The IB Extended Essay: Managing your research project

2.2 What is a literature review?

In some subjects it might be appropriate to include an overview of what has already been written
on your research topic. This helps to identify the context of your argument and shows how your
writing fits into the wider debate on the issues. This overview is known as a literature review.

There are a few important things to remember when writing a literature review:
 Your review should critically analyse previous research on the subject.
 A review will outline and identify any key trends, concepts or developments in the subject
area.
 A literature review is organised and structured to show how writing on a topic has changed
over a period of time, or how different approaches have been more influential at each stage
of writing.
 You should show how you are engaging with the reading you have done by evaluating the
existing scholarship on the topic.
 Your literature review allows you to position your own argument in relation to what has
been said before and identify pieces of influential work or arguments you have discarded.
 A literature review analyses the materials you have read for your essay rather than just
listing them.

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