how to do a literature review social sciences

Writing a Literature Review in Social Sciences

Checklist for getting started, what to expect, 1) understand the purpose of your literature review, 2) building or polishing your research toolbox.

• 2. Select / Refine a Topic
• 2.1 Find Review Articles
• 3. Search Literature
• 3.1 Find Scholarly Journals
• 3.2 Find Theses or Dissertations
• 3.3 Track Citations
• 4. Evaluate Literature
• 5. Take Notes & Manage References
• 6. Keep Current
• 7. Prepare First Draft & Revise
• 7.1 Grammar & Writing
• FSU Resources

1) Understand the purpose of your literature review 2) Building or polishing your research toolbox   

• Writing a literature review is about making connections with the related works and with your own research. See the big picture. 
• It is quite often impossible to search (and read) "everything" that has been written and published on a topic. Be selective. 
• At some point, you have to STOP searching and reading, and start to write a draft. Know when to stop. 
• It could be an overwhelming task. Setting up your research toolbox before you jump into the task will help you manage the process better. Get prepared.

Depending on the purpose of your literature review, you will need different ways to get prepared.  The following tips will help you visualize what your final product will look like. 

• Length, due dates, # of sources to use, which style the paper should be formatted, etc.  
• If you have a specific journal in mind to publish your research article, read the literature review section of 2-3 articles published in the journal. Read the "Instructions for Authors," a set of requirements to submit a paper to the journal, to see if there is any requirement on the literature review section of the paper.  
• Make yourself familiar with the common format of review articles in the field 
• E.g.,  International Journal of Management Reviews Psychology of Men and Masculities's Literature Review Guideline
• E.g.,  Annual Review of Information Science and Technology Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior     
• Systematic Review is a type of review to identify, appraise, and synthesize all the empirical evidence that meets pre-specified eligibility criteria to answer a specific research question. 
• For resources and strategies to conduct a systematic review project, see the Libraries' Systematic Reviews Guide .
• E.g., " How to Find Theses & Dissertations "  

Toolbox for Searching:

• Know key databases and journals in the field 
• A video tutorial on  Boolean Operators for Database Searching  (from VCU) (3:02)
• Check out "Help" page of a database (if available) to learn the techniques
•  Download   Search Log Template (or create your own)
• Sample Search Log  (Topic: Adolescent Depression & Attachment )  to learn how to use the Template 
• Know   citation chaining methods (or how to search cited references) 
• Know Interlibrary Loan procedures
• Check out  Research Guides in your field 
• Schedule an appointment with Liaison Librarian

Toolbox for Writing:

• Make yourself familiar with the required publishing style (e.g., APA, MLA, etc.) 
• Learn how to use citation management tools 
• Understand what plagiarism is and how to avoid it 
• Check out  Research Guide to Citations 
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Preparing Literature Reviews in the Social Sciences: Overview

This guide is an unrevised HTML document, in need of updating.

This informal guide identifies useful resources for preparing literature reviews in the social science disciplines. That is, it's primarily interested in examining the secondary literature in the social sciences. It also provides suggestions for using specific resources to grow citation lists.

• General Reference Sources - Van Pelt special bibliography
• Van Pelt special bibliographies on specific disciplines: Communication | Education | International Relations | Linguistics | Political Science | Psychology | Sociology
• Van Pelt special bibliographies on techniques and formats: Public Opinion Polls | Quantitative Skills | Researching Cities | Tests and Measurements
• Handbooks for the literature review process
• Reading other people's dissertations Penn dissertations | The world of dissertations
• Browsing likely journals Journal Citation Reports | Journal directories, author guides, and vade-mecums | Finding the right database
• Clever citation index tricks
• Reading other people's literature reviews Textbooks | Literature reviews in periodicals
• Tough-to-find literature Grey literature | Research centers, learned societies, organizations | Dataset bibliographies
• Specialized library collections
• Readings on literature reviews
• Reaching out for help

1. HANDBOOKS FOR THE LITERATURE REVIEW PROCESS

These books and others like them describe the basic steps of the research and writing process for creating literature reviews. Many vade-mecums and "student guides" also contain chapters on the literature review process, too. Although these books usually provide excellent guidance on notetaking and writing, their guidance on researching is often dated and may reflect only those resources favored by the author.

2. READING OTHER PEOPLE'S DISSERTATIONS

Penn dissertations.

Dissertations produced at the University of Pennsylvania are cataloged in Franklin . The Penn Library's current practice is to assign two subject headings whose elements rotate:

Call numbering makes it easy to browse recent dissertations in your program! A circulating copy of each dissertation is kept in the appropriate library's open stacks, with call numbers constructed from the awarding program's Library of Congress class and a class number that puts dissertations at the very beginning of the class numbering sequence:

Within that call number, individual dissertations are arranged by year of award and then alphabetically by author's last name.

Of course, older dissertations will have been treated in different ways. For instance, pre-World War II dissertations often exist only as published offprints, sometimes escaping the usual subject heading and classification.

ProQuest Digital Dissertations Also known as Dissertation Abstracts or UMI , [Online via Penn Library Web ] provides fulltext for Penn dissertations received since 1997 (and many older ones, too), in Adobe Acrobat PDF-format -- usually as page images, rather than searchable fulltext. Abstracts of Penn dissertations received from 1980 to the present are searchable.

• Dissertation Abstracts assigns three subject headings to each dissertation record. The first subject heading appears to designate the awarding program, but not always!
• Use Dissertation Abstracts for subject searching among Penn dissertations. Franklin 's subject access points are restricted to dissertation titles and the awarding program.

THE WORLD OF DISSERTATIONS

• Electronic These Online Service - British Library . Br /> Provides free fulltext for recent and past British doctoral dissertations.
• Index to theses with abstracts accepted for higher degrees by the universities of Great Britain and Ireland and the Council for National Academic Awards . Aslib, 1950-present. [Online, 1970-present, via Penn Library Web (as Index to British university theses ] [Print, 1950-2010: Van Pelt: Z5055 .G69 A8. Latest 5 years in Van Pelt Reference.] [Also online, 1716-present via ProQuest Digital Dissertations .
• Dissertations (CRL Topic Guide) CRL Catalog Click on the "Dissertations" tab to search. Request dissertations you find in the CRL catalog's Dissertation scope through Penn Library Interlibrary Loan . Be sure to include the CRL dissertation call number. CRL holdings will appear in BorrowDirect in early 2011.

3. BROWSING LIKELY JOURNALS

Whether you've got a favorite journal and want to know which journals are similar, or don't even know where to start browsing, here are tools to begin wading.

JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS

• "Subject category" searching allows you to identify the major journals in specific research areas (at least according to ISI's criteria).
• "Cited journal" and "Citing journal" features allow you to identify journals whose articles frequently cite your journal or those which are frequently cited by articles in your journal.

JOURNAL DIRECTORIES, AUTHOR GUIDES, AND VADE-MECUMS

• Handbook of research synthesis and meta-analysis / Harris Cooper, Larry V Hedges, & Jeffrey C Valentine, eds. 2nd ed. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2009. [Online, via Project MUSE ]
• Handbook of research design & social measurement / Delbert C Miller and Neil J Salkind. 6th ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2002. [Online, via SAGE Research Methods ]

FINDING THE RIGHT DATABASE

You know the journal title, you need to know where it's indexed ... or available in fulltext. These will do the trick.

4. CLEVER CITATION INDEX TRICKS

"You are what you read, er, cite." By providing implied subject access through article bibliographies, and updating weekly, ISI Web of Science combines the three ISI citation indexes -- SCI , SSCI , and AHCI -- with ISI's Current contents tearsheets.

• Always use the "Full search" interface.
• "Related records" feature finds articles that share items in your article's bibliography. Literature review articles can retrieve very powerful "related records" results.
• "Combine searches" and "Advanced searches" features allow you to search for articles using several items in their bibliographies, very handy for cutting-edge or interdisciplinary topics that are difficult to describe yet are dominated by one or two authors or definitive publications.
• Don't forget that data sets and procedures may also be cited in bibliographies!

5. READING OTHER PEOPLE'S LITERATURE REVIEWS

Published literature reviews can help you by identifying important works and also by framing the parameters of current and past scholarship.

What a clever idea! A textbook's chief purpose is to summarize its topic. Too bad the Penn Library tries to avoid purchasing textbooks. Also, Library of Congress subject heading practice does not assign a textbook format subdivision for this sort of book.

• Visit the Penn Bookstore's course materials section. Then search Franklin for interesting titles.
• Visit Penn graduate and professional program homepages and Penn's Blackboard and other courseware sites for course reading lists. Then search Franklin for interesting titles.
• Browse the Penn Library stacks in your subject area's call number ranges. Textbooks and other "general" materials are usually at the beginning of the call number sequence -- after Penn dissertations and relevant periodicals.

Every discipline has one or two stand-out publishers, whose chapter-compilation books on timely topics are carefully compiled with a comprehensive introductory essay and strong bibliographies. Two examples are:

LITERATURE REVIEWS IN PERIODICALS

No two indexing or abstracting databases treat literature reviews consistently. Most databases treats articles that are literature reviews similarly to research articles that include brief literature reviews.

• If you've got a literature review published as a periodical article, try to find it in the database. From its complete or full record, try to pick out the subject headings, descriptors, or other buzzwords that distinguish its survey nature. Search again using those terms.
• When stumped, try something stupid: search on " literature and (review or reviews) "

Few journals specialize in publishing literature reviews. But there are a few. Guides to the literature and vade-mecums will suggest some. These are a few major ones.

Some indexes include regular or occasional literature reviews in individual issues. Online versions of these indexes other than JSTOR's do not provide fulltext and may, in fact, omit records describing their own original literature reviews!

6. TOUGH-TO-FIND LITERATURE

Grey literature.

"Grey literature", in its broadest sense, is the ephemeral literature of research and policy: conference papers, working papers, etc. These are difficult materials to identify and obtain, yet they're often where the cutting-edge appears.

• PolicyFile . Chadwyck-Healey.
• EconPapers .

RESEARCH CENTERS, LEARNED SOCIETIES, AND ORGANIZATIONS

So many organizations put their research products on the web that it pays to locate the right organization first.

• ACLS Directory of Constituent Societies (ACLS web)
• Encyclopedia of Associations (including International , National , Regional, state and local ).
• Research centers directory (including International ... and Government ... ).

DATASET BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Many social science datasets are distributed with the proviso that writings using the data are forwarded to the data producer. Bibliographies associated with these datasets can be very useful.

7. SPECIALIZED LIBRARY COLLECTIONS

Ever notice how every Franklin search turns up books about South Asia? Even the biggest research university libraries specialize in specific world regions or subject areas.

• North American title count (every three years, latest is 2001) identifies relative collection strengths for some major U.S. and Canadian university research libraries. See me about using it.
• Read the [More] pages for specific Penn Library Web databases or the front matter for printed indexes, abstracts, and bibliographies. Some bibliographic tools -- Anthropological Literature probably is the most prominent -- are based on one library's collections.
• Read the prefaces and acknowledgements of relevant books. In addition to thanking their own library's interlibrary loan librarians, most scholars give thanks to the major specialist libraries for their subject.
• American library directory and related special collections directories may also be useful, but I find myself turning pages with little results and even less lust.

8. READINGS ON LITERATURE REVIEWS

9. reaching out for help.

If you're stuck, or can't even find a thread to begin unravelling, ask for help!

Librarian & Coordinator of Social Sciences Collections

• Last Updated: Apr 10, 2023 9:32 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.upenn.edu/socscilitrev

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Social Work Literature Review Guidelines

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Literature reviews are designed to do two things: 1) give your readers an overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic or idea and 2) demonstrate how your research fits into the larger field of study, in this case, social work.

Unlike annotated bibliographies which are lists of references arranged alphabetically that include the bibliographic citation and a paragraph summary and critique for each source, literature reviews can be incorporated into a research paper or manuscript. You may quote or paraphrase from the sources, and all references to sources should include in-text parenthetical citations with a reference list at the end of the document. Sometimes, however, an instructor may require a separate literature review document and will have specific instructions for completing the assignment.

Below you will find general guidelines to consider when developing a literature review in the field of social work. Because social work is a social science field, you will most likely be required to use APA style. Please see our APA materials for information on creating parenthetical citations and reference lists.

1. Choose a variety of articles that relate to your subject, even if they do not directly answer your research question. You may find articles that loosely relate to the topic, rather than articles that you find using an exact keyword search. At first, you may need to cast a wide net when searching for sources.

For example: If your research question focuses on how people with chronic illnesses are treated in the workplace, you may be able to find some articles that address this specific question. You may also find literature regarding public perception of people with chronic illnesses or analyses of current laws affecting workplace discrimination.

2. Select the most relevant information from the articles as it pertains to your subject and your purpose. Remember, the purpose of the literature review is to demonstrate how your research question fits into a larger field of study.

3. Critically examine the articles. Look at methodology, statistics, results, theoretical framework, the author's purpose, etc. Include controversies when they appear in the articles.

For example: You should look for the strengths and weaknesses of how the author conducted the study. You can also decide whether or not the study is generalizable to other settings or whether the findings relate only to the specific setting of the study. Ask yourself why the author conducted the study and what he/she hoped to gain from the study. Look for inconsistencies in the results, as well.

4. Organize your information in the way that makes most sense. Some literature reviews may begin with a definition or general overview of the topic. Others may focus on another aspect of your topic. Look for themes in the literature or organize by types of study.

For example: Group case studies together, especially if all the case studies have related findings, research questions, or other similarities.

5. Make sure the information relates to your research question/thesis. You may need to explicitly show how the literature relates to the research question; don't assume that the connection is obvious.

6. Check to see that you have done more than simply summarize your sources. Your literature review should include a critical assessment of those sources. For more information, read the Experimental Psychology - Writing a Literature Review handout for questions to think about when reading sources.

7. Be sure to develop questions for further research. Again, you are not simply regurgitating information, but you are assessing and leading your reader to questions of your own, questions and ideas that haven't been explored yet or haven't been addressed in detail by the literature in the field.

Literature Reviews

• 6. Write the review
• Getting started
• Types of reviews
• 1. Define your research question
• 2. Plan your search
• 3. Search the literature
• 4. Organize your results
• 5. Synthesize your findings
• Artificial intelligence (AI) tools
• Thompson Writing Studio This link opens in a new window
• Need to write a systematic review? This link opens in a new window

Contact a Librarian

Ask a Librarian

Organize your review according to the following structure:

• Provide a concise overview of your primary thesis and the studies you explore in your review.
• Present the subject of your review
• Outline the key points you will address in the review
• Use your thesis to frame your paper
• Explain the significance of reviewing the literature in your chosen topic area (e.g., to find research gaps? Or to update your field on the current literature?)
• Consider dividing it into sections, particularly if examining multiple methodologies
• Examine the literature thoroughly and systematically, maintaining organization — don't just paraphrase researchers, add your own interpretation and discuss the significance of the papers you found)
• Reiterate your thesis
• Summarize your key findings 
• Ensure proper formatting of your references (stick to a single citation style — be consistent!)
• Use a citation manager, such as Zotero or EndNote, for easy formatting!

Check out UNC's guide on literature reviews, especially the section " Organizing the Body ."

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Literature Reviews - Social Sciences & STEM

• Organizing a Literature Review

Building a Literature Review

• Research is a Process
• Topic to Research Question
• Finding Books
• Finding Articles
• Notes, Quotes, and Citing

What to know: Literature reviews are opportunities for you to build a conversation between sources that will inform your work. They require you to think critically about the research that has already been conducted and center that around what you hope to accomplish with your research.

What you’ll learn: The different parts and steps that need occur for you to begin constructing your literature review.

Why you should care: Conducting a literature review will prevent you from conducting research that has already been published.​

Try it! Begin constructing your Literature review

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Social Research Methods

• Literature Reviews
• Welcome. Start Here.
• Social Problem Topics
• Primary vs. Secondary Sources
• Reference Works for Sociology
• Search for News Articles
• Find Articles by tracking citations
• Locating Full Text
• Citing Sources in Sociology

What is a Literature Review?

Literature reviews in the social sciences take a slightly different approach than in the humanities (literature, philosophy, history, etc.) or the sciences (biology, physics, etc.).  This guide focuses ONLY on the social sciences (anthropology, criminology, political science, sociology, etc.).

'literature'  - commonly people use this word for creative written works like novels; but in academics the word 'literature' is also used to mean any collection or body of written work, including research articles and books.

'review' - commonly people use the word review for evaluations, like a movie review; but in academics the word is used broadly to mean a paper or section of a paper that summarizes and synthesizes literature to give an overview of theory and research on a topic.

Putting it together:

In the social sciences, a literature review is a paper or section of a paper that summarizes and synthesizes. To summarize is to describe the main arguments and conclusions. To synthesize is to compare, contrast, highlight relevant points, relate to ongoing trends or problems, and generally to draw out an argument or position based on the literature being reviewed.

A literature review is not a book review! Book reviews are articles that review a single book title. A literature sums up and analyzes a set of books or articles on a theme.

Literature reviews can be a section of a longer paper or book, or they can stand alone. Social scientists generally include a short review of relevant literature in their research papers to demonstrate how their own research fits into ongoing debates. Longer stand-alone review papers are published to give a picture of the current state of research.  The Annual Reviews publication series are classic examples of stand-alone reviews.

• Annual Reviews This link opens in a new window Critical reviews of primary research literature in the sciences and social sciences. EMU access does not include the most recent 5 years.
• example of lit review articles

Guides on writing literature reviews:

• Literature Reviews - UNC Writing Center
• The Literature Review - USC Libraries
• Literature Reviews: An Overview - NCSU libraries

More kinds of review articles

Review articles are generally a kind of secondary source.  That is, they are not presenting empirical findings from a single research project.  They are, however, original , in the sense that the author is using skill, knowledge and creativity to compile and write something new about the material (books, articles) under review.

There are several kinds of review articles.  Book Reviews are a special case, because sometimes they are written by experts but sometimes they are written by journalists or just fans of the book. Typically, a book review describes the main contents of the book, how it relates to existing ideas or works, and gives a judgment as to its value to various readers.  Some book reviews are just a paragraph, but the reviews in scholarly journals can be several pages.  In Esearch, you can limit search results to book reviews only, or screen book reviews out of the results, by clicking into the left-hand column under Content Type . 

Stand-alone Review Articles or Literature Reviews are common in the social sciences. The authors of these articles are experts, usually scholars. The review articles will address a current topic, lay out the main theories or ideas, recent developments in research, and suggest where further research is needed. Typical review articles are published in series such as:

In the health fields, Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses are articles that go a step further. Not only do they summarize and research on a topic, but they carefully analyze the research and may attempt to draw conclusions based on the compiled studies.  For more on these kinds of reviews, see:

• What is a Systematic Review? (Curtin Univ) This guide distinguishes several different kinds of reviews, such as literature review, systematic review, scoping review, etc.
• What is a systematic review? (Cochrane)
• Systematic Reviews (EPPI centre)

Finding related articles

Whether for a literature review or a research paper, the analysis is much easier if it is based on a cluster of related articles and not a random assortment.  Finding articles that are related rarely happens just by doing a single search, but it is not hard. Here are some approaches:

• Start with a textbook, reference book, dissertation or review article and collect the citations of the authors who are mentioned or cited as part of the debate.  Make sure to collect works from all points of view.
• Use citation tracking to see how scholars mention each others' work, whether as examples, evidence or in order to debate.  See below for more on citation tracking.
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YSN Doctoral Programs: Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

• Biomedical Databases
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• 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.
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Chapter 5: The Literature Review

5.1 The Literature Review

A literature review is a survey of everything that has been written about a particular topic, theory, or research question. The word “literature” means “sources of information”. The literature will inform you about the research that has already been conducted on your chosen subject. This is important because we do not want to repeat research that has already been done unless there is a good reason for doing so (i.e., examining a new development in this area or testing a theory with a new population, or even just seeing if the research can be reproduced). A literature review usually serves as a background for a larger work (e.g., as part of a research proposal), or it may stand on its own. Much more than a simple list of sources, an effective literature review analyzes and synthesizes information about key themes or issues.

Purpose of a Literature Review

The literature review involves an extensive study of research publications, books and other documents related to the defined problem. The study is important because it advises you, as a researcher, whether or not the problem you identified has already been solved by other researchers. It also confirms the status of the problem, techniques that have been used by other researchers to investigate the problem, and other related details.

A literature review goes beyond the search for information; it includes the identification and articulation of relationships between existing literature and your field of research. The literature review enables the researcher to discover what material exists about a topic and to understand the relationship between the various contributions. This will enable the researcher to determine the contributions of each source (books, articles, etc.) to the topic. A literature review also enables the researcher to identify and (if possible) resolve contradictions, and determine research gaps and/or unanswered questions.

Even though the nature of the literature review may vary with different types of studies, the basic purposes remain constant and could be summarized as follows:

• Provide a context for your research.
• Justify the research you are proposing.
• Ensure that your proposed research has not been carried out by another person (and if you find it has, then your literature review should specify why replication is necessary).
• Show where your proposed research fits into the existing body of knowledge.
• Enable the researcher to learn from previous theories on the subject.
• Illustrate how the subject has been studied previously.
• Highlight flaws in previous research.
• Outline gaps in previous research.
• Show how your proposed research can add to the understanding and knowledge of the field.
• Help refine, refocus, or even move the topic in a new direction.

Research Methods for the Social Sciences: An Introduction Copyright © 2020 by Valerie Sheppard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Learning how to effectively write a literature review is a critical tool for success for an academic, and perhaps even professional career. Being able to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic not only demonstrates having a good grasp on available information for a topic, but it also assists in the learning process. Although literature reviews are important for one's academic career, they are often misunderstood and underdeveloped. This article is intended to provide both undergraduate and graduate students in the criminal justice field specifically, and social sciences more generally, skills and perspectives on how to develop and/or strengthen their skills in writing a literature review. Included in this discussion are foci on the structure , process, and art of writing a literature review. What is a Literature Review? In essence, a literature review is a comprehensive overview of prior research regarding a specific topic. The overview both shows the reader what is known about a topic, and what is not yet known, thereby setting up the rationale or need for a new investigation, which is what the actual study to which the literature review is attached seeks to do. Stated a bit differently (Creswell 1994, pp. 20, 21) explains: The literature in a research study accomplishes several purposes: (a) It shares with the reader the results of other studies that are closely related to the study being reported (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1990. (b) It relates a study to the larger, ongoing dialog in the literature about a topic, filling in gaps and extending prior studies (Marshall & Rossman, 1989). (c) It provides a framework for establishing the importance of the study. As an overview, a well done literature review includes all of the main themes and subthemes found within the general topic chosen for the study. These themes and subthemes are usually interwoven with the methods or findings of the prior research. Also, a literature review sets the stage for and JOURNAL

Ignacio Illan Conde

yakubu nawati

HUMANUS DISCOURSE

Humanus Discourse

The importance of literature review in academic writing of different categories, levels, and purposes cannot be overemphasized. The literature review establishes both the relevance and justifies why new research is relevant. It is through a literature review that a gap would be established, and which the new research would fix. Once the literature review sits properly in the research work, the objectives/research questions naturally fall into their proper perspective. Invariably, other chapters of the research work would be impacted as well. In most instances, scanning through literature also provides you with the need and justification for your research and may also well leave a hint for further research. Literature review in most instances exposes a researcher to the right methodology to use. The literature review is the nucleus of a research work that might when gotten right spotlights a work and can as well derail a research work when done wrongly. This paper seeks to unveil the practical guides to writing a literature review, from purpose, and components to tips. It follows through the exposition of secondary literature. It exposes the challenges in writing a literature review and at the same time recommended tips that when followed will impact the writing of the literature review.

Andrew Johnson

This chapter describes the process of writing a literature review and what the product should look like

A literature review is a critical consideration of the work by authors and researchers who have written on a particular topic. IT involves synthesising these writings so that a 'picture' of the issue under review forms. Therefore, it requires you to use summarising, analytical and evaluative skills. The effectiveness of these will, to a large extent, depend on your ability to link the work of various authors highlighting similarities, differences, strengths and weaknesses. A Literature Review is not a list describing or summarising one piece of literature after another, so avoid beginning each paragraph with the name of the researcher.

Gazala Hasan

A literature review is a critical part of any research project, serving as a foundation for the entire study. It showcases your ability to research, synthesize, and evaluate information, which not only demonstrates your expertise on a given topic but also aids in building a strong argument for your research. This guide will elaborate on what a literature review is, its purpose, how to organize and synthesize information, and the different parts of a literature review.

• Learning outcomes • The nature of a literature review • Identifying the main subject and themes • Reviewing previous research • Emphasizing leading research studies • Exploring trends in the literature • Summarizing key ideas in a subject area • Summary A literature review is usually regarded as being an essential part of student projects, research studies and dissertations. This chapter examines the reasons for the importance of the literature review, and the things which it tries to achieve. It also explores the main strategies which you can use to write a good literature review.

Amanda Bolderston

A literature review can be an informative, critical, and useful synthesis of a particular topic. It can identify what is known (and unknown) in the subject area, identify areas of controversy or debate, and help formulate questions that need further research. There are several commonly used formats for literature reviews, including systematic reviews conducted as primary research projects; reviews written as an introduction and foundation for a research study, such as a thesis or dissertation; and reviews as secondary data analysis research projects. Regardless of the type, a good review is characterized by the author’s efforts to evaluate and critically analyze the relevant work in the field. Published reviews can be invaluable, because they collect and disseminate evidence from diverse sources and disciplines to inform professional practice on a particular topic. This directed reading will introduce the learner to the process of conducting and writing their own literature review.

Tatam Chiway , Abdullah Ramdhani , Muhammad Ali Ramdhani

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Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences

• What is a Systematic Review?

About This Guide

Purpose of a systematic review.

• Types of Reviews
• Examples and Core Resources
• Finding Systematic Reviews
• Conducting Systematic Reviews
• Saving Search Results
• Systematic Review Management Tools
• Citing Your Sources

The purpose of this guide is to provide background and guidelines related to systematic reviews in the social sciences.

A systematic review is a very thorough and comprehensive analysis of all relevant studies on a very specialized topic. A systematic review is a unique analysis on existing literature surrounding a focused research question using very strict criteria for what studies are included and excluded from the analysis. As we write a systematic review, we are: 

• Demonstrating your knowledge of your very specialized research topic
• Showing that you are aware of other authors, thinkers, and researchers who have laid the foundation of your research topic
• Using a very specific methodology to identify all relevant studies on a specific topic
• Selecting specific studies for incorporation based on inclusion/exclusion criteria
• Using an extremely transparent framework so anyone can replicate and reproduce your findings
• Potentially incorporating statistical meta-analysis to demonstrate and reinforce our conclusions. 

Systematic reviews often:

• Take months to years to complete to ensure a thorough evaluation of the subject
• Involve more than one author to eliminate and contradict bias

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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 Reviews in the Social Sciences

• Get started
• Search tips
• Select Databases
• Organize your sources
• Evaluate your sources
• Structure your literature review
• Essential Databases
• EBSCO Discovery Service This link opens in a new window This is a tool that searches almost all of our databases at once. The only problem is that you sometimes get too many results! You can try limiting your search by adding more keywords, limiting to scholarly sources, or limiting by date.
• Google Scholar Very handy, although not as comprehensive as Web of Science & SCOPUS. Make sure you have your settings adjusted to see NYU holdings. Email me if you don't know how to do that.

• Scopus This link opens in a new window Similar to Web of Science, but with more European sources.
• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new window The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) covers a broad range of interdisciplinary social sciences literature in over 100 languages and countries, with a focus on international research. It provides bibliographic references to journal articles and select books, book chapters, and book reviews dating back to 1951.
• ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window ProQuest Central is a large, multidisciplinary database with over 11,000 titles, with over 8,000 titles in full-text. It serves as the central resource for researchers at all levels in all markets. Over 160 subjects areas are covered extensively in this product including business and economics, health and medical, news and world affairs, technology, social sciences and more.
• Worldcat WorldCat connects you to the collections and services of more than 10,000 libraries worldwide. Find books and request to have them sent to Abu Dhabi.

Subject Specific Databases

View lists of databases with content in the following disciplines:

• Anthropology
• Public Policy and Administration

Word of advice

There is no 'silver bullet' database that is going to work for every student, every time.  It hasn't been invented yet!  Over the course of your literature review you are going to need to use at least a few databases, and many, many different keywords and search terms.

The 'Essential Databases' should be of use to all students in the Social Sciences, but obviously your projects will vary.  I recommend starting with the essential databases and then moving on to the subject specific databases once you  really  know your subject backwards and forwards. 

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• Next: Organize your sources >>
• Last Updated: Jul 9, 2024 9:51 AM
• URL: https://guides.nyu.edu/litreviews