Literature Reviews (or Reviews of the Literature)   Tags: academic_research, literature_review, research, review_of_literature, writing_guides  

·         To survey the most significant research done on a topic and discover what has and has not been investigated. 

·         To provide guidance on a topic for those who don’t have time to do the research themselves but need an overview.

·         To bring the reader up-to-date on research and issues in the topic area. 

·         To show relationships between and among research conducted in the topic area. 

·         An examination of the significant works (books, scholarly articles, dissertations, and other works) published on a particular issue, area of research, or theory which provides a critical evaluation of each significant work.

·         Focuses on what is known about a specific topic and what methodologies, theses, and models have been applied to that research by other works.

·         Highlights areas of the research topic that appear to need additional research in order to reach a conclusion.

·         Provides background for the issue/topic and puts it into a chronological and/or historical perspective.

·         Clarifies areas where there is consensus (and not) within the prior research.

·         Indicates which information will be most useful to the current research (if the literature review is a part of a larger report).

1.       A self-contained review of writings on a subject.

Most research articles include a section that reviews previous work, but there are also comprehensive article length literature reviews.  A good literature review article will provide you with a condensed accounting of all the prior review done on a topic.  Reading such an article gives you needed background and history and can greatly inform your own research. 

However, most databases don't make it very easy to limit your search to only those articles that are stand-alone literature reviews.  Here are some suggestions for databases to use and ways to limit a search to retrieve literature reviews.  Click on a discipline for more help:

Arts

Business

Education

Health/Nursing

History

Literature

Multi-disciplinary

Psychology

Science

Sociology/Social Work

Consult these websites for more information about how to write a literature review:

·         Write a Literature Review (UC Santa Cruz)

·         Review of Literature (UW Madison Writing Center)