Writing Literature Reviews: What is a "Literature Review"?

This guide is intended to assist you in writing the literature review section of a scholarly article or research paper. It is important to know that research is a messy process. You may find yourself repeating steps, doing them out of order, or even adjusting your topic or the focus of your review. This is a normal part of scholarly writing.

The tabs offer a suggested series of steps (1-4) that will help you research, organize, and write your review.

If you need help, please contact your librarian.

Literature reviews:

• provide a summary of the published academic work on a topic
• help "make the case" for why someone is writing their paper or conducting their research
• can be the "background" section of a larger paper or it can be the focus of an entire paper

Goals of a Literature Review

• provide an overview of the scholarly literature on a chosen topic
  • including the major theories, issues, works, and debates in the field
• synthesize all this information into an organized summary
• critique current knowledge of a topic
• identify aspects of the topic that need further investigation

Much of the information in this guide and more information can be found on the websites listed on the Helpful Sites tab.