Literature Reviews

A literature review is a comprehensive summary of existing research on a topic combined with a critical examination of the various philosophies, theories, and/or methods that have been applied to that topic over time. The literature review examines a representative selection of scholarly articles, books, and other relevant sources to reveal established theories and trends, patterns, arguments, unresolved issues, and emergent developments in the field. The literature review may be organized by theme, methodology, time period, theory, movement, notable individuals, or other relevant system of organization.

A literature review is often the first step in a research project and may stand alone or be included in a larger work such as a scholarly article or dissertation. It can help you to gain a deep understanding of your topic, which in turn helps you develop research questions that may ultimately transform into a thesis.

A literature review reveals: 

• What questions are routinely considered and how they are analyzed.
• How the understanding and interpretation of a topic has changed over time.
• What questions have been neglected or under-represented in the scholarly literature.

In addition, a literature review can:

• Help you to avoid reinventing the wheel by discovering the research already conducted on a topic.
• Set the background on what has been explored on a topic so far Increases your breadth of knowledge in your area of research.
• Help you identify seminal works in your area.
• Allow you to provide the intellectual context for your work and position your research with other, related research.
• Provides you with opposing viewpoints
• Help you to discover research methods which may be applicable to your work.

Source: Greenfield, T. (2002). Research methods for postgraduates. 2nd ed. London: Arnold.

The other tabs on this page will help you learn how to research and write a literature review and how to find professional literature reviews in library databases.