What Is a Literature Review in a Paper

What this handout is virtually

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

Introduction

OK. You've got to write a literature review. Y'all dust off a novel and a volume of poesy, settle down in your chair, and get prepare to issue a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" as you foliage through the pages. "Literature review" done. Right?

Wrong! The "literature" of a literature review refers to whatever collection of materials on a topic, not necessarily the peachy literary texts of the world. "Literature" could be anything from a set of regime pamphlets on British colonial methods in Africa to scholarly manufactures on the treatment of a torn ACL. And a review does not necessarily mean that your reader wants you to give your personal stance on whether or not you lot liked these sources.

What is a literature review, and so?

A literature review discusses published data in a item bailiwick area, and sometimes information in a item subject area within a sure fourth dimension period.

A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, merely it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. A summary is a epitomize of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organisation, or a reshuffling, of that information. Information technology might give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with sometime 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 principal focus of an bookish research paper is to develop a new argument, and a research newspaper is likely to contain a literature review every bit 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, all the same, is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of others without adding new contributions.

Why do nosotros write literature reviews?

Literature reviews provide you with a handy guide to a particular topic. If you lot have express time to conduct research, literature reviews can give you lot an overview or act as a stepping stone. For professionals, they are useful reports that keep them up to appointment with what is electric current in the field. For scholars, the depth and latitude of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the writer in his or her field. Literature reviews besides provide a solid background for a research newspaper'due south investigation. Comprehensive cognition of the literature of the field is essential to nigh research papers.

Who writes these things, anyhow?

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

Let'southward get to it! What should I exercise before writing the literature review?

Clarify

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 every bit 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 go a sense of the types of themes you might want to await for in your ain enquiry or means 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 Net or in an electronic database. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read are besides excellent entry points into your own enquiry.

Narrow your topic

There are hundreds or even thousands of manufactures and books on well-nigh areas of study. The narrower your topic, the easier information technology will be to limit the number of sources you demand to read in guild to become a good survey of the fabric. Your instructor volition probably non expect you to read everything that's out there on the topic, simply you'll make your job easier if you offset limit your scope.

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

And don't forget to tap into your professor'due south (or other professors') knowledge in the field. Ask your professor questions such as: "If y'all had to read simply one volume from the 90'due south on topic X, what would information technology be?" Questions such as this help you to detect and determine quickly the almost seminal pieces in the field.

Consider whether your sources are electric current

Some disciplines crave that y'all use data that is as current every bit possible. In the sciences, for instance, treatments for medical issues are constantly changing according to the latest studies. Information even two years sometime 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 exist what is needed, because what is important is how perspectives have changed through the years or within a sure time period. Endeavor sorting through some other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. Y'all 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 newspaper, is ordinarily organized around ideas, non the sources themselves as an annotated bibliography would be organized. This means that y'all will not but simply list your sources and get into detail about each ane of them, one at a time. No. As yous read widely but selectively in your topic surface area, consider instead what themes or issues connect your sources together. Do they present one or dissimilar solutions? Is at that place an aspect of the field that is missing? How well do they present the fabric and do they portray it co-ordinate to an advisable theory? Do they reveal a trend in the field? A raging contend? Pick one of these themes to focus the organization of your review.

Convey it to your reader

A literature review may non have a traditional thesis statement (one that makes an argument), just y'all do need to tell readers what to expect. Effort writing a simple argument that lets the reader know what is your primary organizing principle. Here are a couple of examples:

The electric current trend in handling for congestive center failure combines surgery and medicine.
More and more cultural studies scholars are accepting popular media every bit a subject worthy of academic consideration.

Consider organization

You've got a focus, and you've stated it clearly and straight. 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 system for your review at both a global and local level:

First, cover the basic categories

Just similar most academic papers, literature reviews also must contain at least 3 bones elements: an introduction or background information section; the torso of the review containing the discussion of sources; and, finally, a conclusion and/or recommendations department to end the paper. The post-obit provides a brief description of the content of each:

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

Organizing the body

Once you take the basic categories in place, then you must consider how y'all volition present the sources themselves inside the trunk of your paper. Create an organizational method to focus this section even further.

To aid you come up up with an overall organizational framework for your review, consider the post-obit scenario:

You've decided to focus your literature review on materials dealing with sperm whales. This is because you lot've but finished reading Moby Dick, and you wonder if that whale'due south portrayal is actually real. Yous start with some articles near the physiology of sperm whales in biology journals written in the 1980'due south. Only these manufactures refer to some British biological studies performed on whales in the early 18th century. And so you bank check those out. So yous look upwards a book written in 1968 with information on how sperm whales accept 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 yous find some bookish articles published in the last five years on how accurately Herman Melville portrayed the whaling scene in his novel.

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

Chronological: If your review follows the chronological method, you could write most the materials above according to when they were published. For instance, outset you would talk about the British biological studies of the 18th century, then well-nigh Moby Dick, published in 1851, then the book on sperm whales in other art (1968), and finally the biology manufactures (1980s) and the contempo articles on American whaling of the 19th century. But in that location is relatively no continuity among subjects here. And notice that even though the sources on sperm whales in other fine 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, and so, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you lot could order a review of literature on biological studies of sperm whales if the progression revealed a modify in autopsy practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies.

Past trend: A better way to organize the in a higher place sources chronologically is to examine the sources under another trend, such as the history of whaling. Then your review would accept subsections according to eras inside 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. All the same, progression of time may notwithstanding exist an of import factor in a thematic review. For case, 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 volition withal be organized chronologically. The only difference hither between a "chronological" and a "thematic" arroyo is what is emphasized the well-nigh: the evolution of the harpoon or the harpoon technology.But more accurate thematic reviews tend to pause abroad 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 fourth dimension periods inside each department according to the point made.

Methodological: A methodological approach differs from the ii to a higher place in that the focusing cistron normally does not have to practise with the content of the textile. Instead, it focuses on the "methods" of the researcher or author. For the sperm whale projection, one methodological approach would be to wait at cultural differences betwixt the portrayal of whales in American, British, and French fine art work. Or the review might focus on the economic impact of whaling on a community. A methodological telescopic will influence either the types of documents in the review or the manner in which these documents are discussed.
In one case you've decided on the organizational method for the trunk of the review, the sections you lot need to include in the newspaper should exist 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 menses. A thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue.

Sometimes, though, you might need to add together additional sections that are necessary for your written report, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you lot 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:

Electric current Situation: Information necessary to sympathize 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 non 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 lot present your information. For instance, y'all might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed articles and journals.

Questions for Further Research: What questions most the field has the review sparked? How will yous further your research as a consequence of the review?

Brainstorm composing

Once y'all've settled on a full general pattern of organization, you're ready to write each department. At that place are a few guidelines you should follow during the writing stage likewise. Here is a sample paragraph from a literature review about sexism and language to illuminate the following discussion:

Even so, other studies have shown that even gender-neutral antecedents are more than likely to produce masculine images than feminine ones (Gastil, 1990). Hamilton (1988) asked students to consummate sentences that required them to fill in pronouns that agreed with gender-neutral antecedents such as "author," "pedestrian," and "persons." The students were asked to describe any image they had when writing the judgement. Hamilton found that people imagined 3.iii men to each woman in the masculine "generic" condition and 1.5 men per woman in the unbiased status. 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 Office of Homophily, Intended Audience, and Criminal offense," Women and Language19:2).

Use evidence

In the instance in a higher place, the writers refer to several other sources when making their point. A literature review in this sense is merely like any other academic enquiry paper. Your estimation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence to bear witness that what you are maxim is valid.

Exist selective

Select just 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'due south focus, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological.

Use quotes sparingly

Falk and Mills do not use whatever straight 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 curt quotes here and there are okay, though, if you desire to emphasize a point, or if what the writer said just cannot exist rewritten in your own words. Discover that Falk and Mills do quote certain terms that were coined by the writer, non mutual knowledge, or taken direct from the report. But if yous find yourself wanting to put in more than quotes, bank check with your instructor.

Summarize and synthesize

Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each paragraph as well every bit throughout the review. The authors here restate important features of Hamilton'south study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the report's significance and relating information technology to their ain work.

Keep your own voice

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

Apply circumspection when paraphrasing

When paraphrasing a source that is not your ain, 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 writer 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'due south. For more than information, please see our handout on plagiarism.

Revise, revise, revise

Typhoon in hand? Now you're ready to revise. Spending a lot of time revising is a wise idea, because your principal objective is to nowadays the material, not the argument. So check over your review again to make certain information technology follows the consignment and/or your outline. And then, just equally you would for most other academic forms of writing, rewrite or rework the language of your review so that y'all've presented your information in the most concise style possible. Be sure to apply terminology familiar to your audience; get rid of unnecessary jargon or slang. Finally, double bank check that you've documented your sources and formatted the review appropriately for your subject. For tips on the revising and editing procedure, 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'due south topic, and we encourage yous to practice your own research to find boosted publications. Please do not use this list every bit a model for the format of your own reference listing, as it may non match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, delight meet the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris K., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers, sixth ed. New York: Longman.

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

Lamb, Sandra E. 1998. How to Write Information technology: A Complete Guide to Everything You'll Always Write. Berkeley: Ten Speed Printing.

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

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

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You lot may reproduce it for non-commercial utilize if you utilize the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Eye, University of North Carolina at Chapel Loma

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Source: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/literature-reviews/