university of leeds literature review

Literature Review Guide: Tutorials

• What is a Literature Review?
• How to start?
• Search strategies and Databases
• Examples of Literature Reviews
• How to organise the review
• Library summary
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Tutorials for creating Literature reviews

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UCD Writing Centre tutorial

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds 'Final Chapter' toolkit for dissertation students includes some excellent videos with lots of useful tips from staff and students alike.

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• Last Updated: Feb 27, 2024 4:07 PM
• URL: https://ait.libguides.com/literaturereview

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Writing a research proposal

As part of the process of applying for a research degree, you will need to prepare an outline of your proposed research. 

Please see our guidance on what to include below, including word count:

*Word count excludes footnotes. 

• Leeds University Business School
• Centres and institutes
• Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change
• Research and innovation blog

10 reasons why you should do a systematic literature review – and how to conduct one!

Dr Ester Ellen Trees Bolt is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Leeds University Business School. Her research focuses on contemporary HRM issues, such as labour turnover and well-being in healthcare, and she studies these through a variety of theoretical perspectives and methods. Dr Md Shamirul Islam is a Lecturer at Sunway Business School, Sunway University, Malaysia. His research interests include strategic human resource management, human capital, and employee well-being.

Academics, postgraduate researchers, Masters students, and, increasingly, research-active practitioners must often perform a literature review when they undertake research.

Such literature reviews are usually unstructured, meaning that a search on chosen keywords is performed in popular scholarly databases or internet search engines. Once satisfied with the ‘hits’, the researcher will start drafting a literature review based on a somewhat random selection of literature.

Often, chosen literature includes work that suits the researcher's underlying philosophical assumptions but can also be driven by what a database algorithm decides as relevant. This way of selecting literature is prone to subjectivity as the researcher had the freedom to select those that were aligned with his or her assumptions and ignore those that do not.

This can be problematic as this method can neglect other important work that does not fit the researcher’s ideals. Also, since algorithms drive databases, results can be skewed to interests. It can be argued that a systematic literature review, however, is a more objective and structured way of conducting a literature review.

A systematic literature review is a method of conducting a literature review to reduce the subjective selection of literature to be included in a review piece. In other words, when conducting a systematic literature review, a researcher conducts the review systematically, meaning that the research selection has been chosen based on specific criteria.

Also, all articles are read and possibly included in the review following a similar systematic process where the content of articles is coded systematically. The findings are driven by analysis of the coded articles, which will then lead to the identification of research gaps and recommendations for further research.

Why researchers should do a systematic literature review

A systematic literature review allows researchers to:

• Become highly immersed and familiar with the chosen body of knowledge
• Summarise and critically assess extant literature
• Reduce subjectivity in selecting research for inclusion in the literature review
• Use a systematic approach to reading and coding relevant literature
• Follow an objective review protocol reducing subjectivity
• Create something that other researchers can reproduce
• Maintain a structured database of included literature for future use
• Identify hidden research gaps based on objective numerical data
• Produce an academic systematic literature review research article
• Use the findings as  teaching material .

The final review will allow researchers to identify a host of gaps in the literature and support these with numerical data out of their own systematic review – something not possible to do when undertaking a traditional narrative literature review. A systematic literature review is essentially research in itself.

Interested in conducting a systematic literature review? Let’s go through some the steps!

How to do a systematic literature review

There are numerous sources available  to help those intending to undertake a systematic literature review . To conduct a systematic literature review, you will need:

• An understanding of your research field or research topic
• Knowledge and experience with searching academic databases thoroughly
• Access to relevant academic databases
• Proficiency in using and conducting analysis in Microsoft Excel (or similar software)
• Lots of perseverance, critical thinking, and creativity.

Step 1: Have a contemporary topic in mind.

• Check whether this topic has received sufficient attention, warranting a systematic literature review. A systematic literature review should include a substantial amount of research articles to derive meaningful conclusions.
• Form a number of relevant research questions.
• In case a systematic literature review has already been conducted on your topic of interest, you must ensure you differentiate your systematic review from others.
• Timeliness is key when it comes to systematic literature reviews.

Step 2: Search for the literature.

• Experiment with different keywords in different academic databases to assess database and keyword relevancy. As a minimum, at least two academic databases must be searched.
• Download all hits from the databases.

Step 3: Establish inclusion and exclusion criteria.

• Discuss with the research team the inclusion and exclusion criteria asking yourself the question: what research is relevant to our topic and research question, and what do we consider as irrelevant?
• Keep a logbook of inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Step 4: Screen all hits from multiple databases.

• Considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria set in the previous phase, screen all the hits.
• Keep track of articles that you are excluding and including – and why.

Step 5: Read and code all papers – one by one.

• Establish categories to code and subsequent coding protocol.
• Some of the first-order categories included in systematic reviews may include authors, year of publication, journal, journal quality, methodology, and theory. Second-order categories included are quantitative versus qualitative research, specific quantitative or qualitative methods used, number of participants, occupation, and industry. For each research that meets one of these categories, a ‘1’ should be placed in the column, whereas a ‘0’ should be placed if the study does not meet this. Ideas for coding categories can also be found here .

Step 6: Analyse the codes and categories.

• Once all papers are coded, you will have to analyse the findings. The type of analysis depends on the level of sophistication you intend to present. Many systematic literature reviews stick with descriptive statistics, such as percentages. While a systematic literature review allows for the computation of many different analyses, the researcher has to choose the most relevant to answer their research question.

Step 7: Produce the journal article.

Writing a journal article comprises many steps that fall beyond the scope of this blog, but there are further ideas here . 

There are some aspects you should keep track of in a logbook as you progress through the phases that will need mentioning in the journal article, including:

• The systematic literature review method used, such as Bolt et al., (2022)
• Justification of database selection and number of hits per database
• The time period of the search and date searched
• Any decisions made to include and exclude research
• How the categories were formed, sources of categories, meaning of categories
• Software versions used.

Last but not least: conducting a systematic review is a continuous, reiterative process – you will make changes to the coding categories and review process as you progress.

There are numerous ways to conduct a systematic literature review - the above overview represents our own experiences. We hope it encourages researchers to conduct their own systematic literature review. You are welcome to contact us through e-mail or LinkedIn if you have any questions about the above.

Related content

Journal articles:

• “ A century of labour turnover research: A systematic literature review ”, International Journal of Management Reviews,  Ester Ellen Trees Bolt, Jonathan Winterton, Kenneth Cafferkey.
• “ A systematic review of human capital and employee well-being: putting human capital back on the track ”,  European Journal of Training and Development , Md Shamirul Islam, Muslim Amin

Blog posts:

• How to respond to journal reviewers’ comments
• How to write a book review
• How to increase the reach of your research publication

If you would like to get in touch regarding any of these blog entries, or are interested in contributing to the blog, please contact:

Email: [email protected] Phone: +44 (0)113 343 8754

Click here to view our privacy statement. You can repost this blog article, following the terms listed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence .

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect the views of Leeds University Business School or the University of Leeds.

Leeds University Libraries Blog

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Skills@Library

Systematic Literature Reviews

Many students we see at Skills@Library are carrying out systematic literature reviews for their assignments or final year projects. If you’re doing one, and you’re not sure what it involves, we’ll explain a bit more in this blog post and share some helpful resources where you can find even more information.

The term ‘systematic review’ also refers to a type of academic article you may have come across in your reading. Your own systematic literature review will demonstrate the same methodical approach, but on a much smaller scale. It’s important to remember that the kind of systematic review you will see published in an academic journal is often the result of several years’ work by a team of researchers, so don’t be intimidated!

A systematic literature review involves carrying out a comprehensive, methodical search and then documenting the following information:

• a comprehensive list of what keywords were searched and if any other search techniques were used;
• where they were searched (if this was on a library catalogue or specific databases);
• how many results were generated for each search;
• if any filters were applied to the results;
• specifying after each stage whether the amount of results increased or decreased and to what extent.

The search should be explained step-by-step, so that it can be easily replicated by another researcher.

Systematic reviews also have a list of inclusion and exclusion criteria to enable the reviewers to narrow down the evidence to just the most relevant ones, meaning you’re not going to be expected to include hundreds of articles in your assignment, but just the ones that fit your criteria best. You’ll then critically evaluate the evidence just as you would do in other literature reviews.

A systematic literature review is different from a “traditional” literature review because it aims to ‘‘gather all the eligible evidence available using an explicit, documented and reproducible methodology’’ (Dalton, 2019, p.164). Findings are then analysed in a systematic way (no surprises there!) and often synthesised in what is called ‘meta-analysis’ (which is where you combine and statistically analyse the data from all the articles you’re reviewing). You might not need to do a meta-analysis for your assignment, so do check this with your tutor.

Whilst since the 1970s, systematic literature reviews have been commonplace in the health sciences, we are now seeing them emerge in social sciences, too; for example, in the development of policy. With a dearth of information readily available to researchers across the globe, systematic literature reviews are becoming an increasingly popular methodology to help guide practitioners, from a wide range of disciplines, as well as decision and policy makers.

Below are a number of useful links to help guide you with your systematic literature review:

Here is helpful guidance from the UNC Chapel Hill Health Science Library, including a convenient template (the “PRISMA diagram”) you can complete to outline your review.

Here is guidance from Research Support, University of Leeds.

Here is guidance from the SAGE Methods Map, which the University of Leeds has access to.

Here is further guidance from The University of Manchester.

We have several books in the Library about doing systematic reviews. Here are three that  you might be interested in:

Boland, A., Cherry, M.G., and Dickson, R. eds. 2017. Doing a systematic review: a student’s guide . 2 nd ed. London: SAGE

Bettany-Saltikov, J. 2016. How to do a systematic literature review in nursing: a step-by-step guide . 2 nd ed. London: McGraw Hill Open University Press

Petticrew, M. and Roberts, H. 2006. Systematic reviews in the social sciences: a practical guide . Oxford: Blackwell

As always, feel free to get in touch with us via any of the below with any follow-up queries you may have:

In-person: Skills office on the first floor of the Laidlaw Library

Tel: +44 (0)113 343 4096

e-mail: [email protected]

Dalton, M. 2019. How individual consultations with a librarian can support

systematic reviews in the social sciences. Journal of Information Literacy . 13 (2),

pp.163–172. http://dx.doi.org/10.11645/13.2.2621

Emily Wheeler & Sunny Dhillon

Learning Advisors

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Skills for Learning : Dissertations & Literature Reviews

Literature reviews can be individual assignments or chapters in a larger project (such as a dissertation or research  report ). They examine a large body of information relevant to a topic and position your research in relation to what has come before it. They provide an overview of the research that has led you to your topic. In a literature review, you must analyse, pass judgment on, and compare / contrast previous studies. When included in a larger project, literature reviews highlight gaps or limitations, and justify further research.

We run interactive workshops to help you prepare for writing literature reviews. Find out more on the  Skills for Learning Workshops  page.

We have online academic skills modules within MyBeckett for all levels of university study. These modules will help your academic development and support your success at LBU. You can work through the modules at your own pace, revisiting them as required. Find out more from our FAQ  What academic skills modules are available?

Six steps to writing a literature review

• Select a topic
• Develop the tools for argument
• Search the literature
• Survey the literature
• Critique the literature
• Write the review

You might be starting from scratch and have to find a research topic. Make sure you select a topic which you find interesting and that you're passionate about. You'll spend a long time completing this project. It will help if you're interested in it. Begin with a scoping search of the literature to assess whether there is enough material on your topic.

Once you have selected your topic, you need to make it appropriate for academic study. This might mean changing your original wording to a thesis statement using academic language. For example, you might be interested in researching refugees, but this is not specific enough. There are also certain elements which could be defined further:

• Which aspect would you like to focus on?
• Is there a particular period of time that has contextual importance?
• Will you look at a particular demographic?

It is important to define your key ideas and any limitations to your study at this early stage. This will help you frame your research interest and give it a clearer focus. 

It is also useful to explore your chosen academic field and become familiar with any specialist terminology and vocabulary.

Top tip! Think about what your research interest is and try turning it into a thesis statement. You can read more about developing a thesis statement on the   Essay Writing web page.

The Literature Review Planning Worksheet can help you shape your research interest and formulate a research question. 

• Literature Review Planning Worksheet

Once you have your selected topic, you need to develop an understanding of exactly how arguments are constructed. A good literature review builds a well-argued case using logically framed arguments. These arguments are typically made up of claims, evidence and warrants.

A  claim  is a statement used to convince your reader of a particular argument. They are contestable and so require evidence to support them. 

Claim: Cycling to work is better for the environment than driving a car. 

We might back up this up with a piece of  evidence  which states that if more people are cycling to work, there are fewer cars on the road, which leads to fewer emissions. 

Making strong claims and using solid evidence to support them up will make your academic writing more persuasive and convincing. A good argument proves its claims by using credible evidence to validate each assertion. All sides of a question should be presented before coming to a justified conclusion. 

The  warrant  forms a connection between your claim and your evidence. It helps explain why or how that piece of evidence supports the particular claim being made. It is important to think about what your warrant is, since you might have a piece of evidence which is completely true but that lends no credence to the claim.

To connect our claim and our evidence, we might warrant that more car emissions are worse for the environment. 

We can then come to the logical conclusion that cycling to work is better for the environment than driving a car, and we have the evidence to support it, along with a warrant as to why that is the case. 

Top tip! Think about what claims you are making in your literature review. What evidence do you need to find which will help support your claims? How does that evidence support the claim? What is the connection?

For your literature review, your evidence will be made up largely of different pieces of literature which back up your thesis statement. 

Don't worry if your topic alters and shifts at this point. You are reading literature which influences and shapes your ideas around the subject. Your knowledge on the topic will increase and you may find your thesis statement becoming narrower and more concrete. You can then continue to refine your topic based on the evidence you have found. 

You can find techniques and strategies about literature searching on the  Finding Information & Reading pages . 

Top tip! Look at the   Library Subject Guides   for your course. These have information on finding high quality resources for your literature review.

Once you have found the sources you want to use, assemble and organise them in a way that works for you. This might include adding tags or subjects, organising by author, themes or chronology. 

You should then review the quality and strength of the sources you have found and consider how well they support your argument. 

It might also be helpful at this stage to analyse any patterns you find within the literature as these could be a key focus for your literature review and can help you gain an understanding of what is currently known about the research topic. 

Top tip! Using reference management software like Zotero and EndNote can help you to organise your literature and provide tags and subjects for each source. See the  Reference Management pages  to help you get started. 

Now you have surveyed the existing knowledge on your chosen topic, you can begin to draw your own logical conclusions based on the findings within the literature. Critiquing involves interpreting the current understanding of the research topic and logically determining how this knowledge answers your research question or supports your thesis statement. Think about the strengths and weaknesses of each piece of literature and evaluate the author's claims, making comparisons with other pieces of literature. You should spend some time ensuring you really understand your literature before you critique it. 

Download the Critical Analysis Questions and Evidence Matrix Worksheets to help you with this process. 

• Critical Analysis Questions Worksheet
• Evidence Matrix Worksheet

Once you have compiled your literature and you have a good idea as to which evidence supports which claim, you can then start writing your literature review. It can be helpful to write a plan for your literature review before you begin the writing process. Think about what needs to be written and how best to convey it to your audience. 

Typically your literature review will be comprised of an introduction, main body and a conclusion. You should refer back to your module handbook for any specific stylistic guidance. See the headings below for guidance on what to include in each section. 

Literature review structure

• Introduction

Always include an introduction, even if your literature review is part of a dissertation or larger project.

Your introduction will:

• Outline the importance of the topic
• Introduce the key ideas, focus and perspective.

You might also provide some context and highlight any significance your review has within the field. Tell your reader why there needs to be a focus on this subject. Why now? Define major trends, gaps or changes in the topic. You should also introduce your thesis statement and inform your reader how you plan to structure your literature review.

The main body forms the central part of the literature review. This is where you bring together all the evidence you have found to support your thesis statement. Start with the broad context, examining the background to your topic. Finish with the more specific details of your research area. You should paraphrase or summarise others’ ideas, writing concisely and clearly. Focus on the key ideas in the literature, explaining their significance in relation to your topic. 

You might provide some background to the key pieces of literature here and also analyse, interpret and critique your sources, considering the strengths and weaknesses of different works and what this means for your argument, as well as any gaps in the literature. Avoid simply listing or describing sources. Remember to continue referring back to your thesis statement and explain how the content helps answer the main research question. Your literature review should be an argument for this statement, so make sure you don't include anything which is irrelevant.

The way you structure your main body will be informed by the nature of your academic discipline and any patterns you've recognised within the literature. Think about some of the important elements you considered when surveying the literature and what the most logical structure would be for your piece of work. Would it be best to organise the literature by themes or in a more chronological manner? 

The Paraphrasing and Summarising Information Worksheet provides guidance on how you can write some of the content of the sources you find in your own words. This will help with developing your academic voice, as well as ensuring you avoid plagiarising content. 

• Paraphrasing and Summarising Information

Synthesising information from different sources improves the criticality of your academic writing. Download our Synthesising Sources in Writing worksheet which explains how to do this. 

• Synthesising Sources in Writing Worksheet

This is where you pull together the key themes and ideas you have explored and summarise your thesis argument, based on the literature you have read. You can acknowledge any gaps, weaknesses or significant issues in your topic and include recommendations for future research. You can also remind your reader about the importance of your research, in light of everything you have found. You should not introduce any new information at this stage but rather use it as a stepping stone for getting started on your own research. Finish by summarising your review. If the literature review is a dissertation chapter, explain how the information links to your project.

Top tip! Remember to draft, edit and proofread your work. This will ensure your work flows and reads fluently and it can also be useful for developing your academic voice. Try reading your work out loud to hear how it sounds. Find out more from our Editing and Proofreading pages. 

Literature review style and language

You should paraphrase or summarise others’ ideas, writing concisely and clearly. Focus on the key ideas in the literature, explaining their significance in relation to your topic.

Top tips!  For help with literature searching, visit our pages on  Finding Information . For advice on paraphrasing and referencing correctly, take a look at the  Academic Integrity module in MyBeckett  and our Paraphrasing and Summarising Information worksheet. For ideas about using reporting verbs to explain and analyse sources, download our Reporting Verbs Worksheet. The Synthesising Sources in Writing Worksheet will help you compare ideas from different sources. 

• Reporting Verbs Worksheet

Artificial intelligence tools

Before using any generative artificial intelligence or paraphrasing tools in your assessments, you should check if this is permitted on your course.

If their use is permitted on your course, you must  acknowledge any use of generative artificial intelligence tools  such as ChatGPT or paraphrasing tools (e.g., Grammarly, Quillbot, etc.), even if you have only used them to generate ideas for your assignment or for proofreading.

Annotated bibliographies

Annotated bibliographies contain a list of citations, each followed by one or two descriptive and analytical paragraphs. These paragraphs summarise the content and the main argument of the source. They also evaluate the usefulness of the source within the context of the research. 

The Annotated Bibliographies Worksheet provides a step-by-step guide on exactly how to tackle this assignment, as well as how to organise and critique your sources. 

• Annotated Bibliographies Worksheet

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Writing a Literature Review : Online Learning: Home

Introduction, writing a literature review  .

Do you need to write a literature review?  This guide will give you hints and tips on:

• linking ideas
• good practice .

Support materials

• Writing a Literature Review handout
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Online tutorial for Writing a Literature Review

If you cannot view the online tutorial below, go to the following web page

What do lecturers want from your literature review?

A short video from the Univerity of Leeds about what lecturers look for in a literature review

Literature Reviews: Common Mistakes

Avoid these common mistakes which are identified by University of Leeds academic staff

Further Reading

Using material on this page

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License .

• Last Updated: Sep 1, 2023 12:09 PM
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Dissertations: Researching, literature reviews and methods

A dissertation assesses your research skills. These skills include being able to find and critique existing research on your topic; this process can be called reviewing the literature or doing a literature review. Research skills also involve being able to select and justify an appropriate way to conduct your research; this process is often called your methodology or methods. It is important to have reasons for why your methods are suitable for answering your research question rather than just selecting the easiest or most familiar approach.

Scroll down for our recommended strategies and resources: 

Plan your time

Some long- and short-term planning is essential when working on a larger project. Have a look at this video for advice on planning your dissertation with some flexibility for the unexpected!

Managing time for your dissertation [video] (University of Reading).

Have a search strategy

A key aspect of dissertations is demonstrating your wider reading and your ability to find a range of suitable sources. Have a look at this guide to creating, refining and saving your search strategy:

Developing a search strategy (University of Leeds)

Literature reviews

A dissertation will usually involve reviewing the literature that relates to your topic. See our guide for more on what literature reviews are and how to do them:

Literature review resources (Centre for Academic Development)

Library resources

Your Academic Liaison Librarian is a good contact for help with finding sources for your dissertation. Use the course resource help page below to find your course-specific databases, journals, referencing information and support as well as your Academic Liaison Librarian's contact details.

Course resource help (Oxford Brookes University Library)

What and how?

Having a clear idea of what you want to find out and how you will find this out makes researching much easier. Look at this guide to prompt you to think about the primary and secondary research you may need to do:

Primary and secondary research (University of Reading)

Methodology

A dissertation will involve selecting, justifying and explaining the process that you use to gather your data and find an answer to your research question. This is usually called your methodology. Look at this guide to the methodology of a dissertation:

Dissertations: Methodology (University of Westminster)

Understand more about research skills

If you are confused about research methods or how to structure literature reviews, it is worth investing time in reading more to understand these processes. Brookes Library have compiled a useful list of study skills books on dissertations that are available at Brookes: 

Dissertations and independent research study skills book list

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English Literature BA

Year of entry 2024, open days 2024.

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Course overview

Throughout this course, you’ll explore richly diverse literary texts across different genres, including fiction, poetry and drama, and will see these in the context of a variety of historical periods, places and cultures. You’ll consider how and why these texts are produced, read, and understood and analyse the impact of their creativity and power. 

Reading and understanding literature can help us to find out about ourselves and see the world from other perspectives. 

Through engaging with different kinds of texts from across the globe and from different periods of history, you can learn how language reflects and shapes human experience. 

You’ll also develop your skills as a critical reader, a clear thinker, and a persuasive writer. 

Our modules explore themes relevant to how we live today, including race and ethnicity, gender, climate change and nature, social class, disability and wellbeing. 

The School of English supports a vibrant community of researchers and creative practitioners. It is home to the Leeds Poetry Centre, and we regularly host readings and talks by well-known and emerging contemporary writers. 

The School also produces a literary magazine, Stand, and publishes the best in new creative writing.

The world-class Brotherton Library has an array of archive, manuscript and early printed material in its Special Collections, including letters by Charles Dickens, manuscripts by the Brontës, a Shakespeare First Folio, and extensive archives of prominent contemporary poets including Simon Armitage and Tony Harrison. 

You’ll also have opportunities to learn traditional printing and typesetting techniques using our period printing presses and learn more about print and publishing history.

Take a look around our libraries:

Brotherton Library Laidlaw Library Edward Boyle Library

The University also has four performance and rehearsal spaces, fully equipped with lighting and sound, as part of our impressive theatre offering.

Explore the Workshop Theatre

Course details

The course information shown below represents typical modules/components studied and may change from time to time. Read more in our terms and conditions .

Most courses consist of compulsory and optional modules. There may be some optional modules omitted below. This is because they are currently being refreshed to make sure students have the best possible experience. Before you enter each year, full details of all modules for that year will be provided.

At Level 1, students will take Reading Between the Lines and Writing Matters, which introduce them to university-level study, equipping them to read critically and write with rigour and persuasion. A further compulsory module on Race, Writing and Decolonisation draws upon the School’s long history of teaching Black and Asian British writing and literature in English from around the world. Optional modules focus on poetry, fiction and drama. Students may also take Discovery modules from across the University.

At Level 2, students will take two core modules, Writing Environments and Body Language. These modules explore two urgent contemporary challenges, the climate crisis and personal wellbeing, and will examine how these issues can be understood and expressed through literary texts. Students will also select four further modules from a choice of eight, ranging historically and geographically from Medieval to Contemporary, and from Postcolonial to American. Level 2 will deepen and enrich subject knowledge and intellectual skills, preparing students for more independent learning at Level 3, where they can select from a range of specialist modules. A final year project, which may be a dissertation or a textual edition, further enhances active research skills, enabling students to define, plan and produce an extended piece of work.

After their second year of study, students may apply for transfer to an International Degree at one of a wide range of universities with which the University of Leeds has established links. They may also spend a year in industry on a work placement as an optional third year of their degree programme.

In your final year, you will choose from a wide range of specialist modules taught by research experts in their fields. You might study literature from Arthurian legends to postcolonial narratives, from Jane Austen novels to contemporary crime fiction, from Romantic poetry to the digital humanities. Alongside these specialist research modules, you’ll start work on your own final year project. Based on a topic of your design, this individual project will showcase your development as a critical thinker and researcher and demonstrate your ability to manage a large project and communicate effectively. 

With seminar discussions and workshops, access to outstanding resources on campus, and expert staff to guide and support, you’ll be able to broaden your knowledge and build your skills for the future.

For more information please read BA English Literature in the course catalogue .

Year 1 compulsory modules

Race, Writing and Decolonization (20 credits) - Current hashtag movements from Black Lives Matter to Why is My Curriculum White? to Fees Must Fall suggest that the project of racial decolonisation is far from over. Focusing on African-American, South African, Caribbean and Black British writing, this module offers the chance to look at some of the most explosive black writing on race and how it informs our current 'decolonial' moment. We will move from the writing that helped dismantle the British Empire, usher in the civil rights era in the US, and bring an end to apartheid in South Africa, through to contemporary writing that confronts ongoing structures of racism. The question of exactly what constitutes blackness and black writing will be at the heart of our discussions.

Writing Matters (20 credits) - Writing and communication skills are vital to most professional careers, but they are especially valuable in the field of English studies. This module explores debates around a canonical literary text, examining theoretical approaches and rhetorical strategies used to write about literature. Students will hone their own writing skills by engaging ethically with the text and the ideas of others, developing structured arguments, expressing ideas clearly and concisely, working with feedback, and practising writing as a process. As a result, students will cultivate a deeper understanding of how writing works, learn how to share insights with greater efficacy and sophistication, and practice how to transfer this knowledge to future workplace contexts.

Reading Between the Lines (20 credits) - This module equips students with a critical vocabulary for sophisticated literary study, introducing the creative, argumentative and exciting discipline of ‘English Studies’. Through close analysis of specific texts across a range of periods and forms, students will encounter some of the varied theories that have shaped and continue to underpin the discipline. Students will find out how an English degree might change the way we read and see the world, while developing their academic skills through guided critical reading, collaboration with peers in group presentations and seminar discussions, and a variety of assignments designed to introduce them to the different formats of assessment required throughout the degree.

Year 1 optional modules (selection of typical options shown below)

Poetry: Reading and Interpretation (20 credits) Drama: Text and Performance (20 credits) Modern Fictions in English (20 credits)

Year 2 compulsory modules

Writing Environments: Literature, Nature, Culture (20 credits) - This module examines what it means to live as human beings on a more-than-human planet. We’ll investigate how literary texts from different times and places have understood the relationship between nature and culture. We’ll address human impacts on the environment in relation to historical phenomena such as colonialism. And we’ll explore the insights that literature can offer at a time of concern about climate change and other environmental issues.

Body Language: Literature and Embodiment (20 credits) - This module explores the relationship between embodiment, language and representation across a range of literary forms, genres, and periods, addressing questions such as: what does it mean to be ‘human’? Can technology change who we are? How do we navigate the relationship between the body and the mind? It examines how critical theorists and creative writers and life writers have treated and imagined this relationship between material bodies and literary representation, in order to better understand both the possibilities and limitations of literary expression.

Year 2 optional modules (selection of typical options shown below)

Renaissance Literature (20 credits) Medieval and Tudor Literature (20 credits) Modern Literature (20 credits) Postcolonial Literature (20 credits) The World Before Us: Literature 1660-1830 (20 credits) Other Voices: Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Literature (20 credits) American Words, American Worlds (20 credits)

Year 3 compulsory modules

Final Year Project (40 credits) - This module encourages independent, self-directed learning, providing a culmination to the research strand emphasised in other modules. It fosters a wide variety of responses to the challenges it offers students, since any final year project might take one of a number of forms. Most importantly, it promotes academic creativity and the exploration of individual intellectual interests.

Year 3 optional modules (selection of typical options shown below)

Sex and Suffering in the Eighteenth-Century Novel (20 credits) Prose Fiction Stylistics and the Mind (20 credits) Quiet Rebels and Unquiet Minds: writing to contemporary anxiety (20 credits) Milton (20 credits) Contemporary South African Writing (20 credits) Forensic Approaches to Language (20 credits) Writing America (20 credits) Transformations (20 credits) Children, Talk and Learning (20 credits) Trial Discourse - The Proceedings of the Old Bailey 1674 - 1913 (20 credits)

Learning and teaching

We use various teaching and learning methods to help you benefit from our tutors’ expertise. Group seminars are at the heart of this degree. 

You’ll also encounter:

• One-to-one tutorials and supervisions
• Online learning through Minerva, our Virtual Learning Environment.

Independent study is a vital element of this course since it enables you to develop your research and critical skills and form your ideas. 

Our globally recognised research feeds directly into your course and shapes what you learn at Leeds with the latest thinking.

You’ll be taught by inspirational academics who are experts in their field and share your passion for your subject. Some may even have written textbooks and research articles you’ll use on your course.

On this course you’ll be taught by our expert academics, from lecturers through to professors. You may also be taught by industry professionals with years of experience, as well as trained postgraduate researchers, connecting you to some of the brightest minds on campus.

English Literature modules are assessed using various methods, including exams, essays and shorter written assignments. 

Some modules will also include wikis, podcasts, research exercises or oral presentations.

This range of assessments will help you develop your communication skills, improve your digital literacy, and enhance your ability to deliver different projects. 

Entry requirements

A-level: AAB including A in English (Literature or Language and Literature)

Where an applicant is taking the EPQ in a relevant subject this might be considered alongside other Level 3 qualifications and may attract an alternative offer in addition to the standard offer. If you are taking A Levels, this would be ABB at A Level including A in English (Literature, or Language and Literature) and grade A in the EPQ.

We welcome applications from mature students with Access qualifications, and from students with a wide range of qualifications.

Alternative qualification

Access to he diploma.

Pass diploma with 60 credits overall, including at least 45 credits at level 3, of which 30 credits must be at Distinction and 15 credits at Merit or higher. The Access course must follow a Humanities pathway and include English modules. An interview and a piece of written work may be required.

We will consider the level 3 QCF BTEC at Subsidiary Diploma level and above in combination with other qualifications. Please contact the Admissions Office for more information.

Cambridge Pre-U

D3, M1, M2 including D3 in English

International Baccalaureate

35 points overall with 16 at Higher Level including 6 in English at Higher Level

Irish Leaving Certificate (higher Level)

H2, H2, H2, H2, H3, H3 including H2 in English

Scottish Highers / Advanced Highers

AB in Advanced Highers (including A in English) and AABBB in Highers, or A in English Advanced Highers and AABBB in Highers

Welsh Baccalaureate

The Welsh Baccalaureate is not typically included in the academic conditions of an offer made to you for this course. If you choose to undertake the Welsh Baccalaureate we would strongly encourage you to draw upon these experiences within your personal statement, as your qualification will then be taken into account both when your application is initially considered by the selection panel and again when reviewed by the admissions tutor at the time your A-level results are passed to us.

Other Qualifications

European Baccalaureate: 80% with 8.5 in English

Read more about UK and Republic of Ireland accepted qualifications or contact the School’s Undergraduate Admissions Team.

Alternative entry

We’re committed to identifying the best possible applicants, regardless of personal circumstances or background.

Access to Leeds is a contextual admissions scheme which accepts applications from individuals who might be from low income households, in the first generation of their immediate family to apply to higher education, or have had their studies disrupted.

Find out more about Access to Leeds and contextual admissions .

Arts and Humanities with Foundation Year

This course is designed for students whose backgrounds mean they are less likely to attend university (also known as widening participation backgrounds) and who do not currently meet admissions criteria for direct entry to a degree.

The course will give you the opportunity to be taught by academic staff and provides intensive support to enable your development of academic skills and knowledge. On successful completion of your foundation year, you will progress to your chosen degree course. Find out more about the Arts and Humanities with Foundation Year

International

We accept a range of international equivalent qualifications. For more information contact the School of English admissions team .

International Foundation Year

International students who do not meet the academic requirements for undergraduate study may be able to study the University of Leeds International Foundation Year. This gives you the opportunity to study on campus, be taught by University of Leeds academics and progress onto a wide range of Leeds undergraduate courses. Find out more about International Foundation Year programmes.

English language requirements

IELTS 6.5 overall, with no less than 6.0 in any component. For other English qualifications, read English language equivalent qualifications .

Improve your English If you're an international student and you don't meet the English language requirements for this programme, you may be able to study our undergraduate pre-sessional English course , to help improve your English language level.

UK: £9,250 (per year)

International: £24,500 (per year)

Tuition fees for UK undergraduate students starting in 2024/25 Tuition fees for UK full-time undergraduate students are set by the UK Government and will be £9,250 for students starting in 2024/25.

The fee may increase in future years of your course in line with inflation only, as a consequence of future changes in Government legislation and as permitted by law.

Tuition fees for UK undergraduate students starting in 2025/26 Tuition fees for UK full-time undergraduate students starting in 2025/26 have not yet been confirmed by the UK government. When the fee is available we will update individual course pages.

Tuition fees for international undergraduate students starting in 2024/25 and 2025/26 Tuition fees for international students for 2024/25 are available on individual course pages. Fees for students starting in 2025/26 will be available from September 2024.

Tuition fees for a study abroad or work placement year If you take a study abroad or work placement year, you’ll pay a reduced tuition fee during this period. For more information, see Study abroad and work placement tuition fees and loans .

Read more about paying fees and charges .

There may be additional costs related to your course or programme of study, or related to being a student at the University of Leeds. Read more on our living costs and budgeting page .

Scholarships and financial support

If you have the talent and drive, we want you to be able to study with us, whatever your financial circumstances. There is help for students in the form of loans and non-repayable grants from the University and from the government. Find out more in our  Undergraduate funding overview .

Apply to this course through UCAS. Check the deadline for applications on the UCAS website .

Read our guidance about applying.

International students apply through UCAS in the same way as UK students. Our network of international representatives can help you with your application. If you’re unsure about the application process, contact the admissions team for help.

Read about visas, immigration and other information in International students . We recommend that international students apply as early as possible to ensure that they have time to apply for their visa.

Admissions policy

University of Leeds Taught Admissions Policy 2024

This course is taught by

School of English

School of English Undergraduate Admissions

Email: [email protected] Telephone:

Career opportunities

A degree in English gives you a range of valuable skills and attributes.

Our graduates have gone on to find success in areas such as the creative industries, marketing, education, journalism, law, publishing, media, business charity work, civil service, management consultancy and leadership.

Many have also progressed to postgraduate study. 

On this course, you’ll develop your abilities as an excellent communicator who can present well-reasoned arguments and conclusions. Learning in groups with others and reading about human problems and social situations will develop your interpersonal skills and understanding of ethical and cultural complexities. 

You’ll have strong organisational and time management skills and you’ll be able to conduct research, interpret complex information, think critically and express yourself clearly. Employers are always looking out for people with these critical skills. 

Careers support

We encourage you to prepare for your career from day one. That’s one of the reasons Leeds graduates are so sought after by employers.

Leeds for Life is our unique approach to helping you make the most of University by supporting your academic and personal development. Find out more at the Leeds for Life website .

The Careers Centre and staff in your faculty provide a range of help and advice to help you plan your career and make well-informed decisions along the way, even after you graduate. Find out more about Careers support .

Study abroad and work placements

Study abroad.

On this course you have the opportunity to apply to spend time abroad, usually as an extra academic year. We have over 300 University partners worldwide and popular destinations for our students include Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Africa and Latin America. 

Find out more at the Study Abroad website .

Work placements

Practical work experience can help you decide on your career and improve your employability. On this course you have the option to apply to take a placement year module with organisations across the public, private and voluntary sectors in the UK, or overseas.

Find out more about work experience on the Careers website .

Related courses

Arts and humanities with foundation year ba, english and comparative literature ba, english and film studies ba, english language and linguistics ba, english language and literature ba, english literature and theatre studies ba, student profile: malgorzata macdougall.

There is so much choice and freedom with what you study, and everyone in the school is so lovely. I really couldn’t recommend it enough. Malgorzata MacDougall, BA English Literature

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Is AI lying to me? Scientists warn of growing capacity for deception

Researchers find instances of systems double-crossing opponents, bluffing, pretending to be human and modifying behaviour in tests

They can outwit humans at board games , decode the structure of proteins and hold a passable conversation , but as AI systems have grown in sophistication so has their capacity for deception, scientists warn.

The analysis, by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers, identifies wide-ranging instances of AI systems double-crossing opponents, bluffing and pretending to be human. One system even altered its behaviour during mock safety tests, raising the prospect of auditors being lured into a false sense of security.

“As the deceptive capabilities of AI systems become more advanced, the dangers they pose to society will become increasingly serious,” said Dr Peter Park, an AI existential safety researcher at MIT and author of the research.

Park was prompted to investigate after Meta, which owns Facebook, developed a program called Cicero that performed in the top 10% of human players at the world conquest strategy game Diplomacy. Meta stated that Cicero had been trained to be “ largely honest and helpful ” and to “ never intentionally backstab ” its human allies.

“It was very rosy language, which was suspicious because backstabbing is one of the most important concepts in the game,” said Park.

Park and colleagues sifted through publicly available data and identified multiple instances of Cicero telling premeditated lies, colluding to draw other players into plots and, on one occasion, justifying its absence after being rebooted by telling another player: “I am on the phone with my girlfriend.” “We found that Meta’s AI had learned to be a master of deception,” said Park.

The MIT team found comparable issues with other systems, including a Texas hold ’em poker program that could bluff against professional human players and another system for economic negotiations that misrepresented its preferences in order to gain an upper hand.

In one study, AI organisms in a digital simulator “played dead” in order to trick a test built to eliminate AI systems that had evolved to rapidly replicate, before resuming vigorous activity once testing was complete. This highlights the technical challenge of ensuring that systems do not have unintended and unanticipated behaviours.

“That’s very concerning,” said Park. “Just because an AI system is deemed safe in the test environment doesn’t mean it’s safe in the wild. It could just be pretending to be safe in the test.”

The review, published in the journal Patterns , calls on governments to design AI safety laws that address the potential for AI deception. Risks from dishonest AI systems include fraud, tampering with elections and “sandbagging” where different users are given different responses. Eventually, if these systems can refine their unsettling capacity for deception, humans could lose control of them, the paper suggests.

Prof Anthony Cohn, a professor of automated reasoning at the University of Leeds and the Alan Turing Institute, said the study was “timely and welcome”, adding that there was a significant challenge in how to define desirable and undesirable behaviours for AI systems.

“Desirable attributes for an AI system (the “three Hs”) are often noted as being honesty, helpfulness, and harmlessness, but as has already been remarked upon in the literature, these qualities can be in opposition to each other: being honest might cause harm to someone’s feelings, or being helpful in responding to a question about how to build a bomb could cause harm,” he said. “So, deceit can sometimes be a desirable property of an AI system. The authors call for more research into how to control the truthfulness which, though challenging, would be a step towards limiting their potentially harmful effects.”

A spokesperson for Meta said: “Our Cicero work was purely a research project and the models our researchers built are trained solely to play the game Diplomacy … Meta regularly shares the results of our research to validate them and enable others to build responsibly off of our advances. We have no plans to use this research or its learnings in our products.”

• Artificial intelligence (AI)

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