Learn how to write a review of literature.

What is a review of literature?

The format of a review of literature may vary from discipline to discipline and from
assignment to assignment.
A review may be a self-contained unit -- an end in itself -- or a preface to and rationale for
engaging in primary research. A review is a required part of grant and research proposals and
often a chapter in theses and dissertations.
Generally, the purpose of a review is to analyze critically a segment of a published body of
knowledge through summary, classification, and comparison of prior research studies,
reviews of literature, and theoretical articles.

Writing the introduction

In the introduction, you should:

Define or identify the general topic, issue, or area of concern, thus providing an
appropriate context for reviewing the literature.

Point out overall trends in what has been published about the topic; or conflicts in
theory, methodology, evidence, and conclusions; or gaps in research and scholarship;
or a single problem or new perspective of immediate interest.

Establish the writer's reason (point of view) for reviewing the literature; explain the
criteria to be used in analyzing and comparing literature and the organization of the
review (sequence); and, when necessary, state why certain literature is or is not
included (scope).

Writing the body

In the body, you should:

Group research studies and other types of literature (reviews, theoretical articles, case
studies, etc.) according to common denominators such as qualitative versus
quantitative approaches, conclusions of authors, specific purpose or objective,
chronology, etc.

Summarize individual studies or articles with as much or as little detail as each merits
according to its comparative importance in the literature, remembering that space
(length) denotes significance.

Provide the reader with strong "umbrella" sentences at beginnings of paragraphs,

"signposts" throughout, and brief "so what" summary sentences at intermediate points
in the review to aid in understanding comparisons and analyses.

Writing the conclusion

In the conclusion, you should:

Summarize major contributions of significant studies and articles to the body of

knowledge under review, maintaining the focus established in the introduction.

Evaluate the current "state of the art" for the body of knowledge reviewed, pointing
out major methodological flaws or gaps in research, inconsistencies in theory and
findings, and areas or issues pertinent to future study.

Conclude by providing some insight into the relationship between the central topic of
the literature review and a larger area of study such as a discipline, a scientific
endeavor, or a profession.

Doing a literature review

What is a literature review?
It is a critical and evaluative account of what has been
published on a chosen research topic.
Its purpose is to summarise, synthesise and analyse the arguments of others.
(It is not an academic research paper, the main purpose of which is to support your own
argument.)
You should describe and analyse the knowledge that exists and
what gaps occur in research related to your field of interest. (This
should clarify the relationship between your own research and the work
that has previously been done.)
It should reveal similarities and differences, consistencies and inconsistencies and
controversies in previous research.

What it is not
It is not primarily an argument for the importance of what it is you are researching. While it is
necessary to explain what is the primary purpose of your research, the reader of a literature
review will assume that the need for undertaking the research has already been established.
It is not a descriptive list of papers or summaries. You must not just list your sources and
describe them in detail one at a time.
A literature review is organised around ideas, not the sources themselves as an annotated
bibliography would be organised. You should assess previous studies and discuss their
strengths and weaknesses. You also have to think about which themes and issues your
sources have in common.

The approaches needed for different disciplines

It is important to note that certain disciplines will have a different approach to literature
reviews. Your department may have particular preferences so you should always make sure
that you have consulted your supervisor before you start work.
Science and engineering have fairly rigid conventions for reporting on research. They can
have a specific structure e.g. introduction, background followed by methodology
results and discussion. This is known as an explicit literature review.
Social science literature reviews often follow a similar pattern to science and engineering
literature reviews although some social sciences e.g. anthropology may have a less explicit
approach.

Who should you ask?

It may not be possible to survey every person who could provide a useful response to your
questionnaire. In such cases, you will need to choose a sample from your population to
survey.
Political science literature reviews may have to include a section which establishes basic
premises and has definitions of certain terms and models.
Literary and historical literature reviews do not have a single convention. In
contemporary literary studies an explicit chapter may not be needed. The researcher may
be taking a new theoretical approach to material which has already been studied before.

Approaching your literature review

There are five stages to your literature review:
1. Find models
2. Problem formulation which topic is under consideration and what are the constituent
issues?
3. Literature search
4. Evaluation of findings
5. Analysis and interpretation of literature
1 Find models
Look for other literature reviews in your discipline and read them to get an idea of the types
of themes
you might want to include in your research or ways in which you could organise your final
review.
You can do a database search to find models put the words literature review along with
your
keywords to retrieve references to articles of this type
2 Problem formulation
You should try to construct a working statement that will form the basis of your literature
review. The
statement does not have to argue for a position or an opinion. It will rather argue for a
particular slant
on the material.
3 Literature search
The literature search will help you identify scope and key issues. Efficient searching will help
you:
Identify which authors are interested in your specialism and those who take a generalists
view.
Trace authors who are prominent in your subject and who can help you justify the
importance of your research idea.
Include the authors would or could contradict your ideas.
4 Evaluation of findings
Reading research articles is different from other types of reading. You must develop a good
understanding of the research literature to be able to write a competent literature review.
Understanding the literature requires you to read, re-read and assimilate complex ideas.
Read the easier articles first
Difficult or badly written articles will probably be easier to understand if you read them last
when you have gained familiarity with your subject. 3

Scan the article

For the preliminary scan, dont read the articles closely so as to avoid getting mired in detail.
It may help to note down the key points for each article.
When reading you should keep the following in mind:
What are the authors academic reputation?
Identify the research question and the specific hypotheses, the findings and how the
findings were interpreted.
Are the authors objective or does their work appear to have a particular bias?
Is contrary data considered and discussed or is it ignored?
5 Analysis and interpretation of the literature
After you have an idea of the main ideas in each article, identify the precise methods used
and the
theories tested. When you are comparing the work of a number of researchers some of
whom have a
different take on the problems of the research question, you will need to have an in-depth
understanding of their work.
A close reading may reveal differences in theoretical outlook.
How do different authors cite the same work?. One author may explain the method of an
earlier
study, describe its results in great detail and cite it repeatedly while Another may give it only
a
passing reference.
Allow enough time
Before you can write about your research project you must have evaluated the existing
literature
properly so do allow yourself sufficient time to do this.

Writing the Literature Review

Number of articles reviewed
Published review articles may contain more than a hundred studies.
You may wish to consult your supervisor about how far you should go
back in time and how many articles you want to include.
Organisation
There are a number of different approaches to organising a literature
review so again do consult your supervisor before beginning the work.
You could use the following method:
Introduce your research question (what it is, why it is worth
examining)
Narrow research question to the studies discussed
Briefly outline the organisation of the paper. If there is a major controversy, describe it and
explain that you will present research supporting one side and then the other.
Or, if three methodologies have been used to address a question, briefly describe them
and say that you will compare the results obtained by the three methods
Describe studies in detail
Compare and evaluate studies
Discuss the implications of the studies and how you intend to build on them
Conclusion/Recommendations
Discuss what you have learned from reviewing literature so far and where the research
lead? After
reading your review your reader should be convinced that your proposed research project
will play a
necessary role in furthering knowledge in your field.4

Further reading
A link to books on literature searching can be found at:http://www.lboro.ac.uk/library/skills/literature-search.html
You may also wish to consult your Academic Librarian if you are having trouble locating
literature on
your topic. See http://www.lboro.ac.uk/library/about/StaffList.html for details.
All study advice sheets are available to view and download on the following website:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/library/skills/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Academic Services
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Critically Reviewing the Literature

AIM AND INTRODUCTION

Before any research planning or data collection takes place it is of central

importance to ensure that you have adequately reviewed the literature relevant to
your research question. The main reasons why you need to do this can be
summarised as :

To gain a full and in-depth understanding of a subject.

To see if your intended research subject has been done before and avoid
duplication.

To avoid any errors made in similar research.

To enable you to place your study within its context (ie so that you can show
how your research will add to the existing sum of knowledge).

To provide you with ideas to help you define or amend your own research
topic.

To provide you with information with which to compare and contrast your
findings.

Some of the key issues you need to evaluate about an article have usefully been
summarised by the American Psychological Association (1983) as follows :

Is the research question significant and is the work original and important?

Have the instruments used been demonstrated as reliable and valid?

Do the outcome measures relate clearly to the variables with which the
investigation is concerned?

Does the research design fully test the hypothesis?

Are the subjects representative of the population to which generalisations are

made?

Did the researcher observe ethical rules?

Has the research reached such a stage that publication is justified and the
results are meaningful?

To some extent your ability to review articles is something that requires practice and
experience. However, the process can be aided by following a checklist of things to
look out for and comparing the paper under review to the criteria. In its simplest form
Bradford Hill (1965) cited by Hawkins (1985) suggested the following key questions
should be asked about each section of a paper :
Introduction .......................... Why did they start the research?
Methods ............................... What did they do?
Results .................................. What did they find?
Discussion ............................. What do the results mean?
A more detailed checklist of points to look out for is now given section by section
below.
NB Do bear in mind that the type of research (quantitative or qualitative) will effect
the information you are evaluating. Some of the issues mentioned below may not be
applicable to all research studies but the general principles will apply.

Title
A minor issue this one, but it is helpful if the title is succinct but descriptive of the
article content. Gimmicky or catchy titles are all very well but do they enable you to
tell what the article is about? Of course a poor title does not necessarily indicate a
poor paper and certainly isn't a key criterion in assessing the quality of a paper.

Author
Some idea of the author(s) academic background can be gained by looking at their
job title, qualifications, and where they work. Articles normally provide this basic
information and it may give you an indication of the ability of the writers to carry out
valid research. If you know them to be acknowledged experts in the subject area
covered then there is good chance the research work will be of high standard
(though it would be dangerous to assume this without further critical review of the
paper!)

Abstract
This should provide a handy summary of the content with indications of the aims,
methods, results and importance of the study. Muir Gray (2001, p.107-8) suggests
reading abstracts is an excellent way to "identify junk" but he also makes the valid
point that abstracts are often written with a bias towards highlighting the positive
aspects of the research. If the findings are noted as positive then carefully check the
methods used (negative findings may perhaps give an indication of lack of bias but
you still need to be check). The abstract can, therefore, give an indication of how
well the study was conducted and whether it is worth reading.

Source
An assessment of where the article was published should give some clues as to its
potential value. The key issue is whether it is a peer reviewed journal. In other words
do articles submitted to the journal go through a rigorous review process before they
are accepted for publication. Some journals are undoubtedly less fastidious about
having articles assessed before publication.

Introduction
This section is where the research problem/ clinical question should be defined
clearly. You should expect to find here clear descriptions of the research aims, an
outline of theoretical issues and the hypothesis should be introduced. Information
should include the current state of knowledge about the research topic and an
indication of the gaps in knowledge which the current study will hope to fill. Overall
you should get an answer to the question "why was the research done?"

Literature Review
Here you will find a survey of current knowledge highlighted by a thorough review of
the existing literature. The review should indicate any theoretical implications of the
research in relation to previous work. The review should include up to date
references and be based on as wide and thorough a search of sources as possible.
A key issue is whether researchers have been unbiased and have presented any
evidence which actually contradicts their own ideas.

Methodology
This section should provide a clear and concise account of methods used. Such
detail should be sufficient to allow the research to be replicated by other
researchers. The study design and data collection methods should be clearly
outlined. Overall you should be able to assess how the research was done. The
methods sections may be divided as follows:
a) subjects
The participants, the test conditions and procedures for experimental and control
groups should be described in detail. This should enable you to assess whether the
sample selection method was valid. You would expect information on the number of
subjects and who took part. A small sample may be fine as long as it is
representative and numbers will generally be smaller for qualitative studies.
However, it may be that a large sample size is needed to provide a representative
group size and small numbers may have an impact on the power of statistical
analysis (Polgar & Thomas, 2000, p.278). The type of research will obviously impact
greatly on the information you should be looking for. For example, in the case of a
study using a randomised controlled trial, there should be information on the method
for randomising the allocation of subjects to experimental and control groups.
Any ethical issues should be clearly stated and explained. You would expect to learn
that the study had been through ethical committee clearance and that the
confidentiality and anonymity of subjects has been assured.
b) Apparatus or Instruments
Any special equipment or instruments (e.g. questionnaires, standardised
assessments) should be described. The validity and reliability of apparatus or
instruments needs to be indicated. In other words the adequacy and
appropriateness of the methods used for collecting data should be made clear.
c) Procedures
What happened in the experiment and the steps executed should be described
here. The treatments and settings should be outlined and a reputable researcher
should detail any flaws in the procedures or any other factors adversely effecting the
research work. In simple terms, what was done and how it was done should be
recorded here.

Results
The results section reports what has been discovered as a result of the research
undertaken. The normal format is for the results of the research to be reported
factually and formally without discussion and then for a prose summary to be given
of the statistics etc. Other results including summary statistics may usefully be

presented in tables or figures which, if they are well constructed, should aid
understanding of the findings. Any statistical tests and measures used should be
described allowing the reader to evaluate whether the appropriate tests were
applied. A good researcher should mention all the relevant results, even those that
actually go against the hypothesis.

Discussion
The issues raised by the findings should be discussed and resolved in this section.
A good discussion section will relate the findings back to the literature and to the
aims of the research as outlined in the introduction. The author is expected to
examine, interpret and qualify the results and draw any inferences from them. It
should be possible to assess the contribution made by the study and decide how far
it has helped to resolve the original problem.

Conclusion and recommendations

The paper should end with some conclusions about the importance (or otherwise) of
the findings. The author should not make any statements here which are not
supported by the facts found. Some speculation is acceptable but only if it is
described as such and does relate logically to the data or theoretical basis of the
study. Recommendations on the basis of the findings are often stated here and may
include comments on possible improvements to the research or future areas for
more study.

References and bibliography

Consistent citing of references is a sign of good practice here. The list should be
appropriately extensive and up-to-date. The separation of citations into References
(ie papers actually referred to in the text) and Bibliography (other material read to
support the research but not directly cited or quoted) is normal practice.

FURTHER POINTS

Apart from the above criteria, one of the key criticisms often levelled at research
papers is their use of stilted language and impenetrable jargon. A certain amount of
academic "posturing" is not unknown and the results (even if important) may be
submerged under a welter of statistics only comprehensible to a professor of
mathematics! Having said that, most articles will, not unreasonably, assume that the
reader should have some background knowledge of research terminology and
methods, including statistics.
A good paper should be well-written and readable, with a sound structure,
presentation and a logical sequence. Overall it should have an appropriate
intellectual level and provide evidence of at least some originality.
Further useful information on this topic can be found via the following links: