What is a literature review?
Before you start your research paper you need to find out what other research has been done on the topic. A literature review will include the works you consulted in order to understand and investigate your research problem. A good literature review is not simply a summary of other research articles. The sources listed should be organized logically with the sources dealing with the same aspects of the topic grouped together. You should also evaluate the sources, show the relationships among them and explain why they are important (or not) for your own research.
Literature reviews analyze critically this segment of a published body of knowledge through summary, classification, and comparison of prior research studies, reviews of literature, and theoretical articles.
A literature review is an overview of the previously published works on a specific topic. The term can refer to a full scholarly paper or a section of a scholarly work such as a book, or an article. Either way, a literature review is supposed to provide the researcher/author and the audiences with a general image of the existing knowledge on the topic under question. A good literature review can ensure that a proper research question has been asked and a proper theoretical framework and/or research methodology have been chosen. To be precise, a literature review serves to situate the current study within the body of the relevant literature and to provide context for the reader. In such case, the review usually precedes the methodology and results sections of the work.
A literature review is important because it:
Some questions to think about as you develop your literature review:
Additional Help:
Keep in mind that a literature review defines and sets the stage for your later research. While you may take the same steps in researching your literature review, your literature review is not:
Not an annotated bibliography in which you summarize each article that you have reviewed. A lit review goes beyond basic summarizing to focus on the critical analysis of the reviewed works and their relationship to your research question.
Not a research paper where you select resources to support one side of an issue versus another. A lit review should explain and consider all sides of an argument in order to avoid bias, and areas of agreement and disagreement should be highlighted.
When someone talks about “the literature” they are referring to the body of research, scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory. A literature review is a descriptive summary of research on a topic that has previously been studied. The purpose of a literature review is to inform readers of the significant knowledge and ideas that have been established on a topic. Its purpose is to compare, contrast and/or connect findings that were identified when reviewing researchers' work.
The word literature (in 'literature review') broadly refers to the scholarly or scientific writing on a topic.
Common sources of written works include:
A good quality literature review involves searching a number of databases individually.
The Library databases are an excellent resource for finding peer-reviewed journal articles (and also book chapters and conference papers).
Databases may be multidisciplinary or discipline-specific. The best way to find the relevant databases for your review is to consult a list of databases such as the ones found in:
Books are often useful for background information when learning about a topic. They may be general, such as textbooks, or specialised.
A good way to find books is to use an online catalog such as the Felician University Library catalog.
Tips:
Grey literature is information which has been published informally or non-commercially (where the main purpose of the producing body is not commercial publishing) or remains unpublished.
It can include a range of material, such as government reports, policy documents, statistics, discussion papers, dissertations, conference proceedings and unpublished trial data. The quality of grey literature can vary greatly - some may be peer-reviewed whereas some may not have been through a traditional editorial process.
Grey literature may be included in a literature review to minimize publication bias.
Key ways of finding grey literature include using search engines, databases, government or organization websites and grey literature directories. For example:
Additional statistics are available from many government websites. Try limiting by site or domain in Google Advanced Search and using the keyword Statistics.
Data Sources (includes Biological Sciences Data/Sets)
OpenDOAR : Directory of Open Access Repositories is a browsable directory of open access repositories. Search by subject, country of origin and content type.
Dissertation Databases
Limit to Thesis/Dissertation under Content
Conference papers are typically published in conference proceedings (the collection of papers presented at a conference), and may be found on an organization or Society's website, as a journal, or as a special issue of journal.
In some disciplinary areas (such as computer science), conference papers may be a particularly well regarded as a form of scholarly communication; the conferences are highly selective, the papers are generally peer-reviewed, and papers are published in proceedings affiliated with high-quality publishing houses.
Tips for finding conference papers:
When you are writing your own primary literature review you must:
(a) use recent articles that report research tightly connected to the same specific current research problem (not simply any primary articles somehow related to the same general topic), and;
(b) write paragraphs that explicitly compare the objectives, methods, and findings of the articles with each other and with your proposed research project or findings*
*A literature review is not simply summarizing each article separately one after the other -- that would be more like an annotated bibliography and does not connect the details to your own methods/findings in your research proposal (BIO 450) or discussion/conclusion (BIO 451).
Write about how the specific research objectives, methods, and findings of the articles are similar and how are they different from each other as well as yours.
It is common to confuse systematic and literature reviews as both are used to provide a summary of the existent literature or research on a specific topic. Even with this common ground, both types vary significantly. Please review the following chart (and its corresponding poster linked below) for a detailed explanation of each as well as the differences between each type of review.
What's in a name? The difference between a Systematic Review and a Literature Review, and why it matters by Lynn Kysh, MLIS, University of Southern California - Norris Medical Library
