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How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

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 that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

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 summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of 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, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely 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 its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. 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.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

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 problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. 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 as 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 useful 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 also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to 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.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

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?
• 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 use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

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 is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation 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.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you 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 organizing the body of a literature review. 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 summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze 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 organize 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.

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, you can follow these tips:

• 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 sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

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

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

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 thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

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

• To familiarize 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 thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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A Guide to Writing Quality Case Reports

Robert chait.

1 HCA Florida JFK Hospital, Miami, FL

2 University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL

Graig Donini

3 HCA Healthcare Graduate Medical Education, Brentwood, TN

Michael G. Flynn

Description

Case reports play an essential role in the dissemination of knowledge in medicine. A published case is typically an unusual or unexpected presentation in which the outcomes, clinical course, and prognosis are linked to a literature review in order to place the case into the appropriate context. Case reports are a good option for new writers to generate scholarly output. This article can serve as a template for writing a case report, which includes instructions for creating the abstract and crafting the body of the case report—introduction, case presentation, and discussion. Instructions for writing an effective cover letter to the journal editor are also provided as well as a checklist to help authors prepare their case reports for submission.

Introduction

Case reports are time-honored and play an essential role in disseminating knowledge in medicine. Case reports are “…a detailed report of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient.” 1 A published case typically involves an unusual or unexpected presentation, new treatment, or alternative diagnostic imaging in which the outcomes, clinical course, and prognosis are linked to a literature review in order to place the case into the appropriate context. 2 Case reports often provide the first discovery of, or insight into, an emerging or rare disease. For example, the first mention of HIV/AIDS in the medical literature came from a case series in 1980. 3 Relative to randomized controlled trials, case reports reside near the bottom of the “hierarchy of evidence” pyramid. 4 In other words, they are not expected to contribute to clinical guidelines in the same way as randomized controlled trials or observational studies. However, case reports can provide insight into new diseases, associations, or treatments that might otherwise be overlooked. Thus, they play a vital role in increasing what we know and what we can learn about new, emerging diseases, and they help improve our management of patient care. 5 In an effort to improve the quality of case report submissions, we will describe the key elements of a well-written case report.

How to Get Started

This article can serve as a template for writing a case report for any publication. However, the following details highlight specific requirements for case reports submitted to the HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine . When submitting to another journal, one should read the author guidelines carefully before submitting.

The first step is selecting an appropriate case that may merit publication as a case report. The case may be a rare or unique clinical condition, intervention, complication, or outcome. The important point is that you have identified something worthy of communication to the journal readership. For example, a clinician might ask, “Would the findings from this case cause me to consider a change in my practice?”

Next, it is beneficial to perform a literature search to determine if the case is novel and will interest readers. Starting points include finding the diagnosed condition on UpToDate ® , which will provide links to individual references. 6 Subsequently, a more in-depth search of specialty-specific references on free public databases such as PubMed and the Cases Database should be completed. 5 , 7 , 8 After these initial searches, the authors should have the information they need to determine if their case is suitable for publication.

The literature search should show that the case meets one of the following criteria highlighted in the Journal of Medical Case Reports : 5

• The case is unique in either the course or treatment of the disease or describes a unique presentation not previously described in the medical literature.
• The patient’s side effects or reactions to medication are unique and have not been previously described in the literature.
• The patient’s symptoms were resistant to conventional treatment, or the patient responded to a novel or previously unreported treatment.
• The patient’s symptom complexes were not previously associated with a disease, or there was an uncommon link between the disease and symptoms.

A case report may be accepted for publication even if it does not strictly meet one of the above criteria. Adhering too tightly to the above criteria could prevent valuable information from being disseminated to the medical community. The case should be unusual, but it is more important that it adds something to the medical literature.

Word count limits vary by journal, with some as low as 500 words or as high as 3000 words. The word count of a case report submitted to the HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine should be around 2000 words from the introduction to the conclusion, excluding references, tables, figures, and figure legends. The number of tables, figures, or images should be limited to 5, and the references should be limited to 20. The HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine is an online journal where length is not a major issue as with a printed journal, but a concise case report is essential for an audience of busy physicians.

Videos or additional figures/images may be useful for the reader and can be included as supplementary material for HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine submissions. Learning objectives provide helpful information for the reader and may be required for some journals. The authors should consider including learning objectives in their case reports or case series.

Patient Consent

Most journals that publish case reports require patient consent, and some journals have their own consent form. It is important to note that consent is required to disclose protected health information (PHI), which includes case information and patient images. The HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine requires authors to submit a patient consent form along with the case report manuscript.

The Cover Letter

When required, a cover letter gives the editor an introduction to the manuscript. The cover letter is uploaded separately into the HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine submission portal and must include the title of the manuscript. The authors should clearly and concisely state why the case report qualifies for publication in the journal. This step is where the authors can make a compelling argument as to why the case is important and why it should be published. Naturally, the introduction section of the case report provides a more detailed description of case-related literature. Thus, authors should only provide the key elements in the cover letter for the benefit of the editor. Finally, include all authors’ full names, institutions, and email addresses in the cover letter and identify at least one corresponding author along with their address.

Provide a clear and concise description of the case that is not more than 15 words in length. Avoid abbreviations and redundancies in the title and avoid hyperbole such as “Unique Case” or “First Reported.” The title is the reader’s introduction to the case, likely the first or only part they will read, and it should provide a clear and accurate description of the case. It is tempting to create a cute or clever title, but researchers have reported that amusing titles can obscure the important elements of the case and make it less likely that the manuscript will be read. 9 , 10 Remember that the case report represents a patient, and their dignity should be protected. A pertinent example is the title from the paper, “A lucky catch: Fishhook injury of the tongue.” 11 We contend that the title cleverness is inappropriate when it is considered that the patient described was 13 months old.

The Abstract

Use headings in the abstract that match the manuscript headings and provide a succinct description of the case. As with the title, the abstract should provide enough information to ensure that the reader understands the scope of the work before investing their time in reading it. Ideally, the abstract should encourage the reader to go further and read the details of the case. The abstract is entered separately into the HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine submission portal, but it should also be included in the submitted manuscript file.

Abstract length and style differ by journal. An abstract for the HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine must be a succinct description of the key elements of the case and, therefore, should not greatly exceed 300 words. References and citations should not be used in the abstract and only a small number of abbreviations should be included. The abbreviations should be defined for the first use and match those used in the main manuscript.

The abstract should be presented in 3 sections: introduction, case presentation, and conclusion. The abstract’s introduction section illustrates the importance of the case and the rationale for reporting it. The case presentation section should be concise and focused, providing the important details of the patient presentation, including the patient’s age, biological sex, and gender identity. Finally, the conclusions section should provide a short statement that illustrates key elements of the case and its clinical impacts.

Provide 3 to 10 keywords that reflect the primary content of the article. Keywords are essential for indexing the manuscript and facilitating easy online retrieval. However, finding and selecting appropriate keywords can be a challenge. Checking keywords from abstracts describing similar cases can be helpful, as can using the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) site. The latter is the NLM-controlled vocabulary thesaurus for indexing PubMed citations. 12

Elements of a Case Report

The main text file of the case report should begin with the title and the abstract. The HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine uses a double-blind peer review process in which the authors and the reviewers are anonymous. Thus, no author-identifying content should be included in the main file, which is why it is important to include the authors’ information in the cover letter. The main sections of the actual case report are the introduction, the case presentation, and the discussion and conclusion. Each of these elements is described below. If you are submitting to another journal, read their guidelines carefully as some journals may have different rules for what to include in the main text file.

The Introduction

The introduction should describe the background of the case, including the disease or disorder, its typical presentation and progression, an explanation of the presentation in the case, and whether it is a new disease. The introduction provides an opportunity to grab the reader’s attention and reiterate the importance of the case. It should be concise and compel the reader to go further. Make sure that all statements of fact in the introduction are properly cited.

The Case Presentation

When presenting the case, start with the patient’s de-identified demographic information, including age, biological sex, and gender identity. We contend that the patient’s race should not reflexively be included in the first paragraph of the case description, unless race is directly relevant to the case. In support of this argument is a recent commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine in which the authors stated, “Clinically relevant and patient-specific socioeconomic considerations, cultural beliefs, and race-related barriers to high-quality health care should be acknowledged and addressed later in the case presentation.” 13

Deidentifying a patient case in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) goes beyond simply removing the patient’s name and date of birth. The Safe Harbor method for deidentification includes 18 items to remove, including geographic divisions smaller than a state, all elements of date (including date of service), age above 90 (refer to the patient as “elderly” or “over 89”), and any unique identifying number (eg, medical record number [MRN]). 14

Describe the case concisely and in chronological order, starting with the chief complaint and significant family, occupational, and social history. 5 Provide key details of the patient’s presentation and clinical findings from the physical exam, vitals at the time of examination, and any images. Follow with significant labs and tests and describe any treatments, procedures, or interventions. Use standard measurement units and include the normal range for positive labs. When using abbreviations, spell out the word for the first use, and use standard abbreviations when available. Also, use the generic name for all medications unless a specific name brand is the emphasis of the case.

Focus the case presentation on positive findings from the history or exam, including negative findings only when relevant to the case or the diagnosis. Finish with a prognosis, follow-up results, if available, and long-term outcomes. Avoid superfluous or other extraneous facts that detract from the understanding of the case. 5

Tables are an effective way to present content when there is a long list of tests/labs or significant demographic or exam data to present. Figures (or images) should be used to show physical, microscopic, histological, or other visual representations of the disease. After making sure that no identifiable information is included in a patient image, consider adding arrows or another means of helping the reader locate specific aspects of the images referred to in the description. Refer to any tables or figures in this section using targets or callouts (eg, “Figure 2”). Tables and figures should be numbered sequentially in the order they are described in the text. Tables should have a descriptive title, and figures should include a caption that describes the image in complete sentences.

The Discussion

The discussion is the authors’ opportunity to distinguish key features of their case, highlight its uniqueness, and identify and compare their case to similar cases in the literature. Appropriate comparisons can only be made if the literature is relevant and up to date. A similar case in the literature does not necessarily detract from the current case. Instead, it provides an opportunity to contrast and define unique elements between cases. All statements of fact and any literature presented must be properly cited in the text.

Beyond these basics, the discussion provides an opportunity to compare the current case to previous literature, contrast findings with previous treatment strategies or outcomes, and provide reasons for possible outcome differences. Authors of previously published works likely had similar challenges and applied similar strategies but may or may not have had the same patient outcomes. The discussion also provides the authors a chance to explain the unique responses of their patients to medications or treatment and provide limited speculation about their success or failure. In short, the discussion is a chance for the authors to employ their clinical expertise to help the reader understand the significance of their case and how to respond should they see a similar case.

The Conclusion

The conclusion starts with a summary, including key elements of the case and its clinical impacts. Do not reiterate case details, but provide a short statement to describe the case, course of treatment, and outcomes. A concluding statement should follow that highlights the relevance of the case, whether it is generalizable, and the contributions the case makes to the literature or potential changes in treatment. Construct your conclusion carefully, avoiding overzealous statements, and make sure your conclusion matches the content and tone expressed in the abstract conclusion.

The HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine follows American Medical Association (AMA) guidelines for formatting and referencing. Briefly, references are numbered consecutively by first use in the main text, using commas to separate when multiple sources are cited. 15

Authorship and Other Contributions

As a general practice, case report authorship is limited to physicians directly involved in the case, and some journals limit the number of authors. For a submission to the HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine , there should be no more than 6 authors, without substantial justification from the lead author.

An author is generally considered someone who has made meaningful and substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has established guidelines for authorship. 16 To qualify as an author, one should have met the following 4 criteria:

• “Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved” 16

Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. It should also be noted that acquiring or providing funding, data collection, technical or lab support, providing access to space, or supervision do not justify authorship. Rather these activities meet the criteria for a contributor to be acknowledged at the end of the work.

It is highly recommended to use a medical journal writing style and not typical prose that is better left to college essays. Do not be overly verbose but rather clear and concise. Authors should enlist the help of colleagues (both clinical and non-clinical) to act as proofreaders for their manuscripts. Such editing is crucial for presenting a clean and error-free manuscript, giving the work a favorable reception from editors and reviewers. It is recommended that someone fluent in English review the manuscript for style, syntax, and fluidity. Editing or proofreading by itself does not qualify a person to be an author, but these efforts can be acknowledged at the end of the work.

Journal Submission and Review Outcomes

The authors should carefully review the journal information for authors prior to submitting to a journal. The information for authors for the HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine can be accessed using the following URL: https://scholarlycommons.hcahealthcare.com/hca-healthcarejournal/styleguide.html .

After the manuscript peer reviews are completed, the typical journal editor decisions are: accept with minor revisions, major revisions required, or reject. When major revisions are required, the manuscript is not accepted but may be accepted if suitable revisions are made. In this situation, authors should carefully respond to each reviewer’s comment in a point-by-point fashion in a separate letter, providing a list of responses for the reviewer to assess. Authors should understand that reviewers are making suggestions based on their experience and knowledge. In most cases, the reviewer is trying to help the authors improve the manuscript, not being abusive or demeaning, but there are all too frequent cases of the latter. 17 In either case, the authors’ responses to a reviewer should be polite and positive without being obsequious. Whenever possible, the authors should revise the manuscript as suggested by the reviewers or they must provide a careful explanation and their rationale when they disagree with the reviewer. Follow the journal instructions for uploading your revised manuscript and reviewer letter(s).

Despite the authors’ best attempt to select a unique case, it may be rejected if it is poorly written or the editor or reviewers did not find it compelling. Do not get discouraged by rejection. Take the advice offered in the rejection letter and look for another journal that might better fit the case. It is also possible that a portion of the case, usually the images, could be published in a journal that features visual media or as a clinical image in the HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine .

A Final Checklist for Case Reports

The HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine has created a checklist to ensure the submitted case report meets all the requirements for publication in the journal ( Appendix A ). The check-list includes the elements presented in this article, and completing it will help the editor to move the work more quickly to peer review.

Appendix A.  HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine Checklist for Case Reports 18

Funding Statement

This research was supported (in whole or in part) by HCA Healthcare and/or an HCA Healthcare-affiliated entity.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

This research was supported (in whole or in part) by HCA Healthcare and/or an HCA Healthcare-affiliated entity. The views expressed in this publication represent those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of HCA Healthcare or any of its affiliated entities.

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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.