A literature review investigates and appraises existing knowledge, research, material and sources that have been published on a particular topic. It can serve as a framework that informs the development and focus of an ensuing study, such as a thesis, article or research report. It can also be a stand-alone piece of research, such as an essay or conceptual article.
Literature reviews provide analyses that demonstrate a deep understanding of the existing literature, and commonly identify gaps and areas for future research to examine. Importantly, literature reviews are diverse in their format and purpose:
This guide recognises the diversity of literature reviews. Rather than listing prescriptive advice, it aims to provide general guidance on the literature review process and share resources with you to help you get started.
An annotated bibliography is a list of citations (articles, books, or other resources), each followed by a short descriptive paragraph that summarises the source's content and evaluates its relevance to the topic in question. For more information on how to write an annotated bibliography:
Visit the Academic Skills resource "Writing an annotated bibliography"
A systematic review appraises the literature in relation to a clearly-formulated question. It generally follows a strict protocol, with well-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria for the literature, data or studies assessed in the review, to ensure the transparency and reproducibility of the conclusions drawn by the review. To find out more about systematic reviews:
Visit the Systematic Reviews library guide
Maximise the quality, scope and appropriateness of the literature you review. When commencing a search:
Reviewing a good range of the available literature on your topic is an important consideration. The tips below may be useful in helping you search for literature, and decide what literature to include in the scope of your review:
Want to revisit the fundamentals of library research? The Research Essentials guide is a good starting point.
Looking for examples of other theses to learn from and be inspired? The Finding Theses guide is highly recommended, especially for PhD students.
Want to keep up-to-date with the latest research? Visit the Staying Current guide for tips and tricks to setup alerts and manage information flows for you as a researcher.
When results are conflicting, you might find it useful to ask the following questions:
Visit the Academic Skills "Reading and notetaking resources"
The structure of your literature review will be based largely on your discipline and your topic. Your review is also influenced by how you decide to organise your argument(s):
Organise your literature review according to an approach that best fits your topic. This means that you should not be too attached to an idea or template of how the literature review should ‘look’; instead, seek out effective models of literature reviews written in your discipline area. Broadly, the structure of a review may comprise the following elements:
Introduction
Body (i.e. where you critically analyse the relevant literature)
Conclusion
Any material you get from a source, even if you write it in your own words, needs to have a citation or footnote. Check the guidelines for your literature review, or speak to your supervisor, to determine which citation style you should be using.
This section helps you find books and other resources which will help you write literature reviews.
Visit the Academic Skills "Reviewing the literature" page to find additional resources
Use the following platforms to find resources on literature reviews:
Search with keyword combinations such as:
writ*
AND
"literature review*"
prepar*
AND
"literature review*"
Create more searches by combining these keywords with the name of your discipline or subject area. For example:
(business OR economics)
AND
writ* AND "literature review*"
architecture
AND
writing AND "literature review*"
Also click on the following subject heading searches in the library catalogue:
How to fix your academic writing trouble : a practical guide / Inger Mewburn, Katherine Firth, Shaun Lehmann
Are you confused by the feedback you get from your academic teachers and mentors?
This clear and accessible guide to decoding academic feedback will help you interpret what your lecturer or research supervisor is really trying to tell you about your writing--and show you how to fix it. It will help you master a range of techniques and strategies to take your writing to the next level and along the way you'll learn why academic text looks the way it does, and how to produce that 'authoritative scholarly voice' that everyone talks about.
This book is an easy-to-use resource for postgraduate students and researchers in all disciplines, and even professional academics, to diagnose their writing issues and find ways to fix them. This book would also be a valuable text for academic writing courses and writing groups, such as those offered in doctoral and Master's by research degree programmes.
Detox Your Writing by
There are a number of books which aim to help doctoral researchers write the PhD. This book offers something different - the scholarly detox. This is not a faddish alternative, it's not extreme. It's a moderate approach intended to gently interrupt old ways of doing things and establish new habits and orientations to writing the PhD. The book addresses the problems that most doctoral researchers experience at some time during their candidature - being unclear about their contribution, feeling lost in the literature, feeling like an imposter, not knowing how to write with authority, wanting to edit rather than revise. Each chapter addresses a problem, suggests an alternative framing, and then offers strategies designed to address the real issue. Detox Your Writing is intended to be a companionable work book - something doctoral researchers can use throughout their doctorate to ask questions about taken-for-granted ways of writing and reading, and to develop new and effective approaches. The authors' distinctive approach to doctoral writing mobilises the rich traditions of linguistic scholarship, as well as the literatures on scholarly identity formation. Building on years of expertise they place their emphasis both on tools and techniques as well as the discursive practices of becoming a scholar. The authors provide a wide repertoire of strategies that doctoral researchers can select from, rather than a linear lock step progression through a set of exercises. The book is a toolkit but a far from prescriptive one. It shows that there are many routes to developing a personal academic voice and identity and a well-crafted text. With points for reflection alongside examples from a broad range of disciplines, the book offers thinking tools, writing tools, linguistic tools, and reading tools which are relevant to all stages of doctoral research. This practical text can be used in all university doctoral training and composition and writing courses. However, it is not a dry how-to-do-it manual that ignores debates or focuses solely on the mechanical at the expense of the lived experience of doctoral research. It provides a practical, theorised, real-world, guide to postgraduate writing.
There are a many online resources dealing with writing literature reviews. For example, Thesis Whisperer and Patter are blogs which, while not exclusively dedicated to literature reviews, have many useful posts on academic writing (including literature reviews).
Contact Academic Skills for help with academic writing, critical reading and assessment planning.
