Library Basics: Narrowing and Broadening Your Topic!

A literature review surveys published literature on a specific topic or research question and is designed to analyze scholarly writings by others that are directly related to one’s research question. It represents literature that provides background information on your topic and shows a correspondence between those writings and your research question.  

• It is not a summary of literature, rather it is a synthesis of literature.
• It is not a research paper where you select resources to support one side of an issue versus another, rather it is an objective explanation of all sides of an argument in order to avoid bias.

Why it is important

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Helps focus one’s research questions or issues or problems being addressed.
• Suggests unexplored ideas or populations.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps, or potentially flawed methodology or theoretical approaches.
• Indicates potential directions for future research.
  
  ***Use a citation manager to collect and organize your citations.