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

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.

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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.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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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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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.

• University of Oregon Libraries
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How to Write a Literature Review

• 7. Write a Literature Review
• Literature Reviews: A Recap
• Reading Journal Articles
• Does it Describe a Literature Review?
• 1. Identify the Question
• 2. Review Discipline Styles
• Searching Article Databases
• Finding Full-Text of an Article
• Citation Chaining
• When to Stop Searching
• 4. Manage Your References
• 5. Critically Analyze and Evaluate
• 6. Synthesize

Write a Literature Review

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Some points to remember

• Include only the most important points from each source -- you want to digest, not quote from, the sources.
• The value of the review for you audience will consist in a clear, well-organized synopsis of what has been found so far on your topic. 
• Avoid plagiarism in your lit review. Consult this UO Libraries tutorial on Academic Integrity if you need some guidance.

If you would like more pointers about how to approach your literature review, this this handout from The Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill  suggests several effective strategies.

From UNC-Chapel Hill  and  University of Toronto

Note : Please check the websites below for availability of online or remote services:

• Writing Lab Service Customized academic assistance for all international students
• How to Write a Literature Review (UO Libraries tutorial)
• Exploring Academic Integrity in Your Research

If you have questions related to a field or discipline, consider reaching out to a Subject Librarian by email, phone, or by scheduling an appointment for a free consultation:

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Introduction

Literature reviews take time. here is some general information to know before you start.  .

•  VIDEO -- This video is a great overview of the entire process.  (2020; North Carolina State University Libraries) --The transcript is included --This is for everyone; ignore the mention of "graduate students" --9.5 minutes, and every second is important  
• OVERVIEW -- Read this page from Purdue's OWL. It's not long, and gives some tips to fill in what you just learned from the video.  
• NOT A RESEARCH ARTICLE -- A literature review follows a different style, format, and structure from a research article.  

Steps to Completing a Literature Review

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• URL: https://guides.library.jhu.edu/lit-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.

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

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What is a Literature Review?

So, what is a literature review .

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

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

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

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

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

What are the Goals of Creating a Literature Review?

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

When do you need to write a Literature Review?

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

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

Where I can find examples of Literature Reviews?

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

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

Where to Find Standalone Literature Reviews

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

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

Social Sciences

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

Hard science and health sciences:

• Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science
• Annual Review of Materials Science
• Systematic Review From journal site: "The journal Systematic Reviews encompasses all aspects of the design, conduct, and reporting of systematic reviews" in the health sciences.
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Literature reviews, what is a literature review, learning more about how to do a literature review.

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

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

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

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What is a Literature Review? 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. 

Find academic papers related to your research topic faster. Try Research on Paperpal  

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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How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal?

Paperpal, an AI writing assistant, integrates powerful academic search capabilities within its writing platform. With the Research feature, you get 100% factual insights, with citations backed by 250M+ verified research articles, directly within your writing interface with the option to save relevant references in your Citation Library. By eliminating the need to switch tabs to find answers to all your research questions, Paperpal saves time and helps you stay focused on your writing.   

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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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How to write a literature review introduction (+ examples)

The introduction to a literature review serves as your reader’s guide through your academic work and thought process. Explore the significance of literature review introductions in review papers, academic papers, essays, theses, and dissertations. We delve into the purpose and necessity of these introductions, explore the essential components of literature review introductions, and provide step-by-step guidance on how to craft your own, along with examples.

Why you need an introduction for a literature review

In academic writing , the introduction for a literature review is an indispensable component. Effective academic writing requires proper paragraph structuring to guide your reader through your argumentation. This includes providing an introduction to your literature review.

It is imperative to remember that you should never start sharing your findings abruptly. Even if there isn’t a dedicated introduction section .

When you need an introduction for a literature review

There are three main scenarios in which you need an introduction for a literature review:

What to include in a literature review introduction

It is crucial to customize the content and depth of your literature review introduction according to the specific format of your academic work.

In practical terms, this implies, for instance, that the introduction in an academic literature review paper, especially one derived from a systematic literature review , is quite comprehensive. Particularly compared to the rather brief one or two introductory sentences that are often found at the beginning of a literature review section in a standard academic paper. The introduction to the literature review chapter in a thesis or dissertation again adheres to different standards.

Academic literature review paper

The introduction of an academic literature review paper, which does not rely on empirical data, often necessitates a more extensive introduction than the brief literature review introductions typically found in empirical papers. It should encompass:

Regular literature review section in an academic article or essay

In a standard 8000-word journal article, the literature review section typically spans between 750 and 1250 words. The first few sentences or the first paragraph within this section often serve as an introduction. It should encompass:

In some cases, you might include:

Introduction to a literature review chapter in thesis or dissertation

Some students choose to incorporate a brief introductory section at the beginning of each chapter, including the literature review chapter. Alternatively, others opt to seamlessly integrate the introduction into the initial sentences of the literature review itself. Both approaches are acceptable, provided that you incorporate the following elements:

Examples of literature review introductions

Example 1: an effective introduction for an academic literature review paper.

To begin, let’s delve into the introduction of an academic literature review paper. We will examine the paper “How does culture influence innovation? A systematic literature review”, which was published in 2018 in the journal Management Decision.

Example 2: An effective introduction to a literature review section in an academic paper

The second example represents a typical academic paper, encompassing not only a literature review section but also empirical data, a case study, and other elements. We will closely examine the introduction to the literature review section in the paper “The environmentalism of the subalterns: a case study of environmental activism in Eastern Kurdistan/Rojhelat”, which was published in 2021 in the journal Local Environment.

Thus, the author successfully introduces the literature review, from which point onward it dives into the main concept (‘subalternity’) of the research, and reviews the literature on socio-economic justice and environmental degradation.

Examples 3-5: Effective introductions to literature review chapters

Numerous universities offer online repositories where you can access theses and dissertations from previous years, serving as valuable sources of reference. Many of these repositories, however, may require you to log in through your university account. Nevertheless, a few open-access repositories are accessible to anyone, such as the one by the University of Manchester . It’s important to note though that copyright restrictions apply to these resources, just as they would with published papers.

Master’s thesis literature review introduction

Phd thesis literature review chapter introduction, phd thesis literature review introduction.

The last example is the doctoral thesis Metacognitive strategies and beliefs: Child correlates and early experiences Chan, K. Y. M. (Author). 31 Dec 2020 . The author clearly conducted a systematic literature review, commencing the review section with a discussion of the methodology and approach employed in locating and analyzing the selected records.

Steps to write your own literature review introduction

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How to Write a Literature Review

• What Is a Literature Review
• What Is the Literature

Writing the Review

Why Are You Writing This?

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

• Stand-alone review: provide an overview and analysis of the current state of research on a topic or question
• Research proposal: explicate the current issues and questions concerning a topic to demonstrate how your proposed research will contribute to the field
• Research report: provide the context to which your work is a contribution.
• Write as you read, and revise as you read more. Rather than wait until you have read everything you are planning to review, start writing as soon as you start reading. You will need to reorganize and revise it all later, but writing a summary of an article when you read it helps you to think more carefully about the article. Having drafts and annotations to work with will also make writing the full review easier since you will not have to rely completely on your memory or have to keep thumbing back through all the articles. Your draft does not need to be in finished, or even presentable, form. The first draft is for you, so you can tell yourself what you are thinking. Later you can rewrite it for others to tell them what you think.

General Steps for Writing a Literature Review

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

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

Specific Points to Include

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

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

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

     Smith (2019) claims that blah, and provides evidence x to support it, and says it is probably because of blip. But Smith seems to have neglected factor b.      Jones (2021) showed that blah by doing y, which, Jones claims, means it is likely because of blot. But that methodology does not exclude other possibilities.      Johnson (2022) hypothesizes blah might be because of some other cause.

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

     Researchers agree that blah (Smith 2019, Jones 2021, Johnson 2022), but they do not agree on why. Smith claims it is probably due to blip, but Jones, by doing y, tries to show it is likely because of blot. Jones' methodology, however, does not exclude other possibilities. Johnson hypothesizes ...

• << Previous: What Is the Literature
• Last Updated: Jan 11, 2024 9:48 AM
• URL: https://libguides.wesleyan.edu/litreview

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Can you write (or rewrite) my literature review for me.

No – all writing must be your own. We can hold your hand throughout the research process, but we cannot write for you as that would constitute academic misconduct.

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Yes. This is part of our popular Literature Review Kickstarter service. You can find more information about that here.

Can you help me organise and structure my literature review?

Yes, we can assist in structuring your literature review to ensure that you have a clear, logical structure and flow throughout your chapter.

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Absolutely. Our Content Review service is designed exactly for this purpose and is one of the most popular services here at Grad Coach. In a Content Review, we carefully read through your literature review draft and provide detailed comments regarding the key issues/problem areas, why they’re problematic and what you can do to resolve the issues. You can learn more about Content Review here .

Do you offer editing and proofreading services for literature reviews?

Yes, we do provide language editing and proofreading services to ensure your literature review is well-written, clear, and free from errors.

Please note that language editing and proofreading is something that should only be done once you have finished writing your literature review (ideally at the end of your dissertation/thesis) and is not the same as a content review . 

Can you help me with other aspects of my research project?

Yes. Literature review support is only one aspect of our offering at Grad Coach, and we typically assist students throughout their entire dissertation/thesis/research project. You can learn more about our full service offering here .

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All of our coaches hold a doctoral-level degree (for example, a PhD, DBA, etc.). Moreover, they all have experience working within academia, in many cases as dissertation/thesis supervisors. In other words, they understand what markers are looking for when reviewing a student’s work. 

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It’s important to clarify that our expertise lies in the research process itself , rather than specific research areas/topics (e.g., psychology, management, etc.).

In other words, the support we provide is topic-agnostic, which allows us to support students across a very broad range of research topics. That said, if there is a coach on our team who has experience in your area of research, as well as your chosen methodology, we can allocate them to your project (dependent on their availability, of course).

If you’re unsure about whether we’re the right fit, feel free to drop us an email or book a free initial consultation.

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Yes, we can assist you in ensuring that the proper citation and referencing formatting is used, but please note that this is part of our language editing and proofreading service.

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Yes, we prioritise confidentiality and data security. Your written work and personal information are treated as strictly confidential. We can also sign a non-disclosure agreement, should you wish. 

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Literature review.

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

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

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

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

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What is a literature review?

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

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

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

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

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1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

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

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

2. Decide on the scope of your review

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

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

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

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

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

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

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

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

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

Tips: 

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

What is a literature review.

A literature review is a summary of the published work in a field of study. This can be a section of a larger paper or article, or can be the focus of an entire paper. Literature reviews show that you have examined the breadth of knowledge and can justify your thesis or research questions. They are also valuable tools for other researchers who need to find a summary of that field of knowledge.

Unlike an annotated bibliography, which is a list of sources with short descriptions, a literature review synthesizes sources into a summary that has a thesis or statement of purpose—stated or implied—at its core.

How do I write a literature review?

Step 1: define your research scope.

• What is the specific research question that your literature review helps to define?
• Are there a maximum or minimum number of sources that your review should include?

Ask us if you have questions about refining your topic, search methods, writing tips, or citation management.

Step 2: Identify the literature

Start by searching broadly. Literature for your review will typically be acquired through scholarly books, journal articles, and/or dissertations. Develop an understanding of what is out there, what terms are accurate and helpful, etc., and keep track of all of it with citation management tools . If you need help figuring out key terms and where to search, ask us .

Use citation searching to track how scholars interact with, and build upon, previous research:

• Mine the references cited section of each relevant source for additional key sources
• Use Google Scholar or Scopus to find other sources that have cited a particular work

Step 3: Critically analyze the literature

Key to your literature review is a critical analysis of the literature collected around your topic. The analysis will explore relationships, major themes, and any critical gaps in the research expressed in the work. Read and summarize each source with an eye toward analyzing authority, currency, coverage, methodology, and relationship to other works. The University of Toronto's Writing Center provides a comprehensive list of questions you can use to analyze your sources.

Step 4: Categorize your resources

Divide the available resources that pertain to your research into categories reflecting their roles in addressing your research question. Possible ways to categorize resources include organization by:

• methodology
• theoretical/philosophical approach

Regardless of the division, each category should be accompanied by thorough discussions and explanations of strengths and weaknesses, value to the overall survey, and comparisons with similar sources. You may have enough resources when:

• You've used multiple databases and other resources (web portals, repositories, etc.) to get a variety of perspectives on the research topic.
• The same citations are showing up in a variety of databases.

Additional resources

Undergraduate student resources.

• Literature Review Handout (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
• Learn how to write a review of literature (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Graduate student and faculty resources

• Information Research Strategies (University of Arizona)
• Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students (NC State University)
• Oliver, P. (2012). Succeeding with Your Literature Review: A Handbook for Students [ebook]
• Machi, L. A. & McEvoy, B. T. (2016). The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success [ebook]
• Graustein, J. S. (2012). How to Write an Exceptional Thesis or Dissertation: A Step-by-Step Guide from Proposal to Successful Defense [ebook]
• Thomas, R. M. & Brubaker, D. L. (2008). Theses and Dissertations: A Guide to Planning, Research, and Writing

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Literature Review Generator

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Our Literature Review Generator is an AI-powered tool that streamlines and simplifies the creation of literature reviews by automatically collecting, analyzing, summarizing, and synthesizing all the relevant academic sources on a specific topic within the parameters you define.  It saves you additional time by highlighting themes, trends, and gaps in existing literature, giving you a head start on getting to the finish line.

How to Use Literature Review Generator

1.  Input Your Topic: Start by entering your clearly worded, specific topic or research question into the tool’s engine.  This tells the AI exactly what it needs to look for when processing the databases to which it has access.

2.  Set Parameters: Customize your search and tailor it to your needs by further specifying parameters such as date range, publication type, and academic disciplines so that every academic article gathered is suitable to the review you want to write.

3.  Review and Refine: Once the initial results are generated, review the summary and synthesis.  If the results are just what you wanted, you’re good to go.  If, however, you feel it could be tightened up a bit or expanded, try refining your search criteria based on the preliminary findings.  Consider narrowing down or expanding the scope of the literature reviewed—for example, by including research from other fields and disciplines, adjusting the data range, or including or removing certain keywords from your directions.

4.  Export Summary: After finalizing the search parameters and reviewing the output, simply export the organized summary. This summary will include all the main themes, identifiable research gaps, trends, and highlights important to any review.  You can use it as a foundation or a guide for writing your own detailed literature review.

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Introduction

Writing a literature review can feel like scaling a mountain of research papers.  You’re all alone at the base of an enormous pile of academic articles.  The horizon looks ominous, and you’re running out of time.  Before your face is a ton of information that you still need to synthesize. 

Ever been there?  We have, and we know the feeling.  That’s why we introduced our literature review generators as AI-powered tools that revolutionize this crucial research phase.  Need an “automate literature review” option in your life?  Presto!  We’ve got it for you.

This guide will explain how literature review generators work, their benefits, and how you can choose the right one for your needs.  Whether you’re in a time crunch or struggling to bring all the research together, our literature review generator can save the day.

What is a Literature Review Generator?

We know what you’re thinking.  A lit review generator?  There’s no way that can work!

What we say:  don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

Simple Definition

A literature review generator is a simple AI-driven tool that can help students and researchers by identifying, analyzing, summarizing, and synthesizing scholarly literature in any field or discipline.

How It Works

Data collection.

First, our literature review AI tool scans online databases, journals, and academic repositories to find the precise articles related to the topic as you (the user) define or describe it.  The generator is able to use natural language processing (NLP) techniques to understand the content and context of documents so that only the most relevant materials that fall within the parameters the user selects are extracted.

Once the data is collected, the generator looks at key themes, common and disparate methodologies, findings, and trends within the literature selected.  Machine learning algorithms allow it to group texts based on similarity, patterns, and important information.

Summarization

The tool then summarizes the collected literature by giving a concise description of each work.  It pinpoints key findings, and notes areas of agreement or disagreement among researchers. It organizes this information so that it is easy to understand for the average user.

The benefits of our literature review generator are that it dramatically reduces your research time.  It quickly picks out the important themes and trends in the literature that would otherwise require extensive toil on your part.  It easily highlights research gaps.  And, best of all, it gives you an organized foundation for your own review.

Why Use a Literature Review Generator?

This is the perfect tool for researchers working under tight deadlines. When time is of the essence, you need a tool that knows how to move swiftly and efficiently. That’s exactly what our literature review generator offers. It automates the laborious process of collecting and analyzing scholarly articles, saving precious time without compromising the quality of your review.

Thorough Exploration

AI can analyze vast amounts of literature faster than manual review, highlighting connections you might miss. This tool does not just superficially scan documents; it delves deep to unearth patterns, trends, and critical insights that might take a human reader significantly longer to identify. This comprehensive exploration ensures that your review is well-rounded and informed by a wide array of sources.

Structure and Focus

Generators can help frame your review based on identified themes, improving clarity. By organizing the literature around key themes and trends, the generator makes it easier to structure your review logically. This not only aids in writing a coherent document but also helps in highlighting the areas of consensus and debate within the literature, sharpening the focus of your research.

Academic Development

Our generator is also a valuable learning tool that will help you understand how literature reviews are composed. Beyond just providing a shortcut to a completed review, it offers insights into the mechanics of academic writing and research. By observing how the tool organizes and synthesizes information, researchers can enhance their own skills in literature review composition, critical analysis, and academic writing, making it an invaluable asset for academic growth and development.

Choosing the Right Literature Review Generator

Key factors.

A literature review generator should be easy to use, reliable and accurate in its results, and customizable.  It should also have the scope to cover your specific field.  In addition to all this, it should have features like citation formatting to save you any extra leg work down the road.

What Makes Our Generator So Powerful

Our AI-driven generator uses the latest developments in machine learning to sift through reams of data at the click of a button.  It has been designed with end user experience in mind:  it understands the syntax and jargon of academic writing, which is another huge plus, and it can condense and adapt that information into an easy-to-understand output suited to your precise needs.

Getting the Most Out of Our Literature Review Generator

Step-by-step walk-through.

Our generator is simple to use.  Type in a description of your subject.  Pose your research question, or simply list the keywords that are most relevant.  You can then define the parameters of your search to include only journal articles published within the last 3, 5, or 10 years—or however far back you want to go.

For example, if I need a literature review on the pros and cons of telehealth during COVID, I would simply write that exactly into designated box.  I might then specify “American studies only” or “articles published in health journals only” to further limit the search.  I then may type that I want five articles published within the last five years reviewed.  Tap send and let it get to work.

It is usually the case that the more specific you are the better your results.  However, if it seems that the returns just aren’t good enough, consider broadening your search terms so that the generator is freer to explore. 

Another thing to remember is that when interpreting generated outputs you should keep in mind that the generator might mimic the technical language of the publication it reviews.  If you want to integrate the outputs into a cohesive review, revise them into your own words so that it makes sense to you.

Literature Review Generators:  Tool, Not Replacement

Our AI-driven generator is an invaluable aid, but remember that nothing can replace the analysis and synthesis of real researchers when they write their own review.  Our generators can steer you in the right direction, but ultimately you are responsible for getting your ship to port.  We can show you how it’s done, but in the end this is your work to complete and make perfect.

The value in using a literature review generator is that with NLP it can read reams of data faster than you could get through a single Abstract.  All you have to do is go through it and revise so that this remains your work.

Don’t delay!  We invite you to try our tool now:  click the link/button above to get started.

Remember, our tool is here to help ease your workload.  We know that writing literature reviews from scratch takes time and energy that few people actually have.  With our tech, we can get you over the biggest hurdles so that the finish line becomes clear and reachable.  No more panic—no more worry!

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Video: What is a Literature Review?

What is a literature review? What purpose does it serve in research? What should you expect when writing one? Find out here!

Hello, I am Elan, and I am Cas and we’re here to talk about literature reviews. Literature reviews are common assignments in classes, as well as vital components of larger research projects.

The goal of the literature review is to learn enough information about the topic to form or clarify a research question. During the literature review process you will read and review the existing research - or literature - on a given topic. Many research articles include a literature review section, but sometimes the review is the whole paper. 

In this video we will share strategies and processes for synthesizing literature to address a research question. This video won’t cover strategies for finding research articles – for guidance on literature  searching , check out our other videos or get in touch with the Ask Us desk! Before we get into literature review strategies, let’s talk about the length and scope of your review.

The number of sources you’ll review depends on the topic and the purpose of the literature review. If you are writing this review as an assignment for a semester-long course, your instructor may require a minimum number of sources.  

If this is part of your master's thesis or dissertation, the review will be much more thorough and will provide a comprehensive view of the major scholarly works published on your topic. 

So, how do you know when you’ve done enough research and you’re ready to begin writing? There’s no easy answer to this question. A good indicator is when you’re no longer learning new details, and you’re not finding leads on any new resources. At this point you're ready to begin writing and are in the synthesis stage. 

Synthesis goes beyond simply summarizing each source you’ve found. Synthesizing requires organizing the resources and arguments into subtopics by tracing the connections between what you’ve found and your larger research topic. You’ll be discussing, comparing, contrasting, or otherwise connecting smaller topics and arguments to tell the “story” of the research.   

You can think of the synthesis process like baking a pie. When you eat a slice of apple pie, you can’t taste the individual ingredients – flour, eggs, sugar, and butter all combine to form a new creation. Literature reviews are the same – you don’t want to focus too much on any individual source. Instead, you’re transforming the sources that you found into an entirely new creation that addresses your research question and is written in your voice. 

Keep in mind that research is an iterative process. 

Once you begin writing your literature review you may find that you haven’t fully addressed your research question and need to go back to search for more sources.  There are multiple strategies that can help you synthesize the literature that you found.  One way to get started is with an annotated bibliography, which is a list of citations accompanied by a descriptive and critical summary. 

The annotations summarize each source, assess its usefulness, and reflect on its benefit to your topic. An annotated bibliography can help you identify themes and serve as a foundation to your literature review. 

However, it is important to move beyond a summary because a literature review  synthesizes the information presented in the sources. Another strategy that can be used to plan and organize your review is a Synthesis Matrix  synthesis-matrix . 

The synthesis matrix is a chart that allows you to sort and categorize different arguments presented on an issue. Across the top of the chart are the spaces to record sources, and along the side of the chart are the spaces to record the main points of argument on the topic at hand. 

Organize your literature by taking notes on the main ideas of each article. After your chart is complete, you’ll notice patterns of information. You may find that your sources discuss very similar material, or that they deal with completely different aspects of your topic. These patterns can be useful in creating a thesis statement that can guide your writing and keep you focused as you begin your draft. 

When examining how each source ties into your research question, some important considerations that can influence how you synthesize your findings include: 

• The background & credibility of the author
• The main focus or purpose of the work 
• How useful the source is to your research topic 
• The methods or theories used in the study and how they compare to each other 
• Limitations or gaps mentioned in the sources that you find 
• Special features of the work that you found unique or helpful and
• Conclusions or observations reached by the author and by you! 

Depending on what fits your topic best, here are a few options for organizing your review (Transition to ANI slate)

• Chronological: This approach shows how findings progressed over time. (example articles- Timeline one old train of thought compared to new)
• Thematic: This would include subheadings specifically related to your topic. A thematic structure shows how different components of the literature tie into your argument (example- schools of thought- )
• Methodological: This approach focuses on the research methods used in all of the sources that you found. (example - different methods -same result - parts of the school of thought - engine cogs different)

However you decide to organize your literature review and synthesize the information, the goal is still the same: to present your reader with a broad overview of the major research findings related to your topic. (Talking Head)

For help with your literature review, finding articles in Libraries databases, or keeping track of your citations, check out our other Research Tips videos or ask a librarian for help! 

Video added on June 18, 2024

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• YouTube Series: Carrie Price's Searching School This playlist of videos, created by librarian Carrie Price, details the nuances of systematic searching based on guidance documents like the PRISMA-S and the PRESS Checklist.
• Advanced Searching with CINAHL Subject Headings This guide explains what subject headings and subheadings are and demonstrates how to use CINAHL headings in command-line searching to build one-line simple or complex searches.
• PubMed Help This page offers tips, tricks, and tutorials for searching PubMed, which is a free resource developed and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).
• PubMed: Building a Search [Video] This tutorial from the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins details the steps to building a systematic search strategy in PubMed with the building block method, including the use of Boolean operators, truncation, quotations, and field tags.
• Medline via Ovid Database Guide This guide describes how Medline information is structured in the Ovid interface. Jump down to Advanced Searching for tips on using Ovid syntax and limits to optimize a search strategy.
• PsycINFO via Ovid Database Guide This guide describes how PsycINFO information is structured in the Ovid interface. Jump down to Advanced Searching for tips on using Ovid syntax and limits to optimize a search strategy.

A spreadsheet template designed to help you keep track of your literature search terms during a systematic search.

1. Log in with your NYU credentials

2. Open and "Make a Copy" to create your own tracker for your literature search strategies

Translating Searches Between Databases

Searching in a comprehensive, systematic way requires authors to execute analogous searches in multiple databases, but not all databases accept the same search syntax, and most databases use different vocabulary for subject headings (or don't use subject headings at all).

As such, once a search strategy has been developed in one database, it is necessary to 'translate' it into a form that will work in a different database.

Here is the same search criteria (diabetes + self management), executed with database-specific search queries for three different databases. 

(diabetes OR diabetic* OR (MH "Diabetes Mellitus+")) AND (“self management” OR “self care” OR “self monitoring” OR “self regulation” OR (MH "Self-Management") OR (MH "Self Care+"))

(“diabetes”[tiab] OR “diabetic*”[tiab] OR "Diabetes Mellitus"[Mesh]) AND (“self management”[tiab] OR “self care”[tiab] OR “self monitoring”[tiab] OR “self regulation”[tiab] OR "Self-Management"[Mesh])

• Web of Science

(diabetes OR diabetic*) AND (“self management” OR “self care” OR “self monitoring” OR “self regulation”)

Resources for Translating Search Queries

• Cochrane Database Syntax Guide (PDF) (152KB) A summary of the different syntax used to structure queries in health databases.
• Cornell University Library Guide - Translate Search Strategies This section of Cornell's guide to evidence synthesis covers key syntax differences between databases.
• UniSA Systematic Reviews Guide: Run Your Search on Other Databases This page has links to documents describing how to translate a search from Ovid MEDLINE into other database syntax

Citation Management Tools

For help choosing a citation management tool: .

See comparison list

For help using a citation management tool: 

See schedule of RefWorks, EndNote, and Zotero classes (coded in pink)

• EndNote NYU has a campus-wide license to this software, which you download (at no cost to you) to your laptop or desktop computer. The software includes a less developed web-based component called EndNoteWeb, which can be used to sync across multiple personal computers.
• RefWorks NYU purchases a campus-wide subscription to this web-based service that covers all members of the NYU community. Because RefWorks is web-based, you can use it from any Internet-connected computer/device on campus or off.
• Zotero A free download that works with your web browser. There are two options: Zotero for Firefox is a Firefox-specific extension that offers the full range of functionality. Zotero Standalone -- a separate browser-independent application that can be used with Chrome, Safari, or Opera -- offers slightly less functionality than the Firefox extension.

Backing Up Bibliographic Data

If you are using a citation manager to store bibliographic data related to your evidence synthesis project, it is recommended that you maintain back up copies of your data.  

Recommended steps for backing up bibliographic data will vary depending on your software of choice (Zotero, EndNote or RefWorks) - more information can be found on the guide for Data Management Planning - Storage & Backup . 

Article Screening - Covidence

Covidence works with reference managers (e.g.,EndNote, Zotero, Refworks, Mendeley) to screen results for the purposes of systematic reviews and other research projects.

Link to Covidence to request a Covidence account using your NYU email address. Accept email invitation and Sign In;

(do NOT click the "free trial" account; do NOT "sign in with Cochrane" Select the option for NYU access).

Covidence Trainings & Support

• Covidence Knowledge Base The Covidence Knowledge Base contains a suite of articles offering overviews of the software, help getting started, and information about review settings, importing records, data extraction, exporting data, FAQs and more.
• Getting Started with Covidence - Video Collection This collection of video tutorials covers: -Signing in and out -Creating a new review and inviting co-reviewers -Importing citations -Screening titles & abstracts -How to breeze through screening
• Getting Started with Covidence (Webinar - 1 Hour) The Covidence 101 training webinar includes a live demo providing an overview of the systematic review workflow, and showcasing some of the most popular features.

Tutorials: Exporting Records from Databases into Covidence

Covidence Knowledge Base: Importing references in Covidence

Video Overviews by Database

• Education Source with ERIC is also hosted on EBSCO
• PsycINFO and MEDLINE are also hosted on EMBASE

PRISMA - Checklist & Diagram

PRISMA ( P referred R eporting I tems for S ystematic R eviews and M eta- A nalyses) is an evidence-based set of minimum items for reporting information in systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Specific PRISMA resources include:

Prisma checklist.

• A 27 item checklist whose items refer to the preferred content of a for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, including suggested content for the title, abstract, methods, results, discussion and funding.

PRISMA Extensions

• Extensions to the PRISMA Checklist to facilitate the reporting of different types or aspects of systematic reviews/meta-analyses (e.g., checklists for reporting scoping reviews, individual patient data)

PRISMA Diagram Templates

• Word Document Templates  - PRISMA Website
• This file is View Only. To create your own diagram in GoogleDrawings using this template: "File> Make a copy"
• Image can be downloaded as PDF, PNG, JPG, or SVG
• PRISMA Diagram Generator - ShinyApp.io

PRISMA Data Table

• This view-only GoogleDoc shows a table you can use to track the basic data that is needed to complete a PRISMA diagram, including an example table.

Example PRISMA Diagram 

Source: 

Stotz, S. A., McNealy, K., Begay, R. L., DeSanto, K., Manson, S. M., & Moore, K. R. (2021). Multi-level diabetes prevention and treatment interventions for Native people in the USA and Canada: A scoping review.  Current Diabetes Reports, 2 (11), 46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-021-01414-3

Video Overview: Filling Out a PRISMA Flow Diagram (2020 Version; 8 minutes, 32 seconds)

Still have questions about constructing a PRISMA diagram using the 2020 template? 

This article, published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association, answers some frequently asked questions about using the PRISMA 2020 format. 

Rethlefsen, M. L., & Page, M. J. (2022). PRISMA 2020 and PRISMA-S: common questions on tracking records and the flow diagram.  Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA ,  110 (2), 253–257. https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2022.1449 

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Systematic Literature Review: Easy Guide

WRONG. It turns out that typing “what is a systematic literature review” into Google will only overwhelm a new researcher! I came across plenty of journal articles that claimed to be explaining what an SLR was (and how that somehow differed from another term I was learning – a scoping review), but for the life of me I could not find a clear-cut set of instructions. All of the information seemed to be pitched at a level far above the one I was operating at, and I began to feel frustrated that I could not find a source that was putting this methodology into terms that the average person could understand. But I knew I needed to figure it out, so over the course of the next few weeks I read what felt like dozens of explainers and guides.

Eventually, my reading and furious note-taking paid off, because by the end of 2023 I had successfully completed my research, entitled “How are language barriers bridged in hospitals?: a systematic review” . But in the process, I had spoken to so many academics who also voiced their frustration that they couldn’t find explanations on how to conduct an SLR in clear lay terms, and so I knew I hadn’t been alone.

Something I feel VERY passionate about is that, as academics, we must be able to talk to people outside of academia, and that means that we need to be able to communicate complex ideas in easily digestible ways. Higher knowledge shouldn’t be reserved for people who have weeks to teach themselves a new research methodology, and I wanted to be able to explain an SLR to everyone, not just other researchers.

And so, I created this “ SLR: Easy Guide ” explainer for anyone and everyone who would like to conduct an SLR but has no idea where to start. If that’s you, please feel free to use this resource – and know that you aren’t alone as an early researcher who is learning things for the first time. We’ve all got to start somewhere, and we can make it easier on others by sharing what we’ve figured out the hard way!

What exactly is a systematic literature review (SLR)?

Ok, so you know how you need to do a literature review before you write a research paper? In that literature review, you are basically summarising what other researchers have said about your research topic so that you can show how your research is building on prior knowledge.

An SLR is different to that. An SLR is your research (your “experiment”, if you will). In an SLR, you read and analyse lots of different published journal articles in order to see patterns in already-published data. There’s an actual methodology that you have to use (which I detail in SLR: An Easy Guide ) in order to select these journal articles.

I haven’t heard of an SLR, but I’ve heard of a meta-analysis. What’s the difference?

Literally nothing. They mean the same thing! Surprise! Academia is fun and not at all confusing.

I’ve also heard of a scoping review. Is that the same as a systematic literature review?

In this case, there actually is a difference, albeit a relatively small one. The methodology for both types of reviews will be the same (whew!), but the reason for conducting one versus the other will be a bit different. Let me give you an example based on my own research. When I began looking into how hospitals manage linguistic diversity between patients and staff, I knew that there was already a lot of literature out there about the subject (generally having to do with the work of professional interpreters). I had four very specific research questions that I wanted to answer based on that literature. This is why I conducted a systematic review – because I already knew that I would be able to find existing research that could answer my questions.

HOWEVER, you might not know how much literature already exists on a given topic. Maybe your topic is fairly niche, so you haven’t seen much about it in publications. This is where a scoping review comes in. In conducting a scoping review, you’ll find out exactly how much literature on the topic already exists. In doing so, you’ll be able to make an argument for why a particular area of research should be looked into more.

If this still sounds confusing (totally understandable!), be sure to talk to a fabulous university librarian. They are really good at knowing the difference between the two!

Is there any kind of SLR “authority” that I should know about?

There sure is! There is an organisation called PRISMA (which stands for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses). You can go to their website for two very crucial items that you will need for your SLR: a checklist and a flow chart.

The PRISMA checklist is great because it tells you exactly what you need to include in your SLR. The PRISMA flow chart is what you include in your SLR to show why/how you included and excluded studies during your screening process (which you can see in steps 3 and 4 of my SLR: An Easy Guide  resource). But don’t worry, you don’t need to create the flow chart from scratch. If you use Covidence, the platform will create it for you. And speaking of Covidence…

This feels overwhelming! Is there one place I can go to manage all my SLR data easily?

Absolutely. I used Covidence , an online platform that essentially walks you through the SLR process. I would HIGHLY recommend using Covidence or a similar service to help you manage all your data in one place. Covidence will also automatically create your flow chart for you as you go through your screening process. What I especially liked about Covidence was that I was able to custom-create my data collection template based on my specific research questions. This made my data analysis much easier than it would have been without it!

What do I do if I’m still confused or feel like I don’t know how to do this?

Remember that every single one of us who goes on to do higher degree research feels like this. We don’t know what we don’t know! I’ve now completed two Masters degrees and am currently working on my PhD, and let me tell you, the learning curve is steep! But you know what? You can do it. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Tell your supervisors and colleagues when you feel lost. Remind yourself that learning these research skills is just as important as the research itself. And when you get super stressed, grab a cup of coffee, stand in the sunshine and take a 10-minute break. You’ve got this!

Download and cite my free “SLR: An Easy Guide” resource

“ SLR: An Easy Guide ” is a free cheat sheet for your systematic literature review. You can download it here .

If you find it useful, please cite as:

Quick, B. (2024). Systematic Literature Review: An Easy Guide. Language on the Move . Retrieved from https://www.languageonthemove.com/systematic-literature-review-easy-guide

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Community Languages Schools Transforming Education

Author Brynn Quick

Brynn Quick holds a Master of Applied Linguistics and a Master of Research from Macquarie University. For her PhD, also at Macquarie University, she is investigating how language barriers are bridged between patients and staff in Australian hospitals. Her linguistic interests are many and varied, and include sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, sociophonetics, and historical linguistics, particularly the history of English.

Join the discussion 3 Comments

This is really helpful! Thanks a lot!

Wow, Brynn! What a creative and relatable way to navigate an otherwise intimidating research method! Thanks for sharing your guide. Will definitely use it!

Thanks so much, Pia! I’m so glad you find it helpful!

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Incantation as Linguistic Disruption: Magic in Postcolonial Literature

Ned Tagtmeier is a third-year at the University of Chicago studying computer science and English. His hobbies include volunteering at local theater Doc Films as well as scrolling.

The grammar turned and attacked me. Adrienne Rich, “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”

The logics of colonial domination are those of the idealized scientific mind William Blake called “Bacon & Newton & Locke”: ideologies that present themselves as rationality (Blake 54). Such logics operate in two stages: first elevating rationality as the supreme principle under which politics and social life should be governed, and then asserting that the colonial power’s actions are a priori rational. Once this project is complete, many of the power structures undergirding colonialism become taken for granted and impervious to critique. In his description of the way that new social structures become entrenched in everyday life, Frankfurt School theorist Walter Benjamin states that the gestures that reify these structures are “mastered gradually – taking their cue from tactile reception – through habit” (Benjamin 40). Benjamin sees this process as both dangerous insofar as it allows capital to shape people in accordance with its interests and generative insofar as it gives art with mass appeal a chance to create a new world. While his analysis is limited to mass media (and specifically film), it may be instructive to look towards more niche postcolonial literature to find strategies for such generative rehabituation. M. NourbeSe Philip’s poem Zong! , a reinterpretation of the text of a court case concerning the murder of enslaved people during the Middle Passage, is one such piece of literature, as is Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, a sprawling multi-character epic about a ship destined to carry indentured servants from India to Mauritius. Both works take seriously magical and spiritual connections between characters that transcend space and time. Rather than impart habits onto the reader through distraction, this focus on magic serves to defamiliarize the habits that underwrite colonial ideology. Ghosh’s character of Baboo Nob Kissin organizes his life around a feat of necromancy. As Ma Taramony, the great love of Baboo’s life, dies, she tells him “...your body will be the vessel for my return. There will come a day when my spirit will manifest itself in you, and then the two of us, united by Krishna’s love, will achieve the most perfect union” (Ghosh 162). In his book Another Mind-Body Problem, John Harfouch connects the history of “the institution of a racial non-being, conceived as a mind-body union without reason” to Edward Said’s work on imperialism (Harfouch xiii). The idea of racial non-being that allows for the labor arrangements that make colonialism profitable is dependent on a version of Cartesian mind/body dualism under which the human being is a mind that uses reason to control a body. Already embedded in Ma Taramony’s promise to Baboo is the rejection of such a hierarchy. Her use of the word “vessel” to describe Baboo’s body might seem like a call to the idea of possession, where a foreign consciousness empties out a body in order to inhabit and control it. However, such a model of possession emphasizes the continuity of the identity of the possessing force in a way that is inadequate to explain the union with Baboo that Ma Taramony foresees. The relationship between body and mind is not straightforwardly dualistic; it is a complex and mutually constitutive bond.

The function of resurrection in Zong! engenders a similar confusion of the mind/body distinction. Such a confusion might also be called a contusion. Like the process of bruising, wherein blood spills out into the interior of the body, trauma allows the substance of the mind into parts of the body where it was not intended [sic] to go. For Philip, that foreign but ultimately aesthetically generative mind is that of Derrida’s “generations of skulls and spirits,” which Philip gives the name of Setaey Adamu Boateng and credits as a co-author (Philip & Boateng 204). However, Philip’s concern with resurrecting the voices of the dead is not just about the thoughts of the dead, but also their vocal cords and, by extension, their bodies as a whole. She uses the word “exaqua” to give a name to her task of bringing up the bodies again, of offering her flesh to the minds of the murdered Africans while simultaneously offering her mind to their flesh. Were it the case that Setaey Adamu Boateng had used Philip’s hands to commit their voice to paper, Philip would have had no reason to credit herself as an author of Zong!. Like in Sea of Poppies , then, her relationship with the spirit does not obey the simple logic of possession, but might be better understood as a creative collaboration.

Creative collaboration between the living and dead in Sea of Poppies disrupts the efforts of colonizers to use language to establish hierarchies of meaning. After seeing Baboo Nob Kissin wearing women’s clothes, Burnham provokes him, attempting to uphold a strict gender binary. Baboo Nob Kissin attempts to reassure him: “It is outward appearance only–just illusions. Underneath all is same-same” (Ghosh 209). Burnham takes this to indicate that Baboo Nob Kissin is denigrating the importance of the institution of gender rather than making manifest that which had been latent in Baboo Nob Kissin since the death of Ma Taramony. This misunderstanding leads in turn to other misunderstandings and fabrications that eventually allow Baboo Nob Kissin to express the spirit of Ma Taramony in peace. Baboo Nob Kissin’s use of language, difficult to understand as it is, thus becomes a model by which challenges to colonial order maintenance can slip under the radar. It is at precisely the moment that he begins attempting to express something magical that communication with Burnham begins to break down in a manner advantageous to him. Through understanding that a central part of the British colonial project consisted of “reject[ing] the presence of femininity in man as virtually the negation of all humanness” both at home and abroad, the reader may come to see Baboo Nob Kissin’s habits of language as not just rejecting the gender binary system insofar as it disadvantaged Ma Taramony, but also evading colonial systems of control net large (Nandy 43). 

In parallel to how Sea of Poppies presents a magical alternative to the British imposition of the gender binary, Zong! destabilizes the very idea of the gender binary as an unassailable rational force in the British psyche. In a section narrated by a white sailor and addressed to Ruth, the sailor sees “visions of l / ace for a queen / my queen / there is pus / dire visions / tempt all” (Philip & Boateng 65-66). This juxtaposition between “visions of lace” and the reality of “pus” parallels the entrance of the voice of the white slaver into the poem being relayed to Philip by the ancestors. The evocation of playing cards in the line about an “ace for a queen” shows not only how the perspective of enslaved people can be swapped out for that of the slaver, but also how the pus on the sailor’s body and his vision of lace on that of Ruth can become swapped and confused. The poem uses a strange, archaic word for breasts: “dugs” (65). That word is also used in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land to describe the “wrinkled” breasts of the magically sex-changed prophet and “old man” Tiresias (Eliot 228). Along with other moments in the surrounding text that sound like Eliot (“at tea time éclairs”, “bo / ne men”), there are clear echoes of The Waste Land ’s gender confusion, a confusion born of chaos and societal breakdown. In Zong! , however, this breakdown comes from delirium, from visions induced by illness and poor rations. All the dualisms upon which the Western metaphysics decried by Harfouch depend are dependent on the notion that rationality can rule one’s life supremely, that when there are lapses in rationality, rationality can reassert itself and suppress dissent. In a state of delirium, however, the subject has no sense of what is and is not rational. For this reason, the sailor succumbs to magical visions, which are anathema to the metaphysics he depends upon to justify his profession of shipping Black people to America. As those metaphysics crumble, so too does the difference between self and other, between narrator and Ruth, and between man and woman.

Similar mystical visions in Sea of Poppies challenge the efforts of colonial power structures to limit the imagination of colonized people. The very first sentence of the novel is “The vision of a tall-masted ship, at sail on the ocean, came to Deeti on an otherwise ordinary day, but she knew instantly that the apparition was a sign of destiny, for she had never seen the vessel before, not even in a dream” (Ghosh 3). The epistemic standpoint privileged by Western conceptions of rationality demands a certain level of doubt by which any piece of sense experience or intuition must be ruthlessly criticized before being integrated with the sum of all one knows about the world. What’s striking about Deeti’s alternative form of integrating perception with knowledge is that it is no less rational than the Western model. Unlike Philip’s sailor aboard the song lost in a fever dream, Deeti has full control of her mental faculties, which allows her to neatly separate visions from dreams and dreams from realities. She soberly notes that “the vision was not materially present in front of her” (8). However, the guiding framework of those mental faculties allows for faith as opposed to doubt. Destiny, rather than the senses as they exist in the physical world, is axiomatized in Deeti’s epistemic system, counterbalancing the self-contradictory empiricism of colonial ideology. 

This alternate system is not just Deeti’s system, but a fundamental component of a larger anticolonial order. In the first of the novel’s striking flash-forwards, Ghosh writes that “in time, among the legions who came to regard the Ibis as their ancestor, it was accepted that it was the river itself that had granted Deeti the vision” (10). The historical significance of the novel’s plot is never fully explained, but it is implied to be immense. Most of the characters whose perspectives are represented in the novel’s storytelling have an antagonistic relationship to the colonial powers-that-be. Many, like Deeti, are members of colonized groups; Zachary and Paulette are marginalized on the basis of race and gender. The use of the word “legions” in this vision of the future thus implies two things: that those inspired by the Ibis will form a military and that this military will not treat the British with the utmost kindness. The “legions” go on to calculate that the vision occurred “the moment the vessel made contact with the sacred waters…in the second week of March 1838” (10). The scholars of the future do significant historical and mathematical work in order to construct an accurate timeline of events. This work is eminently rational, but that is not to say that it assimilates the vision into Western epistemological norms. Those norms are inherently incompatible with knowledge gained from intuition that is neither empirical nor rational. When empirical facts and deductive reasoning are used to expand societal knowledge about a mystical vision, then, an entirely new epistemology is constructed that cannot be reduced to that of the West.

Zong! ’s treatment of the Yoruban divination practice of ifá is similarly methodologically complex. An early usage of the word occurs when the narrator muses, “am sum / am / ame / if / if / if / if only ifá ” (Philip and Boateng 70). The metaphysical constraints provided by the “am” statements are harsh and restrictive. The speaker is a “sum” of money that may or may not be awarded to the owners of the ship depending on the ruling of the court. The alternate Latin meaning of sum (“I am”), which could grant the line recursive meaning (the Biblical name Yahweh is associated with the powerful phrase “I am that I am”) is rendered inactive by the lack of italics. The speaker’s insistence on being “ ame ” communicates little more than a cruel joke: the French word for soul, âme , is rendered incomplete by the rending of the letters from the circumflex above the “a.” In Latin, ame means love, but this meaning is conspicuously absent from the glossary, where love is absent from the definitions of all the words from European languages. Language rends itself open to deny the speaker the opportunity to use it to find meaning, like a bear chewing off its leg so a hunter will not find it in a trap. The speaker then searches vainly for logic and meaning, repeating the word “if,” but is unable to find the second part of the “if-then” statement, the future. 

The word “ ifá ” represents a radical break from these inadequacies, as it is presented as a whole word with all of the meaning bestowed upon it by Yoruba culture. What is important about ifá is that it provides a future that is not premised on death. Roman methods of divination like auguries and haruspicy took as their source the entrails of dead animals, but ifá uses pine nuts instead. While those Roman methods of divination were abandoned by the West as part of the rationalist philosophical project discussed in this essay, they were replaced by historical disciplines with an outsized focus on war and suffering. Popular aphorisms such as “If we cannot remember the past, we will be doomed to repeat it” make clear that the future conjured by the discipline of history is one that finds its basis on the bloodiest elements of the past, a dilemma that ifá is freed from. In the context of the poem, however, ifá cannot be separated from the disgusting “bile cum pus” that characterizes the ship. Visions of the future allowed by ifá must eventually give way to an unbearable present. Ifá can thus be thought of as “if a,” a beginning to a sentence that never reaches an end. Nevertheless, imagining a better future allows for the creative collaboration between Philip and Boateng that, while unable to redeem the violence done aboard the Zong, nonetheless represents a retroactive challenge to colonial oppression and a meaningful demonstration of care towards the dead enslaved people.

The kinds of language games that lead to the elevation of ifá as a practice worth holding onto in Zong! can be found in Sea of Poppies in the various meanings given to the English word “black.” When Baboo Nob Kissin announces his plan to board the Ibis , Mr. Burnham objects “Won’t your Gentoo brethren ban you from their midst for crossing the Black Water?”, leading Baboo Nob Kissin to successfully argue, “[p]ilgrims cannot lose caste—this can also be like that. Why not?” (Ghosh 211). One of the most liberatory aspects of magic as presented in the novel is its ability to transform itself in response to material conditions and organize itself around the principle of sufficient reason. Burnham’s knowledge of Hindu custom is significant, but not intimate: he realizes that the Black Water might be a problem, but he lacks the understanding and energy necessary to challenge Baboo Nob Kissin’s redefinition of the rules of caste. It is precisely his provocation, however, that leads Baboo Nob Kissin to redefine the rules in the way he does and thus redefine his actions in the eyes of Krishna as a pilgrimage. 

Of course, this redefinition is based on the gomusta’s interpretation of “Black” as the color of Krishna “whose very name meant ‘black’ and whose darkness had been celebrated in thousands of songs, poems and names” (142). Upon perceiving Zachary as white, Baboo Nob Kissin contorts his mental image of Zachary to align with the legends of Krishna. Eventually, he discovers a crew list with “the word ‘Black’ scribbled beside Zachary’s name” (430). Ironically, he interprets the word “Black” as Zachary’s good-name, when it is actually his race or color. This misunderstanding could be read as a comedic coincidence that is simply fortunate for Baboo Nob Kissin, but it might better be theorized as an example of the way that magic can reveal and manifest into being fundamental truths outside the purview of deductive reasoning. As the negative sense of the word “Black” as in “Black Water” is rejected and nullified in Baboo Nob Kissin’s mind by the positive connotations of Krishna’s “Blackness,” the racial hierarchies associated with other parts of the British Empire start to break down. The logic of passing, whereby Zachary is required to hide his racial status in order to gain wealth and status, fades away as Baboo Nob Kissin gives Zachary the chance to form an authentic relationship based on the truth with Paulette. It is no surprise that magic negating the curse of the Black Water might have some effect in terms of the Hindu caste system, as that is the social structure in which the Black Water has meaning. The fact that this negation is able to affect other forms of racialization shows that magic has the ability to transcend its original setting, allowing it to adapt to changes brought upon by colonialism.

Attempts to change the magical energies attached to water in Zong! bear less narrative fruit but are no less urgent. One passage, again from the perspective of the white slaver and lover of Ruth, reads, “geld / the negro now / and wash the / water of all sin” (Philip and Boateng 106). One issue at stake in these lines is the rape of African women by slavers, who were sometimes thrown into the sea to hide the slavers’ shame at having copulated with a non-white woman. Miscegenation, not murder, is the sin mentioned here, and the slavers place the blame for this sin at the feet of Black women and men alike. The sexual aggressiveness of the slavers is displaced in an act of sympathetic magic onto the Black men, who must now be “gelded,” or castrated, in order to atone for the sins of the white man. However, to consider magic as solely the providence of the white man in this line would be to apply an overly reductionist lens to the formal complexity of the poem. Shortly after the voice of the slaver comes a plea: “ èsù oh / èsù / save / the / us / in you” (106). Èsù is the trickster orisha and messenger god in Yoruban myth who brought the ritual of ifá to humankind, stealing it from its eponymous god (Britannica). Here, the enslaved people aboard the Zong beg Èsù (who might be compared to the figure of Setaey Adamu Boateng) to tell their stories with their voices and thus keep them alive. The earlier prayer from the slavers to “wash the water of all sin” thus becomes hijacked by the voices of the dead, recentering the crimes of murder and rape that Philip wishes so dearly to foreground in her poem. Unlike in Sea of Poppies , where magical struggle leads to a turn against oppression on the narrative level, in Zong! , the magical struggle occurs on the level of form. It helps to provide order (another concept strongly associated with Èsù ) to the multiplicity of voices offered in the poem, and thus to emphasize that even if the voices of the slavers must persist, what matters is keeping alive the voices of enslaved people. The idea of washing water is paradoxical, and Philip’s poem cannot achieve it, but if Zong! can accurately record a desire to wash the water of murder and not of miscegenation, then it has achieved its goal of “exaquay.”

Ultimately, it appears that the role of magic in postcolonial literature is to reject colonial accounts of history and to create new concepts of knowledge and time oriented towards the postcolonial future rather than the colonial past. However, the way it does so is radically different from Benjamin’s account of art-creating habits in the spectator for better or for worse. The adaptive quality of magic, by which an individual can transform the rules to suit their position, makes it difficult for its depiction in postcolonial literature to be habit-forming. It encourages re-evaluation of the habits of the past without necessarily providing a clear blueprint for what everyday life will look like in the future. The future presented by magic is one of the radical possibilities that magic makes available to the reader. Of course, one danger of this view of magic is that it could succumb to an atomized individualistic account of the relations between people. However, it could also provide the basis for anticolonial and anticapitalist forms of resistance that reject the teleologies that have historically impeded such resistance. The success of Zong! and Sea of Poppies in using magic to tell stories that the English language does not want to tell indicates that the latter, more optimistic path might be more likely.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility . Edited by Michael W Jennings et al. Translated by Edmund Jephcott, Second ed., Harvard College, 2008. 

Blake, William. Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion . Edited by David Erdman, Doubleday, 1988, The William Blake Archive , https://erdman.blakearchive.org/#203 , Accessed 23 May 2023. 

Eliot, T.S. “The Waste Land.” The Waste Land , 2 Jan. 2023, wasteland.windingway.org/. 

Ghosh, Amitav. Sea of Poppies . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. 

Harfouch, John. Another Mind-Body Problem: A History of Racial Non-Being . State University of New York Press, 2019. 

Luebering, J.E. “Eshu.” 11 May 2015. Encyclopedia Britannica . https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eshu .

Nandy, Ashish. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism . Oxford University Press, 1983. 

Philip, M. NourbeSe, and Setaey Adamu Boateng. Zong! Wesleyan University Press, 2008.

Articles copyright © 2024 the original authors. No part of the contents of this Web journal may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission from the author or the Academic Writing Program of the University of Maryland. The views expressed in these essays do not represent the views of the Academic Writing Program or the University of Maryland.