DMSC 7005

A literature review is a generic term used to describe a synthesis of information to answer a research question. The purpose of a literature review is to present the scholarly information that is available on a topic, provide support to the proposed research, and relate the literature to the proposed research question. There are numerous types of literature reviews. These vary from a narrative review to a systematic review. 

Review types differ by

• the precision of the research question (broad to specific)
• the goal of the review
• the standards of the searching method
• if the articles are appraised
• how information from various sources is synthesized
• the analysis of the results
• showing the current state of the literature around a particular topic

If you need assistance with a literature review, please reach out to your liaison librarian at laurabarkema@atsu.edu or schedule a research consultation. While I cannot do your schoolwork for you, I can help with:

• developing search strategies
• identifying search terms, keywords, and subject headings
• identifying relevant databases and resources
• organizing your search results
• selecting a review type
• narrowing down or expanding search results if your searches return too many or too few results