How to write literature review

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on February 22, 2019 by Shona McCombes. Revised on July 1, 2022.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Tip We’ve also compiled a few examples, templates, and sample outlines for you below.

Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review?

When you write a thesis, dissertation, or research paper, you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Examples of literature reviews

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

How to Write a Literature Review

As every student knows, writing academic essays and research papers is an integral part of the educational program. You create a thesis, support it using valid sources, and formulate systematic ideas to surround it. However, not all students know that they will also have to face another type of paper known as a Literature Review in college. Let’s have a look with our coursework writing service.

Literature Review Definition

As this is a less common academic writing type, students often ask: “What is a literature review?” According to the definition, a literature review is a body of work that explores various publications within a specific subject area, and sometimes within a set timeframe.

This type of writing requires you to read and analyze various sources that relate to the main subject and present each unique comprehension of the publications. Lastly, a literature review should combine a summary with a synthesis of the documents it uses. A summary is a brief overview of the important information in the publication; a synthesis is a re-organization of the information that gives the writing a new and unique meaning.

Typically, a literature review is a part of a larger paper, such as a thesis or dissertation. However, you may also be given it in the form of a stand-alone assignment.

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The Purpose

The main purpose of a literature review is to summarize and synthesize the ideas that were created by previous authors, without implementing personal opinions or other additional information.

However, a literature review’s objective is not just to list out summaries of sources; rather, it is to notice a central trend or principle seen within all of the publications. Just like a research paper has a thesis that guides it on rails, a literature review has a main organizing principle (MOP). The goal of this type of academic writing is to identify the MOP and show how it exists in all of your supporting documents.

Why is a literature review important? The value of such work is explained by the following goals it pursues:

Here are some example topics to give you an idea of what a literature review can be about:

How Long Is a Literature Review?

When facing the need to write a literature review, students tend to wonder “how long should a literature review be?” In some cases, the length of your paper’s body may be determined by your instructor. Be sure to read the guidelines carefully to learn what is expected from you.

If you haven’t been provided with any specific guidelines, it is recommended to keep your literature review around 15-30% of your entire paper. To give you a rough idea, that is about 2-3 pages for a 15-page paper. In case you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, its length should be specified in the instructions provided.

Literature Review Format: APA, MLA, and Chicago

The essay format you use should adhere to will be the citation style preferred by your instructor. Seek clarification from your instructor for several other components as well to establish a desired literature review format:

If you want to format your paper in APA style, then follow these rules:

For MLA style text, apply the following guidelines:

Finally, if you are required to write a literature review in Chicago style, here are the key rules to follow:

Structure of a Literature Review

How to structure a literature review: Like many other types of academic writing, a literature review follows a typical intro-body-conclusion style with 5 paragraphs overall. Now, let’s look at each component of the basic literature review structure in detail:

Introduction

You should direct your reader(s) towards the MOP (main organizing principle). This means that your information must start from a broad perspective and gradually narrow down until it reaches your focal point.

Start by presenting your general concept (Corruption, for example). After the initial presentation, narrow your introduction’s focus towards the MOP by mentioning the criteria you used to select the literature sources you have chosen (Macbeth, All the King’s Men and Animal Farm). Finally, the introduction will end with the presentation of your MOP that should directly link it to all three of the sources of literature.

Body Paragraphs

Generally, each body paragraph will focus on a specific source of literature laid out in the essay’s introduction. As each source has its own frame of reference for the MOP, it is crucial to structure the review in the most logically consistent way possible. This means that the writing should either be structured chronologically, thematically, or methodologically.

Chronologically

Breaking down your sources based on their publication date is a solid way to keep a correct historical timeline. If applied properly, it can present the development of a certain concept over time and provide examples in the form of literature. However, sometimes there are better alternatives we can use to structure the body.

Thematically

Instead of taking the “timeline approach”, another option can be looking at the link between your MOP and your sources. Sometimes, the main idea will just glare from a piece of literature. Other times, the author may have to seek out examples to prove their point. An experienced writer will usually present their sources by order of strength. For example, in “To Kill A Mockingbird”, the entire novel was centralized around racism; in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, racism was one of many themes.

Methodologically

As made obvious by the terminology, this type of structuring focuses on the methods used to present the central concept. For example, in “1984”, George Orwell uses the law-and-order approach and shows the dangers of a dystopia for a social species.

In “Frankenstein”, Mary Shelley exposes the character’s physical traits as repulsive and horrifying, forcing him to suffer in an isolated environment. By showcasing the various methods used to portray the MOP, the writer can compare them based on things like severity, ethicality, and overall impact.

Conclusion

After presenting your findings in the body paragraphs, there are 3 final objectives to complete in the essay’s conclusion. First, the author should summarize the findings they have made or found in other words, and briefly answer the question: “What have you learned?”

After discussing that information, the next step is to present the significance of the information in reference to our current world today. In other words, how can the reader take the information and apply it to today’s society? From that point, we finish off with a breadcrumb trail.

As the author, you want to leave the readers’ trail of thought within the actual essay topic. This provides them with a means of further investigation—meaning that the reader may consider where the discussion will go next.

Writing an Outline for a Literature Review

Students often underestimate the importance of planning the structure of their papers in advance. However, this is not a wise approach. Having a rough APA literature review outline (or other style outlines) will not only help you follow the right format and structure, but will also make the writing process simpler and help ensure that you include all of the important information without missing anything.

How to write a literature review outline: As you already know from the Structure section of this guide, every part of your literature review performs its own important role. Respectively, you should create your outline while keeping the general introduction-body-conclusion structure in mind and ensuring that each section meets its own objectives. However, it is important to remember that a literature review outline is slightly different from outlines of other types of essays because it does not provide new information. It focuses on existing studies relevant to the main topic.‍

Here is a literature review outline example on the subject of the Ebola virus to help you get it right:

Hopefully, this sample outline will help you to structure your own paper. However, if you feel like you need some more advice on how to organize your review, don’t hesitate to search for more literature review outline examples in APA or other styles on the Web, or simply ask our writers for help.

How to Write a Good Literature Review

Whether you are writing a literature review within the framework of a large research project (e.g. thesis, dissertation, or other) or as a stand-alone assignment, the approach you should take to writing generally remains the same.

Now, as you know about the general rules and have a basic literature review outline template, let’s define the steps to take to handle this task right with our psychology paper service:

Step 1: Identifying the Topic

This is probably the only matter you may approach differently depending on whether your literature review comes within a research paper or a separate assignment altogether. If you are creating a literature review as a part of another work, you need to search for literature related to your main research questions and problem. Respectively, if you are writing it as a stand-alone task, you will have to pick a relevant topic and central question upon which you will be collecting the literature. Earlier in this guide we suggested some engaging topics to guide your search.

Step 2: Conducting Research

When you have a clearly defined topic, it is time to start collecting literature for your review. We recommend starting by compiling a list of relevant keywords related to your central question—to make the entire research process much simpler and help you find relevant publications faster.

When you have a list of keywords, use them to search for valid and relevant sources. At this point, be sure to use only trusted sources, such as ones from university libraries, online scientific databases, etc.

Once you have found some sources, be sure to define whether or not they are actually relevant to your topic and research question. To save you time, you can read abstracts to get general ideas of what the papers are about, instead of the whole thing.

Pro Tip: When you finally find a few valid publications, take a look at their bibliographies to discover other relevant sources as well.

Step 3: Assess and Prioritize Sources

Throughout your research, you will likely find plenty of relevant literature to include in your literature review. At this point, many students make the mistake of trying to fit all of their collected sources into their reviews. We suggest looking at what you’ve collected once more, evaluate the available sources, and select the most relevant ones. You most likely won’t be able to read everything you find on a given topic and then be able to synthesize all of the sources into a single literature review. That’s why prioritizing them is important.

To evaluate which sources are worth including in your review, keep in mind the following criteria:

Furthermore, as you read the sources, don’t forget to take notes on everything you can incorporate into the review later. And be sure to get your citations in place early on. If you cite the selected sources at the initial stage, you will find it easier to create your annotated bibliography later on.

Step 4: Identify Relationships, Key Ideas, and Gaps

Before you can move on to outlining and writing your literature review, the final step is determining the relationships between the studies that already exist. Identifying the relationships will help you organize the existing knowledge, build a solid literature outline, and (if necessary) indicate your own research contribution to a specific field.

Some of the key points to keep an eye out for are:

Here are a few examples: Common trends may include a focus on specific groups of people across different studies. There may be increased interest among most researchers in certain aspects of the topic in terms of key themes. Contradictions may include some disagreement concerning the theories and outcomes of a study. And finally, gaps most often refer to a lack of research on certain aspects of a topic.

Step 5: Make an Outline

Although students tend to neglect this stage, outlining is one of the most important steps in writing every academic paper. This is the easiest way to organize the body of your text and ensure that you haven’t missed anything important. Besides, having a rough idea about what you are going to write about in the paper will help you get it right faster and easier.

Earlier in this guide, we already discussed the basic structure of a literature review and gave you an example of a good outline. At this stage of the workflow, you can use all of the knowledge you’ve gained from us to build your own outline.

Step 6: Move on to Writing

Having found and created all of your sources, notes, citations, and a detailed outline, you can finally get to the writing part of the process. At this stage, all you need to do is follow the plan you’ve created and keep in mind the overall structure and format defined in your professor’s instructions.

Step 7: Adding the Final Touches

Most students make a common mistake and skip the final stage of the process, which includes proofreading and editing. We recommend taking enough time for these steps to ensure that your work will be worth the highest score. Do not underestimate the importance of proofreading and editing, and allocate enough time for these steps.

Pro Tip: Before moving on to proofreading and editing, be sure to set your literature review aside for a day or two. This will give you a chance to take your mind off of it and then be able to get back to proofreading with a fresh perspective. This tip will ensure that you won’t miss out on any gaps or errors that might be present in your text.

These steps will help you create a top-notch literature review with ease! Want to get more advice on how to handle this body of work? Here are the top 3 tips you need to keep in mind when writing a literature review:

Literature Review Examples

You can find two well-written literature reviews by the EssayPro writing team below. They will help you understand what the final product of a literature review should ideally look like.

The first literature review compares monolingual and bilingual language acquisition skills and uses various sources to prove its point:

How to Write a Literature Review?

The literature review frames the core of every research project. In order to carry out research on any topic, the first step you need to take is to read about the existing information, studies and works on the same and form an unbiased understanding of the concepts. This is the precise motivation behind writing a literature review by surveying the existing works on the provided subject to understand it from the perspective of varied researchers. A literature review also gives the reader a precise summary about the past conversations preceding the one the research will make in their research paper, proposition, or thesis. However, it is necessary to understand how to write a literature review to avoid any mistakes. This blog explains the key essentials on framing, structuring and drafting an excellent literature review.

This Blog Includes:

What is a Literature Review?

A review might be an independent section but is a necessary part of any research project as it meticulously goes through the major works carried out on the research topic. For the most part, a review is written to examine a portion of a published body of information through outline, summary and examination of earlier research studies. The format of a literature review may vary from a research paper to published articles. Crucial segments of a review contain an introduction which is the overview of the research paper on which the literature review is written. In the body segment, every minute details regarding chapter overview, acknowledgement, objectives, specific purpose is written in a systematic form. The conclusion is drafted in a way to review the motive behind the study of the research.

Format of a Literature Review

A literature review must be organized like any other essay, i.e. it should have an introduction, a centre or principle body, and an end. To help you understand the structure of how to write a literature review, we have elaborated its format below:

Introduction

The introduction of your literature review will familiarize the readers with an overview of different works analysed in context to your chosen topic. Here are the major components you must include while writing the introduction of a literature review:

Main Body of Content

After introducing the purpose, content and context of your review, the next step is to draft the main body of content. While exploring the format of how to write a literature review, this is the main section which includes the following:

Conclusion

Once you detailed your literature review, wrapping it up in the right manner is also crucial. Here are the major elements you must add to the conclusion while writing a literature review:

How to Write a Literature Review

Now that you are familiar with the format, here is a step-by-step guide to writing a Literature Review:

1. Carry out Extensive Research

Start with exploring the major research works, studies, books or any other works available on your subject. The best way to begin is to create a rundown of references or a list of sources you can found related to your topic. You can use research sites or even find useful literary texts on scholarly.google.com and also get in touch with your supervisor as they can also help you locate the best literature and texts on your topic. You can also use other bibliographical sources to represent your literature review effectively. Bibliographic programming, for example, EndNote, is a valuable apparatus for the following perusing, sorting out references and consequently creating reference records.

2. Study and Explore the Available Literature

Now that you have a complete list of works and literature sources on your research topic, you can start perusing upon the available resources and jot down all the major findings you can locate pertaining to your research topic. Keep a notebook for noting down all the prominent resources you can cite while writing a literature review. As you make notes, ask yourself the accompanying inquiries about every text.

3. Write the Literature Review

With the notes that you made throughout the time of studying the available resources on your topic, you can finally sit down to begin writing your literature review. Follow the format mentioned in the previous section or the specific structure that you have been given by the university or your supervisor and accumulate your findings together in a structured manner to create an excellent literature review.

4. Conclude and Proofread

Summarise your literature review by citing all the existing research literature you have studied and the prominent features that you have highlighted. Also, connect your findings with the research topic you will be working on and specify how you will be exploring the subject further. Once completed, proofread and edit the literature review thoroughly to ensure that it is error-free and structurally sound.

Hence, we hope that this blog has cleared all your doubts regarding how to write a literature review. Aspiring to pursue PhD? Our Leverage Edu experts are here to assist you in selecting the right doctoral program and university as per your interests and further guiding you throughout the admission process to ensure that you send a winning application! Sign up for a free session with us today!

How To Write A Literature Review

Content of this article

1. How To Write A Literature Review

Writing a literature review is perhaps the best piece of literature that a student can work with. This is because writing a literature review only means that you are already near the end of your final requirement in your student life, which is either a thesis or even a dissertation. But basically, a literature review simply refers to a part of a much bigger literature and is designed to assess the student’s level of proficiency and grasp of the subject itself. Aside from the purpose of knowing how much you know, literature review writing is primarily aimed at researching and synthesizing previous works and research done which are related to the field that you are trying to work on. However, because of its complexity, literature review writing is one of the most difficult types of a task because it also requires the writer to synthesize his/her own thesis statement with the works that he/she was able to find. Thus, because of the difficulty in writing these types of essays, here is some literature review writing help from experts at our essays writing service.

2. Things to Avoid in writing a Literature Review

Writing a literature review is not easy. There are many traps and pitfalls that any writer could fall on, and thus, here are some of the most important tips in writing a literature review.

To further check on other tips and guides, here is one literature review writing guide to help you make that coherent synthesis for your work.

3. Types of literature review

Before you ask the most common question ‘how to start a literature review (?)’ you better have your own hooks for your literature review topics first. This is crucial, especially when creating your own literature review structure because, without your topic, you cannot proceed! But again, even before starting to work on your literature review, we need to look at some of the types of literature review to know what topic would fit the type of methodology which you would be employed later on in your work.

Evaluative

An evaluative type of literature review focuses more on collecting previous works which are related to your topic at hand and “evaluating” their findings. Employing a similar kind of review in your research might be very helpful especially if you’re working in fields that have an objective structure of a literature review.

Exploratory

As compared to the previous structure of a literature review, the exploratory type is more (as the term implies) “exploratory” or designed to survey previous works done in the field rather than evaluating them. The outline of a literature review of this type is usually employed with topics/fields which lack previous works done before it.

Instrumental

As compared to other types, the literature review structure of instrumental ones focuses more on the methods used and the tools employed during the study. These types of literature reviews are usually used for both qualitative and quantitative works.

Systematic

One of the quickest and easiest ways to conduct a literature review, a systematic type of literature review focuses on critically analyzing the works done by previous authors.

4. Review structure

Now that you already have a coherent topic in mind and knowledge of the different types of literature reviews, the next step is focusing on the structure of a literature review. Just as with any other piece of literature out there, the process of literature review outlining is very important in order to help you gain the momentum to write. An outline for a literature review would also help you in making sure everything in your topic is already covered and all questions which you posed in your introduction are already covered before you finally proceed to the conclusion for your literature review.

When writing the outline of your literature review, any writer should take note that, unlike other papers, the literature review does not usually employ the use of subheadings that other papers use (e.g. introduction). This is because literature reviews are usually a part of a bigger paper with an introductory and conclusion part and not a separate paper in itself. Literature review outlining, on the other hand, simply uses the paragraphs in a logical and systematic manner, with which each thesis of the paragraphs works in conjunction with each other to support the main thesis of the article while the succeeding parts of each paragraph work to support the main thesis of a paragraph.

Provided below is an example of a literature review outline:

Review of Related Literature

Introduction Writing

After finishing all of these steps, the literature review introduction marks the beginning but also is the most important part of your main work. This is because of the fact that just like any other part of this essay, the introduction for the literature review should provide the “hook” for the readers to read more, but as compared to the main introduction, this one is more dedicated to explaining the purpose of your literature review.

Here are some tips for writing your introduction.

Conclusion Writing

The last part of writing a literature review is the literature review conclusion. Most writers become dazed with answering the question, “how to end a literature review?” This is not surprising because most people commit the mistake of writing a literature review conclusion just as how they write the conclusion of the main paper. This is a thing that any writer should be aware of because, unlike the main conclusion, this part only tackles the literature review itself and provides an avenue to proceed with the next parts of the paper. And, since we have already discussed the steps in writing a literature review, here is a checklist to help you start writing.

How to write the literature review of your research paper

Many researchers struggle when it comes to writing literature review for their research paper. A literature review is a comprehensive overview of all the knowledge available on a specific topic till date. When you decide on a research topic, usually the first step you take in the direction of conducting research is learn more about the previous research published on the topic, and this eventually translates into literature review when you write your research paper. Literature review is one of the pillars on which your research idea stands since it provides context, relevance, and background to the research problem you are exploring.

Types of literature review

Literature reviews can be categorized as experimental and theoretical. Experimental literature review basically refers to surveying all the information available on a particular topic and critically analyzing the gaps that need to be worked upon. In this sense, it essentially forms the first experiment of any research project. The more extensive the review, the more precise and systematic the research project will be. Therefore, it is one of the most critical parts of one’s research.

Theoretical literature review essentially involves two steps:

Literature review could be a part of a dissertation or research article and a stand-alone literature review. Let us look at this in more detail.

Literature reviews for dissertation/research article

Every research report/ thesis/research article begins with an introduction to the topic of research. This forms the literature review for the article. The main purpose of the review is to introduce the readers to the need for conducting the said research. A literature review should begin with a thorough literature search using the main keywords in relevant online databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, etc. Once all the relevant literature has been gathered, it should be organized as follows:

A literature review should not be a mere recounting of all the available information. It should be a critical and analytical summary of the selected literature that guides the readers through the central theme of the research.

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Stand-alone literature reviews

Literature reviews can also be written as stand-alone articles. These are not different from the literature review sections described above; however, they are not followed by experimental data.

They basically fall into 2 broad categories: narrative reviews and systematic reviews.

1. Narrative reviews

These are theoretical discussions of relevant information on a particular topic and its critical analysis. These are mostly qualitative in nature similar to the review sections of larger articles.

Narrative reviews are usually organized as follows:

Introduction that establishes the context of the field of research and the topic of the review

Body is normally used for describing the different themes under the main topic by dividing them into different subheadings. This section compares and contrasts published studies and identifies gaps that have not been addressed or have been unsuccessfully addressed.

Conclusions. This section differs slightly between reviews which are part of research articles and narrative reviews. The section describes the main conclusions from analysis of all the current studies and puts forth further avenues for research. This section requires critical interpretation by the author such that the review adds value to existing literature. It should bring out ideas/hypotheses that can explain any discrepancies and provide solutions to existing problems.

2. Systematic reviews

On the other hand, systematic reviews follow a well-planned methodology to qualitatively or quantitatively analyze a defined number of studies. They usually focus on a single question and have clear study objectives that are worked upon in a systematic manner. These studies are based on a well-defined strategy unlike narrative reviews. Systematic reviews and narrative reviews are organized slightly differently. The details are described below:

Introduction: Systematic reviews begin with specific research questions that are defined in terms of the samples and research outcomes to be studied.

Methods (only for systematic reviews): These studies have a comprehensive methodology that starts by narrowing down the literature for the review. Usually, specific inclusion/exclusion criteria are set based on the research questions and databases are searched based on these criteria. Once the sample studies have been shortlisted, they are analyzed in detail.

Results: The results section for these studies involves comprehensive data analysis to determine the significance of the study outcomes. Systematic reviews can be accompanied with Meta-analysis which involves statistical analysis of the included studies to increase the power of the results.

Discussion: This section usually interprets the study data based on their weighted significance and the power of the results. The study therefore provides strengthened results that are validated by the scientific rigor of the analytical method.

Before starting to write a review, it is important to determine what kind of review you want to write and follow the appropriate style and guidelines. An effective literature review is important for the complete life cycle of a research from defining the right research goals to correctly interpreting and presenting the research results.

If you wish to learn in more depth how to conduct literature search, check out this course designed exclusively for researchers: How to conduct an effective literature search and review.

Bonus takeaway exclusively for community members

Writing a literature review requires you to read through and collate several research articles and literature sources. This can get very confusing considering the large amount of publications that need to be organized. There is no set way to do this as it will depend on your preference for reading printed articles or online resources. If you are old school and read printed articles better, then you should create a folder with all articles organized in this way:

1. Alphabetically with the last name of the first author, or

2. Chronologically with the date of publication, or

3. Thematically with different themes organized chronologically

For the more tech-savy users, organization of literature either by year of publication or themes would be more ideal. Citing and creating a reference list in your manuscript can be done either manually or by using reference management tools like Endnote from Clarivate analytics. Endnote is an excellent way to store your research library and import it into the manuscript in the format required by the journal.

The tips and guidelines in this post should help you write your literature review with ease.