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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.

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: .

• 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Literature review example 

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

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:  

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

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. 

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. 

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. 

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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How to write a good literature review 

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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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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What is a literature review?

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

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

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

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

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1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

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

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

2. Decide on the scope of your review

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

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

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

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

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

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

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

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

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

Tips: 

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

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

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

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

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

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

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Table of contents

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

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Make a list of keywords

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

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

Search for relevant sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

For each publication, ask yourself:

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

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

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

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

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

Take notes and cite your sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chronological

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

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

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

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

Methodological

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

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

Theoretical

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

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

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

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

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

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

As you write, make sure to follow these tips:

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

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

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

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

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

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

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

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

Cite this Scribbr article

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• 04 December 2020
• Correction 09 December 2020

How to write a superb literature review

Andy Tay is a freelance writer based in Singapore.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Literature reviews are important resources for scientists. They provide historical context for a field while offering opinions on its future trajectory. Creating them can provide inspiration for one’s own research, as well as some practice in writing. But few scientists are trained in how to write a review — or in what constitutes an excellent one. Even picking the appropriate software to use can be an involved decision (see ‘Tools and techniques’). So Nature asked editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews for their tips.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Updates & Corrections

Correction 09 December 2020 : An earlier version of the tables in this article included some incorrect details about the programs Zotero, Endnote and Manubot. These have now been corrected.

Hsing, I.-M., Xu, Y. & Zhao, W. Electroanalysis 19 , 755–768 (2007).

Article   Google Scholar  

Ledesma, H. A. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 14 , 645–657 (2019).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Brahlek, M., Koirala, N., Bansal, N. & Oh, S. Solid State Commun. 215–216 , 54–62 (2015).

Choi, Y. & Lee, S. Y. Nature Rev. Chem . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-020-00221-w (2020).

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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.

• University of Texas Libraries

Literature Reviews

• What is a literature review?
• Steps in the Literature Review Process
• Define your research question
• Determine inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Choose databases and search
• Review Results
• Synthesize Results
• Analyze Results
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What is a Literature Review?

A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important past and current research and practices. It provides background and context, and shows how your research will contribute to the field. 

A literature review should: 

• Provide a comprehensive and updated review of the literature;
• Explain why this review has taken place;
• Articulate a position or hypothesis;
• Acknowledge and account for conflicting and corroborating points of view

From  S age Research Methods

Purpose of a Literature Review

A literature review can be written as an introduction to a study to:

• Demonstrate how a study fills a gap in research
• Compare a study with other research that's been done

Or it can be a separate work (a research article on its own) which:

• Organizes or describes a topic
• Describes variables within a particular issue/problem

Limitations of a Literature Review

Some of the limitations of a literature review are:

• It's a snapshot in time. Unlike other reviews, this one has beginning, a middle and an end. There may be future developments that could make your work less relevant.
• It may be too focused. Some niche studies may miss the bigger picture.
• It can be difficult to be comprehensive. There is no way to make sure all the literature on a topic was considered.
• It is easy to be biased if you stick to top tier journals. There may be other places where people are publishing exemplary research. Look to open access publications and conferences to reflect a more inclusive collection. Also, make sure to include opposing views (and not just supporting evidence).

Source: Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. “A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies.” Health Information & Libraries Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 91–108. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x.

Librarian Assistance

For help, please contact the librarian for your subject area.  We have a guide to library specialists by subject .

Periodically, UT Libraries runs a workshop covering the basics and library support for literature reviews. While we try to offer these once per academic year, we find providing the recording to be helpful to community members who have missed the session. Following is the most recent recording of the workshop, Conducting a Literature Review. To view the recording, a UT login is required.

• October 2 2, 2024
• Last Updated: Oct 23, 2024 11:46 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/literaturereviews

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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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Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts

Have an exemplary literature review.

Note: These are sample literature reviews from a class that were given to us by an instructor when APA 6th edition was still in effect. These were excellent papers from her class, but it does not mean they are perfect or contain no errors. Thanks to the students who let us post!

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

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

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

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

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15 Literature Review Examples

Chris Drew (PhD)

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

Learn about our Editorial Process

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

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

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

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

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

Literature Review Examples

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

1. Narrative Review Examples

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

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

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

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

Example Study

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

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

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

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

Other Examples

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

2. Systematic Review Examples

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Meta-analysis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Types of Reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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AI is rapidly transforming the landscape of scientific research, offering a powerful combination of automation, advanced data analysis, and cognitive augmentation. By leveraging machine learning, natural language processing, and sophisticated algorithms, AI tools enhance research efficiency, uncover hidden insights from complex datasets, and enable researchers to focus on higher-level cognitive tasks. This transformative impact spans every stage of the research process, from conducting literature reviews and collecting data to analyzing results and interpreting findings. AI's unparalleled ability to process vast amounts of data with speed and accuracy is opening new avenues for discovery across diverse scientific disciplines.

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Study Designs in the Health Sciences

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Narrative Reviews (aka, "literature review")

What is a narrative review (aka "literature review").

"Narrative reviews allow researchers to describe what is known on a topic while conducting a subjective examination and critique of an entire body of literature. Authors can describe the topic's current status while providing insights on advancing the field, new theories, or current evidence viewed from different or unusual perspectives...Narrative reviews do not offer an evidence-based synthesis for focused questions, nor do they offer definitive guideline statements." [1]

Why use this type of study?

•  to explore topics that are under-researched [1]
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• for topics that require a meaningful synthesis of research evidence that may be complex or broad and that require detailed, nuanced description and interpretation [1]
• Sukhera J. Narrative Reviews: Flexible, Rigorous, and Practical. J Grad Med Educ. 2022 Aug;14(4):414-417. doi: 10.4300/JGME-D-22-00480.1.

Nutrient and Hormonal Effects on Long Bone Growth in Healthy and Obese Children: A Literature Review.

Hasan S, Naseer S, Zamzam M, Mohilldean H, Van Wagoner C, Hasan A, Saleh ES, Uhley V, Kamel-ElSayed S.

Children (Basel). 2024 Jul 3;11(7):817. doi: 10.3390/children11070817. 

Longitudinal bone growth is mediated through several mechanisms including macro- and micronutrients, and endocrine and paracrine hormones. These mechanisms can be affected by childhood obesity as excess adiposity may affect signaling pathways, place undue stress on the body, and affect normal physiology. This review describes the physiology of the epiphyseal growth plate, its regulation under healthy weight and obesity parameters, and bone pathology following obesity. A literature review was performed utilizing PubMed, PMC, NIH, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews pertinent to hormonal and nutritional effects on bone development, child obesity, and pathologic bone development related to weight. The review indicates a complex network of nutrients, hormones, and multi-system interactions mediates long bone growth. As growth of long bones occurs during childhood and the pubertal growth spurt, pediatric bones require adequate levels of minerals, vitamins, amino acids, and a base caloric supply for energy. Recommendations should focus on a nutrient-dense dietary approach rather than restrictive caloric diets to maintain optimal health. In conclusion, childhood obesity has profound multifaceted effects on the developing musculoskeletal system, ultimately causing poor nutritional status during development. Weight loss, under medical supervision, with proper nutritional guidelines, can help counteract the ill effects of childhood obesity.

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Current treatment of oral candidiasis: A literature review

Carla garcia-cuesta, maria-gracia sarrion-pérez, jose v bagán.

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Accepted 2014 Jul 26; Received 2014 Jun 19; Collection date 2014 Dec.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Candidiasis or oral candidosis is one of the most common human opportunistic fungal infections of the oral cavity. This pathology has a wide variety of treatment which has been studied until these days. The present study offers a literature review on the treatment of oral candidiasis, with the purpose of establish which treatment is the most suitable in each case. Searching the 24 latest articles about treatment of candidiasis it concluded that the incidence depends on the type of the candidiasis and the virulence of the infection. Although nystatin and amphotericin b were the most drugs used locally, fluconazole oral suspension is proving to be a very effective drug in the treatment of oral candidiasis. Fluconazole was found to be the drug of choice as a systemic treatment of oral candidiasis. Due to its good antifungal properties, its high acceptance of the patient and its efficacy compared with other antifungal drugs. But this drug is not always effective, so we need to evaluate and distinguish others like itraconazole or ketoconazole, in that cases when Candida strains resist to fluconazole.

Key words: Candidiasis, treatment, miconazole, fluconazole, nystatin.

Introduction

The incidence of fungal infections has been increasing over the last decades, being more prevalent in developed countries ( 1 ). An increase incidence of the infections is associated with some predisposing factors ( Table 1 ) as the use of dentures, xerostomia, prolonged therapy with antibiotics, local trauma, malnutrition, endocrine disorders, increased longevity of people, among other states that diminish the quality of defense of the individual ( 2 ). Oral candidiasis is one of the most common clinical features of those patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus [HIV], this manifestation was seen in up to 90% of individuals infected with HIV ( 3 ).

Table 1. Predisposing factors.

Oropharyngeal candidiasis is caused by the genus Candida ; it is possible to isolate about 150 species. Many of these remain as a commensal micro-organism in humans, which could act as an opportunistic pathogens often associated with predisposing factors attributed to the organism, thereby causing acute or chronic infections ( 4 ). The most important of these species is C. albicans , which is most commonly isolated from the oral cavity and is believed to be more virulent in humans, occurring in approximately 50% of the cases of candidiasis.

Clinically there are a number of different types of oral candidiasis ( Table 2 ). Therefore the choice of therapy is guided by the type of candidiasis.

Table 2. Clinical classification.

The diagnosis of oral candidiasis is essentially clinical and is based on the recognition of the lesions by the professional, which can be confirmed by the microscopic identification of Candida ( 5 ). The techniques available for the isolation of Candida in the oral cavity include direct examination or cytological smear, culture of microorganisms and biopsy which is indicated for cases of hiperplasic candidiasis because this type could present dysplasias ( 6 ).

The treatment of oral candidiasis is based on four fundaments ( 7 ): making an early and accurate diagnosis of the infection; Correcting the predisposing factors or underlying diseases; Evaluating the type of Candida infection; Appropriate use of antifungal drugs, evaluating the efficacy / toxicity ratio in each case.

When choosing between some treatments it will take into account the type of Candida , its clinical pathology and if it is enough with a topical treatment or requires a more complex systemic type ( 8 ), always evaluating the ratio efficacy and toxicity ( 9 ). The different drugs are contained in Table 3 .

Table 3. Antifungal agents. Vademecum.

Regular oral and dental hygiene with periodic oral examination will prevent most cases of oral candidiasis, so it is need to make the patient aware of oral hygiene measures. Oral hygiene involves cleaning the teeth, buccal cavity, tongue, and dentures. As well as the use of anti- Candida rinses such as Chlorhexidine or Hexetidine, so that they can penetrate those areas where the brush does not. In addition, the need to remove the dentures at night and wash it consciously, leaving it submerged in a disinfectant solution like Chlorhexidine ( 10 ).

This study provides a literature review of the treatment of oral candidiasis and its objectives are to establish general guidelines for treatment of oral candidiasis; Assess the drug of choice for local treatment of oral candidiasis; Assess the systemic treatment for oral candidiasis.

Material and Methods

A Medline-PubMed search was made using the following key words: “ oral candidiasis” OR “oral candidosis” AND amphotericin, “oral candidiasis” OR “oral candidosis” AND nystatine, “oral candidiasis” OR “oral candidosis” AND miconazole, “oral candidiasis” OR “oral candidosis” AND ketoconazole, “oral candidiasis” OR “oral candidosis” AND clotrimazole, “oral candidiasis” OR “oral candidosis” AND fluconazole, “oral candidia-sis” OR “oral candidosis” AND itraconazole, “oral candidiasis” OR “oral candidosis” AND treatment, “oral candidiasis” OR “oral candidosis” AND “antifungal therapy”.The key words were validated by the MeSH [Me-dical Subject Headings] dictionary, with use of the boolean operator “AND” to relate them.

The following limits for inclusion of the studies were established: articles published from 2000, publications in English and Spanish and publications of studies in humans. All systematic reviews, clinical trials, meta-analysis and comparative studies were considered in this review.

A total of 109 articles were identified, of which 30 were selected after reading the abstracts. Following analysis of the 30 articles, we finally included a total of 24, since those publications that did not fit the aims of the present study were excluded.

A total of 24 articles were found about antifungal treatment, of which 20 were clinical trials, 3 systematic re-views and 1 a clinical case ( Table 4 , Table 4 (Cont) ).

Table 4. Summarized articles.

Table 4 (Cont). Summarized articles.

Candida infection today is highly prevalent, especially the increase in carriers of removable dentures and poor oral hygiene society. Depending on its virulence, location and type of candidiasis there will carry on one treatment or another.

First has been supported the use of conservative measures before starting drug treatment, promoting good oral hygiene along with removing the dentures at night, thereby it will benefit the removal of the biofilm layer generated in the prosthetic surface ( 11 ). Dentists should also correct the predisposing factors and underlying diseases and try to promote the use of oral antiseptic and antibacterial rinses such as Chlorhexidine or Hexetidine ( 12 ). These measures are very effective in patients with denture stomatitis ( 12 ). It was also found in the study of Cross et al. ( 13 ) that in patients with good oral hygiene the recurrence of candidiasis after 3 years was lower.

Regarding the pharmacological treatment of candidiasis can be distinguished between two procedures. Topical drugs, which are applied to the affected area and treat superficial infections and systemic drugs those that are prescribed when the infection is more widespread and has not been enough with the topical therapy.

As first choice for local treatment has been for years the nystatin at doses of 100 000 IU/ml [5ml 4 times daily] and amphotericin b at 50mg [5ml 3 times per day]. This choice is because they are poorly absorbed by the intestinal tract and therefore most of the antifungal is excreted without undergoing any change, thereby reducing hepatotoxicity ( 14 ). However, the unpleasant taste and prolonged pattern compromise treatment compliance by the patient ( 14 - 16 ).

Throughout the years it has been studying the effectiveness of other drugs like fluconazole oral solution. Many authors have focused on evaluating the efficacy and safety of fluconazole oral solution for the treatment of oropharyngeal candidiasis, especially pseudomembranous type, giving good results, although many studies are still needed ( 14 - 18 ).

In a recent study conducted in 19 patients with pseudomembranous candidiasis show that fluconazole suspension in distilled water [2mg/ml] reaches a 95% cure.

The guideline was to rinse with 5ml of the drug solution for 1 minute and then spit it out and repeat this action 3 times a day for 1 week. Another study which included 36 children with pseudomembranous candidiasis showed that fluconazole oral suspension 10mg/ml dose gave better results than nystatin. The main problem was the poor adherence of the nystatin to the oral mucosa and thus the quick ingestion of the suspension, resulting in a lower efficiency ( 14 ).

On the other hand, in another study comparing amphotericin b suspension, the fluconazole oral suspension gave better results in terms of the eradication of Candida ( 16 ). The same was corroborated by Taillandier et al. ( 18 ), which reported that fluconazole oral suspension was as effective as amphotericin b, but it was better accepted by the patient.

Fluconazole oral suspension is administered in a dosage of 10 mg / ml aqueous suspension by administering 5 ml daily for 7 or 14 days. Different studies show that it is a very effective drug against pseudomembranous candidiasis, as it has good adhesion to the surface of the oral mucosa and a rapid symptomatic response. It also offers the convenience of a one-daily dosing, which may explain the better patient compliance ( 14 - 18 ).

Another topic drug widely used is miconazole ( 19 ). We found it in the form of gel, applying it directly on the affected area, at doses of 200-500 mg per day, divided into 4 times. Despite its good properties it has the draw-back of possible interaction with other drugs, such as warfarin. This is because the antifungal inhibit the enzyme cytochrome P-450, which affects the clearance of certain drugs ( 20 , 21 ). In addition, this drug is absorbed by the intestine, therefore care must be taken when is administrated.

It has been introduced in the market an alternative presentation of miconazole. A one-daily miconazole 50 mg mucoadhesive buccal tablet. It has a limited systemic absorption. Its performance is mostly local and it has a convenient application form. Patients are instructed to apply the rounded side of the 50 mg tablet to the upper gum region just above the right or left incisor following brushing of teeth in the morning. The tablet should be held in place until dissolved ( 22 , 23 ). It has the advantage of being applied once daily instead 5 times a day with clotrimazole ( 24 ), and 4 times daily with nystatin ( 25 ).

It has been demonstrated the effectiveness of this new form of administration in the study of Bensadoun et al. ( 26 ). 141 patients with head and neck cancer with clinical signs and symptoms of oropharyngeal candidiasis received 50 mg mucoadhesive tablets of miconazole daily or 125 mg miconazole gel four times per day. Clinical improvement was not significant between the two groups, but the mucoadhesive tablets exhibited higher salivary concentrations and better tolerance for the patient. Despite being more expensive, offers an effective, safe, and well tolerated topical treatment for oropharyngeal candidiasis ( 22 , 23 , 26 ).

- Systemic treatment:

In spite of knowing the efficacy of the drugs listed above, when it comes to a more generalized candidiasis or immunocompromised patients, these would not be sufficient. For those cases would have to resort to treatment with systemic drugs ( 25 ).

Since its introduction, fluconazole has been used to treat systemic Candida infections because of its efficacy and good tolerability. The appropriate dose is between 50-100 mg daily ( 27 ). Furthermore, when dealing with immunocompromised patients, such as those HIV-infected, or cancerous, this drug has good effects doubling the dose ( 28 , 29 ). Its efficacy has been demonstrated ( 27 ). The dose was individualized depending on the severity and type of candidiasis. Patients with pseudomembranous type started with 100 mg fluconazole daily; patients with erythematous variety started with 50 mg fluconazole. Therefore, according to the clinic and the virulence of the infection the dose would be titrated, giving good results, and increasing the guideline in those cases where the fungal infection did not decrease ( 27 ).

To support the efficacy of this drug it has been compared with other systemic antifungal agents ( 29 ). In one randomized study, the efficacy of fluconazole [100mg per day for 10 days] and itraconazole [200mg per day for 15 days] was compared in patients with oropharyngeal candidiasis. The results were a clinical and mycological improvement of 66% for the first group and 54% for those treated with itraconazole. The main conclusion of this study is that in patients with oropharyngeal candidiasis, fluconazole has a significantly better clinical and mycological cure rate compared with itraconazole. The failures of itraconazole may be explained by drug interactions and the unpredictable absorption of itraconazole capsules. But when fluconazole failed, itraconazole was prescribed to these patients, having good results. So it is said that it was a good drug for fluconazole-resistant Candida strains ( 29 ).

As it has been suggested above, it may happen that the Candida strains were not susceptible to fluconazole, and it has not any effect. In that case it will be used other drugs like itraconazole or newest ones as voriconazole ( 30 ). Keeping always in mind that strains which were resistant to fluconazole were also resistant to other drugs ( 31 ).

The new triazol antifungal voriconazole [200 mg per day] has been shown to be a potent drug. Ally et al. ( 32 ) compared the efficacy of voriconazole and fluconazole in the treatment of esophageal candidiasis. The success rate was 98.3% for voriconazole and 95.1% for fluconazole. The results show clearly that voriconazole is at least as effective as fluconazole in the treatment of candidiasis. It suggests that this new agent may be a useful alternative for fluconazole-resistant Candida strains ( 32 ). Because of being a new there are little strains resistant to voriconazole. The voriconazole has an important role in the treatment of candidiasis ( 30 ), although it is still not fully established in the market, so many more studies and research would be needed.

There have been several studies comparing topical and systemic drugs. In a study to treat denture stomatitis have been compared the use of ketoconazole tablets [200mg daily] with topical ketoconazole [2% twice daily] and miconazole mucoadhesive tablets ( 33 ). Due to the adverse effects of ketoconazole ( 31 ) like nausea, vomiting and gastrointestinal problems it has been supported the use of other drugs when treating prosthetic candidiasis ( 34 ). Thus the use of miconazole mucoadhesive tablet was established as the drug of first line of defense for this type of candidiasis.

General treatment guidelines include after the completion of an early diagnosis, the correction of predisposing factors or underlying diseases and maintaining a good oral hygiene. Moreover using antiseptic agents such as Chlorhexidine or Hexetidine, as well as removing dentures at night. All of that in order to obtain well results in the treatment of oral candidiasis as first line of defense, continuing the application of antifungal drugs. Beginning with local treatment and keeping up the systemic ones for those patients who do not respond to topical treatment or in immunocompromised patients.

It has recently been found that fluconazole oral suspension as a local treatment, at a dose of 2 mg/ml 3 times daily or 10 mg /ml once daily, gives good clinical results, besides the better patient compliance due to the dosage and its pleasant taste. Despite not being currently the most widely used locally because it requires further clinical studies. Nowadays the most used drugs remains in nystatin solution which contain 100 000 IU / ml [5ml 4 times daily] and miconazole gel [200 to 500 mg per day divided into 4 doses]. Moreover miconazole mucoadhesive tablets [50 mg once daily] which are considered effective in the treatment of oropharyngeal candidiasis, but their high cost is one of the main problems.

Fluconazole at doses between 50-100 mg per day is the systemic drug of choice because it has high efficacy and tolerability by the patient. However it is important to think about the voriconazole which is as effective as fluconazole but is still under study. Also it is need to know about other drugs such as itraconazole, which are effective when Candida strains are resistant to fluconazole.

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Han Kang Is Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature

The South Korean author, best known for “The Vegetarian,” is the first writer from her country to receive the prestigious award.

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By Alex Marshall and Alexandra Alter

Han Kang, the South Korean author best known for her surreal, subversive novel “ The Vegetarian ,” was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday — the first writer from her country to receive the award.

Mats Malm, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which organizes the prize, said at a news conference in Stockholm that Han was receiving the honor for “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

“The Vegetarian,” published in Korea in 2007, won the 2016 International Booker Prize after it was translated into English. It centers on a depressed housewife who shocks her family when she stops eating meat; later, she stops eating altogether and yearns to turn into a tree that can live off sunlight alone. Porochista Khakpour, in a review of “The Vegetarian” for The New York Times , said that Han “has been rightfully celebrated as a visionary in South Korea.”

Han’s Nobel was a surprise. Before the announcement, the bookmakers’ favorite for this year’s award was Can Xue , an avant-garde Chinese writer of category-defying novels. But the news was celebrated by authors and fans on social media and greeted with fanfare in South Korea.

“This is a great achievement for South Korean literature and an occasion for national celebration,” said President Yoon Suk Yeol said in a statement, in which he noted Han’s ability to capture painful episodes from their country’s recent history. Members of the K-pop band BTS also celebrated, with one posting a crying-face emoji and a heart alongside a picture of Han.

Some in the country were astonished to learn a Korean writer had won. “I could not believe my eyes when I saw this news,” said Park Sang-in, an office worker in Seoul. “No one had told us that we had a strong candidate this year.”

At the same time, many saw it as an appropriate choice. Han’s groundbreaking work has reshaped the literary landscape in South Korea, said Paige Aniyah Morris, co-translator of Han’s novel “We Do Not Part,” which will be published by Hogarth in the United States in January.

“Han’s work has inspired a generation of Korean writers to be more truthful and more daring in their subject matter,” Morris said. “Time and time again, she has braved a culture of censorship and saving face, and she has come out of these attempts at silencing her with stronger, more unflinching work each time.”

Han, 53, was born in 1970 in Gwangju, South Korea. Her father was also a novelist, but much less successful. The family struggled financially and moved frequently. In a 2016 interview with The Times , Han said her transitory upbringing “was too much for a little child, but I was all right because I was surrounded by books.”

When Han was 9, her family moved to Seoul just months before the Gwangju uprising , when government troops fired on crowds of pro-democracy protesters, killing hundreds. The event shaped her views on humanity’s capacity for violence, Han said in the 2016 interview, and its specter has haunted her writing. In her 2014 novel “Human Acts,” a writer observes a police raid on a group of activists.

She also recalled seeing images of people who lined up to donate their blood to those who were injured in the uprising.

“It was like two unsolvable riddles imprinted on my mind: How can humans be so violent, and how can humans be so sublime?” she said. “When I write novels, I find myself always returning to the theme of what it means to be human.”

The novelist Hernan Diaz praised Han’s “unique ear for the rumors of history,” adding that she can “access the traumas that have shaped and bruised entire generations, and she does so without ever turning her novels into mere didactical tools.”

Han studied literature at Yonsei University in Korea, and her first published works were poems. Her debut novel, “Black Deer,” which came out in 1998, was a mystery about a missing woman. In the 2016 interview, Han said it was around that time that she developed the idea for a short story about a woman who becomes a plant, which she eventually developed into “The Vegetarian.”

Following her debut, Han went on to write seven more novels, as well as several novellas and collections of essays and short stories. Among her other novels are “ The White Book ,” which was also nominated for the International Booker Prize, and “ Greek Lessons ,” published in English in 2023.

In “Greek Lessons,” a woman loses her ability to speak and tries to restore it by learning ancient Greek. Idra Novey, in a review for The Times , called the novel “a celebration of the ineffable trust to be found in sharing language.”

“Han Kang is a visionary — there’s no other word for it,” said Parisa Ebrahimi, executive editor at Hogarth, Han’s North American publisher, who noted that Han’s work reflects “remarkable insight into the inner lives of women.”

Han’s writing is now celebrated in South Korea, but that took some time, she said, and some of her books were initially greeted with bafflement. “The Vegetarian” was received as “very extreme and bizarre,” Han said.

She had been publishing fiction and poetry for more than two decades before her work was issued in English, after Deborah Smith translated “The Vegetarian” and sold it to a British publisher based on the first 10 pages.

When the English-language edition was released to acclaim in 2016, “The Vegetarian” helped to drive a new wave of translations of more experimental fiction, including works by women with a feminist bent.

“Her work, and the translation and success of her work, has led Korean literature in translation to be edgier and more experimental and daring,” Anton Hur, a South Korean translator and author who is based in Seoul. “She changed the conversation about Korean literature.”

Ankhi Mukherjee, a literature professor at the University of Oxford, said that she had taught Han’s work “year in, year out” for almost two decades. “Her writing is relentlessly political — whether it’s the politics of the body, of gender, of people fighting against the state — but it never lets go of the literary imagination,” Mukherjee said, adding: “It’s never sanctimonious; it’s very playful, funny and surreal.”

The Nobel Prize is literature’s pre-eminent award, and winning it is a capstone to a writer, poet or playwright’s career. Past recipients have included Toni Morrison , Harold Pinter and, in 2016, Bob Dylan . Along with the prestige and a huge boost in sales, the new laureate receives 11 million Swedish krona, about $1 million.

Although relatively young for Nobel laureate, Han is far older than Rudyard Kipling was when he accepted the 1907 award, at age 41.

In recent years, the academy has tried to increase the diversity of authors considered for the literature prize, after facing criticism over the low number of laureates who were female or came from outside Europe and North America.

Since 2020, the academy has awarded the prize to one person of color — Abdulrazak Gurnah , a Tanzanian writer whose novels dissect the legacy of colonialism — as well as two women: Louise Glück , the American poet, and Annie Ernaux, the French writer of autobiographical works.

Last year’s recipient was Jon Fosse, a Norwegian author and playwright whose novels, told in lengthy sentences, often contain religious undertones.

Han is the 18th woman to receive the Nobel in literature, which has been awarded to 120 writers since 1901.

Some scholars and translators said it was fitting that the first Korean writer to win a Nobel is a woman. Much of the most groundbreaking and provocative contemporary Korean literature is being written by female novelists, including some who are challenging and exposing misogyny and the burdens that are placed on women in South Korea. Yet in media and literary circles, older male writers have often been seen as the most likely contenders for the Nobel.

“For years now, the conversation about how to get Korea its literature prize has not once seemed to seriously consider that the answer might be Han Kang, despite her massive success,” said Morris, who in addition to translating Han has translated work by Korean women like Pak Kyongni and Ji-min Lee. “So it’s a pleasant surprise and a bit of poetic justice to see a woman become the one to end Korea’s literature Nobel drought.”

Choe Sang-Hun contributed reporting from Seoul.

Alex Marshall is a Times reporter covering European culture. He is based in London. More about Alex Marshall

Alexandra Alter writes about books, publishing and the literary world for The Times. More about Alexandra Alter