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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.

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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.
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  • 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.

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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.

Literature review guide

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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.

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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.

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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 .  

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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.

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Write a Literature Review

1. narrow your topic and select papers accordingly, 2. search for literature, 3. read the selected articles thoroughly and evaluate them, 4. organize the selected papers by looking for patterns and by developing subtopics, 5. develop a thesis or purpose statement, 6. write the paper, 7. review your work.

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Consider your specific area of study. Think about what interests you and what interests other researchers in your field.

Talk to your professor, brainstorm, and read lecture notes and recent issues of periodicals in the field.

Limit your scope to a smaller topic area (ie. focusing on France's role in WWII instead of focusing on WWII in general).

  • Four Steps to Narrow Your Research Topic (Video) This 3-minute video provides instructions on how to narrow the focus of your research topic.
  • Developing a Research Question + Worksheet Use this worksheet to develop, assess, and refine your research questions. There is also a downloadable PDF version.

Define your source selection criteria (ie. articles published between a specific date range, focusing on a specific geographic region, or using a specific methodology).

Using keywords, search a library database.

Reference lists of recent articles and reviews can lead to other useful papers.

Include any studies contrary to your point of view.

Evaluate and synthesize the studies' findings and conclusions.

Note the following:

  • Assumptions some or most researchers seem to make
  • Methodologies, testing procedures, subjects, material tested researchers use
  • Experts in the field: names/labs that are frequently referenced
  • Conflicting theories, results, methodologies
  • Popularity of theories and how this has/has not changed over time
  • Findings that are common/contested
  • Important trends in the research
  • The most influential theories

Tip: If your literature review is extensive, find a large table surface, and on it place post-it notes or filing cards to organize all your findings into categories.

  • Move them around if you decide that (a) they fit better under different headings, or (b) you need to establish new topic headings.
  • Develop headings/subheadings that reflect the major themes and patterns you detected

Write a one or two sentence statement summarizing the conclusion you have reached about the major trends and developments you see in the research that has been conducted on your subject.

  • Templates for Writing Thesis Statements This template provides a two-step guide for writing thesis statements. There is also a downloadable PDF version.
  • 5 Types of Thesis Statements Learn about five different types of thesis statements to help you choose the best type for your research. There is also a downloadable PDF version.
  • 5 Questions to Strengthen Your Thesis Statement Follow these five steps to strengthen your thesis statements. There is also a downloadable PDF version.

Follow the organizational structure you developed above, including the headings and subheadings you constructed.

Make certain that each section links logically to the one before and after.

Structure your sections by themes or subtopics, not by individual theorists or researchers.

  • Tip: If you find that each paragraph begins with a researcher's name, it might indicate that, instead of evaluating and comparing the research literature from an analytical point of view, you have simply described what research has been done.

Prioritize analysis over description.

  • For example, look at the following two passages and note that Student A merely describes the literature, whereas Student B takes a more analytical and evaluative approach by comparing and contrasting. You can also see that this evaluative approach is well signaled by linguistic markers indicating logical connections (words such as "however," "moreover") and phrases such as "substantiates the claim that," which indicate supporting evidence and Student B's ability to synthesize knowledge.

Student A: Smith (2000) concludes that personal privacy in their living quarters is the most important factor in nursing home residents' perception of their autonomy. He suggests that the physical environment in the more public spaces of the building did not have much impact on their perceptions. Neither the layout of the building nor the activities available seem to make much difference. Jones and Johnstone make the claim that the need to control one's environment is a fundamental need of life (2001), and suggest that the approach of most institutions, which is to provide total care, may be as bad as no care at all. If people have no choices or think that they have none, they become depressed.

Student B: After studying residents and staff from two intermediate care facilities in Calgary, Alberta, Smith (2000) came to the conclusion that except for the amount of personal privacy available to residents, the physical environment of these institutions had minimal if any effect on their perceptions of control (autonomy). However, French (1998) and Haroon (2000) found that availability of private areas is not the only aspect of the physical environment that determines residents' autonomy. Haroon interviewed 115 residents from 32 different nursing homes known to have different levels of autonomy (2000). It was found that physical structures, such as standardized furniture, heating that could not be individually regulated, and no possession of a house key for residents limited their feelings of independence. Moreover, Hope (2002), who interviewed 225 residents from various nursing homes, substantiates the claim that characteristics of the institutional environment such as the extent of resources in the facility, as well as its location, are features which residents have indicated as being of great importance to their independence.

  • How to Integrate Critical Voice into Your Literature Review (Video)
  • Look at the topic sentences of each paragraph. If you were to read only these sentences, would you find that your paper presented a clear position, logically developed, from beginning to end? The topic sentences of each paragraph should indicate the main points of your literature review.
  • Make an outline of each section of the paper and decide whether you need to add information, to delete irrelevant information, or to re-structure sections.
  • Read your work out loud. That way you will be better able to identify where you need punctuation marks to signal pauses or divisions within sentences, where you have made grammatical errors, or where your sentences are unclear.
  • Since the purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate that the writer is familiar with the important professional literature on the chosen subject, check to make certain that you have covered all of the important, up-to-date, and pertinent texts. In the sciences and some of the social sciences it is important that your literature be quite recent; this is not so important in the humanities.
  • Make certain that all of the citations and references are correct and that you are referencing in the appropriate style for your discipline. If you are uncertain which style to use, ask your professor.
  • Check to make sure that you have not plagiarized either by failing to cite a source of information, or by using words quoted directly from a source. (Usually if you take three or more words directly from another source, you should put those words within quotation marks, and cite the page.)
  • Text should be written in a clear and concise academic style; it should not be descriptive in nature or use the language of everyday speech.
  • There should be no grammatical or spelling errors.
  • Sentences should flow smoothly and logically.
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Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

  • Steps for Conducting a Lit Review

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

2. decide on the scope of your review., 3. select the databases you will use to conduct your searches., 4. conduct your searches and find the literature. keep track of your searches, 5. review the literature..

  • Finding "The Literature"
  • Organizing/Writing
  • Chicago: Notes Bibliography
  • Sample Literature Reviews

Disclaimer!!

Conducting a literature review is usually recursive, meaning that somewhere along the way, you'll find yourself repeating steps out-of-order.

That is actually a good sign.  

Reviewing the research should lead to more research questions and those questions will likely lead you to either revise your initial research question or go back and find more literature related to a more specific aspect of your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by a central research question.  Remember, it is not a collection of loosely related studies in a field but instead 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.

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

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

Make a list of the databases you will search.  Remember to include comprehensive databases such as WorldCat and Dissertations & Theses, if you need to.

Where to find databases:

  • Find Databases by Subject UWF Databases categorized by discipline
  • Find Databases via Research Guides Librarians create research guides for all of the disciplines on campus! Take advantage of their expertise and see what discipline-specific search strategies they recommend!
  • Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
  • Write down the searches you conduct in each database so that you may duplicate them if you need to later (or avoid dead-end searches   that you'd forgotten you'd already tried).
  • Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
  • Ask your professor or a scholar in the field if you are missing any key works in the field.
  • Use RefWorks to keep track of your research citations. See the RefWorks Tutorial if you need help.

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: 

  • Again, review the abstracts carefully.  
  • Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
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describe the 7 steps in conducting a literature review

Organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory. You are not trying to list all the material published, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or research question.  

What is a literature review?

A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate assignment, but more often it is part of the introduction to an essay, research report, or thesis. 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

A literature review must do these things:

  • be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question you are developing
  • synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
  • identify areas of controversy in the literature
  • formulate questions that need further research

Ask yourself questions like these:

  • What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my literature review helps to define?
  • What type of literature review am I conducting? Am I looking at issues of theory? methodology? policy? quantitative research (e.g. on the effectiveness of a new procedure)? qualitative research (e.g., studies of loneliness among migrant workers)?
  • What is the scope of my literature review? What types of publications am I using (e.g., journals, books, government documents, popular media)? What discipline am I working in (e.g., nursing psychology, sociology, medicine)?
  • How good was my information seeking? Has my search been wide enough to ensure I've found all the relevant material? Has it been narrow enough to exclude irrelevant material? Is the number of sources I've used appropriate for the length of my paper?
  • Have I critically analyzed the literature I use? Do I follow through a set of concepts and questions, comparing items to each other in the ways they deal with them? Instead of just listing and summarizing items, do I assess them, discussing strengths and weaknesses?
  • Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my perspective?
  • Will the reader find my literature review relevant, appropriate, and useful?

Ask yourself questions like these about each book or article you include:

  • Has the author formulated a problem/issue?
  • Is it clearly defined? Is its significance (scope, severity, relevance) clearly established?
  • Could the problem have been approached more effectively from another perspective?
  • What is the author's research orientation (e.g., interpretive, critical science, combination)?
  • What is the author's theoretical framework (e.g., psychological, developmental, feminist)?
  • What is the relationship between the theoretical and research perspectives?
  • Has the author evaluated the literature relevant to the problem/issue? Does the author include literature taking positions she or he does not agree with?
  • In a research study, how good are the basic components of the study design (e.g., population, intervention, outcome)? How accurate and valid are the measurements? Is the analysis of the data accurate and relevant to the research question? Are the conclusions validly based upon the data and analysis?
  • In material written for a popular readership, does the author use appeals to emotion, one-sided examples, or rhetorically-charged language and tone? Is there an objective basis to the reasoning, or is the author merely "proving" what he or she already believes?
  • How does the author structure the argument? Can you "deconstruct" the flow of the argument to see whether or where it breaks down logically (e.g., in establishing cause-effect relationships)?
  • In what ways does this book or article contribute to our understanding of the problem under study, and in what ways is it useful for practice? What are the strengths and limitations?
  • How does this book or article relate to the specific thesis or question I am developing?

Text written by Dena Taylor, Health Sciences Writing Centre, University of Toronto

http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review

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describe the 7 steps in conducting a literature review

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  • Literature Reviews: A Recap
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  • Does it Describe a Literature Review?
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  • 7. Write a Literature Review

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This guide is organized around the 7 steps in the graphic to the left to help you understand the process of writing a literature review.

This guide will help you to

  • Define a literature review
  • Recognize that different fields of study have their own way to perform and write literature reviews
  • Prepare to search the literature
  • Read critically -- analyze and synthesize
  • Prepare to write a literature review

At the end of the tutorial, you will find a quiz that you can submit through Canvas for course credit. 

Graphic from Literature Review (2009) by Machi  and McEvoy.

Text description of "Literature Review Process" for web accessibility

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:

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Literature Review

  • Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
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1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by a central research question.  Remember, it is not a collection of loosely related studies in a field but instead 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.

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? 

Tip: 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. 

  • Look at the Library's research guides in your discipline to select discipline-specific databases.  Don't forget to look at books!
  • Make an appointment with or contact your   subject librarian to make sure you aren't missing major databases.

4. Conduct your searches and find the literature. Keep track of your searches!

Tips: 

  • Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
  • Write down the searches you conduct in each database so that you may duplicate them if you need to later (or avoid dead-end searches   that you'd forgotten you'd already tried).
  • Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
  • Ask your professor or a scholar in the field if you are missing any key works in the field.
  • Use RefWorks to keep track of your research citations. See the RefWorks Tutorial if you need help.

5. 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?
  • Again, review the abstracts carefully.  
  • Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.

Composing your literature review

O nce you've settled on a general pattern of organization, you're ready to write each section. There are a few guidelines you should follow during the writing stage. Here is a sample paragraph from a literature review about sexism and language to illuminate the following discussion:

  However, other studies have shown that even gender-neutral antecedents are more likely to produce masculine images than feminine ones (Gastil, 1990). Hamilton (1988) asked students to complete sentences that required them to fill in pronouns that agreed with gender-neutral antecedents such as "writer," "pedestrian," and "persons." The students were asked to describe any image they had when writing the sentence. Hamilton found that people imagined 3.3 men to each woman in the masculine "generic" condition and 1.5 men per woman in the unbiased condition. Thus, while ambient sexism accounted for some of the masculine bias, sexist language amplified the effect. (Source: Erika Falk and Jordan Mills, "Why Sexist Language Affects Persuasion: The Role of Homophily, Intended Audience, and Offense," Women and Language19:2.

Use evidence

In the example above, the writers refer to several other sources when making their point. A literature review in this sense is just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence to show that what you are saying is valid.

Be selective

Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the review's focus, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological.

Use quotes sparingly

Falk and Mills do not use any direct quotes. That is because the survey nature of the literature review does not allow for in-depth discussion or detailed quotes from the text. Some short quotes here and there are okay, though if you want to emphasize a point, or if what the author said just cannot be rewritten in your own words. Notice that Falk and Mills do quote certain terms that were coined by the author, not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. But if you find yourself wanting to put in more quotes, check with your instructor.

Summarize and synthesize

Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each paragraph as well as throughout the review. The authors here recapitulate important features of Hamilton's study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to their own work.

Keep your own voice

While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice (the writer's) should remain front and center. Notice that Falk and Mills weave references to other sources into their own text, but they still maintain their own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with their own ideas and their own words. The sources support what Falk and Mills are saying.

Use caution when paraphrasing

When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. In the preceding example, Falk and Mills either directly refer in the text to the author of their source, such as Hamilton, or they provide ample notation in the text when the ideas they are mentioning are not their own, for example, Gastil's. For more information, please see our handout on plagiarism .

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7 easy steps to do a literature review

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A literature review is a fundamental part of your thesis writing process. It critically informs you of the relevant literature by other scholars in your research area and situates your research in the conversation. Ultimately, the literature review helps you communicate how the new knowledge you are producing contributes to existing scholarship. 

The process of scanning literature in your area allows you to identify overlooked or understudied topics in your research field, and identify scholarships that support your arguments. The literature review provides the theoretical framework, methodology, concepts and problems that frame your research design. 

We attended the GradProSkills webinar Writing a Literature Review (GPLL37) , led by Joseph Brito, a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Religions and Cultures, to learn how to do a literature review efficiently and still be thorough. Joseph shared 7 steps to do a literature review in a stress-free manner:

1. Define your research scope

Establish the research area, topics and questions you want to address. Make a list of keywords (including synonyms) and main concepts linked to your research topic, and establish the connections between these concepts and your research question with a concept map . Then set some additional parameters to your searches like publication date, geographical coverage, and related disciplines.

2. Plan your research approach

Build a checklist with important aspects of your research area, like the existing scholarship covering your topic, under-researched or overlooked aspects by other researchers, and key scholars in the field. Identify where to search for research papers on Concordia’s online catalogue and databases , browse on Google Scholar , talk to a subject librarian or ask your advisor for tips. Identify credible scholarly publications like peer-reviewed journals, books from university presses and graduate thesis.  If in doubt, seek your supervisor’s guidance to acceptable sources.

3. Search strategically: be efficient but thorough

Use the keywords and concepts you identified in your research and explore combinations with boolean operators (or, and, not, etc), and truncated terms (develop* returns results like development, developer). Enhance your research expertise with GradProSkills webinar Library Skills & Resources (GPLL231) or chat with Concordia's librarians .

Keep research logs with critical aspects of your search: date, database, terms used and their combinations, and results. Establish categories for important themes, and organize search results within these major themes.

4. Manage your literature with online tools  

Keeping good referencing practices early on in your grad school saves you time during the writing phase. Zotero is a free online reference management tool to keep your citations and personal notes in one place. This software inserts the citation (author, date of publication, page number) into your word document and automatically creates a reference list as per the chosen citation style . Zotero training is available to grad students with GradProSkills webinar GPLL 243 - Using Zotero for Grads . 

5. Critical reading and analysis

Before reading your text, consider the author's argumentation and evidence to support your research question. Skim read the abstract, conclusion, and the first sentence of each paragraph to eliminate non-relevant literature. 

Keep an annotated bibliography for each source with its key points and importance to your research (about seven sentences), and place selected literature in conversation with each other. The literature review is an iterative process of searching, reading, taking notes and writing.

6. Benchmark from other literature reviews

Check existing literature reviews in the thesis and dissertations at Concordia’s Theses, dissertations, and research papers database . Organize the literature review keeping the connection between topics, with a smooth transition from one section to another. Avoid excessive direct quoting, and prefer to give your interpretation of other scholars’ perspectives in your research field.

7. Assemble the texts and write

Put all the sources together into your literature review when you are confident that you have covered the significant authors and debates in your field. You will know that you have reached this point when your search results and readings start repeating themselves, or if your advisor tells you to stop and write. A literature review is structured with an introduction, main body and conclusion. Concordia’s Student Success Centre shares handouts on how to structure essays and research papers . 

Joseph recommends starting the literature review process sooner rather than later to give yourself time to gather and analyze your sources. Manage the process like a small project with specific goals and timelines to increase efficiency and reduce stress. You can learn how to work efficiently with our Productivity in Grad School (GPLL50) webinar. 

You might also like:

  • Concordia Library’s hidden gems are far more than just books and articles
  • Overcome the Writing Challenges in Grad School

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A literature review surveys prior research published in 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 used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

  • Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
  • Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
  • Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
  • Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

  • Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
  • Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
  • Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
  • Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
  • Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
  • Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
  • Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
  • Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews 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.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

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 to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE : Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

  • An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
  • Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
  • An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
  • Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

  • Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
  • Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
  • Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
  • Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
  • Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

  • Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
  • Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
  • History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
  • Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
  • Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
  • Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

  • Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
  • You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
  • Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
  • Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
  • Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
  • Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
  • Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

  • How are they organizing their ideas?
  • What methods have they used to study the problem?
  • What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
  • What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
  • How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

  • Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
  • Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
  • Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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  • 1. Define your research question
  • 2. Plan your search
  • 3. Search the literature
  • 4. Organize your results
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describe the 7 steps in conducting 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 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.

describe the 7 steps in conducting a literature review

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:

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The literature review is an integral part of any research project and is undertaken as a means of surveying what research has been conducted previously on a particular topic.

There are many reasons for conducting a literature review, but one of the primary reasons is to establish a base line of what is already known on a topic before exploring the topic any further. The review typically involves a search of any previously published or presented materials that might have relevance to a prospective new study.

If the point of a research project is solely to review what has already been written on a topic, the resulting article is termed a "survey of the literature" or a "literature survey" or even a "literature review." In this case, the article is complete in itself and does not delve into anything new regarding the topic. A literature survey might end with a discussion of what work is still needed to further develop knowledge of a particular topic, but it does not, itself, flesh out any of those ideas. Articles of this type can be highly beneficial to someone seeking to launch an original study; literature surveys have already laid some of the groundwork for a prospective researcher's own literature review.

When the survey serves as the initial step that precedes a further investigation of an idea or ideas about a topic, then that review of the literature sets the stage for the presentation of original research. Original research usually involves the selection of a methodology for examining a topic and may include the gathering of data that can be further analyzed to arrive at assumptions about the topic. Data may be derived from the examination of human subjects, from conducting surveys or assessments, from the study of particular species of plants or animals, from the systematic scientific measurement of any physical phenomena, from nearly anything that can be documented and analyzed. Again, the whole point of launching an original study is to learn something new about a topic. Research typically begins with what is known (the literature review) and progresses into analyzing, through the observation and analysis of data, what is yet to be known through further study.

Both the literature survey and the original study are considered academic articles, as opposed to popular articles. Both involve research in order to come to a better understanding of a topic.

  • Literature Review Tutorial by American University Library
  • The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It by University of Toronto
  • Write a Literature Review by UC Santa Cruz University Library
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What is a Literature Review?

A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important past and current research and practices. It provides background and context, and shows how your research will contribute to the field. 

A literature review should: 

  • Provide a comprehensive and updated review of the literature;
  • Explain why this review has taken place;
  • Articulate a position or hypothesis;
  • Acknowledge and account for conflicting and corroborating points of view

From  S age Research Methods

Purpose of a Literature Review

A literature review can be written as an introduction to a study to:

  • Demonstrate how a study fills a gap in research
  • Compare a study with other research that's been done

Or it can be a separate work (a research article on its own) which:

  • Organizes or describes a topic
  • Describes variables within a particular issue/problem

Limitations of a Literature Review

Some of the limitations of a literature review are:

  • It's a snapshot in time. Unlike other reviews, this one has beginning, a middle and an end. There may be future developments that could make your work less relevant.
  • It may be too focused. Some niche studies may miss the bigger picture.
  • It can be difficult to be comprehensive. There is no way to make sure all the literature on a topic was considered.
  • It is easy to be biased if you stick to top tier journals. There may be other places where people are publishing exemplary research. Look to open access publications and conferences to reflect a more inclusive collection. Also, make sure to include opposing views (and not just supporting evidence).

Source: 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, June 2009, pp. 91–108. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x.

Meryl Brodsky : Communication and Information Studies

Hannah Chapman Tripp : Biology, Neuroscience

Carolyn Cunningham : Human Development & Family Sciences, Psychology, Sociology

Larayne Dallas : Engineering

Janelle Hedstrom : Special Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Ed Leadership & Policy ​

Susan Macicak : Linguistics

Imelda Vetter : Dell Medical School

For help in other subject areas, please see the guide to library specialists by subject .

Periodically, UT Libraries runs a workshop covering the basics and library support for literature reviews. While we try to offer these once per academic year, we find providing the recording to be helpful to community members who have missed the session. Following is the most recent recording of the workshop, Conducting a Literature Review. To view the recording, a UT login is required.

  • October 26, 2022 recording
  • Last Updated: Oct 26, 2022 2:49 PM
  • URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/literaturereviews

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Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review

Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review A Multimodal and Cultural Approach

  • Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie
  • Rebecca Frels - Lamar University, USA
  • Description

What makes this book unique:

  • Focuses on multimodal texts and settings such as observations, documents, social media, experts in the field and secondary data so that your review covers the full research environment
  • Puts mixed methods at the centre of the process
  • Shows you how to synthesize information thematically, rather than merely summarize the existing literature and findings
  • Brings culture into the process to help you address bias and understand the role of knowledge interpretation, guiding you through
  • Teaches the CORE of the literature review – Critical thinking, Organization, Reflections and Evaluation – and provides a guide for reflexivity at the end of each of the seven steps
  • Visualizes the steps with roadmaps so you can track progress and self-evaluate as you learn the steps

This book is the essential best practices guide for students and researchers, providing the understanding and tools to approach both the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of a rigorous, comprehensive, literature review.

This is by far the most comprehensive text on how to do comprehensive literature reviews!  Onwuegbuzie and Frels skilfully demonstrate that review has a methodology of its own.  Both novice and experienced scholars will benefit from detailed examples and step-by-step demonstrations of ways to maximize the effectiveness of literature reviews to build new theories and develop better explanations of behaviours and outcomes. 

This is the most comprehensive and user-friendly book I’ve seen on how to conduct a literature review. The authors take the distinction of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research seriously, showing how each adds something important and how being open-minded results in the use of literature based on all three approaches. Overall, the book provides a process theory of literature review, that is done before, during, and after each research study.  It is a must read for both PhD students and research faculty.

With noteworthy scope of content, this book  is a must-have resource for beginning and experienced researchers alike. In addition to its effective pedagogical features such as visuals and end of chapter questions, this resource enables researchers to make informed decisions about the purposes of and procedures for undertaking a literature review. In so doing, the authors innovate and advance our understandings of the processes and products involved in a comprehensive literature review and provide practical guidance for each of the steps. I have been seeking such a book and plan to make this required reading for the graduate students I instruct, mentor, and supervise.

Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review is a comprehensive text book written to instruct master’s-level students, doctoral-level students, and new and experienced researchers in the process of writing a comprehensive literature review... Hopefully, this book will become an important text used by instructors as they guide college students into the writing of the literature review.

Sadly this book never arrived despite me being very interested to adopt for my MSc students dissertation stage.

The literature review is one of the toughest parts of any proposal (or postgraduate piece of work) for students to complete successfully because it asks the student to engage with the theory they will be using from the perspective of ideas alone. IT also asks the student to investigate other academics' work in a manner that they haven't really experienced before. All these "firsts" make the literature review a very confusing and oftentimes daunting process. Fortunately, "Seven Steps" provides the specific guidance that so many students need to navigate this difficult process. The systematic way in which the book approaches a topic that can be said to change with each application (e.g. How do you go about it? What to include? What to leave out? and most importantly, Why?) is indispensable for anyone teaching students new to postgraduate work, or for researchers looking for an alternative approach to a process they are otherwise well-acquainted with.

Very accessible book for students who wish to increase their capabilites in working at the front end of their papers.

Comprehensive, well structured book, which will be very useful to students planning a literature review.

this book is more relevant for the MSc students. it will be a good supplement for the student who wants to go a little further

it was actually a little more complex than I was hoping for. the text is dense and it is big book. for my BSc students it is jut a little too much

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The Literature Review

College of Nursing

Leveraging implementation science with using decision support technology to drive meaningful change for nurses and nursing leadership.

View as pdf A later version of this article appeared in  Nurse Leader ,  Volume 21, Issue 6 , December 2023 . 

Abstract Technology, such as clinical decision support, can play a role in supporting nurses’ decision making, but understanding the complexity and current challenges in nurse decision-making is needed to guide the implementation of technology interventions focused on supporting effective decision-making in practice and leadership. The purpose of this article is to discuss decision-making and information needs among nurses across roles and explain how technology and implementation science approaches can complement effective decision-making interventions.

Across settings and nursing roles, effective decision-making is fundamental to excellent nursing and patient care. For example, nurses in patient care roles often spend more time with patients than any other health discipline and frequently need to make decisions about when to inform the health care team with changes in a patient’s condition. Nurses in leadership roles must make a wide range of managerial decisions concerning nurse staffing, human resources, and which clinical technologies to advocate for the support direct care nurses’ decision-making. Factors such as increasing patient acuity, escalating evidence base, and global pandemics have led to increased complexity in nurse decision-making across roles. Technology can play a role in supporting nurses’ decision making, but understanding the complexity and current challenges in nurse decision-making is needed to guide the implementation of technology interventions focused on supporting effective decision-making in practice and leadership. The purpose of this article is to discuss decision-making and information needs among nurses across roles and explain how technology and implementation science approaches can complement effective decision-making interventions.

Decision-making Across Nursing

Decision-making, or executing a choice among options, is an essential process in nursing and numerous theories and models have been developed to describe and study nurse decision-making. 1-3 Approaches to decision-making can be broadly categorized as rational, using logical steps or rule-based thinking to determine the best option, or intuitive, which describes using instinct or subconscious pattern recognition to make a choice. 4  Over time, thinking has transformed from viewing nurse decision-making as primarily a rational process, to a process that is influenced by real-world demands, such as needing to make decisions with limited information, changing conditions, interruptions, and/or time pressure. 5,6 In these situations, experienced nurses rapidly apply insight from previous experiences to make decisions. 7,8  Given the variation in how decisions are made and real-world demands that nurses and leaders are faced with, a one-size-fits-all approach may not be useful when developing and implementing nurse decision-making interventions.

Information is a fundamental component of the decision-making process and is generated from diverse sources. Digital technologies (e.g., clinical decision support, telehealth, monitoring systems, artificial intelligence) can provide important new sources of information and address limitations to existing information sources, such as organizing EHR data to efficiently identify a patient’s risk for clinical deterioration. However, technologies that fail to adequately address information needs, or are difficult to use, will have limited adoption. Understanding the types of information nurses need in direct care and leadership roles, what information is available, and limitations to existing information sources is needed to evaluate interventions to support decision-making.

Technologic Considerations for Supporting Direct Care Nurses’ Information Needs

Nurses need timely, patient-specific clinical information to provide care. The electronic health record (EHR) is the primary source of patient data, however substantial documentation demands have significantly impacted nurse workload and workflows for finding relevant information. Studies estimate that nurses spend 35 to 41% of their time in the EHR documenting and reviewing patient information. 9,10 While nurses generate large amounts of data in the EHR, documenting an average of 631-875 flowsheet data points and spending an average of 21 minutes documenting notes per shift, there are significant challenges with organizing and synthesizing patient data. 11,12

An integrative review of EHR’s impact on nurses’ cognitive work identified the following limitations to meeting nurse information needs in the EHR: developing an overview of the patient’s history, current status, and plan; synthesizing information using EHR-generated reports to support information needs during a shift and at handoff; and achieving shared understanding of patient goals and care coordination. 13 Similar needs were found by Keenan et al. over a decade ago including the need for a centralized overview of patients accessible to all members of the healthcare team and effective technology to support nurse to nurse change of shift handoffs. 14   Given these challenges, work in two key areas – reducing documentation burden in the EHR and incorporating nurse information needs into EHR redesign are critical to support direct care nurse work.

Another critical area is related to nurses’ expectation to incorporate research into decision-making. This is commonly referred to as evidence-based practice: applying the best available evidence along with patient preferences in making clinical decisions and is a foundation of high-quality nursing care. 15 However, there is a persistent gap of 15 to 17 years between current best evidence and daily practice. 16,17   Studies of information needs and information use for evidence-based practice offer additional perspectives for understanding barriers to routinely using evidence in practice. Findings over the past 15 years indicate that nurses routinely seek out information from colleagues since they share clinical context and are accessible. 18,19  However, information shared by colleagues may be outdated or inaccurate when technology-based tools, such as clinical decision support, can provide nurses with up to date accurate information during a time that integrates well with nurses decision making workflow.

Technologic Considerations for Supporting Nurse Leaders’ Information Needs          

Nurse leaders across roles and settings must integrate patient and organizational data to optimize patient outcomes. Information needs vary by timing of decision. Nurse managers describe short-term information needs about patients related to throughput and staffing needs and long-term information needs focused on meeting organizational priorities, such as quality improvement initiatives and nurse retention. 20, 21 Whereas short-term information was commonly reported to come from the EHR and situational awareness, or understanding of the local environment, long-term information needs require leaders to search for information across sources. A recent review of nursing management information systems found that nursing leaders use information systems to manage human resources, determine nursing workload (nurse to patient ratio) and control costs. 22  These systems are largely based on two sources of data: patient classification measures and hospital resource measurement. The authors did not find a central database or decision support tool to support the work of nurse leaders, suggesting a critical need for new technology to address this gap.

In addition to their own information needs, nurse managers play a critical role in advocating for the information needs of the direct care nurses. For example, in the United States there are an increasing number of mandates and digital technologies related to care quality issues such as central line infection and hospital acquired pressure ulcer prevention. Nurse leaders must appraise digital technologies to determine whether the technology supports the direct care nurses’ information needs, ensure that it is easy to use and does not add to nursing workload as well as providing a return on investment.

A Role for Clinical Decision Support 

One technology-based intervention to assist nurses in complex in decision-making processes is clinical decision support (CDS) systems. CDS systems are computer-based tools to organize person-specific data and knowledge for clinicians and patients to improve the quality and safety of health care. 23 CDS is delivered in a variety of formats, such as through order sets, documentation templates, computerized alerts, dashboards, and visualizations, which may be integrated in electronic health record (EHR) systems or exist as applications or technologies outside the EHR. In general, CDS is composed of three key parts. 24

  • Data management: clinical data and decision rules or logic. Decision rules or logic may be developed using literature and current practice (knowledge-based) or artificial intelligence (non-knowledge-based).  
  • Processing: applies the knowledge or algorithms with patient data
  • User interface: the part of the system that communicates a recommendation and is the point the user interacts with (e.g., computer display, mouse).

Guiding principles for developing effective CDS are known as the CDS Five Rights, and state that CDS should communicate the right information, to the right person, in the right format, through the correct channel at the right time in the workflow. 25 These principles provide a valuable framework for nurse leaders to consider in evaluating potential CDS tools.

CDS tools support information management, which is an increasing need in healthcare given the large volumes of clinical, administrative and research data that is generated. Therefore, tools which filter relevant patient data and apply logic to determine a recommendation are needed. However, fewer CDS tools have been developed for nurses than have been for physicians and other members of the health care team. 26

Current Challenges and Opportunities in Nursing Clinical Support

Recognizing the opportunities for CDS to supporting decision-making must be balanced with the reality that gaps in developing and using CDS exist in nursing. A recent review of CDS tools across multiple disciplines found that only two-thirds of clinicians’ report using available CDS. 27 While understanding of CDS usage specifically among nurses is limited, several nurse, patient, organization, and technology factors have been identified to influence nurses’ use of CDS. 28 Given these challenges, the role of implementation science is emerging as an important approach to inform future CDS design and use. 29

Implementation Science

Implementation science centers on how evidence-based practices are adopted and sustained across specific settings. 30 Whereas evidence-based practice describes what recommendation should be used, implementation science focuses on how to best help people consistently do a particular recommendation in their work environment. 31 Implementation science frameworks provide guidance for understanding key components of implementation, such as describing the implementation process, identifying barriers and facilitators to implementation, or conducting an implementation evaluation. 32 Implementation strategies and context important concepts across most implementation science frameworks. Implementation strategies describe the specific interventions chosen to facilitate change. For example, the Iowa Implementation Model for Sustainability Framework provides an organized approach for selecting an implementation strategy based upon phases of implementation. 33 For example, after nurses have obtained knowledge about a practice change, audit and feedback may be one implementation strategy to promote adoption. Related, is the concept of context, or the unique local factors (e.g., unit culture, work environment, resources) that influence how or why implementation is achieved. 34 In partnership with implementation scientists, nurse leaders can identify unique barriers and facilitators to implementation in the local environment and then match the needs to implementation strategies.

Leveraging User-Centered Design

View Figure 1 as pdf

please see pdf

Considering the unique needs of users, or user-centered design, is a concept central to implementation science and CDS design (Figure 1). The goal of user-centered design is to make interventions “useable and useful” by focusing on user needs throughout the design and development process. 35 Implementation science and user-centered design use a variety approaches to obtain end-user input, which may include, workflow mapping, participatory design, rapid prototyping, and usability testing. 36, 37 However, methods to engage nurses early in CDS design and implementation are inconsistently applied.

Nurse leaders are in a key position to advocate for greater involvement of nurses, early and throughout the process of developing and implementing CDS. This may include developing processes for nurses to provide feedback about information needs in their settings, workflow considerations, and opportunities to test and refine CDS prototypes. Greater involvement of nursing informatics within organizations and including opportunities for nurses to receive training in implementation science and user-centered design are additional strategies to support integration of these concepts in CDS design and use. 38-40  An organizational culture that supports nurse information needs by considering both the types of CDS that nurses need and how CDS will be used in daily practice is critical, especially as new technologies are developed and CDS becomes more complex.

Nurses and nurse leaders need to make numerous decisions in highly complex work environments. CDS has an expanding potential to augment decision-making across roles by providing nurses with meaningful, person-specific information in a usable format to positively impact care and outcomes. Nurses that will be the eventual user of the CDS need to be involved early and throughout CDS development to ensure that CDS tools are usable, useful, align with workflow as a part of routine work. Implementation scientists, who understand the local context, are needed to design and test strategies for using CDS, both in specific settings and diffusing CDS use across settings. Approaches which consider both how CDS is designed for nurse users and how CDS is used and implemented across health systems is needed to support effective decision-making for driving change in nursing practice and leadership settings.

  • Lauri S, Salanterä S. Decision-making models in different fields of nursing. Res Nurs Health . Oct 1998;21(5):443-52. doi:10.1002/(sici)1098-240x(199810)21:5<443::aid-nur7>3.0.co;2-n
  • Tanner CA. Thinking like a nurse: a research-based model of clinical judgment in nursing. J Nurs Educ . Jun 2006;45(6):204-11.
  • Johansen ML, O'Brien JL. Decision making in nursing practice: a concept analysis. Nurs Forum . Jan-Mar 2016;51(1):40-8. doi:10.1111/nuf.12119
  • Hamm RM. Clinical intuition and clinical analysis: expertise and cognitive continuum. In: Dowie JE, A, ed. Professional judgment : a reader in clinical decision making . Cambridge University Press; 1988:78-105.
  • Nibbelink CW, Brewer BB. Decision-making in nursing practice: An integrative literature review. J Clin Nurs . Mar 2018;27(5-6):917-928. doi:10.1111/jocn.14151
  • Thompson C, Dalgleish L, Bucknall T, et al. The effects of time pressure and experience on nurses' risk assessment decisions: a signal detection analysis. Nurs Res . Sep-Oct 2008;57(5):302-11. doi:10.1097/01.NNR.0000313504.37970.f9
  • Benner P, Tanner C. How expert nurses use intuition. AJN. 1987;87(1):23-34.
  • Melin-Johansson C, Palmqvist R, Rönnberg L. Clinical intuition in the nursing process and decision-making-A mixed-studies review. J Clin Nurs . Dec 2017;26(23-24):3936-3949. doi:10.1111/jocn.13814
  • Schenk E, Schleyer R, Jones CR, Fincham S, Daratha KB, Monsen KA. Time motion analysis of nursing work in ICU, telemetry and medical-surgical units. J Nurs Manag . Nov 2017;25(8):640-646. doi:10.1111/jonm.12502
  • Yen PY, Kellye M, Lopetegui M, et al. Nurses' time allocation and multitasking of nursing activities: a time motion study. AMIA Annu Symp Proc . 2018;2018:1137-1146.
  • Hripcsak G, Vawdrey DK, Fred MR, Bostwick SB. Use of electronic clinical documentation: time spent and team interactions. JAMIA . Mar-Apr 2011;18(2):112-7. doi:10.1136/jamia.2010.008441
  • Collins S, Couture B, Kang MJ, et al. Quantifying and visualizing nursing flowsheet documentation burden in acute and critical care. AMIA Annu Symp Proc . 2018;2018:348-357.
  • Wisner K, Lyndon A, Chesla CA. The electronic health record’s impact on nurses’ cognitive work: An integrative review. Int J Nurs Stud . 2019/06/01/ 2019;94:74-84. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.03.003
  • Keenan G, Yakel E, Dunn Lopez K, Tschannen D, Ford YB. Challenges to nurses' efforts of retrieving, documenting, and communicating patient care information. JAMIA . Mar-Apr 2013;20(2):245-51. doi:10.1136/amiajnl-2012-000894
  • Melnyk BM, Fineout-Overholt E. Evidence-based practice in nursing & healthcare: A guide to best practice . Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2022.
  • Balas EA, Boren SA. Managing clinical knowledge for health care improvement. Yearb Med Inform . 2000;9(01):65-70.
  • Khan S, Chambers D, Neta G. Revisiting time to translation: implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in cancer control. Cancer Causes Control . 2021/03/01 2021;32(3):221-230. doi:10.1007/s10552-020-01376-z
  • Clarke MA, Belden JL, Koopman RJ, et al. Information needs and information-seeking behaviour analysis of primary care physicians and nurses: a literature review. Health Info Libr J . Sep 2013;30(3):178-90. doi:10.1111/hir.12036
  • Fossum M, Opsal A, Ehrenberg A. Nurses' sources of information to inform clinical practice: An integrative review to guide evidence-based practice. Worldviews Evid Based Nurs . Oct 2022;19(5):372-379. doi:10.1111/wvn.12569
  • Peltonen LM, Siirala E, Junttila K, et al. Information needs in day-to-day operations management in hospital units: A cross-sectional national survey. J Nurs Manag . Mar 2019;27(2):233-244. doi:10.1111/jonm.12700
  • Siirala E, Salanterä S, Lundgrén-Laine H, Peltonen LM, Engblom J, Junttila K. Identifying nurse managers' essential information needs in daily unit operation in perioperative settings. Nurs Open . May 2020;7(3):793-803. doi:10.1002/nop2.454
  • Fathian A, Emami H, Moghaddasi H, Kazemi A, Rabiei R. Features of nursing management information systems: A systematic review. Biomed J . 2019;21(2):15773-15781.
  • Teich JM, Osheroff JA, Pifer EA, Sittig DF, Jenders RA, Panel TCER. Clinical decision support in electronic prescribing: recommendations and an action plan: report of the joint clinical decision support workgroup. JAMIA . 2005;12(4):365-376. doi:10.1197/jamia.M1822
  • Sutton RT, Pincock D, Baumgart DC, Sadowski DC, Fedorak RN, Kroeker KI. An overview of clinical decision support systems: benefits, risks, and strategies for success. NPJ Digit Med . 2020;3:17. doi:10.1038/s41746-020-0221-y
  • Osheroff JA. Improving medication use and outcomes with clinical decision support:: a step by step guide. HIMSS; 2009.
  • Dunn Lopez K, Gephart SM, Raszewski R, Sousa V, Shehorn LE, Abraham J. Integrative review of clinical decision support for registered nurses in acute care settings. JAMIA . Mar 1 2017;24(2):441-450. doi:10.1093/jamia/ocw084
  • Kouri A, Yamada J, Lam Shin Cheung J, Van de Velde S, Gupta S. Do providers use computerized clinical decision support systems? A systematic review and meta-regression of clinical decision support uptake. Implement Sci . Mar 10 2022;17(1):21. doi:10.1186/s13012-022-01199-3
  • Piscotty R, Kalisch B. Nurses' use of clinical decision support: a literature review. Comput Inform Nurs . Dec 2014;32(12):562-8. doi:10.1097/cin.0000000000000110
  • Trinkley KE, Kroehl ME, Kahn MG, et al. Applying clinical decision support design best practices with the practical robust implementation and sustainability model versus reliance on commercially available clinical decision support tools: randomized controlled trial. JMIR Med Inform . Mar 22 2021;9(3):e24359. doi:10.2196/24359
  • Brownson RC, Colditz GA, Proctor EK. Dissemination and implementation research in health: translating science to practice . Oxford University Press; 2018.
  • Curran GM. Implementation science made too simple: a teaching tool. Implement Sci Commun . 2020;1:27. doi:10.1186/s43058-020-00001-z
  • Nilsen P. Making sense of implementation theories, models and frameworks. Implement Sci.  Apr 21 2015;10:53. doi:10.1186/s13012-015-0242-0
  • Cullen L, Hanrahan K, Edmonds SW, Reisinger HS, Wagner M. Iowa implementation for sustainability framework. Implement Sci . Jan 4 2022;17(1):1. doi:10.1186/s13012-021-01157-5
  • Nilsen P, Bernhardsson S. Context matters in implementation science: a scoping review of determinant frameworks that describe contextual determinants for implementation outcomes. BMC Health Serv Res . Mar 25 2019;19(1):189. doi:10.1186/s12913-019-4015-3
  • Vaisson G, Provencher T, Dugas M, et al. User involvement in the design and development of patient decision aids and other personal health tools: a systematic review. Med Decis Making . Apr 2021;41(3):261-274. doi:10.1177/0272989x20984134
  • Nielsen J. The usability engineering lifecycle. In: Nielsen J, ed. Usability Engineering . Academic Press; 1993:88-90.
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  • Chipps E, Tucker S, Labardee R, et al. The Impact of the Electronic health record on moving new evidence-based nursing practices forward. Worldviews Evid Based Nurs . Apr 2020;17(2):136-143. doi:10.1111/wvn.12435
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  • Risling TL, Risling DE. Advancing nursing participation in user-centred design. J Res Nurs . May 2020;25(3):226-238. doi:10.1177/1744987120913590

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  • v.96(3); 2003 Mar

Five steps to conducting a systematic review

Regina kunz.

1 German Cochrane Centre, Freiburg and Department of Nephrology, Charité, Berlin, Germany

Jos Kleijnen

2 Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, York, UK

3 German Cochrane Centre, Freiburg, Germany

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are a key element of evidence-based healthcare, yet they remain in some ways mysterious. Why did the authors select certain studies and reject others? What did they do to pool results? How did a bunch of insignificant findings suddenly become significant? This paper, along with a book 1 that goes into more detail, demystifies these and other related intrigues.

A review earns the adjective systematic if it is based on a clearly formulated question, identifies relevant studies, appraises their quality and summarizes the evidence by use of explicit methodology. It is the explicit and systematic approach that distinguishes systematic reviews from traditional reviews and commentaries. Whenever we use the term review in this paper it will mean a systematic review . Reviews should never be done in any other way.

In this paper we provide a step-by-step explanation—there are just five steps—of the methods behind reviewing, and the quality elements inherent in each step (Box 1). For purposes of illustration we use a published review concerning the safety of public water fluoridation, but we must emphasize that our subject is review methodology, not fluoridation.

EXAMPLE: SAFETY OF PUBLIC WATER FLUORIDATION

You are a public health professional in a locality that has public water fluoridation. For many years, your colleagues and you have believed that it improves dental health. Recently there has been pressure from various interest groups to consider the safety of this public health intervention because they fear that it is causing cancer. Public health decisions have been based on professional judgment and practical feasibility without explicit consideration of the scientific evidence. (This was yesterday; today the evidence is available in a York review 2 , 3 , identifiable on MEDLINE through the freely accessible PubMed clinical queries interface [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nib.gov/entrez/query/static/clinical.html ], under ‘systematic reviews’.)

STEP 1: FRAMING THE QUESTION

The research question may initially be stated as a query in free form but reviewers prefer to pose it in a structured and explicit way. The relations between various components of the question and the structure of the research design are shown in Figure 1 . This paper focuses only on the question of safety related to the outcomes described below.

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Structured questions for systematic reviews and relations between question components in a comparative study

Box 1 The steps in a systematic review

The problems to be addressed by the review should be specified in the form of clear, unambiguous and structured questions before beginning the review work. Once the review questions have been set, modifications to the protocol should be allowed only if alternative ways of defining the populations, interventions, outcomes or study designs become apparent

The search for studies should be extensive. Multiple resources (both computerized and printed) should be searched without language restrictions. The study selection criteria should flow directly from the review questions and be specified a priori . Reasons for inclusion and exclusion should be recorded

Study quality assessment is relevant to every step of a review. Question formulation (Step 1) and study selection criteria (Step 2) should describe the minimum acceptable level of design. Selected studies should be subjected to a more refined quality assessment by use of general critical appraisal guides and design-based quality checklists (Step 3). These detailed quality assessments will be used for exploring heterogeneity and informing decisions regarding suitability of meta-analysis (Step 4). In addition they help in assessing the strength of inferences and making recommendations for future research (Step 5)

Data synthesis consists of tabulation of study characteristics, quality and effects as well as use of statistical methods for exploring differences between studies and combining their effects (meta-analysis). Exploration of heterogeneity and its sources should be planned in advance (Step 3). If an overall meta-analysis cannot be done, subgroup meta-analysis may be feasible

The issues highlighted in each of the four steps above should be met. The risk of publication bias and related biases should be explored. Exploration for heterogeneity should help determine whether the overall summary can be trusted, and, if not, the effects observed in high-quality studies should be used for generating inferences. Any recommendations should be graded by reference to the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence

Free-form question

Is it safe to provide population-wide drinking water fluoridation to prevent caries?

Structured question

  • The populations —Populations receiving drinking water sourced through a public water supply
  • The interventions or exposures —Fluoridation of drinking water (natural or artificial) compared with non-fluoridated water
  • The outcomes —Cancer is the main outcome of interest for the debate in your health authority
  • The study designs —Comparative studies of any design examining the harmful outcomes in at least two population groups, one with fluoridated drinking water and the other without. Harmful outcomes can be rare and they may develop over a long time. There are considerable difficulties in designing and conducting safety studies to capture these outcomes, since a large number of people need to be observed over a long period. These circumstances demand observational, not randomized studies. With this background, systematic reviews on safety have to include evidence from studies with a range of designs.

STEP 2: IDENTIFYING RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS

To capture as many relevant citations as possible, a wide range of medical, environmental and scientific databases were searched to identify primary studies of the effects of water fluoridation. The electronic searches were supplemented by hand searching of Index Medicus and Excerpta Medica back to 1945. Furthermore, various internet engines were searched for web pages that might provide references. This effort resulted in 3246 citations from which relevant studies were selected for the review. Their potential relevance was examined, and 2511 citations were excluded as irrelevant. The full papers of the remaining 735 citations were assessed to select those primary studies in man that directly related to fluoride in drinking water supplies, comparing at least two groups. These criteria excluded 481 studies and left 254 in the review. They came from thirty countries, published in fourteen languages between 1939 and 2000. Of these studies 175 were relevant to the question of safety, of which 26 used cancer as an outcome.

STEP 3: ASSESSING STUDY QUALITY

Design threshold for study selection.

Adequate study design as a marker of quality, is listed as an inclusion criterion in Box 1. This approach is most applicable when the main source of evidence is randomized studies. However, randomized studies are almost impossible to conduct at community level for a public health intervention such as water fluoridation. Thus, systematic reviews assessing the safety of such interventions have to include evidence from a broader range of study designs. Consideration of the type and amount of research likely to be available led to inclusion of comparative studies of any design. In this way, selected studies provided information about the harmful effects of exposure to fluoridated water compared with non-exposure.

Quality assessment of safety studies

After studies of an acceptable design have been selected, their in-depth assessment for the risk of various biases allows us to gauge the quality of the evidence in a more refined way. Biases either exaggerate or underestimate the ‘true’ effect of an exposure. The objective of the included studies was to compare groups exposed to fluoridated drinking water and those without such exposure for rates of undesirable outcomes, without bias. Safety studies should ascertain exposures and outcomes in such a way that the risk of misclassification is minimized. The exposure is likely to be more accurately ascertained if the study was prospective rather than retrospective and if it was started soon after water fluoridation rather than later. The outcomes of those developing cancer (and remaining free of cancer) are likely to be more accurately ascertained if the follow-up was long and if the assessment was blind to exposure status.

When examining how the effect of exposure on outcome was established, reviewers assessed whether the comparison groups were similar in all respects other than their exposure to fluoridated water. This is because the other differences may be related to the outcomes of interest independent of the drinking-water fluoridation, and this would bias the comparison. For example, if the people exposed to fluoridated water had other risk factors that made them more prone to have cancer, the apparent association between exposure and outcome might be explained by the more frequent occurrence of these factors among the exposed group. The technical word for such defects is confounding. In a randomized study, confounding factors are expected to be roughly equally distributed between groups. In observational studies their distribution may be unequal. Primary researchers can statistically adjust for these differences, when estimating the effect of exposure on outcomes, by use of multivariable modelling.

Put simply, use of a prospective design, robust ascertainment of exposure and outcomes, and control for confounding are the generic issues one would look for in quality assessment of studies on safety. Consequently, studies may range from satisfactorily meeting quality criteria, to having some deficiencies, to not meeting the criteria at all, and they can be assigned to one of three prespecified quality categories as shown in Table 1 . A quality hierarchy can then be developed, based on the degree to which studies comply with the criteria. None of the studies on cancer were in the high-quality category, but this was because randomized studies were non-existent and control for confounding was not always ideal in the observational studies. There were 8 studies of moderate quality and 18 of low quality.

Description of quality assessment of studies on safety of public water fluoridation

STEP 4: SUMMARIZING THE EVIDENCE

To summarize the evidence from studies of variable design and quality is not easy. The original review 3 provides details of how the differences between study results were investigated and how they were summarized (with or without meta-analysis). This paper restricts itself to summarizing the findings narratively. The association between exposure to fluoridated water and cancer in general was examined in 26 studies. Of these, 10 examined all-cause cancer incidence or mortality, in 22 analyses. Of these, 11 analyses found a negative association (fewer cancers due to exposure), 9 found a positive one and 2 found no association. Only 2 studies reported statistically significant differences. Thus no clear association between water fluoridation and increased cancer incidence or mortality was apparent. Bone/joint and thyroid cancers were of particular concern because of fluoride uptake by these organs. Neither the 6 studies of osteosarcoma nor the 2 studies of thyroid cancer and water fluoridation revealed significant differences. Overall no association was detected between water fluoridation and mortality from any cancer. These findings were also borne out in the moderate-quality subgroup of studies.

STEP 5: INTERPRETING THE FINDINGS

In the fluoridation example, the focus was on the safety of a community-based public health intervention. The generally low quality of available studies means that the results must be interpreted with caution. However, the elaborate efforts in searching an unusually large number of databases provide some safeguard against missing relevant studies. Thus the evidence summarized in this review is likely to be as good as it will get in the foreseeable future. Cancer was the harmful outcome of most interest in this instance. No association was found between exposure to fluoridated water and specific cancers or all cancers. The interpretation of the results may be generally limited because of the low quality of studies, but the findings for the cancer outcomes are supported by the moderate-quality studies.

After having spent some time reading and understanding the review, you are impressed by the sheer amount of published work relevant to the question of safety. However, you are somewhat disappointed by the poor quality of the primary studies. Of course, examination of safety only makes sense in a context where the intervention has some beneficial effect. Benefit and harm have to be compared to provide the basis for decision making. On the issue of the beneficial effect of public water fluoridation, the review 3 reassures you that the health authority was correct in judging that fluoridation of drinking water prevents caries. From the review you also discovered that dental fluorosis (mottled teeth) was related to concentration of fluoride. When the interest groups raise the issue of safety again, you will be able to declare that there is no evidence to link cancer with drinking-water fluoridation; however, you will have to come clean about the risk of dental fluorosis, which appears to be dose dependent, and you may want to measure the fluoride concentration in the water supply and share this information with the interest groups.

The ability to quantify the safety concerns of your population through a review, albeit from studies of moderate to low quality, allows your health authority, the politicians and the public to consider the balance between beneficial and harmful effects of water fluoridation. Those who see the prevention of caries as of primary importance will favour fluoridation. Others, worried about the disfigurement of mottled teeth, may prefer other means of fluoride administration or even occasional treatment for dental caries. Whatever the opinions on this matter, you are able to reassure all parties that there is no evidence that fluoridation of drinking water increases the risk of cancer.

With increasing focus on generating guidance and recommendations for practice through systematic reviews, healthcare professionals need to understand the principles of preparing such reviews. Here we have provided a brief step-by-step explanation of the principles. Our book 1 describes them in detail.

IMAGES

  1. steps for conducting a literature review

    describe the 7 steps in conducting a literature review

  2. Start

    describe the 7 steps in conducting a literature review

  3. How To Write A Literature Review

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  4. Steps of Literature Review stock image. Image of search

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  5. steps for writing a good literature review

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  6. General steps of conducting a review

    describe the 7 steps in conducting a literature review

VIDEO

  1. Effective Review of Literature

  2. Lecture 14: Meta Analysis

  3. Conducting Literature Review for Project

  4. RES 11 Methods of literature Review/ mistakes to avoid in literature review

  5. 4.56 Common punctuation problems

  6. Write Your Literature Review FAST

COMMENTS

  1. Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

    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.

  2. Steps in the Literature Review Process

    Compile your bibliography Note: The first four steps are the best points at which to contact a librarian. Your librarian can help you determine the best databases to use for your topic, assess scope, and formulate a search strategy. Videos Tutorials about Literature Reviews Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students

  3. How to Write a Literature Review

    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

  4. Writing a Literature Review

    Powered by 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.

  5. Seven Steps to Writing a Literature Review

    1. Narrow your topic and select papers accordingly Consider your specific area of study. Think about what interests you and what interests other researchers in your field. Talk to your professor, brainstorm, and read lecture notes and recent issues of periodicals in the field.

  6. Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

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  7. Steps for Conducting a Lit Review

    Steps for Conducting a Lit Review - Literature Review: Conducting & Writing - LibGuides at University of West Florida Libraries Literature Review: Conducting & Writing 1. Choose a topic. Define your research question. Your literature review should be guided by a central research question.

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    This guide is organized around the 7 steps in the graphic to the left to help you understand the process of writing a literature review. This guide will help you to. Define a literature review; Recognize that different fields of study have their own way to perform and write literature reviews; Prepare to search the literature

  11. Steps for Conducting a Lit Review

    1. Choose a topic. Define your research question. Your literature review should be guided by a central research question. Remember, it is not a collection of loosely related studies in a field but instead represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

  12. 7 easy steps to do a literature review

    1. Define your research scope Establish the research area, topics and questions you want to address. Make a list of keywords (including synonyms) and main concepts linked to your research topic, and establish the connections between these concepts and your research question with a concept map.

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    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 ...

  18. Home

    The literature review is an integral part of any research project and is undertaken as a means of surveying what research has been conducted previously on a particular topic. There are many reasons for conducting a literature review, but one of the primary reasons is to establish a base line of what is already known on a topic before exploring ...

  19. Reviewing literature for research: Doing it the right way

    Literature search. Fink has defined research literature review as a "systematic, explicit and reproducible method for identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing the existing body of completed and recorded work produced by researchers, scholars and practitioners."[]Review of research literature can be summarized into a seven step process: (i) Selecting research questions/purpose of the ...

  20. What is a literature review?

    A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important ...

  21. Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

    Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications .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 .Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every ...

  22. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review

    Teaches the CORE of the literature review - Critical thinking, Organization, Reflections and Evaluation - and provides a guide for reflexivity at the end of each of the seven steps. Visualizes the steps with roadmaps so you can track progress and self-evaluate as you learn the steps. This book is the essential best practices guide for ...

  23. How to Write a Literature Review: 5 Steps for Clear and Meaningful

    1. Search for relevant information and findings. In research, information published on a given subject is called "literature" or "background literature." Assuming you already have a clearly-defined topic, the first step you need to take is searching for the relevant literature.

  24. Leveraging implementation science with using decision support

    Decision-making, or executing a choice among options, is an essential process in nursing and numerous theories and models have been developed to describe and study nurse decision-making. 1-3 Approaches to decision-making can be broadly categorized as rational, using logical steps or rule-based thinking to determine the best option, or intuitive ...

  25. Five steps to conducting a systematic review

    Reasons for inclusion and exclusion should be recorded. Step 3: Assessing the quality of studies. Study quality assessment is relevant to every step of a review. Question formulation (Step 1) and study selection criteria (Step 2) should describe the minimum acceptable level of design.