Literature Searches and Literature Reviews: Literature Reviews

Step 1: Conduct a Literature Search

See Literature Searches: Step-by-Step Guide for information about how to conduct a literature search and the resources to use in the search. Each step in the literature review writing process may inform a need to revisit and expand the literature search.

Step 2: Determine the Purpose of the Literature Review

• What is the goal of the review? In additions to synthesizing information, literature reviews may analyze existing literature to demonstrate which conclusions are warranted or to identify issues central to a field, such as methodological problems that have blocked progress in a specific topic or areas of inquiry that have been or should be the focus of research.
• Who is the audience? The writing style and language chosen will change, depending upon whether the literature review is aimed at specialized researchers, general researchers, practitioners, policymakers or the general public.
• What is the focus of the review? Is the focus on research outcomes, research methods, theories, or practices and applications? These topics are not mutually exclusive, and many reviews will address more than one area.
• What is the perspective of the review? A literature review may present information neutrally, or it may build a case for a specific position. (Note that this can be achieved without bias; an author should present conflicting evidence and interpret it fairly.)

Step 3: Determine the Scope of the Literature Review

To determine the scope:

• Define the specific topic that the literature review will cover and topics that will not be covered.
• Determine how comprehensive the review will be. It may be appropriate to seek all relevant works, a representative sample or only the significant works on a topic.
• Define the time period the review will cover. Literature reviews that seek to synthesize current knowledge often focus on recent research, while reviews that seek to demonstrate how a field has developed over time will naturally incorporate more historical research.

Step 4: Review the Research

Keep detailed notes about the bibliographical information of relevant research. A University of Colorado–Denver tutorial (see Resources at right) presents two approaches to note-taking:

• The “summarize-as-you-go” method: The researcher writes complete sentences with citations that can be pasted into the literature review nearly verbatim. These notes should summarize a study’s context, methods, findings, conclusions and implications.
• The “note-basic-details” method: The researcher captures  basic information about a study’s context, methodology, findings, implications and suggestions for future research without trying to generate nearly publication-ready prose. Prevalent themes in individual studies should also be noted so they can be compared and organized when all studies have been reviewed.

The former method requires more work early in the process, while the latter requires more effort later.

Step 5: Evaluate the Research

Use the six-step framework below to process the information gathered:

• Know the material. Understand the information in each cited work and the methodology used to reach its conclusions instead of simply identifying works that are relevant without describing their conclusions.
• Comprehend the material. Demonstrate the significance and relevance of a cited source to the topic instead of simply repeating the information within the source.
• Apply the material. Identify the major concepts of each work cited that relate to the study and organize the information so that it can support the literature review.
• Analyze the material. Demonstrate the value of the information cited instead of simply presenting it and leaving the reader to draw conclusions.
• Synthesize the material. Present the information as a narrative, not a collection of facts, and note any gaps in knowledge and areas of dispute.
• Evaluate the material. Distinguish between the facts, theories and opinions in the works cited instead of presenting each source has having equal supporting evidence and validity.

Source: "Towards a Framework of Literature Review Process in Support of Information Systems Research," Y. Levy  and T. Ellis, Proceedings of the 2006 Informing Science and IT Education Joint Conference, 2006.

Step 6: Organize the Material and Write the Literature Review

Organizing the content in a logical, thematic manner that supports the literature review’s overall goals is critical. Some common methods for organizing cited works include:

• Chronological, to show how knowledge in a field grows and changes over time.
• Descriptive, to highlight themes, presenting and analyzing the work of several authors.
• Descriptive–analytical, to present the similarities and differences among the sources instead of presenting them at the end.
• Big-to-small-to-big, to highlight how the results of broader studies differ from smaller ones. These reviews begin with the largest, most wide-ranging studies before progressing to smaller ones and then branching out to larger studies, and is particularly useful for empirically oriented reviews.
• Methodological, to group studies by the methodologies that were used. A brief analysis after each methodology describes what is covered, while a master analysis at the end compares and summarizes the findings.
• Big camps, to illustrate distinct interpretations of a set of data. These reviews can either present various topics and how the different camps’ interpretations are similar for each, or present each camp and its interpretations of all relevant themes as a single unit.

A literature review may use more than one of these methods if appropriate. However, presenting literature author by author—that is, presenting the full content of one paper, followed by the full content of the next and so on without synthesizing the information and showing the relationships between various authors’ work—is discouraged.