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What is a literature review?

A literature review is a critical analysis of the literature related to your research topic. It evaluates and critiques the literature to establish a theoretical framework for your research topic and/or identify a gap in the existing research that your research will address.

A literature review is not a summary of the literature. You need to engage deeply and critically with the literature. Your literature review should show your understanding of the literature related to your research topic and lead to presenting a rationale for your research.

A literature review focuses on:

• the context of the topic
• key concepts, ideas, theories and methodologies
• key researchers, texts and seminal works
• major issues and debates
• identifying conflicting evidence
• the main questions that have been asked around the topic
• the organisation of knowledge on the topic
• definitions, particularly those that are contested
• showing how your research will advance scholarly knowledge (generally referred to as identifying the ‘gap’).

This module will guide you through the functions of a literature review; the typical process of conducting a literature review (including searching for literature and taking notes); structuring your literature review within your thesis and organising its internal ideas; and styling the language of your literature review.

The purposes of a literature review

A literature review serves two main purposes:

1) To show awareness of the present state of knowledge in a particular field, including:

• seminal authors
• the main empirical research
• theoretical positions
• controversies
• breakthroughs as well as links to other related areas of knowledge.

2) To provide a foundation for the author’s research. To do that, the literature review needs to:

• help the researcher define a hypothesis or a research question, and how answering the question will contribute to the body of knowledge;
• provide a rationale for investigating the problem and the selected methodology;
• provide a particular theoretical lens, support the argument, or identify gaps.

Before you engage further with this module, try the quiz below to see how much you already know about literature reviews.

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Social skills and learning: A systematic literature review

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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 Review & Research Skills Guide: What is a Literature Review?

• Introduction
• What is a Literature Review?
• Your research topic
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• Developing a Search Strategy
• Preliminary Reading
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• Managing your literature review
• Evaluation & Critical Appraisal
• Referencing

What is a literature review

Once you have defined your topic, the next step is to start a literature review. A literature review summarises, interprets and critically evaluates material that has already been published on a topic. The purpose is to establish current knowledge of a subject, identify gaps, inconsistencies and relations in the literature as well as outline areas for additional research and/or define a topic of inquiry.

Adopted from Charles Sturt University Library. (2017). Literature review.  Retrieved from http://libguides.csu.edu.au/review

Types of literature reviews

The type of literature review you write will depend on your discipline and whether you are a researcher writing your PhD, publishing a study in a journal or completing an assessment task in your undergraduate study.

A literature review for a subject in an undergraduate degree will not be as comprehensive as the literature review required for a PhD thesis.

An undergraduate literature review may be in the form of an annotated bibliography or a narrative review of a small selection of literature, for example ten relevant articles. If you are asked to write a literature review, and you are an undergraduate student, be guided by your subject coordinator or lecturer.

Often the term "review" and "literature" can be confusing and used in the wrong context. Grant and Booth (2009) attempt to clear up this confusion by discussing 14 review types and the associated methodology, and advantages and disadvantages associated with each review.   For research students, especially those in EEB501, ERP502 or doctoral students, they will be undertaking a critical literature review.

Grant, M. J., & Booth, A. (2009).  A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies . Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26 , 91–108. doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x

What is the purpose or aim of the literature review?

A literature review should demonstrate your knowledge of the research that has been conducted in the past and should place your research in the context of this work. A literature review can have a number of purposes within a research project. These include:

• demonstrating and clarify your understanding of your field of research;
• identifying patterns and trends in the literature;
• identifying gaps in the literature and seek new lines of inquiry;
• identifying similarities and differences in previous research and place your work in perspective;
• justifying your own research;
• increasing your breadth of knowledge of your subject area;
• identifying seminal and influential published works in your field;
• identifying relevant journals, publishers and conferences to search;
• providing the intellectual context for your own work, enabling you to position your project relative to other work;
• identifying experts working in your field (a researcher network is a valuable resource);
• carrying on from where others have already reached.

Onwuegbuzie, A. J., & Frels, R. (2016). 7 steps to a comprehensive literature review : a multimodal & cultural approach . London : Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications.

Randolph, J. J. (2009).  A guide to writing the dissertation literature review . Practical Assessment Research & Evaluation. 14 (Article 13), 1-13.

An Introduction to Literature Reviews

Please watch the following video:

where to start a literature review

There are many different types of resources which might offer information on the topic you are researching, but you need to consider whether the source is scholarly or authoritative enough for a literature review. Typically literature reviews are conducted by using journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, websites or standards.  

In addition, there is a range of new information sources that you may not have come across before, such as: 

• Internet resources
• Tracking citation
• Using Social Media
• Interlibrary loans

To keep your information organised, you might like to consider using a reference manager.  There are a number of different reference managers available to use, and they all have their own advantages and disadvantages. See the EndNote tab   to find further information on Charles Sturt University's bibliographic management software EndNote.

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Writing Literature Reviews

What is a literature review, establish direction, read sources analytically, synthesize the sources.

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Attribution of Sources

Literature reviews may be written as separate assignments or as a section within a longer paper or thesis chapter. Writing a literature review requires you to demonstrate many essential academic skills: to perform research, to read carefully, to analyze and synthesize theories and findings, and to make an organized argument about the body of research on a topic. Furthermore, by assigning a literature review, your instructor expects that you will develop detailed knowledge about an important topic and you will recognize the dynamic nature of scholarship within a particular field of study.

In a literature review, you must survey a range of sources on a particular topic and analyze how scholars have examined and explained this particular topic. You must present a focused and organized argument about the state of knowledge on this topic, considering how research has progressed, evaluating debates, and identifying unanswered questions.

1. Narrow your focus.

Because you need to discuss a wide range of sources in a literature review, you may find it difficult to narrow your focus for an effective critique and understanding of research on the topic. Indeed, you may need to consider theoretical frameworks, methodology, and a variety of data sources or evidence alongside the findings and conclusions put forth by the authors of the articles and books that inform your review. It is important to consider the purpose of your literature review to ensure you ask appropriate questions of your topic.

2. Understand its purpose.

In a literature review that stands alone, your argument may be related to the development of a body of knowledge, the significance of debates within the literature, or future directions for research. The literature review should always offer an analytical discussion of the value or meaning of a body of knowledge. Later in this document, we offer strategies to encourage this thinking and organize your ideas.

For a thesis or major paper in an advanced course, a literature review establishes a framework for original research. In this case, you should also be sure to consider the questions that have not been asked or the perspective that have not been considered. It is important to explain how the literature informs your original work and how your work builds on the body of knowledge that exists. 

Become familiar with particular conventions for your discipline by reading published work. For a history course, you may write a historiography, which is a literature review. In psychology, you need to include particular details about the studies you review, so look to published meta-analyses or reviews for direction.

3. Organize your ideas.

Successful literature reviews offer a clear thesis or position about the current state of research on the topic usually organized comparatively, chronologically or thematically. A literature review should not be a collection of disconnected paragraphs that summarize different articles.

A literature review can be organized in many different ways depending on the discipline as well as the nature of the topic and the purpose of the review. A review might be organized chronologically to show how scholars’ views on a topic have changed over time; it could also be organized thematically or by methodology to group together scholars who share similar views or methods. A comparative organization offers an opportunity to assess sides of a debate or different theoretical lenses.

Read each source closely and carefully to determine key ideas from the source and to analyze the source independently of other sources. Consider the following questions and categories, which some students find it helpful to organize these questions in a chart:

• Identify the author(s). Expert or authority on the subject?
• Date of publication. Revised edition? When originally published?
• What kind of research is it? Empirical, review, argumentative, meta-analysis? How does this form affect the findings or relevance of this work?
• What is the research question and rationale for that question? Is the rationale valid?
• Is there a particular theoretical framework that informs this source? How does this framework influence its argument or findings?
• Is there a particular methodological framework that informs this source? How does this framework influence its argument or findings?
• How does the evidence or data support the arguments or findings of the source?
• What are the implications of the argument or findings?

Although your personal response to the literature may lead you to important insights, your assessment of the research cannot be driven by your biases or assumptions. Instead, you must inquire further when you have an immediate reaction to a piece of evidence or the basis for an argument. Consider the root of the reaction to ground your analysis and to understand bigger questions or trends in the literature.

Consider relationships between your sources and how these relationships influence the current state of knowledge on the topic.  You may find it helpful to organize your notes in particular folders, create a table, or use colour coding to make these relationships visible. The following questions can encourage synthesis:

• On what points do sources agree? What are the key concepts or theories that are accepted on this topic? How does one source build upon knowledge established by another?
• What are points of contention? Are there important debates on this topic? What lenses or frameworks inform the different sides of these debates? What do these debates reveal? Is one position more effective/persuasive? Why?
• How have ideas developed in different times, places, or fields?
• Where are current directions in research heading?

Develop a position on the body of work

A literature review must have a focused perspective. Take time to consider the sources to develop a cohesive and insightful discussion about the body of scholarship. Again, use inquiry to spark your thinking; you may find one or more of these questions to be helpful:

• What evidence, methods, or perspectives have influenced the current understanding of this topic?
• What is the significance of the existing knowledge or debates?
• What is the direction of scholarship? How has it changed? How is it changing?
• What has not been addressed? Why does it need be addressed?

Specificity is necessary for clear communication. In particular, you must clearly identify the authors of works to differentiate their findings, approaches, and perspectives. Whether you are summarizing an argument or analyzing its logic, include the author’s name in the sentence (alongside appropriate citations). For example, “Black (2011) argues that print media has an important place in the 21st century, but this position is not common; in fact, research by Khan and Stewart (2010), Li and Korchev (2012), and Atkins et. al (2012) demonstrates that print media’s influence is limited to small audiences.” This example also shows how to pull sources together into a cohesive point, rather than separately summarizing them.

Remember, there is no one model for a successful literature review; your direction is determined by your critical reading of the sources, your purpose for the review, and the conventions of your field of study. Be sure to ask your course instructor for advice if you are unsure of your approach to this type of work.

Literature Review: Sample

This is an excerpt from a literature review in a fourth-year educational sociology paper. Note how the author integrates arguments by different authors within a discussion about one point to demonstrate the debates that exist in the literature. Furthermore, this author puts forth a position about these debates.

[Topic sentence describing the point of the paragraph] The most significant element of anti-racist education is the recognition of race and racism. Social work theorist, Dorothy Chave Herberg (1993) examines the divergent Canadian understandings of racism. She notes there are some who directly address racism and those who do not recognize its existence in present-day Canada. Chave Herberg, Enid Lee (1985), and sociologist Carl James (1994) emphasize the necessity of discussing race and racism. [Making connections between sources] Chave Herberg argues that Canadians must recognize their own history of racism as she identifies and condemns a cultural condition which seems to inhibit discussions about race. Lee notes that many people feel uncomfortable talking about racism and believe that silence will diminish its impact on society. However, she argues that it is only through discussion that racism can be understood, and action for its abolition can begin. James urges all teachers to recognize the racial differences of students. He shows that without a recognition of their differences, students are marginalised and silenced, but when difference is validated by a teacher, students are welcomed into a positive learning environment. Conversely, Education professor Keith McLeod (1994) stresses the importance of non-racialism. [Illustrating debates within the field] He argues that students have difficulty developing positive relationships in an environment where difference is emphasized, but by recognizing the common traits shared by people, students can learn to “cope” with their differences and discrimination (McLeod, 1994, p. 19). It is interesting to note that McLeod believes it is sufficient for students to “cope” with their differences and discrimination. He does not discuss how they understand their difference, nor how they are motivated to challenge discrimination. McLeod fails to recognize the foundation of the arguments of Chave Herberg, Lee, and James: critical analysis of difference (race) and discrimination (racism) is fundamental to anti-racism education. [Author’s position on topic]

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Subject Guide

A literature review provides an overview of what's been written about a specific topic. There are many different types of literature reviews. They vary in comprehensiveness, types of study included, and purpose. The other pages in this guide will cover some basic steps to consider when conducting a traditional health sciences literature review.

Thanks to the Virginia Commonwealth University libraries for the contents of this guide.

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Explore different methods on how to structure your literature review.

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There is no single, conventional way to structure a literature review. However, there are a range of standard approaches that you can choose from to give your literature review an overall shape. The structure you select will depend on the aims and purpose of your literature review as well as the literature that exists.

The function of your literature review

Every literature review needs to show how the research problem you’re investigating arose, and give a critical overview of how it, or aspects of it, have been addressed by other researchers to date. However, within that overall purpose, the particular function of your literature review may vary, depending on your own research aim, the current state of knowledge in the field, and the amount and breadth of literature that currently exists. For example:

• If there is a large, longstanding body of research already in your field, the function of your might be to give an overview of how it evolved, to show how you build on it and sit within it.
• If there is very little research on your topic or it’s cutting edge, the function of your literature review might be to look at why it’s been overlooked til now, and piece together a useful basis out of comparable work in related fields.
• If your research is interdisciplinary, drawing on and bringing together different strands of the literature in new ways, the function of your literature review might be to identify and connect these previously unrelated strands.
• If your own research takes a clear stance on a contested topic, the function of your literature review might be to outline why the issue is problematic and the different sides of a debate
• If there are various ways you might approach your research or your approach is new, then an overview of the different ways other people have addressed similar research problems might help justify your method.

General approaches

There are four general approaches to structuring a literature review, depending on the main relationship you are creating between the texts you are reviewing, and how they serve your research aims.

This approach is useful if your central aim is to:

• Chart the developments in your chosen field in a way that highlights causality and consequence (for instance, how one piece of research informed or gave rise to another and so on)
• Use a chronological sequence to demonstrate how an issue or research area has evolved over time

Sometimes, your literature review might aim to bring together previously unrelated areas of research, and there is no linear structure to that relationship – you simply identify the different themes under which you want to organise it, depending on which texts you want to talk about as a group. You might choose to arrange your review into different themes, contexts, schools of thought, subject disciplines, or by methods, theories and approaches.

The funnel structure moves from the broad to the detailed, the general to the specific, or from the abstract to the concrete. So you start with the broader aspects of your topic (the contextual background, for instance) and then gradually narrow your focus until you reach the specific aspect of the topic that you will be addressing. You might equally be looking at the more abstract, theoretical work on your subject before moving to more concrete case studies in which those approaches have been applied, or more general treatments to more detailed and smaller scale studies. That way, you are guiding your reader and helping them build their understanding of your topic: providing them with the background information and context they need in order to grasp your main ideas.

Often, your literature review has more than one function and there is more than one key point you want to convey. For instance, you may need to define your theoretical framework, evaluate how other researchers have approached your topic more generally, then outline your specific area of focus and how it relates to the existing literature. Your finished literature review will then comprise different sub-sections that each achieve a particular aim.

Deciding on a structure

When deciding on a structure, you might find it useful to consider the following questions:

• What is the function of my literature review?
• What do I want my literature review to demonstrate to the reader? What do I want them to take away from it?
• What structure would best allow me to achieve my purpose and get my key points across, talking about the texts I want to bring together without circling around in my writing?

Whichever of these strucutural principles you decide on as a way to organise the whole literature review, you may well be using others of them as a way to structure subsections or even paragraphs. For example, you might be using a thematic approach overall, but each section could be structured chronologically.

Checking in

Each structural approach or option has its own strengths and weaknesses. It’s important to check in with yourself and review your literature review drafts periodically to see if your structure is working for you. Is it helping you convey your main ideas, bring together the texts you want to talk about together, or is it leading you to be descriptive, repetitive or lose sight of the literature’s relevance to your own research? If not, is there another option that might work better for you? Sometimes, our main ideas and key points don’t become clear to us until we start writing. So it may be that you are better placed to make a more informed idea about your structure once you have begun trying it out.

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Structuring a literature review.

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A literature review demonstrates that you have read around your topic and have a broad understanding of previous research, including its limitations.

In the literature review, you summarise the main viewpoints and important facts that you encountered in your reading as they relate to your chosen topic . You will also use the literature review to justify the value of doing research on your topic by showing what is already known, what is not yet known, and how it is relevant.

Your literature review should not simply be descriptive but should also provide a critical analysis of the body of work, and demonstrate that you understand how it fits together as a whole and how your own research fits with previous studies.

A key aspect of a literature review is what sources you select to include, and which you exclude.

Finding Sources

Thanks to the internet, literature searches are now relatively easy, and can be done from the comfort of your own laptop without needing to go anywhere near a library.

However, a word of warning is in order here. The ease with which anybody can access and publish to the internet means that many items published online have not been scrutinised by anybody other than the author.

In other words, content has not necessarily been checked, you have no way of knowing whether the author’s facts and claims are at all accurate and you could easily land yourself in trouble by blindly following or citing from online sources. 

Furthermore, because items on the internet are frequently changed, you may find that something you read yesterday is no longer available in the same form today. However, internet sources can be very useful for up-to-date information, especially current affairs or ongoing or very recent research.

Blogs and sites like the encyclopaedia Wikipedia are particularly prone to these problems.  For these reasons, a general rule of thumb is that you should only rely on internet resources from the websites of organisations whose information you already know to be reputable, like SkillsYouNeed.

See our page: Assessing Internet Information for more.

Do not underestimate how much physical libraries and librarians may be able to help you.

Librarians are usually hugely experienced in using all the search tools and databases, and can often show you much quicker ways of doing things, as well as tips and tricks to help you refine your search.

Furthermore, libraries may have copies of books and academic journals that are not available online. So a trip to your library may prove to be very helpful.

If you haven’t already done so, get yourself an ATHENS account through your university and/or school library. Spend time working out which of the available databases are going to be most useful for your topic, including asking the librarians for advice.

A simple way to get started with finding appropriate materials is simply to ask people who are likely to know.

You might for example ask your tutor or supervisor, or an expert or practitioner working on your chosen topic. Often, they will be able to give you some very helpful ideas about where to begin your reading.

However, be aware that some professionals may find constant requests for information intrudes on their time. Always be courteous and sensitive to the level of demand you may be making on someone’s time.

See our page: Sources of Information for more about the types of resources that you might use and how to access them.

Choosing and Refining your Search Terms

Your search terms are one of the most important elements of finding the right sources for your research project and developing them is an ongoing process.

It’s a good idea to start with a phrase that you think others will have used about the topic, perhaps that you have identified from your lectures and/or earlier study. You will probably find that your first few searches don’t turn up much that’s useful.

Use the one or two articles that you find that are on the right lines to identify alternative search terms, and continue to search until you turn up useful articles.

You can also use a tool such as Google Adword Keyword Research Tool to identify phrases and keywords that are similar to your chosen term(s). This tool is usually used by internet marketing professionals to help them find keywords similar to their own but can be useful for academic research too.

If you’re really struggling to find articles on the right topic, but you’re certain that they must be out there, drop your supervisor a note asking about possible search terms. Tell them what you’ve already used, and ask them for a few alternatives to get you started. However, this should be a last resort, as you don’t want to demonstrate your ignorance too obviously!

Finally, keep searching. You need to read a lot of sources to find the most relevant and will probably end up discarding more than half of what you read. Use abstracts to decide which articles are worth reading, and don’t read those that aren’t relevant: keep checking back to your research questions and decide whether each article is useful. If not, move on.

Critical Reading

Your literature review should not only show that you have been reading a range of materials related to your topic, but also that you have been reading them critically and have thought about the wider contexts and how they apply to your own area of research.

Critical reading is a skill that, like any other skill, is acquired with practice.

In essence, reading critically means that you do not take the claims at face value: you question the basis for claims, why the author may have done and said things in the particular way he or she did, what the wider context is, and whose interests are being served by the claims you encounter.

See our page, Critical Reading for more information.

How Many Sources?

Your university or college supervisor will be able to give you an idea of how many sources you should include in your literature review.

You will probably need to read at least double that number to find enough that are suitable for inclusion. You should also try to find several different sorts of sources: books, journal articles, dissertations, conference papers, working papers, and so on.

You need to make sure that you identify the key texts for the subject. Check a few references, and see which texts are cited most often, or ask the librarians how to use the databases to check how often each article is cited. A good way to identify when you have read enough is if your reading keeps turning up the same points and you’re not learning anything new.

A Note on Dates

There are some theories or articles which are so important in a particular field that they need to be cited, however long ago they were originally published. But those apart, you should generally prefer more recent sources published in the last five or ten years. As a rough guide, the balance of publication dates should be about two thirds from the last 10 years, and no more than one third older than that.

Writing your Literature Review

In general, your literature review should start with one or two broad paragraphs, demonstrating your understanding of the breadth of your area of study.

You should then discuss the literature that deals with your area of research and, finally, consider and critique the studies that are most directly relevant.

You should spend most time on the latter.

Writing your literature review should be an iterative process.

The best way to do it is probably to summarise each source as you go along, referencing it carefully, and grouping your sources by themes.

You will almost certainly find that the themes develop as you go along, and so do your search terms. Use headings to store your summaries and then write a more polished section under that heading when you have enough sources to be able to ‘compare and contrast’ opposing views, and particularly to draw out areas where there is disagreement and/or conflicting evidence as these are the most fruitful for further research.

Where there are gaps, you can then go back and search for more sources on that area. The best literature reviews are not only descriptive, but draw together similar thinking and provide a critical analysis of the previous research, including highlighting really good studies, or identifying flaws and gaps.

To make sure that you carrying out a critical analysis, make sure that you ask yourself the question ‘ Do I agree with this viewpoint? Why? ’, and also consider whether the methods used are strong or weak and why. This will also help you to decide on your own methodology.

Another way of checking whether you are evaluating or merely describing is to look at whether you have discussed work chronologically (likely to be descriptive) or in terms of whether there is general agreement on a topic (much more likely to be evaluative).

Checklist of Questions for Critical Reading

Ask yourself the following questions to decide whether or not a particular piece of work is worth including in your literature review.

• Who is the author? What can I find out about him/her? Has he/she written other books, articles etc.?
• What is the author’s position in the research process, e.g., gender, class, politics, life experience, relationship to research participants?
• Where and when was the document produced? What type of document is it?
• Is it reporting original research that the author has done, or is it presenting second-hand information about a topic?
• Is it formal or informal?
• Is it 'authoritative' (e.g., academic, scientific) or 'popular' (newspaper or magazine article)?
• How has it been produced? Is it glossy, with lots of pictures, diagrams, etc.?
• If it is contained on a website, is the website from a reputable organisation, or is the document drawn from some other reputable source?

The Message

• What is being said?
• What is not being said?
• How is the argument presented? Why?
• What use has been made of diagrams, pictures etc.?
• Who was or is the intended audience?
• Whose interests are being served by this message? Are there political implications, for instance?
• What evidence is presented to support the claims that are made?
• Does the evidence actually support the claims? Is the evidence presented in enough detail for you to make up your own mind whether you agree with the claims?
• Are there errors or inconsistencies?
• What is the significance to my topic and the research that I wish to carry out?

Your literature review should also demonstrate how your study does or will relate to previous work, and how it either fills gaps, or responds to calls for further work.

Your literature review will help you to refine your research question. It should also help you to explain how your methodology fits with previous work, and help you to identify and evaluate possible research methods.

A Note on Tense

When you are describing someone’s findings or opinions, it is probably best to use the past tense.

For example:

“Jones (2001) argued that…”.

Many authors of academic papers prefer the present tense when describing opinions or views (“Jones (2001) argues that…”). However, it is always possible that Jones has subsequently changed his/her view, and therefore the past tense is preferable.

The past tense is always going to be correct for something that was expressed in the past; the present tense may no longer be true.

Citations and References

Your university will almost certainly have a preferred style for citations and references that you will need to use. Make sure you understand how this works before you start writing your literature review and use it consistently throughout.

Keep your references up to date as you go, and make sure that you always cite the reference as you write: it’s much easier than trying to build a reference list at the end.

See our page on Academic Referencing for more information

For scientific subjects, Vancouver (numerical) referencing is often preferred.

However, it is much harder to check that your references are correct using this system. It is therefore better to use a (name, date) system of citations until you are certain that you have finished revising the document.

Alternatively, use a system of end-notes which will automatically update the numbering if you move a citation as you will otherwise end up hopelessly confused.

Draft, Draft and Redraft

Finally, once you have written each section by theme, go back and read the whole thing to check that the sections flow logically one from another, and that the whole literature review reads sensibly and coherently.

As with any essay or extended piece of writing, editing and redrafting will improve the quality of your writing, as will asking someone else to read it over and check for errors or inconsistencies.

You should also do a search to check for consistent use of British or American spellings (-ise and -ize, for example), double spaces after words, and double/single inverted commas around quotations. You might think such details are less important than the content, but the marker may not share your view.

Continue to: Writing a Research Proposal Writing a Dissertation: The Introduction

See also: Writing a Methodology Dissertation Results and Discussion Dissertation Conclusions and Extra Sections

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Conducting a literature review postgraduate study skills.

You may be expected to gather evidence by making a review of the current literature, perhaps as a distinct section in an assignment or as a chapter of a dissertation. Or it may be part of your preparatory work for a project proposal.

A literature review usually takes the form of a critical discussion that shows insight into the theories being discussed in publications with a clear link to the purpose of your question or research.

The structure of the literature review depends on the aims and purpose of your work. Generally, you should group together your work in key themes, with each one explicitly linked to your research topic.

Beginning a literature review can be a bit overwhelming. The best place to start is with your textbooks and the key academics referred to within them. After you've identified the key relevant authors you can read more from them (books, articles etc.). This will then lead you on further, to other academics and theories.

You can use the  OU's online library  to source material that is available online. It has links to journals, articles, e-books and more.

Here are some key steps in conducting a literature review.

• Define your topic. Do you have central question you want to answer?
• Narrow down what you want to research - a narrower topic allows you to focus more deeply, rather than skimming the surface
• Divide your topic into key themes to make it easier to look up information
• Use your textbooks to identify key authors or theories that relate to the themes and make them your starting point
• Do the textbooks suggest any further reading? If so, track it down
• Use the OU's online library to locate academic opinion and theory
• Organise your literature: store any paper copies in folders and files, grouped into themes
• Read the literature you have sourced
• Fit the literature into the key themes you have identified - if any don't fit, or they don't seem important enough to include, put them to one side

You now need to engage critically with the texts. Think about whether you agree with what's being said. Examine the methodology used: divide the articles into qualitative or quantitative categories, evaluate conclusions made based on the method used and evidence presented.

Once you start to collate your literature review, make sure to reference your sources correctly as you use them. Keep full details of the title of the paper or book chapter, the authors, the page numbers, the journal or book it was published in and year of publication, as it can be hard to track down these details later.

It is important that you keep up with your subject; people will be writing about it all the time, with new theories and literature produced. This means you should look over literature at other points too: certainly mid-way through a research project and again at the end.

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The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It

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What is a review of the literature?

A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate assignment (sometimes in the form of an annotated bibliography —see the bottom of the next page), but more often it is part of the introduction to an essay, research report, or thesis. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries

Besides enlarging your knowledge about the topic, writing a literature review lets you gain and demonstrate skills in two areas

• information seeking : the ability to scan the literature efficiently, using manual or computerized methods, to identify a set of useful articles and books
• critical appraisal : the ability to apply principles of analysis to identify unbiased and valid studies.

A literature review must do these things

• be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question you are developing
• synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
• identify areas of controversy in the literature
• formulate questions that need further research

Ask yourself questions like these:

• What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my literature review helps to define?
• What type of literature review am I conducting? Am I looking at issues of theory? methodology? policy? quantitative research (e.g. on the effectiveness of a new procedure)? qualitative research (e.g., studies of loneliness among migrant workers)?
• What is the scope of my literature review? What types of publications am I using (e.g., journals, books, government documents, popular media)? What discipline am I working in (e.g., nursing psychology, sociology, medicine)?
• How good was my information seeking ? Has my search been wide enough to ensure I’ve found all the relevant material? Has it been narrow enough to exclude irrelevant material? Is the number of sources I’ve used appropriate for the length of my paper?
• Have I critically analysed the literature I use? Do I follow through a set of concepts and questions, comparing items to each other in the ways they deal with them? Instead of just listing and summarizing items, do I assess them, discussing strengths and weaknesses?
• Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my perspective?
• Will the reader find my literature review relevant, appropriate, and useful ?

Ask yourself questions like these about each book or article you include:

• Has the author formulated a problem/issue?
• Is it clearly defined? Is its significance (scope, severity, relevance) clearly established?
• Could the problem have been approached more effectively from another perspective?
• What is the author’s research orientation (e.g., interpretive, critical science, combination)?
• What is the author’s theoretical framework (e.g., psychological, developmental, feminist)?
• What is the relationship between the theoretical and research perspectives?
• Has the author evaluated the literature relevant to the problem/issue? Does the author include literature taking positions she or he does not agree with?
• In a research study, how good are the basic components of the study design (e.g., population, intervention, outcome)? How accurate and valid are the measurements? Is the analysis of the data accurate and relevant to the research question? Are the conclusions validly based upon the data and analysis?
• In material written for a popular readership, does the author use appeals to emotion, one-sided examples, or rhetorically-charged language and tone? Is there an objective basis to the reasoning, or is the author merely “proving” what he or she already believes?
• How does the author structure the argument? Can you “deconstruct” the flow of the argument to see whether or where it breaks down logically (e.g., in establishing cause-effect relationships)?
• In what ways does this book or article contribute to our understanding of the problem under study, and in what ways is it useful for practice? What are the strengths and limitations?
• How does this book or article relate to the specific thesis or question I am developing?

Final Notes:

A literature review is a piece of discursive prose , not a list describing or summarizing one piece of literature after another. It’s usually a bad sign to see every paragraph beginning with the name of a researcher. Instead, organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory. You are not trying to list all the material published, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or research question

If you are writing an annotated bibliography , you may need to summarize each item briefly, but should still follow through themes and concepts and do some critical assessment of material. Use an overall introduction and conclusion to state the scope of your coverage and to formulate the question, problem, or concept your chosen material illuminates. Usually you will have the option of grouping items into sections—this helps you indicate comparisons and relationships. You may be able to write a paragraph or so to introduce the focus of each section

This handout and many others are available in Writing in the Health Sciences: a comprehensive guide .

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Advise on how to plan and organise your literature review.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is an account of the current thinking in a specific area of study. Its purpose is to introduce the reader to what has gone before and to provide you with a foundation that you can build on with your own research.

A literature review will often form a section or chapter of a larger piece of work (such as a dissertation), but you may be asked to produce a literature review as a standalone piece of work. 

301 Recommends: 

Our workshop on Writing a Literature Review will look at the role and purpose of a literature review and identify strategies that you can use to write a literature review as part of an extended essay, dissertation or thesis. The session will cover the key features of literature reviews, approaches to incorporating a range of sources into your literature review and common pitfalls of literature review writing. It will help you to plan, write and refine your own literature review section as part of a longer piece of writing.

A literature review will usually do some or all of the following:

• Introduce the reader to a specific area of interest.
• Organise relevant sources thematically, starting with the more general, broader themes and narrowing towards the most specific themes.
• Introduce key theories relevant to the area of study.
• Define your understanding of important terms or language used in the research.
• Include only the most relevant, important or influential sources, carefully selected. It is about quality not quantity!
• Identify gaps or limitations in existing research.

Considering a body of scholarship as a whole (or in relation to each of your themes) will allow you to 'synthesise' multiple sources and produce an overall summary.

Developing a literature review will help you to develop a level of expertise in your chosen area. By consulting and including a unique combination of sources, you will be able to formulate an informed and original perspective, which will drive forward your ongoing research. 

Action: start a bibliography snowball

Are you finding it difficult to filter sources using google or STARplus? Get a head start by finding one recently published academic journal article in a relevant area (using google scholar or similar). The bibliography in that article will give you a great head start in finding other important sources.

A peer-reviewed article will have been checked by experts in the field and the authors will have referred to as much of the influential research as possible. Once you have looked up one or two other sources from that bibliography, you will be able to cross-reference - which sources are appearing most frequently and appear to be most important? 

You will start a bibliography snowball that will grow each time you consult a further source. But don't forget to be selective and make sure your snowball does not get too big!

Organising your sources

As you encounter more and more relevant sources, you will face an ever-expanding amount of reading for yourself. If you were to read through all of the literature in a specific field from start to finish, you would probably still be going by this time next year. 

Academic reading, and particularly the process of 'reading around' a topic, is about selective, or targetted reading. You can find out more about different academic reading techniques here (Study Skills Online page) . 

Creating a Literature Matrix can help you to identify the key things that you want to take away from each of your sources. A literature matrix is a simple spreadsheet where you select column titles to suit the aims of your literature review. Are you interested in the research methodology, the scale of the research, the main conclusions, or something else entirely?

Once you have scanned through a source and pulled out the points you are interested in, you can move onto the next source. Organising your reading in this way will also allow you to identify key themes that are emerging in your reading, which you will be able to use later on to plan your review.

You may want to use a reference management tool to help organise and produce your bibliography. Visit the University of Sheffield Library Reference Mangement pages here . 

301 Recommends: use a literature matrix

You can access a blank literature matrix here (google sheet) . You can view an example literature matrix here (VCU Library webpage) . 

Synthesising your sources

Once you have a number of sources to work with, you will start to identify key themes emerging. At this point you can start to organise your sources systematically to develop and explore those themes. Can you organise your themes from the broadest to the narrowest and most specific?

A synthesis matrix will help you to identify a thematic structure for your literature review and to understand how the sources that you have found relate to one another. A synthesis matrix is a further spreadsheet that organises your sources by theme and includes a synthesis column, where you can begin to draw out comparisons between the sources. 

Once you have identified a number of sources for each theme in your matrix, you should be able to identify the following:

• Do the sources build on or develop one another (is this a chronological process)?
• Do the sources challenge or contradict one another? Do they reveal a debate within the field?
• Do the sources identify an area of particular interest or a gap in the field?
• Do the sources help to fill in gaps or complete a bigger picture?

Your synthesis column provides an opportunity for you to comment on multiple sources considered as a whole. It is a space for your critical voice and interpretation, which is a key part of writing a successful literature review. 

301 Recommends:

Library’s Producing a Literature Review tutorial: the interactive digital resource can be accessed here . 

Synthesis matrix: You can access a blank synthesis matrix here (google sheet) . You can view an example synthesis matrix here (FIU Writing Centre PDF) . 

Writing your review

Once you have done the background reading and organised your sources using a synthesis matrix, the job of writing your review is simply about adding flesh to the bones. You will need to write your review as a narrative account, but you can use your matrix as a framework to help you do so.

A literature review will usually follow a simple structure:

• Introduction: what is the overall topic area and how have you broken your review down into themes?
• Theme 1: the broadest, most top-level area (perhaps including some background theory that may have influenced your thinking).
• Theme 2, theme 3, theme 4, etc. Your themes should get more specific and closer to the focus of your research.
• Conclusion: how has this informed your thinking and (if the review is part of a bigger project) what are your research aims and objectives? 

Your review may be broken down by section heading or paragraph by paragraph. Each paragraph will describe a particular theme and finish by summarising your overview of a theme (the synthesis part of the martix above). 

Don't forget to reference all sources using an appropriate referencing style! Visit the University of Sheffield Library Referencing pages for more information. 

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• What is a Literature Review?

The purpose of a literature review is to:

A literature review..., organising a literature review, useful books.

• Systematic Reviews
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A good literature review has:

• Up-to-date citations
• Clear transitions between ideas
• Corroborates all claims 
• Well organised paragraphs 
• Consistent formatting 

• Writing a Literature Review 

• conducting a literature review (web of science) , a literature review is not.

• A comprehensive alphabetical list of every work referred to in your research, or a list of references cited

• A literary review describing and evaluating specific books, articles etc.

• An annotated bibliography listing references and adding brief notes about the significance of each source

Checkout some recent Masters or PhD theses related to your research in Research@THEA (the IoT’s digital repository). Read the literature review chapter - has the author been successful in providing a clear synthesis of past research?

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The main purpose of the literature review is to demonstrate why the researcher’s study is necessary.

A literature review is a central part of any research project, as it sets your research in context and identifies how it fits with the research that has already been done. You may be asked to write a literature review as part of a thesis, dissertation, or longer project, or as a separate assignment to progress the research.

Essentially it is a "re" view or "look again" at what has already been written about your research topic.

• A literature review is a critical examination of information related to your proposed research topic
• A literature review ensures that you are at least familiar with research in your area before starting your own research
• It involves analysing and evaluating the work of a range of works in relation to your research area
• Reviewing the literature will help you identify a gap in your field that you can explore and help you identify your research question

► Communicate to your reader what information and ideas have been established on a topic

► Explain what the strengths and weaknesses of that information and those ideas might be

► Establish context for the argument explored in the rest of your research

► Keep up-to-date with current developments on a topic  or discipline

Shows that:

► You have an in-depth grasp of your topic

► You understand where your own research fits into and adds to an existing body of knowledge

Demonstrates:

► Your literature searching abilities

► You can critical appraise information to judge its trustworthiness, value and relevance

► You have learnt from others

► Your research is a starting point for new ideas

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Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.

Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet].

Chapter 9 methods for literature reviews.

Guy Paré and Spyros Kitsiou .

9.1. Introduction

Literature reviews play a critical role in scholarship because science remains, first and foremost, a cumulative endeavour ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). As in any academic discipline, rigorous knowledge syntheses are becoming indispensable in keeping up with an exponentially growing eHealth literature, assisting practitioners, academics, and graduate students in finding, evaluating, and synthesizing the contents of many empirical and conceptual papers. Among other methods, literature reviews are essential for: (a) identifying what has been written on a subject or topic; (b) determining the extent to which a specific research area reveals any interpretable trends or patterns; (c) aggregating empirical findings related to a narrow research question to support evidence-based practice; (d) generating new frameworks and theories; and (e) identifying topics or questions requiring more investigation ( Paré, Trudel, Jaana, & Kitsiou, 2015 ).

Literature reviews can take two major forms. The most prevalent one is the “literature review” or “background” section within a journal paper or a chapter in a graduate thesis. This section synthesizes the extant literature and usually identifies the gaps in knowledge that the empirical study addresses ( Sylvester, Tate, & Johnstone, 2013 ). It may also provide a theoretical foundation for the proposed study, substantiate the presence of the research problem, justify the research as one that contributes something new to the cumulated knowledge, or validate the methods and approaches for the proposed study ( Hart, 1998 ; Levy & Ellis, 2006 ).

The second form of literature review, which is the focus of this chapter, constitutes an original and valuable work of research in and of itself ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Rather than providing a base for a researcher’s own work, it creates a solid starting point for all members of the community interested in a particular area or topic ( Mulrow, 1987 ). The so-called “review article” is a journal-length paper which has an overarching purpose to synthesize the literature in a field, without collecting or analyzing any primary data ( Green, Johnson, & Adams, 2006 ).

When appropriately conducted, review articles represent powerful information sources for practitioners looking for state-of-the art evidence to guide their decision-making and work practices ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Further, high-quality reviews become frequently cited pieces of work which researchers seek out as a first clear outline of the literature when undertaking empirical studies ( Cooper, 1988 ; Rowe, 2014 ). Scholars who track and gauge the impact of articles have found that review papers are cited and downloaded more often than any other type of published article ( Cronin, Ryan, & Coughlan, 2008 ; Montori, Wilczynski, Morgan, Haynes, & Hedges, 2003 ; Patsopoulos, Analatos, & Ioannidis, 2005 ). The reason for their popularity may be the fact that reading the review enables one to have an overview, if not a detailed knowledge of the area in question, as well as references to the most useful primary sources ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Although they are not easy to conduct, the commitment to complete a review article provides a tremendous service to one’s academic community ( Paré et al., 2015 ; Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). Most, if not all, peer-reviewed journals in the fields of medical informatics publish review articles of some type.

The main objectives of this chapter are fourfold: (a) to provide an overview of the major steps and activities involved in conducting a stand-alone literature review; (b) to describe and contrast the different types of review articles that can contribute to the eHealth knowledge base; (c) to illustrate each review type with one or two examples from the eHealth literature; and (d) to provide a series of recommendations for prospective authors of review articles in this domain.

9.2. Overview of the Literature Review Process and Steps

As explained in Templier and Paré (2015) , there are six generic steps involved in conducting a review article:

• formulating the research question(s) and objective(s),
• searching the extant literature,
• screening for inclusion,
• assessing the quality of primary studies,
• extracting data, and
• analyzing data.

Although these steps are presented here in sequential order, one must keep in mind that the review process can be iterative and that many activities can be initiated during the planning stage and later refined during subsequent phases ( Finfgeld-Connett & Johnson, 2013 ; Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ).

Formulating the research question(s) and objective(s): As a first step, members of the review team must appropriately justify the need for the review itself ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ), identify the review’s main objective(s) ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ), and define the concepts or variables at the heart of their synthesis ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ; Webster & Watson, 2002 ). Importantly, they also need to articulate the research question(s) they propose to investigate ( Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ). In this regard, we concur with Jesson, Matheson, and Lacey (2011) that clearly articulated research questions are key ingredients that guide the entire review methodology; they underscore the type of information that is needed, inform the search for and selection of relevant literature, and guide or orient the subsequent analysis. Searching the extant literature: The next step consists of searching the literature and making decisions about the suitability of material to be considered in the review ( Cooper, 1988 ). There exist three main coverage strategies. First, exhaustive coverage means an effort is made to be as comprehensive as possible in order to ensure that all relevant studies, published and unpublished, are included in the review and, thus, conclusions are based on this all-inclusive knowledge base. The second type of coverage consists of presenting materials that are representative of most other works in a given field or area. Often authors who adopt this strategy will search for relevant articles in a small number of top-tier journals in a field ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In the third strategy, the review team concentrates on prior works that have been central or pivotal to a particular topic. This may include empirical studies or conceptual papers that initiated a line of investigation, changed how problems or questions were framed, introduced new methods or concepts, or engendered important debate ( Cooper, 1988 ). Screening for inclusion: The following step consists of evaluating the applicability of the material identified in the preceding step ( Levy & Ellis, 2006 ; vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). Once a group of potential studies has been identified, members of the review team must screen them to determine their relevance ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). A set of predetermined rules provides a basis for including or excluding certain studies. This exercise requires a significant investment on the part of researchers, who must ensure enhanced objectivity and avoid biases or mistakes. As discussed later in this chapter, for certain types of reviews there must be at least two independent reviewers involved in the screening process and a procedure to resolve disagreements must also be in place ( Liberati et al., 2009 ; Shea et al., 2009 ). Assessing the quality of primary studies: In addition to screening material for inclusion, members of the review team may need to assess the scientific quality of the selected studies, that is, appraise the rigour of the research design and methods. Such formal assessment, which is usually conducted independently by at least two coders, helps members of the review team refine which studies to include in the final sample, determine whether or not the differences in quality may affect their conclusions, or guide how they analyze the data and interpret the findings ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). Ascribing quality scores to each primary study or considering through domain-based evaluations which study components have or have not been designed and executed appropriately makes it possible to reflect on the extent to which the selected study addresses possible biases and maximizes validity ( Shea et al., 2009 ). Extracting data: The following step involves gathering or extracting applicable information from each primary study included in the sample and deciding what is relevant to the problem of interest ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Indeed, the type of data that should be recorded mainly depends on the initial research questions ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ). However, important information may also be gathered about how, when, where and by whom the primary study was conducted, the research design and methods, or qualitative/quantitative results ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Analyzing and synthesizing data : As a final step, members of the review team must collate, summarize, aggregate, organize, and compare the evidence extracted from the included studies. The extracted data must be presented in a meaningful way that suggests a new contribution to the extant literature ( Jesson et al., 2011 ). Webster and Watson (2002) warn researchers that literature reviews should be much more than lists of papers and should provide a coherent lens to make sense of extant knowledge on a given topic. There exist several methods and techniques for synthesizing quantitative (e.g., frequency analysis, meta-analysis) and qualitative (e.g., grounded theory, narrative analysis, meta-ethnography) evidence ( Dixon-Woods, Agarwal, Jones, Young, & Sutton, 2005 ; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

9.3. Types of Review Articles and Brief Illustrations

EHealth researchers have at their disposal a number of approaches and methods for making sense out of existing literature, all with the purpose of casting current research findings into historical contexts or explaining contradictions that might exist among a set of primary research studies conducted on a particular topic. Our classification scheme is largely inspired from Paré and colleagues’ (2015) typology. Below we present and illustrate those review types that we feel are central to the growth and development of the eHealth domain.

9.3.1. Narrative Reviews

The narrative review is the “traditional” way of reviewing the extant literature and is skewed towards a qualitative interpretation of prior knowledge ( Sylvester et al., 2013 ). Put simply, a narrative review attempts to summarize or synthesize what has been written on a particular topic but does not seek generalization or cumulative knowledge from what is reviewed ( Davies, 2000 ; Green et al., 2006 ). Instead, the review team often undertakes the task of accumulating and synthesizing the literature to demonstrate the value of a particular point of view ( Baumeister & Leary, 1997 ). As such, reviewers may selectively ignore or limit the attention paid to certain studies in order to make a point. In this rather unsystematic approach, the selection of information from primary articles is subjective, lacks explicit criteria for inclusion and can lead to biased interpretations or inferences ( Green et al., 2006 ). There are several narrative reviews in the particular eHealth domain, as in all fields, which follow such an unstructured approach ( Silva et al., 2015 ; Paul et al., 2015 ).

Despite these criticisms, this type of review can be very useful in gathering together a volume of literature in a specific subject area and synthesizing it. As mentioned above, its primary purpose is to provide the reader with a comprehensive background for understanding current knowledge and highlighting the significance of new research ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Faculty like to use narrative reviews in the classroom because they are often more up to date than textbooks, provide a single source for students to reference, and expose students to peer-reviewed literature ( Green et al., 2006 ). For researchers, narrative reviews can inspire research ideas by identifying gaps or inconsistencies in a body of knowledge, thus helping researchers to determine research questions or formulate hypotheses. Importantly, narrative reviews can also be used as educational articles to bring practitioners up to date with certain topics of issues ( Green et al., 2006 ).

Recently, there have been several efforts to introduce more rigour in narrative reviews that will elucidate common pitfalls and bring changes into their publication standards. Information systems researchers, among others, have contributed to advancing knowledge on how to structure a “traditional” review. For instance, Levy and Ellis (2006) proposed a generic framework for conducting such reviews. Their model follows the systematic data processing approach comprised of three steps, namely: (a) literature search and screening; (b) data extraction and analysis; and (c) writing the literature review. They provide detailed and very helpful instructions on how to conduct each step of the review process. As another methodological contribution, vom Brocke et al. (2009) offered a series of guidelines for conducting literature reviews, with a particular focus on how to search and extract the relevant body of knowledge. Last, Bandara, Miskon, and Fielt (2011) proposed a structured, predefined and tool-supported method to identify primary studies within a feasible scope, extract relevant content from identified articles, synthesize and analyze the findings, and effectively write and present the results of the literature review. We highly recommend that prospective authors of narrative reviews consult these useful sources before embarking on their work.

Darlow and Wen (2015) provide a good example of a highly structured narrative review in the eHealth field. These authors synthesized published articles that describe the development process of mobile health ( m-health ) interventions for patients’ cancer care self-management. As in most narrative reviews, the scope of the research questions being investigated is broad: (a) how development of these systems are carried out; (b) which methods are used to investigate these systems; and (c) what conclusions can be drawn as a result of the development of these systems. To provide clear answers to these questions, a literature search was conducted on six electronic databases and Google Scholar . The search was performed using several terms and free text words, combining them in an appropriate manner. Four inclusion and three exclusion criteria were utilized during the screening process. Both authors independently reviewed each of the identified articles to determine eligibility and extract study information. A flow diagram shows the number of studies identified, screened, and included or excluded at each stage of study selection. In terms of contributions, this review provides a series of practical recommendations for m-health intervention development.

9.3.2. Descriptive or Mapping Reviews

The primary goal of a descriptive review is to determine the extent to which a body of knowledge in a particular research topic reveals any interpretable pattern or trend with respect to pre-existing propositions, theories, methodologies or findings ( King & He, 2005 ; Paré et al., 2015 ). In contrast with narrative reviews, descriptive reviews follow a systematic and transparent procedure, including searching, screening and classifying studies ( Petersen, Vakkalanka, & Kuzniarz, 2015 ). Indeed, structured search methods are used to form a representative sample of a larger group of published works ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Further, authors of descriptive reviews extract from each study certain characteristics of interest, such as publication year, research methods, data collection techniques, and direction or strength of research outcomes (e.g., positive, negative, or non-significant) in the form of frequency analysis to produce quantitative results ( Sylvester et al., 2013 ). In essence, each study included in a descriptive review is treated as the unit of analysis and the published literature as a whole provides a database from which the authors attempt to identify any interpretable trends or draw overall conclusions about the merits of existing conceptualizations, propositions, methods or findings ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In doing so, a descriptive review may claim that its findings represent the state of the art in a particular domain ( King & He, 2005 ).

In the fields of health sciences and medical informatics, reviews that focus on examining the range, nature and evolution of a topic area are described by Anderson, Allen, Peckham, and Goodwin (2008) as mapping reviews . Like descriptive reviews, the research questions are generic and usually relate to publication patterns and trends. There is no preconceived plan to systematically review all of the literature although this can be done. Instead, researchers often present studies that are representative of most works published in a particular area and they consider a specific time frame to be mapped.

An example of this approach in the eHealth domain is offered by DeShazo, Lavallie, and Wolf (2009). The purpose of this descriptive or mapping review was to characterize publication trends in the medical informatics literature over a 20-year period (1987 to 2006). To achieve this ambitious objective, the authors performed a bibliometric analysis of medical informatics citations indexed in medline using publication trends, journal frequencies, impact factors, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) term frequencies, and characteristics of citations. Findings revealed that there were over 77,000 medical informatics articles published during the covered period in numerous journals and that the average annual growth rate was 12%. The MeSH term analysis also suggested a strong interdisciplinary trend. Finally, average impact scores increased over time with two notable growth periods. Overall, patterns in research outputs that seem to characterize the historic trends and current components of the field of medical informatics suggest it may be a maturing discipline (DeShazo et al., 2009).

9.3.3. Scoping Reviews

Scoping reviews attempt to provide an initial indication of the potential size and nature of the extant literature on an emergent topic (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Daudt, van Mossel, & Scott, 2013 ; Levac, Colquhoun, & O’Brien, 2010). A scoping review may be conducted to examine the extent, range and nature of research activities in a particular area, determine the value of undertaking a full systematic review (discussed next), or identify research gaps in the extant literature ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In line with their main objective, scoping reviews usually conclude with the presentation of a detailed research agenda for future works along with potential implications for both practice and research.

Unlike narrative and descriptive reviews, the whole point of scoping the field is to be as comprehensive as possible, including grey literature (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005). Inclusion and exclusion criteria must be established to help researchers eliminate studies that are not aligned with the research questions. It is also recommended that at least two independent coders review abstracts yielded from the search strategy and then the full articles for study selection ( Daudt et al., 2013 ). The synthesized evidence from content or thematic analysis is relatively easy to present in tabular form (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

One of the most highly cited scoping reviews in the eHealth domain was published by Archer, Fevrier-Thomas, Lokker, McKibbon, and Straus (2011) . These authors reviewed the existing literature on personal health record ( phr ) systems including design, functionality, implementation, applications, outcomes, and benefits. Seven databases were searched from 1985 to March 2010. Several search terms relating to phr s were used during this process. Two authors independently screened titles and abstracts to determine inclusion status. A second screen of full-text articles, again by two independent members of the research team, ensured that the studies described phr s. All in all, 130 articles met the criteria and their data were extracted manually into a database. The authors concluded that although there is a large amount of survey, observational, cohort/panel, and anecdotal evidence of phr benefits and satisfaction for patients, more research is needed to evaluate the results of phr implementations. Their in-depth analysis of the literature signalled that there is little solid evidence from randomized controlled trials or other studies through the use of phr s. Hence, they suggested that more research is needed that addresses the current lack of understanding of optimal functionality and usability of these systems, and how they can play a beneficial role in supporting patient self-management ( Archer et al., 2011 ).

9.3.4. Forms of Aggregative Reviews

Healthcare providers, practitioners, and policy-makers are nowadays overwhelmed with large volumes of information, including research-based evidence from numerous clinical trials and evaluation studies, assessing the effectiveness of health information technologies and interventions ( Ammenwerth & de Keizer, 2004 ; Deshazo et al., 2009 ). It is unrealistic to expect that all these disparate actors will have the time, skills, and necessary resources to identify the available evidence in the area of their expertise and consider it when making decisions. Systematic reviews that involve the rigorous application of scientific strategies aimed at limiting subjectivity and bias (i.e., systematic and random errors) can respond to this challenge.

Systematic reviews attempt to aggregate, appraise, and synthesize in a single source all empirical evidence that meet a set of previously specified eligibility criteria in order to answer a clearly formulated and often narrow research question on a particular topic of interest to support evidence-based practice ( Liberati et al., 2009 ). They adhere closely to explicit scientific principles ( Liberati et al., 2009 ) and rigorous methodological guidelines (Higgins & Green, 2008) aimed at reducing random and systematic errors that can lead to deviations from the truth in results or inferences. The use of explicit methods allows systematic reviews to aggregate a large body of research evidence, assess whether effects or relationships are in the same direction and of the same general magnitude, explain possible inconsistencies between study results, and determine the strength of the overall evidence for every outcome of interest based on the quality of included studies and the general consistency among them ( Cook, Mulrow, & Haynes, 1997 ). The main procedures of a systematic review involve:

• Formulating a review question and developing a search strategy based on explicit inclusion criteria for the identification of eligible studies (usually described in the context of a detailed review protocol).
• Searching for eligible studies using multiple databases and information sources, including grey literature sources, without any language restrictions.
• Selecting studies, extracting data, and assessing risk of bias in a duplicate manner using two independent reviewers to avoid random or systematic errors in the process.
• Analyzing data using quantitative or qualitative methods.
• Presenting results in summary of findings tables.
• Interpreting results and drawing conclusions.

Many systematic reviews, but not all, use statistical methods to combine the results of independent studies into a single quantitative estimate or summary effect size. Known as meta-analyses , these reviews use specific data extraction and statistical techniques (e.g., network, frequentist, or Bayesian meta-analyses) to calculate from each study by outcome of interest an effect size along with a confidence interval that reflects the degree of uncertainty behind the point estimate of effect ( Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009 ; Deeks, Higgins, & Altman, 2008 ). Subsequently, they use fixed or random-effects analysis models to combine the results of the included studies, assess statistical heterogeneity, and calculate a weighted average of the effect estimates from the different studies, taking into account their sample sizes. The summary effect size is a value that reflects the average magnitude of the intervention effect for a particular outcome of interest or, more generally, the strength of a relationship between two variables across all studies included in the systematic review. By statistically combining data from multiple studies, meta-analyses can create more precise and reliable estimates of intervention effects than those derived from individual studies alone, when these are examined independently as discrete sources of information.

The review by Gurol-Urganci, de Jongh, Vodopivec-Jamsek, Atun, and Car (2013) on the effects of mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments is an illustrative example of a high-quality systematic review with meta-analysis. Missed appointments are a major cause of inefficiency in healthcare delivery with substantial monetary costs to health systems. These authors sought to assess whether mobile phone-based appointment reminders delivered through Short Message Service ( sms ) or Multimedia Messaging Service ( mms ) are effective in improving rates of patient attendance and reducing overall costs. To this end, they conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases using highly sensitive search strategies without language or publication-type restrictions to identify all rct s that are eligible for inclusion. In order to minimize the risk of omitting eligible studies not captured by the original search, they supplemented all electronic searches with manual screening of trial registers and references contained in the included studies. Study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments were performed inde­­pen­dently by two coders using standardized methods to ensure consistency and to eliminate potential errors. Findings from eight rct s involving 6,615 participants were pooled into meta-analyses to calculate the magnitude of effects that mobile text message reminders have on the rate of attendance at healthcare appointments compared to no reminders and phone call reminders.

Meta-analyses are regarded as powerful tools for deriving meaningful conclusions. However, there are situations in which it is neither reasonable nor appropriate to pool studies together using meta-analytic methods simply because there is extensive clinical heterogeneity between the included studies or variation in measurement tools, comparisons, or outcomes of interest. In these cases, systematic reviews can use qualitative synthesis methods such as vote counting, content analysis, classification schemes and tabulations, as an alternative approach to narratively synthesize the results of the independent studies included in the review. This form of review is known as qualitative systematic review.

A rigorous example of one such review in the eHealth domain is presented by Mickan, Atherton, Roberts, Heneghan, and Tilson (2014) on the use of handheld computers by healthcare professionals and their impact on access to information and clinical decision-making. In line with the methodological guide­lines for systematic reviews, these authors: (a) developed and registered with prospero ( www.crd.york.ac.uk/ prospero / ) an a priori review protocol; (b) conducted comprehensive searches for eligible studies using multiple databases and other supplementary strategies (e.g., forward searches); and (c) subsequently carried out study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments in a duplicate manner to eliminate potential errors in the review process. Heterogeneity between the included studies in terms of reported outcomes and measures precluded the use of meta-analytic methods. To this end, the authors resorted to using narrative analysis and synthesis to describe the effectiveness of handheld computers on accessing information for clinical knowledge, adherence to safety and clinical quality guidelines, and diagnostic decision-making.

In recent years, the number of systematic reviews in the field of health informatics has increased considerably. Systematic reviews with discordant findings can cause great confusion and make it difficult for decision-makers to interpret the review-level evidence ( Moher, 2013 ). Therefore, there is a growing need for appraisal and synthesis of prior systematic reviews to ensure that decision-making is constantly informed by the best available accumulated evidence. Umbrella reviews , also known as overviews of systematic reviews, are tertiary types of evidence synthesis that aim to accomplish this; that is, they aim to compare and contrast findings from multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses ( Becker & Oxman, 2008 ). Umbrella reviews generally adhere to the same principles and rigorous methodological guidelines used in systematic reviews. However, the unit of analysis in umbrella reviews is the systematic review rather than the primary study ( Becker & Oxman, 2008 ). Unlike systematic reviews that have a narrow focus of inquiry, umbrella reviews focus on broader research topics for which there are several potential interventions ( Smith, Devane, Begley, & Clarke, 2011 ). A recent umbrella review on the effects of home telemonitoring interventions for patients with heart failure critically appraised, compared, and synthesized evidence from 15 systematic reviews to investigate which types of home telemonitoring technologies and forms of interventions are more effective in reducing mortality and hospital admissions ( Kitsiou, Paré, & Jaana, 2015 ).

9.3.5. Realist Reviews

Realist reviews are theory-driven interpretative reviews developed to inform, enhance, or supplement conventional systematic reviews by making sense of heterogeneous evidence about complex interventions applied in diverse contexts in a way that informs policy decision-making ( Greenhalgh, Wong, Westhorp, & Pawson, 2011 ). They originated from criticisms of positivist systematic reviews which centre on their “simplistic” underlying assumptions ( Oates, 2011 ). As explained above, systematic reviews seek to identify causation. Such logic is appropriate for fields like medicine and education where findings of randomized controlled trials can be aggregated to see whether a new treatment or intervention does improve outcomes. However, many argue that it is not possible to establish such direct causal links between interventions and outcomes in fields such as social policy, management, and information systems where for any intervention there is unlikely to be a regular or consistent outcome ( Oates, 2011 ; Pawson, 2006 ; Rousseau, Manning, & Denyer, 2008 ).

To circumvent these limitations, Pawson, Greenhalgh, Harvey, and Walshe (2005) have proposed a new approach for synthesizing knowledge that seeks to unpack the mechanism of how “complex interventions” work in particular contexts. The basic research question — what works? — which is usually associated with systematic reviews changes to: what is it about this intervention that works, for whom, in what circumstances, in what respects and why? Realist reviews have no particular preference for either quantitative or qualitative evidence. As a theory-building approach, a realist review usually starts by articulating likely underlying mechanisms and then scrutinizes available evidence to find out whether and where these mechanisms are applicable ( Shepperd et al., 2009 ). Primary studies found in the extant literature are viewed as case studies which can test and modify the initial theories ( Rousseau et al., 2008 ).

The main objective pursued in the realist review conducted by Otte-Trojel, de Bont, Rundall, and van de Klundert (2014) was to examine how patient portals contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The specific goals were to investigate how outcomes are produced and, most importantly, how variations in outcomes can be explained. The research team started with an exploratory review of background documents and research studies to identify ways in which patient portals may contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The authors identified six main ways which represent “educated guesses” to be tested against the data in the evaluation studies. These studies were identified through a formal and systematic search in four databases between 2003 and 2013. Two members of the research team selected the articles using a pre-established list of inclusion and exclusion criteria and following a two-step procedure. The authors then extracted data from the selected articles and created several tables, one for each outcome category. They organized information to bring forward those mechanisms where patient portals contribute to outcomes and the variation in outcomes across different contexts.

9.3.6. Critical Reviews

Lastly, critical reviews aim to provide a critical evaluation and interpretive analysis of existing literature on a particular topic of interest to reveal strengths, weaknesses, contradictions, controversies, inconsistencies, and/or other important issues with respect to theories, hypotheses, research methods or results ( Baumeister & Leary, 1997 ; Kirkevold, 1997 ). Unlike other review types, critical reviews attempt to take a reflective account of the research that has been done in a particular area of interest, and assess its credibility by using appraisal instruments or critical interpretive methods. In this way, critical reviews attempt to constructively inform other scholars about the weaknesses of prior research and strengthen knowledge development by giving focus and direction to studies for further improvement ( Kirkevold, 1997 ).

Kitsiou, Paré, and Jaana (2013) provide an example of a critical review that assessed the methodological quality of prior systematic reviews of home telemonitoring studies for chronic patients. The authors conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases to identify eligible reviews and subsequently used a validated instrument to conduct an in-depth quality appraisal. Results indicate that the majority of systematic reviews in this particular area suffer from important methodological flaws and biases that impair their internal validity and limit their usefulness for clinical and decision-making purposes. To this end, they provide a number of recommendations to strengthen knowledge development towards improving the design and execution of future reviews on home telemonitoring.

9.4. Summary

Table 9.1 outlines the main types of literature reviews that were described in the previous sub-sections and summarizes the main characteristics that distinguish one review type from another. It also includes key references to methodological guidelines and useful sources that can be used by eHealth scholars and researchers for planning and developing reviews.

Typology of Literature Reviews (adapted from Paré et al., 2015).

As shown in Table 9.1 , each review type addresses different kinds of research questions or objectives, which subsequently define and dictate the methods and approaches that need to be used to achieve the overarching goal(s) of the review. For example, in the case of narrative reviews, there is greater flexibility in searching and synthesizing articles ( Green et al., 2006 ). Researchers are often relatively free to use a diversity of approaches to search, identify, and select relevant scientific articles, describe their operational characteristics, present how the individual studies fit together, and formulate conclusions. On the other hand, systematic reviews are characterized by their high level of systematicity, rigour, and use of explicit methods, based on an “a priori” review plan that aims to minimize bias in the analysis and synthesis process (Higgins & Green, 2008). Some reviews are exploratory in nature (e.g., scoping/mapping reviews), whereas others may be conducted to discover patterns (e.g., descriptive reviews) or involve a synthesis approach that may include the critical analysis of prior research ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Hence, in order to select the most appropriate type of review, it is critical to know before embarking on a review project, why the research synthesis is conducted and what type of methods are best aligned with the pursued goals.

9.5. Concluding Remarks

In light of the increased use of evidence-based practice and research generating stronger evidence ( Grady et al., 2011 ; Lyden et al., 2013 ), review articles have become essential tools for summarizing, synthesizing, integrating or critically appraising prior knowledge in the eHealth field. As mentioned earlier, when rigorously conducted review articles represent powerful information sources for eHealth scholars and practitioners looking for state-of-the-art evidence. The typology of literature reviews we used herein will allow eHealth researchers, graduate students and practitioners to gain a better understanding of the similarities and differences between review types.

We must stress that this classification scheme does not privilege any specific type of review as being of higher quality than another ( Paré et al., 2015 ). As explained above, each type of review has its own strengths and limitations. Having said that, we realize that the methodological rigour of any review — be it qualitative, quantitative or mixed — is a critical aspect that should be considered seriously by prospective authors. In the present context, the notion of rigour refers to the reliability and validity of the review process described in section 9.2. For one thing, reliability is related to the reproducibility of the review process and steps, which is facilitated by a comprehensive documentation of the literature search process, extraction, coding and analysis performed in the review. Whether the search is comprehensive or not, whether it involves a methodical approach for data extraction and synthesis or not, it is important that the review documents in an explicit and transparent manner the steps and approach that were used in the process of its development. Next, validity characterizes the degree to which the review process was conducted appropriately. It goes beyond documentation and reflects decisions related to the selection of the sources, the search terms used, the period of time covered, the articles selected in the search, and the application of backward and forward searches ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). In short, the rigour of any review article is reflected by the explicitness of its methods (i.e., transparency) and the soundness of the approach used. We refer those interested in the concepts of rigour and quality to the work of Templier and Paré (2015) which offers a detailed set of methodological guidelines for conducting and evaluating various types of review articles.

To conclude, our main objective in this chapter was to demystify the various types of literature reviews that are central to the continuous development of the eHealth field. It is our hope that our descriptive account will serve as a valuable source for those conducting, evaluating or using reviews in this important and growing domain.

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• Cite this Page Paré G, Kitsiou S. Chapter 9 Methods for Literature Reviews. In: Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.
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In this Page

• Introduction
• Overview of the Literature Review Process and Steps
• Types of Review Articles and Brief Illustrations
• Concluding Remarks

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What is a literature review?

What are Literature Reviews?

Literature reviews examine scholarly literature surrounding a subject-area, topic, or historical event. Literature reviews typically synthesize popular academic arguments, spanning multiple viewpoints. They often explore common trends, themes, and arguments, examining how perceptions of an event have changed over time. However, literature reviews are more than historiographies. Literature reviews should evaluate sources, determining common argumentative flaws. They should also identify knowledge-gaps in the field. You should not make a new argument in your literature review. However, you should evaluate the legitimacy of current sources and arguments. 

An example literature review, from the University of West Florida, is attached below:

How Should I Write My Literature Review? 

• Literature reviews on your subject likely already exist. Before writing your literature review, you should examine pre-existing ones. This process will quickly familiarize you with prominent themes, arguments, and sources in your field.
• Once you are familiar with influential arguments and sources, you should begin organizing your literature review. Literature reviews are organized by ideas, not sources. You should align your sources to popular arguments, evaluating the similarities and differences between these arguments. Ideally, you should examine how the scholarly conversation has changed over time. What aspects of the conversation have become more important? What arguments have fallen out of favor? Why has this happened? 
• The introduction should briefly introduce common themes, and foreshadow your organizational strategy.
• The "body" of your literature review should analyze sources and arguments.
• Finally, the conclusion should identify gaps in the scholarly conversation, and summarize your findings. Where is further research needed?
• Like a research paper, your literature review should include a bibliography. 

For more information on literature reviews, including more tips on writing them, visit the link below:

Literature Review: Conducting & Writing  by the  University of West Florida Library

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