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Literature Reviews

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

Determining Your Criteria

Part of the review process is deciding what studies fit your criteria and what do not. This process is made easier by developing a detailed appraisal process. The type of review you're writing will determine some aspects of your search criteria, but you need to think it through and be specific about your particular goals. And be transparent - even if you don't include a write-up of your criteria in your paper, you should still be able to explain why you chose what you chose should anyone ask.

 

What material will best answer the question you've developed?

Factors to consider:

  • Time frame
  • Language
  • Source type and focus
    • Articles? Books? Only peer-reviewed? Review articles? Grey literature?
  • Discipline
    • Multidisciplinary questions require a multidisciplinary search!

But in deciding what to include/exclude, Heather Colquhoun (2016) cautions that "Limits must be consistent with the question asked." That is, don't have criteria that are so rigid that you can't actually answer your research question.

 

At what point will you STOP?

If your work has an external due date — such as for a thesis or dissertation, or journal or conference submission — you must take that into account when deciding your criteria. Some suggestions:

  • Perhaps your date range will go until December 31 of last year, in which case anything written after that will not be included.
  • If you need to include everything up to the most recently published, consider setting a search alert in Scopus/Web of Science/whatever database fits your needs best, to get new citations sent to your inbox.
References/Further Reading