How to Conduct a Literature Review

Definition:

A Literature Review surveys scholarly source materials that are relevant to a person's research thesis/problem and/or a particular issue or theory. It provides a critical analysis that summarizes and synthesizes previous work while also demonstrating how a person's research pertains to or fits within the larger discipline of study.

Purpose:

Literature Reviews vary from discipline to discipline, but generally help you answer 2 questions:

• What do we know about this particular issue, theory or subject?
• What do we not know about this particular issue, theory or subject?

Good literature reviews also:

• Explain the relationships between each of the works under deliberation.
• Identify gaps in previous research.
• Define new ways to interpret research within a discipline.
• Address conflicts found in contradictory research previously conducted.
• Identify the need for additional research.

The University of Southern California created a summarized list of the various types of literature reviews, reprinted here:

• Argumentative Review
  • Examines literature to support or refute an argument, deeply imbedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature.
  • Develops a body of work that establishes a counterpoint to an established statement
• Integrative Review
  • Reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic to generate new frameworks and perspectives on the topic 
  • The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses. 
• Historical Review 
  • Historical reviews examine research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline.
  • Gives research a historical context to show familiarity with developments, and to identify the likely directions for future research.

• Methodological Review
  • Focuses on how HOW someone said something rather than WHAT they said.
  • Provides a framework of understanding at different levels (i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches and data collection and analysis techniques), enables researchers to draw on a wide variety of knowledge
  • Helps highlight many ethical issues which we should be aware of and consider as we go through our study.

• Systematic Review See our Systematic Review Research Guide.

• Theoretical Review
  • Concretely examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, or phenomena.
  • Helps establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. 

Literature reviews and annotated bibliographies may appear similar in nature, but in fact, they vary greatly in two very important areas: purpose and format.

Differences in Purpose:

Literature Review: 

• Provides a case for continuing research into a particular subject or idea by giving an overview of source materials you have discovered on a subject or idea.
• Demonstrates how your research will fit into the the larger discipline of study by noting discipline knowledge gaps and contextualizing questions for the betterment of the discipline. 
• Usually have a stated or implied thesis.

Annotated Bibliography: 

• An alphabetically arranged list of references that consists of citations and a brief summary and critique of each of the source materials.
• Normally critiques the quality of the source material   

Differences in Format:

Literature Review:

• A formally written prose document very similar to journal articles.  Many are incorporated directly into scholarly source material as part of the formal research process.
• The literature review is typically a required component of dissertations and theses.

Annotated Bibliography: 

• A formal list of citations with annotations or short descriptions and critiques of particular source materials.
• Annotated bibliographies act as a precursor to a literature review as an organizational tool.