Literature Reviews

A narrative literature review is an integrated analysis of the existing literature used to summarize a body of literature, draw conclusions about a topic, and identify research gaps.  By understanding the current state of the literature, you can show how new research fits into the larger research landscape.  

A Literature Review is NOT:

• Just a summary of sources
• A review of everything written on a particular topic
• A research paper arguing for a specific viewpoint - a lit review should avoid bias and highlight areas of disagreements
• A systematic review

Purposes of a Literature Review

• Explain the background of research on a topic
• Demonstrate the importance of a topic
• Suggest new areas of research
• Identify major themes, concepts, and researchers in a topic
• Identify critical gaps, points of disagreement, or flawed approaches for a research topic

1. Choose a topic & create a research question

• Use a narrow research question for more focused search results
• Use a question framework such as PICO to develop your research question
• Break down your research question into searchable concepts and keywords
• See our Developing a Research Topic LibGuide for more information, or ask your liaison librarian for help

2. Select the sources for searching & develop a search strategy

• Identify databases to search for articles in
• Reach out to your liaison librarian for recommended databases for your research topic
• Develop a comprehensive search strategy using keywords, controlled vocabularies, and Boolean operators. 
• See the Developing a Search Strategy page for more information. Reach out to a librarian if you have any questions.

3. Conduct the search

• Use a consistent search strategy, keeping it as similar as possible between the different databases you use
• Reach out to your liaison librarian for assistance translating searches between databases
• Use a citation manager to organize your search results

4. Review the references

• Review each reference and remove articles that are not relevant to your research question
• Take notes on each reference you keep. Consider using an excel spreadsheet or other standardized way of summarizing information from each article
• Use Interlibrary Loan for any articles without full-text access

5. Summarize Findings

• Synthesize the findings from the articles you reviewed into a final paper
• The paper should cover the themes identified in the research, explain any conflicts or disagreements in the research, identify research gaps and potential future research areas, and explain the importance of the research topic.
• Use Sage Research Methods to learn more about writing a literature review