format of literature review

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Don't submit your assignments before you do this

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students. Free citation check included.

Try for free

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved June 11, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, what is a theoretical framework | guide to organizing, what is a research methodology | steps & tips, how to write a research proposal | examples & templates, get unlimited documents corrected.

✔ Free APA citation check included ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

Get science-backed answers as you write with Paperpal's Research feature

What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of literature review? 
• a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction: 
• b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes: 
• c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs: 
• d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts: 

How to write a good literature review 

• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal? 
• Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review?

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

What is the purpose of literature review?

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

1. Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 

2. Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field. 

Find academic papers related to your research topic faster. Try Research on Paperpal  

3. Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 

4. Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 

5. Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 

6. Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

Strengthen your literature review with factual insights. Try Research on Paperpal for free!    

Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

Write and Cite as you go with Paperpal Research. Start now for free.   

Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

Whether you’re exploring a new research field or finding new angles to develop an existing topic, sifting through hundreds of papers can take more time than you have to spare. But what if you could find science-backed insights with verified citations in seconds? That’s the power of Paperpal’s new Research feature!  

How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal?

Paperpal, an AI writing assistant, integrates powerful academic search capabilities within its writing platform. With the Research feature, you get 100% factual insights, with citations backed by 250M+ verified research articles, directly within your writing interface with the option to save relevant references in your Citation Library. By eliminating the need to switch tabs to find answers to all your research questions, Paperpal saves time and helps you stay focused on your writing.   

Here’s how to use the Research feature:  

• Ask a question: Get started with a new document on paperpal.com. Click on the “Research” feature and type your question in plain English. Paperpal will scour over 250 million research articles, including conference papers and preprints, to provide you with accurate insights and citations. 
• Review and Save: Paperpal summarizes the information, while citing sources and listing relevant reads. You can quickly scan the results to identify relevant references and save these directly to your built-in citations library for later access. 
• Cite with Confidence: Paperpal makes it easy to incorporate relevant citations and references into your writing, ensuring your arguments are well-supported by credible sources. This translates to a polished, well-researched literature review. 

The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a good literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. By combining effortless research with an easy citation process, Paperpal Research streamlines the literature review process and empowers you to write faster and with more confidence. Try Paperpal Research now and see for yourself.  

Frequently asked questions

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

Paperpal is an AI writing assistant that help academics write better, faster with real-time suggestions for in-depth language and grammar correction. Trained on millions of research manuscripts enhanced by professional academic editors, Paperpal delivers human precision at machine speed.  

Try it for free or upgrade to  Paperpal Prime , which unlocks unlimited access to premium features like academic translation, paraphrasing, contextual synonyms, consistency checks and more. It’s like always having a professional academic editor by your side! Go beyond limitations and experience the future of academic writing.  Get Paperpal Prime now at just US$19 a month!

Related Reads:

• Empirical Research: A Comprehensive Guide for Academics 
• How to Write a Scientific Paper in 10 Steps 
• How Long Should a Chapter Be?
• How to Use Paperpal to Generate Emails & Cover Letters?

6 Tips for Post-Doc Researchers to Take Their Career to the Next Level

Self-plagiarism in research: what it is and how to avoid it, you may also like, addressing peer review feedback and mastering manuscript revisions..., how paperpal can boost comprehension and foster interdisciplinary..., what is the importance of a concept paper..., how to write the first draft of a..., mla works cited page: format, template & examples, how to ace grant writing for research funding..., powerful academic phrases to improve your essay writing , how to write a high-quality conference paper, how paperpal’s research feature helps you develop and..., how paperpal is enhancing academic productivity and accelerating....

• UWF Libraries

Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

• Sample Literature Reviews
• Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
• Finding "The Literature"
• Organizing/Writing
• APA Style This link opens in a new window
• Chicago: Notes Bibliography This link opens in a new window
• MLA Style This link opens in a new window

Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts

Have an exemplary literature review.

• Literature Review Sample 1
• Literature Review Sample 2
• Literature Review Sample 3

Have you written a stellar literature review you care to share for teaching purposes?

Are you an instructor who has received an exemplary literature review and have permission from the student to post?

Please contact Britt McGowan at [email protected] for inclusion in this guide. All disciplines welcome and encouraged.

• << Previous: MLA Style
• Next: Get Help! >>
• Last Updated: Mar 22, 2024 9:37 AM
• URL: https://libguides.uwf.edu/litreview

• Resources Home 🏠
• Try SciSpace Copilot
• Search research papers
• Add Copilot Extension
• Try AI Detector
• Try Paraphraser
• Try Citation Generator
• April Papers
• June Papers
• July Papers

How To Write A Literature Review - A Complete Guide

Table of Contents

A literature review is much more than just another section in your research paper. It forms the very foundation of your research. It is a formal piece of writing where you analyze the existing theoretical framework, principles, and assumptions and use that as a base to shape your approach to the research question.

Curating and drafting a solid literature review section not only lends more credibility to your research paper but also makes your research tighter and better focused. But, writing literature reviews is a difficult task. It requires extensive reading, plus you have to consider market trends and technological and political changes, which tend to change in the blink of an eye.

Now streamline your literature review process with the help of SciSpace Copilot. With this AI research assistant, you can efficiently synthesize and analyze a vast amount of information, identify key themes and trends, and uncover gaps in the existing research. Get real-time explanations, summaries, and answers to your questions for the paper you're reviewing, making navigating and understanding the complex literature landscape easier.

In this comprehensive guide, we will explore everything from the definition of a literature review, its appropriate length, various types of literature reviews, and how to write one.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a collation of survey, research, critical evaluation, and assessment of the existing literature in a preferred domain.

Eminent researcher and academic Arlene Fink, in her book Conducting Research Literature Reviews , defines it as the following:

“A literature review surveys books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated.

Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic, and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of study.”

Simply put, a literature review can be defined as a critical discussion of relevant pre-existing research around your research question and carving out a definitive place for your study in the existing body of knowledge. Literature reviews can be presented in multiple ways: a section of an article, the whole research paper itself, or a chapter of your thesis.

A literature review does function as a summary of sources, but it also allows you to analyze further, interpret, and examine the stated theories, methods, viewpoints, and, of course, the gaps in the existing content.

As an author, you can discuss and interpret the research question and its various aspects and debate your adopted methods to support the claim.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

A literature review is meant to help your readers understand the relevance of your research question and where it fits within the existing body of knowledge. As a researcher, you should use it to set the context, build your argument, and establish the need for your study.

What is the importance of a literature review?

The literature review is a critical part of research papers because it helps you:

• Gain an in-depth understanding of your research question and the surrounding area
• Convey that you have a thorough understanding of your research area and are up-to-date with the latest changes and advancements
• Establish how your research is connected or builds on the existing body of knowledge and how it could contribute to further research
• Elaborate on the validity and suitability of your theoretical framework and research methodology
• Identify and highlight gaps and shortcomings in the existing body of knowledge and how things need to change
• Convey to readers how your study is different or how it contributes to the research area

How long should a literature review be?

Ideally, the literature review should take up 15%-40% of the total length of your manuscript. So, if you have a 10,000-word research paper, the minimum word count could be 1500.

Your literature review format depends heavily on the kind of manuscript you are writing — an entire chapter in case of doctoral theses, a part of the introductory section in a research article, to a full-fledged review article that examines the previously published research on a topic.

Another determining factor is the type of research you are doing. The literature review section tends to be longer for secondary research projects than primary research projects.

What are the different types of literature reviews?

All literature reviews are not the same. There are a variety of possible approaches that you can take. It all depends on the type of research you are pursuing.

Here are the different types of literature reviews:

Argumentative review

It is called an argumentative review when you carefully present literature that only supports or counters a specific argument or premise to establish a viewpoint.

Integrative review

It is a type of literature review focused on building a comprehensive understanding of a topic by combining available theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence.

Methodological review

This approach delves into the ''how'' and the ''what" of the research question —  you cannot look at the outcome in isolation; you should also review the methodology used.

Systematic review

This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research and collect, report, and analyze data from the studies included in the review.

Meta-analysis review

Meta-analysis uses statistical methods to summarize the results of independent studies. By combining information from all relevant studies, meta-analysis can provide more precise estimates of the effects than those derived from the individual studies included within a review.

Historical review

Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, or phenomenon emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and identify future research's likely directions.

Theoretical Review

This form aims to examine the corpus of theory accumulated regarding an issue, concept, theory, and phenomenon. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories exist, the relationships between them, the degree the existing approaches have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested.

Scoping Review

The Scoping Review is often used at the beginning of an article, dissertation, or research proposal. It is conducted before the research to highlight gaps in the existing body of knowledge and explains why the project should be greenlit.

State-of-the-Art Review

The State-of-the-Art review is conducted periodically, focusing on the most recent research. It describes what is currently known, understood, or agreed upon regarding the research topic and highlights where there are still disagreements.

Can you use the first person in a literature review?

When writing literature reviews, you should avoid the usage of first-person pronouns. It means that instead of "I argue that" or "we argue that," the appropriate expression would be "this research paper argues that."

Do you need an abstract for a literature review?

Ideally, yes. It is always good to have a condensed summary that is self-contained and independent of the rest of your review. As for how to draft one, you can follow the same fundamental idea when preparing an abstract for a literature review. It should also include:

• The research topic and your motivation behind selecting it
• A one-sentence thesis statement
• An explanation of the kinds of literature featured in the review
• Summary of what you've learned
• Conclusions you drew from the literature you reviewed
• Potential implications and future scope for research

Here's an example of the abstract of a literature review

Is a literature review written in the past tense?

Yes, the literature review should ideally be written in the past tense. You should not use the present or future tense when writing one. The exceptions are when you have statements describing events that happened earlier than the literature you are reviewing or events that are currently occurring; then, you can use the past perfect or present perfect tenses.

How many sources for a literature review?

There are multiple approaches to deciding how many sources to include in a literature review section. The first approach would be to look level you are at as a researcher. For instance, a doctoral thesis might need 60+ sources. In contrast, you might only need to refer to 5-15 sources at the undergraduate level.

The second approach is based on the kind of literature review you are doing — whether it is merely a chapter of your paper or if it is a self-contained paper in itself. When it is just a chapter, sources should equal the total number of pages in your article's body. In the second scenario, you need at least three times as many sources as there are pages in your work.

Quick tips on how to write a literature review

To know how to write a literature review, you must clearly understand its impact and role in establishing your work as substantive research material.

You need to follow the below-mentioned steps, to write a literature review:

• Outline the purpose behind the literature review
• Search relevant literature
• Examine and assess the relevant resources
• Discover connections by drawing deep insights from the resources
• Structure planning to write a good literature review

1. Outline and identify the purpose of  a literature review

As a first step on how to write a literature review, you must know what the research question or topic is and what shape you want your literature review to take. Ensure you understand the research topic inside out, or else seek clarifications. You must be able to the answer below questions before you start:

• How many sources do I need to include?
• What kind of sources should I analyze?
• How much should I critically evaluate each source?
• Should I summarize, synthesize or offer a critique of the sources?
• Do I need to include any background information or definitions?

Additionally, you should know that the narrower your research topic is, the swifter it will be for you to restrict the number of sources to be analyzed.

2. Search relevant literature

Dig deeper into search engines to discover what has already been published around your chosen topic. Make sure you thoroughly go through appropriate reference sources like books, reports, journal articles, government docs, and web-based resources.

You must prepare a list of keywords and their different variations. You can start your search from any library’s catalog, provided you are an active member of that institution. The exact keywords can be extended to widen your research over other databases and academic search engines like:

• Google Scholar
• Microsoft Academic
• Science.gov

Besides, it is not advisable to go through every resource word by word. Alternatively, what you can do is you can start by reading the abstract and then decide whether that source is relevant to your research or not.

Additionally, you must spend surplus time assessing the quality and relevance of resources. It would help if you tried preparing a list of citations to ensure that there lies no repetition of authors, publications, or articles in the literature review.

3. Examine and assess the sources

It is nearly impossible for you to go through every detail in the research article. So rather than trying to fetch every detail, you have to analyze and decide which research sources resemble closest and appear relevant to your chosen domain.

While analyzing the sources, you should look to find out answers to questions like:

• What question or problem has the author been describing and debating?
• What is the definition of critical aspects?
• How well the theories, approach, and methodology have been explained?
• Whether the research theory used some conventional or new innovative approach?
• How relevant are the key findings of the work?
• In what ways does it relate to other sources on the same topic?
• What challenges does this research paper pose to the existing theory
• What are the possible contributions or benefits it adds to the subject domain?

Be always mindful that you refer only to credible and authentic resources. It would be best if you always take references from different publications to validate your theory.

Always keep track of important information or data you can present in your literature review right from the beginning. It will help steer your path from any threats of plagiarism and also make it easier to curate an annotated bibliography or reference section.

4. Discover connections

At this stage, you must start deciding on the argument and structure of your literature review. To accomplish this, you must discover and identify the relations and connections between various resources while drafting your abstract.

A few aspects that you should be aware of while writing a literature review include:

• Rise to prominence: Theories and methods that have gained reputation and supporters over time.
• Constant scrutiny: Concepts or theories that repeatedly went under examination.
• Contradictions and conflicts: Theories, both the supporting and the contradictory ones, for the research topic.
• Knowledge gaps: What exactly does it fail to address, and how to bridge them with further research?
• Influential resources: Significant research projects available that have been upheld as milestones or perhaps, something that can modify the current trends

Once you join the dots between various past research works, it will be easier for you to draw a conclusion and identify your contribution to the existing knowledge base.

5. Structure planning to write a good literature review

There exist different ways towards planning and executing the structure of a literature review. The format of a literature review varies and depends upon the length of the research.

Like any other research paper, the literature review format must contain three sections: introduction, body, and conclusion. The goals and objectives of the research question determine what goes inside these three sections.

Nevertheless, a good literature review can be structured according to the chronological, thematic, methodological, or theoretical framework approach.

Literature review samples

1. Standalone

2. As a section of a research paper

How SciSpace Discover makes literature review a breeze?

SciSpace Discover is a one-stop solution to do an effective literature search and get barrier-free access to scientific knowledge. It is an excellent repository where you can find millions of only peer-reviewed articles and full-text PDF files. Here’s more on how you can use it:

Find the right information

Find what you want quickly and easily with comprehensive search filters that let you narrow down papers according to PDF availability, year of publishing, document type, and affiliated institution. Moreover, you can sort the results based on the publishing date, citation count, and relevance.

Assess credibility of papers quickly

When doing the literature review, it is critical to establish the quality of your sources. They form the foundation of your research. SciSpace Discover helps you assess the quality of a source by providing an overview of its references, citations, and performance metrics.

Get the complete picture in no time

SciSpace Discover’s personalized suggestion engine helps you stay on course and get the complete picture of the topic from one place. Every time you visit an article page, it provides you links to related papers. Besides that, it helps you understand what’s trending, who are the top authors, and who are the leading publishers on a topic.

Make referring sources super easy

To ensure you don't lose track of your sources, you must start noting down your references when doing the literature review. SciSpace Discover makes this step effortless. Click the 'cite' button on an article page, and you will receive preloaded citation text in multiple styles — all you've to do is copy-paste it into your manuscript.

Final tips on how to write a literature review

A massive chunk of time and effort is required to write a good literature review. But, if you go about it systematically, you'll be able to save a ton of time and build a solid foundation for your research.

We hope this guide has helped you answer several key questions you have about writing literature reviews.

Would you like to explore SciSpace Discover and kick off your literature search right away? You can get started here .

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. how to start a literature review.

• What questions do you want to answer?

• What sources do you need to answer these questions?

• What information do these sources contain?

• How can you use this information to answer your questions?

2. What to include in a literature review?

• A brief background of the problem or issue

• What has previously been done to address the problem or issue

• A description of what you will do in your project

• How this study will contribute to research on the subject

3. Why literature review is important?

The literature review is an important part of any research project because it allows the writer to look at previous studies on a topic and determine existing gaps in the literature, as well as what has already been done. It will also help them to choose the most appropriate method for their own study.

4. How to cite a literature review in APA format?

To cite a literature review in APA style, you need to provide the author's name, the title of the article, and the year of publication. For example: Patel, A. B., & Stokes, G. S. (2012). The relationship between personality and intelligence: A meta-analysis of longitudinal research. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(1), 16-21

5. What are the components of a literature review?

• A brief introduction to the topic, including its background and context. The introduction should also include a rationale for why the study is being conducted and what it will accomplish.

• A description of the methodologies used in the study. This can include information about data collection methods, sample size, and statistical analyses.

• A presentation of the findings in an organized format that helps readers follow along with the author's conclusions.

6. What are common errors in writing literature review?

• Not spending enough time to critically evaluate the relevance of resources, observations and conclusions.

• Totally relying on secondary data while ignoring primary data.

• Letting your personal bias seep into your interpretation of existing literature.

• No detailed explanation of the procedure to discover and identify an appropriate literature review.

7. What are the 5 C's of writing literature review?

• Cite - the sources you utilized and referenced in your research.

• Compare - existing arguments, hypotheses, methodologies, and conclusions found in the knowledge base.

• Contrast - the arguments, topics, methodologies, approaches, and disputes that may be found in the literature.

• Critique - the literature and describe the ideas and opinions you find more convincing and why.

• Connect - the various studies you reviewed in your research.

8. How many sources should a literature review have?

When it is just a chapter, sources should equal the total number of pages in your article's body. if it is a self-contained paper in itself, you need at least three times as many sources as there are pages in your work.

9. Can literature review have diagrams?

• To represent an abstract idea or concept

• To explain the steps of a process or procedure

• To help readers understand the relationships between different concepts

10. How old should sources be in a literature review?

Sources for a literature review should be as current as possible or not older than ten years. The only exception to this rule is if you are reviewing a historical topic and need to use older sources.

11. What are the types of literature review?

• Argumentative review

• Integrative review

• Methodological review

• Systematic review

• Meta-analysis review

• Historical review

• Theoretical review

• Scoping review

• State-of-the-Art review

12. Is a literature review mandatory?

Yes. Literature review is a mandatory part of any research project. It is a critical step in the process that allows you to establish the scope of your research, and provide a background for the rest of your work.

But before you go,

• Six Online Tools for Easy Literature Review
• Evaluating literature review: systematic vs. scoping reviews
• Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review
• Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples

You might also like

Consensus GPT vs. SciSpace GPT: Choose the Best GPT for Research

Literature Review and Theoretical Framework: Understanding the Differences

Types of Essays in Academic Writing - Quick Guide (2024)

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, automatically generate references for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Dissertation
• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Be assured that you'll submit flawless writing. Upload your document to correct all your mistakes.

Table of contents

Why write a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1: search for relevant literature, step 2: evaluate and select sources, step 3: identify themes, debates and gaps, step 4: outline your literature review’s structure, step 5: write your literature review, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Correct my document today

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list if you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models and methods? Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible, and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly-visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat – this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organise your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole.
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources.
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

In the conclusion, you should summarise the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasise their significance.

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarise yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

McCombes, S. (2022, June 07). What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 11 June 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, how to write a dissertation proposal | a step-by-step guide, what is a theoretical framework | a step-by-step guide, what is a research methodology | steps & tips.

The Sheridan Libraries

• Write a Literature Review
• Sheridan Libraries
• Find This link opens in a new window
• Evaluate This link opens in a new window

What Will You Do Differently?

Please help your librarians by filling out this two-minute survey of today's class session..

Professor, this one's for you .

Introduction

Literature reviews take time. here is some general information to know before you start.  .

•  VIDEO -- This video is a great overview of the entire process.  (2020; North Carolina State University Libraries) --The transcript is included --This is for everyone; ignore the mention of "graduate students" --9.5 minutes, and every second is important  
• OVERVIEW -- Read this page from Purdue's OWL. It's not long, and gives some tips to fill in what you just learned from the video.  
• NOT A RESEARCH ARTICLE -- A literature review follows a different style, format, and structure from a research article.  

Steps to Completing a Literature Review

• Next: Find >>
• Last Updated: Sep 26, 2023 10:25 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.jhu.edu/lit-review

Reference management. Clean and simple.

What is a literature review? [with examples]

What is a literature review?

The purpose of a literature review, how to write a literature review, the format of a literature review, general formatting rules, the length of a literature review, literature review examples, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, related articles.

A literature review is an assessment of the sources in a chosen topic of research.

In a literature review, you’re expected to report on the existing scholarly conversation, without adding new contributions.

If you are currently writing one, you've come to the right place. In the following paragraphs, we will explain:

• the objective of a literature review
• how to write a literature review
• the basic format of a literature review

Tip: It’s not always mandatory to add a literature review in a paper. Theses and dissertations often include them, whereas research papers may not. Make sure to consult with your instructor for exact requirements.

The four main objectives of a literature review are:

• Studying the references of your research area
• Summarizing the main arguments
• Identifying current gaps, stances, and issues
• Presenting all of the above in a text

Ultimately, the main goal of a literature review is to provide the researcher with sufficient knowledge about the topic in question so that they can eventually make an intervention.

The format of a literature review is fairly standard. It includes an:

• introduction that briefly introduces the main topic
• body that includes the main discussion of the key arguments
• conclusion that highlights the gaps and issues of the literature

➡️ Take a look at our guide on how to write a literature review to learn more about how to structure a literature review.

First of all, a literature review should have its own labeled section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where the literature can be found, and you should label this section as “Literature Review.”

➡️ For more information on writing a thesis, visit our guide on how to structure a thesis .

There is no set amount of words for a literature review, so the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, it will be short.

Take a look at these three theses featuring great literature reviews:

• School-Based Speech-Language Pathologist's Perceptions of Sensory Food Aversions in Children [ PDF , see page 20]
• Who's Writing What We Read: Authorship in Criminological Research [ PDF , see page 4]
• A Phenomenological Study of the Lived Experience of Online Instructors of Theological Reflection at Christian Institutions Accredited by the Association of Theological Schools [ PDF , see page 56]

Literature reviews are most commonly found in theses and dissertations. However, you find them in research papers as well.

There is no set amount of words for a literature review, so the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, then it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, then it will be short.

No. A literature review should have its own independent section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where the literature review can be found, and label this section as “Literature Review.”

The main goal of a literature review is to provide the researcher with sufficient knowledge about the topic in question so that they can eventually make an intervention.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• CAREER FEATURE
• 04 December 2020
• Correction 09 December 2020

How to write a superb literature review

Andy Tay is a freelance writer based in Singapore.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Literature reviews are important resources for scientists. They provide historical context for a field while offering opinions on its future trajectory. Creating them can provide inspiration for one’s own research, as well as some practice in writing. But few scientists are trained in how to write a review — or in what constitutes an excellent one. Even picking the appropriate software to use can be an involved decision (see ‘Tools and techniques’). So Nature asked editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews for their tips.

Access options

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

24,99 € / 30 days

cancel any time

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

185,98 € per year

only 3,65 € per issue

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Updates & Corrections

Correction 09 December 2020 : An earlier version of the tables in this article included some incorrect details about the programs Zotero, Endnote and Manubot. These have now been corrected.

Hsing, I.-M., Xu, Y. & Zhao, W. Electroanalysis 19 , 755–768 (2007).

Article   Google Scholar  

Ledesma, H. A. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 14 , 645–657 (2019).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Brahlek, M., Koirala, N., Bansal, N. & Oh, S. Solid State Commun. 215–216 , 54–62 (2015).

Choi, Y. & Lee, S. Y. Nature Rev. Chem . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-020-00221-w (2020).

Download references

Related Articles

• Research management

How restorative justice could help to heal science communities torn apart by harassment misconduct

Career Feature 11 JUN 24

What the science of elections can reveal in this super-election year

Career Feature 10 JUN 24

How we packed off the giant pandas from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo

Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance

Article 12 JUN 24

Open access is working — but researchers in lower-income countries enjoy fewer benefits

Nature Index 11 JUN 24

How to track the economic impact of public investments in AI

Comment 10 JUN 24

Elite researchers in China say they had ‘no choice’ but to commit misconduct

News 11 JUN 24

China seeks global impact and recognition

Nature Index 05 JUN 24

Postdoctoral positions at University of Pennsylvania

Postdoctoral positions funded by NIH are for study of meiosis and spermatogonial stem cells using mouse models. Generous stipend and benefits.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (US)

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Biomedical Sciences

Associate or Senior Editor, Nature Communications (Materials Science)

Associate or Senior Editor (Materials Science) Organization: Nature Communications Location(s): New York, Jersey City, Philadelphia, Beijing, Hong ...

New York (US)

Springer Nature Ltd

Associate or Senior Editor, Nature Medicine

Associate or Senior, Nature Medicine: Infectious Diseases New York, Shanghai or Beijing - Hybrid Working Application Deadline: August 1, 2024   Nat...

New York City, New York (US)

Post-doctoral Fellow

Funded investigator has an immediate opening for a post-doctoral fellow to develop therapies for genetic diseases.

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, East Baltimore Campus

Johns Hopkins University Department of Medicine

Postdoctoral Fellow PhD

Houston, Texas (US)

Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

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.

For further information see our handouts on Writing a Critical Review of a Nonfiction Book or Article or Reading a Book to Review It .

To learn more about literature reviews, take a look at our workshop on Writing Literature Reviews of Published Research.

Sample Literature Reviews

An important strategy for learning how to compose literature reviews in your field or within a specific genre is to locate and analyze representative examples. The following collection of annotated sample literature reviews written and co-written by colleagues associated with UW-Madison showcases how these reviews can do different kind of work for different purposes. Use these successful examples as a starting point for understanding how other writers have approached the challenging and important task of situating their idea in the context of established research.

• Sample 1 (PDF) A brief literature review within a political scientists’  National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship  grant
• Sample 2 (PDF) A several-page literature review at the beginning of a published, academic article about philosophy
• Sample 3 (PDF) A brief literature review at the beginning of a published, academic article about photochemistry

Academic and Professional Writing

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Analysis Papers

Reading Poetry

A Short Guide to Close Reading for Literary Analysis

Using Literary Quotations

Play Reviews

Writing a Rhetorical Précis to Analyze Nonfiction Texts

Incorporating Interview Data

Grant Proposals

Planning and Writing a Grant Proposal: The Basics

Additional Resources for Grants and Proposal Writing

Job Materials and Application Essays

Writing Personal Statements for Ph.D. Programs

• Before you begin: useful tips for writing your essay
• Guided brainstorming exercises
• Get more help with your essay
• Frequently Asked Questions

Resume Writing Tips

CV Writing Tips

Cover Letters

Business Letters

Proposals and Dissertations

Resources for Proposal Writers

Resources for Dissertators

Research Papers

Planning and Writing Research Papers

Quoting and Paraphrasing

Writing Annotated Bibliographies

Creating Poster Presentations

Writing an Abstract for Your Research Paper

Thank-You Notes

Advice for Students Writing Thank-You Notes to Donors

Reading for a Review

Critical Reviews

Writing a Review of Literature

Scientific Reports

Scientific Report Format

Sample Lab Assignment

Writing for the Web

Writing an Effective Blog Post

Writing for Social Media: A Guide for Academics

Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library

• Collections
• Research Help

YSN Doctoral Programs: Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

• Biomedical Databases
• Global (Public Health) Databases
• Soc. Sci., History, and Law Databases
• Grey Literature
• Trials Registers
• Data and Statistics
• Public Policy
• Google Tips
• Recommended Books
• Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

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.

APA7 Style resources

APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers

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.
• << Previous: Recommended Books
• Last Updated: Jan 4, 2024 10:52 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.yale.edu/YSNDoctoral

Literature Reviews

What this handout is about.

This handout will explain what literature reviews are and offer insights into the form and construction of literature reviews in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

Introduction

OK. You’ve got to write a literature review. You dust off a novel and a book of poetry, settle down in your chair, and get ready to issue a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” as you leaf through the pages. “Literature review” done. Right?

Wrong! The “literature” of a literature review refers to any collection of materials on a topic, not necessarily the great literary texts of the world. “Literature” could be anything from a set of government pamphlets on British colonial methods in Africa to scholarly articles on the treatment of a torn ACL. And a review does not necessarily mean that your reader wants you to give your personal opinion on whether or not you liked these sources.

What is a literature review, then?

A literature review discusses published information in a particular subject area, and sometimes information in a particular subject area within a certain time period.

A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. It might give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations. Or it might trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates. And depending on the situation, the literature review may evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant.

But how is a literature review different from an academic research paper?

The main focus of an academic research paper is to develop a new argument, and a research paper is likely to contain a literature review as one of its parts. In a research paper, you use the literature as a foundation and as support for a new insight that you contribute. The focus of a literature review, however, is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of others without adding new contributions.

Why do we write literature reviews?

Literature reviews provide you with a handy guide to a particular topic. If you have limited time to conduct research, literature reviews can give you an overview or act as a stepping stone. For professionals, they are useful reports that keep them up to date with what is current in the field. For scholars, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the writer in his or her field. Literature reviews also provide a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. Comprehensive knowledge of the literature of the field is essential to most research papers.

Who writes these things, anyway?

Literature reviews are written occasionally in the humanities, but mostly in the sciences and social sciences; in experiment and lab reports, they constitute a section of the paper. Sometimes a literature review is written as a paper in itself.

Let’s get to it! What should I do before writing the literature review?

If your assignment is not very specific, seek clarification from your instructor:

• Roughly how many sources should you include?
• What types of sources (books, journal articles, websites)?
• Should you summarize, synthesize, or critique your sources by discussing a common theme or issue?
• Should you evaluate your sources?
• Should you provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history?

Find models

Look for other literature reviews in your area of interest or in the discipline and read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or ways to organize your final review. You can simply put the word “review” in your search engine along with your other topic terms to find articles of this type on the Internet or in an electronic database. The bibliography or reference section of sources you’ve already read are also excellent entry points into your own research.

Narrow your topic

There are hundreds or even thousands of articles and books on most areas of study. The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to get a good survey of the material. Your instructor will probably not expect you to read everything that’s out there on the topic, but you’ll make your job easier if you first limit your scope.

Keep in mind that UNC Libraries have research guides and to databases relevant to many fields of study. You can reach out to the subject librarian for a consultation: https://library.unc.edu/support/consultations/ .

And don’t forget to tap into your professor’s (or other professors’) knowledge in the field. Ask your professor questions such as: “If you had to read only one book from the 90’s on topic X, what would it be?” Questions such as this help you to find and determine quickly the most seminal pieces in the field.

Consider whether your sources are current

Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. In the sciences, for instance, treatments for medical problems are constantly changing according to the latest studies. Information even two years old could be obsolete. However, if you are writing a review in the humanities, history, or social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be what is needed, because what is important is how perspectives have changed through the years or within a certain time period. Try sorting through some other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to consider what is currently of interest to scholars in this field and what is not.

Strategies for writing the literature review

Find a focus.

A literature review, like a term paper, is usually organized around ideas, not the sources themselves as an annotated bibliography would be organized. This means that you will not just simply list your sources and go into detail about each one of them, one at a time. No. As you read widely but selectively in your topic area, consider instead what themes or issues connect your sources together. Do they present one or different solutions? Is there an aspect of the field that is missing? How well do they present the material and do they portray it according to an appropriate theory? Do they reveal a trend in the field? A raging debate? Pick one of these themes to focus the organization of your review.

Convey it to your reader

A literature review may not have a traditional thesis statement (one that makes an argument), but you do need to tell readers what to expect. Try writing a simple statement that lets the reader know what is your main organizing principle. Here are a couple of examples:

The current trend in treatment for congestive heart failure combines surgery and medicine. More and more cultural studies scholars are accepting popular media as a subject worthy of academic consideration.

Consider organization

You’ve got a focus, and you’ve stated it clearly and directly. Now what is the most effective way of presenting the information? What are the most important topics, subtopics, etc., that your review needs to include? And in what order should you present them? Develop an organization for your review at both a global and local level:

First, cover the basic categories

Just like most academic papers, literature reviews also must contain at least three basic elements: an introduction or background information section; the body of the review containing the discussion of sources; and, finally, a conclusion and/or recommendations section to end the paper. The following provides a brief description of the content of each:

• Introduction: Gives a quick idea of the topic of the literature review, such as the central theme or organizational pattern.
• Body: Contains your discussion of sources and is organized either chronologically, thematically, or methodologically (see below for more information on each).
• Conclusions/Recommendations: Discuss what you have drawn from reviewing literature so far. Where might the discussion proceed?

Organizing the body

Once you have the basic categories in place, then you must consider how you will present the sources themselves within the body of your paper. Create an organizational method to focus this section even further.

To help you come up with an overall organizational framework for your review, consider the following scenario:

You’ve decided to focus your literature review on materials dealing with sperm whales. This is because you’ve just finished reading Moby Dick, and you wonder if that whale’s portrayal is really real. You start with some articles about the physiology of sperm whales in biology journals written in the 1980’s. But these articles refer to some British biological studies performed on whales in the early 18th century. So you check those out. Then you look up a book written in 1968 with information on how sperm whales have been portrayed in other forms of art, such as in Alaskan poetry, in French painting, or on whale bone, as the whale hunters in the late 19th century used to do. This makes you wonder about American whaling methods during the time portrayed in Moby Dick, so you find some academic articles published in the last five years on how accurately Herman Melville portrayed the whaling scene in his novel.

Now consider some typical ways of organizing the sources into a review:

• Chronological: If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials above according to when they were published. For instance, first you would talk about the British biological studies of the 18th century, then about Moby Dick, published in 1851, then the book on sperm whales in other art (1968), and finally the biology articles (1980s) and the recent articles on American whaling of the 19th century. But there is relatively no continuity among subjects here. And notice that even though the sources on sperm whales in other art and on American whaling are written recently, they are about other subjects/objects that were created much earlier. Thus, the review loses its chronological focus.
• By publication: Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on biological studies of sperm whales if the progression revealed a change in dissection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies.
• By trend: A better way to organize the above sources chronologically is to examine the sources under another trend, such as the history of whaling. Then your review would have subsections according to eras within this period. For instance, the review might examine whaling from pre-1600-1699, 1700-1799, and 1800-1899. Under this method, you would combine the recent studies on American whaling in the 19th century with Moby Dick itself in the 1800-1899 category, even though the authors wrote a century apart.
• Thematic: Thematic reviews of literature are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time. However, progression of time may still be an important factor in a thematic review. For instance, the sperm whale review could focus on the development of the harpoon for whale hunting. While the study focuses on one topic, harpoon technology, it will still be organized chronologically. The only difference here between a “chronological” and a “thematic” approach is what is emphasized the most: the development of the harpoon or the harpoon technology.But more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. For instance, a thematic review of material on sperm whales might examine how they are portrayed as “evil” in cultural documents. The subsections might include how they are personified, how their proportions are exaggerated, and their behaviors misunderstood. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point made.
• Methodological: A methodological approach differs from the two above in that the focusing factor usually does not have to do with the content of the material. Instead, it focuses on the “methods” of the researcher or writer. For the sperm whale project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of whales in American, British, and French art work. Or the review might focus on the economic impact of whaling on a community. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed. Once you’ve decided on the organizational method for the body of the review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out. They should arise out of your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period. A thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue.

Sometimes, though, you might need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. Put in only what is necessary. Here are a few other sections you might want to consider:

• Current Situation: Information necessary to understand the topic or focus of the literature review.
• History: The chronological progression of the field, the literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Methods and/or Standards: The criteria you used to select the sources in your literature review or the way in which you present your information. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed articles and journals.

Questions for Further Research: What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

Begin composing

Once you’ve settled on a general pattern of organization, you’re ready to write each section. There are a few guidelines you should follow during the writing stage as well. Here is a sample paragraph from a literature review about sexism and language to illuminate the following discussion:

However, other studies have shown that even gender-neutral antecedents are more likely to produce masculine images than feminine ones (Gastil, 1990). Hamilton (1988) asked students to complete sentences that required them to fill in pronouns that agreed with gender-neutral antecedents such as “writer,” “pedestrian,” and “persons.” The students were asked to describe any image they had when writing the sentence. Hamilton found that people imagined 3.3 men to each woman in the masculine “generic” condition and 1.5 men per woman in the unbiased condition. Thus, while ambient sexism accounted for some of the masculine bias, sexist language amplified the effect. (Source: Erika Falk and Jordan Mills, “Why Sexist Language Affects Persuasion: The Role of Homophily, Intended Audience, and Offense,” Women and Language19:2).

Use evidence

In the example above, the writers refer to several other sources when making their point. A literature review in this sense is just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence to show that what you are saying is valid.

Be selective

Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the review’s focus, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological.

Use quotes sparingly

Falk and Mills do not use any direct quotes. That is because the survey nature of the literature review does not allow for in-depth discussion or detailed quotes from the text. Some short quotes here and there are okay, though, if you want to emphasize a point, or if what the author said just cannot be rewritten in your own words. Notice that Falk and Mills do quote certain terms that were coined by the author, not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. But if you find yourself wanting to put in more quotes, check with your instructor.

Summarize and synthesize

Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each paragraph as well as throughout the review. The authors here recapitulate important features of Hamilton’s study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study’s significance and relating it to their own work.

Keep your own voice

While the literature review presents others’ ideas, your voice (the writer’s) should remain front and center. Notice that Falk and Mills weave references to other sources into their own text, but they still maintain their own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with their own ideas and their own words. The sources support what Falk and Mills are saying.

Use caution when paraphrasing

When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author’s information or opinions accurately and in your own words. In the preceding example, Falk and Mills either directly refer in the text to the author of their source, such as Hamilton, or they provide ample notation in the text when the ideas they are mentioning are not their own, for example, Gastil’s. For more information, please see our handout on plagiarism .

Revise, revise, revise

Draft in hand? Now you’re ready to revise. Spending a lot of time revising is a wise idea, because your main objective is to present the material, not the argument. So check over your review again to make sure it follows the assignment and/or your outline. Then, just as you would for most other academic forms of writing, rewrite or rework the language of your review so that you’ve presented your information in the most concise manner possible. Be sure to use terminology familiar to your audience; get rid of unnecessary jargon or slang. Finally, double check that you’ve documented your sources and formatted the review appropriately for your discipline. For tips on the revising and editing process, see our handout on revising drafts .

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Jones, Robert, Patrick Bizzaro, and Cynthia Selfe. 1997. The Harcourt Brace Guide to Writing in the Disciplines . New York: Harcourt Brace.

Lamb, Sandra E. 1998. How to Write It: A Complete Guide to Everything You’ll Ever Write . Berkeley: Ten Speed Press.

Rosen, Leonard J., and Laurence Behrens. 2003. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook , 5th ed. New York: Longman.

Troyka, Lynn Quittman, and Doug Hesse. 2016. Simon and Schuster Handbook for Writers , 11th ed. London: Pearson.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• PLoS Comput Biol
• v.9(7); 2013 Jul

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

2 Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

Literature Review Guide: Examples of Literature Reviews

• What is a Literature Review?
• How to start?
• Search strategies and Databases
• Examples of Literature Reviews
• How to organise the review
• Library summary
• Emerald Infographic

All good quality journal articles will include a small Literature Review after the Introduction paragraph.  It may not be called a Literature Review but gives you an idea of how one is created in miniature.

Sample Literature Reviews as part of a articles or Theses

• Sample Literature Review on Critical Thinking (Gwendolyn Reece, American University Library)
• Hackett, G and Melia, D . The hotel as the holiday/stay destination:trends and innovations. Presented at TRIC Conference, Belfast, Ireland- June 2012 and EuroCHRIE Conference

Links to sample Literature Reviews from other libraries

• Sample literature reviews from University of West Florida

Standalone Literature Reviews

• Attitudes towards the Disability in Ireland
• Martin, A., O'Connor-Fenelon, M. and Lyons, R. (2010). Non-verbal communication between nurses and people with an intellectual disability: A review of the literature. Journal of Intellectual Diabilities, 14(4), 303-314.

Irish Theses

• Phillips, Martin (2015) European airline performance: a data envelopment analysis with extrapolations based on model outputs. Master of Business Studies thesis, Dublin City University.
• The customers’ perception of servicescape’s influence on their behaviours, in the food retail industry : Dublin Business School 2015
• Coughlan, Ray (2015) What was the role of leadership in the transformation of a failing Irish Insurance business. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.
• << Previous: Search strategies and Databases
• Next: Tutorials >>
• Last Updated: Feb 27, 2024 4:07 PM
• URL: https://ait.libguides.com/literaturereview

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

APA Sample Paper

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Note:  This page reflects the latest version of the APA Publication Manual (i.e., APA 7), which released in October 2019. The equivalent resource for the older APA 6 style  can be found here .

Media Files: APA Sample Student Paper  ,  APA Sample Professional Paper

This resource is enhanced by Acrobat PDF files. Download the free Acrobat Reader

Note: The APA Publication Manual, 7 th Edition specifies different formatting conventions for student  and  professional  papers (i.e., papers written for credit in a course and papers intended for scholarly publication). These differences mostly extend to the title page and running head. Crucially, citation practices do not differ between the two styles of paper.

However, for your convenience, we have provided two versions of our APA 7 sample paper below: one in  student style and one in  professional  style.

Note: For accessibility purposes, we have used "Track Changes" to make comments along the margins of these samples. Those authored by [AF] denote explanations of formatting and [AWC] denote directions for writing and citing in APA 7. 

APA 7 Student Paper:

Apa 7 professional paper:.

Reference Examples

More than 100 reference examples and their corresponding in-text citations are presented in the seventh edition Publication Manual . Examples of the most common works that writers cite are provided on this page; additional examples are available in the Publication Manual .

To find the reference example you need, first select a category (e.g., periodicals) and then choose the appropriate type of work (e.g., journal article ) and follow the relevant example.

When selecting a category, use the webpages and websites category only when a work does not fit better within another category. For example, a report from a government website would use the reports category, whereas a page on a government website that is not a report or other work would use the webpages and websites category.

Also note that print and electronic references are largely the same. For example, to cite both print books and ebooks, use the books and reference works category and then choose the appropriate type of work (i.e., book ) and follow the relevant example (e.g., whole authored book ).

Examples on these pages illustrate the details of reference formats. We make every attempt to show examples that are in keeping with APA Style’s guiding principles of inclusivity and bias-free language. These examples are presented out of context only to demonstrate formatting issues (e.g., which elements to italicize, where punctuation is needed, placement of parentheses). References, including these examples, are not inherently endorsements for the ideas or content of the works themselves. An author may cite a work to support a statement or an idea, to critique that work, or for many other reasons. For more examples, see our sample papers .

Reference examples are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Chapter 10 and the Concise Guide Chapter 10

Related handouts

• Common Reference Examples Guide (PDF, 147KB)
• Reference Quick Guide (PDF, 225KB)

Textual Works

Textual works are covered in Sections 10.1–10.8 of the Publication Manual . The most common categories and examples are presented here. For the reviews of other works category, see Section 10.7.

• Journal Article References
• Magazine Article References
• Newspaper Article References
• Blog Post and Blog Comment References
• UpToDate Article References
• Book/Ebook References
• Diagnostic Manual References
• Children’s Book or Other Illustrated Book References
• Classroom Course Pack Material References
• Religious Work References
• Chapter in an Edited Book/Ebook References
• Dictionary Entry References
• Wikipedia Entry References
• Report by a Government Agency References
• Report with Individual Authors References
• Brochure References
• Ethics Code References
• Fact Sheet References
• ISO Standard References
• Press Release References
• White Paper References
• Conference Presentation References
• Conference Proceeding References
• Published Dissertation or Thesis References
• Unpublished Dissertation or Thesis References
• ERIC Database References
• Preprint Article References

Data and Assessments

Data sets are covered in Section 10.9 of the Publication Manual . For the software and tests categories, see Sections 10.10 and 10.11.

• Data Set References
• Toolbox References

Audiovisual Media

Audiovisual media are covered in Sections 10.12–10.14 of the Publication Manual . The most common examples are presented together here. In the manual, these examples and more are separated into categories for audiovisual, audio, and visual media.

• Artwork References
• Clip Art or Stock Image References
• Film and Television References
• Musical Score References
• Online Course or MOOC References
• Podcast References
• PowerPoint Slide or Lecture Note References
• Radio Broadcast References
• TED Talk References
• Transcript of an Audiovisual Work References
• YouTube Video References

Online Media

Online media are covered in Sections 10.15 and 10.16 of the Publication Manual . Please note that blog posts are part of the periodicals category.

• Facebook References
• Instagram References
• LinkedIn References
• Online Forum (e.g., Reddit) References
• TikTok References
• X References
• Webpage on a Website References
• Clinical Practice References
• Open Educational Resource References
• Whole Website References

What’s Included: Literature Review Template

This template is structure is based on the tried and trusted best-practice format for formal academic research projects such as dissertations and theses. The literature review template includes the following sections:

• Before you start – essential groundwork to ensure you’re ready
• The introduction section
• The core/body section
• The conclusion /summary
• Extra free resources

Each section is explained in plain, straightforward language , followed by an overview of the key elements that you need to cover. We’ve also included practical examples and links to more free videos and guides to help you understand exactly what’s required in each section.

The cleanly-formatted Google Doc can be downloaded as a fully editable MS Word Document (DOCX format), so you can use it as-is or convert it to LaTeX.

PS – if you’d like a high-level template for the entire thesis, you can we’ve got that too .

FAQs: Literature Review Template

What format is the template (doc, pdf, ppt, etc.).

The literature review chapter template is provided as a Google Doc. You can download it in MS Word format or make a copy to your Google Drive. You’re also welcome to convert it to whatever format works best for you, such as LaTeX or PDF.

What types of literature reviews can this template be used for?

The template follows the standard format for academic literature reviews, which means it will be suitable for the vast majority of academic research projects (especially those within the sciences), whether they are qualitative or quantitative in terms of design.

Keep in mind that the exact requirements for the literature review chapter will vary between universities and degree programs. These are typically minor, but it’s always a good idea to double-check your university’s requirements before you finalize your structure.

Is this template for an undergrad, Master or PhD-level thesis?

This template can be used for a literature review at any level of study. Doctoral-level projects typically require the literature review to be more extensive/comprehensive, but the structure will typically remain the same.

Can I modify the template to suit my topic/area?

Absolutely. While the template provides a general structure, you should adapt it to fit the specific requirements and focus of your literature review.

What structural style does this literature review template use?

The template assumes a thematic structure (as opposed to a chronological or methodological structure), as this is the most common approach. However, this is only one dimension of the template, so it will still be useful if you are adopting a different structure.

Does this template include the Excel literature catalog?

No, that is a separate template, which you can download for free here . This template is for the write-up of the actual literature review chapter, whereas the catalog is for use during the literature sourcing and sorting phase.

How long should the literature review chapter be?

This depends on your university’s specific requirements, so it’s best to check with them. As a general ballpark, literature reviews for Masters-level projects are usually 2,000 – 3,000 words in length, while Doctoral-level projects can reach multiples of this.

Can I include literature that contradicts my hypothesis?

Yes, it’s important to acknowledge and discuss literature that presents different viewpoints or contradicts your hypothesis. So, don’t shy away from existing research that takes an opposing view to yours.

How do I avoid plagiarism in my literature review?

Always cite your sources correctly and paraphrase ideas in your own words while maintaining the original meaning. You can always check our plagiarism score before submitting your work to help ease your mind. 

Do you have an example of a populated template?

We provide a walkthrough of the template and review an example of a high-quality literature research chapter here .

Can I share this literature review template with my friends/colleagues?

Yes, you’re welcome to share this template in its original format (no editing allowed). If you want to post about it on your blog or social media, all we ask is that you reference this page as your source.

Do you have templates for the other dissertation/thesis chapters?

Yes, we do. You can find our full collection of templates here .

Can Grad Coach help me with my literature review?

Yes, you’re welcome to get in touch with us to discuss our private coaching services , where we can help you work through the literature review chapter (and any other chapters).

An official website of the Department of Health & Human Services

• Search All AHRQ Sites
• Email Updates

1. Use quotes to search for an exact match of a phrase.

2. Put a minus sign just before words you don't want.

3. Enter any important keywords in any order to find entries where all these terms appear.

• The PSNet Collection
• All Content
• Perspectives
• Current Weekly Issue
• Past Weekly Issues
• Curated Libraries
• Clinical Areas
• Patient Safety 101
• The Fundamentals
• Training and Education
• Continuing Education
• WebM&M: Case Studies
• Training Catalog
• Submit a Case
• Improvement Resources
• Innovations
• Submit an Innovation
• About PSNet
• Editorial Team
• Technical Expert Panel

Perioperative team-based morbidity and mortality conferences: a systematic review of the literature.

Samost-Williams A, Rosen R, Hannenberg A, et al. Perioperative team-based morbidity and mortality conferences: a systematic review of the literature. Ann Surg Open. 2023;4(3):e321. doi:10.1097/as9.0000000000000321.

Morbidity and mortality conferences offer important opportunities for healthcare teams to discuss adverse events, learn from errors, and improve patient safety. This systematic review examined beneficial aspects of perioperative team-based morbidity and mortality (TBMM) conferences. The authors found that TBMM conferences generally led to improvements in patient safety, quality improvement, and educational outcomes and that certain factors (case preparation, standardized presentation format, effective facilitation) increase TBMM benefits.

Perspectives on perioperative team-based morbidity and mortality conferences: a mixed-methods study. November 29, 2023

Redeployment of health care workers in the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of health system leaders' strategies. May 19, 2021

Surgical teams' attitudes about surgical safety and the surgical safety checklist at 10 years: a multinational survey. November 17, 2021

A systems approach to analyzing and preventing hospital adverse events. June 24, 2020

10 years in, why time out still matters. June 11, 2014

Non-technical skills in surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic: an observational study. March 9, 2022

Transforming team performance through reimplementation of the surgical safety checklist. December 6, 2023

Simulation safety first: an imperative. February 20, 2019

Factors associated with the use of cognitive aids in operating room crises: a cross-sectional study of US hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers. May 9, 2018

We asked the experts: the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist and the COVID-19 pandemic: recommendations for content and implementation adaptations. March 17, 2021

Impact of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist relative to its design and intended use: a systematic review and meta-meta-analysis. November 24, 2021

International perspectives on modifications to the surgical safety checklist. June 21, 2023

CheckPOINT: a simple tool to measure Surgical Safety Checklist implementation fidelity. October 18, 2023

Remote assessment of real-world surgical safety checklist performance using the OR Black Box: a multi-institutional evaluation. March 20, 2024

Medication safety in a psychiatric hospital. March 21, 2007

Effect of delays in the 2-week-wait cancer referral pathway during the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer survival in the UK: a modelling study. August 19, 2020

National Partnership for Maternal Safety: Consensus Bundle on Venous Thromboembolism. December 7, 2016

Association of postoperative readmissions with surgical quality using a Delphi consensus process to identify relevant diagnosis codes. May 16, 2018

Factors associated with hospital admission after outpatient surgery in the Veterans Health Administration. February 28, 2018

Patient safety strategies: are we on the same team? October 3, 2012

Pursuing professional accountability: an evidence-based approach to addressing residents with behavioral problems. August 1, 2012

Automatable algorithms to identify nonmedical opioid use using electronic data: a systematic review. November 8, 2017

Unsafe by design: infusion task reallocation and safety perceptions in U.S. hospitals. January 11, 2023

Predictors of treatment error for children with uncomplicated malaria seen as outpatients in Blantyre district, Malawi. September 13, 2006

The impact of post-fall huddles on repeat fall rates and perceptions of safety culture: a quasi-experimental evaluation of a patient safety demonstration project October 16, 2019

A theory-driven, longitudinal evaluation of the impact of team training on safety culture in 24 hospitals. April 3, 2013

Prevalence, nature, severity and risk factors for prescribing errors in hospital inpatients: prospective study in 20 UK hospitals. August 26, 2015

Learning from the design, development and implementation of the Medication Safety Thermometer. February 8, 2017

A framework for patient safety: a defense nuclear industry-based high-reliability model. May 1, 2013

Is oral chemotherapy prescription safe for patients? A cross-sectional survey. May 7, 2014

How hospitals select their patient safety priorities: an exploratory study of four Veterans Health Administration hospitals. September 25, 2019

A systematic review of patient safety measures in adult primary care. May 18, 2016

Does teamwork improve performance in the operating room? A multilevel evaluation. March 3, 2010

Potentially inappropriate prescribing in elderly veterans: are we using the wrong drug, wrong dose, or wrong duration? August 24, 2005

Experiences of transgender and gender nonbinary patients in the emergency department and recommendations for health care policy, education, and practice. July 21, 2021

Racial disparities in diagnostic delay among women with breast cancer. August 18, 2021

Guidelines for opioid prescribing in children and adolescents after surgery: an expert panel opinion. December 2, 2020

Increasing naloxone prescribing in the emergency department through education and electronic medical record work-aids. April 21, 2021

Strengthening open disclosure after incidents in maternity care: a realist synthesis of international research evidence. April 12, 2023

Guidelines for the prevention of intravascular catheter-related infections. May 25, 2011

Relationship between medication event rates and the Leapfrog computerized physician order entry evaluation tool. May 15, 2013

Impact of vendor computerized physician order entry in community hospitals. February 22, 2012

Complications of daytime elective laparoscopic cholecystectomies performed by surgeons who operated the night before. November 20, 2013

The impact of internal service quality on preventable adverse events in hospitals. March 27, 2019

Evaluating the impact of auto-calculation settings on opioid prescribing at an academic medical center. May 8, 2019

Primary care physician communication at hospital discharge reduces medication discrepancies. December 18, 2013

Intensive care unit nurse staffing and the risk for complications after abdominal aortic surgery. April 3, 2005

When doing wrong feels so right: normalization of deviance. March 25, 2015

"SWARMing" to improve patient care: a novel approach to root cause analysis. November 4, 2015

HIM functions in healthcare quality and patient safety. August 10, 2011

Readiness of US general surgery residents for independent practice. October 4, 2017

Surgeons' disclosures of clinical adverse events. July 27, 2016

How does patient safety culture in the operating room and post-anesthesia care unit compare to the rest of the hospital? April 1, 2009

Development of trigger tools for surveillance of adverse events in ambulatory surgery. November 10, 2010

Did duty hour reform lead to better outcomes among the highest risk patients? November 4, 2009

Applying trigger tools to detect adverse events associated with outpatient surgery. March 16, 2011

Teaching hospital five-year mortality trends in the wake of duty hour reforms. August 7, 2013

Can teamwork promote safety in organizations? February 26, 2020

Views of practicing physicians and the public on medical errors. March 27, 2005

Physicians' views of interventions to reduce medical errors: does evidence of effectiveness matter? April 21, 2005

Venous thromboembolism after trauma: a never event? October 10, 2012

A randomized trial of a multifactorial strategy to prevent serious fall injuries. July 29, 2020

Evaluation of clinical practice guidelines on fall prevention and management for older adults: a systematic review. January 12, 2022

Improving shared situation awareness for high-risk therapies in hospitalized children. January 19, 2022

Chief resident for quality improvement and patient safety: a description. July 2, 2014

Crisis checklists for the operating room: development and pilot testing. January 30, 2005

Health care-associated invasive MRSA infections, 2005-2008. August 18, 2010

Simulation-based trial of surgical-crisis checklists. January 30, 2013

Protecting patients from an unsafe system: the etiology and recovery of intraoperative deviations in care. July 25, 2012

Medication for opioid use disorder after nonfatal opioid overdose and association with mortality: a cohort study. July 11, 2018

Quality of life after maternal near miss: a systematic review. June 2, 2021

Factors influencing providers' willingness to deprescribe medications. December 1, 2021

The TeamSTEPPS for Improving Diagnosis Team Assessment Tool: scale development and psychometric evaluation. February 7, 2024

Rates of surgical consultations after emergency department admission in Black and White Medicare patients. October 26, 2022

Towards diagnostic excellence on academic ward teams: building a conceptual model of team dynamics in the diagnostic process. September 20, 2023

Evaluating the implementation of Project Re-Engineered Discharge (RED) in five Veterans Health Administration (VHA) hospitals. October 17, 2018

Assessing the potential adoption and usefulness of concurrent, action-oriented, electronic adverse drug event triggers designed for the outpatient setting. June 24, 2015

Detecting adverse events in surgery: comparing events detected by the Veterans Health Administration Surgical Quality Improvement Program and the Patient Safety Indicators. June 4, 2014

Using estimated true safety event rates versus flagged safety event rates: does it change hospital profiling and payment? May 21, 2014

Validity of selected patient safety indicators: opportunities and concerns. October 27, 2010

Hospital safety climate and safety outcomes: is there a relationship in the VA? March 10, 2010

Prolonged hospital stay and the resident duty hour rules of 2003. January 13, 2010

Comparing safety climate in naval aviation and hospitals: implications for improving patient safety. April 21, 2010

Identifying organizational cultures that promote patient safety. November 18, 2009

Comparing safety climate between two populations of hospitals in the United States. October 14, 2009

Designing an abstraction instrument: lessons from efforts to validate the AHRQ Patient Safety Indicators. January 12, 2011

Consensus building for development of outpatient adverse drug event triggers. June 15, 2011

The impact of resident duty hour reform on hospital readmission rates among Medicare beneficiaries. April 27, 2011

Team-training in healthcare: a narrative synthesis of the literature. March 12, 2014

Development and testing of tools to detect ambulatory surgical adverse events. June 5, 2013

Improving patient care through leadership engagement with frontline staff: a Department of Veterans Affairs case study. July 31, 2013

Examining the impact of the AHRQ Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) on the Veterans Health Administration: the case of readmissions. October 17, 2012

Improving detection of intraoperative medical errors (iMEs) and intraoperative adverse events (iAEs) and their contribution to postoperative outcomes. March 6, 2019

Creating a Pediatric Joint Council to promote patient safety and quality, governance, and accountability across Johns Hopkins Medicine. May 3, 2017

Improving admission medication reconciliation with pharmacists or pharmacy technicians in the emergency department: a randomised controlled trial. November 8, 2017

Identifying risks and opportunities in outpatient surgical patient safety: a qualitative analysis of Veterans Health Administration staff perceptions. January 31, 2018

Effects of resident duty hour reform on surgical and procedural patient safety indicators among hospitalized Veterans Health Administration and Medicare patients. July 1, 2009

Relationship of hospital organizational culture to patient safety climate in the Veterans Health Administration. March 25, 2009

Workforce perceptions of hospital safety culture: development and validation of the patient safety climate in healthcare organizations survey. September 26, 2007

Mortality among patients in VA hospitals in the first 2 years following ACGME resident duty hour reform. September 12, 2007

Improving team members' attention during the OR briefing or time out. June 12, 2024

Grading recommendations for enhanced patient safety in sentinel event analysis: the recommendation improvement matrix. June 12, 2024

Call me Ishmael: addressing the white whale of team communication in the operating room with labelled surgical caps at an academic medical centre. May 8, 2024

Safety and Human Performance in the Operating Room and Other Extreme Environments. March 27, 2024

Creating a just culture in the perioperative setting. March 13, 2024

The ritualisation of the surgical safety checklist and its decoupling from patient safety goals. March 13, 2024

Time for prefilled syringes - everywhere. March 13, 2024

WebM&M Cases

Peer support and second victim programs for anesthesia professionals involved in stressful or traumatic clinical events. February 21, 2024

Three quarters of preventable patient harm stems from situation awareness breakdowns: recognizing and addressing the core issue. February 21, 2024

Handbook of Perioperative and Procedural Patient Safety. February 7, 2024

Taking up the challenge to improve name and role recognition in the operating room. February 7, 2024

Psychological safety and hierarchy in operating room debriefing: reflexive thematic analysis. January 31, 2024

Surgical safety does not happen by accident: learning from perioperative near miss case studies. January 24, 2024

Patient Safety Primers

Retained Surgical Items: Definition and Epidemiology.

Research from webAIRS incident reporting system. November 29, 2023

Facilitators and barriers to the implementation of surgical safety checklist (SSC): an integrative review. November 15, 2023

Anesthesia workspaces for safe medication practices: design guidelines. November 15, 2023

Technology, Education and Safety November 15, 2023

Beyond the surgical safety checklist: using intraoperative handoff to facilitate team situation awareness in the OR. October 25, 2023

Look-alike medications in the perioperative setting: scoping review of medication incidents and risk reduction interventions. October 11, 2023

Surgeons' leadership style and team behavior in the hybrid operating room: prospective cohort study. October 4, 2023

Standardization and visualization of the surgical time-out. October 4, 2023

Fire safety in the operating room. October 1, 2023

Barriers and facilitators associated with the implementation of surgical safety checklists: a qualitative systematic review. September 27, 2023

Handling injectable medications in anaesthesia: Guidelines from the Association of Anaesthetists. August 23, 2023

Connect With Us

Sign up for Email Updates

To sign up for updates or to access your subscriber preferences, please enter your email address below.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

5600 Fishers Lane Rockville, MD 20857 Telephone: (301) 427-1364

• Accessibility
• Disclaimers
• Electronic Policies
• HHS Digital Strategy
• HHS Nondiscrimination Notice
• Inspector General
• Plain Writing Act
• Privacy Policy
• Viewers & Players
• U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
• The White House
• Don't have an account? Sign up to PSNet

Submit Your Innovations

Please select your preferred way to submit an innovation.

Continue as a Guest

Track and save your innovation

in My Innovations

Edit your innovation as a draft

Continue Logged In

Please select your preferred way to submit an innovation. Note that even if you have an account, you can still choose to submit an innovation as a guest.

Continue logged in

New users to the psnet site.

Access to quizzes and start earning

CME, CEU, or Trainee Certification.

Get email alerts when new content

matching your topics of interest

in My Innovations.

• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 13 July 2022

Goal setting with young people for anxiety and depression: What works for whom in therapeutic relationships? A literature review and insight analysis

• Jenna Jacob   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1006-1547 1 ,
• Milos Stankovic 2 ,
• Inga Spuerck 2 &
• Farhad Shokraneh 3  

BMC Psychology volume  10 , Article number:  171 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

15k Accesses

7 Citations

21 Altmetric

Metrics details

Goal setting and goal-focused work is widely used in young people’s mental health settings. However, little is known about how, why or for whom this is helpful. This study aims to explore the mechanisms of collaborative goal setting as part of therapeutic relationships: is it helpful for young people experiencing anxiety and/or depression, how and why/not, for whom, and under what circumstances?

Online database searches generated 10,907 records. Seven unique studies are included, combined with insight analysis from directed discussions with international advisors with lived experience of anxiety and/or depression and therapy (N = 8; mean age = 20.8), and mental health academics/clinicians (N = 6).

Findings are presented as a narrative synthesis and suggest that goal setting is helpful to young people experiencing anxiety and/or depression because it helps build good therapeutic relationships through open communication and building trust. Goal setting helps make things more manageable, enabling young people to feel supported and have ownership of their care. Individual preferences, or high levels of distress, trauma, low confidence, hopelessness, negative past experiences of goal setting, perfectionism, and rumination are considered limiting factors to goal setting. Additionally, contextual factors including country and long-term therapy are explored.

Whilst the resultant sample is small, emphasis on the voices of young people in the research is both prominent and of paramount importance. Several key literature gaps are identified, including evidenced links to the reduction in symptoms. Priority must be given to researching unhelpful mechanisms of goal setting for young people experiencing anxiety and/or depression, to avoid any potential iatrogenic effects.

Peer Review reports

Collaborative goal setting within therapeutic mental health settings refers to agreements made between young people and practitioners about specific therapy areas of focus: topics of personalised and meaningful outcome. Goals are concrete representations of intended endpoints, which fill the perceived gap between the current and desired end state [ 1 ]. Goals are usually formulated at the start of therapeutic interventions through a series of discussions. These differ from academic, physical rehabilitation, or general life goals, although there could be overlap. Progress towards these agreed goals may then be tracked over time, often through ratings on numerical scales, and there are tools available to support this. For example, the Goal Based Outcome tool (GBO; [ 2 ]) which comprises setting up to three goals and scoring progress between 0 and 10, is widely used to track progress against goal setting in youth mental health settings. Whilst goal tracking may lead to a shift in practitioners’ work to be goal focused [ 3 ], goals may also sit alongside usual clinical work, to track progress [ 4 ]. Goals set in therapy tend to be focused and specific, e.g., to deal with something in the immediacy, like a phobia [ 5 ], but it is important that these goals attain to more global goals [ 6 ], or are viewed as a “means to an end”.

Goals may take time to set, and can change and become more specific during the therapeutic process, for example, at the beginning of contact with a practitioner, a young person might have a general goal like “to feel less depressed”, but over time the young person, along with the practitioner, may learn more about the mechanisms behind the depression and may define more precise goals like “being able to stop negative thinking” or “being able to cope with flashbacks”. The types of phrases used by practitioners to help young people define goals may include: “what do you want to be different?”, “what will you get off your back?”, “where do you want to get to?”, and “how do you want things to change?” [ 4 , 6 ].

Goal setting and tracking in therapeutic settings is grounded in motivation theory [ 7 , 8 , 9 ] such that working towards goals is a continuous feedback loop which builds on self-efficacy, self-determination and motivation to continue to strive towards goals, acting as a self-regulation strategy [ 10 , 11 ]. Goal setting may be more feasible or acceptable to individuals with particular personality traits e.g., individuals who attribute successes and failures to external factors are less likely to find meaning in striving towards goals than those who attribute successes and failures to their own actions [ 12 ].

Further, young people have described recovery from depression as nested within relationships (e.g., [ 13 ]), portraying recovery as an intentional process, contingent on shared goals and joint action in relationships [ 14 ]. Good therapeutic relationships are considered a key element of effective therapy [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Also known as working relationships, or working/therapeutic alliance, this refers to the connection, bond or partnership between the young person and practitioner. Three key elements of therapeutic alliance have been identified in the literature: bond, tasks, and goals [ 19 ]. In a recent review of the effects of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for young people experiencing anxiety and/or depression, three studies reported small-to-medium effect sizes for the correlational relationship between therapeutic alliance and symptom reduction [ 20 ]. This provides limited evidence linking goal collaboration to reduced anxiety/depression symptoms for young people, despite fair evidence supporting links between goal collaboration and positive adult anxiety and depression outcomes [ 21 ]. It is argued that goal agreement is a fundamental element missing from much work with young people, and it has been referred to as a “social contract” [ 22 ]. This emphasis on relationships is particularly important when working with young people with acute, or multifarious difficulties, where relationships are complex, difficult to develop and maintain (e.g., [ 23 ]).

Existing evidence suggests that there are certain elements of mental health support for young people that are effective, but there is a lack of identification and knowledge about mechanisms to refine and improve this support [ 24 ]. Specifically, there is a paucity of research exploring the mechanisms underpinning why goal setting may be helpful for some young people, and not others. There are likely to be confounding variables which interplay the effectiveness of goals, depression and/or anxiety, cognition, and motivation, yet there is little research that has explored this in clinical settings with young people.

The aim of this study is to summarise existing literature, supplemented by discussions with international advisors to contextualise and aid interpretation of the findings. The research question is:

“Is collaborative goal setting helpful or unhelpful to young people experiencing anxiety and/or depression, as an element of therapeutic relationships? a. Why/why not and how? b. For whom? c. Under what circumstances?”

A mixed methodological approach combined reviews of peer-reviewed, grey literature and additional sources (e.g., websites), with consultation with experts by experience. The risk of expert view biasing the findings was mitigated via the validating steps outlined below. The study was designed by the lead researcher, and other researchers in the team, in collaboration with the peer researchers.

Whilst it is acknowledged that there are important outcome areas such as quality of life and existential factors, aside from symptom reduction, the focus of this study was to specifically explore the research questions in relation to potential anxiety and depression symptom reduction. Anxiety and depression were focused on as the most common mental health difficulties worldwide. This focus on medicalised symptomology differs from quality of life, which is a multi-dimensional construct comprised of several domains, such as psychological, physical, and social wellbeing. Anxiety, depression, therapeutic relationships, and goal progress are routinely measured using self- and proxy-reported outcome measures, with numerical rating scales. It was anticipated that the research question would not be adequately explored through findings from outcome measures alone. Based on some initial scoping work, we determined that there would be more evidence on the effectiveness of goal setting and tracking via qualitative enquiry, including narratives. The exploration of the nuances identified in the research question was key to the study, and so it was important to give precedence to young people’s voices through existing research and youth advisors, combined with findings from any relevant supporting measures. Such explorations would not be possible through quantitative enquiry of outcome measure data.

Goal setting alongside usual clinical work and goals work (goal focused interventions) were differentiated from implicit goal-oriented practice, non-directive approaches and paternalistic approaches to support in this study. This meant that to be included in the literature synthesis, goals needed to be explicitly identified as an approach to progress tracking, and/or informing the work. This study also focused on individual settings, and whilst these relationships may include parents/carers in a triad, the primary focus was on the relationship built between the practitioner and the young person. This was due to the complexities and potential dilution of agreeing goals and developing therapeutic relationships in group work and with parents/carers in addition. Ethical approval was not required because this study did not involve collection nor analysis of primary data, and youth advisors were consulted on in the capacity of being part of the advisory group, rather than within the capacity of research participants [ 25 ].

Literature review

First, search terms and inclusion and exclusion criteria were agreed in collaboration with the academic/clinical and youth advisors (See Additional file 1 : Appendix 1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria and Search Strategies). The project was registered with PROSPERO (number: CRD42021259611).

Second, searches of ten online databases were conducted (PsycINFO (OVID), MEDLINE (OVID), EMBASE (OVID), Web of Science core collection, current contents connect, SciELOCitation Index, Cochrane Library of Systematic Reviews, CINAHL (EBSCO), ERIC (EBSCO), and child and adolescent studies (EBSCO)). The search strategy developed for each database comprised three concepts: anxiety and/or depression (condition), goals (intervention) and therapeutic alliance or general views on goal setting, e.g., perspective, view, narrative (intervention/outcome). Searches were restricted to the past 20 years (2000-present). Citation tracking of included papers was performed. Retrieved hits were exported to EndNote 20 [ 26 ], Rayyan [ 27 ] and Excel for title/abstract screening.

Third, two researchers (FS, JJ) independently screened titles and abstracts. Where one researcher (JJ) was an author in retrieved studies, screening was conducted by the other researcher (FS), to ensure unbiased screening. Fourth, two researchers (JJ, IS) explored resultant literature main texts, extracting and synthesising relevant information. Key literature identified by researchers and advisors was added. The quality of the studies was assessed using criteria for qualitative studies ([ 28 ]; See Additional file 1 : Appendix 2 Core Criteria for Quality Assessment of Qualitative Studies).

Grey literature search

Google and Google Scholar title search, Google Books, PsycEXTRA, PsyArXiv, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses were used. Google's Site Search was used to search American Psychological Association, British Psychological Society, Australian Psychological Society, European Federation of Psychologists' Associations, International Association of Applied Psychology, Association for Psychological Science, International Union of Psychological Science, Canadian Psychological Association, and UN-affiliated websites (.int domains). To identify more relevant literature, ResearchRabbit.ai was used to track the citations to the included studies. As a result of Google title search, websites were identified and browsed. The searches were restricted to those: (1) written in English, (2) published from January 2000 to August 2021, (3) focused on goal setting with young people experiencing mental health difficulties. Two researchers (FS, JJ) independently screened titles and abstracts of the resultant sources for relevance.

Insight analysis

An advisory group was formed at the study’s outset, comprising: (1) young people with lived experience of anxiety and/or depression and therapy (N = 8; age range 15–26 years; mean age = 20.8; female (includes transgender) N = 5; and male (includes transgender) N = 3; located in Brazil, Pakistan, Spain, Turkey, and UK); and (2) academics and clinicians (N = 6; female N = 1, male N = 5; located in Norway and UK). Criteria for youth advisors to take part where that they were around the age of interest (14–24 years) and had lived experience of anxiety and/or depression and had previously -or currently-experienced receiving a mental health intervention. Youth advisors’ experience of anxiety and/or depression was balanced across advisors. Youth advisors were recruited via adverts circulated by a European network of peer advisors with international reach, and signed an agreement at the outset of the project, by way of consent to participate, which included specific duties and responsibilities of what would be expected of them, as well as hours and reimbursement details. For those under 18 years old, parent/carer consent and agreements were gained. One-to-one meetings between each youth advisor and the participation lead for the study were conducted before and after the study took place. A written agreement was made between the lead research organisation, and the participation organisation which facilitates the network of peer advisors.

Academic/clinical advisors were experienced and specialised in goals work and were recruited via existing networks. Criteria for academic/clinical advisors were that they had research and/or clinical experience in the field of mental health goal setting with young people (academic N = 6; clinical N = 4; categories not mutually exclusive). Written agreements were made between the lead research organisation, and each academic/clinical advisor.

Directed discussions were held at six advisory group meetings (two academic/clinical and four youth) facilitated by two researchers (JJ, MS) and conducted in English. All advisors spoke English, but time was given in the meetings to check understanding, as English was not a native language for many. The academic/clinical and youth advisors met separately, enabling the youth advisors to share openly with their peers. These discussions focused on the research question and drawing inferences about resultant findings, as well as appraising the evidence to identify key literature gaps. The summary of findings from the literature review was presented via PowerPoint to the advisors. The questions asked were broadly: is setting goals an important part of the relationship with the therapist and why/not; do these findings align with your experiences; is there anything you can think of that has not been considered; are there any elements of these findings that do not make sense in your experience; how do you interpret and understand these findings within the context of your own experience? Youth advisors were asked additional questions about the nature of language, for example, what do you think about the term “goal”? Is it the word you use, is it understandable, how does it translate to your national languages?. Field notes were taken, alongside notes in advisors’ own words on the JamBoard interactive workspace, allowing for anonymous contributions. Analysis comprised four stages. First, one researcher (MS) organised field notes and comments into a narrative summary. Second, one researcher (JJ) used the nuanced elements of the research question to organise the summary. Third, feedback was sought from advisors to evaluate and assess whether it was a true reflection of the discussions. Fourth, one researcher (JJ) refined and renamed the themes.

Online searches generated 10,907 records. Ten potentially eligible studies were identified. Upon screening full texts, seven unique studies met the selection criteria (See Fig.  1 and Table 1 ).

PRISMA flow chart of the study selection process. From: Page, M.J., McKenzie, J.E., Bossuyt, P.M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T.C., Mulrow, C.D. et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ. 2021;372(n71)

Included studies comprised three narrative case studies [ 29 , 30 , 31 ] a randomised control trial [ 32 ]; a narrative review [ 33 ] a practitioners’ guidance document [ 34 ]; and a naturalistic study [ 35 ]. Critical appraisal of the evidence (Table 1 ) demonstrates that caution must be exercised when considering the findings. The main strength of the included studies is the voice of young people through verbatim quotes, and for some, strong consideration of the researchers’ impact. However, less strength is attributed to the dependability or generalisability of the findings, mainly due to the high proportion of small-and-homogenous samples. The advisors’ discussion summaries were organised into themes within the nuances of the research question: Why/why not and how? For whom? Under what circumstances?”, and presented as a narrative synthesis.

Why/why not and how (mechanisms)

A conduit for open communication.

Six studies described collaborative goal setting as a conduit for communication [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. Specifically, agreement on goals leads to open communication, a shared understanding of difficulties and ways forward [ 29 , 31 , 35 ]. Formulating goals was described as key to helping young people to feeling understood, valued and that practitioners are listening to them [ 33 , 34 , 35 ]. Collaborative goal setting enables young people and practitioners to make genuine disclosures, not necessarily otherwise possible [ 30 ] and facilitates mutual support [ 31 ].

Both academic/clinical and youth advisors said that open communication and trust were key, broadly agreeing that goal setting could be helpful to support building trusting relationships. It was agreed that collaboratively agreeing goals may take time and should not happen immediately. Rather, practitioners should work flexibly, aiming to understand what is comfortable for young people experiencing anxiety and/or depression. Some youth advisors said that relationships need to be built first, with trust established prior to goal setting, particularly when goal setting feels complicated. It was agreed by youth and academic/clinical advisors that goal setting should be led by young people and guided by practitioners, sharing responsibility. Youth advisors considered open communication the most crucial factor in therapy, with a sense that much therapeutic work cannot take place without it.

Feel supported and involved

Young people value receiving support to split actions into smaller manageable steps, with encouragement from practitioners stimulating validation that their goals are achievable ([ 35 ], and youth advisors). Being given choice about goal content and how this translates into the options for care was identified as an important part of the process in the literature [ 35 ]. Evidence suggests that this leads to a sense of autonomy and control over what happens to young people and enables them to feel involved in the process and increases engagement [ 30 , 33 , 35 ]. This was not directly addressed by the academic/clinical advisors in their discussions.

Nature of difficulties

All seven studies, and youth and academic/clinical advisors, suggested that goal setting was a helpful element of therapeutic relationships for young people experiencing anxiety and/or depression, and more broadly with other undefined presenting difficulties. Both academic/clinical and youth advisors agreed that there was no need to separate specific attributes of anxiety or depression, due in part, to high proportions of comorbidity.

Age, and previous experiences

Three studies described difficulties for young people engaging in goal setting [ 32 , 33 , 34 ]. These were: age-appropriate quests for independence interfering with establishing collaborative relationships with adults [ 32 ]; significant and repeated traumas impacting development, relationships and challenges ordering thoughts, particularly within the context of long-term therapy [ 34 ]; low confidence or feelings of hopelessness; and poor previous experiences of goal setting [ 33 ]. Youth advisors agreed that previous life experiences were important, e.g., views of goal setting in therapeutic settings were impacted by how successful they had been in achieving past goals, regardless of goal type. Academic/clinical advisors agreed that personal factors such as previous experiences and factors surrounding—or leading to—difficulties, may lead to challenges setting goals in the first instance.

Levels of distress, personality traits and preferences

Youth and academic/clinical advisors suggested that specific unhelpful elements may depend on the young person, and sometimes levels of distress, rather than the nature of difficulties. Some youth advisors expressed preferences for practitioner-directed work, particularly in times of high distress, e.g.,: “If I’m going through something very bad, I can be very frustrated/sad so I can’t think clear” (youth advisor) . It was also agreed that goals may exacerbate anxiety, particularly at times of overwhelm, whilst for others this could be a helpful anxiety reduction approach, e.g., in exposure therapy. Youth advisors said that ensuring goals are achievable is key to building good therapeutic relationships, and the impact on anxiety/depression; the individual’s capacity to set goals should be considered, e.g., someone struggling with day-to-day tasks may find even small goals too challenging. Youth advisors considered perfectionism to be important, where some people may feel pressure to achieve goals. A sense of hopelessness, or procrastination, and rumination also, where delaying tasks may result in delaying work on goals. For some youth advisors, goal setting felt especially important, whilst for others it was not, rather a supportive relationship was identified as most important, and they could not see how that would be developed through goal setting. Academic/clinical advisors said that young people’s preferences to work on goals, or not, was in itself of key importance to the therapeutic relationship. There was no evidence from the included literature to support/oppose these points.

Language and power dynamics

Linked to preferences, youth advisors said that young people tend not to like the term “goal” because they attribute it to work and formal settings, whereas “therapeutic goals” are personal with deeper meaning. Academic/clinical advisors discussed using alternative language for goal setting and goal directed work, and the importance of being led by the young person. Posing questions such as “What do you want to change?” is suggested as an alternative in the literature ([ 33 ]; p.47). Youth advisors said that whilst some young people may feel able to say they do not want to set goals, others may not, due to the young person-practitioner power imbalance, which has implications for relationships, and therapeutic work. There was no further evidence from the included literature to support/oppose these points.

Under what circumstances (contextual factors)

Broadly helpful.

All seven studies suggested that goal setting was a helpful element of therapeutic relationships for young people within the research contexts. This included year-long narrative therapy with interpersonal therapy and CBT techniques in alliance with the family [ 29 ]; multimodal family therapy [ 31 ]; Gestalt therapy [ 30 ]; either CBT, short-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy or brief psychosocial intervention [ 32 ]; UK child and adolescent mental health services [ 33 , 34 ] and UK inpatient settings [ 35 ]. All studies were based in Western high-income countries. Academic/clinical and youth advisors agreed with this assessment.

Review points and referral routes

Reviewing progress towards goals too frequently could give the impression that practitioners are more interested in gauging their own success, rather than in the young person as a whole person, and rating could end up being done by rote, making goals increasingly meaningless [ 34 ] . Academic/clinical and youth advisors agreed with this, discussing the need to work with goals in a flexible manner. Additionally, young people may not recognise the symptoms identified, particularly when referred for treatment by another party (e.g., parents/carers), which is crucial to enable collaborative goal setting [ 32 ]. Challenges associated with thinking of goals in this way was addressed by the academic/clinical and youth advisors in wider discussions elsewhere (see therapy contexts).

Culture and therapy contexts

Youth and academic/clinical advisors located in Western high-income countries agreed that it may depend on types of interventions offered and practitioner’s preferred working style, but young people largely have agency to set goals. However, it was recognised by the youth and academic/clinical advisors that some young people in some countries do not have agency to set goals. There, decisions are made by families, in collaboration with practitioners, and so less consideration is given to young people’s perspectives. It was suggested that, in some countries, there is no concept of setting goals (e.g., a youth advisor discussed their experience in Pakistan), and ongoing stigma associated with mental health difficulties, which may lead to distrust, scepticism in, and a disconnect with practitioners. Youth advisors said that this may also be true in other countries not represented. A youth advisor suggested that young people in Brazil were relaxed towards goal setting and would not mind if goals were not achieved; directed therapy was considered more helpful.

Youth and academic/clinical advisors discussed goals in long-term therapy as potentially feeling restrictive, with challenges associated with thinking of what goals might be. Both long-and short-term goal setting within this context may feel meaningless, which if then pressed by the practitioner, has a negative impact on relationships. Academic/clinical advisors said that the feasibility of goal setting in the first instance is likely to be attributable to the factors young people who might be offered long-term therapy might have, rather than the work itself leading to these challenges. Youth and academic/clinical advisors also said that where there are multiple needs and risks, goals need to be simpler to feel manageable. Youth advisors said that sometimes there were concerns about the achievement of goals equating to treatment ending, which felt unsettling. There was no evidence from the included literature to support/oppose these points.

This study aimed to provide a synthesis of existing literature, identifying knowledge gaps. Whilst much may be drawn from related research, caution must be exercised when translating findings into other contexts [ 11 ], and whilst promising, generalising adult findings to youth must be exercised with an abundance of caution. Evidence suggests that adults and children think differently; as children grow, their cognitive processes develop, and their contexts and perspectives change, impacting on understandings of the self and the world around them. Further, models of recovery from depression are notably different between adults and young people [ 14 ]. As such, we have focused on evidence from the youth field in our discussion, and further highlight the paucity of research with young people in this area.

The included evidence originates from Western high-income and largely specialist settings; further research in majority world countries is urgently required. Many studies identified in initial searches only partially met inclusion criteria. This evidence paucity may suggest goal setting is not embedded in service standards or practice in most countries, or other limiting factors such as the general underfunding of youth mental health research. Some examples were derived from the insight analysis, highlighting the advisors’ value, who helped contextualise and interpret evidence, grounded in lived experience. However, whilst the research question pertained to the effectiveness of goal setting as part of therapeutic relationships, the findings were related to the feasibility, or acceptability of goal setting itself. Links between effective goal setting, good therapeutic relationships and positive outcomes are inferred based on evidence that partially supports the research question, and the discussions with the advisory group, but no evidence relating to anxiety or depression outcomes was found in this study. Future research should consider in depth explorations of mechanisms of goal setting within therapeutic relationships, for young people experiencing anxiety and/or depression.

For many young people, goal setting is a helpful tool for building good therapeutic relationships via open communication. These findings support previous research which partially address the research question: young people find goal setting to be helpful to therapeutic relationships through the development of a shared language and understanding [ 3 ]. It has been suggested that goals are a mechanism of change via a means for “common ground” to be established [ 3 ]. Finding common ground and a shared understanding are particularly pertinent in youth mental health settings, where there are multiple stakeholders involved [ 36 , 37 , 38 ], which can be a balancing act [ 39 ]. Establishing this mutuality of situations is considered the key facilitator of engagement when referred for therapy by others [ 40 ]. Further, ownership of goals located with young people is important [ 41 ], which in turn gives young people ownership of their care, which can be motivational [ 42 , 43 ]. Young people experiencing anxiety may find goal setting an effective strategy due to links with avoidance motivation; such that they have reported pursuing approach goals to avoid negative emotional consequences of not doing so [ 44 ]. The ability of young people to maintain focus on the pursuit of personal goals has also been demonstrated as a moderator of depression and suicide [ 45 ].

One included study explicitly discussed parents/carers within collaborative goals and therapeutic relationships, as a foundation for mutual support [ 31 ]. Stronger relationships between both young people, parents/carers and practitioners and/or involving both young people and parents/carers in decision-making have been demonstrated to predict more positive outcomes [ 39 , 46 ]. Young people are often referred by their parents/carers, which must be considered, particularly where literature highlights challenges of setting goals when young people do not agree with the referral or recognise the difficulties [ 22 , 32 ]. Prior research has demonstrated that young people from minoritized ethnic groups are more likely to be referred for mental health support via social care and the youth justice system compared to their White British counterparts, who are commonly referred via primary care in the UK [ 47 ]. Further, evidence suggests that increases in emotional autonomy result in a shift from dependence on adults in adolescence, to reliance upon peers for support [ 48 ] particularly amongst girls [ 49 ], which may align with the developmental interference with building relationships outside of goal setting found by Cirasola and colleagues [ 32 ]. It has been argued that for young people who have difficulties building and maintaining relationships, the therapeutic relationship is particularly important (e.g., [ 23 ]). It is also noteworthy that young people in some countries may not have agency to set goals, a significant limiting factor. There are cultural and service level factors which were not explored. In some cultures, advice is sought from family and religious leaders over mental health professionals (e.g., [ 50 ]). Organisational level factors have also been found to hinder and influence therapeutic processes [ 40 ]. Further research is needed into referral routes, and intersections between systems, practice, and young people’s preferences.

Several elements of goal setting were identified as unhelpful for young people experiencing anxiety and/or depression, supporting previous literature. These discussions centred on the feasibility/acceptability of goals, rather than goal setting being detrimental to therapeutic relationships per se. Nevertheless, it is suggested that these factors were primarily related to the person, and that “personal” factors may be driven by underlying difficulties. For example, low confidence, hopelessness, levels of distress, perfectionism, and rumination (e.g., [ 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 ], may all be elements of anxiety and/or depression. Academic/clinical and youth advisors agreed that goals may become clearer over time, particularly for young people experiencing depression and purposeless, and through collaboration, goals could be formulated. The importance of considering specific challenges of goal setting during long-term therapy was highlighted. Academic/clinical and youth advisors discussed challenges associated with identifying priority areas for work, and that goals continue to flex and change, with the potential for goals work to feel too restrictive. This is in support of previous research suggesting that it is important that goals are worked on flexibly [ 3 ] with space for them to change; specifically in relation to depression. Compared to those with low levels of depression, young people with high levels of depression are more able to disengage with unhelpful goals over time and to set new goals, which in turn may predict lower levels of depressive symptoms over a year later [ 56 ]. This sense of goals flexing, feeling unique and changeable has been mirrored in descriptions of therapeutic relationships themselves [ 23 ]. There was a clear steer from youth advisors that the relationship independent of goal setting was key to good outcomes, and that this was a priority; that without the trusting relationship, there is no facilitator for goal setting. This is an important contradiction to the literature, warranting further exploration. One suggestion is that the initial goals for long-term therapy should be on relationship building, but reviewed, so the therapeutic relationship itself does not remain the primary goal [ 34 ]. Another key finding is that goals take time to establish, and pressure to set goals may render them meaningless, which also supports previous research [ 51 ]. Young people often do not know what their goals are [ 57 ], which impacts trust building, relationships and thus, therapeutic work. In support of prior research which defines recovery as contingent on shared goals and joint action in relationships [ 14 ], links found between goals, trust building and therapeutic relationships in the present study align with research on trauma informed care, and emotional and relational safety (see, [ 58 ]). Further consideration should be given to this area, particularly clinical implications, and interactions with levels of distress.

Whilst support approaches that incorporate structured goal setting are often characterised by a greater emphasis on client-centredness, the links between personally meaningful outcomes and the specific behaviour change techniques required to progress towards goals are not clear. Further, the person-centred focus is hypothesised as a conduit to positive ratings of self-efficacy, quality of life and service satisfaction, but evidence is lacking [ 11 ]. Whilst previous literature from within the youth mental health field suggests that working on goals is motivating and increases self-efficacy [ 34 , 42 ], evidence is still limited. Goal setting may be useful to young people because, whilst not necessarily synonymous, it has been demonstrated as a facilitative element of shared decision-making [ 59 , 60 ]. This collaborative way of working through shared understanding and the development of good therapeutic relationships [ 61 ] may be especially helpful to young people experiencing depression as it enables them to exercise control over their own feelings and behaviour [ 43 ] at a time when they may be experiencing feelings of hopelessness and purposeless. Whilst educated links are made to shared decision-making, further research should explore whether there is an embedded link to goals and therapeutic relationships.

Strengths and limitations

The mixed-methodological approach was a particular strength, with literature findings bolstered by lived experience. However, whilst advisors were from diverse demographic groups, not all groups were represented.

Whilst every attempt was made to include as many goal setting search terms as possible, the language is broad and fluid, meaning certain terms may have been missed. Still, the high number of results returned from literature searches suggests the strategy may need refinement. Nevertheless, we chose to ensure a large return given the subject’s broad nature. At the screening stage, the focus on explicitly identified goal setting and goal work made the identification of included studies less ambiguous, but meant that studies focused on implicit goals work would not have been included, reducing the number of studies included in the final synthesis.

Prior assumptions and knowledge of this topic will have influenced the researchers’ interpretation of the findings, even subconsciously. This includes the decision to use the nuanced elements of the research question to organise the findings. The researchers were located in Belgium, Germany, and the UK at the time of the study, which risks the perpetuation of the status quo of Western high-income-originating dominated research. Further, the findings were contextualised and linked to prior theory primarily by a researcher outside the age range of interest (JJ). The impact of both issues was mitigated via advisors, particularly those within majority world countries and the age range of interest, and the peer researchers entrenched in the research team (MS, IS), who provided contextual depth and understanding to the findings.

Literature focused on goal setting as helpful for young people with anxiety and/or depression is overwhelmingly supportive, but this leaves research gaps regarding in which ways, for whom and under what circumstances goal setting might be unhelpful. Priority must be given to researching unhelpful mechanisms of goal setting, to avoid potential iatrogenic effects. Accessibility could be improved through exploration of the intersections between systems/contexts (e.g., country), therapeutic practice (e.g., practitioner’s training/preferences) and young people’s preferences. Further research is also needed to explore mechanisms by which goal setting may help to reduce anxiety and/or depression symptoms, as well as other important areas of outcome, such as quality of life, using e.g., mediation analysis.

Scaling up in countries with well-developed systems could mean embedding goals in guidelines for anxiety and/or depression; in service specifications, including monitoring and reporting change mechanisms; staff training in consistency; and some interagency forums to align goal processes. For majority world countries with less developed systems, largely relying on non-specialist services e.g., NGOs, goals may be paradoxically more important for maximising limited resources. Despite nothing suggesting goal setting could not practically be scaled-up globally, cultural considerations may be a limiting factor in some places.

Preferences to not work on goals may be driven by the limiting factors identified, such as hopelessness or high distress. Practitioners should work through this first, reviewing the option to work on goals over time, respecting young people’s preferences. Flexibility is important, and ownership of goals located with young people is essential, particularly to those experiencing depression, enabling them to exercise control over their feelings and behaviour when they may be feeling hopeless and/or purposeless. Finally, there may be a unique opportunity for goals to facilitate work with young people experiencing high distress levels or who have experienced trauma, due to links to emotional and relational safety and building trusting relationships.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available to protect the confidentiality of the small number of advisors, but may be available from the corresponding author’s organisation, on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Cognitive behavioural therapy

Goal based outcomes tool

United Kingdom

Austin JT, Vancouver JB. Goal constructs in psychology: structure, process, and content. Psychol Bull. 1996;122(3):338–75.

Article   Google Scholar  

Law D. Goals and goal based outcomes (GBOs): some useful information. London: Internal CORC Publication; 2011.

Google Scholar  

Di Malta G, Oddli HW, Cooper M. From intention to action: a mixed methods study of clients’ experiences of goal-oriented practices. J Clin Psychol. 2019;75(20):1770–89.

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Law D, Jacob J. Goals and goal based outcomes: some useful information. 3rd ed. London: CAMHS Press; 2015.

Grosse M, Grawe HK. Bern inventory of treatment goals: part 1. Development and first application of a taxonomy of treatment goal themes. Psychother Res. 2002;12:79–99.

Law D. The goal-based outcome (GBO) tool. Guidance notes. [Internet]. Goals in Therapy. 2019. Available from: https://goalsintherapycom.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/gbo-version-2.0-guide-final-1st-feb-2019.pdf .

Bandura A. Self-regulation of motivation and action through goal systems. In: Bandura A, editor. Cognitive perspectives on emotion and motivation. Dordrecht: Springer; 1988. p. 37–61.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Manderlink G, Harackiewicz JM. Proximal versus distal goal setting and intrinsic motivation. J Personal Soc Psychol. 1984;47:918–28.

Maslow AH. A theory of human motivation. Psychol Rev. 1943;50:370–96.

Harkin B, Webb TL, Chang BP, Prestwich A, Conner M, Kellar I, Benn Y, Sheeran P. Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychol Bull. 2016;142(2):198–229.

Levack WM, Weatherall M, Hay-Smith EC, Dean SG, McPherson K, Siegert RJ. Goal setting and strategies to enhance goal pursuit for adults with acquired disability participating in rehabilitation. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD009727.pub2 .

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Mellat N, Lavasani MG. The role of epistemological beliefs, motivational constructs and Information processing strategies in regulation of learning. Procedia Soc Behav Sci. 2011;30(1):1761–9.

Leavey JE. Youth experiences of living with mental health problems: emergence, loss, adaptation and recovery (ELAR). Can J Community Ment Health. 2009;24(2):109–26.

Simonds LM, Pons RA, Stone NJ, Warren F, John M. Adolescents with anxiety and depression: Is social recovery relevant? Clin Psychol Psychother. 2014;21(4):289–98.

Castonguay LG. Predicting the effect of cognitive therapy for depression: a study of unique and common factors. J Consult Clin Psychol. 1996;64:497–504.

Duncan BL. The heart and soul of change second edition: delivering what works in therapy. Washington: American Psychological Association; 2010.

Book   Google Scholar  

Messer SB. Let’s face facts: common factors are more potent than specific therapy ingredients. Clin Psychol Sci Pract. 2002;9:21–5.

Kazdin AE, Siegel TC, Bass D. Drawing on clinical practice to inform research on child and adolescent psychotherapy: survey of practitioners. Prof Psychol Res Pract. 1990;21(3):189–98.

Bordin ES. The generalizability of the psychoanalytic concept of the working alliance. Psychother Theory Res Pract. 1979;16(3):252–60.

Luong HK, Drummond SPA, Norton PJ. Elements of the therapeutic relationship in CBT for anxiety disorders: a systematic review. J Anxiety Disord. 2020;76:102322. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102322 .

Shick Tryon G, Birch SE, Verkuilen J. Meta-analyses of the relation of goal consensus and collaboration to psychotherapy outcome. Psychotherapy. 2018;55(4):372–83.

DiGiuseppe R, Linscott J, Jilton R. Developing the therapeutic alliance in child-adolescent psychotherapy. Appl Prev Psychol. 1996;5(2):85–100.

Hartley S, Redmond T, Berry K. Therapeutic relationships within child and adolescent mental health inpatient services: a qualitative exploration of the experiences of young people, family members and nursing staff Short. PsyArXiv. 2021. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w2nct .

Wolpert M, Pote I, Sebastian C. Identifying and integrating active ingredients for mental health. Lancet Psychiatry. 2021;8(9):741–3.

INVOLVE. Briefing note for researchers: Public involvement in NHS, public health and social care research [Internet]. 2012. Available from: https://www.invo.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/INVOLVEBriefingNotesApr2012.pdf .

Gotschall T. EndNote 20 desktop version. J Med Libr Assoc JMLA. 2021;109(3):520.

PubMed   Google Scholar  

Ouzzani M, Hammady H, Fedorowicz ZEA. Rayyan—a web and mobile app for systematic reviews. Syst Rev. 2016;5(1):1–10.

Hannes K. Chapter 4: Critical appraisal of qualitative research. In: Njbahkhahjlsl C, editor. Supplementary guidance for inclusion of qualitative research in cochrane systematic reviews of interventions version 1. London: Cochrane Collaboration Qualitative Methods Group; 2011. p. 4.

Bennett LR. Adolescent depression: meeting therapeutic challenges through an integrated narrative approach. J Child Adolesc Psychiatr Nurs. 2012;25(4):184–94.

Berdondini L, Elliott R, Shearer J. Collaboration in experiential therapy. J Clin Psychol. 2012;68(2):159–67.

Diamond GM, Diamond GS, Liddle HA. The therapist–parent alliance in family-based therapy for adolescents. J Clin Psychol. 2000;56(8):1037–50.

Cirasola A, Midgley N, Fonagy P, Martin P, MGoodyer I, Reynolds S, et al. The factor structure of the working alliance inventory short-form in youth psychotherapy: an empirical investigation. Psychother Res. 2021;31(4):535–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2020.1765041 .

Feltham A, Martin K, Walker L. Using goals in therapy: the perspective of people with lived experience. In: Cooper M, Law D, editors. Working with goals in psychotherapy and counselling. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2018. p. 73–85.

Law D, Wolpert M. Guide to using outcomes and feedback tools with children, young people and families. Formally known as the COOP document. London: CAMHS Press; 2014.

Martin K. A critical realist study of shared decision-making in young people’s mental health inpatient units. Bristol: Bristol University Press; 2019.

Hawks JM. Exploring the therapeutic alliance with adolescents and their caregivers: A qualitative approach. Diss Abstr Int Sect A Humanit Soc Sci. 2016;77(4-A(E)):No-Specified. Available from: http://ovidsp.ovid.com/ovidweb.cgi?T=JS&PAGE=reference&D=psyc13&NEWS=N&AN=2016-37856-098 .

Marks D. Fostering parental growth and enhancing the therapeutic alliance: key tasks for the child psychotherapist. J Child Psychother. 2020;46(1):20–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/0075417X.2020.1743736 .

Shpigel MS, Diamond GM. Good versus poor therapeutic alliances with non-accepting parents of same-sex oriented adolescents and young adults: a qualitative study. Psychother Res. 2014;24(3):376–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2013.856043 .

Paul M. Decision-making about children’s health care. Adv Psychiatr Treat. 2004;10:301–11.

Stige SH, Eik I, Oddli HW, Moltu C. Negotiating system requirements to secure client engagement—therapist strategies in adolescent psychotherapy initiated by others. Front Psychol. 2021. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704136 .

Marshall SL, Oades LG, Crowe TP. Australian mental health consumers’ contributions to the evaluation and improvement of recovery oriented service provision. Isr J Psychiatry Relat Sci. 2010;47(3):198–205.

Cairns A, Kavanagh D, Dark F, McPhail SM. Setting measurable goals with young people: qualitative feedback from the goal attainment scale in youth mental health. Br J Occup Ther. 2015;78(4):253–9.

Grossoehme DH, Gerbetz L. Adolescent perceptions of meaningfulness of psychiatric hospitalization. Clin Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2004;9(4):589–96.

Dickson JM, Moberly NJ. Goal internalization and outcome expectancy in adolescent anxiety. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2013;41(3):389–97.

Abrera AM. Depression and suicide risk among adolescents: exploring the moderating role of benevolence and goal-orientation. In: The 6 th ASEAN regional union psychological society (ARUPS) congress “driving mental revolution in the psychological century: enhancing psychological services for a better future. Bali; 2018. p. 56.

Edbrooke-Childs J, Jacob J, Argent R, Patalay P, Deighton JWM. The relationship between child-and parent-reported shared decision making and child-, parent-, and clinician-reported treatment outcome in routinely collected child mental health services data. Clin Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2016;21(2):324–38.

Edbrooke-Childs J, Patalay P. Ethnic differences in referral routes to youth mental health services. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2019;58(3):368–75.

Steinberg L, Silverberg SB. The vicissitudes of autonomy in early adolescence. Child Dev. 1986;57:841–51.

Slavin LA, Rainer KL. Gender differences in emotional support and depressive symptoms among adolescents: a prospective analysis. Am J Community Psychol. 1990;18(3):407–21.

Ciftci A, Jones N, Corrigan PW. Mental health stigma in the muslim community. J Muslim Ment Health. 2013;7(1):17–32.

Bromley C, Westwood S. Young people’s participation: views from young people on using goals. Child Fam Clin Psychol Rev. 2013;1:29–40.

Clarke SP, Oades LG, Crowe TP, Caputi P, Deane FP. The role of symptom distress and goal attainment in promoting aspects of psychological recovery for consumers with enduring mental illness. J Ment Health. 2009;18(5):389–97.

Trent ES, Viana AG, Raines EM, Woodward EC, Zvolensky MJCA. Exposure to parental threatening behaviors and internalizing psychopathology in a trauma-exposed inpatient adolescent sample: the role of difficulties with goal-directed behaviors. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2019;207(11):969–76.

Moberly NJ, Watkins ER. Negative affect and ruminative self-focus during everyday goal pursuit. Cogn Emot. 2010;24(4):729–39.

Steen A, Berghuis H, Braam AW. Lack of meaning, purpose and direction in life in personality disorder: a comparative quantitative approach using Livesley’s general assessment of personality disorder. Personal Ment Health. 2019;13(3):144–54.

Wrosch C, Miller GE. Depressive symptoms can be useful: self-regulatory and emotional benefits of dysphoric mood in adolescence. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2009;96(6):1181–90.

Troupp C. Distinguishing patient-generated outcome measures in CAMHS from a bespoke sandwich. Child Fam Clin Psychol Rev. 2013;1(1):19–28.

Taylor J, Shostak L, Rogers A, Mitchell P. Rethinking mental health provision in the secure estate for children and young people: a framework for integrated care (SECURE STAIRS). Safer Communities. 2018;17(4):193–201.

Cheng H, Hayes D, Edbrooke-Childs J, Martin K, Chapman L, Wolpert M. What approaches for promoting shared decision making are used in child mental health? A scoping review. Helen MIR mHealth uHealth. 2017;7(6):77.

Langer DA, Jensen-Doss A. Shared decision-making in youth mental health care: using the evidence to plan treatments collaboratively. J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol. 2018;47(5):821–31.

Coulter A, Edwards A, Elwyn G, Thomson R. Implementing shared decision making in the UK. Z Evid Fortbild Qual Gesundhwes. 2011;105(4):300–4.

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the advisors, for their invaluable contribution from start to finish, including useful comments an early draft: Duncan Law, Elmas Aybike Yılmaz, Hanne Oddli, Isabella Valério, Jacob People, Josh D., Julian Edbrooke-Childs, Katya Proctor, Laura Calomarde Juárez, Mick Cooper, Nick Morgan, Panos Vostanis, Syeda Zeenat R., and Theo Jackson. Thank you to Bernice Appiah, Shade Davies and Shadia Robertson for helpful discussions about the findings, and assistance with evidence synthesis, and to Inês Pote from the Wellcome Active Ingredients team, and Jasmine Harju-Seppanen, for useful comments on a previous draft. The authors also wish to thank Zoe Thomas for incredibly useful advice and guidance regarding literature searches.

This work was funded by a Wellcome Trust Mental Health Priority Area “Active Ingredients” 2021 commission awarded to JJ at the Anna Freud Centre. It was a requirement of the funding team that the research design comprised a literature review, and that the involved and worked collaboratively with young people with lived experience of anxiety and/or depression throughout the course of the project. Members of the funding team provided feedback on an early draft of this manuscript.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Child Outcomes Research Consortium, Anna Freud Centre, 4-8 Rodney Street, London, N1 9JH, UK

Jenna Jacob

Euro Youth Mental Health, The Block, 35 Churchgate, Hitchin, SG5 1DN, UK

Milos Stankovic & Inga Spuerck

Systematic Review Consultants, 9 Sandfield Road, Nottingham, NG7 1QR, UK

Farhad Shokraneh

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

JJ conceptualised the study, prepared the first draft protocol and search strategy, refining this with the study authors and advisors. JJ undertook the library database searches for published literature, partially screened the titles and abstracts of literature, screened all full texts, led communication with study authors and advisors, led four advisory group meetings, maintained the databases which were used to extract and manage study data, prepared, and revised the manuscript. MS contributed to the first draft protocol and search strategy, led communication with youth advisors, led two advisory group meetings, created the narrative summaries, and contributed to the manuscript. IS contributed to the first draft protocol and search strategy, supported communication with youth advisors, screened full texts for further relevant literature, and contributed to the manuscript. FS conducted the grey literature searches, screened all potential title and abstracts from all searches (published and unpublished literature), maintained the databases which were used to extract and manage study data, and contributed to the manuscript. All study advisors were invited to comment on the protocol and initial search terms, and were invited to comment on earlier drafts of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jenna Jacob .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate.

Ethical approval for this research was not required because it does not involve collection nor analysis of primary data, and youth advisors were consulted on in the capacity of being part of the advisory group, to discuss their interpretation of the findings, rather than within the capacity of research participants.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

JJ works on the Child Outcomes Research Consortium (CORC) project at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, which encourages the use of outcome measures in youth mental health settings amongst its members. No other authors report any competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Additional file 1. appendix 1..

Inclusion and exclusion criteria and Search Strategies. Appendix 2 Core Criteria for Quality Assessment of Qualitative Studies.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Jacob, J., Stankovic, M., Spuerck, I. et al. Goal setting with young people for anxiety and depression: What works for whom in therapeutic relationships? A literature review and insight analysis. BMC Psychol 10 , 171 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-022-00879-5

Download citation

Received : 16 March 2022

Accepted : 30 June 2022

Published : 13 July 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-022-00879-5

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Youth mental health
• Goal setting
• Therapeutic alliance
• Outcome measurement
• Active ingredients
• Goal based outcomes

BMC Psychology

ISSN: 2050-7283

• General enquiries: [email protected]