how to write review of literature for project

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

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

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

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

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 that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your 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.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

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:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

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.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

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.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

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

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing - try for free!

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Try for free

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved April 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, what is a theoretical framework | guide to organizing, what is a research methodology | steps & tips, how to write a research proposal | examples & templates, unlimited academic ai-proofreading.

✔ Document error-free in 5minutes ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

• Resources Home 🏠
• Try SciSpace Copilot
• Search research papers
• Add Copilot Extension
• Try AI Detector
• Try Paraphraser
• Try Citation Generator
• April Papers
• June Papers
• July Papers

How To Write A Literature Review - A Complete Guide

Table of Contents

A literature review is much more than just another section in your research paper. It forms the very foundation of your research. It is a formal piece of writing where you analyze the existing theoretical framework, principles, and assumptions and use that as a base to shape your approach to the research question.

Curating and drafting a solid literature review section not only lends more credibility to your research paper but also makes your research tighter and better focused. But, writing literature reviews is a difficult task. It requires extensive reading, plus you have to consider market trends and technological and political changes, which tend to change in the blink of an eye.

Now streamline your literature review process with the help of SciSpace Copilot. With this AI research assistant, you can efficiently synthesize and analyze a vast amount of information, identify key themes and trends, and uncover gaps in the existing research. Get real-time explanations, summaries, and answers to your questions for the paper you're reviewing, making navigating and understanding the complex literature landscape easier.

In this comprehensive guide, we will explore everything from the definition of a literature review, its appropriate length, various types of literature reviews, and how to write one.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a collation of survey, research, critical evaluation, and assessment of the existing literature in a preferred domain.

Eminent researcher and academic Arlene Fink, in her book Conducting Research Literature Reviews , defines it as the following:

“A literature review surveys books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated.

Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic, and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of study.”

Simply put, a literature review can be defined as a critical discussion of relevant pre-existing research around your research question and carving out a definitive place for your study in the existing body of knowledge. Literature reviews can be presented in multiple ways: a section of an article, the whole research paper itself, or a chapter of your thesis.

A literature review does function as a summary of sources, but it also allows you to analyze further, interpret, and examine the stated theories, methods, viewpoints, and, of course, the gaps in the existing content.

As an author, you can discuss and interpret the research question and its various aspects and debate your adopted methods to support the claim.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

A literature review is meant to help your readers understand the relevance of your research question and where it fits within the existing body of knowledge. As a researcher, you should use it to set the context, build your argument, and establish the need for your study.

What is the importance of a literature review?

The literature review is a critical part of research papers because it helps you:

• Gain an in-depth understanding of your research question and the surrounding area
• Convey that you have a thorough understanding of your research area and are up-to-date with the latest changes and advancements
• Establish how your research is connected or builds on the existing body of knowledge and how it could contribute to further research
• Elaborate on the validity and suitability of your theoretical framework and research methodology
• Identify and highlight gaps and shortcomings in the existing body of knowledge and how things need to change
• Convey to readers how your study is different or how it contributes to the research area

How long should a literature review be?

Ideally, the literature review should take up 15%-40% of the total length of your manuscript. So, if you have a 10,000-word research paper, the minimum word count could be 1500.

Your literature review format depends heavily on the kind of manuscript you are writing — an entire chapter in case of doctoral theses, a part of the introductory section in a research article, to a full-fledged review article that examines the previously published research on a topic.

Another determining factor is the type of research you are doing. The literature review section tends to be longer for secondary research projects than primary research projects.

What are the different types of literature reviews?

All literature reviews are not the same. There are a variety of possible approaches that you can take. It all depends on the type of research you are pursuing.

Here are the different types of literature reviews:

Argumentative review

It is called an argumentative review when you carefully present literature that only supports or counters a specific argument or premise to establish a viewpoint.

Integrative review

It is a type of literature review focused on building a comprehensive understanding of a topic by combining available theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence.

Methodological review

This approach delves into the ''how'' and the ''what" of the research question —  you cannot look at the outcome in isolation; you should also review the methodology used.

Systematic review

This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research and collect, report, and analyze data from the studies included in the review.

Meta-analysis review

Meta-analysis uses statistical methods to summarize the results of independent studies. By combining information from all relevant studies, meta-analysis can provide more precise estimates of the effects than those derived from the individual studies included within a review.

Historical review

Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, or phenomenon emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and identify future research's likely directions.

Theoretical Review

This form aims to examine the corpus of theory accumulated regarding an issue, concept, theory, and phenomenon. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories exist, the relationships between them, the degree the existing approaches have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested.

Scoping Review

The Scoping Review is often used at the beginning of an article, dissertation, or research proposal. It is conducted before the research to highlight gaps in the existing body of knowledge and explains why the project should be greenlit.

State-of-the-Art Review

The State-of-the-Art review is conducted periodically, focusing on the most recent research. It describes what is currently known, understood, or agreed upon regarding the research topic and highlights where there are still disagreements.

Can you use the first person in a literature review?

When writing literature reviews, you should avoid the usage of first-person pronouns. It means that instead of "I argue that" or "we argue that," the appropriate expression would be "this research paper argues that."

Do you need an abstract for a literature review?

Ideally, yes. It is always good to have a condensed summary that is self-contained and independent of the rest of your review. As for how to draft one, you can follow the same fundamental idea when preparing an abstract for a literature review. It should also include:

• The research topic and your motivation behind selecting it
• A one-sentence thesis statement
• An explanation of the kinds of literature featured in the review
• Summary of what you've learned
• Conclusions you drew from the literature you reviewed
• Potential implications and future scope for research

Here's an example of the abstract of a literature review

Is a literature review written in the past tense?

Yes, the literature review should ideally be written in the past tense. You should not use the present or future tense when writing one. The exceptions are when you have statements describing events that happened earlier than the literature you are reviewing or events that are currently occurring; then, you can use the past perfect or present perfect tenses.

How many sources for a literature review?

There are multiple approaches to deciding how many sources to include in a literature review section. The first approach would be to look level you are at as a researcher. For instance, a doctoral thesis might need 60+ sources. In contrast, you might only need to refer to 5-15 sources at the undergraduate level.

The second approach is based on the kind of literature review you are doing — whether it is merely a chapter of your paper or if it is a self-contained paper in itself. When it is just a chapter, sources should equal the total number of pages in your article's body. In the second scenario, you need at least three times as many sources as there are pages in your work.

Quick tips on how to write a literature review

To know how to write a literature review, you must clearly understand its impact and role in establishing your work as substantive research material.

You need to follow the below-mentioned steps, to write a literature review:

• Outline the purpose behind the literature review
• Search relevant literature
• Examine and assess the relevant resources
• Discover connections by drawing deep insights from the resources
• Structure planning to write a good literature review

1. Outline and identify the purpose of  a literature review

As a first step on how to write a literature review, you must know what the research question or topic is and what shape you want your literature review to take. Ensure you understand the research topic inside out, or else seek clarifications. You must be able to the answer below questions before you start:

• How many sources do I need to include?
• What kind of sources should I analyze?
• How much should I critically evaluate each source?
• Should I summarize, synthesize or offer a critique of the sources?
• Do I need to include any background information or definitions?

Additionally, you should know that the narrower your research topic is, the swifter it will be for you to restrict the number of sources to be analyzed.

2. Search relevant literature

Dig deeper into search engines to discover what has already been published around your chosen topic. Make sure you thoroughly go through appropriate reference sources like books, reports, journal articles, government docs, and web-based resources.

You must prepare a list of keywords and their different variations. You can start your search from any library’s catalog, provided you are an active member of that institution. The exact keywords can be extended to widen your research over other databases and academic search engines like:

• Google Scholar
• Microsoft Academic
• Science.gov

Besides, it is not advisable to go through every resource word by word. Alternatively, what you can do is you can start by reading the abstract and then decide whether that source is relevant to your research or not.

Additionally, you must spend surplus time assessing the quality and relevance of resources. It would help if you tried preparing a list of citations to ensure that there lies no repetition of authors, publications, or articles in the literature review.

3. Examine and assess the sources

It is nearly impossible for you to go through every detail in the research article. So rather than trying to fetch every detail, you have to analyze and decide which research sources resemble closest and appear relevant to your chosen domain.

While analyzing the sources, you should look to find out answers to questions like:

• What question or problem has the author been describing and debating?
• What is the definition of critical aspects?
• How well the theories, approach, and methodology have been explained?
• Whether the research theory used some conventional or new innovative approach?
• How relevant are the key findings of the work?
• In what ways does it relate to other sources on the same topic?
• What challenges does this research paper pose to the existing theory
• What are the possible contributions or benefits it adds to the subject domain?

Be always mindful that you refer only to credible and authentic resources. It would be best if you always take references from different publications to validate your theory.

Always keep track of important information or data you can present in your literature review right from the beginning. It will help steer your path from any threats of plagiarism and also make it easier to curate an annotated bibliography or reference section.

4. Discover connections

At this stage, you must start deciding on the argument and structure of your literature review. To accomplish this, you must discover and identify the relations and connections between various resources while drafting your abstract.

A few aspects that you should be aware of while writing a literature review include:

• Rise to prominence: Theories and methods that have gained reputation and supporters over time.
• Constant scrutiny: Concepts or theories that repeatedly went under examination.
• Contradictions and conflicts: Theories, both the supporting and the contradictory ones, for the research topic.
• Knowledge gaps: What exactly does it fail to address, and how to bridge them with further research?
• Influential resources: Significant research projects available that have been upheld as milestones or perhaps, something that can modify the current trends

Once you join the dots between various past research works, it will be easier for you to draw a conclusion and identify your contribution to the existing knowledge base.

5. Structure planning to write a good literature review

There exist different ways towards planning and executing the structure of a literature review. The format of a literature review varies and depends upon the length of the research.

Like any other research paper, the literature review format must contain three sections: introduction, body, and conclusion. The goals and objectives of the research question determine what goes inside these three sections.

Nevertheless, a good literature review can be structured according to the chronological, thematic, methodological, or theoretical framework approach.

Literature review samples

1. Standalone

2. As a section of a research paper

How SciSpace Discover makes literature review a breeze?

SciSpace Discover is a one-stop solution to do an effective literature search and get barrier-free access to scientific knowledge. It is an excellent repository where you can find millions of only peer-reviewed articles and full-text PDF files. Here’s more on how you can use it:

Find the right information

Find what you want quickly and easily with comprehensive search filters that let you narrow down papers according to PDF availability, year of publishing, document type, and affiliated institution. Moreover, you can sort the results based on the publishing date, citation count, and relevance.

Assess credibility of papers quickly

When doing the literature review, it is critical to establish the quality of your sources. They form the foundation of your research. SciSpace Discover helps you assess the quality of a source by providing an overview of its references, citations, and performance metrics.

Get the complete picture in no time

SciSpace Discover’s personalized suggestion engine helps you stay on course and get the complete picture of the topic from one place. Every time you visit an article page, it provides you links to related papers. Besides that, it helps you understand what’s trending, who are the top authors, and who are the leading publishers on a topic.

Make referring sources super easy

To ensure you don't lose track of your sources, you must start noting down your references when doing the literature review. SciSpace Discover makes this step effortless. Click the 'cite' button on an article page, and you will receive preloaded citation text in multiple styles — all you've to do is copy-paste it into your manuscript.

Final tips on how to write a literature review

A massive chunk of time and effort is required to write a good literature review. But, if you go about it systematically, you'll be able to save a ton of time and build a solid foundation for your research.

We hope this guide has helped you answer several key questions you have about writing literature reviews.

Would you like to explore SciSpace Discover and kick off your literature search right away? You can get started here .

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. how to start a literature review.

• What questions do you want to answer?

• What sources do you need to answer these questions?

• What information do these sources contain?

• How can you use this information to answer your questions?

2. What to include in a literature review?

• A brief background of the problem or issue

• What has previously been done to address the problem or issue

• A description of what you will do in your project

• How this study will contribute to research on the subject

3. Why literature review is important?

The literature review is an important part of any research project because it allows the writer to look at previous studies on a topic and determine existing gaps in the literature, as well as what has already been done. It will also help them to choose the most appropriate method for their own study.

4. How to cite a literature review in APA format?

To cite a literature review in APA style, you need to provide the author's name, the title of the article, and the year of publication. For example: Patel, A. B., & Stokes, G. S. (2012). The relationship between personality and intelligence: A meta-analysis of longitudinal research. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(1), 16-21

5. What are the components of a literature review?

• A brief introduction to the topic, including its background and context. The introduction should also include a rationale for why the study is being conducted and what it will accomplish.

• A description of the methodologies used in the study. This can include information about data collection methods, sample size, and statistical analyses.

• A presentation of the findings in an organized format that helps readers follow along with the author's conclusions.

6. What are common errors in writing literature review?

• Not spending enough time to critically evaluate the relevance of resources, observations and conclusions.

• Totally relying on secondary data while ignoring primary data.

• Letting your personal bias seep into your interpretation of existing literature.

• No detailed explanation of the procedure to discover and identify an appropriate literature review.

7. What are the 5 C's of writing literature review?

• Cite - the sources you utilized and referenced in your research.

• Compare - existing arguments, hypotheses, methodologies, and conclusions found in the knowledge base.

• Contrast - the arguments, topics, methodologies, approaches, and disputes that may be found in the literature.

• Critique - the literature and describe the ideas and opinions you find more convincing and why.

• Connect - the various studies you reviewed in your research.

8. How many sources should a literature review have?

When it is just a chapter, sources should equal the total number of pages in your article's body. if it is a self-contained paper in itself, you need at least three times as many sources as there are pages in your work.

9. Can literature review have diagrams?

• To represent an abstract idea or concept

• To explain the steps of a process or procedure

• To help readers understand the relationships between different concepts

10. How old should sources be in a literature review?

Sources for a literature review should be as current as possible or not older than ten years. The only exception to this rule is if you are reviewing a historical topic and need to use older sources.

11. What are the types of literature review?

• Argumentative review

• Integrative review

• Methodological review

• Systematic review

• Meta-analysis review

• Historical review

• Theoretical review

• Scoping review

• State-of-the-Art review

12. Is a literature review mandatory?

Yes. Literature review is a mandatory part of any research project. It is a critical step in the process that allows you to establish the scope of your research, and provide a background for the rest of your work.

But before you go,

• Six Online Tools for Easy Literature Review
• Evaluating literature review: systematic vs. scoping reviews
• Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review
• Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples

You might also like

Consensus GPT vs. SciSpace GPT: Choose the Best GPT for Research

Literature Review and Theoretical Framework: Understanding the Differences

Types of Essays in Academic Writing - Quick Guide (2024)

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing a Literature Review

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

How To Structure Your Literature Review

3 options to help structure your chapter.

By: Amy Rommelspacher (PhD) | Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | November 2020 (Updated May 2023)

Writing the literature review chapter can seem pretty daunting when you’re piecing together your dissertation or thesis. As  we’ve discussed before , a good literature review needs to achieve a few very important objectives – it should:

• Demonstrate your knowledge of the research topic
• Identify the gaps in the literature and show how your research links to these
• Provide the foundation for your conceptual framework (if you have one)
• Inform your own  methodology and research design

To achieve this, your literature review needs a well-thought-out structure . Get the structure of your literature review chapter wrong and you’ll struggle to achieve these objectives. Don’t worry though – in this post, we’ll look at how to structure your literature review for maximum impact (and marks!).

But wait – is this the right time?

Deciding on the structure of your literature review should come towards the end of the literature review process – after you have collected and digested the literature, but before you start writing the chapter. 

In other words, you need to first develop a rich understanding of the literature before you even attempt to map out a structure. There’s no use trying to develop a structure before you’ve fully wrapped your head around the existing research.

Equally importantly, you need to have a structure in place before you start writing , or your literature review will most likely end up a rambling, disjointed mess. 

Importantly, don’t feel that once you’ve defined a structure you can’t iterate on it. It’s perfectly natural to adjust as you engage in the writing process. As we’ve discussed before , writing is a way of developing your thinking, so it’s quite common for your thinking to change – and therefore, for your chapter structure to change – as you write. 

Need a helping hand?

Like any other chapter in your thesis or dissertation, your literature review needs to have a clear, logical structure. At a minimum, it should have three essential components – an  introduction , a  body   and a  conclusion . 

Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

1: The Introduction Section

Just like any good introduction, the introduction section of your literature review should introduce the purpose and layout (organisation) of the chapter. In other words, your introduction needs to give the reader a taste of what’s to come, and how you’re going to lay that out. Essentially, you should provide the reader with a high-level roadmap of your chapter to give them a taste of the journey that lies ahead.

Here’s an example of the layout visualised in a literature review introduction:

Your introduction should also outline your topic (including any tricky terminology or jargon) and provide an explanation of the scope of your literature review – in other words, what you  will   and  won’t   be covering (the delimitations ). This helps ringfence your review and achieve a clear focus . The clearer and narrower your focus, the deeper you can dive into the topic (which is typically where the magic lies). 

Depending on the nature of your project, you could also present your stance or point of view at this stage. In other words, after grappling with the literature you’ll have an opinion about what the trends and concerns are in the field as well as what’s lacking. The introduction section can then present these ideas so that it is clear to examiners that you’re aware of how your research connects with existing knowledge .

2: The Body Section

The body of your literature review is the centre of your work. This is where you’ll present, analyse, evaluate and synthesise the existing research. In other words, this is where you’re going to earn (or lose) the most marks. Therefore, it’s important to carefully think about how you will organise your discussion to present it in a clear way. 

The body of your literature review should do just as the description of this chapter suggests. It should “review” the literature – in other words, identify, analyse, and synthesise it. So, when thinking about structuring your literature review, you need to think about which structural approach will provide the best “review” for your specific type of research and objectives (we’ll get to this shortly).

There are (broadly speaking)  three options  for organising your literature review.

Option 1: Chronological (according to date)

Organising the literature chronologically is one of the simplest ways to structure your literature review. You start with what was published first and work your way through the literature until you reach the work published most recently. Pretty straightforward.

The benefit of this option is that it makes it easy to discuss the developments and debates in the field as they emerged over time. Organising your literature chronologically also allows you to highlight how specific articles or pieces of work might have changed the course of the field – in other words, which research has had the most impact . Therefore, this approach is very useful when your research is aimed at understanding how the topic has unfolded over time and is often used by scholars in the field of history. That said, this approach can be utilised by anyone that wants to explore change over time .

For example , if a student of politics is investigating how the understanding of democracy has evolved over time, they could use the chronological approach to provide a narrative that demonstrates how this understanding has changed through the ages.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you structure your literature review chronologically.

• What is the earliest literature published relating to this topic?
• How has the field changed over time? Why?
• What are the most recent discoveries/theories?

In some ways, chronology plays a part whichever way you decide to structure your literature review, because you will always, to a certain extent, be analysing how the literature has developed. However, with the chronological approach, the emphasis is very firmly on how the discussion has evolved over time , as opposed to how all the literature links together (which we’ll discuss next ).

Option 2: Thematic (grouped by theme)

The thematic approach to structuring a literature review means organising your literature by theme or category – for example, by independent variables (i.e. factors that have an impact on a specific outcome).

As you’ve been collecting and synthesising literature , you’ll likely have started seeing some themes or patterns emerging. You can then use these themes or patterns as a structure for your body discussion. The thematic approach is the most common approach and is useful for structuring literature reviews in most fields.

For example, if you were researching which factors contributed towards people trusting an organisation, you might find themes such as consumers’ perceptions of an organisation’s competence, benevolence and integrity. Structuring your literature review thematically would mean structuring your literature review’s body section to discuss each of these themes, one section at a time.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when structuring your literature review by themes:

• Are there any patterns that have come to light in the literature?
• What are the central themes and categories used by the researchers?
• Do I have enough evidence of these themes?

PS – you can see an example of a thematically structured literature review in our literature review sample walkthrough video here.

Option 3: Methodological

The methodological option is a way of structuring your literature review by the research methodologies used . In other words, organising your discussion based on the angle from which each piece of research was approached – for example, qualitative , quantitative or mixed  methodologies.

Structuring your literature review by methodology can be useful if you are drawing research from a variety of disciplines and are critiquing different methodologies. The point of this approach is to question  how  existing research has been conducted, as opposed to  what  the conclusions and/or findings the research were.

For example, a sociologist might centre their research around critiquing specific fieldwork practices. Their literature review will then be a summary of the fieldwork methodologies used by different studies.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself when structuring your literature review according to methodology:

• Which methodologies have been utilised in this field?
• Which methodology is the most popular (and why)?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the various methodologies?
• How can the existing methodologies inform my own methodology?

3: The Conclusion Section

Once you’ve completed the body section of your literature review using one of the structural approaches we discussed above, you’ll need to “wrap up” your literature review and pull all the pieces together to set the direction for the rest of your dissertation or thesis.

The conclusion is where you’ll present the key findings of your literature review. In this section, you should emphasise the research that is especially important to your research questions and highlight the gaps that exist in the literature. Based on this, you need to make it clear what you will add to the literature – in other words, justify your own research by showing how it will help fill one or more of the gaps you just identified.

Last but not least, if it’s your intention to develop a conceptual framework for your dissertation or thesis, the conclusion section is a good place to present this.

Example: Thematically Structured Review

In the video below, we unpack a literature review chapter so that you can see an example of a thematically structure review in practice.

Let’s Recap

In this article, we’ve  discussed how to structure your literature review for maximum impact. Here’s a quick recap of what  you need to keep in mind when deciding on your literature review structure:

• Just like other chapters, your literature review needs a clear introduction , body and conclusion .
• The introduction section should provide an overview of what you will discuss in your literature review.
• The body section of your literature review can be organised by chronology , theme or methodology . The right structural approach depends on what you’re trying to achieve with your research.
• The conclusion section should draw together the key findings of your literature review and link them to your research questions.

If you’re ready to get started, be sure to download our free literature review template to fast-track your chapter outline.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling Udemy Course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

You Might Also Like:

27 Comments

Great work. This is exactly what I was looking for and helps a lot together with your previous post on literature review. One last thing is missing: a link to a great literature chapter of an journal article (maybe with comments of the different sections in this review chapter). Do you know any great literature review chapters?

I agree with you Marin… A great piece

I agree with Marin. This would be quite helpful if you annotate a nicely structured literature from previously published research articles.

Awesome article for my research.

I thank you immensely for this wonderful guide

It is indeed thought and supportive work for the futurist researcher and students

Very educative and good time to get guide. Thank you

Great work, very insightful. Thank you.

Thanks for this wonderful presentation. My question is that do I put all the variables into a single conceptual framework or each hypothesis will have it own conceptual framework?

Thank you very much, very helpful

This is very educative and precise . Thank you very much for dropping this kind of write up .

Pheeww, so damn helpful, thank you for this informative piece.

I’m doing a research project topic ; stool analysis for parasitic worm (enteric) worm, how do I structure it, thanks.

comprehensive explanation. Help us by pasting the URL of some good “literature review” for better understanding.

great piece. thanks for the awesome explanation. it is really worth sharing. I have a little question, if anyone can help me out, which of the options in the body of literature can be best fit if you are writing an architectural thesis that deals with design?

I am doing a research on nanofluids how can l structure it?

Beautifully clear.nThank you!

Lucid! Thankyou!

Brilliant work, well understood, many thanks

I like how this was so clear with simple language 😊😊 thank you so much 😊 for these information 😊

Insightful. I was struggling to come up with a sensible literature review but this has been really helpful. Thank you!

You have given thought-provoking information about the review of the literature.

Thank you. It has made my own research better and to impart your work to students I teach

I learnt a lot from this teaching. It’s a great piece.

I am doing research on EFL teacher motivation for his/her job. How Can I structure it? Is there any detailed template, additional to this?

You are so cool! I do not think I’ve read through something like this before. So nice to find somebody with some genuine thoughts on this issue. Seriously.. thank you for starting this up. This site is one thing that is required on the internet, someone with a little originality!

I’m asked to do conceptual, theoretical and empirical literature, and i just don’t know how to structure it

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Print Friendly

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, automatically generate references for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Dissertation
• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 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:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Be assured that you'll submit flawless writing. Upload your document to correct all your mistakes.

Table of contents

Why write a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1: search for relevant literature, step 2: evaluate and select sources, step 3: identify themes, debates and gaps, step 4: outline your literature review’s structure, step 5: write your literature review, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

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

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Correct my document today

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.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

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

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list if you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models and methods? Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible, and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly-visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat – this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organise your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole.
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources.
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

In the conclusion, you should summarise the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasise their significance.

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarise yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

McCombes, S. (2022, June 07). What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 9 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, how to write a dissertation proposal | a step-by-step guide, what is a theoretical framework | a step-by-step guide, what is a research methodology | steps & tips.

Reference management. Clean and simple.

How to write a literature review in 6 steps

What is a literature review?

How to write a literature review, 1. determine the purpose of your literature review, 2. do an extensive search, 3. evaluate and select literature, 4. analyze the literature, 5. plan the structure of your literature review, 6. write your literature review, other resources to help you write a successful literature review, frequently asked questions about writing a literature review, related articles.

A literature review is an assessment of the sources in a chosen topic of research.

A good literature review does not just summarize sources. It analyzes the state of the field on a given topic and creates a scholarly foundation for you to make your own intervention. It demonstrates to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of study.

In a thesis, a literature review is part of the introduction, but it can also be a separate section. In research papers, a literature review may have its own section or it may be integrated into the introduction, depending on the field.

➡️ Our guide on what is a literature review covers additional basics about literature reviews.

• Identify the main purpose of the literature review.
• Do extensive research.
• Evaluate and select relevant sources.
• Analyze the sources.
• Plan a structure.
• Write the review.

In this section, we review each step of the process of creating a literature review.

In the first step, make sure you know specifically what the assignment is and what form your literature review should take. Read your assignment carefully and seek clarification from your professor or instructor if needed. You should be able to answer the following questions:

• How many sources do I need to include?
• What types of sources should I review?
• Should I evaluate the sources?
• Should I summarize, synthesize or critique sources?
• Do I need to provide any definitions or background information?

In addition to that, be aware that the narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to get a good overview of the topic.

Now you need to find out what has been written on the topic and search for literature related to your research topic. Make sure to select appropriate source material, which means using academic or scholarly sources , including books, reports, journal articles , government documents and web resources.

➡️ If you’re unsure about how to tell if a source is scholarly, take a look at our guide on how to identify a scholarly source .

Come up with a list of relevant keywords and then start your search with your institution's library catalog, and extend it to other useful databases and academic search engines like:

• Google Scholar
• Science.gov

➡️ Our guide on how to collect data for your thesis might be helpful at this stage of your research as well as the top list of academic search engines .

Once you find a useful article, check out the reference list. It should provide you with even more relevant sources. Also, keep a note of the:

• authors' names
• page numbers

Keeping track of the bibliographic information for each source will save you time when you’re ready to create citations. You could also use a reference manager like Paperpile to automatically save, manage, and cite your references.

Read the literature. You will most likely not be able to read absolutely everything that is out there on the topic. Therefore, read the abstract first to determine whether the rest of the source is worth your time. If the source is relevant for your topic:

• Read it critically.
• Look for the main arguments.
• Take notes as you read.
• Organize your notes using a table, mind map, or other technique.

Now you are ready to analyze the literature you have gathered. While your are working on your analysis, you should ask the following questions:

• What are the key terms, concepts and problems addressed by the author?
• How is this source relevant for my specific topic?
• How is the article structured? What are the major trends and findings?
• What are the conclusions of the study?
• How are the results presented? Is the source credible?
• When comparing different sources, how do they relate to each other? What are the similarities, what are the differences?
• Does the study help me understand the topic better?
• Are there any gaps in the research that need to be filled? How can I further my research as a result of the review?

Tip: Decide on the structure of your literature review before you start writing.

There are various ways to organize your literature review:

• Chronological method : Writing in the chronological method means you are presenting the materials according to when they were published. Follow this approach only if a clear path of research can be identified.
• Thematic review : A thematic review of literature is organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time.
• Publication-based : You can order your sources by publication, if the way you present the order of your sources demonstrates a more important trend. This is the case when a progression revealed from study to study and the practices of researchers have changed and adapted due to the new revelations.
• Methodological approach : A methodological approach focuses on the methods used by the researcher. If you have used sources from different disciplines that use a variety of research methods, you might want to compare the results in light of the different methods and discuss how the topic has been approached from different sides.

Regardless of the structure you chose, a review should always include the following three sections:

• An introduction, which should give the reader an outline of why you are writing the review and explain the relevance of the topic.
• A body, which divides your literature review into different sections. Write in well-structured paragraphs, use transitions and topic sentences and critically analyze each source for how it contributes to the themes you are researching.
• A conclusion , which summarizes the key findings, the main agreements and disagreements in the literature, your overall perspective, and any gaps or areas for further research.

➡️ If your literature review is part of a longer paper, visit our guide on what is a research paper for additional tips.

➡️ UNC writing center: Literature reviews

➡️ How to write a literature review in 3 steps

➡️ How to write a literature review in 30 minutes or less

The goal of a literature review is to asses the state of the field on a given topic in preparation for making an intervention.

A literature review should have its own independent section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where it can be found, and address this section as “Literature Review.”

There is no set amount of words for a literature review; the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, then it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, then it will be short.

Most research papers include a literature review. By assessing the available sources in your field of research, you will be able to make a more confident argument about the topic.

Literature reviews are most commonly found in theses and dissertations. However, you find them in research papers as well.

• University of Oregon Libraries
• Research Guides

How to Write a Literature Review

• 7. Write a Literature Review
• Literature Reviews: A Recap
• Reading Journal Articles
• Does it Describe a Literature Review?
• 1. Identify the Question
• 2. Review Discipline Styles
• Searching Article Databases
• Finding Full-Text of an Article
• Citation Chaining
• When to Stop Searching
• 4. Manage Your References
• 5. Critically Analyze and Evaluate
• 6. Synthesize

Write a Literature Review

Writing support on campus, need more help.

Photo Credit: UO Libraries

Some points to remember

• Include only the most important points from each source -- you want to digest, not quote from, the sources.
• The value of the review for you audience will consist in a clear, well-organized synopsis of what has been found so far on your topic. 
• Avoid plagiarism in your lit review. Consult this UO Libraries tutorial on Academic Integrity if you need some guidance.

If you would like more pointers about how to approach your literature review, this this handout from The Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill  suggests several effective strategies.

From UNC-Chapel Hill  and  University of Toronto

Note : Please check the websites below for availability of online or remote services:

• Writing Lab Service Customized academic assistance for all international students
• How to Write a Literature Review (UO Libraries tutorial)
• Exploring Academic Integrity in Your Research

If you have questions related to a field or discipline, consider reaching out to a Subject Librarian by email, phone, or by scheduling an appointment for a free consultation:

• Subject Librarians
• << Previous: 6. Synthesize
• Last Updated: Jan 10, 2024 4:46 PM
• URL: https://researchguides.uoregon.edu/litreview

Contact Us Library Accessibility UO Libraries Privacy Notices and Procedures

1501 Kincaid Street Eugene, OR 97403 P: 541-346-3053 F: 541-346-3485

• Visit us on Facebook
• Visit us on Twitter
• Visit us on Youtube
• Visit us on Instagram
• Report a Concern
• Nondiscrimination and Title IX
• Accessibility
• Privacy Policy
• Find People

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• PLoS Comput Biol
• v.9(7); 2013 Jul

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

2 Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• CAREER FEATURE
• 04 December 2020
• Correction 09 December 2020

How to write a superb literature review

Andy Tay is a freelance writer based in Singapore.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Literature reviews are important resources for scientists. They provide historical context for a field while offering opinions on its future trajectory. Creating them can provide inspiration for one’s own research, as well as some practice in writing. But few scientists are trained in how to write a review — or in what constitutes an excellent one. Even picking the appropriate software to use can be an involved decision (see ‘Tools and techniques’). So Nature asked editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews for their tips.

Access options

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

24,99 € / 30 days

cancel any time

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

185,98 € per year

only 3,65 € per issue

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Updates & Corrections

Correction 09 December 2020 : An earlier version of the tables in this article included some incorrect details about the programs Zotero, Endnote and Manubot. These have now been corrected.

Hsing, I.-M., Xu, Y. & Zhao, W. Electroanalysis 19 , 755–768 (2007).

Article   Google Scholar  

Ledesma, H. A. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 14 , 645–657 (2019).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Brahlek, M., Koirala, N., Bansal, N. & Oh, S. Solid State Commun. 215–216 , 54–62 (2015).

Choi, Y. & Lee, S. Y. Nature Rev. Chem . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-020-00221-w (2020).

Download references

Related Articles

• Research management

How I harnessed media engagement to supercharge my research career

Career Column 09 APR 24

Ready or not, AI is coming to science education — and students have opinions

Career Feature 08 APR 24

How we landed job interviews for professorships straight out of our PhD programmes

Career Column 08 APR 24

How two PhD students overcame the odds to snag tenure-track jobs

Adopt universal standards for study adaptation to boost health, education and social-science research

Correspondence 02 APR 24

Is ChatGPT corrupting peer review? Telltale words hint at AI use

News 10 APR 24

Rwanda 30 years on: understanding the horror of genocide

Editorial 09 APR 24

Junior Group Leader Position at IMBA - Institute of Molecular Biotechnology

The Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) is one of Europe’s leading institutes for basic research in the life sciences. IMBA is located on t...

Austria (AT)

IMBA - Institute of Molecular Biotechnology

Open Rank Faculty, Center for Public Health Genomics

Center for Public Health Genomics & UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center seek 2 tenure-track faculty members in Cancer Precision Medicine/Precision Health.

Charlottesville, Virginia

Center for Public Health Genomics at the University of Virginia

Husbandry Technician I

Memphis, Tennessee

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (St. Jude)

Lead Researcher – Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation & Cellular Therapy

Researcher in the center for in vivo imaging and therapy.

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Get science-backed answers as you write with Paperpal's Research feature

What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of literature review? 
• a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction: 
• b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes: 
• c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs: 
• d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts: 
• How to write a good literature review 
• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review?

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

What is the purpose of literature review?

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

• Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 
• Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field. 
• Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 
• Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 
• Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 
• Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

How to write a good literature review

Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. 

Frequently asked questions

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

Paperpal is an AI writing assistant that help academics write better, faster with real-time suggestions for in-depth language and grammar correction. Trained on millions of research manuscripts enhanced by professional academic editors, Paperpal delivers human precision at machine speed.  

Try it for free or upgrade to  Paperpal Prime , which unlocks unlimited access to premium features like academic translation, paraphrasing, contextual synonyms, consistency checks and more. It’s like always having a professional academic editor by your side! Go beyond limitations and experience the future of academic writing.  Get Paperpal Prime now at just US$19 a month!

Related Reads:

• Empirical Research: A Comprehensive Guide for Academics 
• How to Write a Scientific Paper in 10 Steps 
• Life Sciences Papers: 9 Tips for Authors Writing in Biological Sciences
• What is an Argumentative Essay? How to Write It (With Examples)

6 Tips for Post-Doc Researchers to Take Their Career to the Next Level

Self-plagiarism in research: what it is and how to avoid it, you may also like, what is hedging in academic writing  , how to use ai to enhance your college..., ai + human expertise – a paradigm shift..., how to use paperpal to generate emails &..., ai in education: it’s time to change the..., is it ethical to use ai-generated abstracts without..., do plagiarism checkers detect ai content, word choice problems: how to use the right..., how to avoid plagiarism when using generative ai..., what are journal guidelines on using generative ai....

Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library

• Collections
• Research Help

YSN Doctoral Programs: Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

• Biomedical Databases
• Global (Public Health) Databases
• Soc. Sci., History, and Law Databases
• Grey Literature
• Trials Registers
• Data and Statistics
• Public Policy
• Google Tips
• Recommended Books
• Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

APA7 Style resources

APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
• << Previous: Recommended Books
• Last Updated: Jan 4, 2024 10:52 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.yale.edu/YSNDoctoral

How to Write a Literature Review: Home

Introduction.

This libguide offers an overview on how to write a literature review in general. If you need further information or personal consultation, please contact Junli Diao, Assistant Professor/Head of Cataloging & Serials. If you need help in writing a systematic review, please contact Stefka Tzanova, Assistant Professor/Science Librarian.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a comprehensive survey of research done on a specific topic. A literature review can be part of a research article, a proposal or a dissertation, providing readers with background information connected to the chosen research question. It can also be taken as an independent piece to demonstrate a thorough understanding of a subject or a research area. If it is the first time to write a literature review, this could be a challenging process.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

A literature review serves various purposes. A well-done literature review demonstrates to readers what is already known and what is not yet known in a research area, and it shows the extent of your familiarity with other research on the chosen topic. A good literature review helps create an effective dialogue between readers and the researcher. As part of a research paper or dissertation, one of the added values lies in identifying inconsistencies, disparities, gaps or blank spots in current research through synthesizing, analyzing, and critiquing previous research, which helps build the rationale why further, extended or a totally new investigation is essentially required by the current study. So, a literature review sets the stage and justifies the purpose of a study, which builds close connection with the methodology chosen in the research.

A stand-alone literature review (sometimes it is called a review article once it is published in comparison to research articles that collect and analyze data) can be an assignment of the course you are taking. A stand-alone literature review can also be the outcome of an Independent Study project that you registered for. Both situations require that current knowledge of a specific topic should be collected, evaluated, summarized and synthesized, leading to an insightful argument or a meaningful conclusion. Comparatively speaking, a literature review required by an Independent Study should demonstrate extensive and deep analysis, which leads to a systematic review.

How to choose a topic?

Identifying the right topic to review is the first, but crucial step in writing a good literature review. Sometimes, your professor offers you a list of specific topics to choose from or asks you to create a research question from a list of broader topics that they supplied. If that is the case, things can be becoming easier. Be aware that actually how much you understand the content taught in the class by your professor and how familiar you are with required and selective readings for the course will help you write a literature review that meets the assignment criteria. Sometimes, it is totally up to you to make the decision what topic you want to review. If the topic is too broad, your writing will become difficult to manage because you will be facing countless materials; if the topic is too narrow, it goes in the opposite direction because there is nothing much to read and write. For instance, “global warming” is too broad a topic, and the search in a regular database like Academic Search Complete yields tons of resources. But if you choose “developing countries’ political response toward global warming,” it will become less daunting and more manageable. Choose something that you find interesting. Too broad or too specific of a focus will waste your time. To know how to narrow a broader research topic, please consult this libguide .

How to find reading resources?

Once you decide the appropriate topic, what comes next is to find things to read. There are two categories of resources that you can actually utilize: scholarly resources and popular resources (here is a link to a youtube video). Scholarly resources include empirical journal articles, dissertations, books, review articles, scholarly essays, textbooks, encyclopedias and dictionaries. Popular resources include nationally and international renowned magazines and newspapers. If you are working on a course assignment, keep in mind the criteria described in the assignment and understand what kind of materials are preferred. For instance, your professor might put a limitation on the publication date and ask you to review scholarly articles published in the past ten years. Whatever resources you are looking for, please do take advantage of library services to find relevant ones: Databases by Subject and LibGuide . If you have any question or doubt, please contact the subject liaison librarian without hesitation.

How to read and organize reading materials?

How to efficiently read collected materials is a personal and complex task. My personal strategy is to read, organize, read again and reflect. I read every piece from its title to its reference list and try to understand as much as I can without doing much reflection or criticism in the first round. The benefit is three fold: gain a quick, general understanding of what I have collected and what is going on in the field; retrieve more relevant articles by checking the reference list; and organize my materials and decide what is to be kept and brought to the next stage of reading and what is to be discarded. I usually categorize the kept materials by topic, research methods, similar findings, chronological order, or by authors’ who share the common or opposite arguments, and then I thoroughly read selected materials again. This time, I usually highlight key points, important sentences, mark questions, and take notes. I do not spend too much time reading part of articles that are less important or totally irrelevant to the topic. Reading is a personal activity and you can only develop your own strategies by reading more.

How to write and structure a literature review?

Writing is another personal and complex task. A literature review is not piling up who-said-what together or stitching together others’ research results. If it is your first time to write a literature review, try to write a summary of each material that you chose, identify similarities and differences of summaries, and then group them accordingly and reflect on the reasons. If the literature review is part of a research article or a dissertation, pay attention to coherence with the preceding and succeeding sections. Basically, your writing should enable readers to feel like blood running in a vessel without any blockage. If you are working on a stand-alone literature review, such as for a course assignment, you should be aware of its basic structure: introduction, main body and conclusion. Generally speaking, the introduction provides the background or purpose of the literature review. A straight-forward, informative, and strategically-led introduction will leave a good first impression on readers. The main body contains a review of the literature, logically and coherently, that you read. Depending on how long your paper is expected to be, it may involve headings and subheadings to indicate the theme of each section. How well the materials are categorized and how many notes are taken, organized, summarized, and reflected lay a good foundation for the main body of a literature review. Finally, your literature review calls for a conclusion that demonstrates how well the question raised in the introduction has been answered and how well the goal of the review has been achieved. You could summarize the key points already discussed or make implications to the researched field, as well as pointing out any limitation(s) of the current study and/or making any recommendation(s) for future work when necessary. Do summarize and highlight what you have done in the conclusion. Do not add new, irrelevant arguments or information, which is distractive and confusing.

How to cite resources?

The final part is to create a reference list that shows the materials that you consulted and used in the manuscript. Be aware what citation style is preferred by the requirements of your writing assignment, proposal guideline, dissertation, or journal. At the Circulation and Reserve section in the York College Library, you can check out APA, MLA, Chicago style handbooks. You can also take advantage of Purdue Owl for instant and up-to-date examples and tutorials or the citation libguide for more information. If you want to improve and polish your writing techniques, please visit the Collaborative Learning Center , where one-on-one, small group and online writing tutoring are offered. If you have more questions, the reference desk provides walk-in services, or you could email us or contact subject liaison librarians for consultation.

Asst Prof/Head of Cataloging & Serials

Useful Databases

Please take advantage of the database of Annual Review and you can find excellent review articles. Generally speaking, in a regular database, such as PsycARTICLEs and PsycINFO you can find a feature called "Document Type," which helps limit the results within the scope of review articles.

• Annual Reviews This link opens in a new window A nonprofit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society.
• PsycARTICLES This link opens in a new window Full-text, peer-reviewed articles in social and behavioral sciences published by the APA.
• PsycINFO 1887-Current This link opens in a new window Index of the literature in psychology and related disciplines such as psychiatry, education, business, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, law, linguistics, and social work.
• Last Updated: Sep 18, 2023 10:51 AM
• URL: https://libguides.york.cuny.edu/literature_review

• Library Guides
• Literature Reviews
• Writing the Review

Literature Reviews: Writing the Review

Outline of review sections.

Your Literature Review should not be a summary and evaluation of each article, one after the other. Your sources should be integrated together to create a narrative on your topic.

Consider the following ways to organize your review:

• By themes, variables, or issues
• By varying perspectives regarding a topic of controversy
• Chronologically, to show how the topic and research have developed over time

Use an outline to organize your sources and ideas in a logical sequence. Identify main points and subpoints, and consider the flow of your review. Outlines can be revised as your ideas develop. They help guide your readers through your ideas and show the hierarchy of your thoughts. What do your readers need to understand first? Where might certain studies fit most naturally? These are the kinds of questions that an outline can clarify.

An example outline for a Literature Review might look like this:

Introduction

• Background information on the topic & definitions
• Purpose of the literature review
• Scope and limitations of the review (what is included /excluded)
• Historical background 
• Overview of the existing research on the topic
• Principle question being asked
• Organization of the literature into categories or themes
• Evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of each study
• Combining the findings from multiple sources to identify patterns and trends
• Insight into the relationship between your central topic and a larger area of study
• Development of a new research question or hypothesis
• Summary of the key points and findings in the literature
• Discussion of gaps in the existing knowledge
• Implications for future research

Strategies for Writing

Annotated bibliography.

An annotated bibliography collects short descriptions of each source in one place. After you have read each source carefully, set aside some time to write a brief summary. Your summary might be simply informative (e.g. identify the main argument/hypothesis, methods, major findings, and/or conclusions), or it might be evaluative (e.g. state why the source is interesting or useful for your review, or why it is not).

This method is more narrative than the Literature Matrix talked about on the Documenting Your Search page.

Taking the time to write short informative and/or evaluative summaries of your sources while you are researching can help you transition into the drafting stage later on. By making a record of your sources’ contents and your reactions to them, you make it less likely that you will need to go back and re-read many sources while drafting, and you might also start to gain a clearer idea of the overarching shape of your review.

READ EXTANT LIT REVIEWS CLOSELY

As you conduct your research, you will likely read many sources that model the same kind of literature review that you are researching and writing. While your original intent in reading those sources is likely to learn from the studies’ content (e.g. their results and discussion), it will benefit you to re-read these articles rhetorically.

Reading rhetorically means paying attention to how a text is written—how it has been structured, how it presents its claims and analyses, how it employs transitional words and phrases to move from one idea to the next. You might also pay attention to an author’s stylistic choices, like the use of first-person pronouns, active and passive voice, or technical terminology.

See  Finding Example Literature Reviews on the Developing a Research Question page for tips on finding reviews relevant to your topic.

MIND-MAPPING

Creating a mind-map is a form of brainstorming that lets you visualize how your ideas function and relate. Draw the diagram freehand or download software that lets you easily manipulate and group text, images, and shapes ( Coggle ,  FreeMind , MindMaple ).

Write down a central idea, then identify associated concepts, features, or questions around that idea. Make lines attaching various ideas, or arrows to signify directional relationships. Use different shapes, sizes, or colors to indicate commonalities, sequences, or relative importance.

This drafting technique allows you to generate ideas while thinking visually about how they function together. As you follow lines of thought, you can see which ideas can be connected, where certain pathways lead, and what the scope of your project might be. By drawing out a mind-map you may be able to see what elements of your review are underdeveloped and will benefit from more focused attention.

USE VISUALIZATION TOOLS

Attribution.

Thanks to Librarian Jamie Niehof at the University of Michigan for providing permission to reuse and remix this Literature Reviews guide.

Avoiding Bias

Reporting bias.

This occurs when you are summarizing the literature in an unbalanced, inconsistent or distorted way . 

Ways to avoid:

• look for literature that supports multiple perspectives, viewpoints or theories 
• ask multiple people to review your writing for bias
• Last Updated: Apr 9, 2024 3:50 PM
• URL: https://info.library.okstate.edu/literaturereviews

• UConn Library
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
• Introduction

Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide — Introduction

• Getting Started
• How to Pick a Topic
• Strategies to Find Sources
• Evaluating Sources & Lit. Reviews
• Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
• Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
• Citation Resources
• Other Academic Writings

What are Literature Reviews?

So, what is a literature review? "A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries." Taylor, D.  The literature review: A few tips on conducting it . University of Toronto Health Sciences Writing Centre.

Goals of Literature Reviews

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?  A literature could be written to accomplish different aims:

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews .  Review of General Psychology , 1 (3), 311-320.

What kinds of sources require a Literature Review?

• A research paper assigned in a course
• A thesis or dissertation
• A grant proposal
• An article intended for publication in a journal

All these instances require you to collect what has been written about your research topic so that you can demonstrate how your own research sheds new light on the topic.

Types of Literature Reviews

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Narrative review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.

• Example : Predictors and Outcomes of U.S. Quality Maternity Leave: A Review and Conceptual Framework:  10.1177/08948453211037398  

Systematic review : "The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find." (p. 139). Nelson, L. K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders . Plural Publishing.

• Example : The effect of leave policies on increasing fertility: a systematic review:  10.1057/s41599-022-01270-w

Meta-analysis : "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing research findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occurred in different studies." (p. 197). Roberts, M. C., & Ilardi, S. S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology . Blackwell Publishing.

• Example : Employment Instability and Fertility in Europe: A Meta-Analysis:  10.1215/00703370-9164737

Meta-synthesis : "Qualitative meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic." (p.312). Zimmer, L. (2006). Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts .  Journal of Advanced Nursing , 53 (3), 311-318.

• Example : Women’s perspectives on career successes and barriers: A qualitative meta-synthesis:  10.1177/05390184221113735

Literature Reviews in the Health Sciences

• UConn Health subject guide on systematic reviews Explanation of the different review types used in health sciences literature as well as tools to help you find the right review type
• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: How to Pick a Topic >>
• Last Updated: Sep 21, 2022 2:16 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/literaturereview

Log in using your username and password

• Search More Search for this keyword Advanced search
• Latest content
• Current issue
• Write for Us
• BMJ Journals More You are viewing from: Google Indexer

You are here

• Volume 24, Issue 2
• Five tips for developing useful literature summary tables for writing review articles
• Article Text
• Article info
• Citation Tools
• Rapid Responses
• Article metrics

• http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0157-5319 Ahtisham Younas 1 , 2 ,
• http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7839-8130 Parveen Ali 3 , 4
• 1 Memorial University of Newfoundland , St John's , Newfoundland , Canada
• 2 Swat College of Nursing , Pakistan
• 3 School of Nursing and Midwifery , University of Sheffield , Sheffield , South Yorkshire , UK
• 4 Sheffield University Interpersonal Violence Research Group , Sheffield University , Sheffield , UK
• Correspondence to Ahtisham Younas, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, NL A1C 5C4, Canada; ay6133{at}mun.ca

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebnurs-2021-103417

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request permissions.

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Introduction

Literature reviews offer a critical synthesis of empirical and theoretical literature to assess the strength of evidence, develop guidelines for practice and policymaking, and identify areas for future research. 1 It is often essential and usually the first task in any research endeavour, particularly in masters or doctoral level education. For effective data extraction and rigorous synthesis in reviews, the use of literature summary tables is of utmost importance. A literature summary table provides a synopsis of an included article. It succinctly presents its purpose, methods, findings and other relevant information pertinent to the review. The aim of developing these literature summary tables is to provide the reader with the information at one glance. Since there are multiple types of reviews (eg, systematic, integrative, scoping, critical and mixed methods) with distinct purposes and techniques, 2 there could be various approaches for developing literature summary tables making it a complex task specialty for the novice researchers or reviewers. Here, we offer five tips for authors of the review articles, relevant to all types of reviews, for creating useful and relevant literature summary tables. We also provide examples from our published reviews to illustrate how useful literature summary tables can be developed and what sort of information should be provided.

Tip 1: provide detailed information about frameworks and methods

• Download figure
• Open in new tab
• Download powerpoint

Tabular literature summaries from a scoping review. Source: Rasheed et al . 3

The provision of information about conceptual and theoretical frameworks and methods is useful for several reasons. First, in quantitative (reviews synthesising the results of quantitative studies) and mixed reviews (reviews synthesising the results of both qualitative and quantitative studies to address a mixed review question), it allows the readers to assess the congruence of the core findings and methods with the adapted framework and tested assumptions. In qualitative reviews (reviews synthesising results of qualitative studies), this information is beneficial for readers to recognise the underlying philosophical and paradigmatic stance of the authors of the included articles. For example, imagine the authors of an article, included in a review, used phenomenological inquiry for their research. In that case, the review authors and the readers of the review need to know what kind of (transcendental or hermeneutic) philosophical stance guided the inquiry. Review authors should, therefore, include the philosophical stance in their literature summary for the particular article. Second, information about frameworks and methods enables review authors and readers to judge the quality of the research, which allows for discerning the strengths and limitations of the article. For example, if authors of an included article intended to develop a new scale and test its psychometric properties. To achieve this aim, they used a convenience sample of 150 participants and performed exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the same sample. Such an approach would indicate a flawed methodology because EFA and CFA should not be conducted on the same sample. The review authors must include this information in their summary table. Omitting this information from a summary could lead to the inclusion of a flawed article in the review, thereby jeopardising the review’s rigour.

Tip 2: include strengths and limitations for each article

Critical appraisal of individual articles included in a review is crucial for increasing the rigour of the review. Despite using various templates for critical appraisal, authors often do not provide detailed information about each reviewed article’s strengths and limitations. Merely noting the quality score based on standardised critical appraisal templates is not adequate because the readers should be able to identify the reasons for assigning a weak or moderate rating. Many recent critical appraisal checklists (eg, Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool) discourage review authors from assigning a quality score and recommend noting the main strengths and limitations of included studies. It is also vital that methodological and conceptual limitations and strengths of the articles included in the review are provided because not all review articles include empirical research papers. Rather some review synthesises the theoretical aspects of articles. Providing information about conceptual limitations is also important for readers to judge the quality of foundations of the research. For example, if you included a mixed-methods study in the review, reporting the methodological and conceptual limitations about ‘integration’ is critical for evaluating the study’s strength. Suppose the authors only collected qualitative and quantitative data and did not state the intent and timing of integration. In that case, the strength of the study is weak. Integration only occurred at the levels of data collection. However, integration may not have occurred at the analysis, interpretation and reporting levels.

Tip 3: write conceptual contribution of each reviewed article

While reading and evaluating review papers, we have observed that many review authors only provide core results of the article included in a review and do not explain the conceptual contribution offered by the included article. We refer to conceptual contribution as a description of how the article’s key results contribute towards the development of potential codes, themes or subthemes, or emerging patterns that are reported as the review findings. For example, the authors of a review article noted that one of the research articles included in their review demonstrated the usefulness of case studies and reflective logs as strategies for fostering compassion in nursing students. The conceptual contribution of this research article could be that experiential learning is one way to teach compassion to nursing students, as supported by case studies and reflective logs. This conceptual contribution of the article should be mentioned in the literature summary table. Delineating each reviewed article’s conceptual contribution is particularly beneficial in qualitative reviews, mixed-methods reviews, and critical reviews that often focus on developing models and describing or explaining various phenomena. Figure 2 offers an example of a literature summary table. 4

Tabular literature summaries from a critical review. Source: Younas and Maddigan. 4

Tip 4: compose potential themes from each article during summary writing

While developing literature summary tables, many authors use themes or subthemes reported in the given articles as the key results of their own review. Such an approach prevents the review authors from understanding the article’s conceptual contribution, developing rigorous synthesis and drawing reasonable interpretations of results from an individual article. Ultimately, it affects the generation of novel review findings. For example, one of the articles about women’s healthcare-seeking behaviours in developing countries reported a theme ‘social-cultural determinants of health as precursors of delays’. Instead of using this theme as one of the review findings, the reviewers should read and interpret beyond the given description in an article, compare and contrast themes, findings from one article with findings and themes from another article to find similarities and differences and to understand and explain bigger picture for their readers. Therefore, while developing literature summary tables, think twice before using the predeveloped themes. Including your themes in the summary tables (see figure 1 ) demonstrates to the readers that a robust method of data extraction and synthesis has been followed.

Tip 5: create your personalised template for literature summaries

Often templates are available for data extraction and development of literature summary tables. The available templates may be in the form of a table, chart or a structured framework that extracts some essential information about every article. The commonly used information may include authors, purpose, methods, key results and quality scores. While extracting all relevant information is important, such templates should be tailored to meet the needs of the individuals’ review. For example, for a review about the effectiveness of healthcare interventions, a literature summary table must include information about the intervention, its type, content timing, duration, setting, effectiveness, negative consequences, and receivers and implementers’ experiences of its usage. Similarly, literature summary tables for articles included in a meta-synthesis must include information about the participants’ characteristics, research context and conceptual contribution of each reviewed article so as to help the reader make an informed decision about the usefulness or lack of usefulness of the individual article in the review and the whole review.

In conclusion, narrative or systematic reviews are almost always conducted as a part of any educational project (thesis or dissertation) or academic or clinical research. Literature reviews are the foundation of research on a given topic. Robust and high-quality reviews play an instrumental role in guiding research, practice and policymaking. However, the quality of reviews is also contingent on rigorous data extraction and synthesis, which require developing literature summaries. We have outlined five tips that could enhance the quality of the data extraction and synthesis process by developing useful literature summaries.

• Aromataris E ,
• Rasheed SP ,

Twitter @Ahtisham04, @parveenazamali

Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests None declared.

Patient consent for publication Not required.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Read the full text or download the PDF:

Advertisement

Toward a framework for selecting indicators of measuring sustainability and circular economy in the agri-food sector: a systematic literature review

• LIFE CYCLE SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT
• Published: 02 March 2022

Cite this article

• Cecilia Silvestri   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2528-601X 1 ,
• Luca Silvestri   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6754-899X 2 ,
• Michela Piccarozzi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9717-9462 1 &
• Alessandro Ruggieri 1  

2853 Accesses

11 Citations

9 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

A Correction to this article was published on 24 March 2022

This article has been updated

The implementation of sustainability and circular economy (CE) models in agri-food production can promote resource efficiency, reduce environmental burdens, and ensure improved and socially responsible systems. In this context, indicators for the measurement of sustainability play a crucial role. Indicators can measure CE strategies aimed to preserve functions, products, components, materials, or embodied energy. Although there is broad literature describing sustainability and CE indicators, no study offers such a comprehensive framework of indicators for measuring sustainability and CE in the agri-food sector.

Starting from this central research gap, a systematic literature review has been developed to measure the sustainability in the agri-food sector and, based on these findings, to understand how indicators are used and for which specific purposes.

The analysis of the results allowed us to classify the sample of articles in three main clusters (“Assessment-LCA,” “Best practice,” and “Decision-making”) and has shown increasing attention to the three pillars of sustainability (triple bottom line). In this context, an integrated approach of indicators (environmental, social, and economic) offers the best solution to ensure an easier transition to sustainability.

Conclusions

The sample analysis facilitated the identification of new categories of impact that deserve attention, such as the cooperation among stakeholders in the supply chain and eco-innovation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the temporal distribution of the articles under analysis

Source: Authors’ elaborations. Notes: The graph shows the time distribution of articles from the three major journals

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the composition of the sample according to the three clusters identified by the analysis

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the distribution of articles over time by cluster

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the network visualization

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the overlay visualization

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the classification of articles by scientific field

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: Article classification based on their cluster to which they belong and scientific field

Source: Authors’ elaboration

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the distribution of items over time based on TBL

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the Pareto diagram highlighting the most used indicators in literature for measuring sustainability in the agri-food sector

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the distribution over time of articles divided into conceptual and empirical

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the classification of articles, divided into conceptual and empirical, in-depth analysis

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the geographical distribution of the authors

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the distribution of authors according to the continent from which they originate

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: The graph shows the time distribution of publication of authors according to the continent from which they originate

Source: Authors’ elaboration. Notes: Sustainability measurement indicators and impact categories of LCA, S-LCA, and LCC tools should be integrated in order to provide stakeholders with best practices as guidelines and tools to support both decision-making and measurement, according to the circular economy approach

Similar content being viewed by others

The socio-economic performance of agroecology. A review

Ioanna Mouratiadou, Alexander Wezel, … Paolo Bàrberi

The Circular Economy: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of the Concept and Application in a Global Context

Alan Murray, Keith Skene & Kathryn Haynes

The sustainability of “local” food: a review for policy-makers

Alexander J. Stein & Fabien Santini

Change history

24 march 2022.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-022-02038-9

Acero AP, Rodriguez C, Ciroth A (2017) LCIA methods: impact assessment methods in life cycle assessment and their impact categories. Version 1.5.6. Green Delta 1–23

Accorsi R, Versari L, Manzini R (2015) Glass vs. plastic: Life cycle assessment of extra-virgin olive oil bottles across global supply chains. Sustain 7:2818–2840. https://doi.org/10.3390/su7032818

Adjei-Bamfo P, Maloreh-Nyamekye T, Ahenkan A (2019) The role of e-government in sustainable public procurement in developing countries: a systematic literature review. Resour Conserv Recycl 142:189–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.12.001

Article   Google Scholar  

Aivazidou E, Tsolakis N, Vlachos D, Iakovou E (2015) Water footprint management policies for agrifood supply chains: a critical taxonomy and a system dynamics modelling approach. Chem Eng Trans 43:115–120. https://doi.org/10.3303/CET1543020

Alhaddi H (2015) Triple bottom line and sustainability: a literature review. Bus Manag Stud 1:6–10

Allaoui H, Guo Y, Sarkis J (2019) Decision support for collaboration planning in sustainable supply chains. J Clean Prod 229:761–774. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.04.367

Alshqaqeeq F, Amin Esmaeili M, Overcash M, Twomey J (2020) Quantifying hospital services by carbon footprint: a systematic literature review of patient care alternatives. Resour Conserv Recycl 154:104560. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104560

Anwar F, Chaudhry FN, Nazeer S et al (2016) Causes of ozone layer depletion and its effects on human: review. Atmos Clim Sci 06:129–134. https://doi.org/10.4236/acs.2016.61011

Aquilani B, Silvestri C, Ruggieri A (2016). A Systematic Literature Review on Total Quality Management Critical Success Factors and the Identification of New Avenues of Research. https://doi.org/10.1108/TQM-01-2016-0003

Aramyan L, Hoste R, Van Den Broek W et al (2011) Towards sustainable food production: a scenario study of the European pork sector. J Chain Netw Sci 11:177–189. https://doi.org/10.3920/JCNS2011.Qpork8

Arfini F, Antonioli F, Cozzi E et al (2019) Sustainability, innovation and rural development: the case of Parmigiano-Reggiano PDO. Sustain 11:1–17. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11184978

Assembly UG (2005) Resolution adopted by the general assembly. New York, NY

Avilés-Palacios C, Rodríguez-Olalla A (2021) The sustainability of waste management models in circular economies. Sustain 13:1–19. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137105

Azevedo SG, Silva ME, Matias JCO, Dias GP (2018) The influence of collaboration initiatives on the sustainability of the cashew supply chain. Sustain 10:1–29. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10062075

Bajaj S, Garg R, Sethi M (2016) Total quality management: a critical literature review using Pareto analysis. Int J Product Perform Manag 67:128–154

Banasik A, Kanellopoulos A, Bloemhof-Ruwaard JM, Claassen GDH (2019) Accounting for uncertainty in eco-efficient agri-food supply chains: a case study for mushroom production planning. J Clean Prod 216:249–256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.01.153

Barth H, Ulvenblad PO, Ulvenblad P (2017) Towards a conceptual framework of sustainable business model innovation in the agri-food sector: a systematic literature review. Sustain 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9091620

Bastas A, Liyanage K (2018) Sustainable supply chain quality management: a systematic review

Beckerman W (1992) Economic growth and the environment: whose growth? Whose environment? World Dev 20:481–496. https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-750X(92)90038-W

Belaud JP, Prioux N, Vialle C, Sablayrolles C (2019) Big data for agri-food 4.0: application to sustainability management for by-products supply chain. Comput Ind 111:41–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compind.2019.06.006

Bele B, Norderhaug A, Sickel H (2018) Localized agri-food systems and biodiversity. Agric 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture8020022

Bilali H El, Calabrese G, Iannetta M et al (2020) Environmental sustainability of typical agro-food products: a scientifically sound and user friendly approach. New Medit 19:69–83. https://doi.org/10.30682/nm2002e

Blanc S, Massaglia S, Brun F et al (2019) Use of bio-based plastics in the fruit supply chain: an integrated approach to assess environmental, economic, and social sustainability. Sustain 11. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11092475

Bloemhof JM, van der Vorst JGAJ, Bastl M, Allaoui H (2015) Sustainability assessment of food chain logistics. Int J Logist Res Appl 18:101–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/13675567.2015.1015508

Bonisoli L, Galdeano-Gómez E, Piedra-Muñoz L (2018) Deconstructing criteria and assessment tools to build agri-sustainability indicators and support farmers’ decision-making process. J Clean Prod 182:1080–1094. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.055

Bonisoli L, Galdeano-Gómez E, Piedra-Muñoz L, Pérez-Mesa JC (2019) Benchmarking agri-food sustainability certifications: evidences from applying SAFA in the Ecuadorian banana agri-system. J Clean Prod 236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.07.054

Bornmann L, Haunschild R, Hug SE (2018) Visualizing the context of citations referencing papers published by Eugene Garfield: a new type of keyword co-occurrence analysis. Scientometrics 114:427–437. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2591-8

Boulding KE (1966) The economics of the coming spaceship earth. New York, 1-17

Bracquené E, Dewulf W, Duflou JR (2020) Measuring the performance of more circular complex product supply chains. Resour Conserv Recycl 154:104608. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104608

Burck J, Hagen U, Bals C et al (2021) Climate Change Performance Index

Calisto Friant M, Vermeulen WJV, Salomone R (2020) A typology of circular economy discourses: navigating the diverse visions of a contested paradigm. Resour Conserv Recycl 161:104917. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.104917

Campbell BM, Beare DJ, Bennett EM et al (2017) Agriculture production as a major driver of the earth system exceeding planetary boundaries. Ecol Soc 22. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09595-220408

Capitanio F, Coppola A, Pascucci S (2010) Product and process innovation in the Italian food industry. Agribusiness 26:503–518. https://doi.org/10.1002/agr.20239

Caputo P, Zagarella F, Cusenza MA et al (2020) Energy-environmental assessment of the UIA-OpenAgri case study as urban regeneration project through agriculture. Sci Total Environ 729:138819. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138819

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Chabowski BR, Mena JA, Gonzalez-Padron TL (2011) The structure of sustainability research in marketing, 1958–2008: a basis for future research opportunities. J Acad Mark Sci 39:55–70. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-010-0212-7

Chadegani AA, Salehi H, Yunus M et al (2017) A comparison between two main academic literature collections : Web of Science and Scopus databases. Asian Soc Sci 9:18–26. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v9n5p18

Chams N, Guesmi B, Gil JM (2020) Beyond scientific contribution: assessment of the societal impact of research and innovation to build a sustainable agri-food sector. J Environ Manage 264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110455

Chandrakumar C, McLaren SJ, Jayamaha NP, Ramilan T (2019) Absolute sustainability-based life cycle assessment (ASLCA): a benchmarking approach to operate agri-food systems within the 2°C global carbon budget. J Ind Ecol 23:906–917. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12830

Chaparro-Africano AM (2019) Toward generating sustainability indicators for agroecological markets. Agroecol Sustain Food Syst 43:40–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2019.1566192

Colicchia C, Strozzi F (2012) Supply chain risk management: a new methodology for a systematic literature review

Conca L, Manta F, Morrone D, Toma P (2021) The impact of direct environmental, social, and governance reporting: empirical evidence in European-listed companies in the agri-food sector. Bus Strateg Environ 30:1080–1093. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2672

Coppola A, Ianuario S, Romano S, Viccaro M (2020) Corporate social responsibility in agri-food firms: the relationship between CSR actions and firm’s performance. AIMS Environ Sci 7:542–558. https://doi.org/10.3934/environsci.2020034

Corona B, Shen L, Reike D et al (2019) Towards sustainable development through the circular economy—a review and critical assessment on current circularity metrics. Resour Conserv Recycl 151:104498. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104498

Correia MS (2019) Sustainability: An overview of the triple bottom line and sustainability implementation. Int J Strateg Eng 2:29–38.  https://doi.org/10.4018/IJoSE.2019010103

Coteur I, Marchand F, Debruyne L, Lauwers L (2019) Structuring the myriad of sustainability assessments in agri-food systems: a case in Flanders. J Clean Prod 209:472–480. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.10.066

CREA (2020) L’agricoltura italiana conta 2019

Crenna E, Sala S, Polce C, Collina E (2017) Pollinators in life cycle assessment: towards a framework for impact assessment. J Clean Prod 140:525–536. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.02.058

D’Eusanio M, Serreli M, Zamagni A, Petti L (2018) Assessment of social dimension of a jar of honey: a methodological outline. J Clean Prod 199:503–517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.07.157

Dania WAP, Xing K, Amer Y (2018) Collaboration behavioural factors for sustainable agri-food supply chains: a systematic review. J Clean Prod 186:851–864

De Pascale A, Arbolino R, Szopik-Depczyńska K et al (2021) A systematic review for measuring circular economy: the 61 indicators. J Clean Prod 281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124942

De Schoenmakere M, Gillabel J (2017) Circular by design: products in the circular economy

Del Borghi A, Gallo M, Strazza C, Del Borghi M (2014) An evaluation of environmental sustainability in the food industry through life cycle assessment: the case study of tomato products supply chain. J Clean Prod 78:121–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.04.083

Del Borghi A, Strazza C, Magrassi F et al (2018) Life cycle assessment for eco-design of product–package systems in the food industry—the case of legumes. Sustain Prod Consum 13:24–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2017.11.001

Denyer D, Tranfield D (2009) Producing a systematic review. In: Buchanan B (ed) The sage handbook of organization research methods. Sage Publications Ltd, Cornwall, pp 671–689

Google Scholar  

Dietz T, Grabs J, Chong AE (2019) Mainstreamed voluntary sustainability standards and their effectiveness: evidence from the Honduran coffee sector. Regul Gov. https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12239

Dixon-Woods M (2011) Using framework-based synthesis for conducting reviews of qualitative studies. BMC Med 9:9–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-9-39

do Canto NR, Bossle MB, Marques L, Dutra M, (2020) Supply chain collaboration for sustainability: a qualitative investigation of food supply chains in Brazil. Manag Environ Qual an Int J. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEQ-12-2019-0275

dos Santos RR, Guarnieri P (2020) Social gains for artisanal agroindustrial producers induced by cooperation and collaboration in agri-food supply chain. Soc Responsib J. https://doi.org/10.1108/SRJ-09-2019-0323

Doukidis GI, Matopoulos A, Vlachopoulou M, Manthou V, Manos B (2007) A conceptual framework for supply chain collaboration: empirical evidence from the agri‐food industry. Supply Chain Manag an Int Journal 12:177–186. https://doi.org/10.1108/13598540710742491

Durach CF, Kembro J, Wieland A (2017) A new paradigm for systematic literature reviews in supply chain management. J Supply Chain Manag 53:67–85. https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12145

Durán-Sánchez A, Álvarez-García J, Río-Rama D, De la Cruz M (2018) Sustainable water resources management: a bibliometric overview. Water 10:1–19. https://doi.org/10.3390/w10091191

Duru M, Therond O (2015) Livestock system sustainability and resilience in intensive production zones: which form of ecological modernization? Reg Environ Chang 15:1651–1665. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-014-0722-9

Edison Fondazione (2019) Le eccellenze agricole italiane. I primati europei e mondiali dell’Italia nei prodotti vegetali. Milan (IT)

Ehrenfeld JR (2005) The roots of sustainability. MIT Sloan Manag Rev 46(2)46:23–25

Elia V, Gnoni MG, Tornese F (2017) Measuring circular economy strategies through index methods: a critical analysis. J Clean Prod 142:2741–2751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.10.196

Elkington J (1997) Cannibals with forks : the triple bottom line of 21st century business. Capstone, Oxford

Esposito B, Sessa MR, Sica D, Malandrino O (2020) Towards circular economy in the agri-food sector. A systematic literature review. Sustain 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/SU12187401

European Commission (2018) Agri-food trade in 2018

European Commission (2019) Monitoring EU agri-food trade: development until September 2019

Eurostat (2018) Small and large farms in the EU - statistics from the farm structure survey

FAO (2011) Biodiversity for food and agriculture. Italy, Rome

FAO (2012) Energy-smart food at FAO: an overview. Italy, Rome

FAO (2014) Food wastage footprint: fool cost-accounting

FAO (2016) The state of food and agriculture climate change, agriculture and food security. Italy, Rome

FAO (2017) The future of food and agriculture: trends and challenges. Italy, Rome

FAO (2020) The state of food security and nutrition in the world. Transforming Food Systems for Affordable Healthy Diets. Rome, Italy

Fassio F, Tecco N (2019) Circular economy for food: a systemic interpretation of 40 case histories in the food system in their relationships with SDGs. Systems 7:43. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems7030043

Fathollahi A, Coupe SJ (2021) Life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) of road drainage systems for sustainability evaluation: quantifying the contribution of different life cycle phases. Sci Total Environ 776:145937. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145937

Ferreira VJ, Arnal ÁJ, Royo P et al (2019) Energy and resource efficiency of electroporation-assisted extraction as an emerging technology towards a sustainable bio-economy in the agri-food sector. J Clean Prod 233:1123–1132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.06.030

Fiksel J (2006) A framework for sustainable remediation. JOM 8:15–22. https://doi.org/10.1021/es202595w

Flick U (2014) An introduction to qualitative research

Franciosi C, Voisin A, Miranda S et al (2020) Measuring maintenance impacts on sustainability of manufacturing industries : from a systematic literature review to a framework proposal. J Clean Prod 260:1–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121065

Gaitán-Cremaschi D, Meuwissen MPM, Oude AGJML (2017) Total factor productivity: a framework for measuring agri-food supply chain performance towards sustainability. Appl Econ Perspect Policy 39:259–285. https://doi.org/10.1093/aepp/ppw008

Galdeano-Gómez E, Zepeda-Zepeda JA, Piedra-Muñoz L, Vega-López LL (2017) Family farm’s features influencing socio-economic sustainability: an analysis of the agri-food sector in southeast Spain. New Medit 16:50–61

Gallopín G, Herrero LMJ, Rocuts A (2014) Conceptual frameworks and visual interpretations of sustainability. Int J Sustain Dev 17:298–326. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJSD.2014.064183

Gallopín GC (2003) Sostenibilidad y desarrollo sostenible: un enfoque sistémico. Cepal, LATIN AMERICA

Garnett T (2013) Food sustainability: problems, perspectives and solutions. Proc Nutr Soc 72:29–39. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0029665112002947

Garofalo P, D’Andrea L, Tomaiuolo M et al (2017) Environmental sustainability of agri-food supply chains in Italy: the case of the whole-peeled tomato production under life cycle assessment methodology. J Food Eng 200:1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2016.12.007

Gava O, Bartolini F, Venturi F et al (2018) A reflection of the use of the life cycle assessment tool for agri-food sustainability. Sustain 11. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11010071

Gazzola P, Querci E (2017) The connection between the quality of life and sustainable ecological development. Eur Sci J 7881:1857–7431

Geissdoerfer M, Savaget P, Bocken N, Hultink EJ (2017) The circular economy – a new sustainability paradigm ? The circular economy – a new sustainability paradigm ? J Clean Prod 143:757–768. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.12.048

Georgescu-Roegen N (1971) The entropy low and the economic process. Harward University Press, Cambridge Mass

Book   Google Scholar  

Gerbens-Leenes PW, Moll HC, Schoot Uiterkamp AJM (2003) Design and development of a measuring method for environmental sustainability in food production systems. Ecol Econ 46:231–248. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(03)00140-X

Gésan-Guiziou G, Alaphilippe A, Aubin J et al (2020) Diversity and potentiality of multi-criteria decision analysis methods for agri-food research. Agron Sustain Dev 40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-020-00650-3

Ghisellini P, Cialani C, Ulgiati S (2016) A review on circular economy: the expected transition to a balanced interplay of environmental and economic systems. J Clean Prod 114:11–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.007

Godoy-Durán Á, Galdeano- Gómez E, Pérez-Mesa JC, Piedra-Muñoz L (2017) Assessing eco-efficiency and the determinants of horticultural family-farming in southeast Spain. J Environ Manage 204:594–604. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.09.037

Gold S, Kunz N, Reiner G (2017) Sustainable global agrifood supply chains: exploring the barriers. J Ind Ecol 21:249–260. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12440

Goucher L, Bruce R, Cameron DD et al (2017) The environmental impact of fertilizer embodied in a wheat-to-bread supply chain. Nat Plants 3:1–5. https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2017.12

Green A, Nemecek T, Chaudhary A, Mathys A (2020) Assessing nutritional, health, and environmental sustainability dimensions of agri-food production. Glob Food Sec 26:100406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100406

Guinée JB, Heijungs R, Huppes G et al (2011) Life cycle assessment: past, present, and future †. Environ Sci Technol 45:90–96. https://doi.org/10.1021/es101316v

Guiomar N, Godinho S, Pinto-Correia T et al (2018) Typology and distribution of small farms in Europe: towards a better picture. Land Use Policy 75:784–798. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.04.012

Gunasekaran A, Patel C, McGaughey RE (2004) A framework for supply chain performance measurement. Int J Prod Econ 87:333–347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2003.08.003

Gunasekaran A, Patel C, Tirtiroglu E (2001) Performance measures and metrics in a supply chain environment. Int J Oper Prod Manag 21:71–87. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443570110358468

Hamam M, Chinnici G, Di Vita G et al (2021) Circular economy models in agro-food systems: a review. Sustain 13

Harun SN, Hanafiah MM, Aziz NIHA (2021) An LCA-based environmental performance of rice production for developing a sustainable agri-food system in Malaysia. Environ Manage 67:146–161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01365-7

Harvey M, Pilgrim S (2011) The new competition for land: food, energy, and climate change. Food Policy 36:S40–S51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2010.11.009

Hawkes C, Ruel MT (2006) Understanding the links between agriculture and health. DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. Washington, USA

Hellweg S, Milà i Canals L (2014) Emerging approaches, challenges and opportunities in life cycle assessment. Science (80)344:1109LP–1113. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1248361

Higgins V, Dibden J, Cocklin C (2015) Private agri-food governance and greenhouse gas abatement: constructing a corporate carbon economy. Geoforum 66:75–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.09.012

Hill T (1995) Manufacturing strategy: text and cases., Macmillan

Hjeresen DD, Gonzales R (2020) Green chemistry promote sustainable agriculture?The rewards are higher yields and less environmental contamination. Environemental Sci Techonology 103–107

Horne R, Grant T, Verghese K (2009) Life cycle assessment: principles, practice, and prospects. Csiro Publishing, Collingwood, Australia

Horton P, Koh L, Guang VS (2016) An integrated theoretical framework to enhance resource efficiency, sustainability and human health in agri-food systems. J Clean Prod 120:164–169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.092

Hospido A, Davis J, Berlin J, Sonesson U (2010) A review of methodological issues affecting LCA of novel food products. Int J Life Cycle Assess 15:44–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-009-0130-4

Huffman T, Liu J, Green M et al (2015) Improving and evaluating the soil cover indicator for agricultural land in Canada. Ecol Indic 48:272–281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.07.008

Ilbery B, Maye D (2005) Food supply chains and sustainability: evidence from specialist food producers in the Scottish/English borders. Land Use Policy 22:331–344. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2004.06.002

Ingrao C, Faccilongo N, Valenti F et al (2019) Tomato puree in the Mediterranean region: an environmental life cycle assessment, based upon data surveyed at the supply chain level. J Clean Prod 233:292–313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.06.056

Iocola I, Angevin F, Bockstaller C et al (2020) An actor-oriented multi-criteria assessment framework to support a transition towards sustainable agricultural systems based on crop diversification. Sustain 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135434

Irabien A, Darton RC (2016) Energy–water–food nexus in the Spanish greenhouse tomato production. Clean Technol Environ Policy 18:1307–1316. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-015-1076-9

ISO 14040:2006 (2006) Environmental management — life cycle assessment — principles and framework

ISO 14044:2006 (2006) Environmental management — life cycle assessment — requirements and guidelines

ISO 15392:2008 (2008) Sustainability in building construction–general principles

Istat (2019) Andamento dell’economia agricola

Jaakkola E (2020) Designing conceptual articles : four approaches. AMS Rev 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13162-020-00161-0

Jin R, Yuan H, Chen Q (2019) Science mapping approach to assisting the review of construction and demolition waste management research published between 2009 and 2018. Resour Conserv Recycl 140:175–188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.09.029

Johnston P, Everard M, Santillo D, Robèrt KH (2007) Reclaiming the definition of sustainability. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int 14:60–66. https://doi.org/10.1065/espr2007.01.375

Jorgensen SE, Burkhard B, Müller F (2013) Twenty volumes of ecological indicators-an accounting short review. Ecol Indic 28:4–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2012.12.018

Joshi S, Sharma M, Kler R (2020) Modeling circular economy dimensions in agri-tourism clusters: sustainable performance and future research directions. Int J Math Eng Manag Sci 5:1046–1061. https://doi.org/10.33889/IJMEMS.2020.5.6.080

Kamilaris A, Gao F, Prenafeta-Boldu FX, Ali MI (2017) Agri-IoT: a semantic framework for Internet of Things-enabled smart farming applications. In: 2016 IEEE 3rd World Forum on Internet of Things, WF-IoT 2016. pp 442–447

Karuppusami G, Gandhinathan R (2006) Pareto analysis of critical success factors of total quality management: a literature review and analysis. TQM Mag 18:372–385. https://doi.org/10.1108/09544780610671048

Kates RW, Parris TM, Leiserowitz AA (2005) What is sustainable development? Goals, indicators, values, and practice. Environ Sci Policy Sustain Dev 47:8–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00139157.2005.10524444

Khounani Z, Hosseinzadeh-Bandbafha H, Moustakas K et al (2021) Environmental life cycle assessment of different biorefinery platforms valorizing olive wastes to biofuel, phosphate salts, natural antioxidant, and an oxygenated fuel additive (triacetin). J Clean Prod 278:123916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123916

Kitchenham B, Charters S (2007) Guidelines for performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering version 2.3. Engineering 45. https://doi.org/10.1145/1134285.1134500

Korhonen J, Nuur C, Feldmann A, Birkie SE (2018) Circular economy as an essentially contested concept. J Clean Prod 175:544–552. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.12.111

Kuisma M, Kahiluoto H (2017) Biotic resource loss beyond food waste: agriculture leaks worst. Resour Conserv Recycl 124:129–140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.04.008

Laso J, Hoehn D, Margallo M et al (2018) Assessing energy and environmental efficiency of the Spanish agri-food system using the LCA/DEA methodology. Energies 11. https://doi.org/10.3390/en11123395

Lee KM (2007) So What is the “triple bottom line”? Int J Divers Organ Communities Nations Annu Rev 6:67–72. https://doi.org/10.18848/1447-9532/cgp/v06i06/39283

Lehmann RJ, Hermansen JE, Fritz M et al (2011) Information services for European pork chains - closing gaps in information infrastructures. Comput Electron Agric 79:125–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2011.09.002

León-Bravo V, Caniato F, Caridi M, Johnsen T (2017) Collaboration for sustainability in the food supply chain: a multi-stage study in Italy. Sustainability 9:1253

Lepage A (2009) The quality of life as attribute of sustainability. TQM J 21:105–115. https://doi.org/10.1108/17542730910938119

Li CZ, Zhao Y, Xiao B et al (2020) Research trend of the application of information technologies in construction and demolition waste management. J Clean Prod 263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121458

Lo Giudice A, Mbohwa C, Clasadonte MT, Ingrao C (2014) Life cycle assessment interpretation and improvement of the Sicilian artichokes production. Int J Environ Res 8:305–316. https://doi.org/10.22059/ijer.2014.721

Lueddeckens S, Saling P, Guenther E (2020) Temporal issues in life cycle assessment—a systematic review. Int J Life Cycle Assess 25:1385–1401. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-020-01757-1

Luo J, Ji C, Qiu C, Jia F (2018) Agri-food supply chain management: bibliometric and content analyses. Sustain 10. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10051573

Lynch J, Donnellan T, Finn JA et al (2019) Potential development of Irish agricultural sustainability indicators for current and future policy evaluation needs. J Environ Manage 230:434–445. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.09.070

MacArthur E (2013) Towards the circular economy. J Ind Ecol 2:23–44

MacArthur E (2017) Delivering the circular economy a toolkit for policymakers, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation

MacInnis DJ (2011) A framework for conceptual. J Mark 75:136–154. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.75.4.136

Mangla SK, Luthra S, Rich N et al (2018) Enablers to implement sustainable initiatives in agri-food supply chains. Int J Prod Econ 203:379–393. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2018.07.012

Marotta G, Nazzaro C, Stanco M (2017) How the social responsibility creates value: models of innovation in Italian pasta industry. Int J Glob Small Bus 9:144–167. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJGSB.2017.088923

Martucci O, Arcese G, Montauti C, Acampora A (2019) Social aspects in the wine sector: comparison between social life cycle assessment and VIVA sustainable wine project indicators. Resources 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources8020069

Mayring P (2004) Forum : Qualitative social research Sozialforschung 2. History of content analysis. A Companion to Qual Res 1:159–176

McKelvey B (2002) Managing coevolutionary dynamics. In: 18th EGOS Conference. Barcelona, Spain, pp 1–21

McMichael AJ, Butler CD, Folke C (2003) New visions for addressing sustainability. Science (80- ) 302:1191–1920

Mehmood A, Ahmed S, Viza E et al (2021) Drivers and barriers towards circular economy in agri-food supply chain: a review. Bus Strateg Dev 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsd2.171

Mella P, Gazzola P (2011) Sustainability and quality of life: the development model. In: Kapounek S (ed) Enterprise and competitive environment. Mendel University: Brno, Czechia. 542–551

Merli R, Preziosi M, Acampora A (2018) How do scholars approach the circular economy ? A systematic literature review. J Clean Prod 178:703–722. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.12.112

Merli R, Preziosi M, Acampora A et al (2020) Recycled fibers in reinforced concrete: a systematic literature review. J Clean Prod 248:119207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119207

Miglietta PP, Morrone D (2018) Managing water sustainability: virtual water flows and economic water productivity assessment of the wine trade between Italy and the Balkans. Sustain 10. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10020543

Mitchell MGE, Chan KMA, Newlands NK, Ramankutty N (2020) Spatial correlations don’t predict changes in agricultural ecosystem services: a Canada-wide case study. Front Sustain Food Syst 4:1–17. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.539892

Moraga G, Huysveld S, Mathieux F et al (2019) Circular economy indicators: what do they measure?. Resour Conserv Recycl 146:452–461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.03.045

Morrissey JE, Dunphy NP (2015) Towards sustainable agri-food systems: the role of integrated sustainability and value assessment across the supply-chain. Int J Soc Ecol Sustain Dev 6:41–58. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJSESD.2015070104

Moser G (2009) Quality of life and sustainability: toward person-environment congruity. J Environ Psychol 29:351–357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2009.02.002

Muijs D (2010) Doing quantitative research in education with SPSS. London

Muller MF, Esmanioto F, Huber N, Loures ER (2019) A systematic literature review of interoperability in the green Building Information Modeling lifecycle. J Clean Prod 223:397–412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.03.114

Muradin M, Joachimiak-Lechman K, Foltynowicz Z (2018) Evaluation of eco-efficiency of two alternative agricultural biogas plants. Appl Sci 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/app8112083

Naseer MA, ur R, Ashfaq M, Hassan S, et al (2019) Critical issues at the upstream level in sustainable supply chain management of agri-food industries: evidence from Pakistan’s citrus industry. Sustain 11:1–19. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051326

Nattassha R, Handayati Y, Simatupang TM, Siallagan M (2020) Understanding circular economy implementation in the agri-food supply chain: the case of an Indonesian organic fertiliser producer. Agric Food Secur 9:1–16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-020-00264-8

Nazari-Sharabian M, Ahmad S, Karakouzian M (2018) Climate change and eutrophication: a short review. Eng Technol Appl Sci Res 8:3668–3672. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2532694

Nazir N (2017) Understanding life cycle thinking and its practical application to agri-food system. Int J Adv Sci Eng Inf Technol 7:1861–1870. https://doi.org/10.18517/ijaseit.7.5.3578

Negra C, Remans R, Attwood S et al (2020) Sustainable agri-food investments require multi-sector co-development of decision tools. Ecol Indic 110:105851. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.105851

Newsham KK, Robinson SA (2009) Responses of plants in polar regions to UVB exposure: a meta-analysis. Glob Chang Biol 15:2574–2589. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.01944.x

Niemeijer D, de Groot RS (2008) A conceptual framework for selecting environmental indicator sets. Ecol Indic 8:14–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2006.11.012

Niero M, Kalbar PP (2019) Coupling material circularity indicators and life cycle based indicators: a proposal to advance the assessment of circular economy strategies at the product level. Resour Conserv Recycl 140:305–312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.10.002

Nikolaou IE, Tsagarakis KP (2021) An introduction to circular economy and sustainability: some existing lessons and future directions. Sustain Prod Consum 28:600–609. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2021.06.017

Notarnicola B, Hayashi K, Curran MA, Huisingh D (2012) Progress in working towards a more sustainable agri-food industry. J Clean Prod 28:1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.02.007

Notarnicola B, Tassielli G, Renzulli PA, Monforti F (2017) Energy flows and greenhouses gases of EU (European Union) national breads using an LCA (life cycle assessment) approach. J Clean Prod 140:455–469. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.05.150

Opferkuch K, Caeiro S, Salomone R, Ramos TB (2021) Circular economy in corporate sustainability reporting: a review of organisational approaches. Bus Strateg Environ 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2854

Padilla-Rivera A, do Carmo BBT, Arcese G, Merveille N, (2021) Social circular economy indicators: selection through fuzzy delphi method. Sustain Prod Consum 26:101–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2020.09.015

Pagotto M, Halog A (2016) Towards a circular economy in Australian agri-food industry: an application of input-output oriented approaches for analyzing resource efficiency and competitiveness potential. J Ind Ecol 20:1176–1186. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12373

Parent G, Lavallée S (2011) LCA potentials and limits within a sustainable agri-food statutory framework. Global food insecurity. Springer, Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 161–171

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Pattey E, Qiu G (2012) Trends in primary particulate matter emissions from Canadian agriculture. J Air Waste Manag Assoc 62:737–747. https://doi.org/10.1080/10962247.2012.672058

Pauliuk S (2018) Critical appraisal of the circular economy standard BS 8001:2017 and a dashboard of quantitative system indicators for its implementation in organizations. Resour Conserv Recycl 129:81–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.10.019

Peano C, Migliorini P, Sottile F (2014) A methodology for the sustainability assessment of agri-food systems: an application to the slow food presidia project. Ecol Soc 19. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06972-190424

Peano C, Tecco N, Dansero E et al (2015) Evaluating the sustainability in complex agri-food systems: the SAEMETH framework. Sustain 7:6721–6741. https://doi.org/10.3390/su7066721

Pearce DW, Turner RK (1990) Economics of natural resources and the environment. Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, Herts

Pelletier N (2018) Social sustainability assessment of Canadian egg production facilities: methods, analysis, and recommendations. Sustain 10:1–17. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10051601

Peña C, Civit B, Gallego-Schmid A et al (2021) Using life cycle assessment to achieve a circular economy. Int J Life Cycle Assess 26:215–220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-020-01856-z

Perez Neira D (2016) Energy sustainability of Ecuadorian cacao export and its contribution to climate change. A case study through product life cycle assessment. J Clean Prod 112:2560–2568. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.11.003

Pérez-Neira D, Grollmus-Venegas A (2018) Life-cycle energy assessment and carbon footprint of peri-urban horticulture. A comparative case study of local food systems in Spain. Landsc Urban Plan 172:60–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2018.01.001

Pérez-Pons ME, Plaza-Hernández M, Alonso RS et al (2021) Increasing profitability and monitoring environmental performance: a case study in the agri-food industry through an edge-iot platform. Sustain 13:1–16. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010283

Petti L, Serreli M, Di Cesare S (2018) Systematic literature review in social life cycle assessment. Int J Life Cycle Assess 23:422–431. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-016-1135-4

Pieroni MPP, McAloone TC, Pigosso DCA (2019) Business model innovation for circular economy and sustainability: a review of approaches. J Clean Prod 215:198–216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.01.036

Polit DF, Beck CT (2004) Nursing research: principles and methods. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, PA

Porkka M, Gerten D, Schaphoff S et al (2016) Causes and trends of water scarcity in food production. Environ Res Lett 11:015001. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/1/015001

Prajapati H, Kant R, Shankar R (2019) Bequeath life to death: state-of-art review on reverse logistics. J Clean Prod 211:503–520. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.11.187

Priyadarshini P, Abhilash PC (2020) Policy recommendations for enabling transition towards sustainable agriculture in India. Land Use Policy 96:104718. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104718

Pronti A, Coccia M (2020) Multicriteria analysis of the sustainability performance between agroecological and conventional coffee farms in the East Region of Minas Gerais (Brazil). Renew Agric Food Syst. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170520000332

Rabadán A, González-Moreno A, Sáez-Martínez FJ (2019) Improving firms’ performance and sustainability: the case of eco-innovation in the agri-food industry. Sustain 11. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11205590

Raut RD, Luthra S, Narkhede BE et al (2019) Examining the performance oriented indicators for implementing green management practices in the Indian agro sector. J Clean Prod 215:926–943. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.01.139

Recanati F, Marveggio D, Dotelli G (2018) From beans to bar: a life cycle assessment towards sustainable chocolate supply chain. Sci Total Environ 613–614:1013–1023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.09.187

Redclift M (2005) Sustainable development (1987–2005): an oxymoron comes of age. Sustain Dev 13:212–227. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.281

Rezaei M, Soheilifard F, Keshvari A (2021) Impact of agrochemical emission models on the environmental assessment of paddy rice production using life cycle assessment approach. Energy Sources. Part A Recover Util Environ Eff 1–16

Rigamonti L, Mancini E (2021) Life cycle assessment and circularity indicators. Int J Life Cycle Assess. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-021-01966-2

Risku-Norja H, Mäenpää I (2007) MFA model to assess economic and environmental consequences of food production and consumption. Ecol Econ 60:700–711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.05.001

Ritzén S, Sandström GÖ (2017) Barriers to the circular economy – integration of perspectives and domains. Procedia CIRP 64:7–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2017.03.005

Rockström J, Steffen W, Noone K et al (2009) A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461:472–475. https://doi.org/10.1038/461472a

Roos Lindgreen E, Mondello G, Salomone R et al (2021) Exploring the effectiveness of grey literature indicators and life cycle assessment in assessing circular economy at the micro level: a comparative analysis. Int J Life Cycle Assess. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-021-01972-4

Roselli L, Casieri A, De Gennaro BC et al (2020) Environmental and economic sustainability of table grape production in Italy. Sustain 12.  https://doi.org/10.3390/su12093670

Ross RB, Pandey V, Ross KL (2015) Sustainability and strategy in U.S. agri-food firms: an assessment of current practices. Int Food Agribus Manag Rev 18:17–48

Royo P, Ferreira VJ, López-Sabirón AM, Ferreira G. (2016) Hybrid diagnosis to characterise the energy and environmental enhancement of photovoltaic modules using smart materials. Energy 101:174–189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.01.101

Ruggerio CA (2021) Sustainability and sustainable development: a review of principles and definitions. Sci Total Environ 786:147481. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147481

Ruiz-Almeida A, Rivera-Ferre MG (2019) Internationally-based indicators to measure agri-food systems sustainability using food sovereignty as a conceptual framework. Food Secur 11:1321–1337. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-019-00964-5

Ryan M, Hennessy T, Buckley C et al (2016) Developing farm-level sustainability indicators for Ireland using the Teagasc National Farm Survey. Irish J Agric Food Res 55:112–125. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijafr-2016-0011

Saade MRM, Yahia A, Amor B (2020) How has LCA been applied to 3D printing ? A systematic literature review and recommendations for future studies. J Clean Prod 244:118803. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118803

Saitone TL, Sexton RJ (2017) Agri-food supply chain: evolution and performance with conflicting consumer and societal demands. Eur Rev Agric Econ 44:634–657. https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbx003

Salim N, Ab Rahman MN, Abd Wahab D (2019) A systematic literature review of internal capabilities for enhancing eco-innovation performance of manufacturing firms. J Clean Prod 209:1445–1460. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.11.105

Salimi N (2021) Circular economy in agri-food systems BT - strategic decision making for sustainable management of industrial networks. In: International S (ed) Rezaei J. Publishing, Cham, pp 57–70

Salomone R, Ioppolo G (2012) Environmental impacts of olive oil production: a life cycle assessment case study in the province of Messina (Sicily). J Clean Prod 28:88–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2011.10.004

Sánchez AD, Río DMDLC, García JÁ (2017) Bibliometric analysis of publications on wine tourism in the databases Scopus and WoS. Eur Res Manag Bus Econ 23:8–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iedeen.2016.02.001

Saputri VHL, Sutopo W, Hisjam M, Ma’aram A (2019) Sustainable agri-food supply chain performance measurement model for GMO and non-GMO using data envelopment analysis method. Appl Sci 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9061199

Sassanelli C, Rosa P, Rocca R, Terzi S (2019) Circular economy performance assessment methods : a systematic literature review. J Clean Prod 229:440–453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.05.019

Schiefer S, Gonzalez C, Flanigan S (2015) More than just a factor in transition processes? The role of collaboration in agriculture. In: Sutherland LA, Darnhofer I, Wilson GA, Zagata L (eds) Transition pathways towards sustainability in agriculture: case studies from Europe, CPI Group. Croydon, UK, pp. 83

Seuring S, Muller M (2008) From a literature review to a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management. J Clean Prod 16:1699–1710. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2008.04.020

Silvestri C, Silvestri L, Forcina A, et al (2021) Green chemistry contribution towards more equitable global sustainability and greater circular economy: A systematic literature review. J Clean Prod 294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126137

Smetana S, Schmitt E, Mathys A (2019) Sustainable use of Hermetia illucens insect biomass for feed and food: attributional and consequential life cycle assessment. Resour Conserv Recycl 144:285–296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.01.042

Sonesson U, Berlin J, Ziegler F (2010) Environmental assessment and management in the food industry: life cycle assessment and related approaches. Woodhead Publishing, Cambridge

Soussana JF (2014) Research priorities for sustainable agri-food systems and life cycle assessment. J Clean Prod 73:19–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.02.061

Soylu A, Oruç C, Turkay M et al (2006) Synergy analysis of collaborative supply chain management in energy systems using multi-period MILP. Eur J Oper Res 174:387–403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2005.02.042

Spaiser V, Ranganathan S, Swain RB, Sumpter DJ (2017) The sustainable development oxymoron: quantifying and modelling the incompatibility of sustainable development goals. Int J Sustain Dev World Ecol 24:457–470. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2016.1235624

Stewart R, Niero M (2018) Circular economy in corporate sustainability strategies: a review of corporate sustainability reports in the fast-moving consumer goods sector. Bus Strateg Environ 27:1005–1022. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2048

Stillitano T, Spada E, Iofrida N et al (2021) Sustainable agri-food processes and circular economy pathways in a life cycle perspective: state of the art of applicative research. Sustain 13:1–29. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052472

Stone J, Rahimifard S (2018) Resilience in agri-food supply chains: a critical analysis of the literature and synthesis of a novel framework. Supply Chain Manag 23:207–238. https://doi.org/10.1108/SCM-06-2017-0201

Strazza C, Del Borghi A, Gallo M, Del Borghi M (2011) Resource productivity enhancement as means for promoting cleaner production: analysis of co-incineration in cement plants through a life cycle approach. J Clean Prod 19:1615–1621. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2011.05.014

Su B, Heshmati A, Geng Y, Yu X (2013) A review of the circular economy in China: moving from rhetoric to implementation. J Clean Prod 42:215–227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.11.020

Suárez-Eiroa B, Fernández E, Méndez-Martínez G, Soto-Oñate D (2019) Operational principles of circular economy for sustainable development: linking theory and practice. J Clean Prod 214:952–961. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.12.271

Svensson G, Wagner B (2015) Implementing and managing economic, social and environmental efforts of business sustainability. Manag Environ Qual an Int Journal 26:195–213. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEQ-09-2013-0099

Tasca AL, Nessi S, Rigamonti L (2017) Environmental sustainability of agri-food supply chains: an LCA comparison between two alternative forms of production and distribution of endive in northern Italy. J Clean Prod 140:725–741. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.06.170

Tassielli G, Notarnicola B, Renzulli PA, Arcese G (2018) Environmental life cycle assessment of fresh and processed sweet cherries in southern Italy. J Clean Prod 171:184–197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.09.227

Teixeira R, Pax S (2011) A survey of life cycle assessment practitioners with a focus on the agri-food sector. J Ind Ecol 15:817–820. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00421.x

Tobergte DR, Curtis S (2013) ILCD Handbook. J Chem Info Model. https://doi.org/10.278/33030

Tortorella MM, Di Leo S, Cosmi C et al (2020) A methodological integrated approach to analyse climate change effects in agri-food sector: the TIMES water-energy-food module. Int J Environ Res Public Health 17:1–21. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17217703

Tranfield D, Denyer D, Smart P (2003) Towards a methodology for developing evidenceinformed management knowledge by means of systematic review. Br J Manag 14:207–222

Trivellas P, Malindretos G, Reklitis P (2020) Implications of green logistics management on sustainable business and supply chain performance: evidence from a survey in the greek agri-food sector. Sustain 12:1–29. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410515

Tsangas M, Gavriel I, Doula M et al (2020) Life cycle analysis in the framework of agricultural strategic development planning in the Balkan region. Sustain 12:1–15. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12051813

Ülgen VS, Björklund M, Simm N (2019) Inter-organizational supply chain interaction for sustainability : a systematic literature review.

UNEP S (2020) Guidelines for social life cycle assessment of products and organizations 2020.

UNEP/SETAC (2009) United Nations Environment Programme-society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Guidelines for social life cycle assessment of products. France

United Nations (2011) Guiding principles on business and human rights. Implementing the United Nations “protect, respect and remedy” framework

United Nations (2015) Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. sustainabledevelopment.un.org

Van Asselt ED, Van Bussel LGJ, Van Der Voet H et al (2014) A protocol for evaluating the sustainability of agri-food production systems - a case study on potato production in peri-urban agriculture in the Netherlands. Ecol Indic 43:315–321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.02.027

Van der Ploeg JD (2014) Peasant-driven agricultural growth and food sovereignty. J Peasant Stud 41:999–1030. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2013.876997

van Eck NJ, Waltman L (2010) Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics 84:523–538. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3

Van Eck NJ, Waltman L (2019) Manual for VOSviwer version 1.6.10. CWTS Meaningful metrics 1–53

Vasa L, Angeloska A, Trendov NM (2017) Comparative analysis of circular agriculture development in selected Western Balkan countries based on sustainable performance indicators. Econ Ann 168:44–47. https://doi.org/10.21003/ea.V168-09

Verdecho MJ, Alarcón-Valero F, Pérez-Perales D et al (2020) A methodology to select suppliers to increase sustainability within supply chains. Cent Eur J Oper Res. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10100-019-00668-3

Vergine P, Salerno C, Libutti A et al (2017) Closing the water cycle in the agro-industrial sector by reusing treated wastewater for irrigation. J Clean Prod 164:587–596. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.239

WCED (1987) Our common future - call for action

Webster K (2013) What might we say about a circular economy? Some temptations to avoid if possible. World Futures 69:542–554

Wheaton E, Kulshreshtha S (2013) Agriculture and climate change: implications for environmental sustainability indicators. WIT Trans Ecol Environ 175:99–110. https://doi.org/10.2495/ECO130091

Wijewickrama MKCS, Chileshe N, Rameezdeen R, Ochoa JJ (2021) Information sharing in reverse logistics supply chain of demolition waste: a systematic literature review. J Clean Prod 280:124359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124359

Woodhouse A, Davis J, Pénicaud C, Östergren K (2018) Sustainability checklist in support of the design of food processing. Sustain Prod Consum 16:110–120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2018.06.008

Wu R, Yang D, Chen J (2014) Social Life Cycle Assessment Revisited Sustain 6:4200–4226. https://doi.org/10.3390/su6074200

Yadav S, Luthra S, Garg D (2021) Modelling Internet of things (IoT)-driven global sustainability in multi-tier agri-food supply chain under natural epidemic outbreaks. Environ Sci Pollut Res 16633–16654. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11676-1

Yee FM, Shaharudin MR, Ma G et al (2021) Green purchasing capabilities and practices towards Firm’s triple bottom line in Malaysia. J Clean Prod 307:127268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.127268

Yigitcanlar T (2010) Rethinking sustainable development: urban management, engineering, and design. IGI Global

Zamagni A, Amerighi O, Buttol P (2011) Strengths or bias in social LCA? Int J Life Cycle Assess 16:596–598. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-011-0309-3

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Economy, Engineering, Society and Business Organization, University of “Tuscia, ” Via del Paradiso 47, 01100, Viterbo, VT, Italy

Cecilia Silvestri, Michela Piccarozzi & Alessandro Ruggieri

Department of Engineering, University of Rome “Niccolò Cusano, ” Via Don Carlo Gnocchi, 3, 00166, Rome, Italy

Luca Silvestri

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cecilia Silvestri .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Communicated by Monia Niero

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

The original online version of this article was revised: a number of ill-placed paragraph headings were removed and the source indication "Authors' elaborations" was added to Tables 1-3.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 31 KB)

Rights and permissions.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Silvestri, C., Silvestri, L., Piccarozzi, M. et al. Toward a framework for selecting indicators of measuring sustainability and circular economy in the agri-food sector: a systematic literature review. Int J Life Cycle Assess (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-022-02032-1

Download citation

Received : 15 June 2021

Accepted : 16 February 2022

Published : 02 March 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-022-02032-1

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Agri-food sector
• Sustainability
• Circular economy
• Triple bottom line
• Life cycle assessment
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research