What is a lit review?

• A summary of the relevant literature of a subject
• Depending on your subject and your field, can be chronologically broad or narrow
• Sciences tend to emphasize currency
• BUT in whatever field, if there is some fundamental text that defined the field or topic of study, that must be included no matter how old it is
• Ranges from a few paragraphs to a few pages
• Or can be extended into a paper solely reviewing recent literature

Why write a lit review?

• “Analyzing the past to prepare for the future”*
• To discover the patterns that emerge within the large body of work devoted to one issue
• How do the studies speak to each other?  Does one find one thing and another find something contradictory?  Does one ask a question that another follows up?
• To establish an evidentiary basis of common thought and current questions about a subject at the given moment

*(Webster, J., & Watson, R. (2002). Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: Writing a literature review. MIS Quarterly, 26(2), xiii-xxiii)

Analyze! Evaluate! Synthesize!*

Analyze

• Keep an eye out for:
• Pertinent info – who/what/where/when/why
• Page numbers if you quote something (for easy transfer into your paper!)
• Numbers (not just “increase/decrease” but “up 50%” or “down 24%”)

Evaluate

• What seems to occur regularly? -- Patterns
• What issue has no one written about yet?

Synthesize

• Use your spreadsheet (or whatever means by which you keep your articles organized) to sort the articles by pattern or theme
• Write what you found into a linear narrative, tying all the studies together by their subject matter and findings, grouping certain studies by pattern/theme
• Quote if necessary but sparingly
• Keep it succinct -- it’s a lot of material but it’s not the bulk of your paper (unless it’s your whole paper!)

*Froese, A. D., Gantz, B. S., & Henry, A. L. (1998). Teaching students to write literature reviews: A meta-analytic model. Teaching of Psychology 25, pp. 102-105.

The books here all include mention of lit reviews and how to do them.