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The Difference Between Narrative Review and Systematic Review

literature review vs narrative

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Reviews in scientific research are tools that help synthesize literature on a topic of interest and describe its current state. Different types of reviews are conducted depending on the research question and the scope of the review. A systematic review is one such review that is robust, reproducible, and transparent. It involves collating evidence by using all of the eligible and critically appraised literature available on a certain topic. To know more about how to do a systematic review , you can check out our article at the link. The primary aim of a systematic review is to recommend best practices and inform policy development. Hence, there is a need for high-quality, focused, and precise methods and reporting. For more exploratory research questions, methods such as a scoping review are employed. Be sure you understand the difference between a systematic review and a scoping review , if you don’t, check out the link to learn more.

When the word “review” alone is used to describe a research paper, the first thing that should come to mind is that it is a literature review. Almost every researcher starts off their career with literature reviews. To know the difference between a systematic review and a literature review , read on here.  Traditional literature reviews are also sometimes referred to as narrative reviews since they use narrative analysis to synthesize data. In this article, we will explore the differences between a systematic review and a narrative review, in further detail.

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literature review vs narrative

Narrative Review vs Systematic Review

Both systematic and narrative reviews are classified as secondary research studies since they both use existing primary research studies e.g. case studies. Despite this similarity, there are key differences in their methodology and scope. The major differences between them lie in their objectives, methodology, and application areas.

Differences In Objective

The main objective of a systematic review is to formulate a well-defined research question and use qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze all the available evidence attempting to answer the question. In contrast, narrative reviews can address one or more questions with a much broader scope. The efficacy of narrative reviews is irreplaceable in tracking the development of a scientific principle, or a clinical concept. This ability to conduct a wider exploration could be lost in the restrictive framework of a systematic review.

Differences in Methodology

For systematic reviews, there are guidelines provided by the Cochrane Handbook, ROSES, and the PRISMA statement that can help determine the protocol, and methodology to be used. However, for narrative reviews, such standard guidelines do not exist. Although, there are recommendations available.

Systematic reviews comprise an explicit, transparent, and pre-specified methodology. The methodology followed in a systematic review is as follows,

  • Formulating the clinical research question to answer (PICO approach)
  • Developing a protocol (with strict inclusion and exclusion criteria for the selection of primary studies)
  • Performing a detailed and broad literature search
  • Critical appraisal of the selected studies
  • Data extraction from the primary studies included in the review
  • Data synthesis and analysis using qualitative or quantitative methods [3].
  • Reporting and discussing results of data synthesis.
  • Developing conclusions based on the findings.

A narrative review on the other hand does not have a strict protocol to be followed. The design of the review depends on its author and the objectives of the review. As yet, there is no consensus on the standard structure of a narrative review. The preferred approach is the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) [2]. Apart from the author’s preferences, a narrative review structure must respect the journal style and conventions followed in the respective field.

Differences in Application areas

Narrative reviews are aimed at identifying and summarizing what has previously been published. Their general applications include exploring existing debates, the appraisal of previous studies conducted on a certain topic, identifying knowledge gaps, and speculating on the latest interventions available. They are also used to track and report on changes that have occurred in an existing field of research. The main purpose is to deepen the understanding in a certain research area. The results of a systematic review provide the most valid evidence to guide clinical decision-making and inform policy development [1]. They have now become the gold standard in evidence-based medicine [1].

Although both types of reviews come with their own benefits and limitations, researchers should carefully consider the differences between them before making a decision on which review type to use.

  • Aromataris E, Pearson A. The systematic review: an overview. AJN. Am J Nurs. 2014;114(3):53–8.
  • Green BN, Johnson CD, Adams A. Writing narrative literature reviews for peer-reviewed journals: secrets of the trade. J Chiropratic Medicine 2006;5:101–117.
  • Linares-Espinós E, Hernández V, Domínguez-Escrig JL, Fernández-Pello S, Hevia V, Mayor J, et al. Metodología de una revisión sistemática. Actas Urol Esp. 2018;42:499–506.

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literature review vs narrative

Charles Sturt University

Literature Review: Traditional or narrative literature reviews

Traditional or narrative literature reviews.

  • Scoping Reviews
  • Systematic literature reviews
  • Annotated bibliography
  • Keeping up to date with literature
  • Finding a thesis
  • Evaluating sources and critical appraisal of literature
  • Managing and analysing your literature
  • Further reading and resources

A narrative or traditional literature review is a comprehensive, critical and objective analysis of the current knowledge on a topic. They are an essential part of the research process and help to establish a theoretical framework and focus or context for your research. A literature review will help you to identify patterns and trends in the literature so that you can identify gaps or inconsistencies in a body of knowledge. This should lead you to a sufficiently focused research question that justifies your research.

Onwuegbuzie and Frels (pp 24-25, 2016) define four common types of narrative reviews:

  • General literature review that provides a review of the most important and critical aspects of the current knowledge of the topic. This general literature review forms the introduction to a thesis or dissertation and must be defined by the research objective, underlying hypothesis or problem or the reviewer's argumentative thesis.
  • Theoretical literature review which examines how theory shapes or frames research
  • Methodological literature review where the research methods and design are described. These methodological reviews outline the strengths and weaknesses of the methods used and provide future direction
  • Historical literature review which focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena 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 to identify the likely directions for future research.

References and additional resources

Baker, J. D. (2016) The purpose, process and methods of writing a literature review: Editorial . Association of Operating Room Nurses. AORN Journal, 103 (3), 265-269. doi:10.1016/j.aorn.2016.01.016

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Reproduced from Grant, M. J. and Booth, A. (2009), A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26: 91–108. doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x

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Systematic, Scoping, and Other Literature Reviews: Overview

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What Is a Systematic Review?

Regular literature reviews are simply summaries of the literature on a particular topic. A systematic review, however, is a comprehensive literature review conducted to answer a specific research question. Authors of a systematic review aim to find, code, appraise, and synthesize all of the previous research on their question in an unbiased and well-documented manner. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) outline the minimum amount of information that needs to be reported at the conclusion of a systematic review project. 

Other types of what are known as "evidence syntheses," such as scoping, rapid, and integrative reviews, have varying methodologies. While systematic reviews originated with and continue to be a popular publication type in medicine and other health sciences fields, more and more researchers in other disciplines are choosing to conduct evidence syntheses. 

This guide will walk you through the major steps of a systematic review and point you to key resources including Covidence, a systematic review project management tool. For help with systematic reviews and other major literature review projects, please send us an email at  [email protected] .

Getting Help with Reviews

Organization such as the Institute of Medicine recommend that you consult a librarian when conducting a systematic review. Librarians at the University of Nevada, Reno can help you:

  • Understand best practices for conducting systematic reviews and other evidence syntheses in your discipline
  • Choose and formulate a research question
  • Decide which review type (e.g., systematic, scoping, rapid, etc.) is the best fit for your project
  • Determine what to include and where to register a systematic review protocol
  • Select search terms and develop a search strategy
  • Identify databases and platforms to search
  • Find the full text of articles and other sources
  • Become familiar with free citation management (e.g., EndNote, Zotero)
  • Get access to you and help using Covidence, a systematic review project management tool

Doing a Systematic Review

  • Plan - This is the project planning stage. You and your team will need to develop a good research question, determine the type of review you will conduct (systematic, scoping, rapid, etc.), and establish the inclusion and exclusion criteria (e.g., you're only going to look at studies that use a certain methodology). All of this information needs to be included in your protocol. You'll also need to ensure that the project is viable - has someone already done a systematic review on this topic? Do some searches and check the various protocol registries to find out. 
  • Identify - Next, a comprehensive search of the literature is undertaken to ensure all studies that meet the predetermined criteria are identified. Each research question is different, so the number and types of databases you'll search - as well as other online publication venues - will vary. Some standards and guidelines specify that certain databases (e.g., MEDLINE, EMBASE) should be searched regardless. Your subject librarian can help you select appropriate databases to search and develop search strings for each of those databases.  
  • Evaluate - In this step, retrieved articles are screened and sorted using the predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The risk of bias for each included study is also assessed around this time. It's best if you import search results into a citation management tool (see below) to clean up the citations and remove any duplicates. You can then use a tool like Rayyan (see below) to screen the results. You should begin by screening titles and abstracts only, and then you'll examine the full text of any remaining articles. Each study should be reviewed by a minimum of two people on the project team. 
  • Collect - Each included study is coded and the quantitative or qualitative data contained in these studies is then synthesized. You'll have to either find or develop a coding strategy or form that meets your needs. 
  • Explain - The synthesized results are articulated and contextualized. What do the results mean? How have they answered your research question?
  • Summarize - The final report provides a complete description of the methods and results in a clear, transparent fashion. 

Adapted from

Types of reviews, systematic review.

These types of studies employ a systematic method to analyze and synthesize the results of numerous studies. "Systematic" in this case means following a strict set of steps - as outlined by entities like PRISMA and the Institute of Medicine - so as to make the review more reproducible and less biased. Consistent, thorough documentation is also key. Reviews of this type are not meant to be conducted by an individual but rather a (small) team of researchers. Systematic reviews are widely used in the health sciences, often to find a generalized conclusion from multiple evidence-based studies. 

Meta-Analysis

A systematic method that uses statistics to analyze the data from numerous studies. The researchers combine the data from studies with similar data types and analyze them as a single, expanded dataset. Meta-analyses are a type of systematic review.

Scoping Review

A scoping review employs the systematic review methodology to explore a broader topic or question rather than a specific and answerable one, as is generally the case with a systematic review. Authors of these types of reviews seek to collect and categorize the existing literature so as to identify any gaps.

Rapid Review

Rapid reviews are systematic reviews conducted under a time constraint. Researchers make use of workarounds to complete the review quickly (e.g., only looking at English-language publications), which can lead to a less thorough and more biased review. 

Narrative Review

A traditional literature review that summarizes and synthesizes the findings of numerous original research articles. The purpose and scope of narrative literature reviews vary widely and do not follow a set protocol. Most literature reviews are narrative reviews. 

Umbrella Review

Umbrella reviews are, essentially, systematic reviews of systematic reviews. These compile evidence from multiple review studies into one usable document. 

Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. “A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies.” Health Information & Libraries Journal , vol. 26, no. 2, 2009, pp. 91-108. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x .

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literature review vs narrative

Systematic Review, Scoping Review, Narrative Review – What’s the Difference?

Edanz Learning Lab – systematic, scoping, narrative reviews

Literature review articles use database searches to identify, collate, and analyze available evidence on a topic. Systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and narrative reviews are different evidence-collection and synthesis approaches.

But which type of review is (and isn’t) right for your research question? And how reliable are the findings of different review types?

There are distinctive features, aims, and scope between systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and narrative reviews . Let’s look at each and then pair them up to know which one you’ll need, whether you need ideas and references or you’re looking to write your own review.

What you’ll learn in this post

• The difference (and similarity) between a systematic review, scoping review, and narrative review.

• The features and value of each of these types of review.

• Side-by-side feature comparison charts of each review type.

• Where to educate yourself on reviews, and how to get expert guidance from published researchers.

What is a systematic review?

Definition and history.

We don’t have a universal or standard definition of systematic reviews . A systematic review usually is a critical assessment of all the literature addressing a well-defined question. It aims to give the best possible answer based on available evidence.

Systematic reviews follow structured and predefined methods to identify, appraise, and synthesize the relevant literature. They use specific inclusion and exclusion criteria based on strict protocols, such as the PRISMA statement or Cochrane Protocol .

A meta-analysis is a systematic review that, in addition to a narrative summary, combines all the studies’ results into a single statistical analysis. The PRISMA 2020 Checklist offers guidance on how to conduct a meta-analysis.

Systematic reviews ensure that the results are reliable and meaningful to end-users, so they’re widely considered the strongest source for evidence-based healthcare .

Systematic reviews in healthcare began to appear in the 1970s and 1980s . Groups promoting evidence-based healthcare, like Cochrane and the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI), emerged in the 1990s.

Systematic reviews have been widely used since then. They are necessary for clinicians to keep up to date with their field. They are also often used to inform the development of clinical guidelines and practice .

Key functions and features

A systematic review aims to:

  • Uncover the international evidence on a particular topic
  • Confirm current practice; address uncertainty or variation in practice; identify new practices
  • Find and inform areas for future research
  • Locate and investigate mixed or conflicting results
  • Produce statements to guide decision-making

Traditionally, researchers mainly carried out systematic reviews to assess the effectiveness of health interventions. In this respect, PROSPERO serves as an international database of registered systematic reviews in health and social care sciences. Or in other fields where there is a health-related outcome.

A 2020 systematic review appraising the most effective interventions for depression in heart failure patients is a good example of this approach. They explored six common interventions, medical and non-medical. It found that collaborative care and psychotherapy were the most effective treatments.

But systematic reviews have gone beyond assessing a treatment’s feasibility, appropriateness, meaningfulness, or effectiveness. They’re widely used to measure the cost-effectiveness or impact of socioeconomic interventions.

This review gives an economic appraisal of the clinical outcomes and economic effectiveness of different economic evaluations used for pharmacy services studies in health systems. It found these evaluations are increasingly used to understand which healthcare services provide value for money amid limited healthcare resources.

literature review vs narrative

What is a scoping review?

Systematic reviews are essential for robustly addressing specific questions. But sometimes they might not be able to meet your specific aims or research project requirements. Or you might need a methodologically rigorous and structured preliminary scoping activity to inform how future systematic reviews are done.

That’s where scoping reviews come into play. They’re sometimes called scoping exercises/scoping studies . Scoping reviews rapidly map the size, characteristics, or scope of existing literature in a field of interest. They can help you locate research gaps and needs.

Scoping reviews are “younger” than systematic reviews. They emerged in the early 2000s . There used to be some confusion around their definition and the steps involved in the scoping review process. But, in 2015, a methodological working group of the JBI produced formal guidance for conducting scoping reviews. Likewise, the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews was published in 2018.

Researchers usually carry out a scoping review to:

  • Identify the types of evidence in a given field. For example, a scoping review by Challen et al. sought to find the types of available evidence regarding the source and quality of publications and grey literature around emergency planning.
  • Clarify crucial concepts or terms in the literature.
  • Examine how research is conducted on a specific topic or field. A scoping review of that kind explored the scope of the literature around interventions aimed to improve health care quality in populations with osteoarthritis.
  • Identify key characteristics or factors related to a concept.
  • As a precursor to a systematic review (examining emerging evidence to confirm the relevance of inclusion criteria and potential questions).
  • Identify and analyze knowledge gaps.

What is a narrative review?

A narrative review is a thorough and critical overview of previously published research on the author’s specific topic of interest. It’s also referred to as a traditional review or a literature review.

Narrative reviews are helpful in the following ways:

  • You can read them as a general and accurate guide to what is already known about a given topic.
  • They are a key part of the research process. They help you establish a theoretical and methodological framework or context for your research.
  • By doing a literature review, you can locate existing patterns and trends. This helps you find the gaps in your field and formulate a meaningful research question.

So, like the systematic and scoping reviews, a narrative review appraises, critiques, and summarizes a topic’s available research.

For example, this narrative review sums up the evidence on exercise interventions in improving the health aspects of patients with preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. This narrative review is provided for the clinical development programs for non-oral, non-injectable formulations of dihydroergotamine (DHE) to treat migraine.

But, narrative reviews are far less systematic and rigorous. They’re evidence-based but not always considered massively helpful in terms of the scientific evidence they bring . They’re much more prone to selection bias.

For example, a review paper comparing seven narrative reviews with two systematic reviews found that narrative reviews of the same studies reached different conclusions. So, when you read or assess a narrative review, watch out for certain biases in data search methods.

Main differences between a systematic review and a scoping review

Systematic reviews and scoping reviews similarly use rigorous and transparent methods to comprehensively identify and analyze all the relevant literature. Their differences in aims and scope are subtle but clear.

Main differences between a systematic review and a narrative review

Systematic reviews differ greatly from narrative reviews.

As seen, systematic reviews answer a narrow question through detailed and comprehensive literature searches. But narrative reviews are more descriptive. They provide authors’ subjective perspectives on a focused but broader topic.

Main differences between a scoping review and a narrative review

Scoping reviews and narrative reviews have similar differences to systematic reviews and narrative reviews. Their key difference is that narrative reviews do not follow a standardized methodology.

Any of the above reviews is a big undertaking, and very rewarding. When you need some help in any stage of the process, we have a big range of services. We’ll connect you with publication experts to guide you through the process. Explore Edanz research services here .

Also be sure to grab the free systematic review “12P” checklist below!

The 12P Method for Systematic Reviews

We’ve squeezed all the steps and stages of a typical systematic review onto one page.

You can print it out A4-sized and use it as a handy checklist, or A3-sized for your laboratory wall. You can even share it with your co-authors.

FREE PDF CHECKLIST

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literature review vs narrative

A narrative literature review is an integrated analysis of the existing literature used to summarize a body of literature, draw conclusions about a topic, and identify research gaps.  By understanding the current state of the literature, you can show how new research fits into the larger research landscape.  

A narrative literature review is NOT:  

  • Just a summary of sources
  • A review of  everything  written on a particular topic
  • A research paper arguing for a specific viewpoint - a lit review should avoid bias and highlight areas of disagreements
  • A systematic review

Purposes of a narrative literature review:

  • Explain the background of research on a topic
  • Demonstrate the importance of a topic
  • Suggest new areas of research
  • Identify major themes, concepts, and researchers in a topic
  • Identify critical gaps, points of disagreement, or flawed approaches for a research topic

1. Choose a topic & create a research question

  • Use a narrow research question for more focused search results
  • Use a question framework such as PICO to develop your research question
  • Breakdown your research question into searchable concepts and keywords
  • Research skills tutorials : How to choose a topic
  • Ask a librarian for assistance

2. Select the sources for searching & develop a search strategy

  • Identify databases to search for articles relevant to your topic
  • Ask a librarian for recommended databases
  • Develop a comprehensive search strategy using keywords, controlled vocabularies and Boolean operators
  • Research skills tutorials: How to develop a search strategy

3. Conduct the search

  • Use a consistent search strategy between databases
  • Document the strategies employed to keep track of which are more successful
  • Use a citation manager to organize your search results
  • Ask a librarian for help or refer to the Research skills tutorials

4. Review the references

  • Review the search results for relevant articles that answer your research question
  • Review the bibliography of all relevant articles for additional sources
  • Consider developing subfolders in the citation manager to organize sources by topic
  • Use interlibrary loan for any articles without full text access

5. Summarize findings

  • Synthesize the findings from the articles into a final paper
  • The final paper should cover the themes identified in the research, explain any conflicts or disagreements, identify research gaps and potential future research areas, explain how this narrative review fits within the existing research and answer the research question . 

For additional information : 

Hempel. (2020). Conducting your literature review. American Psychological Association .

  • Buchholz, & Dickins, K. A. (2023). Literature review and synthesis : a guide for nurses and other healthcare professionals . Springer Publishing Company, LLC.
  • Coughlan, Michael, and Patricia Cronin.  Doing a Literature Review in Nursing, Health and Social Care . 2nd edition., SAGE, 2017.
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How to Practice Academic Medicine and Publish from Developing Countries? pp 277–281 Cite as

Systematic, Scoping and Narrative Reviews

  • Samiran Nundy 4 ,
  • Atul Kakar 5 &
  • Zulfiqar A. Bhutta 6  
  • Open Access
  • First Online: 24 October 2021

26k Accesses

1 Citations

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A Systematic Review is an attempt to distill the essence of a large number of studies in medicine by first asking a research question and then first identifying and later synthesizing carefully chosen studies of a high quality which might provide the answers. A more precise definition is ‘a summary of the medical literature that uses explicit and reproducible methods to systematically search, critically appraise and synthesise the results of multiple primary studies related to each other by using strategies to reduce bias and random errors’ [1].

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1 What Is a Systematic Review?

A Systematic Review is an attempt to distill the essence of a large number of studies in medicine by first asking a research question and then first identifying and later synthesizing carefully chosen studies of a high quality which might provide the answers. A more precise definition is ‘a summary of the medical literature that uses explicit and reproducible methods to systematically search, critically appraise and synthesise the results of multiple primary studies related to each other by using strategies to reduce bias and random errors’ [ 1 ].

In 1979, Archibald Cochrane, a Scottish doctor, proposed: ‘It is surely a great criticism of our profession that we have not organised a critical summary, by specialty or subspecialty, adapted periodically, of all relevant randomised controlled trials’. Cochrane was one of the founding fathers of evidence-based medicine (Fig. 29.1 ). He highlighted and advocated the importance of critically summarizing the findings of research studies and designated the systematic review as a method of providing such a summary. This ultimately led to the development of the Cochrane Collaboration in 1993 [ 2 ]. The findings of systematic reviews are now widely used for clinical decision-making and have become integral towards the development of sound clinical practice guidelines and recommendations. In fact, they now occupy the summit of the pyramid for the quality of evidence.

figure 1

Shows the quality of evidence from various types of research papers

2 How Is a Systematic Review Done?

It is done using the following steps:

Step 1 —Defining the research question clearly and formulating criteria for which reports to include.

Searching for and selecting these studies and collecting their data. This will involve a review of all the available databases and citation indexes like the Web of Science, Embase, PubMed and others using different search technologies or even artificial intelligence-based tools. Each study should conform to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systemic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines or the standards of the Cochrane Collaboration [ 3 ].

The PRISMA guidelines (Fig. 29.2 ) are steps that depict the flow of information through the different phases of a systematic review. It maps out the number of records identified, included and excluded, and the reasons for exclusions.

figure 2

PRISMA guidelines

Step 2 —Assess their risk of bias. The review should use an objective and transparent approach for collection and synthesizing the data to minimize bias.

Step 3 —Analyse the data and undertake a meta-analysis. This may involve using complex statistical methods and the more data that is analyzed the more confident we can be of the result.

Step 4 —Write conclusions. Present the results and summarize the findings. Interpret the results, draw conclusions and suggest a message.

3 Why Is a Systematic Review Useful?

Many clinical decisions are guided by published studies but, unfortunately, there are now too many to choose from for a busy clinician. These studies often vary in their design, methodological quality, population involved and the intervention or condition considered. To take a rational clinical decision involves trying to reconcile the results of studies that provide different answers to the same question. Because it is often impractical for readers to track down and read all of the primary studies, systematic review articles are an important source of summarized evidence on a particular topic [ 4 , 5 ].

4 What Are Its Weaknesses?

Most systematic reviews focus on a single question when more than one may be relevant in a particular situation, e.g., the best treatment for variceal bleeding in a developed country may be endoscopic sclerotherapy but not in a person in a developing country who is poor, has good liver function and does not have access to sophisticated medical facilities. In him or her a portosystemic shunt operation and a one-time procedure may be the more appropriate.

Then search strategies are often not provided in detail, the selection of studies may be biased, and only the positive results may reach publication. It also takes about 6 months to complete a single systematic review [ 6 , 7 ].

5 What Is a Meta-Analysis? How Does It Differ from a Systematic Review?

A meta-analysis is a summary of data collected from multiple sources by collating it and helping to frame guidelines. While a systematic review includes the entire process of collecting, reviewing and presenting all available evidence, a meta-analysis only refers to the statistical technique of extracting and combining the data to produce a summary [ 7 , 8 ].

6 What Are Scoping and Narrative Reviews? How Do They Differ from a Systematic Review?

A Scoping review is a preliminary assessment of the potential size and scope of the available research literature. It aims to identify the nature and extent of research evidence (usually including ongoing research) and present an overview of a potentially large and diverse body of literature pertaining to a broad topic. In contrast, a systematic review attempts to collate empirical evidence from a relatively smaller number of studies pertaining to a focused research question.

A Narrative review is the type first-year college students often learn as a general approach. Its purpose is to identify a few studies that describe a problem of interest. Narrative reviews have no predetermined research question or specified search strategy, only a topic of interest. They are not systematic and follow no specified protocol. No standards or protocols guide the review. Although the reviewers will learn about the problem, they will not arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the state of the science related to the problem [ 9 , 10 ]. No strict rules are there for narrative review and can be done using the keywords.

7 Conclusions

A Systemic review gives a comprehensive and complete plan and search approach to study a topic of interest. This reduces the bias by recognizing, assessing and creating all relevant studies on a particular topic.

Systematic reviews can be ambiguous, not helpful, or even harmful when data are incorrectly handled.

A Meta-analysis involves using statistical methods to create the data from several studies into a single quantitative study.

Outcomes from a meta-analysis may help to estimate the effect of treatment or risk factors for disease, or other outcomes.

Uman LS. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses. J Can Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2011;20:57–9.

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Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Last accessed on 3rd August 2020. Available on http://www.prisma-statement.org/ .

Gopalakrishnan S, Ganeshkumar P. Systematic reviews and meta-analysis: understanding the best evidence in primary healthcare. J Family Med Prim Care. 2013;2:9–14.

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Why systematic reviews matter. A brief history, overview and practical guide for authors. Last accessed on 3rd August 2020. Available on https://www.elsevier.com/connect/authors-update/why-systematic-reviews-matter .

Yuan Y, Hunt RH. Systematic reviews: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Am J Gastroenterol. 2009;104:1086–92.

Ahn E, Kang H. Introduction to systematic review and meta-analysis. Korean J Anesthesiol. 2018;71(2):103–12.

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Pham MT, Rajić A, Greig JD, Sargeant JM, Papadopoulos A, McEwen SA. A scoping review of scoping reviews: advancing the approach and enhancing the consistency. Res Synth Methods. 2014;5(4):371–85.

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Nundy, S., Kakar, A., Bhutta, Z.A. (2022). Systematic, Scoping and Narrative Reviews. In: How to Practice Academic Medicine and Publish from Developing Countries?. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5248-6_29

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Writing a Literature Review

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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.

Systematic and scoping reviews: A comparison and overview

Affiliations.

  • 1 Division of Vascular Surgery, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
  • 2 Division of Vascular Surgery, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • PMID: 36414363
  • DOI: 10.1053/j.semvascsurg.2022.09.001

In this article, we compare and contrast methods of reviewing, summarizing, and synthesizing the literature, including systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and narrative reviews. Review articles are essential to help investigators wade through the plethora of exponentially growing medical literature. In the era of evidence-based medicine, a systematic approach is required. A systematic review is a formalized method to address a specific clinical question by analyzing the breadth of published literature while minimizing bias. Systematic reviews are designed to answer narrow clinical questions in the PICO (population, intervention, comparison, and outcome) format. Alternatively, scoping reviews use a similar systematic approach to a literature search in order to determine the breadth and depth of knowledge on a topic; to clarify definitions, concepts, and themes; or sometimes as a precursor to a systematic review or hypothesis generator to guide future research. However, scoping reviews are less constrained by a priori decisions about which interventions, controls, and outcomes may be of interest. Traditional narrative reviews still have a role in informing practice and guiding research, particularly when there is a paucity of high-quality evidence on a topic.

Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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  • Systematic Review
  • Evidence-Based Medicine*
  • Research Design*

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Why Systematic Review rather than Narrative Review?

1 Department of Psychiatry, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

2 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA.

Sir: Recently review articles including systematic and narrative reviews have been significantly increasing in most psychiatric journals in the world alongside "Psychiatry Investigation (PI)". Since the launch of the "PI" at March 2004, there have been a number of review articles; indeed 54 papers were published as format of regular review papers or special articles in the "PI" from 2004 to 2014. However, of the 54 papers, only one review paper partially met the contemporary criteria of systematic review, otherwise were written as a format of narrative review for diverse topics such as epidemiological findings, concept and hypothesis of certain psychiatric disease, current understandings on certain disease, psychopharmacology, and treatment guidelines. This is unsatisfactory when reflecting the fact that systematic reviews have been rapidly and increasingly replacing traditional narrative (explicit) reviews as a standard platform of providing and updating currently available research findings as confident evidence. Most journals have started to change their policy in acceptance of review papers, they have been giving a priority to systematic review only as a regular review article and excluding narrative reviews, to provide the best evidence for all basic and clinical questions and further hypotheses. Of course, there should be Pros and Cons between systematic and narrative reviews; for instance, the major advantage of systematic reviews is that they are based on the findings of comprehensive and systematic literature searches in all available resources, with minimization of selection bias avoiding subjective selection bias, while narrative reviews, if they can be written experts in certain research area, can provide experts' intuitive, experiential and explicit perspectives in focused topics. 1

The absence of objective and systematic selection criteria in review method substantially results in a number of methodological shortcomings leading to clear bias of the author's interpretation and conclusions. Such differences are quite clear when referring to the review paper of Drs. Cipriani and Geddess, 2 where 7 narrative and 2 systematic reviews were compared and found that narrative reviews including same studies reached different conclusions against each other, indicating the difficulties of appraising and using narrative reviews to have conclusion on specific topic. Hence, narrative reviews may be evidence-based, but they are not truly useful as scientific evidence.

Even in reported as systematic review, it is also frequent that those papers are not true systematic review or they have certain bias in data search method and conclusions. For instance, due to lack of satisfactory pharmacotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its frequent comorbid psychotic symptoms, a possible role of atypical antipsychotics (AAs) for PTSD has been consistently proposed. 3 In fact various AAs have demonstrated positive antidepressant and ant-anxiety effects in a number of small-scale, open-label studies (OLSs) or randomised, controlled clinical trials (RCTs). 4 In this context, a recent systematic review (4 olanzapine, 7 risperidone and 1 ziprasidone trials) by Wang et al. 5 has also suggested the positive prospect on the role of AAs for the treatment of PTSD; however, the review has a number of faulty and wrong selection of clinical trials data and interpretation of studies included in their review. The authors neglected wide range of clinical information such as patient characteristics (particularly, initial severity of disease), comorbidity issues, trial duration issues, trial design characteristics, primary endpoint difference, study sponsoring; that is, heterogeneity of clinical trials would substantially influence the quality and clinical implications of the study results. The basic problem of non-systematic search of data is that beneath the shining surface, it seems that the authors utilizing it often misunderstand the true value, underpinning meanings and correct nature of the data, or their true limitations and strengths, and they often go too far or short with the interpretation. 6 Indeed, the main conclusion of a narrative review may often be based on evidence, but such reviews themselves are not rigorous evidence since such reviews are too selective and thus little good quality information could be included. 2 In addition, I found one olanzapine trial was OLS but they included the study in the result (this is a mixture of data yielding a huge heterogeneity). 7 This clearly indicates they were not consistent in collection of the study for their review. Olanzapine has a lot of OLSs beyond the study, likewise other AAs also have a plenty of OLSs. Regarding an inclusion of OLSs for systematic reviews, an interesting metaanalyses are available on the role of olanzapine for adolescent bipolar disorder 8 and aripiprazole augmentation therapy 9 for depression. According to Pae et al. 9 the treatment effects were not significantly different between OLSs and RCTs in efficacy of aripiprazole augmentation for treating depression; the pooled effect size was statistically significant in both study design and also in a meta-analysis regression, study design was not a significant predictor of mean change in the primary endpoint, clearly indicating that OLSs are useful predictors of the potential safety and efficacy of a given compound. This finding was also supported by another meta-analysis. 8 Hence, the value of OLSs should be carefully re-evaluated for practical information source, development of new drugs or acquisition for new indications, and should not be neglected for data research, especially for narrative reviews. Furthermore, Dr. Wang et al. 5 did not include one important RCT; quetiapine has a RCT for PTSD, 10 which was presented in the thematic meeting of the CINP 2009. A 12-week RCT was conducted for 80 PTSD patients. Finally, Wang et al. 5 surprisingly did not present any effect size (ES) for studies, although such calculations are conventionally included in the review papers. Another critical example is Hickie and Rogers's review, 11 according to their article, agomelatine was efficacious antidepressant; however, subsequent researchers who avoided selection bias have clearly demonstrated its weak efficacy as an antidepressant. 12 Therefore, reflecting two review papers, 5 , 11 we can realize that inappropriate aggregation of studies may definitely bias conclusion. Hence, entire published and unpublished dataset should be considered in systematic review, especially, when clinical data is not sufficient and the medication has no officially approved indication by the regulatory agency.

To summarize, systematic review should include followings respecting recommendation from currently available systematic review guidelines (e.g., The Cochrane Library www.cochrane.org ); clear basic and clinical hypothesis, predefined protocol, designation of search resources, through data search (regardless of publication), transparent selection criteria, qualification of studies selected, synthesis of study data and information, relevant summary and conclusion. Table 1 compares systematic and narrative reviews ( Table 1 ). Since the evidence-based medicine is the current trend and also mandatory for establishment of heath policy, the PI should also turn to encourage submission of systematic reviews rather than narrative reviews.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant of the Korean Health Technology R&D Project, Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (HI12C0003).

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Composing an Authentic, Academic Narrative Literature Review: How to Evaluate Scholarly Articles and Write a Thorough Narrative Literature Review

Don't get caught plagiarizing

Over the course of many years of teaching, I’ve found that both my students and I struggle with our course unit on research writing. It’s boring, it’s difficult, and we all undoubtedly become aggravated with each other throughout the process.

If you’ve ever experienced a lesson burnout, like I have so many times, you know how frustrating it can be for both teacher and students. Unless you’ve written tons of research papers in your lifetime, they can seem like a daunting task. This is especially true for middle school and high school students who are likely just learning how to do so.

If your students are embarking on a research project, one of their first steps in the research process will be completing a comprehensive narrative literature review.

Ironically, I’ve had to do my own narrative literature review of sorts to bring you the resources you’ll find herein. Of note, after you’ve made it to the end of this post, you’ll be able to effectively guide your students in composing a narrative literature review by focusing on these basic tenets:

What is a narrative literature review?

  • Systematic vs. Narrative literature reviews.
  • The different types of narrative literature reviews.
  • Steps in writing a narrative literature review.

Defining, Differentiating, and Composing a Narrative Literature Review

Essentially, it is a step in the research process that follows selecting a topic and asking a research question. Before developing an engaging thesis, a researcher has to ascertain that scholarly literature exists in support of their proposed thesis.

There Are Many Important Steps in the Research Process

For students who have grown up with the ability to simply Google a wealth of information and receive desired results in a moment’s time, vetting sources may seem like a foreign concept. Teaching your students how to write this type of work will teach them how to scrutinize sources.

But what is a narrative literature review? According to top researchers, “A literature review is a type of research article published in a professional peer-reviewed journal.” These articles are published in vetted, scholarly journals that you and your students can trust as fact.

In essence, your students select a research topic then hit the databases in search of reputable, trustworthy journal articles that answer their research query and support their anticipated position on that topic. By reviewing the existing literature on the selected topic, students can be sure there is proven data and a body of existing knowledge that supports their thesis.

According to J.D. Baker, a professor at Charles Sturt University, acquiring current and relevant literature on a given topic is, “…an essential part of the research process [that] help[s] to establish a theoretical framework and focus or context for your research.” For this reason, the narrative literature review may very well be one of the most important steps in the research process.

Narrative Literature Review Is One of the Most Important Parts of the Research Process

As one of the first few steps in the research process, a step that is likely a foreign task to your students, it’s imperative that the process is broken down into simplified, manageable tasks.

Rebecca Alber, blogger for Edutopia, discusses the importance of scaffolding projects for students. She expounds upon the pedagogy of breaking projects into manageable chunks and “providing concrete structure for each.”

By reading through and analyzing the body of knowledge on a given topic, researchers, like your students, can focus and justify their research. As discussed here , the thesis is the most important part of a research paper, but you can’t arrive at your thesis without a thorough narrative literature review.

In this video, research specialist, Sarah Bronson, explains what a narrative literature review does, how to plan it, and how to write a cohesive and proper review.

Systematic vs. Narrative Literature Reviews: Knowing the Difference

In short, the difference between a narrative literature review and a systematic literature review has to do with the search terms used and the methodology employed when searching databases.

According to those in the know, “A narrative literature review is fairly broad, as it involves gathering, critiquing and summarizing journal articles and textbooks about a particular topic.” In other words, you enter general search terms into a search engine and sift through the yielded articles.

These Are the Key Steps in Writing Narrative Literature Review

Essentially, a narrative literature review summarizes and synthesizes the body of work on a topic. The review may be generally focused on a broad topic or a specific research question.

A systematic literature review, on the other hand, “tend[s] to use specific search terms and inclusion/exclusion criteria, whereas the criteria for narrative reviews may not be as strict.” This type of work is best employed by writers who have already focused their query and/or thesis. By including or excluding particular terms, a more pointed search return is gleaned.

In essence, the goal of a systematic literature review is to answer a focused objective question. To be clear, in this type of work, the researcher is working with a clearly defined question.

Check out this helpful video that further explicates the point and process of a systematic literature review. Cochrane provides insight into why, in some instances, a systematic review is more useful than its narrative counterpart.

Though both systematic and narrative literature reviews can be useful in producing desired and relevant research documents, knowing which method to use depends on your experience and how far into the research process you’ve gone.

If you are beginning preliminary research, you’ll likely only be able to perform a narrative literature review. You may have a general topic that you’d like to investigate before committing to a topic and a thesis.

However, if you’ve already focused your study and have a better grip on the direction you wish to go, then you may find the systematic review to be useful.

Again, the literature review is just one step in a series of interrelated steps that help students write a focused and cohesive research paper. In this article, you can take a look at later steps in the writing process.

Narrative Literature Reviews: Four Unique Approaches

According to Onwuegbuzie and Frels, there are four common types of narrative literature reviews. Essentially, literature reviews can be broken down into these four categories: general, methodological, theoretical, and historical. Let’s take a look at how they differ from one another.

There Are 4 Main Types of the Narrative Literature Review

A general literature review takes a close look at the most important and most current knowledge on a given topic. This type of work will form the basis for your thesis or dissertation; it’s what you’ll do before focusing your query.

Sources cited in a general literature review may include scholarly articles, governmental data, books, interviews, and websites. The general literature includes a summary and assessment of the literature.

A methodological literature review defines the methodology used to apprehend the literature. In other words, this type of paper outlines and explains research methods and parameters.

A Methodological Literature Review Can Help You to Highlight and Understand All the Research Methods

The methodological literature review analyzes how information was arrived at not necessarily what the literature asserts.

A theoretical literature review analyzes how theories inform research practices. Basically, this type of paper identifies pre-existing theories, the connection between and among them, how well scrutinized the theories are, and the development of new possible theories.

Finally, a historical literature review focuses on the emergence, development, and historical context of a research topic as it presents in a body of knowledge. To be clear, this type of literature review traces the history of a particular issue or theory and how it has evolved since its onset.

In this excellent resource featuring Leigh Hall of teachingacademia.com, Hall further explains the different types of narrative literature reviews. Hall explains the four types of reviews in further detail to help writers determine which is best suited for their research purposes.

Teachers should be clear about their expectations of students concerning which type of narrative literature review is expected of them. A closer look at which type of review is best suited to your students’ projects can help you, the teacher, in guiding your students.

As one of the most important steps in the research process, it’s imperative students can successfully complete a literature review before moving on in the research process.

Lisa L. Munro, Phd., a blogger who examines the importance of creating writing communities among our students, asserts the importance of, “writing a concise literature review just comprehensive enough for the purpose of an academic journal article.”

Narrative Literature Review: A Writer’s Checklist

The writing process is a step-by-step undertaking and some steps are more of a process than others. That’s especially true of composing a narrative literature review.

This Step-by-Step Process Takes Time but It's Worth It

Essentially, a narrative literature review is a project in and of itself. A proper review adheres to the following steps.

Entitle your review as a “review of…” Titling your work this way lets your reader know exactly what you’re setting out to do in the subsequent paragraphs. However, as a researcher, doing so helps you keep your sources organized and makes it easy to refer back to that source.

Write a brief summary of the article and how it applies to your course of study. This step is where you synthesize the information gleaned from a particular source. It will provide you, the researcher, with an opportunity to decide if it’s useful information that will support your research query.

Your abstract should include a sentence about how the source applies to your own research, your purported thesis, a summary of the literature, and conclusions you’ve made based on your findings.

Introduction

The writer provides his/her rationale and objectives for the literature review. Your introduction should establish your topic of study and an explanation of why your research is important.

Describe the methods used in performing the research. Essentially this is a few sentences explaining the steps and mediums used to acquire your sources. This indicates whether or not your research comes from reputable sources.

Nowadays You Can Easily Find Billions of Sources

Here is where you explain if you used computer databases along with the search terms you employed, scoured physical files at a given office building, read physical texts on a given topic, etc.

Discussion/Summary

The writer discusses his/her discoveries as well as an overall summary of the information. Without repeating what you’ve written in the other parts of your review, in the discussion, you summarize your main findings, interpret those findings, identify the strengths and weaknesses of the given source, compare your findings with other literature on the topic, explain how and if your findings answer your research query, and assert if your thesis is supported by the literature.

In this helpful tutorial, David Taylor, an online writing professor, walks you through the formatting of a literature review. He walks writers through the five-step process of completing a paper in less than 30 minutes.

As in writing any type of composition, students should be reminded to carefully proofread for clarity and correctness. I always suggest that students read their compositions aloud as readers will often hear mistakes before they see them.

A final consideration that students inevitably need to be reminded of is avoiding plagiarism. I find it’s helpful to define plagiarism for students so there’s no question about why copying another’s ideas is problematic.

There are many online plagiarism checkers for teachers and students to use to ensure work is entirely authentic. Check out this article for some tips and tricks for avoiding and identifying plagiarism.

Useful Resources

  • What is a research paper?
  • How to format a research paper
  • 113 great research paper topics
  • Writing an educational research paper: research paper sections

One of the most arduous tasks in a research project is gathering the right sources for your purpose. Help students understand how to search in the right places for articles and how to evaluate sources.

One of the questions my students rightfully ask is why they can’t use news media websites. News networks like CNN deliver the facts, don’t they? This article may help you and them to better recognize and evaluate credible source material.

A thorough narrative literature review will get your students off on the right foot. Everything after the literature review falls into place more readily when you have the right sources for your purpose.

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Literature Reviews

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Why conduct a literature review, stages of a literature review, lit reviews: an overview (video), check out these books.

  • Types of reviews
  • 1. Define your research question
  • 2. Plan your search
  • 3. Search the literature
  • 4. Organize your results
  • 5. Synthesize your findings
  • 6. Write the review
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literature review vs narrative

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literature review vs narrative

Definition: A literature review is a systematic examination and synthesis of existing scholarly research on a specific topic or subject.

Purpose: It serves to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge within a particular field.

Analysis: Involves critically evaluating and summarizing key findings, methodologies, and debates found in academic literature.

Identifying Gaps: Aims to pinpoint areas where there is a lack of research or unresolved questions, highlighting opportunities for further investigation.

Contextualization: Enables researchers to understand how their work fits into the broader academic conversation and contributes to the existing body of knowledge.

literature review vs narrative

tl;dr  A literature review critically examines and synthesizes existing scholarly research and publications on a specific topic to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current state of knowledge in the field.

What is a literature review NOT?

❌ An annotated bibliography

❌ Original research

❌ A summary

❌ Something to be conducted at the end of your research

❌ An opinion piece

❌ A chronological compilation of studies

The reason for conducting a literature review is to:

literature review vs narrative

Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students

While this 9-minute video from NCSU is geared toward graduate students, it is useful for anyone conducting a literature review.

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Writing the literature review: A practical guide

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Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and behavioral sciences

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So, you have to write a literature review: A guided workbook for engineers

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Telling a research story: Writing a literature review

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The literature review: Six steps to success

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Narrative vs systematic vs scoping review: What’s the difference?

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I often get asked what the difference between a narrative review and a systematic review is, or what the difference between a narrative review and a scoping review is. This is also something I wondered about when I was new to the world of research.

Let’s first look at what a systematic review and scoping review are. A systematic review is done to identify research studies published on a certain topic, with the primary aim to recommend best practice on a certain topic and inform policy. This is very useful if there are discrepancies in the way in which a certain practice is performed, but also to recommend new approaches to practice. A scoping review is done to determine the research out there on a certain topic. Scoping reviews do not involve a critical appraisal process like systematic reviews do, but they are also conducted using a rigorous and systematic process. This video elaborates on the difference between systematic and scoping reviews.

A narrative review, also referred to as a traditional review, summarises and presents the available research on a topic. You will commonly see a traditional or narrative review as part of a thesis or dissertation. A narrative review is more biased than systematic and scoping reviews as it relies on the author’s background knowledge on a topic.

Zachary Munn, and his colleagues, all of them systematic review experts, alludes to the difference in a very useful article published in 2018 . Munn et al list the differences between scoping reviews and narrative reviews, but the same goes for the difference between systematic reviews and narrative reviews. Scoping reviews:

1. “Are informed by an a priori protocol;

2. Are systematic and often include exhaustive searching for information;

3. Aim to be transparent and reproducible;

4. Include steps to reduce error and increase reliability (such as the inclusion of multiple reviewers);

5. Ensure data is extracted and presented in a structured way”.

In Table 1 of this article , the difference between the three types of review becomes clear.

How do you know if an article is a narrative review or a systematic review or scoping review? These three look different to one another. In the video below, we look at an example of each.

Now that you know the difference between a narrative review, a scoping and a systematic review, you are ready to decide if a narrative review needs to be done or should it be a systematic or scoping review. If you know that you need to do a systematic review or scoping review, but you are not sure what the difference is, or if you can’t decide what type of systematic review you want to do, or even if you want to figure out the difference between a systematic review and meta-analysis, have a look at the Systematic Reviews playlist on the Research Masterminds YouTube channel to get your questions answered. And while you are at it, subscribe to the Research Masterminds YouTube channel .

One last thing, if you are a (post)graduate student working on a masters or doctoral research project, and you are passionate about life, adamant about completing your studies successfully and ready to get a head-start on your academic career, this opportunity is for you! An awesome membership site - a safe haven offering you coaching, community and content to boost your research experience and productivity. Check it out! https://researchmasterminds.com/academy

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COMMENTS

  1. How-To-Do-It An Introduction to Writing Narrative and Systematic Reviews

    A narrative review is the "older" format of the two, presenting a (non-systematic) summation and analysis of available literature on a specific topic of interest. Interestingly, probably because the "approach" is non-systematic, there are no acknowledged formal guidelines for writing narrative reviews.

  2. The Difference Between Narrative Review and Systematic Review

    The major differences between them lie in their objectives, methodology, and application areas. Differences In Objective The main objective of a systematic review is to formulate a well-defined research question and use qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze all the available evidence attempting to answer the question.

  3. Traditional or narrative literature reviews

    A narrative or traditional literature review is a comprehensive, critical and objective analysis of the current knowledge on a topic. They are an essential part of the research process and help to establish a theoretical framework and focus or context for your research.

  4. Reviews: From Systematic to Narrative: Narrative Review

    At its most basic, narrative reviews are most useful for obtaining a broad perspective on a topic and are often more comparable to a textbook chapter including sections on the physiology and/or epidemiology of a topic. When reading and evaluating a narrative review, keep in mind that author's bias may or may not be present.

  5. Types of Literature Reviews

    What Makes a Systematic Review Different from Other Types of Reviews? Reproduced from Grant, M. J. and Booth, A. (2009), A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26: 91-108. doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x Last Updated: Feb 6, 2024 10:17 AM

  6. Narrative Reviews: Flexible, Rigorous, and Practical

    While a systematic review often focuses on a narrow question in a specific context, with a prespecified method to synthesize findings from similar studies, a narrative review can include a wide variety of studies and provide an overall summary, with interpretation and critique. 1 Examples of narrative review types include state-of-the-art, criti...

  7. Chapter 9 Methods for Literature Reviews

    The main objectives of this chapter are fourfold: (a) to provide an overview of the major steps and activities involved in conducting a stand-alone literature review; (b) to describe and contrast the different types of review articles that can contribute to the eHealth knowledge base; (c) to illustrate each review type with one or two examples f...

  8. What is the difference between a narrative review and a ...

    Answer: At a lay level, they seem to be used interchangeably. However, at the academic/scientific level, a 'narrative review' is actually a literature review and a 'descriptive review' is a systematic review. A literature review, as the name suggests, is a review of existing literature around a particular topic.

  9. Systematic, Scoping, and Other Literature Reviews: Overview

    Overview Project Planning Searching Screening Covidence What Is a Systematic Review? Regular literature reviews are simply summaries of the literature on a particular topic. A systematic review, however, is a comprehensive literature review conducted to answer a specific research question.

  10. How to Conduct a Systematic Review: A Narrative Literature Review

    Systematic reviews, according to Wright, et al., are defined as a "review of the evidence on a clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant primary research, and to extract and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review" [ 3 ].

  11. Reviews: From Systematic to Narrative: Review By Type

    Review By Type - Reviews: From Systematic to Narrative - Research Guides at University of Alabama - Birmingham Reviews: From Systematic to Narrative: Review By Type Definitions and Types of Reviews Just a few general comments on reviews. The oldest type of formal study is the literature review. Most of you have done this at one time or another.

  12. Systematic Review, Scoping Review, Narrative Review

    Literature review articles use database searches to identify, collate, and analyze available evidence on a topic. Systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and narrative reviews are different evidence-collection and synthesis approaches. ... A narrative review is a thorough and critical overview of previously published research on the author's ...

  13. Reviews: From Systematic to Narrative: Introduction

    Meta Analysis: systematic review that uses quantitative methods to synthesize and summarize the results. Systematic Review: summary of the medical literature that uses explicit methods to perform a comprehensive literature search and critical appraisal of individual studies and that uses appropriate statistical techniques to combine these valid studies.

  14. Narrative Literature Review

    A narrative literature review is an integrated analysis of the existing literature used to summarize a body of literature, draw conclusions about a topic, and identify research gaps. By understanding the current state of the literature, you can show how new research fits into the larger research landscape.

  15. Systematic, Scoping and Narrative Reviews

    1 Altmetric Abstract A Systematic Review is an attempt to distill the essence of a large number of studies in medicine by first asking a research question and then first identifying and later synthesizing carefully chosen studies of a high quality which might provide the answers.

  16. Writing a Literature Review

    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 ...

  17. Systematic reviews versus narrative reviews in clinical anatomy

    Two main types of review articles with distinct characteristics and goals are commonly found in the scientific literature: systematic reviews and narrative (also called expert or traditional) reviews. Narrative reviews are publications that describe and discuss the state of science on a specific top …

  18. Systematic and scoping reviews: A comparison and overview

    A systematic review is a formalized method to address a specific clinical question by analyzing the breadth of published literature while minimizing bias. Systematic reviews are designed to answer narrow clinical questions in the PICO (population, intervention, comparison, and outcome) format. Alternatively, scoping reviews use a similar ...

  19. Main differences between narrative and systematic reviews

    Reviews provide a synthesis of published literature on a topic and describe its current state-of-art. Reviews in clinical research are thus useful when designing studies or developing practice...

  20. Why Systematic Review rather than Narrative Review?

    Of course, there should be Pros and Cons between systematic and narrative reviews; for instance, the major advantage of systematic reviews is that they are based on the findings of comprehensive and systematic literature searches in all available resources, with minimization of selection bias avoiding subjective selection bias, while narrative r...

  21. Narrative Literature Review

    Essentially, a narrative literature review summarizes and synthesizes the body of work on a topic. The review may be generally focused on a broad topic or a specific research question.

  22. Getting started

    What is a literature review? Definition: A literature review is a systematic examination and synthesis of existing scholarly research on a specific topic or subject. Purpose: It serves to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge within a particular field. Analysis: Involves critically evaluating and summarizing key findings, methodologies, and debates found in ...

  23. Comparing Integrative and Systematic Literature Reviews

    A literature review is a systematic way of collecting and synthesizing previous research (Snyder, 2019).An integrative literature review provides an integration of the current state of knowledge as a way of generating new knowledge (Holton, 2002).HRDR is labeling Integrative Literature Review as one of the journal's four non-empirical research article types as in theory and conceptual ...

  24. Narrative vs systematic vs scoping review: What's the difference?

    Scoping reviews: 1. "Are informed by an a priori protocol; 2. Are systematic and often include exhaustive searching for information; 3. Aim to be transparent and reproducible; 4. Include steps to reduce error and increase reliability (such as the inclusion of multiple reviewers); 5. Ensure data is extracted and presented in a structured way".

  25. Full article: LGBTQ+ health education for medical students in the

    This narrative literature review explores the landscape of interventions and evaluations related to LGBTQ+ health content taught in medical schools in the USA and suggests strategies for further curriculum development. Methods . PubMed, ERIC, and Education Research Complete databases were systematically searched for peer-reviewed articles on ...