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Literature Review: Assess your Literature Review

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Assess your Literature Review

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• Use the rubric below to evaluate the quality of your literature review.  If your instructor has provided you with a rubric, you should use the criteria listed in that course or assignment rubric to ensure that your paper will meet the expectations for the course. ( Download a copy of the rubric.)

Adapted from Education 690: Assessment Rubric/Criteria for Literature Review, retrieved September 29,2010 from http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/ed690dr/grading/literaturereviewrubrique.html and Boote, D.N. & Biele, P. (2005). Scholars before researchers: On the centrality of the dissertation literature review in research preparation. Educational Researcher. 34(6) p. 8.

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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.

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

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.

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• 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.

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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
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• Null hypothesis
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Research bias

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• Hawthorne effect
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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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What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

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1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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Literature reviews

A literature review is a research task that finds, evaluates and discusses information on a particular topic. You need to analyse multiple texts, and discuss key ideas that you find in the reading.

A literature review may also identify gaps for further research. It is not a process of summarising texts separately – that is done in an annotated bibliography .

A good literature review should:

• be well researched, planned and structured
• discuss a relevant issue, problem or practice that relates to your subject
• explain why your chosen topic is important
• identify key ideas or themes in the literature
• synthesise these findings into thematic paragraphs, using sufficient citations and correct referencing
• demonstrate your understanding of the topic and develop your knowledge and evidence-based practice.

Literature reviews differ across disciplines, so use your assessment instructions and marking criteria as your ultimate guide.

7 steps for writing a literature review

1. analyse the task.

Read the assessment instructions and marking rubric carefully. Note how many sources you need to include in your literature review and any guidelines on selecting the literature.

Choose a topic that interests you. A topic that is important to you will help you stay focused.

2. Establish a clear research question

A good research question will help you narrow down your topic so that it is manageable. If your question is too broad, you may be overwhelmed by the reading. If it is too narrow, you won’t find enough literature.

3. Search for relevant literature

Use keywords from your research question to begin searching .

In the research question "What factors impact student learning when on nursing placement?", the keywords are: student, learning, nursing and placement.

4. Read and review the literature, and take notes

When reading the literature, consider the following:

• Is the article relevant to your topic? For journal articles, read the abstract. For other sources, scan quickly and discard if you can’t see anything useful.
• Who is the author/s and what is their expertise?
• Is the source credible and scholarly ? Use any evaluation tools provided by your subject.
• What is the main topic and what themes are discussed?

Pay attention to important information, such as the abstract, introduction, headings/subheadings, graphs/tables and conclusion.

Take notes using the  Cornell method  or a note-taking grid. Keeping notes that help you remember the content and relevance of each source is vital for writing a literature review.

• Example note-taking grid for a literature review [Word - 14KB]

5. Identify common themes or areas for further research

It's important to understand the relationships between the sources you've read. Look out for:

• themes:  what questions, ideas or topics recur across the literature? Where do authors agree or disagree?
• areas for further research:  what is missing from the literature? Are there any weaknesses?

6. Plan the structure of the literature review

Before you start writing, plan how your literature review will be organised.

Literature reviews are usually organised thematically, meaning they discuss one theme after another. You can also organise your ideas chronologically (from past to present) or by methodology (e.g. comparing findings from qualitative and quantitative research).

7. Write, edit, proofread, submit

It's easy to get lost in the reading and not leave enough time for polishing your writing. Use the Assessment Planner to make a clear study plan that includes time for writing, editing and proofreading.

Structure of a literature review

Introduction.

The introduction should include:

• context or background : give a brief summary of the context for your research question and explain why it is important
• purpose (thesis statement): state the purpose of the literature review. This is a statement generated from the research question
• scope (roadmap):  outline the specific themes the literature review will focus on and give the reader a sense of how your writing is organised.

Each body paragraph focuses on a specific theme and draws on several pieces of literature. 

Paragraphs should include:

• topic sentence:  start with the theme of the paragraph
• synthesis of evidence:  make connections between multiple sources by comparing and contrasting their views. Use summaries, paraphrases and quotes , and don't forget to properly reference your sources
• analysis or evaluation: add your own interpretation of the findings and comment on any strengths, weaknesses, gaps or areas for further research in the literature
• link:  end the paragraph by either linking back to your main topic or to the following paragraph.

Conclusions should include:

• restate the purpose of the review
• summary of the main findings : remind your reader of the main points. Make sure you paraphrase your ideas, so you don’t use the same wording as elsewhere in the literature review
• implications of the findings: suggest how the findings might be important for practice in your field
• areas for further research : provide suggestions for future research to address the problem, issue or question.

The conclusion is followed by a Reference list or Bibliography. Consult the Style notes  page of the  Academic Referencing Tool  for examples.

For complete sample literature reviews with further annotations, see the Word and PDF documents below.

• Example Literature Review - Allied Health [PDF 245KB]
• Example Literature Review - Allied Health [Word 69KB]
• Example Literature Review - Education [PDF 283KB]
• Example Literature Review - Education [Word 104KB]

Further resources

• Using a reading to choose a research topic worksheet
• Manchester Academic Phrasebank - Phrases for academic writing and reporting on research
• Turn a stack of papers into a literature review: Useful tool for beginners (Journal article)

Pathfinder link

Still have questions? Do you want to talk to an expert? Peer Learning Advisors or Academic Skills and Language Advisors  are available.

Cant R., Ryan, C., Hughes, L., Luders, E., & Cooper, S. (2021). What helps, what hinders? Undergraduate nursing students’ perceptions of clinical placements based on a thematic synthesis of literature. SAGE Open Nursing, 7, 1-20.  https://doi.org/10.1177/23779608211035845 Adapted and used under CC BY-NC 4.0 license

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What Is a Literature Review?

A literature review is intended to provide an overview of the previous research that has been done on a topic. This research then serves as the basis for you to develop your own hypothesis. A primary reason for conducting a literature review is to ensure that your hypothesis or thesis has not already been completed.This page will provide more information and techniques to guide you through the process of conducting your own literature review. 

Literature Reviews Handout:

This guide is provided by the Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hil

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco Puatasso, in  Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review , sets out some practical guidelines for the literature review:

• Define a topic and audience
• Search and re-search the literature
• Take notes while reading
• Choose the type of review you wish to write
• Keep the review focused, but make it of broad interest
• Be critical and consistent
• Find a logical structure
• Make use of feedback
• Include your own relevant research, but be objective
• Be up-to-date, but do not forget older studies

Pautasso, M. (2013, July). Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review. PLoS Computational Biology. pp. 1-4. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003149.

Literature Review Scoring Rubric

This is an example of a method for evaluating the scholarly literature you find, taken from "Scholars Before Researchers: On the Centrality of the Dissertation Literature Review in Research Preparation" by David N. Boote and Penny Beile Educational Researcher 2005 vol 34 issue 3

• Literature Review Scoring Rubrci

What is a Literature Review?

While you should always refer to your instructor's specific assignment guidelines when doing a literature review, you are safe to assume the following are true. A literature review ...

• Summarizes of the major literature on a specific topic showing relationships between theories, studies
• Produces unique observations and flows like any other original academic paper
• Contains central ideas and presents themes with supportive evidence
• It is NOT just a list of articles with summaries, that is an annotated bibliography

A Video Overview of the Literature Review

Suggested Resources

• << Previous: Evaluating Information
• Next: Citing Your Sources >>
• Last Updated: Mar 27, 2024 4:51 PM
• URL: https://libguides.lr.edu/undergraduate_research

Barry Mauer; John Venecek; and Emily Smeltz

This page contains the following rubrics:

• Identifying a Problem
• Establishing Relevance
• Evaluating Purpose
• Searching as Strategic Exploration
• Using Evidence for a Research Project
• Interpreting Literary Works
• Creating an Annotated Bibliography
• Creating a Literature Review
• Finding Trustworthy Sources
• Creating a Research Question
• Creating an Abstract
• Relating the Conceptual and Concrete
• Positing a Thesis Statement
• Composing a Title
• Defining Key Terms
• Structuring Your Writing
• Avoiding Plagiarism

Identifying a Problem Rubric (Chapter 2)

Establishing Relevance Rubric (Chapter 2)

Evaluating Purpose Rubric (Chapter 2)

Searching as Strategic Exploration Rubric (Chapter 3)

Using Evidence for a Research Project Rubric (Chapter 4)

Interpreting Literary Works Rubric (Chapter 5)

Creating an Annotated Bibliography Rubric (Chapter 6)

Creating a Literature Review Rubric (Chapter 6)

Finding Trustworthy Sources Rubric (Chapter 9)

Creating a Research Question Rubric (Chapter 10)

Creating an Abstract Rubric (Chapter 10)

Relating the Conceptual and Concrete Rubric (Chapter 11)

Positing a Thesis Statement Rubric (Chapter 12)

Composing a Title Rubric (Chapter 12)

* Note: Titles that reference thesis statements and arguments may be OPTIONAL. Please check with your instructor.

Defining Key Terms Rubric (Chapter 12)

Structuring Your Writing Rubric (Chapter 13)

Avoiding Plagiarism Rubric (Chapter 14)

Rubrics Copyright © 2021 by Barry Mauer; John Venecek; and Emily Smeltz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What is the purpose of a Literature Review? For a graduate student the purpose of academic writing changes from what it was as an undergraduate. Where undergraduates often write to demonstrate a mastery of existing knowledge, graduate students are considered scholars and move toward creating new knowledge. Writing in graduate school, then, focuses on communicating that new knowledge to others in their field. In order to communicate this knowledge to other scholars, however, it also necessary to explain how that knowledge engages ongoing scholarly conversations in the field.

A literature review is a common genre for many types of writing you’ll have to do as a graduate student and scholar. Not only do dissertations contain literature reviews, but most articles and grant proposals have some form of literature review included in them. The reason the literature review is so prevalent in scholarly writing is that it functions as an argument about how your project fits in the ongoing scholarly conversation in your field and justifies your project.

A successful literature review does more than list the research that has preceded your work. A literature review is not simply a summary of research. Your literature review must not only demonstrate that you understand important conversations and debates surrounding your project and your position in regard to the conversations, but it must also create an argument as to why your work is relevant to your field of study. In order to create such an argument you must evaluate the relevant research, describing its strengths and weaknesses in relation to your project. You must then explain how your project will build on the work of other researchers, and fill the scholarly gaps left by other researchers. What is typically included in a Literature Review and how do I start?

To show how your project joins an existing scholarly conversation you need to provide readers with the necessary background to understand your research project and persuade them that your intervention in the scholarly conversation is necessary. The first step is to evaluate and analyze the scholarship that is key to understanding your work. The scholarship you evaluate may include previous research on similar topics, theoretical concepts and perspectives, or methodological approaches. Evaluating existing research means more than just summarizing the scholar’s main point. You will also want to assess the strengths and limits of the writer’s project and approach. Questions to consider as you read include: What problems or issues is the writer exploring? What position does the writer take? How is the writer intervening in an ongoing conversation? Where does the writer leave the issue?

Once you have evaluated the research of others, you need to consider how to integrate ideas from other scholars with your ideas and research project. You will also need to show your readers which research is relevant to understanding your project and explain how you position your work in relationship to what has come before your project. In order to do this, it may be helpful to think about the nature of your research project. Not all research has the same purpose. For example, your research project may focus on extending existing research by applying it in a new context. Or you may be questioning the findings of existing research, or you may be pulling together two or more previously unconnected threads of research. Or your project may be bringing a new theoretical lens or interpretation to existing questions. The focus of your research project will determine the kind of material you need to include in your literature review. What are some approaches for organizing a Literature Review? In the first part of a literature review you typically establish several things. You should define or identify your project and briefly point out overall trends in what has been published about the topic – conflicts, gaps in research, foundational research or theory, etc. You should also establish your position – or argument - for the project and the organization of the review.

In the body of the literature review, consider organizing the research and theory according a particular approach. For example, you could discuss the research chronologically. Or you could organize the research thematically, around key ideas or terms or theoretical approaches. Your literature review may include definitions of key terms and the sources from which they are drawn, descriptions of relevant debates in the field, or a description of the most current thinking on your topic.

You will also want to provide clear transitions and strong organizing sentences at the start of sections or paragraphs. You may find it helpful to divide the body of the review up into individual sections with individual subheadings. As you summarize and evaluate studies or articles keep in mind that each article should not necessarily get the same amount of attention. Some scholarship will be more central to your project and will therefore have to be discussed at more length. There also may be some scholarship that you choose not to include, so you might need to explain those decisions. At every turn, you want to keep in mind how you are making the case for how your research will advance the ongoing scholarly conversation. What can the Writing Center do to help? It can sometimes be difficult, after reading pages and pages of research in your field, to step back from the work and decide how best to approach your literature review. Even before you begin to write you may find a consultation in the Writing Center will help you plan out your literature review. Consultants at the Writing Center are experienced in working with scholars to help them reflect on and organize their work in a literature review so it creates the argument for your project. Make an appointment to work with us on your focus and organization even before you begin to write. We are also able to help you by reading and responding to your drafts or to help with issues of documentation. We can help you understand the genre conventions of the literature review, work through revisions, and help you learn how to edit your own work.  We recommend that you come in early to give yourself enough time to work through any problems that may come up as you write.

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Criteria for Evaluation of Literature Reviews - Rubric

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• v.71(4); 2007 Aug 15

A Rubric to Assess Critical Literature Evaluation Skills

To develop and describe the use of a rubric for reinforcing critical literature evaluation skills and assessing journal article critiques presented by pharmacy students during journal club exercises.

A rubric was developed, tested, and revised as needed to guide students in presenting a published study critique during the second through fourth years of a first-professional doctor of pharmacy degree curriculum and to help faculty members assess student performance and provide formative feedback. Through each rubric iteration, the ease of use and clarity for both evaluators and students were determined with modifications made as indicated. Student feedback was obtained after using the rubric for journal article exercises, and interrater reliability of the rubric was determined.

Student feedback regarding rubric use for preparing a clinical study critique was positive across years. Intraclass correlation coefficients were high for each rubric section. The rubric was modified a total of 5 times based upon student feedback and faculty discussions.

A properly designed and tested rubric can be a useful tool for evaluating student performance during a journal article presentation; however, a rubric can take considerable time to develop. A rubric can also be a valuable student learning aid for applying literature evaluation concepts to the critique of a published study.

INTRODUCTION

There has been increased interest over the past decade in using evidence-based medicine (EBM) as a basis for clinical decision making. Introduced in 1992 by the McMaster University-based Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group, EBM has been defined as “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.” 1 Current best evidence is disseminated via original contributions to the biomedical literature. However, the medical literature has expanded greatly over time. Medline, a biomedical database, indexes over 5000 biomedical journals and contains more than 15 million records. 2 With this abundance of new medical information, keeping up with the literature and properly utilizing EBM techniques are difficult tasks. A journal club in which a published study is reviewed and critiqued for others can be used to help keep abreast of the literature. A properly designed journal club can also be a useful educational tool to teach and reinforce literature evaluation skills. Three common goals of journal clubs are to teach critical appraisal skills, to have an impact on clinical practice, and to keep up with the current literature. 3 , 4 Journal clubs are a recognized part of many educational experiences for medical and pharmacy students in didactic and experiential settings, as well as for clinicians. Journal clubs have also been described as a means of teaching EBM and critical literature evaluation skills to various types of medical residents.

Cramer described use of a journal club to reinforce and evaluate family medicine residents' understanding and use of EBM concepts. 5 Pre- and posttests were used during each journal club to assess the residents' understanding of key EBM concepts related to the article discussed. Pretest scores improved over the year from 54.5% to 78.9% ( p < 0.001) and posttest scores improved from 63.6% to 81.6% ( p < 0.001), demonstrating the journal club's ability to help residents utilize EBM techniques. Linzer and colleagues compared a journal club to a control seminar series with regard to medical interns' reading habits, epidemiology and biostatistics knowledge, and ability to read and incorporate the medical literature into their practice of medicine. 6 Forty-four interns were randomized to participate in the journal club or a seminar series. After a mean of 5 journal club sessions, 86% of the journal club group improved their reading habits compared to none in the seminar group. Knowledge scores increased more with the journal club and there was a trend toward more knowledge gained with sessions attended. Eighty percent of the journal club participants reported improvement in their ability to incorporate the literature into medical practice compared to 44% of the seminar group.

Journal clubs have also been used extensively to aid in the education and training of pharmacy students and residents. The journal club was a major component in 90% and 83% of drug information practice experiences offered by first professional pharmacy degree programs and nontraditional PharmD degree programs, respectively. 7

When a journal club presentation is used to promote learning, it is important that an appropriate method exists for assessing performance and providing the presenter with recommendations for improvement. Several articles have listed important questions and criteria to use when evaluating published clinical studies. 8 - 11 However, using such questions or criteria in the form of a simple checklist (ie, indicating present or absent) does not provide judgments of the quality or depth of coverage of each item. 12 A rubric is a scoring tool that contains criteria for performance with descriptions of the levels of performance that can be used for performance assessments. 12 , 13 Performance assessments are used when students are required to demonstrate application of knowledge, particularly for tasks that resemble “real-life” situations. 14 This report describes the development and use of a rubric for performance assessments of “journal club” study critiques by students in the didactic curriculum and during an advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE).

Two journal article presentations have been a required part of the elective drug information APPE at the West Virginia Center for Drug and Health Information for many years. For these presentations, students select a recent clinical study to evaluate and present their study overview and critique to the 2 primary drug information preceptors. Prior to rubric development, these presentations were evaluated using a brief checklist based upon the CONSORT criteria for reporting of randomized controlled trials. 15 Work on a scoring rubric for the student presentations began in 2002. The first step in its development involved identifying the broad categories and specific criteria that were expected from the journal club presentation. The broad categories selected were those deemed important for a journal club presentation and included: “Content and Description,” “Study Analysis,” “Conclusion,” “Presentation Style,” and “Questions.” The criteria in “Content and Description” involved accurate and complete presentation of the study's objective(s), rationale, methods, results, and author(s)' conclusion. Other criteria within the rubric categories included important elements of statistical analyses, analysis of study strengths and weaknesses, the study drug's role in therapy, communication skills, and ability to handle questions appropriately and provide correct answers. The first version of the rubric was tested in 2003 during the drug information APPE, and several rubric deficiencies were identified. Some sections were difficult to consistently interpret or complete, other criteria did not follow a logical presentation sequence, and a few of the levels of performance were based on numbers that were difficult to quantitate during the presentation. For example, the criteria under “Content and Description” were too broad; students could miss one aspect of a study's design such as blinding but correctly identify the rest, making it difficult to accurately evaluate using the rubric.

Version 2 of the rubric was reformatted to remedy the problems. The description and content categories were expanded to make it easier to identify the specific parts of the study that the students should describe, and the “Study Overview” category was divided into distinct parts that included introduction, study design, patients/subjects, treatment regimens, outcome measures, data handling method, dropouts per group, statistics, results, and conclusion. To facilitate ease of use by evaluators, a check box was placed next to each item within the individual parts. This format also allowed the student to see in advance exactly which criteria they needed to include during their presentation, as well as any that were later missed. The use of a checklist also aided evaluators when determining the overall score assigned to the subsections within this category. “Study Analysis and Critique” directed students to refer to the “Study Overview” category as a guide to the parts of the study they should critically analyze. “Study Conclusion” divided the scoring criteria into an enumeration of key strengths, key limitations, and the conclusion of the group/individual student. “Preparedness” included criteria for knowledge of study details and handling of questions. The “Presentation” category included criteria for desired communication skills. This rubric version was tested during 8 journal club presentations during the drug information rotation, and on a larger scale in 2003 in the required medical literature evaluation course for second-professional year students. During the second-professional year journal club assignment, groups of 2 or 3 students were each given 1 published clinical study to evaluate, which they later presented to 2 evaluators consisting of a faculty member plus either a fourth-professional year drug information rotation student or a pharmacy resident. The faculty members evaluating students included the 2 rubric developers as well as 2 additional faculty evaluators. The evaluators first completed the rubric independently to assess student performance; evaluators then discussed their scores and jointly completed a rubric that was used for the grade. The rubric was given to the students in advance to serve as a guide when preparing their journal club presentation. In addition, to provide students with actual experience in using the rubric, 2 fourth-professional year drug information APPE students each presented a journal article critique to the second-professional year class. The fourth-professional year students first gave their presentations to the drug information preceptors as practice and to ensure that complete and accurate information would be relayed to the second-professional year class. The second-professional year students then used the rubric to evaluate the fourth-professional year students' presentations; the completed rubrics were shared with the fourth-professional year students as feedback.

Based on student and evaluator feedback at the end of the journal club assignment, additional revisions to the rubric were needed. Students stated they had difficulty determining the difference between the “Study Analysis and Critique” category and the key strengths and weaknesses parts of the rubric; they felt they were simply restating the same strengths and weaknesses. Students also felt there was insufficient time to discuss their article. The evaluators had difficulty arriving at a score for the “Study Analysis and Critique” category, and students often did not know the important aspects to focus on when critiquing a study. Revisions to the rubric included expanding the presentation time from a maximum of 12 to a maximum of 15 minutes, explaining that the strengths and weaknesses should relate to the areas listed under “Study Overview,” and stating that only the key limitations that impacted the study findings should be summarized as part of the conclusion.

Version 3 of the rubric was tested during the 2004 journal club assignment for the second-professional year students. A brief survey was used to obtain student feedback about the rubric and the assignment as a tool for learning to apply literature evaluation skills. The rubric was revised once again based on the feedback plus evaluator observations. Through use of the first 3 versions of the rubric, the evaluators continually noted that students skipped key areas of the analysis/critique section when presenting their journal articles. Thus, for version 4, a list of questions was developed by the drug information faculty members to aid students in identifying the key considerations that should be included in their analysis (Appendix 1 ). To prepare this list, several sources were located that detailed questions or issues to take into account when evaluating a published study. 8 - 11 Specific questions were also added based upon areas that were consistently overlooked or inappropriately discussed during the journal club presentations. Version 4 of the rubric was used by the 2 primary drug information preceptors to evaluate the fourth-professional year student journal club presentations during the drug information rotation. Following each fourth-professional year student's journal club presentation, each evaluator independently completed the rubric. The evaluators then met together to briefly review their scores, discuss discrepancies, and modify their individual scores if desired. This was important because one evaluator would occasionally miss a correct or incorrect statement made by a student and score the student inappropriately lower or higher for a particular section. Based upon further feedback from students and evaluators, final revisions were made to the rubric. The final and current version (Appendix 2 ) was used for all subsequent fourth-professional year journal club presentations, for the second-professional year students' journal club assignments during 2005 and 2006, and for a new, similar journal club assignment added to the curriculum for third-professional year students in 2006. Feedback about the finalized rubric was obtained from the second- and third-professional year students.

To evaluate the rubric's reliability, 3 drug information faculty members used the final rubric to evaluate the journal club presentations by 9 consecutive fourth-professional year drug information experiential students. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated for each rubric section and the total score.

Five versions of the rubric were developed over a 3-year time period. The majority of the revisions involved formatting changes, clarifications in wording, and additions to the criteria. However, the change that appeared to have the greatest positive impact on the student presentations was the addition of the specific questions that should be considered during the study analysis and critique. Second- and third-professional year student feedback from the final version of the rubric is shown in Table ​ Table1 1 and is very positive overall. Representative comments from the students included: “Very helpful for putting the class info to use,” “Great technique for putting all concepts together,” and “This assignment helped me to become more comfortable with understanding medical studies.” The suggestions for change primarily involved providing points for the assignment (it was graded pass/fail for the second-professional year students), better scheduling (the journal club assignment was due at the end of the semester when several other assignments or tests were scheduled), and providing more pre-journal club assistance and guidance to students. A small number of students indicated they still found it confusing to critique a study after the journal club assignment, which was expected since literature evaluation skills take considerable practice and experience to master.

Pharmacy Students Feedback Concerning a Journal Club Assignment in Which the Rubric Was Used for Evaluation

*Items specific to rubric

† Based on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree

‡ Positive response = agree or strongly agree

A survey of 7 recent fourth-professional year students who used the rubric to prepare for journal club presentations and who were also evaluated using the rubric found that all of the students agreed or strongly agreed with each item shown in Table ​ Table1. 1 . One representative comment was, “I was surprised at how articles appear to be good when I first read them but then after going through them again and using the form, I was able to find so many more limitations than I expected. I definitely feel that journal club has helped me to interpret studies better than I had been able to in the past.” Several fourth-professional year students took the rubric with them to use during other rotations that required a journal club presentation. After establishing that the rubric was user-friendly to evaluators and that students could clearly follow and differentiate the various sections, the reliability of the rubric in each of the 12 rating areas was determined (Table ​ (Table2). 2 ). The intra-class correlation coefficient demonstrated a high level of correlation between evaluators for each student for 11 of the 12 areas. A score of 0.618 was found for the section involving the students' response to questions. This was still considered acceptable; however, given that a fairly low variability in ratings affected the intra-class correlation coefficient due to the small scale (0-3 points) used in the rubric, with a relatively small number of observations. The intra-class correlation coefficient was calculated using the fourth-professional year students' journal club evaluations from the drug information rotation. Thus, by necessity, the evaluators consisted of the 2 primary faculty drug information preceptors and a drug information resident. These evaluators had previously used the rubric and the 2 faculty evaluators worked to develop the rubric. This may have increased the level of correlation between evaluators due to their familiarity with the sections of the rubric.

Rubric Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (N = 9)

*95% confidence interval

About 5 minutes are required for an individual evaluator to complete the rubric, with an additional 5 minutes needed for score comparison and discussion. In almost all cases, the reasons for any differences were easily identified through discussion and resulted from an evaluator simply missing or not correctly hearing what was said during the presentation. In general, evaluators found the rubric easy to use and did not require an extensive amount of time to consistently assess literature evaluation skills.

A rubric can be a useful tool for evaluating student performance in presenting and critiquing published clinical studies, as well as a valuable learning aid for students. However, developing a rubric that appropriately guides students in achieving the targeted performance, provides proper student feedback, and is user-friendly and reliable for evaluators requires a significant initial investment of time and effort. Multiple pilot tests of the rubric are generally required, with subsequent modifications needed to improve and refine the rubric's utility as an evaluation and learning tool. Once the rubric is developed, though, it can be used to quickly evaluate student performance in a more consistent manner.

As part of the development and use of a rubric, it is important that the rubric's criteria be thoroughly reviewed with students and they are provided the opportunity to observe examples of desired performance. Once a rubric is used to evaluate student performance, the completed rubric should be shared with students so they can identify areas of deficiency. This feedback will help enable students to appropriately modify their performance.

The journal club evaluation rubric can be used when teaching literature evaluation skills throughout all levels of education and training. Students early in their education will probably need to extensively refer to and rely upon the supplemental questions to help them identify key considerations when analyzing a study. However, as students progress with practice and experience and their literature evaluation skills are reinforced in actual clinical situations, their need to consult the supplemental questions should diminish.

Despite the considerable time and effort invested, the evaluation rubric has proven to be a valuable and ultimately timesaving tool for evaluating student performance when presenting a published study review and critique. More importantly, the rubric has provided students with clear expectations and a guide for desired performance.

Appendix 1. Study Analysis and Critique – Supplement

Appendix 2. Final evaluation rubric for journal club presentations

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Former EBM I Literature Review Requirements: Literature Review Rubric

• Introduction
• Assignment Instructions
• Citation Guidelines
• Cardiovascular Topics
• Endocrinology Topics
• Gastrointestinal related topics
• Infectious Disease related topics
• Neurology & OB/GYN topics
• Oncology topics
• Psychiatry topics
• Respiratory topics
• Rheumatology topics / Orthopedic topics
• Healthcare for the Underserved / Primary Care
• Non-Medication related topics (A - OB/GYN Topics)
• Non-Medication related topics (Oncology - Z, Misc. Topics)
• Opioid Addiction Therapy / Smoking Cessation / Alcohol Use Disorder
• Literature Review Rubric
• Understanding the Rubric
• Submission Checklist
• Resubmission of Papers
• Assignment Frequently Asked Questions and Suggestions for Your Paper
• Scientific Writing Resources
• Library Resources

Announcements

• HSC III Students: Use the following Assignment Guide:

This rubric provides the guidelines upon which the literature review will be evaluated and graded.  Please make sure your papers adequately cover each of the points laid out in the rubric.

36 out of 45 points (80%) are needed to pass this assignment.

Questions about the Assignment

Please refer questions about the assignment to Heather McEwen, MLIS, MS. Office: G-142 (within the Department of Family and Community Medicine) Phone: 330-325-6605 E:mail: [email protected]

Rubric Criteria

Article Requirement (1 Point)

• Utilized 1 research article and 1 review article

Quality of Writing (5 Points)

• No or few spelling and punctuations errors
• No or few grammatical errors
• Writing was organized, clear, and concise
• Paper is 4-5 pages in length
• Writing is graduate level in mechanics and quality

Introduction (4 Points)

• Objective of paper is clearly defined
• Background information on disease/condition has been included.
• Statistical information about the disease/condition provided (such as incidence, prevalence, etc.)
• Background information on the two drugs or treatments is provided (including information about how the drugs or treatments differ from one another). For a healthcare underserved topic, background information is provided on the programs/interventions and information on what has been attempted in the past.

Research Article (16 Points)

• Objective of study provided
• Hypothesis of study given
• Clinical research design of the study described
• Type of blinding
• Funding source
• Sample size provided
• Country in which research was performed
• Article's Level of Evidence
• Inclusion/exclusion criteria provided
• All primary outcomes and important secondary outcomes provided
• Methods described
• Results described
• Student listed statistical tests utilized in the study
• Important statistical results discussed
• Possible author biases were considered.
• Conclusions of authors summarized

Discussion (12 points: 2 points each - Student may receive 2 or 0 points for each component.)

• Research article critiqued
• Strengths and weaknesses given
• Importance of the topic to medicine/pharmacy
• POEM or DOE
• Apply results to clinical practice.  Are there other factors that may influence the choice of one or both of these drugs/treatments/programs/interventions?
• Future trends in medicine/pharmacy

Literature Cited Section (4 points: 2 points each)

• Literature properly cited with the text of the paper
• Literature properly cited using the National Library of Medicine style within the literature cited section of the paper.

Self-directed Learning (3 points): (Faculty must provide comments for this section.)

• Student assessed their learning needs and determined a plan to meet those needs.   
• Student listed the professional resources (primary, secondary, or tertiary) that were utilized to answer the clinical question. Student analyzed and synthesized relevant information from these resources.
• Student appraised the credibility of the information resources.

Pass / Fail

Need 36 out of 40 points ( 8 0 %) to pass the assignment.

Additional Comments:

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• Next: Understanding the Rubric >>
• Last Updated: Apr 3, 2024 11:53 AM
• URL: https://libraryguides.neomed.edu/EBMILitReview

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Academic Paper: Literature Review

7 min read • march 13, 2023

Dylan Black

Introduction

Your Literature Review is the first formal part of your paper. It is the section that is the most detached from your actual research project because you most likely will not bring up your actual research question/topic until the end when you situate your gap in the body of knowledge relating to your topic of inquiry.

The point of your literature review is to explain what is already known about your specific topic of inquiry and establish that the gap you have chosen is truly a gap in the body of knowledge. Coming out of your introduction, your reader will be aware of the broader context of your work and the general idea of what it is you'll be talking about. The literature review takes that context and blows it up into what will eventually become approximately the first 1200-1500 words of your paper (though word count varies across discipline and paper format).

How to Write a Lit Review

The goals of your lit review.

The first goal of your literature review is to, as the name implies, conduct an extensive review of the literature through little-r research. This involves more than just listing the sources and their content because you will be explaining connections between them whether they be agreements in data, disagreements in conclusions, etc.

The biggest mistake students make in their Lit Review - and we'll discuss this in more detail in a later section - is that they just list what sources say and do little to analyze what is actually known about a certain subject. This leads to a weak review of the literature and a murky, undeveloped gap. By connecting your sources, you are able to incorporate multiple perspectives, establish credibility, and at the end of the day, simply have a better reading lit review that truly explains the body of knowledge surrounding your topic.

The second goal of your literature review is to establish your gap and explain how:

it hasn't been covered by researchers before (this is justified through the fact that you just explained what is already known!)

why it is relevant to your discipline/topic

This part of your lit review is crucial to your research paper. This part of your paper connects your literature review - all of the known stuff - to what you are doing. This goal basically addresses the question, "ok so we just looked at aaaalllll of these sources, now what are you going to do", answering it with something along the lines of "well, we see that these sources have established [something] about my discipline, but no one has addressed [your gap], so I plan on researching it."

Using phrases like "This paper provides new insight on..." and "However, [researchers, be specific!] have overlooked [your research gap]" can make this especially clear, which is important because your gap is what lays the foundation of everything to come!

Clearing the Gap , Image From GIPHY

Varying Perspectives

An especially important part of your literature review is establishing and explaining, as the CollegeBoard puts it, "relevant scholarly works of varying perspectives". This means that your lit review cannot just be a bunch of summaries of random papers strewn across a page at random, despite the content being somewhat similar.

When writing, and more specifically when planning your lit review, understanding the perspectives of each of your papers, and being able to connect them in a way that they join hands , or naturally lead into one another in a logical chain of succession is invaluable.

To use myself as an example, in my literature review I focused on three sections: "Marxism and Labor", a section about the economic foundations of my topic, "Applications of Marxism to Film", in which I described how the previous section connects to film in a broader sense, and finally "Marxist Film Theory and Moon", which took the previous two sections and explicitly connected them to my film of interest. In building my Lit Review throughout these 3 sections, not only was I able to split up topics in a meaningful way, but each section built on itself, connecting to points made by previously mentioned sources.

Connecting Your Sources To Your Topic of Inquiry

When writing your literature review, every source you mention at some point or another will have to connect to your overall topic of inquiry, otherwise what's the point? Why would they be used? Thus, when you include a source, not only do you want to explain the content and what the source actually says in terms of the literature but you want to be explicit in explaining the relevancy and credibility of the source in connection to the content of your paper.

This will help you better connect your sources to each other. This is important because the quality of your literature review hinges on how it presents the known information to your readers and helps them understand why your project A) is connected to these sources and B) is a new addition to them.

When you're explicitly building on sources to connect them to the topic of your paper, you more effectively accomplish goal A because your reader doesn't have to do much guesswork. Then, when you move onto your gap, the fact that all of your sources are established as relevant will help you effectively justify your gap.

A sample structure of a literature review. Image from the University of Hull

What Not To Do: The Source Spaghetti

We've mentioned this a few times throughout this guide, but it needs repeating. There is one thing, and one thing only, that you should never do in your literature review, and that's something called "the source spaghetti". Basically, this is a method of writing a literature review where instead of planning or connecting sources to each other, you essentially list out your sources with a brief summary, quickly moving from source to source with very little rhyme or reason making your lit review muddled and unfocused, like reading a bowl of spaghetti.

While this certainly gets some information on the page, it is not an effective way of writing a literature review for the simple reason that you won't be able to have the level of detail that a good Lit Review requires.

Image from GIPHY

Rubric Points and Logistics

Now that we've gone over some tips and tricks, let's take a look directly at the rubric and see what the CollegeBoard explicitly states are the expectations for a lit review. For reference, the full rubric can be found here , and is the source for all the following rubric screenshots.

Seen above is the row of the AP Research scoring guidelines that best correspond to your literature review. Let's move from a one to a five and see what differentiates each point.

A literature review that earns a one and a two is marked by a single perspective, that is to say, it does not cover a wide variety of sources and does not effectively describe the body of knowledge surrounding a topic of inquiry. Papers that earn a one for the literature review typically use non-scholarly works as opposed to scholarly works in their research. For example, news sources do not count as scholarly, whereas research papers that have been peer-reviewed (that bit is important) do.

Moving into the three-point category, we see that a paper with this score does have varying perspectives and scholarly works, but lacks in the connections department. A paper with this score may have done some solid little-r research, but did not structure their lit review in such a way that the sources were able to be in discussion with one another. This is why a paper that uses a spaghetti sources way of organization will not be successful. Remember that connections between your sources are just as crucial as the content of the sources themselves.

The four and five categories meld into one. In fact, the text in the rubric is exactly the same. What separates a four and a five is a degree of sophistication in your writing. Where a 4 may hit all the points and do it well, a five does that and goes above and beyond. It's a very fine line and frankly, it's pretty subjective on the part of the reader. The easiest way to figure out what separates these two is to read sample fours and sample fives to see the difference for yourself.

Final Thoughts

Congratulations! If you've made it this far you have all the skills to get started on your literature review. Your next steps from here are to get started on your little-r research, start collecting sources, and get connecting. You got this!

Key Terms to Review ( 3 )

Non-scholarly works

Peer Review

Research papers

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