviews is a difficult task. It requires extensive reading, plus you have to consider market trends and technological and political changes, which tend to change in the blink of an eye.

Now streamline your literature review process with the help of SciSpace Copilot. With this AI research assistant, you can efficiently synthesize and analyze a vast amount of information, identify key themes and trends, and uncover gaps in the existing research. Get real-time explanations, summaries, and answers to your questions for the paper you're reviewing, making navigating and understanding the complex literature landscape easier.

In this comprehensive guide, we will explore everything from the definition of a literature review, its appropriate length, various types of literature reviews, and how to write one.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a collation of survey, research, critical evaluation, and assessment of the existing literature in a preferred domain.

Eminent researcher and academic Arlene Fink, in her book Conducting Research Literature Reviews , defines it as the following:

“A literature review surveys books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated.

Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic, and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of study.”

Simply put, a literature review can be defined as a critical discussion of relevant pre-existing research around your research question and carving out a definitive place for your study in the existing body of knowledge. Literature reviews can be presented in multiple ways: a section of an article, the whole research paper itself, or a chapter of your thesis.

A literature review does function as a summary of sources, but it also allows you to analyze further, interpret, and examine the stated theories, methods, viewpoints, and, of course, the gaps in the existing content.

As an author, you can discuss and interpret the research question and its various aspects and debate your adopted methods to support the claim.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

A literature review is meant to help your readers understand the relevance of your research question and where it fits within the existing body of knowledge. As a researcher, you should use it to set the context, build your argument, and establish the need for your study.

What is the importance of a literature review?

The literature review is a critical part of research papers because it helps you:

• Gain an in-depth understanding of your research question and the surrounding area
• Convey that you have a thorough understanding of your research area and are up-to-date with the latest changes and advancements
• Establish how your research is connected or builds on the existing body of knowledge and how it could contribute to further research
• Elaborate on the validity and suitability of your theoretical framework and research methodology
• Identify and highlight gaps and shortcomings in the existing body of knowledge and how things need to change
• Convey to readers how your study is different or how it contributes to the research area

How long should a literature review be?

Ideally, the literature review should take up 15%-40% of the total length of your manuscript. So, if you have a 10,000-word research paper, the minimum word count could be 1500.

Your literature review format depends heavily on the kind of manuscript you are writing — an entire chapter in case of doctoral theses, a part of the introductory section in a research article, to a full-fledged review article that examines the previously published research on a topic.

Another determining factor is the type of research you are doing. The literature review section tends to be longer for secondary research projects than primary research projects.

What are the different types of literature reviews?

All literature reviews are not the same. There are a variety of possible approaches that you can take. It all depends on the type of research you are pursuing.

Here are the different types of literature reviews:

Argumentative review

It is called an argumentative review when you carefully present literature that only supports or counters a specific argument or premise to establish a viewpoint.

Integrative review

It is a type of literature review focused on building a comprehensive understanding of a topic by combining available theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence.

Methodological review

This approach delves into the ''how'' and the ''what" of the research question —  you cannot look at the outcome in isolation; you should also review the methodology used.

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 collect, report, and analyze data from the studies included in the review.

Meta-analysis review

Meta-analysis uses 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 than those derived from the individual studies included within a review.

Historical review

Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, or phenomenon 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 identify future research's likely directions.

Theoretical Review

This form aims to examine the corpus of theory accumulated regarding an issue, concept, theory, and phenomenon. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories exist, the relationships between them, the degree the existing approaches have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested.

Scoping Review

The Scoping Review is often used at the beginning of an article, dissertation, or research proposal. It is conducted before the research to highlight gaps in the existing body of knowledge and explains why the project should be greenlit.

State-of-the-Art Review

The State-of-the-Art review is conducted periodically, focusing on the most recent research. It describes what is currently known, understood, or agreed upon regarding the research topic and highlights where there are still disagreements.

Can you use the first person in a literature review?

When writing literature reviews, you should avoid the usage of first-person pronouns. It means that instead of "I argue that" or "we argue that," the appropriate expression would be "this research paper argues that."

Do you need an abstract for a literature review?

Ideally, yes. It is always good to have a condensed summary that is self-contained and independent of the rest of your review. As for how to draft one, you can follow the same fundamental idea when preparing an abstract for a literature review. It should also include:

• The research topic and your motivation behind selecting it
• A one-sentence thesis statement
• An explanation of the kinds of literature featured in the review
• Summary of what you've learned
• Conclusions you drew from the literature you reviewed
• Potential implications and future scope for research

Here's an example of the abstract of a literature review

Is a literature review written in the past tense?

Yes, the literature review should ideally be written in the past tense. You should not use the present or future tense when writing one. The exceptions are when you have statements describing events that happened earlier than the literature you are reviewing or events that are currently occurring; then, you can use the past perfect or present perfect tenses.

How many sources for a literature review?

There are multiple approaches to deciding how many sources to include in a literature review section. The first approach would be to look level you are at as a researcher. For instance, a doctoral thesis might need 60+ sources. In contrast, you might only need to refer to 5-15 sources at the undergraduate level.

The second approach is based on the kind of literature review you are doing — whether it is merely a chapter of your paper or if it is a self-contained paper in itself. When it is just a chapter, sources should equal the total number of pages in your article's body. In the second scenario, you need at least three times as many sources as there are pages in your work.

Quick tips on how to write a literature review

To know how to write a literature review, you must clearly understand its impact and role in establishing your work as substantive research material.

You need to follow the below-mentioned steps, to write a literature review:

• Outline the purpose behind the literature review
• Search relevant literature
• Examine and assess the relevant resources
• Discover connections by drawing deep insights from the resources
• Structure planning to write a good literature review

1. Outline and identify the purpose of  a literature review

As a first step on how to write a literature review, you must know what the research question or topic is and what shape you want your literature review to take. Ensure you understand the research topic inside out, or else seek clarifications. You must be able to the answer below questions before you start:

• How many sources do I need to include?
• What kind of sources should I analyze?
• How much should I critically evaluate each source?
• Should I summarize, synthesize or offer a critique of the sources?
• Do I need to include any background information or definitions?

Additionally, you should know that the narrower your research topic is, the swifter it will be for you to restrict the number of sources to be analyzed.

2. Search relevant literature

Dig deeper into search engines to discover what has already been published around your chosen topic. Make sure you thoroughly go through appropriate reference sources like books, reports, journal articles, government docs, and web-based resources.

You must prepare a list of keywords and their different variations. You can start your search from any library’s catalog, provided you are an active member of that institution. The exact keywords can be extended to widen your research over other databases and academic search engines like:

• Google Scholar
• Microsoft Academic
• Science.gov

Besides, it is not advisable to go through every resource word by word. Alternatively, what you can do is you can start by reading the abstract and then decide whether that source is relevant to your research or not.

Additionally, you must spend surplus time assessing the quality and relevance of resources. It would help if you tried preparing a list of citations to ensure that there lies no repetition of authors, publications, or articles in the literature review.

3. Examine and assess the sources

It is nearly impossible for you to go through every detail in the research article. So rather than trying to fetch every detail, you have to analyze and decide which research sources resemble closest and appear relevant to your chosen domain.

While analyzing the sources, you should look to find out answers to questions like:

• What question or problem has the author been describing and debating?
• What is the definition of critical aspects?
• How well the theories, approach, and methodology have been explained?
• Whether the research theory used some conventional or new innovative approach?
• How relevant are the key findings of the work?
• In what ways does it relate to other sources on the same topic?
• What challenges does this research paper pose to the existing theory
• What are the possible contributions or benefits it adds to the subject domain?

Be always mindful that you refer only to credible and authentic resources. It would be best if you always take references from different publications to validate your theory.

Always keep track of important information or data you can present in your literature review right from the beginning. It will help steer your path from any threats of plagiarism and also make it easier to curate an annotated bibliography or reference section.

4. Discover connections

At this stage, you must start deciding on the argument and structure of your literature review. To accomplish this, you must discover and identify the relations and connections between various resources while drafting your abstract.

A few aspects that you should be aware of while writing a literature review include:

• Rise to prominence: Theories and methods that have gained reputation and supporters over time.
• Constant scrutiny: Concepts or theories that repeatedly went under examination.
• Contradictions and conflicts: Theories, both the supporting and the contradictory ones, for the research topic.
• Knowledge gaps: What exactly does it fail to address, and how to bridge them with further research?
• Influential resources: Significant research projects available that have been upheld as milestones or perhaps, something that can modify the current trends

Once you join the dots between various past research works, it will be easier for you to draw a conclusion and identify your contribution to the existing knowledge base.

5. Structure planning to write a good literature review

There exist different ways towards planning and executing the structure of a literature review. The format of a literature review varies and depends upon the length of the research.

Like any other research paper, the literature review format must contain three sections: introduction, body, and conclusion. The goals and objectives of the research question determine what goes inside these three sections.

Nevertheless, a good literature review can be structured according to the chronological, thematic, methodological, or theoretical framework approach.

Literature review samples

1. Standalone

2. As a section of a research paper

How SciSpace Discover makes literature review a breeze?

SciSpace Discover is a one-stop solution to do an effective literature search and get barrier-free access to scientific knowledge. It is an excellent repository where you can find millions of only peer-reviewed articles and full-text PDF files. Here’s more on how you can use it:

Find the right information

Find what you want quickly and easily with comprehensive search filters that let you narrow down papers according to PDF availability, year of publishing, document type, and affiliated institution. Moreover, you can sort the results based on the publishing date, citation count, and relevance.

Assess credibility of papers quickly

When doing the literature review, it is critical to establish the quality of your sources. They form the foundation of your research. SciSpace Discover helps you assess the quality of a source by providing an overview of its references, citations, and performance metrics.

Get the complete picture in no time

SciSpace Discover’s personalized suggestion engine helps you stay on course and get the complete picture of the topic from one place. Every time you visit an article page, it provides you links to related papers. Besides that, it helps you understand what’s trending, who are the top authors, and who are the leading publishers on a topic.

Make referring sources super easy

To ensure you don't lose track of your sources, you must start noting down your references when doing the literature review. SciSpace Discover makes this step effortless. Click the 'cite' button on an article page, and you will receive preloaded citation text in multiple styles — all you've to do is copy-paste it into your manuscript.

Final tips on how to write a literature review

A massive chunk of time and effort is required to write a good literature review. But, if you go about it systematically, you'll be able to save a ton of time and build a solid foundation for your research.

We hope this guide has helped you answer several key questions you have about writing literature reviews.

Would you like to explore SciSpace Discover and kick off your literature search right away? You can get started here .

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. how to start a literature review.

• What questions do you want to answer?

• What sources do you need to answer these questions?

• What information do these sources contain?

• How can you use this information to answer your questions?

2. What to include in a literature review?

• A brief background of the problem or issue

• What has previously been done to address the problem or issue

• A description of what you will do in your project

• How this study will contribute to research on the subject

3. Why literature review is important?

The literature review is an important part of any research project because it allows the writer to look at previous studies on a topic and determine existing gaps in the literature, as well as what has already been done. It will also help them to choose the most appropriate method for their own study.

4. How to cite a literature review in APA format?

To cite a literature review in APA style, you need to provide the author's name, the title of the article, and the year of publication. For example: Patel, A. B., & Stokes, G. S. (2012). The relationship between personality and intelligence: A meta-analysis of longitudinal research. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(1), 16-21

5. What are the components of a literature review?

• A brief introduction to the topic, including its background and context. The introduction should also include a rationale for why the study is being conducted and what it will accomplish.

• A description of the methodologies used in the study. This can include information about data collection methods, sample size, and statistical analyses.

• A presentation of the findings in an organized format that helps readers follow along with the author's conclusions.

6. What are common errors in writing literature review?

• Not spending enough time to critically evaluate the relevance of resources, observations and conclusions.

• Totally relying on secondary data while ignoring primary data.

• Letting your personal bias seep into your interpretation of existing literature.

• No detailed explanation of the procedure to discover and identify an appropriate literature review.

7. What are the 5 C's of writing literature review?

• Cite - the sources you utilized and referenced in your research.

• Compare - existing arguments, hypotheses, methodologies, and conclusions found in the knowledge base.

• Contrast - the arguments, topics, methodologies, approaches, and disputes that may be found in the literature.

• Critique - the literature and describe the ideas and opinions you find more convincing and why.

• Connect - the various studies you reviewed in your research.

8. How many sources should a literature review have?

When it is just a chapter, sources should equal the total number of pages in your article's body. if it is a self-contained paper in itself, you need at least three times as many sources as there are pages in your work.

9. Can literature review have diagrams?

• To represent an abstract idea or concept

• To explain the steps of a process or procedure

• To help readers understand the relationships between different concepts

10. How old should sources be in a literature review?

Sources for a literature review should be as current as possible or not older than ten years. The only exception to this rule is if you are reviewing a historical topic and need to use older sources.

11. What are the types of literature review?

• Argumentative review

• Integrative review

• Methodological review

• Systematic review

• Meta-analysis review

• Historical review

• Theoretical review

• Scoping review

• State-of-the-Art review

12. Is a literature review mandatory?

Yes. Literature review is a mandatory part of any research project. It is a critical step in the process that allows you to establish the scope of your research, and provide a background for the rest of your work.

But before you go,

• Six Online Tools for Easy Literature Review
• Evaluating literature review: systematic vs. scoping reviews
• Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review
• Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples

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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.

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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.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

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 .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

McCombes, S. (2022, June 07). What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 8 July 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/literature-review/

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Literature review

How to write a literature review in 6 steps

How do you write a good literature review? This step-by-step guide on how to write an excellent literature review covers all aspects of planning and writing literature reviews for academic papers and theses.

How to write a systematic literature review [9 steps]

How do you write a systematic literature review? What types of systematic literature reviews exist and where do you use them? Learn everything you need to know about a systematic literature review in this guide

What is a literature review? [with examples]

Not sure what a literature review is? This guide covers the definition, purpose, and format of a literature review.

Literature Review Guide: Examples of Literature Reviews

• What is a Literature Review?
• How to start?
• Search strategies and Databases
• Examples of Literature Reviews
• How to organise the review
• Library summary
• Emerald Infographic

All good quality journal articles will include a small Literature Review after the Introduction paragraph.  It may not be called a Literature Review but gives you an idea of how one is created in miniature.

Sample Literature Reviews as part of a articles or Theses

• Sample Literature Review on Critical Thinking (Gwendolyn Reece, American University Library)
• Hackett, G and Melia, D . The hotel as the holiday/stay destination:trends and innovations. Presented at TRIC Conference, Belfast, Ireland- June 2012 and EuroCHRIE Conference

Links to sample Literature Reviews from other libraries

• Sample literature reviews from University of West Florida

Standalone Literature Reviews

• Attitudes towards the Disability in Ireland
• Martin, A., O'Connor-Fenelon, M. and Lyons, R. (2010). Non-verbal communication between nurses and people with an intellectual disability: A review of the literature. Journal of Intellectual Diabilities, 14(4), 303-314.

Irish Theses

• Phillips, Martin (2015) European airline performance: a data envelopment analysis with extrapolations based on model outputs. Master of Business Studies thesis, Dublin City University.
• The customers’ perception of servicescape’s influence on their behaviours, in the food retail industry : Dublin Business School 2015
• Coughlan, Ray (2015) What was the role of leadership in the transformation of a failing Irish Insurance business. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.
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• Last Updated: Jun 26, 2024 10:32 AM
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Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

• Sample Literature Reviews
• Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
• Finding "The Literature"
• Organizing/Writing
• APA Style This link opens in a new window
• Chicago: Notes Bibliography This link opens in a new window
• MLA Style This link opens in a new window

Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts

Have an exemplary literature review.

• Literature Review Sample 1
• Literature Review Sample 2
• Literature Review Sample 3

Have you written a stellar literature review you care to share for teaching purposes?

Are you an instructor who has received an exemplary literature review and have permission from the student to post?

Please contact Britt McGowan at [email protected] for inclusion in this guide. All disciplines welcome and encouraged.

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Writing a Good Literature Review: How R Discovery can Help Researchers

A thorough and exhaustive literature review often forms the backbone of substantive, sophisticated research. However, many researchers are unsure how to find research papers and struggle with writing a good literature review . In this article, we highlight the importance of a strong literature review, explain the literature review workflow , and show you how R Discovery can help simplify this process for researchers.  

Table of Contents

Importance of writing a good literature review  

Literature review helps to gain a quick understanding of new research areas: Writing a good literature review means summarizing main themes and established understanding in a research paper along with any contradictions or gaps that may require more inquiry. This is why most researchers who want an overview of a particular subject or topic before starting their research rely on earlier literature reviews in the field.   

Literature review helps identify gaps in existing research: A literature review is most often the first step to any meaningful research work. Even before any actual research or writing can start, a researcher must know how to find research papers and do an exhaustive survey of existing literature to identify research gaps and come up with a novel topic for their research study.     

Literature r eview is a must have for grant applications : In most cases, a comprehensive literature review report is an essential attachment with grant applications. Writing a good literature review helps exhibit the author’s definitive grasp on a particular topic, highlights research gaps in existing literature, and provides context and relevancy of the proposed research work.   

How to write a literature review?  

Writing a good literature review that is both comprehensive and thought-provoking is usually a daunting and time-consuming task. It encompasses within it several sub-steps, from knowing how to find research papers to identifying and reading the most relevant literature to understanding and summarizing the key themes. All these steps need to be completed in order to write a compelling literature review .  

How R Discovery helps you at every step of writing a good literature review  

Each of the steps in the process of writing a good literature review comes with its own challenges, but the biggest question most early career researchers and PhD students face is ‘How to get started?’.  

Discovering the right content to focus on can be far more complicated and tiresome than it sounds. Most don’t know where to look or how to find research papers to read. A 2019 study suggests that researchers typically spend more than 4 hours a week finding the right research papers and a little over 5 hours reading them, with only half of these being useful. 1

This is where we come in!  

R Discovery hosts more than 100 million journal articles and preprints today, acting as a one-stop destination for researchers to find the most relevant content for their literature review. We have partnered with global research content aggregators and publishing houses – CrossRef, Unpaywall, PubMed, Pubmed Central, IOP, Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, Karger, Journal of American Medical Association , British Medical Journal, SAGE, Underline Science, and arXiv to name a few – which ensures we are constantly adding to our library of research content.   

Filtering the right papers from the research available online is often difficult for early career researchers. Since they may not have complete context of their research area, they could find it difficult to enter the correct keywords or know the best keywords to find relevant research papers.   

R Discovery’s customized user journey and AI-generated reading suggestions, basis their selected research area and keywords, allow researchers to progressively narrow down their choice of topics.   

Users can also search for new research papers by seeding sample milestone papers and extracting topic suggestions from the same. Researchers using R Discovery can also find relevant papers by looking up other papers published in the same journal as your shortlisted articles or preprints.   

Finding the right paper is only half the battle won. After all the time and effort put into finding the right research paper, researchers realize that it is behind a paywall. R Discovery has you covered by supporting around 1,200 universities around the world and allowing users institutional access to paywalled articles. This means users can read the full text of shortlisted papers behind paywalls with the help of their university’s library affiliations. R Discovery also informs users if a paper is open access, with researchers being able to view the full-text of the more than 40 million open access journal articles available on the app itself.   

On R Discovery, users can also carry out multiple literature reviews simultaneously with the help of multiple reading lists . Users can now create individual research reading streams for specific subject areas and topics, which allows for more effective reading instead of one consolidated search.   

  Consuming content of all relevant papers is yet another time-consuming manual effort , as it entails skimming though hundreds of research papers, each comprising anywhere between 10 and 100 pages. Most researchers we spoke to, shared having to go through hundreds of research papers when writing a good literature review (especially if they are not working on a very niche topic).   

R Discovery understands the importance of time and more productive reading, which is why it provides smart summaries for articles. With AI-generated summaries and highlights for around 6 million papers in our content bank, users can quickly assess a paper’s relevance without spending time on reading the full text. This significantly reduces the time it takes for users to understand the themes and general agreements/disagreements in their field of research basis current literature.  

And the best part is that R Discovery, and all these helpful features, is completely free to download and use! So, if you are a researcher and struggling with writing a good literature review , you know where to look. Here’s a quick guide on getting started on R Discovery.   

Creating compelling literature reviews – Getting started on R Discovery  

R Discovery has enabled a customized workflow to help users writing a good literature review , who may be trying to figure out the universe of papers they should consider for their review. New users can select this option during their onboarding journey, which is explained below.   

1. User selects the option “Find papers for Literature Review” during the onboarding flow. 

2. User selects their research area and topics they are interested in to create a custom feed. 

3. User gets a list of papers relevant to their topics of interest on their personalized reading feed.

4. Users can bookmark papers they like and add them to their literature review reading lists. 

 5. Users can download one or more paper from their reading list in an excel format. They can also export the article into reference managers like Zotero and Mendeley. 

It’s as simple as that. With custom feeds and smart literature review reading feeds, R Discovery is helping researchers save time and be more effective when writing a good literature review for their research topic.  

And we’re not done. R Discovery is committed to continually improving the experience for researchers, so if you like our features or think we can do something better, drop in an email to [email protected] .   

References:  

• Trust in research. Research Survey by Elsevier and Sense About Science. June 2019  https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/908435/Trust_evidence_report_summary_Final.pd

R Discovery is a literature search and research reading platform that accelerates your research discovery journey by keeping you updated on the latest, most relevant scholarly content. With 250M+ research articles sourced from trusted aggregators like CrossRef, Unpaywall, PubMed, PubMed Central, Open Alex and top publishing houses like Springer Nature, JAMA, IOP, Taylor & Francis, NEJM, BMJ, Karger, SAGE, Emerald Publishing and more, R Discovery puts a world of research at your fingertips.  

Try R Discovery Prime FREE for 1 week or upgrade at just US$72 a year to access premium features that let you listen to research on the go, read in your language, collaborate with peers, auto sync with reference managers, and much more. Choose a simpler, smarter way to find and read research – Download the app and start your free 7-day trial today !  

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17 strong academic phrases to write your literature review (+ real examples)

A well-written academic literature review not only builds upon existing knowledge and publications but also involves critical reflection, comparison, contrast, and identifying research gaps. The following 17 strong academic key phrases can assist you in writing a critical and reflective literature review.

Academic key phrases to present existing knowledge in a literature review

The topic has received significant interest within the wider literature..

Example: “ The topic of big data and its integration with AI has received significant interest within the wider literature .” ( Dwivedi et al. 2021, p. 4 )

The topic gained considerable attention in the academic literature in…

Studies have identified….

Example: “ Studies have identified the complexities of implementing AI based systems within government and the public sector .” ( Dwivedi et al. 2021, p. 6 )

Researchers have discussed…

Recent work demonstrated that….

Example: “Recent work demonstrated that dune grasses with similar morphological traits can build contrasting landscapes due to differences in their spatial shoot organization.” ( Van de Ven, 2022 et al., p. 1339 )

Existing research frequently attributes…

Prior research has hypothesized that…, prior studies have found that….

Example:  “ Prior studies have found that court-referred individuals are more likely to complete relationship violence intervention programs (RVIP) than self-referred individuals. ” ( Evans et al. 2022, p. 1 )

Academic key phrases to contrast and compare findings in a literature review

While some scholars…, others…, the findings of scholar a showcase that… . scholar b , on the other hand, found….

Example: “ The findings of Arinto (2016) call for administrators concerning the design of faculty development programs, provision of faculty support, and strategic planning for online distance learning implementation across the institution. Francisco and Nuqui (2020) on the other hand found that the new normal leadership is an adaptive one while staying strong on their commitment. ” ( Asio and Bayucca, 2021, p. 20 )

Interestingly, all the arguments refer to…

This argument is similar to….

If you are looking to elevate your writing and editing skills, I highly recommend enrolling in the course “ Good with Words: Writing and Editing Specialization “, which is a 4 course series offered by the University of Michigan. This comprehensive program is conveniently available as an online course on Coursera, allowing you to learn at your own pace. Plus, upon successful completion, you’ll have the opportunity to earn a valuable certificate to showcase your newfound expertise!

Academic key phrases to highlight research gaps in a literature review

Yet, it remains unknown how…, there is, however, still little research on…, existing studies have failed to address….

Example: “ University–industry relations (UIR) are usually analysed by the knowledge transfer channels, but existing studies have failed to address what knowledge content is being transferred – impacting the technology output aimed by the partnership.”  (Dalmarco et al. 2019, p. 1314 )

Several scholars have recommended to move away…

New approaches are needed to address…, master academia, get new content delivered directly to your inbox, 26 powerful academic phrases to write your introduction (+ real examples), 13 awesome academic phrases to write your methodology (+ real examples), related articles, co-authorship guidelines to successfully co-author a scientific paper, how to select a journal for publication as a phd student, how to revise a manuscript by responding to reviewer comments.

Home » Purdue University » What Makes A Good Literature Review?

What Makes A Good Literature Review?

Table of Contents

A good literature review shows signs of synthesis and understanding of the topic . There should be strong evidence of analytical thinking shown through the connections you make between the literature being reviewed.

What are the 5 characteristics of a good literature review?

Literature Review Format

• Provide an overview of the topic, theme, or issue.
• Identify your specific area of focus.
• Describe your methodology and rationale.
• Briefly discuss the overall trends in the published scholarship in this area.
• Establish your reason for writing the review.

What are the 5 C’s of writing literature review?

Is including the five C’s( Cite, Compare, Contrast, Critique and Connect ) really important in writing a literature review for your research project?

Why makes a good literature review?

A literature review establishes familiarity with and understanding of current research in a particular field before carrying out a new investigation . Conducting a literature review should enable you to find out what research has already been done and identify what is unknown within your topic.

What are the 4 main functions of literature review?

In relation to your own study, the literature review can help in four ways. It can: 1 bring clarity and focus to your research problem; 2 improve your research methodology; 3 broaden your knowledge base in your research area; and 4 contextualise your findings .

What are the 4 stages of literature review?

Literature search—finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. Data evaluation—determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. Analysis and interpretation—discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

What are some of the most critical components of a good literature review?

The basic components of a literature review include:

• a description of the publication;
• a summary of the publication’s main points;
• a discussion of gaps in research;
• an evaluation of the publication’s contribution to the topic.

How do we write a literature review?

Write a Literature Review

• Narrow your topic and select papers accordingly.
• Search for literature.
• Read the selected articles thoroughly and evaluate them.
• Organize the selected papers by looking for patterns and by developing subtopics.
• Develop a thesis or purpose statement.
• Write the paper.
• Review your work.

How do you write a literature review example?

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.

What are the seven qualities of great literature?

The seven literary standards are: artistry, suggestiveness, intellectual value, spiritual value, permanence, universality and style . These are a set of characteristics to determine whether or not a work is literary. The criteria was developed by writer William J.

What makes good literature?

Great literature is based on ideas that are startling, unexpected, unusual, weighty. or new . Great literature makes us see or think things we never did before. The ideas underpinning the work challenge our accustomed categories and ways of thinking, putting minds on edge.

What are three six ways to write literature review?

6 Steps to Writing A Literature Review

• Synthesize.

What are the 6 steps in writing a literature review?

Organized around a proven six-step model and incorporating technology into all of the steps, the book provides examples, strategies, and exercises that take students step by step through the entire process: (1) Selecting a topic; (2) Searching the literature; (3) Developing arguments; (4) Surveying the literature; (5)

What makes a literature review fail?

There are several mistakes that may happen while writing an effective literature review includes no proper lines like dispute statement, absences of appropriate research, indicating the sources incorrectly, the poor formation of paper, plagiarism checking .

What are the 3 parts of literature review?

Just like most academic papers, literature reviews also must contain at least three basic elements: an introduction or background information section; the body of the review containing the discussion of sources; and, finally, a conclusion and/or recommendations section to end the paper .

What are the ten simple rules in writing literature?

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

• Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience.
• Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature.
• Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading.
• Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write.
• Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest.
• Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent.

When starting your literature review what is the first step?

1. Define your topic . The first step is defining your task — choosing a topic and noting the questions you have about the topic. This will provide a focus that guides your strategy in step II and will provide potential words to use in searches in step III.

How many words should a literature review be?

In a PhD thesis, the literature review typically comprises one chapter (perhaps 8-10,000 words), for a Masters dissertation it may be around 2-3,000 words, and for an undergraduate dissertation it may be no more than 2,000 words.

How many sources should a literature review have?

The number of sources you will need will depend upon your assignment, professor, and level of study. In general, undergraduate students will usually be required to use somewhere between 5 and 20 sources; graduate students typically will need between 20 and 40 .

How many pages should literature review be?

The length of a literature review varies depending on its purpose and audience. In a thesis or dissertation, the review is usually a full chapter ( at least 20 pages), but for an assignment it may only be a few pages . There are several ways to organize and structure a literature review.

What are the qualities that make a piece of writing be considered literature?

Main Characteristics:

• usually fiction that displays a sense of reality.
• tension or conflict.
• artistic unity (a main idea is conveyed)
• figurative language (similes, metaphors, irony, symbolism, analogy)

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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 .

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16 Comments

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

Thanks for the kind words, Becky. Good luck with your literature review 🙂

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Timothy T. Chol [email protected]

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This was so useful. Thank you so much.

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Great Brief Explanation, thanks

So helpful to me as a student

GradCoach is a fantastic site with brilliant and modern minds behind it.. I spent weeks decoding the substantial academic Jargon and grounding my initial steps on the research process, which could be shortened to a couple of days through the Gradcoach. Thanks again!

This is an amazing talk. I paved way for myself as a researcher. Thank you GradCoach!

Well-presented overview of the literature!

This was brilliant. So clear. Thank you

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10 Best Literature Review Tools for Researchers

Boost your research game with these Best Literature Review Tools for Researchers! Uncover hidden gems, organize your findings, and ace your next research paper!

Researchers struggle to identify key sources, extract relevant information, and maintain accuracy while manually conducting literature reviews. This leads to inefficiency, errors, and difficulty in identifying gaps or trends in existing literature.

Table of Contents

Top 10 Literature Review Tools for Researchers: In A Nutshell (2023)

#1. Semantic Scholar – A free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature

Semantic Scholar is a cutting-edge literature review tool that researchers rely on for its comprehensive access to academic publications. With its advanced AI algorithms and extensive database, it simplifies the discovery of relevant research papers. 

Not all scholarly content may be indexed, and occasional false positives or inaccurate associations can occur. Furthermore, the tool primarily focuses on computer science and related fields, potentially limiting coverage in other disciplines. 

#2. Elicit – Research assistant using language models like GPT-3

However, users should be cautious when using Elicit. It is important to verify the credibility and accuracy of the sources found through the tool, as the database encompasses a wide range of publications. 

#3. Scite.Ai – Your personal research assistant

However, while Scite.Ai offers numerous advantages, there are a few aspects to be cautious about. As with any data-driven tool, occasional errors or inaccuracies may arise, necessitating researchers to cross-reference and verify results with other reputable sources. 

Rayyan offers the following paid plans:

#4. DistillerSR – Literature Review Software

Despite occasional technical glitches reported by some users, the developers actively address these issues through updates and improvements, ensuring a better user experience. 

#5. Rayyan – AI Powered Tool for Systematic Literature Reviews

However, it’s important to be aware of a few aspects. The free version of Rayyan has limitations, and upgrading to a premium subscription may be necessary for additional functionalities. 

#6. Consensus – Use AI to find you answers in scientific research

With Consensus, researchers can save significant time by efficiently organizing and accessing relevant research material.People consider Consensus for several reasons. 

Consensus offers both free and paid plans:

#7. RAx – AI-powered reading assistant

#8. lateral – advance your research with ai.

Additionally, researchers must be mindful of potential biases introduced by the tool’s algorithms and should critically evaluate and interpret the results. 

#9. Iris AI – Introducing the researcher workspace

Researchers are drawn to this tool because it saves valuable time by automating the tedious task of literature review and provides comprehensive coverage across multiple disciplines. 

#10. Scholarcy – Summarize your literature through AI

Scholarcy’s automated summarization may not capture the nuanced interpretations or contextual information presented in the full text. 

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, conducting a comprehensive literature review is a crucial aspect of any research project, and the availability of reliable and efficient tools can greatly facilitate this process for researchers. This article has explored the top 10 literature review tools that have gained popularity among researchers.

Q1. What are literature review tools for researchers?

Q2. what criteria should researchers consider when choosing literature review tools.

When choosing literature review tools, researchers should consider factors such as the tool’s search capabilities, database coverage, user interface, collaboration features, citation management, annotation and highlighting options, integration with reference management software, and data extraction capabilities. 

Q3. Are there any literature review tools specifically designed for systematic reviews or meta-analyses?

Meta-analysis support: Some literature review tools include statistical analysis features that assist in conducting meta-analyses. These features can help calculate effect sizes, perform statistical tests, and generate forest plots or other visual representations of the meta-analytic results.

Q4. Can literature review tools help with organizing and annotating collected references?

Integration with citation managers: Some literature review tools integrate with popular citation managers like Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote, allowing seamless transfer of references and annotations between platforms.

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The 1 00 Best Books of the 21st Century

New! 80 - 61

As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

Many of us find joy in looking back and taking stock of our reading lives, which is why we here at The New York Times Book Review decided to mark the first 25 years of this century with an ambitious project: to take a first swing at determining the most important, influential books of the era. In collaboration with the Upshot, we sent a survey to hundreds of literary luminaries , asking them to name the 10 best books published since Jan. 1, 2000.

Stephen King took part. So did Bonnie Garmus, Claudia Rankine, James Patterson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Elin Hilderbrand, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Roxane Gay, Marlon James, Sarah MacLean, Min Jin Lee, Jonathan Lethem and Jenna Bush Hager, to name just a few .

As we publish the list over the course of this week, we hope you’ll discover a book you’ve always meant to read, or encounter a beloved favorite you’d like to pick up again. Above all, we hope you’re as inspired and dazzled as we are by the breadth of subjects, voices, opinions, experiences and imagination represented here.

Be first to see what’s new. Every day this week, the Book Review will unveil 20 more books on our Best Books of the 21st Century list. You can get notified when they’re up — and hear about book reviews, news and features each week — when you receive the Book Review’s newsletter. Sign up here.

Tree of Smoke

Denis Johnson 2007

Like the project of the title — an intelligence report that the newly minted C.I.A. operative William “Skip” Sands comes to find both quixotic and useless — the Vietnam-era warfare of Johnson’s rueful, soulful novel lives in shadows, diversions and half-truths. There are no heroes here among the lawless colonels, assassinated priests and faith-stricken NGO nurses; only villainy and vast indifference.

Liked it? Try “ Missionaries ,” by Phil Klay or “ Hystopia ,” by David Means.

Interested? Read our review . Then reserve it at your local library or buy it from Amazon , Apple , Barnes & Noble or Bookshop .

How to Be Both

Ali Smith 2014

This elegant double helix of a novel entwines the stories of a fictional modern-day British girl and a real-life 15th-century Italian painter. A more conventional book might have explored the ways the past and present mirror each other, but Smith is after something much more radical. “How to Be Both” is a passionate, dialectical critique of the binaries that define and confine us. Not only male and female, but also real and imaginary, poetry and prose, living and dead. The way to be “both” is to recognize the extent to which everything already is. — A.O. Scott, critic at large for The Times

Liked it? Try “ Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi ,” by Geoff Dyer or “ The Argonauts ,” by Maggie Nelson.

Ann Patchett 2001

A famed opera singer performs for a Japanese executive’s birthday at a luxe private home in South America; it’s that kind of party. But when a group of young guerrillas swoops in and takes everyone in the house hostage, Patchett’s exquisitely calibrated novel — inspired by a real incident — becomes a piano wire of tension, vibrating on high.

My wife and I share books we love with our kids, and after I raved about “Bel Canto” — the voice, the setting, the way romance and suspense are so perfectly braided — I gave copies to my kids, and they all loved it, too. My son was in high school then, and he became a kind of lit-pusher, pressing his beloved copy into friends’ hands. We used to call him the Keeper of the Bel Canto. — Jess Walter, author of “Beautiful Ruins”

Liked it? Try “ Nocturnes ,” by Kazuo Ishiguro or “ The Piano Tuner ,” by Daniel Mason.

Men We Reaped

Jesmyn Ward 2013

Sandwiched between her two National Book Award-winning novels, Ward’s memoir carries more than fiction’s force in its aching elegy for five young Black men (a brother, a cousin, three friends) whose untimely exits from her life came violently and without warning. Their deaths — from suicide and homicide, addiction and accident — place the hidden contours of race, justice and cruel circumstance in stark relief.

Liked it? Try “ Breathe: A Letter to My Sons ,” by Imani Perry or “ Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir ,” by Natasha Trethewey.

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

Saidiya Hartman 2019

A beautiful, meticulously researched exploration of the lives of Black girls whom early-20th-century laws designated as “wayward” for such crimes as having serial lovers, or an excess of desire, or a style of comportment that was outside white norms. Hartman grapples with “the power and authority of the archive and the limits it sets on what can be known” about poor Black women, but from the few traces she uncovers in the historical record, she manages to sketch moving portraits, restoring joy and freedom and movement to what, in other hands, might have been mere statistics. — Laila Lalami, author of “The Other Americans”

Liked it? Try “In the Wake: On Blackness and Being,” by Christina Sharpe or “ All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake ,” by Tiya Miles.

Bring Up the Bodies

Hilary Mantel 2012

The title comes from an old English legal phrase for summoning men who have been accused of treason to trial; in the court’s eyes, effectively, they are already dead. But Mantel’s tour-de-force portrait of Thomas Cromwell, the second installment in her vaunted “Wolf Hall” series, thrums with thrilling, obstinate life: a lowborn statesman on the rise; a king in love (and out of love, and in love again); a mad roundelay of power plays, poisoned loyalties and fateful realignments. It’s only empires, after all.

Liked it? Try “ This Is Happiness ,” by Niall Williams or “ The Western Wind ,” by Samantha Harvey.

Zadie Smith 2005

Consider it a bold reinvention of “Howards End,” or take Smith’s sprawling third novel as its own golden thing: a tale of two professors — one proudly liberal, the other staunchly right-wing — whose respective families’ rivalries and friendships unspool over nearly 450 provocative, subplot-mad pages.

“You don’t have favorites among your children, but you do have allies.”

Let’s admit it: Family is often a kind of war, even if telepathically conducted. — Alexandra Jacobs, book critic for The Times

Liked it? Try “ Crossroads ,” by Jonathan Franzen.

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel 2014

Increasingly, and for obvious reasons, end-times novels are not hard to find. But few have conjured the strange luck of surviving an apocalypse — civilization preserved via the ad hoc Shakespeare of a traveling theater troupe; entire human ecosystems contained in an abandoned airport — with as much spooky melancholic beauty as Mandel does in her beguiling fourth novel.

Liked it? Try “ Severance ,” by Ling Ma or “ The Passage ,” by Justin Cronin.

The Days of Abandonment

Elena Ferrante; translated by Ann Goldstein 2005

There is something scandalous about this picture of a sensible, adult woman almost deranged by the breakup of her marriage, to the point of neglecting her children. The psychodrama is naked — sometimes hard to read, at other moments approaching farce. Just as Ferrante drew an indelible portrait of female friendship in her quartet of Neapolitan novels, here, she brings her all-seeing eye to female solitude.

“The circle of an empty day is brutal, and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose.”

It so simply encapsulates how solitude can, with the inexorable passage of time, calcify into loneliness and then despair. — Alexandra Jacobs

Liked it? Try “ Eileen ,” by Ottessa Moshfegh or “ Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation ,” by Rachel Cusk.

The Human Stain

Philip Roth 2000

Set during the Clinton impeachment imbroglio, this is partly a furious indictment of what would later be called cancel culture, partly an inquiry into the paradoxes of class, sex and race in America. A college professor named Coleman Silk is persecuted for making supposedly racist remarks in class. Nathan Zuckerman, his neighbor (and Roth’s trusty alter ego), learns that Silk, a fellow son of Newark, is a Black man who has spent most of his adult life passing for white. Of all the Zuckerman novels, this one may be the most incendiary, and the most unsettling. — A.O. Scott

Liked it? Try “ Vladimir ,” by Julia May Jonas or “ Blue Angel ,” by Francine Prose.

The Sympathizer

Viet Thanh Nguyen 2015

Penned as a book-length confession from a nameless North Vietnamese spy as Saigon falls and new duties in America beckon, Nguyen’s richly faceted novel seems to swallow multiple genres whole, like a satisfied python: political thriller and personal history, cracked metafiction and tar-black comedy.

Liked it? Try “ Man of My Time ,” by Dalia Sofer or “ Tomás Nevinson ,” by Javier Marías; translated by Margaret Jull Costa.

Hisham Matar 2016

Though its Pulitzer Prize was bestowed in the category of biography, Matar’s account of searching for the father he lost to a 1990 kidnapping in Cairo functions equally as absorbing detective story, personal elegy and acute portrait of doomed geopolitics — all merged, somehow, with the discipline and cinematic verve of a novel.

Liked it? Try “ A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy ,” by Nathan Thrall, “ House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East ,” by Anthony Shadid or “ My Father’s Fortune ,” by Michael Frayn.

The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis

Brevity, thy name is Lydia Davis. If her work has become a byword for short (nay, microdose) fiction, this collection proves why it is also hard to shake; a conflagration of odd little umami bombs — sometimes several pages, sometimes no more than a sentence — whose casual, almost careless wordsmithery defies their deadpan resonance.

Liked it? Try “ Ninety-Nine Stories of God ,” by Joy Williams or “ Tell Me: Thirty Stories ,” by Mary Robison.

Detransition, Baby

Torrey Peters 2021

Love is lost, found and reconfigured in Peters’s penetrating, darkly humorous debut novel. But when the novel’s messy triangular romance — between two trans characters and a cis-gendered woman — becomes an unlikely story about parenthood, the plot deepens, and so does its emotional resonance: a poignant and gratifyingly cleareyed portrait of found family.

Peters’s sly wit and observational genius, her ability to balance so many intimate realities, cultural forces and zeitgeisty happenings made my head spin. It got me hot, cracked me up, punched my heart with grief and understanding. I’m in awe of her abilities, and will re-read this book periodically just to remember how it’s done. — Michelle Tea, author of “Against Memoir”

Liked it? Try “ I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition ,” by Lucy Sante or “ Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta ,” by James Hannaham.

Frederick Douglass

David W. Blight 2018

It is not hard to throw a rock and hit a Great Man biography; Blight’s earns its stripes by smartly and judiciously excavating the flesh-and-bone man beneath the myth. Though Douglass famously wrote three autobiographies of his own, there turned out to be much between the lines that is illuminated here with rigor, flair and refreshing candor.

Liked it? Try “ The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family ,” by Kerri K. Greenidge or “Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865,” by James Oakes.

George Saunders 2000

An ersatz caveman languishes at a theme park; a dead maiden aunt comes back to screaming, scatological life; a bachelor barber born with no toes dreams of true love, or at least of getting his toe-nubs licked. The stories in Saunders’s second collection are profane, unsettling and patently absurd. They’re also freighted with bittersweet humanity, and rendered in language so strange and wonderful, it sings.

Liked it? Try “ Swamplandia! ,” by Karen Russell or “ Friday Black ,” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

The Emperor of All Maladies

Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010

The subtitle, “A Biography of Cancer,” provides some helpful context for what lies between the covers of Mukherjee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, though it hardly conveys the extraordinary ambition and empathy of his telling, as the trained oncologist weaves together disparate strands of large-scale history, biology and devastating personal anecdote.

Liked it? Try “ Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End ,” by Atul Gawande, “ Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery ,” by Henry Marsh or “ I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life ,” by Ed Yong.

When We Cease to Understand the World

Benjamín Labatut; translated by Adrian Nathan West 2021

You don’t have to know anything about quantum theory to start reading this book, a deeply researched, exquisitely imagined group portrait of tormented geniuses. By the end, you’ll know enough to be terrified. Labatut is interested in how the pursuit of scientific certainty can lead to, or arise from, states of extreme psychological and spiritual upheaval. His characters — Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, among others — discover a universe that defies rational comprehension. After them, “scientific method and its object could no longer be prised apart.” That may sound abstract, but in Labatut’s hands the story of quantum physics is violent, suspenseful and finally heartbreaking. — A.O. Scott

Liked it? Try “ The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality ,” by William Egginton, “ The Noise of Time ,” by Julian Barnes or “The End of Days,” by Jenny Erpenbeck; translated by Susan Bernofsky.

Hurricane Season

Fernanda Melchor; translated by Sophie Hughes 2020

Her sentences are sloping hills; her paragraphs, whole mountains. It’s no wonder that Melchor was dubbed a sort of south-of-the-border Faulkner for her baroque and often brutally harrowing tale of poverty, paranoia and murder (also: witches, or at least the idea of them) in a fictional Mexican village. When a young girl impregnated by her pedophile stepfather unwittingly lands there, her arrival is the spark that lights a tinderbox.

Liked it? Try “ Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice ,” by Cristina Rivera Garza or “ Fever Dream ,” by Samanta Schweblin; translated by Megan McDowell.

John Jeremiah Sullivan 2011

When this book of essays came out, it bookended a fading genre: collected pieces written on deadline by “pulpheads,” or magazine writers. Whether it’s Sullivan’s visit to a Christian rock festival, his profile of Axl Rose or a tribute to an early American botanist, he brings to his subjects not just depth, but an open-hearted curiosity. Indeed, if this book feels as if it’s from a different time, perhaps that’s because of its generous receptivity to other ways of being, which offers both reader and subject a kind of grace.

Liked it? Try “ Sunshine State ,” by Sarah Gerard, “ Consider the Lobster ,” by David Foster Wallace or “ Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It ,” by Geoff Dyer.

The Story of the Lost Child

Elena Ferrante; translated by Ann Goldstein 2015

All things, even modern literature’s most fraught female friendship, must come to an end. As the now middle-aged Elena and Lila continue the dance of envy and devotion forged in their scrappy Neapolitan youth, the conclusion of Ferrante’s four-book saga defies the laws of diminishing returns, illuminating the twined psychologies of its central pair — intractable, indelible, inseparable — in one last blast of X-ray prose.

Liked it? Try “The Years That Followed,” by Catherine Dunne or “From the Land of the Moon,” by Milena Agus; translated by Ann Goldstein.

A Manual for Cleaning Women

Lucia Berlin 2015

Berlin began writing in the 1960s, and collections of her careworn, haunted, messily alluring yet casually droll short stories were published in the 1980s and ’90s. But it wasn’t until 2015, when the best were collected into a volume called “A Manual for Cleaning Women,” that her prodigious talent was recognized. Berlin writes about harried and divorced single women, many of them in working-class jobs, with uncanny grace. She is the real deal. — Dwight Garner, book critic for The Times

“I hate to see anything lovely by myself.”

It’s so true, to me at least, and I have heard no other writer express it. — Dwight Garner

Liked it? Try “ The Flamethrowers ,” by Rachel Kushner or “ The Complete Stories ,” by Clarice Lispector; translated by Katrina Dodson.

Jon Fosse; translated by Damion Searls 2022

You may not be champing at the bit to read a seven-part, nearly 700-page novel written in a single stream-of-consciousness sentence with few paragraph breaks and two central characters with the same name. But this Norwegian masterpiece, by the winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature, is the kind of soul-cleansing work that seems to silence the cacophony of the modern world — a pair of noise-canceling headphones in book form. The narrator, a painter named Asle, drives out to visit his doppelgänger, Asle, an ailing alcoholic. Then the narrator takes a boat ride to have Christmas dinner with some friends. That, more or less, is the plot. But throughout, Fosse’s searching reflections on God, art and death are at once haunting and deeply comforting.

I had not read Fosse before he won the Nobel Prize, and I wanted to catch up. Luckily for me, the critic Merve Emre (who has championed his work) is my colleague at Wesleyan, so I asked her where to start. I was hoping for a shortcut, but she sternly told me that there was nothing to do but to read the seven-volume “Septology” translated by Damion Searls. Luckily for me, I had 30 hours of plane travel in the next week or so, and I had a Kindle.

Reading “Septology” in the cocoon of a plane was one of the great aesthetic experiences of my life. The hypnotic effects of the book were amplified by my confinement, and the paucity of distractions helped me settle into its exquisite rhythms. The repetitive patterns of Fosse’s prose made its emotional waves, when they came, so much more powerful. — Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University

Liked it? Try “ Armand V ,” by Dag Solstad; translated by Steven T. Murray.

An American Marriage

Tayari Jones 2018

Life changes in an instant for Celestial and Roy, the young Black newlyweds at the beating, uncomfortably realistic heart of Jones’s fourth novel. On a mostly ordinary night, during a hotel stay near his Louisiana hometown, Roy is accused of rape. He is then swiftly and wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison. The couple’s complicated future unfolds, often in letters, across two worlds. The stain of racism covers both places.

Liked it? Try “ Hello Beautiful ,” by Ann Napolitano or “ Stay with Me ,” by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Gabrielle Zevin 2022

The title is Shakespeare; the terrain, more or less, is video games. Neither of those bare facts telegraphs the emotional and narrative breadth of Zevin’s breakout novel, her fifth for adults. As the childhood friendship between two future game-makers blooms into a rich creative collaboration and, later, alienation, the book becomes a dazzling disquisition on art, ambition and the endurance of platonic love.

Liked it? Try “ Normal People ,” by Sally Rooney or “ Super Sad True Love Story ,” by Gary Shteyngart.

Mohsin Hamid 2017

The modern world and all its issues can feel heavy — too heavy for the fancies of fiction. Hamid’s quietly luminous novel, about a pair of lovers in a war-ravaged Middle Eastern country who find that certain doors can open portals, literally, to other lands, works in a kind of minor-key magical realism that bears its weight beautifully.

Liked it? Try “ The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida ,” by Shehan Karunatilaka or “ A Burning ,” by Megha Majumdar.

Olive Kitteridge

Elizabeth Strout 2008

When this novel-in-stories won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2009, it was a victory for crotchety, unapologetic women everywhere, especially ones who weren’t, as Olive herself might have put it, spring chickens. The patron saint of plain-spokenness — and the titular character of Strout’s 13 tales — is a long-married Mainer with regrets, hopes and a lobster boat’s worth of quiet empathy. Her small-town travails instantly became stand-ins for something much bigger, even universal.

Liked it? Try “ Tom Lake ,” by Ann Patchett or “ Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage ,” by Alice Munro.

The Passage of Power

Robert Caro 2012

The fourth volume of Caro’s epic chronicle of Lyndon Johnson’s life and times is a political biography elevated to the level of great literature. His L.B.J. is a figure of Shakespearean magnitude, whose sudden ascension from the abject humiliations of the vice presidency to the summit of political power is a turn of fortune worthy of a Greek myth. Caro makes you feel the shock of J.F.K.’s assassination, and brings you inside Johnson’s head on the blood-drenched day when his lifelong dream finally comes true. It’s an astonishing and unforgettable book. — Tom Perrotta, author of “The Leftovers”

Liked it? Try “ G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century ,” by Beverly Gage, “ King: A Life ,” by Jonathan Eig or “ American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer ,” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.

Secondhand Time

Svetlana Alexievich; translated by Bela Shayevich 2016

Of all the 20th century’s grand failed experiments, few came to more inglorious ends than the aspiring empire known, for a scant seven decades, as the U.S.S.R. The death of the dream of Communism reverberates through the Nobel-winning Alexievich’s oral history, and her unflinching portrait of the people who survived the Soviet state (or didn’t) — ex-prisoners, Communist Party officials, ordinary citizens of all stripes — makes for an excoriating, eye-opening read.

Liked it? Try “ Gulag ,” by Anne Applebaum or “ Is Journalism Worth Dying For? Final Dispatches ,” by Anna Politkovskaya; translated by Arch Tait.

The Copenhagen Trilogy

Tove Ditlevsen; translated by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman 2021

Ditlevsen’s memoirs were first published in Denmark in the 1960s and ’70s, but most English-language readers didn’t encounter them until they appeared in a single translated volume more than five decades later. The books detail Ditlevsen’s hardscrabble childhood, her flourishing early career as a poet and her catastrophic addictions, which left her wedded to a psychotic doctor and hopelessly dependent on opioids by her 30s. But her writing, however dire her circumstances, projects a breathtaking clarity and candidness, and it nails what is so inexplicable about human nature.

Liked it? Try “ The End of Eddy ,” by Édouard Louis; translated by Michael Lucey.

All Aunt Hagar’s Children

Edward P. Jones 2006

Jones’s follow-up to his Pulitzer-anointed historical novel, “The Known World,” forsakes a single narrative for 14 interconnected stories, disparate in both direction and tone. His tales of 20th-century Black life in and around Washington, D.C., are haunted by cumulative loss and touched, at times, by dark magical realism — one character meets the Devil himself in a Safeway parking lot — but girded too by loveliness, and something like hope.

“It was, I later learned about myself, as if my heart, on the path that was my life, had come to a puddle in the road and had faltered, hesitated, trying to decide whether to walk over the puddle or around it, or even to go back.”

The metaphor is right at the edge of corniness, but it's rendered with such specificity that it catches you off guard, and the temporal complexity — the way the perspective moves forward, backward and sideways in time — captures an essential truth about memory and regret. — A.O. Scott

Liked it? Try “ The Office of Historical Corrections ,” by Danielle Evans or “ Perish ,” by LaToya Watkins.

The New Jim Crow

Michelle Alexander 2010

One year into Barack Obama’s first presidential term, Alexander, a civil rights attorney and former Supreme Court clerk, peeled back the hopey-changey scrim of early-aughts America to reveal the systematic legal prejudice that still endures in a country whose biggest lie might be “with liberty and justice for all.” In doing so, her book managed to do what the most urgent nonfiction aims for but rarely achieves: change hearts, minds and even public policy.

Liked it? Try “ Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America ,” by James Forman Jr., “ America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s ,” by Elizabeth Hinton or “ Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent ,” by Isabel Wilkerson.

Interested? Reserve it at your local library or buy it from Amazon , Apple , Barnes & Noble or Bookshop .

Sigrid Nunez 2018

After suffering the loss of an old friend and adopting his Great Dane, the book’s heroine muses on death, friendship, and the gifts and burdens of a literary life. Out of these fragments a philosophy of grief springs like a rabbit out of a hat; Nunez is a magician. — Ada Calhoun, author of “Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me”

“The Friend” is a perfect novel about the size of grief and love, and like the dog at the book’s center, the book takes up more space than you expect. It’s my favorite kind of masterpiece — one you can put into anyone’s hand. — Emma Straub, author of “This Time Tomorrow”

Liked it? Try “ Autumn ,” by Ali Smith or “ Stay True: A Memoir ,” by Hua Hsu.

Far From the Tree

Andrew Solomon 2012

In this extraordinary book — a combination of masterly reporting and vivid storytelling — Solomon examines the experience of parents raising exceptional children. I have often returned to it over the years, reading it for its depth of understanding and its illumination of the particulars that make up the fabric of family. — Meg Wolitzer, author of “The Interestings”

Liked it? Try “ Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us ,” by Rachel Aviv or “ NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity ,” by Steven Silberman.

We the Animals

Justin Torres 2011

The hummingbird weight of this novella — it barely tops 130 pages — belies the cherry-bomb impact of its prose. Tracing the coming-of-age of three mixed-race brothers in a derelict upstate New York town, Torres writes in the incantatory royal we of a sort of sibling wolfpack, each boy buffeted by their parents’ obscure grown-up traumas and their own enduring (if not quite unshakable) bonds.

Liked it? Try “ Shuggie Bain ,” by Douglas Stuart, “ Fire Shut Up in My Bones ,” by Charles Blow or “ On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous ,” by Ocean Vuong.

The Plot Against America

Philip Roth 2004

What if, in the 1940 presidential election, Charles Lindbergh — aviation hero, America-firster and Nazi sympathizer — had defeated Franklin Roosevelt? Specifically, what would have happened to Philip Roth, the younger son of a middle-class Jewish family in Newark, N.J.? From those counterfactual questions, the adult Roth spun a tour de force of memory and history. Ever since the 2016 election his imaginary American past has pulled closer and closer to present-day reality. — A.O. Scott

Liked it? Try “ Biography of X ,” by Catherine Lacey or “ The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family ,” by Joshua Cohen.

The Great Believers

Rebecca Makkai 2018

It’s mid-1980s Chicago, and young men — beautiful, recalcitrant boys, full of promise and pure life force — are dying, felled by a strange virus. Makkai’s recounting of a circle of friends who die one by one, interspersed with a circa-2015 Parisian subplot, is indubitably an AIDS story, but one that skirts po-faced solemnity and cliché at nearly every turn: a bighearted, deeply generous book whose resonance echoes across decades of loss and liberation.

Liked it? Try “ The Interestings ,” by Meg Wolitzer, “ A Little Life ,” by Hanya Yanagihara or “ The Emperor’s Children ,” by Claire Messud.

Mary Gaitskill 2005

Set primarily in a 1980s New York crackling with brittle glamour and real menace, “Veronica” is, on the face of it, the story of two very different women — the fragile former model Alison and the older, harder Veronica, fueled by fury and frustrated intelligence. It's a fearless, lacerating book, scornful of pieties and with innate respect for the reader’s intelligence and adult judgment.

Liked it? Try “ The Quick and the Dead ,” by Joy Williams, “ Look at Me ,” by Jennifer Egan or “ Lightning Field ,” by Dana Spiotta.

Ben Lerner 2014

How closely does Ben Lerner, the very clever author of “10:04,” overlap with its unnamed narrator, himself a poet-novelist who bears a remarkable resemblance to the man pictured on its biography page? Definitive answers are scant in this metaphysical turducken of a novel, which is nominally about the attempts of a Brooklyn author, burdened with a hefty publishing advance, to finish his second book. But the delights of Lerner’s shimmering self-reflexive prose, lightly dusted with photographs and illustrations, are endless.

“Shaving is a way to start the workday by ritually not cutting your throat when you’ve the chance.”

“10:04” is filled with sentences that cut this close to the bone. Comedy blends with intimations of the darkest aspects of our natures, and of everyday life. Who can shave anymore without recalling this “Sweeney Todd”-like observation? — Dwight Garner

Liked it? Try “ The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. ,” by Adelle Waldman, “ Open City ,” by Teju Cole or “ How Should a Person Be? ,” by Sheila Heti.

Demon Copperhead

Barbara Kingsolver 2022

In transplanting “David Copperfield” from Victorian England to modern-day Appalachia, Kingsolver gives the old Dickensian magic her own spin. She reminds us that a novel can be wildly entertaining — funny, profane, sentimental, suspenseful — and still have a social conscience. And also that the injustices Dickens railed against are still very much with us: old poison in new bottles. — A.O. Scott

Liked it? Try “ James ,” by Percival Everett or “ The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store ,” by James McBride.

See you tomorrow for books 60 -41 . Every day this week, the Book Review will unveil 20 more books on our Best Books of the 21st Century list. You can get notified when they’re up — and hear about book reviews, news and features each week — when you receive the Book Review’s newsletter. Sign up here.

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Methodology

In collaboration with the Upshot — the department at The Times focused on data and analytical journalism — the Book Review sent a survey to hundreds of novelists, nonfiction writers, academics, book editors, journalists, critics, publishers, poets, translators, booksellers, librarians and other literary luminaries, asking them to pick their 10 best books of the 21st century.

We let them each define “best” in their own way. For some, this simply meant “favorite.” For others, it meant books that would endure for generations.

The only rules: Any book chosen had to be published in the United States, in English, on or after Jan. 1, 2000. (Yes, translations counted!)

After casting their ballots, respondents were given the option to answer a series of prompts where they chose their preferred book between two randomly selected titles. We combined data from these prompts with the vote tallies to create the list of the top 100 books.

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Deep learning for lungs cancer detection: a review

• Open access
• Published: 08 July 2024
• Volume 57 , article number  197 , ( 2024 )

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• Rabia Javed 1 ,
• Tahir Abbas 1 ,
• Ali Haider Khan 2 ,
• Ali Daud 3 ,
• Amal Bukhari 4 &
• Riad Alharbey 4  

Abstract    

Although lung cancer has been recognized to be the deadliest type of cancer, a good prognosis and efficient treatment depend on early detection. Medical practitioners’ burden is reduced by deep learning techniques, especially Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNN), which are essential in automating the diagnosis and classification of diseases. In this study, we use a variety of medical imaging modalities, including X-rays, WSI, CT scans, and MRI, to thoroughly investigate the use of deep learning techniques in the field of lung cancer diagnosis and classification. This study conducts a comprehensive Systematic Literature Review (SLR) using deep learning techniques for lung cancer research, providing a comprehensive overview of the methodology, cutting-edge developments, quality assessments, and customized deep learning approaches. It presents data from reputable journals and concentrates on the years 2015–2024. Deep learning techniques solve the difficulty of manually identifying and selecting abstract features from lung cancer images. This study includes a wide range of deep learning methods for classifying lung cancer but focuses especially on the most popular method, the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). CNN can achieve maximum accuracy because of its multi-layer structure, automatic learning of weights, and capacity to communicate local weights. Various algorithms are shown with performance measures like precision, accuracy, specificity, sensitivity, and AUC; CNN consistently shows the greatest accuracy. The findings highlight the important contributions of DCNN in improving lung cancer detection and classification, making them an invaluable resource for researchers looking to gain a greater knowledge of deep learning’s function in medical applications.

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1 Introduction

Cancer refers to the growth of abnormal tissues that are unwanted, it’s uncontrollable, and it spreads speedily in the body; if it is not treated well at the start, it spreads and affects other body organs also. In the health sector, the use of modern technology has contributed a lot, especially in the detection of lungs cancer. It helps the doctors to identify as well as properly treat a disease. Many deaths occur in the whole world due to lung cancer and due to this, it is one of the deadliest diseases known in the world. In 2020, according to the research, approximately 2.21 million cases were detected, and 1.8 million mortalities were caused by lungs cancer (Sharma 2022 ). The report presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2020, shows that lungs cancer is the deadliest among all kinds of cancers, that is said according to the death rate that is calculated as 1.80 million (World Health Organization 2022 ). Figure  1 shows the details of extinction because of cancer in 2020 according to WHO Lungs cancer is one of those diseases in which early-stage diagnosis and disease management play a crucial role in proper treatment.

Global Distribution of Cancer-Related Deaths in 2020

Just like other cancers, the early detection of lungs cancer is mandatory due to which the chances of survival increase (Pathak et al. 2018 ). A large number of people affected by lung cancer cannot survive due to the delay in early detection, the overall survival rate of the patient is five years which is less than 20% (Roointan et al. 2019 ). Age is not a vital prognostic factor when it comes to the survival of patients (Hurria and Kris 2003 ). Both males and females fall prey to it. Men are more prone to lungs cancer than females According to research, the death rate in men due to lungs cancer is higher than females. (Chen et al. 2016 ). Factors contributing to increased lungs cancer cases include tobacco, smoke, viral infection, ionizing radiation (Cook et al. 1993 ; Esposito et al. 2010 ) air pollution, and unhealthy lifestyle. (Strak et al. 2017 ) History of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the main factor that contributes to lungs cancer (Parris et al. 2019 ). The drastic increase in vehicles and bad smoking habits also play a crucial role. As tobacco is a primary factor, driving lungs cancer trend (Parascandola and Xiao 2019 ) so, the death toll due to lung cancer can be reduced by controlling tobacco usage (Field et al. 2013 ). Its symptoms include fatigue, difficulty in breathing, and persistent cough (Corner 2005 ; Mayo Clinic 2022 ). Apart from common symptoms, its symptoms vary from person to person, making its diagnosis quite tricky. It might be asymptomatic, and a person may have cancer without any sign (Quadrelli et al. 2015 ). Lack of symptoms at early stages leads to a late diagnosis of lungs cancer (Goebel et al. 2019 ). One of the most important cornerstones of human civilization is maintaining one's health, hence modern approaches to medical issues are required. The amount of information available in the form of lab tests, research papers, clinic reports, and other documents has increased due to advancements in the biomedical area (Riad Alharbey et al. 2022 ).

A lot of research has been performed by many researchers in different fields so that the accurate prediction and classification of lungs cancer can be increased. In recent studies, Initial screening of disease is performed by exhaled breath analysis which is non-invasive and inexpensive (Nardi-Agmon and Peled 2017 ). Different methods are used for the prediction of lungs cancer. In the detection process X-rays, CT, and MRI& PET scans are most used.

The classification of lungs cancer in its early stages (Basak and Nath 2017 ), and the chance of survival of the patient is opposite and inversely proportional to the disease. Tumor size determines the cancer stage. The cancer stage is measured by its spread in the body. The more the spread, the higher the stage. Mostly it’s not quite visible in the early stages; so, detection in the early stage is difficult (Das et al. 2020 ). But it’s quite easy to deal with it in the early stages as the disease progresses, it becomes complex to cope with it Fig.  2 . Depicts the stages of cancer.

Progression stages of lung cancer—illustrating the different developmental phases"  

Analysis of visual images is an efficient way to investigate the lungs tissues identify the stages of lungs cancer and classify these stages. However, it is difficult to categorize it by stages.However, by the usage of advanced deep learning methods, lungs cancer can be classified accurately. Figure  2 effectively depicts the progression of lungs cancer and categorizes it into stages. Deep learning algorithms are implemented to identify different types of lung cancer and categorize them. The most important and effective method to diagnose and the treatment of lung cancer is made possible by the initial step of disease detection within the lung tissue. Subsequently, various classifiers are used to accurately classify the identified cases into their respective stages Fig. 3 . Depicts how classification and prediction of lungs cancer.is performed using deep learning.

Deep Learning for the classification and detection of lungs cancer

Different therapies like chemotherapy and radiotherapy are performed for their treatment, but advanced lungs cancer is quite complex. CT is widely and commonly used for the detection purpose of lungs tumors, but it’s been closely observed that small nodules are mostly not predictive for lungs cancer (Horeweg et al. 2014 ). These are comparatively tricky and complicated to detect and treat. When it comes to classifying benign & malignant lesions CT has limited ability (Lardinois et al. 2003 ) Small lesions, having minimal contact with the chest wall are complicated and dealt with technically (Middleton et al. 2006 ). Chest wall structure, small blood vessels, airway walls, pulmonary structures (Lu et al. 2015 ), and tissues that are pretty like nodule makes the detection difficult, so it’s rather difficult to perform biopsy that leads to detection. A biopsy is performed for the evaluation of nodules (Lowe et al. 1998 ). The disease’s complexity and poor CT resolution sometimes lead to re-biopsy. Nodules are classified according to their type, size, and growth rate; it’s essential because it sets the direction of treatment. Nodules can be classified as the cavity, calcified & non-calcified (El-Baz et al. 2013 ), or as solid, non-solid, partially solid, and calcified (Massimo 2012 ). A partially solid tumor is a combination of non-solid and solid, the solidified lung tumors consist of a solid internal core. Lung nodules can also be classified as Benign and Malignant (Dhara et al. 2016 ; Silvestri MD et al. n.d. ; Wu et al. 2020 ; Zhang et al. 2019 )

Deep learning is contributing tremendously to healthcare (Esteva et al. 2019 ; Miotto et al. 2018 ; Mittal and Hasija 2019 ). Deep learning paves the way for fast and accurate detection and diagnosis of diseases (Mishra et al. 2020 ), leading to precise and exact treatment. Research shows that the algorithm of deep learning has shown its significance in the prediction, detection, and diagnosis with the classification of lung cancer; pulmonary nodules are closely observed. By incorporating different deep-learning approaches, the tumor, and the nodule features are captured and classified (Wu and Qian 2019 ). Big Data refers to incredibly massive data collections that are amenable to analysis to identify trends and patterns. Deep Learning is one method for data analysis that can be utilized to discover abstract patterns in large amounts of data (Gheisari et al. 2017 ). Advanced data representations and knowledge can be extracted with the help of deep learning (DL). Highly efficient DL methods aid in uncovering more buried information (Gheisari et al. 2023 ). CAD (Computer-aided design) is used for the screening of cancer in the early stages (Traverso et al. 2017 ). It is proven as a helping hand for doctors and radiologists (Yuan et al. 2006 ). State-of-the-art methods have been designed to develop automated processes. Coherent Anti-Stroke Raman Scattering (CARS) technique is used for sensitive investigations (Müller and Zumbusch 2007 ), and is also there to scan the lungs that capture the molecular movement and produce an image that helps to detect diseases accurately. Researchers have defined different classification models to detect & classify lungs cancer automatically (Nasrullah et al. 2019 ).

Using a deep learning algorithm, other techniques have been made to read and learn data representation from the unorganized (raw) data. Inner body details are examined, and valuable information is extracted from this data. Deep learning models, algorithms, and methods play a tremendous role in increasing accuracy and decreasing error in the classification of lungs cancer. Deep learning-based automatic segmentation is better than manual in many aspects (Liu et al. 2021 ) Deep learning helps to avoid misclassification, reduces error rate, provides high-quality images, and accurately predicts cancer. False-positive nodules are filtered out using different classifiers (Jiang et al. 2022 ). Accurate and high-quality images are directly proportional to the radiologist’s fast and accurate diagnostic decision. Deep learning methods are also incorporated to predict lungs cancer (Banerjee and Das 2021 ). Training images are provided, and features are extracted automatically. Comparatively, deep learning costs less than conventional CAD frameworks. Deep learning offers HD representation of the given input data, making the detection and identification process efficient and helping the radiologist. The image’s pixel directly contributes to cancer detection, as cancerous and non-cancerous areas are determined on the base of pixels. So, to diagnose accurately and the classification of disease, deep learning assists medical professionals in serving the healthcare system better. It helps to make accurate decisions regarding the disease. CNN design consists of multiple tiers, one of which being Convolutional Layers (CLs). By employing different kinds of convolution filters, the CL layers can extract distinct information from the images of cancer cells that are supplied to them (Manjula Devi et al. 2023 ). Under the methodology that is being described, the first step in the process is image processing, where preprocessing methods are used to improve the quality of medical images. The improved pictures next go through segmentation, which is an essential stage in identifying pertinent areas within lung imaging. Following identification, the regions are subjected to feature extraction, a process that involves the extraction of significant features to identify crucial patterns suggestive of lung cancer. The classification step, which uses a complex architecture called the Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN), is where the classification process is most centrally located. To dynamically learn hierarchical features, this DCNN is composed of several convolutional layers, each of which has filters, activation functions, and pooling operations. Dense layers known as fully connected layers are another component of the architecture that handles the high-level characteristics that the convolutional layers have learned. The final output shows the findings of the categorization, which differentiates between various lung cancer classifications. The DCNN is an effective technique for accurately classifying lung cancer because its convolutional layers are essential for automatically learning complex patterns.

This study involves the following contributions to the field of medical science especially to the detection of lungs cancer in its early stages:

Provides the solution for the detection of lungs cancer in the field of healthcare.

Discussed different existing techniques and procedures.

Implemented deep learning algorithm and compared with the existing machine learning algorithms and compared the performance with the developed algorithm.

The designed technique is implemented on a large dataset and shows how to classify the features.

It shows the usability of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) in the field of artificial intelligence.

For future research it provides useful implementation and development techniques for the early detection of cancer disease.

The other parts of the literature survey are defined in the following sections. Imaging techniques for lungs cancer detection are presented in Section 2 . Section 3 includes the latest trends in lungs cancer detection, Section 4 offers the Research methodology of the opted research and the process of selecting research articles is given in Section 4 . Section 5 refers to the deep learning contribution towards lungs cancer classification. Section 6 refers to the Literature sources, and the research community’s contribution to the current field covering primary techniques and models used to classify, detect, and predict lungs cancer. Results that are obtained from the selected and extracted data are presented in Section 7 . Section 8 refers to the conclusion in which the state-of-the-art deep learning contribution towards lungs cancer classification is presented.

2 Imaging techniques for detection of lungs cancer

Different screening approaches are employed for the identification and screening of lung cancer (Schaefer-Prokop and Prokop 2002 ). These aid in the doctor's ability to see internal bodily processes and to gain an understanding of how internal organs function. To check for lung anomalies. There are several multimodality imaging techniques including positron emission tomography (PET), computer tomography (CT), Ultrasound, chest radiography (X-Ray), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans (Laal 2013 ; Tariq Hussain n.d. ) Fig. 4 shows a few techniques of Imaging.

Modalities in lung cancer detection—a visual exploration of imaging techniques

3 Latest trends in lungs cancer detection

The primary purpose of the designed research is to demonstrate the methods and strategies employed in the deep learning categorization of lung cancer. Deep Learning algorithm is the most recent technique that helps medical professionals diagnose diseases and helps radiologists find difficult-to-diagnose conditions like lung cancer. The chosen articles demonstrate the most recent deep learning algorithms and their efficacy in the prediction and categorization of cancer. This paper presents different techniques defined in deep learning algorithms and concepts for this (Fig. 5 ).

Sequential process of study execution

Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) consists of multiple layers. Convolutional layer that extracts features of image pooling layer which selects the feature. The third one is the fully connected or FC layer, its work is to combine those extracted features. Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) is suitable for sequential data and is mostly used for audio, video, and text. Deep Belief Network (DBN) consists of multiple RBMs. These are probabilistic generative models. DBN has many variants. Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a statistical theory-based algorithm. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is structured just like human brains in which neurons are involved, that’s why it is known as a biological-inspired network. Deep Neural Network (DNN) is a new and advanced technique in the field of artificial intelligence, as it can also work for a complex nonlinear relationship. DNA-binding proteins have a close relationship with several human disorders, including AIDS, cancer, and asthma (Ali et al. 2022b ). DBP-DeepCNN would be beneficial in developing more promising therapeutic approaches for the management of chronic diseases (Ali et al. 2022a ) while patients with chronic depressive illness experience confusion in their social lives (Gheisari 2016 ). Integrating CC technology with wireless body area networks WBANs systems to create sensor-cloud infrastructure (S-CI) is helping the healthcare industry by enabling early detection of diseases and real-time patient monitoring (Masood et al. 2023 , 2018a ) while patient privacy should preserved (Masood et al. 2018b ). If a deep learning model is developed well, it may help prevent misdiagnosis and waste of time (Javed et al. 2023 ). Deep machine learning could be applied to the initial processing of images, the segmentation of images to emphasize the diagnostic objects under investigation, and the classification of these objects to ascertain their benign or malignant nature (Jamshaid Iqbal Janjua et al. 2022 ). It is challenging to predict human diseases, especially cancer, in order to deliver more effective and timely care. Cancer is a potentially deadly disease that affects the human body's many organs and systems (Abbas et al. 2023b )

4 Research methodology

For the selected research, a mapping study “Classification (lungs cancer)” analysis is chosen as a research methodology. Figure 6 illustrates the mapping process that has been followed. It consists of three steps that are as follows:

Step-I: Study Preparation

Step-II: Conduct of Study

Step-III: Analysis and Results of the Study

Visual representation of the systematic article selection process

In this study, a mapping study methodology is employed to conduct a systematic exploration of the literature on lung cancer classification using deep learning approaches. The mapping process, illustrated in Fig. 5 , is structured into three distinct steps: Study Preparation, Conduct of Study, and Analysis and Results of the Study. The main contribution of this paper is described below.

Conducted a comprehensive Systematic Literature Review (SLR) using deep learning approaches, which included a detailed analysis of pertinent literature in the field of lung cancer.

Categorized and synthesized the overall methodologies observed in the literature, offering readers a systematic overview of the strategies adopted in the domain of deep learning for lung cancer detection and analysis

Outlined the current state-of-the-art and the latest advancements in deep learning methodologies applied to lung cancer research, providing insights into cutting-edge techniques and emerging trends in the field.

Conducted a comprehensive Quality Assessment of the approaches used in the examined papers, guaranteeing a strong assessment framework to gauge the validity and dependability of the deep learning methods applied in lung cancer research.

Provided a comprehensive overview of deep learning methodologies specifically tailored to lung cancer research, consolidating the collective knowledge and advancements in the area for the benefit of researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders.

Study preparation, the first step, entails defining the research's scope, creating inclusion and exclusion criteria, and choosing a search technique. The implementation of the literature search, data extraction, classification, and synthesis of pertinent literature are then included in the Conduct of Study phase. Lastly, analyzing the identified literature, gauging the caliber of the included research, and extracting significant findings to guide the systematic review are all part of the Analysis and Results of the Study phase.

4.1 Research objectives

The main purpose of this research is to provide the scientific community with a systematic step-by-step review of the current research on lungs cancer by using the technique known as deep learning just like the recurrent neural networks (RNN), deep belief network (DBN), support vector machine (SVM), convolution neural networks (CNN) and the deep neural networks (DNN) etc.

4.2 Research questions

As part of this procedure, the questions related to this research are listed in Table 1 and are defined step by step to provide a more thorough understanding of the investigation. These research questions are accompanied by their motivations.

4.3 Search scheme

Following databases and scientific resources have been searched to get and gather the most relevant research papers and articles IEEE Digital Library, Springer, Elsevier, ACM Digital Library, Science Direct, and Google Scholar are the main repositories that were used to get the most relevant research articles.

4.4 Search string

The following search string was used to conduct the automatic search in the selected databases/scientific sources.

(“Classification” OR “Detection” OR “Prediction” OR “Diagnosis” OR “Analysis”) AND (“Lungs Cancer” OR “Lung Cancer” OR “Pulmonary Nodule” OR “Lungs Tumor” OR “Lung Nodule”) AND “Deep Learning” also known as “Deep Neural Network” alternate “DNN” also written as “DL”

4.5 Study selection procedure

The selection procedure is focused on identifying and recognizing those articles that effectively meet the goal of the study. These articles have been searched and gathered from different sources, so if the article is present in more than one source it is counted just once. After comprehensively investigating and examining titles, abstracts, and keywords, each paper is evaluated and its candidature in a study is determined. The search string is considered in deciding the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Duplicates are removed and articles not observing the search string are excluded.

4.6 Inclusion & exclusion principles for the research studies

For the chosen research Table 2 listed the inclusion and exclusion principles. Articles from journals focused on the classification of lungs cancer where deep learning algorithms, are incorporated, and published between 2015-2024 are collected While Articles that are focused on other types of cancer and do not incorporate deep learning are not included.

Research articles are collected from different geographical locations through a combination of online databases, we gathered articles for our study from various geographic places. Using precise terms and search parameters linked to our research topic, we conducted in-depth searches on academic databases including IEEE, Nature, Google Scholar, etc. Table 3 depicts the geographical locations of the articles selected for the study.

The research process is conducted according to the given flow diagram in Fig.  6 , which depicts the steps of gathering the research material, from identifying articles to selecting articles for further analysis.

It starts by gathering articles from well-reputed databases. Then the overall number is calculated. After that, the duplicate articles are removed, and initial screening is performed.

Articles that are not in the English language are excluded, and further assessment is performed in this step different criteria of exclusion are applied. The articles that are not from journals are excluded, conference papers, papers published before 2015, papers that are focused on other types of cancer, and articles that are not focused on deep learning are excluded. After excluding the papers with justification, 66 articles were chosen for further investigation.

Figure  7 displays a graphical depiction of the scientific databases where the search term was used, and articles were chosen.

Distribution of articles selected from scientific databases

5 Quality assessment of study

Quality assessment is important in systematic reviews of literature as it determines the quality of the study that is included.

The solution to the problem is presented clearly in the paper. The answer could be yes (+ 1), No (0), somehow (0.5)

The contribution of the paper regarding the issue “Classification of lung cancer using deep learning is presented clearly. The answer could be yes (+ 1), No (0), somehow (0.5)

Limitations and future study are presented and defined clearly the answer could be yes (+ 1), No (0), somehow (0.5)

Result parameters are presented clearly, the answer could be yes (+ 1), No (0), somehow (0.5)

Table 4 presents a detailed Quality assessment score. In which selected articles along with their reference number are presented. These are evaluated based on the solution of the problem, contribution, limitation, future work, and results. Each question possesses one score. A total of 4, each article is evaluated and graded.

Table 5 presents a summary of the total scores. There is one paper that possesses a score of 2, 7 articles with 2.5. There are 13 articles with a score of 3, 25 articles with a score of 3.5, and 20 articles with a score of 4

6 Literature sources

To look over and explore the detection, classification, and prediction of lung cancer using deep learning, 66 relevant articles published by reliable sources were examined.

To ensure the credibility of the systematic literature review, credible journals are selected as sources and data collection. Moreover, a large number of adequate literature surveys exist for that kind of review Fig. 8 portrays the year-wise detail of collected articles.

Annual article selection overview (2015–2024)

It’s evident that the selected articles are from 2015 to 2024 and the chart represents that 2020 is the maximum contributing year because the maximum number of articles falls in 2020.

The nature of the review was to present the work done on the topic of the classification of lungs cancer using different deep-learning methodologies. According to the collected data, it is observed that the most frequently used method is the convolutional Neural Network) CNN. Convolution neural networks (CNN) is also a technique used to solve deep learning problems; it consists of multiple layers. CNN is contributing a lot to Image processing and computer vision (Liu et al. 2019a ). It is to be noted that the article review was quite prejudiced to the articles published (2015–2024), and the articles that have “Deep Learning” used in titles. It is observed that multiple data sets have been used in research.

This shows that many diversities in data when it comes to training and testing on CNN. MRI, thoracic surgery data, X-ray, CT, PET image data, CARS images, breathing data, thoracic MR images, Whole Slide Imaging (WSI), Lymph Node Slides, H & E slides, and Histopathological. Table 6 presents the summary of the selected research articles. The datasets used in the research, and their descriptions are presented. The parameters that decide the form of classification, applied method or approach, and the feature extraction techniques used are provided after thoroughly examining the selected research articles.

Cancer image data is collected and presented in forms. It is observed that a CT scan is the most frequently used type of data.

The management of input image sizes is a critical consideration in deep learning field for lung CT-scan processing. Some models require a specific input size, which calls for preprocessing operations like scaling or cropping to fit the data into this preset dimension. Such modifications, however, run the danger of information loss or image distortion, which reduces the model's effectiveness. In contrast, to solve these problems more advanced and sophisticated methods are developed. Models can adjust to different image sizes using techniques like padding or spatial pyramid pooling, but they may also introduce noise or artifacts. The idea of picture pyramids also produces numerous image copies at varying scales, facilitating feature capture at varied levels of detail. Fully Convolutional Networks (FCNs) are also specially designed to support arbitrary input sizes. The decision between these methods depends on the particular deep learning architecture and the actual requirements of the task of medical image analysis, taking into account elements like computational complexity and the requirement to adapt to various input dimensions.

The process of lungs cancer/nodules detection or classification goes as follows: -

Pre-Processing: it is the first step which is used to take inputs in the form of MRI, Thoracic Surgery Data, X-ray, CT, PET Image Data, Breathing Data, Thoracic MR Images, Whole Slide, Imaging (WSI), Lymph Node Slides, Histopathological Cancer Images, CARS Images, H&E. Different Image processing/ feature extraction techniques are applied on the Input. Table 7 lists the various data types used in the reviewed studies.

Computed Tomography is used most of the time, because it’s been frequently used in our review techniques used for preprocessing includes FPSOCNN, Wavelet-Transform-Based Features, SIFT, LBP, ABF Zernike Moment, and HE, inceptionv3, LDA, ODNN, Novel Nodule Candidate Detection Method, Single-level discrete Two-Dimensional Wavelet Transform (2D-DWT), Fractional-Order Darwinian Particle Swarm Optimization, Two-Dimensional Discrete Fourier transform (2D-DFT), U-Net, Back-Propagation, Deep Learning Architectures, Gradient Descent, SIFT + LBP, Swarm Algorithms, Bipartite Undirected Graphical Models (RBMs), including Alex, Deep (ConvNet),Intensity features + SVM Support Vector Machines, Transfer Learning Networks, Hybrid Geometric Texture Feature Descriptor, FODPSO CARS, VGG16,Wiener Filter, VGG19, Three-Dimensional (3D) CNN model, CNN Region-Of-Interest (ROI), Median Filter, Gaussian Filter, Gabor Filter, Knowledge-Based Collaborative (KBC) sub-mode, ResNet-50 networks, ProNet, RadNet, UB open-source software ITK-Snap, 3D Stereoscopic Planning System, IMR, Maximum Intensity Projection Technique, Based On Lung-RADS version 1.1, Three Reconstruction Kernels. Multi-Scale Dilated Residual Representation Block Size-Related (SR-DiRes) &Multi-Mask Convolution Representation Block (ConvRB), Multi-Scale LBP, AP Algorithms, Affinity Propagation (AP) Algorithm, Deep Convolution Neural Network (DCNN) Architecture, Radiomics-Based Analysis, Hot-Spot ROI-based DCE Kinetic Analysis, Deep Dueling Q-network, Hierarchical Deep Q-Networks, Radiomics Deep Q-Network, Weighted Mean Histogram Equalization, Dense PriNet, Multi-and single model method, Pixel-Wise Segmentation based On FCN ,Multi-Model, Weakly Supervised Learning Methods, HALO Tissue Classifier Analysis Module (Random Forest Algorithm), HALO AI (CNN, VGG network),Context-Aware Feature Selection And Aggregation, Graph Regularized Sparse MTL,K-means Algorithm, Extensive Data Augmentation,LUNA16 Pulmonary Nodule Annotations, Multi-Group Patch-Based Learning System, Diffusion (VED) and a Vessel filter, Integrated Deep Learning , Region Growth Algorithm, fuzzy logic and a NN, HE hybrid learning algorithm, ACC, VEL, Correlation Analysis Algorithm, PCA, (GSEA)Gene-Set Enrichment Analysis, ReLU Activation Function, CVAE-GAN, DenseNet using CoxPH, CNN model, ImageNet, Score-CAM Maximum Intensity Projection (MIP).,Multi-Scale Convolution Image Feature, Novel 15-Layer 2D Deep CNN architecture Hyperparameter Tuning, vector Quantization(VQ) algorithm, Gaussian noise model-based collaborative Wiener Filtering (GNM-CWF),Self-Adaptive Online VQ algorithm Residual Learning Denoising Model (DR-Net),Feature fusion strategy called DCA, Curriculum Learning, And Transfer Learning, Rival Convolutional Neural Network Models (setio-CNN and Over Feat), Taguchi-based CNN, combination of Deep Residual Learning, The Trial And Error Method, ACL algorithm, Converged Search and Rescue (CSAR) Algorithm, Novel Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Gain Preprocessing, Hybrid Spiral Optimization Intelligent-Generalized Rough Set approach, AI-based noninvasive radiomics biomarkers, SVM Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Multilevel Brightness-Preserving approach,. Numerous segmentation methods and approaches are then applied.

Segmentation contributes to the feature extraction process; it prepares the extracted data for classification.

Classification: - Classification is the phase where the prepared, feature extracted and segmented data is classified into different categories that may be abnormal or normal, benign, or malignant, LUAD or LUSC. After the detection of cancer nodules or pulmonary nodules which confirm that the disease is present or not of lungs cancer further classification is performed to classify these nodules into solid, calcified, partially solid, perifissural, and speculated.

Several classifiers are used in our study which includes; Fuzzy Particle Swarm Optimization (FPSO),Confusion matrix, Forest Classifiers, Back-Propagation, SVM or Naïve Bayes classifiers, Cross Entropy loss and Transfer Learning, RMS Prop-optimization method, Modified Gravitational Search Algorithm (MGSA),Multi-Channel CNN, Deep Learning and Swarm Intelligence, DBN and CNN Deep Learning, Convolutional Network Architecture, FODPSO, CARS & Deep learning, GoogleNet Inception v3 CNN architecture, Deep Learning Approach Based On Stacked Autoencoder and Softmax, CADe systemVGG19architectureand SVM classifier, Multi-View Knowledge-Based Collaborative (MV-KBC) Deep Model, Long Short-Term Memory/LSTM, Recurrent Neural Network/RNN,CNN Cancer Risk Prediction Model, triplet, DCNN AlexNet, watershed segmentation Banarization, Auto Encoder/AE &General Adversarial Networks/GAN, Deep Belief Network/DBN, Random Forest Classifier, Deep Quality Model, GG-net architecture, Convolutional Neural Networks with a U-net architecture, Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), 3D Deep Learning and Radiomics, Core-Ring Blocks Residual Estimation with size-related damper block deep prediction model, GG-net architecture, Conditional Random Framework, SVM anti-PD-1 response prediction by H&E,DCNN CAD system, DCE Kinetic Parameters, Convolutional Long Short Term Memory (CLSTM) Network, DCE-MRI,Value-based Reinforcement Learning Approach, DSRL, Deep Successor Q-Network, Profuse Clustering Technique (IPCT),Deep. Learning Instantaneously Trained Neural Network (DITNN), deep Q-network and hierarchical deep Q-network, Explosion-Trained Deep Learning Neural Network (DITNN),CADe / CADx models, Deep Learning Classifier (Lymphoid Follicle CNN - LFCNN),3D Neural Network, Fully Convolutional Network (FCN),FCN, ScanNet, proportion-SVM, Adaptive Hierarchical Heuristic Mathematical Model (AHHMM),K-mean algorithm, 3D fully CNN based on the V-Net architecture, Four-Channel CNN, corrective lung contour, Wilcoxon Signed Generative DL (WS-GDL)Hyper-Parameter Tuning Algorithm, Multi-Scene Deep Learning Framework (MSDLF),Normalized Spherical Sampling, LSTM algorithms, NFNet, Fast R-CNN, Intra- And Inter-Fraction Fuzzy Deep Learning (IIFDL),deep learning-based radiogenomic framework-net, EfficientNet, CoxPH and CoxCC, LdcNet, Converged Search and Rescue Algorithm, Deep Gaussian Mixture Model in region-based CNN[DGMM-RBCNN], Lung-Deep System, Novel Nodule CADeCNN, INC classification, (DFD-Net), Two-path CNN with feature fusion DFD-Nets, Curriculum learning, 3D (DCNNs), Taguchi-based CNN, Fuzzy C-Ordered Means (FCOM) with ECN, Enhanced Capsule Networks (ECN), Lung Cancer Prediction (LCP-CNN), Generative Deep Learning, Survival Neural Network model, machine learning peculated known as k-nearest, KNN neighbors and SVM on CNN Ensemble Classifier and Improved DNN.

7 Literature synthesis: unveiling patterns and insights

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNN) is the best technique to detect lungs cancer in the field of machine learning. The highest levels of accurate lung cancer case classification were continuously attained using DCNN. The ability to make accurate diagnoses, a critical component in healthcare, is shown by this improved accuracy. Additionally, DCNN demonstrated exceptional specificity, reducing the incidence of false positives. In healthcare contexts, this precision is crucial since it lessens the possibility of misdiagnosing non-cancerous patients as cancer. The remarkable sensitivity of DCNN enabled the identification of sizable actual lung cancer cases. The potential for early identification and intervention, which are essential for enhancing patient outcomes, is increased by this high sensitivity. Finally, DCNN demonstrated impressive accuracy in detecting lung cancer. Finally, DCNN demonstrated remarkable accuracy in diagnosing lung cancer, reducing the possibility of incorrect diagnosis. These findings demonstrate how well DCNN performs in automatically extracting complex patterns from medical images, which helps in the accurate and reliable identification of lung cancer. DCNN stands out as the leading machine learning technology, to improve the accuracy and reliability of lung cancer detection in clinical practice due to its exceptional performance in accuracy, specificity, sensitivity, and precision. To promote medical diagnostics in this crucial area, we encourage continued investigation and development of DCNN-based techniques.

In the study, 66 research articles were carefully examined and their methods were analyzed. In Table  8 , the results of this evaluation procedure are collated and summarized. Important details including reference numbers, research methodology, and performance measures like the F1 score, accuracy, precision, sensitivity, and AUC are included in this table. Table 8 is a useful tool for comparing and assessing the research findings because these metrics are significant indicators of the efficacy and dependability of the various methodologies covered in the examined papers. The major limitation of current studies is mostly the size of the data sets. There is potential for improvement because there isn't a finished product or global standard for cancer detection and prediction. To ascertain the accuracy of these models, researchers need to gather up-to-date and new data, employ various deep learning and machine learning techniques, and combine new and old data. Early cancer detection can benefit millions of people. To detect cancer, there is no established standard or finished product. While deep learning has promising opportunities for lung cancer detection, there are important gaps that need to be filled. The generalizability of current findings is frequently problematic while accurate feature extraction is also crucial to be handled. Certain populations in the actual world may not respond well to models that were trained on their particular datasets. Furthermore, characterization may be eclipsed by an emphasis on detection. Some models are quite good at detecting nodules, but they may not give information about the tumor, which makes it more difficult to diagnose patients early and accurately. In addition, the "black box" nature of sophisticated deep learning models and worries about data security and privacy persist, making it challenging to comprehend how these models make decisions. Most of the research frequently runs into issues with feature extraction, making it difficult to identify pertinent elements that are essential for accurate prediction. These restrictions make it more difficult to do the thorough study needed to produce accurate and trustworthy detection results. In order to advance deep learning models' efficacy and dependability in lung cancer detection and eventually enhance patient outcomes and diagnostic accuracy, it is imperative that these issues be resolved. Despite these shortcomings, scientists are working hard to fill in the gaps Closing the existing gaps is critical to the future of deep learning for lung cancer detection. Researchers are focusing on tumor characterization rather than merely detection, enhancing generalizability through transfer learning, and advanced approaches. Strong data security protocols and resolving any biases in training data are also essential. Lastly, to stay up to date with the changing features of cancer, ongoing learning will be crucial. Deep learning has the potential to transform lung cancer detection and result in earlier diagnoses and better patient outcomes by overcoming these obstacles.

Different algorithms used for classification and detection purposes perform differently in terms of performance CNN surpasses the others.

8 Conclusion

Lung cancer is a serious and sometimes fatal disease that necessitates early discovery to effectively treat it. This work emphasizes how deep learning—specifically, the application of Convolutional Neural Networks, or CNN—is essential to changing the face of medical diagnosis. Deep learning techniques reduce the workload of healthcare professionals by automating the identification and categorization of lung cancer. This technological advancement improves the precision and efficacy of diagnosis. In the context of lung cancer research, this paper offers an extensive Systematic Literature Review (SLR) that makes use of deep learning approaches. It benefits researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders by classifying and synthesizing methodologies, outlining the state-of-the-art, conducting a thorough Quality Assessment, and offering a customized overview of deep learning approaches for lung cancer research. Our thorough analysis examines the several deep learning methods used in the identification and categorization of lung cancer across a range of imaging modalities, including MRIs, CT scans, and X-rays. Notably, we ensure a current overview by concentrating on the years 2015 to 2024 and obtaining information from credible journals. The study highlights the critical function that Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNN) fulfill in the field of deep learning techniques. In particular, DCNN is the recommended method in the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture because of its unique multi-layered architecture, which makes direct feature learning from lung nodule images possible. The main reason why DCNN is so effective at obtaining the best accuracy is that it has the innate capacity to learn weights automatically. These models can significantly boost the efficiency and accuracy of lung cancer classification by the automatic learning of pertinent features, which improves diagnostic procedures in clinical settings. The research thoroughly assesses several performance measures, such as AUC, sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and precision. When it comes to the classification of lung cancer, DCNN frequently performs more accurately than other algorithms. Even with these noteworthy successes, there are still difficulties, especially when managing large-volume datasets. This study presents the classification process on multiple data sets and multiple classifiers are used. The focus of the study is to present different deep learning algorithms and approaches to classify lungs cancer Nevertheless, there are still some challenges that still exist, most of them are related to the size of datasets. This study will help the researchers to better understand the existing deep-learning techniques and procedures to classify lungs cancer. This work lays the groundwork for future advancements in the field by providing a comprehensive grasp of the state-of-the-art deep learning methods for the categorization of lung cancer. Lung cancer diagnosis could be revolutionized by deep learning, however there remain obstacles because of the scale of data sets and the absence of an international standard. Current data must be gathered, deep learning and machine learning methods must be used, and both new and old data must be combined. Generalizability, characterization, data security, and privacy issues are lacking, nonetheless. Notwithstanding these obstacles, researchers are concentrating on tumor characterization, improving generalizability via transfer learning, and addressing biases in training data in an effort to close these gaps. Continual learning is also crucial to stay updated with changing cancer features.

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The incidence of fractures in children under two years of age: a systematic review

• Karen Rosendahl 1 , 2 ,
• Laura Tanturri de Horatio 1 , 2 , 3 ,
• Celine Habre 4 ,
• Susan C. Shelmerdine 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ,
• Janina Patsch 9 ,
• Ola Kvist 10 , 11 ,
• Regina K. Lein 12 ,
• Domen Plut 13 , 14 ,
• Edvard J. Enoksen 1 ,
• Rien Avenarius 1 ,
• Lene B. Laborie 15 , 16 ,
• Thomas A. Augdal 1 , 2 ,
• Paolo Simoni 17 ,
• Rick R. van Rijn 18 &
• Amaka C. Offiah 19

on behalf of the European Society of Paediatric Radiology (ESPR) Musculoskeletal and Child Abuse Task Forces

BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders volume  25 , Article number:  528 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Epidemiological research on fractures in children under the age of two is of great importance to help understand differences between accidental and abusive trauma.

This systematic review aimed to evaluate studies reporting on the incidence of fractures in children under two years of age, excluding birth injuries. Secondary outcome measures included fracture location, mechanisms of injury and fracture characteristics.

A systematic literature review (1946 to February 7th 2024), including prospective and retrospective cohort studies and cross-sectional cohort studies, was performed. Studies including children from other age groups were included if the actual measures for those aged 0–2 years could be extracted. We also included studies restricted to infants. Annual incidence rates of fractures were extracted and reported as the main result. Critical appraisal of was performed using the Appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies.

Twelve moderate to good quality studies met eligibility criteria, of which seven were based on data from medical records and five were registry studies. Studies investigated different aspects of fractures, making comprehensive synthesis challenging. There was an overall annual fracture incidence rate of 5.3 to 9.5 per 1,000 children from 0–2 years of age; with commonest sites being the radius/ulna (25.2–40.0%), followed by tibia/fibula (17.3–27.6%) and the clavicle (14.6–14.8%) (location based on 3 studies with a total of 407 patients). In infants, the reported incidence ranged between 0.7 to 4.6 per 1,000 (based on 3 studies), with involvement of the clavicle in 22.2% and the distal humerus in 22.2% of cases (based on 1 study). Only a single metaphyseal lesion was reported (proximal humerus of an 11-month-old infant). Fracture mechanisms were detailed in four studies, with fall from chair, bed, table, own height or fall following indoor activities causing 50–60% of fractures.

Conclusions

There is a paucity of good quality data on fracture incidence in children under the age of two. Larger, prospective and unbiased studies would be helpful in determining normal pattern of injuries, so that differences from abusive trauma may be better understood.

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Introduction

In children under the age of two, fractures are rare, particularly in non-ambulatory infants, with a predilection for the clavicle and skull in those under 8 months of age [ 1 ]. In toddlers between 9 and 24 months of age, forearm and lower leg fractures predominate [ 1 , 2 ]. The incidence and pattern of fractures in children under the age of two is, however, poorly described in the literature. This age group is particularly vulnerable to inflicted injury, which may be difficult to detect. Both under- and overdiagnosis occur, in part due to limited knowledge of variations in normal growth that may mimic pathology [ 3 , 4 , 5 ], limited experience, and subtlety of fractures of immature bone. Although the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health website provides important knowledge for those dealing with potential abusive trauma ( https://childprotection.rcpch.ac.uk/child-protection-evidence/fractures-systematic-review/ ), it mainly focuses on fractures indicative of abuse, fracture dating, and rib fractures secondary to cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

In this novel systematic review, we aim to identify and summarise all epidemiological studies which have reported on the incidence of fractures in children under the age of two. Secondary outcome measures include fracture location, mechanisms of injury and fracture characteristics.

A systematic literature review was performed in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines [ 6 ]. The protocol was registered in the International prospective register of systematic reviews (PROSPERO reg. number CRD42022355938). Ethical approval was not required for this review of publicly available data.

Eligibility criteria

The review includes all studies which have attempted to quantitatively assess the incidence of fractures in children under two years of age; thus, the outcome of interest was the annual incidence rates, with secondary measures being localization, fracture characteristics and mechanisms.

Inclusion criteria applied to identified studies were epidemiological studies, written in English, which attempt to quantitatively assess the incidence of fractures in children under two years of age, including prospective and retrospective cohort studies and cross-sectional cohort studies. Studies including children from other age groups were included if the actual measures for those aged 0–2 years could be extracted. We also included studies restricted to infants (0–1-year-olds).

Excluded were non-primary research, systematic literature reviews, animal studies, in-vitro studies, interventional studies, single case reports, editorials/comments, and clinical guidelines; studies lacking full text or relevant data on outcomes, studies addressing birth injuries alone, studies addressing child abuse alone, studies of children with underlying disease (e.g., osteogenesis imperfecta, leukaemia, metabolic bone disease etc.) and studies restricted to sites other than the limbs or ribs. When studies reported findings from the same population, we selected only the most relevant study based on date, sample size, and reported analysis of data.

Information sources and search strategy

We comprehensively searched Medline (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), the Cochrane Library, Cinahl (Ebco) and Web-of-Science (Clarivate) for full text articles published in English between 1946 and 7th of February 2024 (RKL/KR, the latter with 35 years of experience in paediatric radiology). Both subject headings and free text words were used for the following concepts: bone fracture, incidence, and children under 2 years of age (detailed search strategies are listed in Additional file 1). We also searched the reference lists of the included articles.

Screening, study selection and data extraction

Search results were exported through EndNote, version 20 (Clarivate, Philadelphia, US) duplicates were removed, and all eligible studies were imported to Rayyan [ 7 ]. Titles and abstracts were screened by one investigator (KR) for possible inclusion according to the pre-specified eligibility criteria [ 8 , 9 ]. A random sample of 35% of titles and abstracts were double screened by one of two investigators (SCS/LTdH) to ensure high levels of agreement. Any article which the investigator was unsure about was included in the list of full text articles to be reviewed in a second stage. Full text articles were retrieved and assessed for final eligibility by one investigator (KR), and if doubt, in consensus with a second reviewer (RRvR). From the included studies, two reviewers (KR/RRvR) independently extracted relevant data and populated a project-specific Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Discrepancies between values were discussed and resolved between the reviewers and/or by involving a third reviewer (TAA). The following data were collected: study details (first author, publication year and country), recruitment setting (sample description/hospital/year), study design, sample size (number of children under two years of age/number of fractures), sex and outcome measures (annual incidence rates (per 1,000), location (five most common fracture sites as reported in each paper), mechanism, fracture type (transverse, spiral etc.) and whether the fracture was acute or healing.

Strategy for data synthesis

The data synthesis was through a narrative analysis method of incidence. Annual incidence rates of fractures (per 1,000) were extracted, and reported as the main result (in total, and by sex / location / mechanism).

Assessment of methodological quality

Critical appraisal was performed independently by three reviewers (OK, CH, JP, with 7, 5 and 10 years of experience in paediatric radiology, respectively) to assess the quality of included studies and provide context for the interpretation of the findings. Each of the selected studies was evaluated with the Appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies (AXIS) (Additional file 2), focusing on the presented aims, methods and analysis of what is reported [ 10 ]. As the tool does not provide a numerical scale for assessing the quality of a study, a degree of subjectivity was used to classify the studies into poor, fair, moderate or good quality [ 10 ]. When studies included multiple analyses aimed at answering several research questions within the same study, quality assessments were only applied to the analyses relevant to this systematic review.

A total of 10,341 references were found following the literature search (Fig.  1 ). After removal of duplicates, 6,644 titles/abstracts were screened for relevance, of which 6,507 were excluded. After a full-text review of the remaining 136 studies, 12 were eventually included (Fig.  1 ).

PRISMA flow diagram outlining the process by which articles were screened

Characteristics of studies

Of the 12 included studies, 7 were based on review of medical records; of which 5 were single hospital studies [ 1 , 2 , 11 , 12 , 13 ], 1 was based on medical records from two paediatric trauma units [ 12 ] and 1 on data from 27 hospitals and 126 clinics [ 14 ]. Five were registry studies [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ].

Two were prospective [ 12 , 13 ], 5 were retrospective cohort studies [ 1 , 2 , 11 , 14 , 20 ], and 5 were retrospective registry studies. In 3 of the studies, all radiographs were re-assessed by a radiologist or by an orthopaedic surgeon to minimize misdiagnosis [ 2 , 13 , 20 ] (Table  1 ).

All 12 studies were performed in, or using data from cities and/or rural areas; 4 studies in the UK [ 1 , 13 , 15 , 17 ], 2 in the US [ 16 , 19 ], 2 in Scotland [ 12 , 20 ], 2 in Sweden [ 11 , 18 ], 1 in Norway [ 2 ], and 1 in Japan [ 14 ]. Sample size was given for 5 out of 8 studies on children < 2 years of age (mean 178 fractures, range 122–245) and for 1 of 4 studies including infants (Table  1 ).

Four studies included all relevant fracture locations [ 1 , 2 , 11 , 20 ], while the remainder reported on the incidence of fractures to the appendicular skeleton [ 12 , 19 ], to the femur [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ] or to the distal radius [ 13 , 14 ] (Table  1 ).

All studies were considered of moderate to good quality based on the AXIS system, although several were lacking population denominator and census-based demographic data necessary to generate true incidence rates (Table  1 ). Study design limitations were mainly due to potential selection bias or unadjusted confounders. Important potential confounders, such as socioeconomic status or additional comorbidities were not accounted for in any of the analyses.

Incidence estimates

Study results are summarized in Tables 1 and 2 . The overall annual fracture incidence rates for children under two years of age was reported at 5.3 to 9.5 per 1,000 [ 1 , 2 , 11 ], while the incidence for children under the age of one ranged from 0.7 to 4.6 per 1,000 [ 2 , 12 , 20 ]. The incidence of limb fractures was reported at 4.6 per 1,000 amongst infants, rising to 7.3 per 1,000 for those between one and two years of age [ 12 ].

Femur fractures had an incidence rate range of 0.07–0.2 per 1,000 for infants [ 15 , 18 ], increasing to 0.3–0.5 per 1,000 for 0–2-year-olds [ 16 , 17 ]. For 1–2-year-olds, the corresponding figure was 12.1 per 1,000 [ 15 ].

Three studies reported on sex distribution, of which two found fractures to be equally distributed between sexes; one addressing all except high energy traumas fractures in children 0–2 years of age [ 2 ] and the other addressing fractures to the distal radius in infants [ 14 ]. The third study reported on more fractures in girls than in boys; 62.6% vs 37.4% [ 1 ].

Most common fracture locations

Three papers reported on the most common fracture sites; in 0–2-year-olds the radius/ulna (25.2–40% of all fractures), followed by the tibia/fibula (17.3–27.6%), and the clavicle (14.6–14.8%) [ 1 , 2 , 12 ] (Table  2 ). In infants, the most common fracture sites were the clavicle and distal humerus (22.2% each of all fractures) [ 20 ].

Fracture mechanisms

Fracture mechanisms were reported in 7 studies, of which 2 of the 3 studies including all locations in 0–2-year-olds, described fall from low height (chair, bed, table, own height) to cause 50–70% of fractures [ 1 , 2 ], while a third study described fall, without specifying height, as the cause in 52% [ 12 ] (Table  2 ). Five studies reported on abuse as a potential mechanism in 4.1%—12.2% of the cases [ 1 , 2 , 12 , 16 , 17 ]. As for fractures to the femur, falls were the reported mechanism in 24–77% of the cases [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ], of which two studies specified the height [ 15 , 18 ]. In the Swedish registry study from 2011 including 313 infants with femur fractures, birth injuries excluded, the authors found that 70 (22.4%) out of 313 fractures were caused by a fall, of which 31 from a height < 1 m, 19 from a height > 1 m, whilst the remainder 20 were unspecified [ 18 ]. In the study from Talbot et al., the most common mechanism was fall of less than two meters [ 15 ].

Type of fractures

Two studies reported on fracture type [ 2 , 12 ], 31–32% being of the buckle/greenstick type (Table  2 ). Only a single classical metaphyseal lesion (CML) (in a proximal humerus of an 11-month-old infant) was reported [ 2 ]. The fracture was initially missed, but diagnosed during the retrospective review of the radiographs. The child refused to use the arm, however, there was no mention of trauma in the medical notes.

Acute/healing fracture

The incidence of healing fractures was reported at 0.3 per 1,000 in children under two years of age [ 2 ]. This information could not be extracted for those under 1 year of age.

The purpose of this review was to systematically investigate the existing literature to determine the population-based fracture incidence in children under the age of two years. Although there was a vast body of literature reporting fractures in children, most papers did not report figures for 0–2-year-olds specifically. Moreover, studies were lacking the appropriate population denominator and census-based demographic data necessary to generate true incidence rates rather than frequencies or proportions. Studies differed in design; methods to secure a population-based cohort; type of health service where the study was undertaken; and clinical setting. The degree of variation across the studies, combined with our quality findings that most studies were at risk of bias, meant that it was not appropriate to pool the results in a meta-analysis.

Most included studies were based on researcher-collected data from medical records, while five were registry based. Despite the increasing use, no developed methodological literature on use and evaluation of population based registers is available [ 21 ]. Although complete study populations minimize selection bias, registry studies are limited by missing data, lack of data quality, confounder information, and the risk of data dredging. On the other hand, data retrospectively collected from medical records suffer similar limitations, underscoring the need for prospective studies and validated research databases.

Knowledge of fractures in children has typically come from Northern European population studies reported in the late 1970s through the 80 s and 90 s [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ], however, most of these have provided pooled data from birth until school-age or until skeletal maturity without focusing on the youngest age group. Despite performing an extensive literature search, we identified only three studies reporting true, population-based incidences in 0–2-year-olds [ 1 , 2 , 11 ]. The reported incidences were relatively similar, ranging from 5.3 to 9.5 per 1,000, of which the latter comes with a caveat being deduced from a figure in the original paper.

Three studies addressed infants, with reported fracture incidences ranging from 0.7 per 1,000 in a Norwegian study [ 2 ] to 3.6 and 4.6 per 1,000 in two studies from Scotland [ 12 , 20 ]. The differences may in part be due to selection bias, as one study excluded high energy trauma [ 2 ], another excluded skull and rib fractures [ 20 ] and a third excluded the axial skeleton, pelvis and chest, but included the clavicles [ 12 ]. The many different methodological and reporting approaches highlights the challenges of synthesising results. Although there was high heterogeneity of the studies included, two studies concurred and showed significantly higher fracture rates in 1–2-year-olds compared to infants [ 2 , 12 ]. This finding seems reasonable, as fractures are less likely to occur in non-ambulatory infants.

Our review found that fractures to the forearm constituted up to 50% of all fractures in children aged 0–2 years, as compared to around 20% in infants. However, the number of studies is low, reducing confidence in this finding. Interestingly, only a single CML (of the proximal humerus of an 11-month-old infant) was reported despite the thousands reviewed. The child was brought to the emergency out-patient clinic because he refused to use his left arm, with no history of trauma. Unfortunately, the fracture was missed during the initial visit, thus the finding did not trigger a more extensive work-up. In retrospect, the authors speculate that the fracture might have represented a missed, inflicted injury [ 2 , 3 ].

In terms of fracture mechanisms, insignificant injury or fall from low height such as chair, bed, table or own height, was the reported mechanism in 50–60% of all fractures amongst 0–2-year-olds, while this was the case for one tenth of femur fractures in infants. However, these results must be interpreted with care, as none of the studies registered fracture mechanisms in a detailed, prospective manner. Moreover, a significant proportion of the injuries were not observed by the caretakers or by other adults, thus, the figures given include potentially abusive fractures. However, it was not the purpose of this review to examine the incidence of inflicted injury.

The strengths of this systematic review include the rigorous methodological approach employed using an established methodological framework. A comprehensive search strategy was used, with broad inclusion criteria. Three independent reviewers were involved in the screening process to identify papers for full-text reading, and a fourth reviewer was included in data extraction. Moreover, the search was repeated at the time of manuscript preparation to capture recent and relevant studies.

There are some limitations to the present study. First, the number of studies was low with varying quality, and many did not report essential data, such as incidences by sex. Second, given the limitations of the reported data, the risk of bias among the included studies and the wide heterogeneity between them, we were unable to combine data in a meta-analysis, and instead results were reported as a narrative summary. Thirdly, we included articles written in English only. We also planned to assess publication bias but were unable to do so owing to the wide heterogeneity between the included studies. The generalisability of these findings may be uncertain.

There is a paucity of good quality data on fracture incidence in children under the age of two. This systematic review of the literature found only 12 studies over the last 78 years that met the eligibility criteria, however, due to data inhomogeneity a meta-analysis could not be calculated. From the limited, potentially biased data available, we calculated the following: an overall incidence of fractures of around 1% in children under 2-year-olds, most of which were lower leg or forearm fractures, and a lower incidence in infants (under 1-year-olds) being a maximum of 0.5%, most of which were clavicle and humeral fractures. The low frequency of CMLs and absence of rib fractures may be differentiating features from inflicted injury.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Open access funding provided by UiT The Arctic University of Norway (incl University Hospital of North Norway) UiT the Arctic University of Norway funded costs for publication.

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Department of Clinical Medicine, UiT the Artic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

Karen Rosendahl, Laura Tanturri de Horatio, Edvard J. Enoksen, Rien Avenarius & Thomas A. Augdal

Department of Radiology, University Hospital of North Norway, Pb 100, Tromsø, 9038, Norway

Karen Rosendahl, Laura Tanturri de Horatio & Thomas A. Augdal

Department of Imaging, IRCCS Bambino Gesù Children‘s Hospital, Rome, Italy

Laura Tanturri de Horatio

Pediatric Radiology Unit, Radiology Division, Diagnostic Department, University Hospitals of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Celine Habre

Department of Clinical Radiology, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, Great Ormond Street, London, England

Susan C. Shelmerdine

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, England

NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre, Bloomsbury, London, England

Department of Radiology, St. George’s Hospital, London, England

Division of General and Pediatric Radiology, Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-Guided Therapy, Medical University of Vienna, Wien, Austria

Janina Patsch

Department of Pediatric Radiology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden

Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institute, Solna, Sweden

University Library, Bergen University, Bergen, Norway

Regina K. Lein

Clinical Radiology Institute, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Section for Paediatric Radiology, Department of Radiology, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway

Lene B. Laborie

Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

Department of Radiology, “Reine Fabiola” Children’s University Hospital Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

Paolo Simoni

Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Rick R. van Rijn

Department of Oncology & Metabolism, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England

Amaka C. Offiah

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Contributions

All conceptualized the study, R.K.L performed the literature search, K.R., S.S and L.T.d.H. screened the titles and abstracts, R.v.R and K.R. extracted data from the included papers, O.K, J.P and C.H performed the quality check using AXIS and K.R. drafted a first version of the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karen Rosendahl .

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Ethical approval was not required for this review of publicly available data.

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Rosendahl, K., de Horatio, L.T., Habre, C. et al. The incidence of fractures in children under two years of age: a systematic review . BMC Musculoskelet Disord 25 , 528 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-024-07633-5

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-024-07633-5

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Christina Rossetti, Lesson 12: Good Friday

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3d printing for customized bone reconstruction in spheno-orbital meningiomas: a systematic literature review and institutional experience.

1. Introduction

2. materials and methods, 2.1. search methods, 2.2. selection criteria and data extraction, 2.3. clinical study, 3.1. review of the literature, 3.1.1. study selection, 3.1.2. summary of results, 3.2. institutional case series, 3.2.1. case example 1, 3.2.2. case example 2, 4. discussion, 5. limitations of the study, 6. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Serioli, S.; Pietrantoni, A.; Benato, A.; Galeazzi, M.; Piazza, A.; Lauretti, L.; Mattogno, P.P.; Olivi, A.; Fontanella, M.M.; Doglietto, F. 3D Printing for Customized Bone Reconstruction in Spheno-Orbital Meningiomas: A Systematic Literature Review and Institutional Experience. J. Clin. Med. 2024 , 13 , 3968. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13133968

Serioli S, Pietrantoni A, Benato A, Galeazzi M, Piazza A, Lauretti L, Mattogno PP, Olivi A, Fontanella MM, Doglietto F. 3D Printing for Customized Bone Reconstruction in Spheno-Orbital Meningiomas: A Systematic Literature Review and Institutional Experience. Journal of Clinical Medicine . 2024; 13(13):3968. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13133968

Serioli, Simona, Alberto Pietrantoni, Alberto Benato, Marco Galeazzi, Amedeo Piazza, Liverana Lauretti, Pier Paolo Mattogno, Alessandro Olivi, Marco Maria Fontanella, and Francesco Doglietto. 2024. "3D Printing for Customized Bone Reconstruction in Spheno-Orbital Meningiomas: A Systematic Literature Review and Institutional Experience" Journal of Clinical Medicine 13, no. 13: 3968. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13133968

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• Debate-Con: Use of expired antivenoms: a flawed good idea
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• http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1976-8568 Jean-Philippe François Chippaux
• Université Paris Cité, UMR MERIT , IRD , Paris , France
• Correspondence to Dr Jean-Philippe François Chippaux, Université Paris Cité, UMR MERIT, IRD, Paris, France; Jean-Philippe.Chippaux{at}ird.fr

https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2024-213923

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• envenomation
• tropical medicine

The stability of antivenoms has been the subject of numerous studies. A recent review of the literature highlights the convergence of these studies demonstrating the efficacy and safety of expired antivenoms. 1 However, as the authors point out, the results do not come from randomised clinical trials, which alone could validate the use of expired antivenoms without loss of opportunity for the patient.

They addressed the urgent issue of access to antivenoms in low-income countries, and the use of expired antivenoms to alleviate shortages. The antivenom access crisis, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, is a human and economic disaster. 2 3 First, the low availability of antivenoms, particularly in Africa, is the result of a combination of factors that cannot be addressed by using expired antivenoms, if only because their price will not fall due to the need to replenish stocks. 3 Second, the recommendations aimed at justifying the use of expired antivenoms are debatable. How can we be sure of the validity of an expired product? Do we have sufficient guarantees that it has been stored under appropriate conditions? How long will it remain effective and, …

Handling editor Gene Yong-Kwang Ong

Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests None declared.

Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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• Original research Preclinical testing of expired antivenoms and its uses in real-world experience: a systematic review Sutinee Soopairin Chanthawat Patikorn Suthira Taychakhoonavudh Emergency Medicine Journal 2024; - Published Online First: 06 Jun 2024. doi: 10.1136/emermed-2023-213707
• Commentary Debate-Pro: manufacturers should assess the long-term stability of their antivenoms Julien Potet Emergency Medicine Journal 2024; - Published Online First: 06 Jun 2024. doi: 10.1136/emermed-2024-214173

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