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Literature Reviews

How to understand and write a literature review for an academic paper or research article.

Types of Review

"Literature review" is the general term for a review of the previous work done on a subject. However, the method and scope of reviews can vary depending on the purpose of the review and the common practices in your field.

Here are the most common types of reviews you're likely to come across. There are many other types of reviews, from critical to umbrella; some reviews are more map than narrative but the approach you will use depends on your goals (or assignment) and your discipline.

Check the articles and guides listed below for more on the types of review; in particular, Grant & Booth (2009) provides a long, thorough list of review types and methodologies.

 
References & Further Reading

Traditional/Narrative Review

A critical summary of a body of literature, drawing conclusions about the topic.

Characteristics:

  • Selective – not everything
    • In allowing the author to be selective in what gets included, traditional reviews tend to be very subjective.
  • Focus: Where is the topic today? What are the gaps?

PLEASE NOTE: The information in this guide is primarily focused on the traditional/narrative review; read through the tabs for more information on conducting a traditional review.

Scoping Review

[A] snapshot of the field and a complete overview of what has been done.

(Xiao & Watson, 2019, p. 99; see also Grant & Booth, 2009)

Characteristics:

  • No quality assessment - EVERYTHING written on a subject, not just the good ones
  • Can show a need for a systematic review
  • Shows the gaps in existing literature
  • Helps clarify definitions
  • Shows how research is being done on a subject

Scoping reviews can be a better option than systematic reviews if a research topic is new. The process to complete a scoping review is not quite as thorough as a systematic review, but both require that you follow a specific protocol so that your process is reproducible by other researchers.

 

How To Choose
How to Do One

State of the Art Review

A review focused on most recent issues in a field:

[T]he purpose of SotA reviews is to create a three-part argument: This is where we are now in our understanding of this topic. This is how we got here. This is where we could go next.

(Barry, Merkebu & Varpio, 2022)

Characteristics:

  • The main players
  • The major questions and debates being discussed at the moment
  • Can miss major trends if they fall out of the scope of the time period covered in the review (Grant & Booth, 2009, p. 101)
 
References & Further Reading

Systematic Review

[A review of] all known knowledge on a topic area.

(Grant & Booth, 2009, p. 102)

Characteristics:

  • A wide-ranging, thorough examination of the literature
  • Written to answer a specific research question
  • Explicit methodology so others can replicate it
  • Appraisal of the findings of each study with a focus on minimizing bias so as to ensure more reliable results
  • Sometimes includes meta-analysis of the data of each study to establish common conclusions
  • Go to the Systematic Review tab for more info.
 
Further Reading