good literature review matrix

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Writing Resources

The matrix method for literature reviews.

This handout is available for download in DOCX format and PDF format .

What is the Matrix Method, and why should I use it?

Using a review matrix enables you to quickly compare and contrast articles in order to determine the scope of research across time. A review matrix can help you more easily spot differences and similarities between journal articles about a research topic. While they may be helpful in any discipline, review matrices are especially helpful for health sciences literature reviews covering the complete scope of a research topic over time. This guide focuses on the review matrix step in the literature review process and offers tips on how to use it effectively.

Organize your sources

Once you complete your research, organize your source by date in order to make it easier to see changes in research over time.

Begin by creating the blank matrix. The matrices can be easily constructed using table-making software such as Microsoft Excel, Word or OneNote, Google Sheets, or Numbers. Every review matrix should have the same first three column headings: (1) authors, title, and journal, (2) publication year, and (3) purpose.

Be aware that it may be difficult to determine purpose from just a cursory review of the article. In some cases, it may be necessary to first read the paper fully to identify its purpose.

Choose your remaining column topics

Next, carefully read all your articles. Note any important issues you identify. The following broad categories provide some suggestions for determining your own subject headings:

Methodological

Methodology is often an important question. For example, if you are looking at tests of an Ebola vaccine beyond human subjects, it will be important to note what type of animal the test was carried out on, i.e. macaques or mice.

Content-specific

Consider noting what was actually studied. For example, when looking at the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of illnesses, it would be important to note what illness was being studied.

Geographical

It may be important to note where the research was completed. For example, if you want to compare the effects of the AIDS epidemic in different countries, you would use country as a column heading.

There are many ways to choose your column headings, and these are just a few suggestions. As you create your own matrix, choose column headings that support your research question and goals.

• Do not include column headings that are explicit in your research question. For example, if you are looking at drug use in adolescents, do not include a column heading for age of study participants. If the answer will be the same for every study, it's generally a bad choice for a column heading.
• Do not try to fully complete a review matrix before reading the articles. Reading the articles is an important way to discern the nuances between studies.

Credit: Adapted from David Nolfi, “Matrix Method for Literature Review: The Review Matrix,” Duquesne University, https://guides.library.duq.edu/matrix , 2020.

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Get Organized

• Lit Review Prep Use this template to help you evaluate your sources, create article summaries for an annotated bibliography, and a synthesis matrix for your lit review outline.

Synthesize your Information

Synthesize: combine separate elements to form a whole.

Synthesis Matrix

A synthesis matrix helps you record the main points of each source and document how sources relate to each other.

After summarizing and evaluating your sources, arrange them in a matrix or use a citation manager to help you see how they relate to each other and apply to each of your themes or variables.  

By arranging your sources by theme or variable, you can see how your sources relate to each other, and can start thinking about how you weave them together to create a narrative.

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What is a literature matrix?

As defined by Judith Garrard in her handbook entitled  Health Sciences Literature Reviews Made Easy: The Matrix Method , a “Review of the literature consists of reading, analyzing, and writing a synthesis of scholarly materials about a specific topic. When reviewing scientific literature, the focus is on the hypotheses, the scientific methods, the strengths and weaknesses of the study, the results, and the authors’ interpretations and conclusions.” When reading materials for a literature review, you should critically evaluate the study’s major aims and results. 

The purpose of completing a literature matrix is to help you identify important aspects of the study. Literature matrixes contain a variety of headings, but frequent headings include: author surname and date, theoretical/ conceptual framework, research question(s)/ hypothesis, methodology, analysis & results, conclusions, implications for future research, and implications for practice. You can add additional columns as needed, and you might consider adding a “notes column” to proactively have important quotations and your thoughts already collected.  As you read journal articles, have your literature matrix ready. It is best to fill in the matrix directly after reading a work, rather than returning to the matrix later.  

Literature Matrix Files

You should use a literature matrix that best helps you to organize your reading and research. Excel workbooks can help to organize your research. Sample basic and complex literature matrixes are provided below: 

• Literature Matrix Basic BLANK
• Literature Matrix Basic SAMPLE
• Literature Matrix Complex BLANK

Synthesize vs. Summarize

When writing your literature review, you will not simply summarize the materials that you found related to your topic. A summary is a recap of the information provided in research articles. Summaries provide basic information about the study, but the details provided in a summary are not enumerative or systematic. 

Synthesizing goes beyond summarizing to explore specific aspects of the research study. When synthesizing the literature, rely on your completed literature matrix to inform your writing. Do you see any tends across publications? Was one type of methodology used repeatedly, why or why not? Did separate teams of researchers come to the same conclusion, differing conclusions, or is the literature inconclusive? Synthesizing requires that you look at the current state of the research overall. 

When preparing to write a synthesis, you will read the literature available, tease apart individual findings and supporting evidence across different articles, and then reorganize this information in a way that presents your understanding of the current state of research in this field.  

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Module 4: Strategic Reading

Organize your Readings with a Literature Review Matrix

The next step after reading and evaluating your sources is to organize them in a way that will help you start the writing process.

Review Matrix

One way to organize your literature is with a review matrix. The review matrix is a chart that sorts and categorizes the different arguments presented per topic or issue. Using a matrix enables you to quickly compare and contrast your sources in order to determine the scope of research across time. This will allow you  to spot similarities and differences between sources. It is particularly useful in the synthesis and analysis stages of a review (See Module 1 Conducting a Literature Review with the SALSA Framework ).

Example of a Review Matrix

My research question:

How can we use machine learning to analyze social media data related to HIV?

Writing a Literature Review Modified from The WI+RE Team,  UCLA. Creative Commons CC-BY-NA-SA

Create a Review Matrix

Start with a charting tool you are most familiar with (for example MS Word, MS Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers etc).

• Organize your sources from oldest to most recent. This way you can see how the research on your topic has changed over time.
• First Column: citation (i.e., author, title, source, publication year)
• Second Column: purpose or summary (1-2 sentences)
• methodology
• intervention

Key Takeaways

Here are some examples of different review matrices and templates:

• Evidence Synthesis Matrix Template, Jane Schmidt, Toronto Metropolitan University (Google Sheets)
• The Matrix Method for Literature Reviews, Brandeis University, Writing Resources.
• Literature Review Synthesis Matrix , Concordia University (MS Word)
• Write a Literature Review: Synthesize . Johns Hopkins University, Sheridan Libraries

Advanced Research Skills: Conducting Literature and Systematic Reviews (2nd Edition) Copyright © 2021 by Kelly Dermody; Cecile Farnum; Daniel Jakubek; Jo-Anne Petropoulos; Jane Schmidt; and Reece Steinberg is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Introduction

• Writing a Lit Review
• Tools to help you Organize your Lit Review
• Other Reference Management Tools
• Transitioning From RefWorks to Zotero

A Literature Review Matrix and a Literature Synthesis Matrix will help you organize the articles, etc. you've found along the way and will help you prepare to write your literature review.

Writing a Literature Review

Unless you have a reason to present the literature chronologically (to show development over time, perhaps), the preferred method for organizing your literature is thematically. 

Step 1 : Identify your themes.

Step 2 : Identify the articles that address those themes

Step 3 : Identify the similarities and differences among the articles within the themes

A Literature Synthesis Matrix will be especially helpful in this process.

Click on the title to go to the e-book.

Tools to Help you Organize your Literature Review

Literature Review Matrix

This type of matrix will help you see the content of all of your articles at a glance. Each row represents an article, and each column and element of the articles. Typical columns can include things like 

• Research method
• Sample size
• Theoretical framework

However, the exact columns you chose depend on the elements of each study you want to discuss in your paper. You get to decide!

Here are couple of examples to give you a better idea.

• An evolutionary concept analysis of helicopter parenting. (Lee et al., 2014)
• The use of video conferencing for persons with chronic conditions: A systematic review. (Mallow et al. 2016)

Literature Synthesis Matrix

In essence a synthesis matrix is a way to organize your literature by theme, which is generally the way writers organize their whole literature reviews. The real benefit is that it helps you identify the articles that talk about the same themes so that you can write about them together in your literature review.

North Carolina State  has a very nice description and example of the process. 

This YouTube video also explains the process.

Here is a  template  you can use (this one is in Word instead of PPT).

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Nursing Literature Reviews

What is a Literature (Lit) Review? 

A Literature Review is Not: 

• a quick summary of sources
• a grouping of broad, unrelated sources
• a compilation of everything that has ever been written on a topic
• a literature criticism or book review

So, what is it then?

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

Adapted from:  https://libguides.uwf.edu/c.php?g=215270&p=4439026  by Hillary Fox, University of West Florida,  hfox @uwf.edu.

Creating a Literature Review using the Matrix Method: 

A matrix review allows you to quickly compare and contrast articles in an easy to read format. It can help you to easily spot differences and similarities between journal articles and your nursing research topic. Review matrices are especially helpful for health sciences literature reviews that cover the scope of research over a given amount of time. 

Most literature reviews are set up in this format: 

Chart adapted from the book below: 

• Check out the e-book above for more help in creating a literature review matrix. 

Steps for Conducting a Literature Review

1. Choose Your Topic

• Review your PICO question and think about your central research question. To review the PICO process, please see Kerry Sewell's LibGuide on this subject. 

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? 

3. Select the databases you want to use to conduct your searches (See the Databases Tab Above!)

4. Conduct your searches and find the literature. (Keep track of your searches, try using the Search Strategy Lab Notebook!)

• Review the abstracts and conclusions carefully. This will help you decide which articles actually fit the criteria you are looking for. 
• Write down the keywords you used and where you found them. 
• You can also use RefWorks to keep track of your citations. 

5. Review the Literature (This will probably be the most time consuming part)

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing?  What were the authors trying to discover? 
• Was the research funded by a company or source that could influence the findings? (Such as Colgate® sponsoring a toothpaste study?)
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze the paper's literature review, the samples and variables used, the results and conclusions. Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What questions does it raise? 
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is? 
• How are the authors of the paper viewed in the field? Has this study been cited by other publications? 

Literature Review Examples

Remember, a lit review provides an intelligent overview of the topic. There may or may not be a method for how studies are collected or interpreted. Lit reviews aren't always labeled specifically as "literature reviews," they may often be embedded with other sections such as an introduction or background. 

• Mentes, J.C., Salem, N., & Phillips, L.R. (2017). Ethnocultural gerontological nursing. An integrative literature review. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 28(1), 79-97.  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1043659615601483
• Rosa, D.F., Carvalho, M.V., & Pereira, N.R, et al. (2019). Nursing care for the transgender population: genders from the perspective of professional practice. Revista Brasilerira de Enfermagem, 72 (Suppl 1), 299-306.  http://www.scielo.br/pdf/reben/v72s1/0034-7167-reben-72-s1-0299.pdf
• Dahlke, S.A., Hunter, K.F., Negrin, K. (2019). Nursing practice with hospitalized older people: Safety and harm. International Journal of Older People Nursing, 14 (1), Article e1220.  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/opn.12220

Adapted from:  https://libguides.uwf.edu/c.php?g=215270&p=4439026  by Hillary Fox, University of West Florida, [email protected].

Carrie Forbes, MLS

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OASIS: Writing Center

Podcast transcripts, writecast episode 38: the literature review matrix: what it is, how to use it, and how to make it work for you.

Listen to the podcast episode.

© Walden University Writing Center 2017

[Introduction music]

[TEASER] BETH: If you are working with a lot of research and you find it a little bit overwhelming, this just might be the tool for you.

BRITTANY: Welcome to WriteCast: A Casual Conversation for Serious Writers. I’m Brittany Kallman Arneson,

BETH: and I’m Beth Nastachowski.

BRITTANY: In today’s episode, we are talking about one of the Writing Center’s resources for literature review research and writing: The literature review matrix.

Today, we are talking about the literature review matrix, and I should probably start by defining what this tool is. It sounds like something where we should all be dressed, I think, in long black leather coats and running around trying to escape creepy robot guys, but it is not that exciting, I'm afraid. However, it is a very exciting tool in terms of organizing your research, and we hope that we can make this discussion almost as exciting as watching The Matrix —almost. So, what the literature review matrix is—is basically just a spreadsheet. It's available in two forms on our website. You can download it in Microsoft Word form with a table built into a Word document, or you can download it in Microsoft Excel format, which is obviously already a table or spreadsheet, and it's basically just a way for anybody working on a research project to organize the things that they are reading and studying.

So, that's sort of a broad description of what the lit review matrix is, but I also want to sort of paint a little picture of what it actually looks like for our listeners, because this is an audio podcast. As we start to talk in more detail about it, I do want our listeners to be able to have a little bit of a picture in their minds of what this really looks like. If you're listening and you're at your computer or even if you have your phone on you and you have a second, to kind of follow my instructions here and go ahead and download one of the sample matrices for yourself to follow along. Now I know a lot of people like to listen in the car at the gym or whatever and you might not be able to download it right now and that's fine. That's why I'll do a little visual description, as well, but you are welcome to download it and follow along as you listen to our kind of an analysis of what the literature review matrix is and how it can be used. So, I am going to get to the lit review matrix from the Writing Center homepage and under Scholarly Writing on the drop-down menus across the top I'm going to choose the first option on the drop-down Common Course Assignments. And if I click there I can see a bunch of different common course assignments listed along the left in the brown boxes, and I am going to scroll down to where literature review is listed. And if I click there, I'll eventually get to the lit review matrix but I can also go down a little bit under the literature reviews and choose organizational tools . And you will be taken to page that features two sample literature review matrices in PDF format. So these are ones that you can't go in and edit yourself but you can see how two different researchers might use a lit review matrix to organize their research. And they look very different very. Very, very different. They have different categories, different information is being recorded, and I think this helps illustrate the fact that the literature review Matrix is going to look really different depending on what research project you're working on and what your topic is. So you can take a look at those, but then the bottom two links are to sample templates that you can fill in yourself and it just in changes you need to. So one is in Microsoft Word and one is in Excel. I’m going to just open the one in Excel, and when I open it, I get an Excel document that has all these categories across the top, in the columns. So the first few are author's last name and first initial, publication date, title of article or chapter, and then it has all kind of the other categories for a reference entry. And as you scroll across to the right you get categories like theorists, method, design, population, research questions, summary, analysis. So more detailed information about the research process and the themes that are going to be drawn out of that particular source.

So that's what it looks like, and anytime that you're engaging in a big research project you are going to be swimming in research and oftentimes it can be really challenging to keep track of all the different articles and books and web pages that you're looking at, that are related to your topic. And a literature review matrix is just a simple tool that allows you to keep track of the information that you're reading and also sort of start to process that information in different ways depending on how you set it up, and we'll get into that in a little bit more detail in a moment.  

BETH: Yeah, and to build on that too, Brittany; I wanted to emphasize here that the literature review matrix is something for anyone doing research, really.

BRITTANY: Yes.

BETH: And it probably isn’t the most appropriate if you are just working on a discussion post or reading a couple of articles for a course paper or something. But it’s probably most useful when you are working with a lot of research at any one time. So if you are working on maybe a master’s thesis or a paper that’s a final paper that you are building up to across a course, maybe you are working on a KAM, or maybe you are working on your doctoral capstone—any of those cases might be a time when the literature review matrix would be useful. And probably in other times, too, in ways we are not even thinking of. It’s really a tool that’s meant for you if it's helpful. It’s often most helpful in those cases but really it could be useful to you at any point when you are working with a lot of research. So we want to make sure to clarify that from the outset. If you are working with a lot of research and you find it a little overwhelming, this tool might just be the thing for you.

BRITTANY: So I was excited to talk about this topic for this episode because the literature review matrix is something I have always enjoyed using, first of all, for my own research and also teaching about. I get kind of excited about it because—well, first of all, because I like categorizing things and I am kind of nerdy that way--you know, closets and drawers but also research in spreadsheets. And so there's that, but also I think I get excited because, to me, the lit review matrix kind of allows the student or the writer to start to model synthesis thinking even at the research stage. And I think synthesis in writing is one of the most challenging things to both do and to teach how to do, and I like that the literature review matrix is kind of an in to talking about how to actually synthesize sources together and put them in conversation in writing. So I don't know, I'm, I'm pretty excited to talk about this topic this morning but I don't know, do you feel the same way Beth?

BETH: Yeah, you know, when I was thinking about this topic, Brittany, I was a little apprehensive about it at first. I have talked about the literature review matrix in different contexts with students, but it was something that when I first came to Walden and started working in the Writing Center, I didn’t really get the matrix at first.

BRITTANY: MmHmm

BETH: It wasn’t something that was really just was natural for me. It wasn’t a natural way of thinking about the literature or thinking about writing a literature review. And so for me, it was more of a struggle before, to kind of get used to it. And it’s still not my natural inclination to use a tool like this. And so at first, I was a little apprehensive, but I think this will be great because I think we'll be able to think about the best way to use the tool, and I will probably get some pointers from you, so I’m looking forward to that.

BRITTANY: While I do not know about that. But I think that's really interesting, that sounds like it didn't necessarily match with the way that your brain works when you're working on a project like this, and you're totally capable of synthesizing research. So I think--I think actually it could be interesting to explore a little bit more what it is about it that doesn't work for you, 'cause I bet we have students who also feel that way or who kind of see this tool introduced and are like, this isn't seem like it be helpful to me at all. So I'm sort of curious to hear more about that from your perspective—what is it about it that is, just like doesn't seem helpful to you?

BETH: Yeah, I mean I think first off, just looking at downloading the template for the matrix that’s in Excel--

BRITTANY: Mmhmm.

BETH: For me, one thing I do like is it starts out with those columns that talk about the information for that particular source. You as the writer would note the author, the date—you know—all the information that you would need to keep track of that source and create a reference entry for it. That seems really helpful to me, as well as like the key word search information and things like that.

BETH: But what I struggle with is I think when I reading something I really like to identify key ideas and quotes and things like that. And then take notes on those rather than overall ideas, and right now when you look at the template it has sort of like columns of that are really general and broad, like theorist and method and design. So initially for me, when thinking about that—it’s kind of hard to think how that would be useful. So if a student had a similar question, like that, about the matrix and how to use it, how do you explain how best to use it, Brittany?

BRITTANY: Yeah, oh, I'm so glad that you said that because I get this question from students a lot. And you probably do too—where they're like, well, great, but these categories don't match what I'm researching or these categories aren't you know I don't want to record the information that's pre-populated into the sample Matrix; that's not helpful information for me to keep track of. And this is what I mean when I say the Matrix can help with synthesis thinking or sort of jump-start that. The writer has control over those categories from the very beginning and that's what's great about working on like in notebook where you might run out of space to run out of, you know, lines or something like that. In an Excel spreadsheet, for instance, you can always, always add more columns, more rows, you know, more fields where you can record different information. And so I like to think about the Matrix as being really agile and nimble and sort of malleable for the reader to—

BETH: It's like a living document.

BRITTANY: Yeah, exactly. So it's not that you have to have pre-populate categories and then read the literature looking for those categories, necessarily. You can do that, but you can also do it the opposite way where you learn reading and you pull out a theme. You say, oh boy--it seems like this is really an important thread that's running through this article and also this other book that I read. I'm going to create a category in my matrix to record that theme so that I can tag both of those resources with that theme and then remember that both those authors talked about that. And that's like that first step in your literature review of organizing your information by theme rather than by author, which is a big point that we make when we teach about writing a literature review, right, is that you aren't writing one paragraph on what one author said and another paragraph on what another author said but you really are working hard to create a conversation between all the people talking about your topic and categorizing those paragraphs and sections by theme and by topic.

BETH: So, in a way, really, when I initially learned about the matrix and started looking at it, I think I was thinking about the matrix as what you are reading and what you are taking notes on as responding to the matrix. But really, what you want the matrix to be is to be responsive to what you are reading.

BRITTANY: Right.

BETH: --where what you are reading sort of informs what the matrix looks like rather than the other way around.  

BRITTANY: Yeah, exactly right. So, the matrix is a snapshot of your research rather than your research being driven by what is in the matrix already. And I think again that's something that can be a little bit daunting for students at first. And so it may be that you as a writer start with the pre-populated categories, because I like to kind of think about the research process in two stages.

First we just have the categorization stage and the matrix can help with that. That's you just kind of getting the lay of the land of your research and starting to remember what you read, who the authors are, what year they published their research--you know--what their methodology was, just the nuts and bolts, the basics. And for that stage, the matrix pointing you to the research can be useful, because it helps you understand what happened to be reading for, when you're just trying to kind of get a sense of what's out there, and keep track of the basic information about the sources.

But as we know, that is not enough to get you to a solid lit review where you are categorizing your research by them and by topic. And so there's sort of a second piece to that where you can--you might go through and try and categorize your research first using the pre-populated fields in the matrix. But then I think you can come back and do that organization piece which is sort of not so much just thinking about what is the research that's out there and what are the basic facts about that research or even what are the basic things that that research has said, but you're thinking carefully about how to describe the pattern of that conversation over time to your reader and how to present it. And that's where I think it's the other way around—you start to notice those patterns and then you start to create fields in the matrix that reflect those patterns so that you can better put those sources in conversation with one another.

BETH: Yeah, so I mean really, along with the matrix sort of being really responsive to what you are reading—it evolves with your research process. It sort of functions differently as you go through the research process and evolves with that.

BRITTANY: Yeah, mmhmm. I think so.

BETH: That’s a great way to talk about it, I think. And I love the idea of thinking about the matrix as sort of this living document. I think initially when I looked at it, it felt very static, and I think that felt limiting to me. And so thinking as an evolving document—it really helps with that, I think. And I hope that will sort of resonant with our students, too.  

BRITTANY: Yeah, me too. This is a really hard thing to talk about in the abstract, I think. And so I do encourage any listener who is feeling like, a little confused by all of this, to dive in and start and sort of--I mean, I guess the basic take away that we want to send to our listeners is that you're in the driver's seat when it comes to these documents and the matrices, and so if you really want to record certain information and it's not part of the matrix that you download from our website, add it. Add it in. And that gives you a sense of agency to, I think, as a writer because that is what you get to make those choices about how to prevent the information to your reader which is really the kind of mindset that you want to have as you craft your literature review. And think about the order of information that you want to present to your reader.

BETH: And I would give two other tips, I think, too. As we are talking about this, you know we talked about the students that this is useful for, the wide range of students. But you know one thing I would say is if you are imagining, wow, this will be really useful for me, when in the future, I write this paper, this master’s thesis, this doctoral capstone, whatever it is. Also, consider using the matrix on an earlier paper, even if it’s not absolutely necessary. Because practicing using the literature review matrix will help you figure out how it works and how you can use it to evolve with your research process. So even if the matrix isn’t absolutely necessary to complete that particular project—using it can help you get use to that process. Just like anything else we talk about, we talk about all the time—practicing your paraphrasing and your citing skills so when you get to the sort of high stakes end capstone research that you have to do, then you are ready it. I think the same applies here, too.

BRITTANY: Right, mmhmm, absolutely.

BETH: And then…I swear I had one other thing I was going to say. Oh, I remember now. I think students sometime have trouble sort of translating, taking notes, reading, and highlighting important points or underlining important points as they are reading. And then taking that into their writing. There is sort of, like, a big jump they have to make—right—between those two things?

BETH: And the matrix acts as a nice in-between because you don’t necessarily include everything you highlight in the matrix, but you can kind of go back to your research and say, okay from what I highlighted while I was reading, to ensure I was an active reader: What is actually useful to be putting in this matrix? And then you can kind of practice paraphrasing and summarizing what you actually read into the matrix, too. So it kind of helps as in between step—between your note taking and your active reading and your actual writing that you are doing.

BRITTANY: I love that. I love thinking about it as kind of a go-between, between your research and your writing process. I think that’s exactly right.

BETH: So just a reminder—if you would like to download the lit review matrix and start using it, Brittany gave a really great explanation on how to find it through our website, at the start of the podcast, but you can also go to the top right hand corner of page on our website and search "literature review matrix" and it will be the first hit there. And just a note, too, if you are a doctoral student working on your final capstone, if you are at the proposal stage, make sure to also e-mail any questions that you have to the editors, at [email protected] as well as visit the form and style website.

BRITTANY: Finally, we love to hear your feedback and your ideas for future episodes. And we are grateful for those of you who have sent feedback and ideas to us so far. And we want to remind you that you can find us on Facebook at our Walden University Writing Center page, on Twitter @ WUWritingCenter, and at our blog which is waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.com.

BRITTANY: WriteCast is a production of the Walden University Writing Center. This episode was produced by me, Brittany Kallman Arneson; my co-host, Beth Nastachowski; and our colleague, Anne Shiell.

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Matrix Method for Literature Review

Introduction.

Using a review matrix enables you to quickly compare and contrast articles in order to determine the scope of research across time. A review matrix can help you more easily spot differences and similarities between journal articles about a given research topic. Review matrices are especially helpful for health sciences literature reviews covering the complete scope of a research topic over time.

Organizing your Sources

Once you complete your research, organize your source by date in order to make it easier to see changes in research over time.

Every review matrix should have the same first three column headings: (1) authors, title, and journal; (2) publication year; (3) purpose.

It may be difficult to determine purpose from just a cursory review of the article. In some cases, it may be necessary to first read the paper fully to identify its purpose.

Choose your Remaining Column Topics

Next, carefully read all your articles. Note any important issues you identify. The following broad categories provide some suggestions for determining your own subject headings:

• Methodological - Methodology is often an important question. For example, if you are looking at tests of an Ebola vaccine beyond human subjects, it will be important to note what type of animal the test was carried out on, i.e. macaques or mice.
• Content-specific - Consider noting what was actually studied. For example, when looking at the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of illnesses, it would be important to note what illness was being studied.
• Geographical - It may be important to note where the research was completed. For example, if you want to compare the effects of the AIDS epidemic in different countries, you would use country as a column heading.

There are many ways to choose your column headings, and these are just a few suggestions. As you create your own matrix, choose column headings that support your research question and goals.

• Do not include column headings that are explicit in your research question. For example, if you are looking at drug use in adolescents, do not include a column heading for age of study participants. If the answer will be the same for every study, it's generally a bad choice for a column heading.
• Do not try to fully complete a review matrix before reading the articles. Reading the articles is an important way to discern the nuances between studies. 

Sample Review Matrix and Templates

• Review Matrix Example: Ebola Vaccine Clinical Studies This document includes a review matrix of two Ebola vaccine clinical reviews done on humans published by the National Institute of Health.
• Review Matrix Word Template A review matrix template in Microsoft Word.
• Review Matrix Excel Template A review matrix template for Microsoft Excel

More Information

Information found in this guide was adapted from the following book. 

Guide Credit

Information on this guide has been borrowed with permission from David Nolfi at Duquesne University . 

• Research Guides

Literature Review: A Self-Guided Tutorial

Using a synthesis matrix.

• Literature Reviews: A Recap
• Peer Review
• Reading the Literature
• Using Concept Maps
• Developing Research Questions
• Considering Strong Opinions
• 2. Review discipline styles
• Super Searching
• Finding the Full Text
• Citation Searching This link opens in a new window
• When to stop searching
• Citation Management
• Annotating Articles Tip
• 5. Critically analyze and evaluate
• How to Review the Literature
• 7. Write literature review

A synthesis matrix visually represents your research by organizing your sources by themes:

• Sample Synthesis Matrix Example provided by Ashford University Writing Center .
• << Previous: How to Review the Literature
• Next: 7. Write literature review >>
• Last Updated: Feb 22, 2024 10:53 AM
• URL: https://libguides.williams.edu/literature-review

Matrix Method for Literature Review

• The Review Matrix
• Organize Your Sources
• Choose Your Remaining Column Topics
• More Information

Sample Matrix and Templates

• Related Library Guides
• Getting Help
• Review Matrix Example-Ebola Vaccine Clinical Studies This document includes a review matrix of two Ebola vaccine clinical reviews done on humans published by the National Institute of Health.
• Review Matrix Word Template A review matrix template in Microsoft Word.
• Review Matrix Excel Template A review matrix template for Microsoft Excel
• << Previous: More Information
• Next: Related Library Guides >>
• Last Updated: Feb 20, 2024 10:26 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.duq.edu/matrix

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

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.

Doing a literature review using digital tools (with Notion template)

I’ve recently revamped my literature review workflow since discovering Notion . Notion is an organization application that allows you to make various pages and databases. It’s kind of like your own personal wiki- you can link your pages and embed databases into another page, adding filters and sorting them using user-set properties. The databases are what I use the most. I’ve essentially transferred all of my excel sheets into Notion databases and find it much easier to filter and sort things now. In this post, I’ll go through how I do my literature review and share a Notion template that you can use.

I like to organize my literature review using various literature review tools along with two relational Notion databases: a ‘literature tracker’ and a ‘literature notes’ matrix. You can see a flow chart of my literature review process below (it’s inspired by this post by Jenn’s Studious Life and the three pass method for reading papers which I wrote about last week in this post ):

As you can see, this process involves a couple of decision points which helps me focus on the most important papers. This is an iterative process that keeps me up to date on relevant research in my field as I am getting new paper alerts in my inbox most days. I used this method quite successfully to write the literature review for my confirmation report and regularly add to it for the expanded version that will become part of my PhD thesis. In this post, I’ll break down how this works for me and how I implement my Notion databases to synthesise the literature I read into a coherent argument.

You can click on the links below to navigate to a particular section of this article:

The literature search

The literature tracker, the literature synthesis matrix, writing your literature review, iterating your literature review, my literature review notion template, some useful resources.

This is always the first step in building your literature review. There are plenty of resources online all about how to start with your search- I find a mixture of database search tools works for me.

The first thing to do when starting your literature review is to identify some keywords to use in your initial searches. It might be worth chatting to your supervisor to make a list of these and then add or remove terms to it as you go down different research routes. You can use keyword searches relevant to your research questions as well tools that find ‘similar’ papers and look at citation links. I also find that just looking through the bibliographies of literature in your field and seeing which papers are regularly cited gives you a good idea of the core papers in your area (you’ll start recognising the key ones after a while). Another method for finding literature is the snowballing method which is particularly useful for conducting a systematic review.

Here are some digital tools I use to help me find literature relevant to my research questions:

Library building and suggestions

Mendeley was my research management tool of choice prior to when I started using Notion to organize all of my literature and create my synthesis matrix. I still use Mendeley as a library just in case anything happens to my Notion. It’s easy to add new papers to your library using the browser extension with just one click. I like that Mendeley allows you to share your folders with colleagues and that I can export bib.tex files straight from my library into overleaf documents where I’m writing up papers and my thesis. You do need to make sure that all of the details are correct before you export the bib.tex files though as this is taken straight from the information plane. I also like to use the tag function in Mendeley to add more specific identifiers than my folders.

Mendeley is also useful for finding literature related to those in your library- I’ve found quite a few interesting papers through the email updates they send out each week with ‘suggested papers’. You can also browse these suggestions from within Mendeley and use its interface to do initial keyword searches. The key is to just scan the titles and then decide whether it’s worth your time reading the abstract and then the rest of it. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of papers being published every day so being picky in what you read is important (and something I need to work on more!).

Some similar tools that allow you to build a library and get literature recommendations include Zotero , Researcher , Academia , and ResearchGate . It’s up to you which one you use for your own purposes. One big factor for me when choosing Mendeley was that my supervisor and colleagues use it so it makes it much easier to share libraries with them, so maybe ask your colleagues what they use before settling on one.

Literature databases and keyword alerts

There are a variety of databases out there for finding literature. My go-to is Web of Science as it shows you citation data and has a nice interface. I used this to begin my initial literature search using my keywords.

The other thing you can do with these kinds of tools is set up email alerts to get a list of recent work that has just been published with any keywords you set. These alerts are usually where I find papers to read during journal club with my supervisor. You can customize these emails to what suits you- mine are set to the top 10 most relevant new papers for each keyword weekly and I track around 5 words/phrases. This allows me to stay on top of the most recent literature in my field- I have alerts set up on a variety of services to ensure that I don’t miss anything crucial (and alerts from the ArXiv mean I see preprints too). Again, you need to be picky about what you read from these to ensure that they are very relevant to your research. At this stage, it’s important to spend as little time as possible scanning titles as this can easily become a time suck.

Some of the other tools I have keyword (and author) email alerts set up on are: Scopus , Google Scholar , Dimensions , and ArXiv alerts . I set 10 minutes maximum aside per day to scan through any new email alerts and save anything relevant to me into my literature tracker (which I’ll come to more later).

Literature mapping tools

There are loads of these kinds of tools out there. Literature mapping can be helpful for finding what the seminal papers are in your field and seeing how literature connects. It’s like a huge web and I find these visual interfaces make it much easier to get my head around the relationships between papers. I use two of these tools during the literature search phase of the flowchart: Citation Gecko and Connected Papers .

Citation Gecko builds you a citation tree using ‘seed papers’. You can import these from various reference management software (like Mendeley), bib.tex files or manually search for papers. This is particularly useful if your supervisor has provided you with some core papers to start off with, or you can use the key papers you identified through scanning the bibliographies of literature you read. My project is split into fairly clear ‘subprojects’ so these tools help me see connections between the various things I’m working on (or a lack of them which is good in some ways as it shows I’ve found a clear research gap!).

You can switch between different views and add connecting papers as new seed papers to expand your network. I use this tool from time to time with various different papers associated with my subprojects. It’s helped me make sure I haven’t missed any key papers when doing my literature review and I’ve found it to be fairly accurate, although sometimes more recent papers don’t have any citation data on it so that’s something to bear in mind.

Connected Papers uses a ‘similarity’ algorithm to show paper relationships. This isn’t a citation tree like Citation Gecko but it does also give you prior and derivative works if you want to look at them. All you do is put one of your key papers into the search box and ‘build a graph’. It will then show you related papers, including those which don’t have direct citation links to the key paper. I think this is great for ensuring that you’re not staying inside an insular bubble of the people who all cite each other. It also allows me to see some of the research which is perhaps a bit more tangential to my project and get an overview of where my work sits within the field more broadly.

I like Connected Paper’s key for the generated tree and that it shows where related papers connect between themselves. Again, it’s helpful for ensuring that you haven’t missed a really important work when compiling your literature review and doesn’t just rely on citation links between papers.

This is where I record the details of any paper I come across that I think might be relevant to my PhD. In some ways, it’s very similar to Mendeley but it’s a version that sits within Notion so I have some more customised filtering categories set up, like my ‘status’ field where I track which pass I am on.

Here’s what my literature tracker looks like:

The beauty of Notion is that you can decide which properties you want to record in your database and customize it to your needs. You can sort and filter using these properties including making nested filters and using multiple filters at once. This makes it really easy to find what you’re looking for. For example, say I’m doing my literature review for my ‘FIB etching’ subproject and want to see all of the papers that I marked as relevant to my PhD but haven’t started reading yet. All I need to do is add a couple of filters:

And it filters everything so that I’m just looking at the papers I want to check out. It’s this flexibility that I think really gives Notion the edge when it comes to my literature review process.

The other thing I really like about using Notion rather than excel is that I can add different database views. I especially like using the kanban board view to see where I’m at with my reading workflow:

When I add something to the literature tracker database, I scan the abstract for keywords to add and categorize it in terms of relevant topics. It’s essentially the first pass of the paper, so that involves reading the title, abstract, introduction, section headings, conclusions, and checking the references for anything you recognise. After this is done, I decide whether it’s relevant enough to my PhD to proceed to do a second pass of the paper, at which point I will progress to populating my literature notes database.

Once I’ve decided that I want to do a second pass on a paper, I then add it to the ‘literature notes’ database. This is part of the beauty of Notion: relational databases. I have ‘rollup’ properties set in the literature notes database which shows all of the things I added during my first pass and allows me to filter the matrix using them. You can watch the video below to see exactly how to add a new paper to the ‘notes’ database from the ‘tracker’ database:

During the second pass, I populate the new fields in the ‘notes’ database. These are:

Summary | Objective of study | Key Results | Theory | Materials | Methods | Conclusions | Future work suggested | Critiques | Key connected papers.

I also have various themes/questions/ideas as properties which I add a few notes on for each relevant paper. I then complete my ‘questions for critical engagement’ which are on the entry’s ‘Notes’ page and are stored in the ‘Article Template’. If you want to read more about this process, check out my ‘how to read a scientific paper’ post .

By, doing this I create a synthesis matrix where I can see a breakdown of the key aspects of each paper and can scan down a column to get an overview of all of the papers I have read. For example, if I wanted to see all of the papers about Quantum Point Contacts to get an idea of what previous work has been done so that I can identify my research gap, I can filter using the tag property and can then see the notes I wrote for each entry, broken down by section. I also have tags for my research questions or themes, materials used, experimental techniques, fabrication techniques, and anything else that comes to mind really! The more tags I have for a paper, the easier it is to filter when I want to find a specific thing.

The other property I have included in the literature notes database is ‘Key connected papers’. This is a relation but is within the database itself. So it means that I can link to the page of other papers in the literature matrix. I’ve found this to be useful for connecting to what I call ‘core’ papers. I can also filter using this property, allowing me to see my notes on all of the papers I’ve read that are related to a certain ‘core’ paper. This helps with synthesising all of the information and forming my argument.

For those papers most relevant to my research (the ‘core’ papers) I’ll also do a third pass which involves reimplementing the paper in my own words. This is quite a time-consuming task so not many papers reach this stage, but those which I have done a third pass on are the ones I know really well. My hope is that this will stand me in good stead for my viva. This process also helps me refine my research questions further as I gain a deeper understanding of the field.

I find that writing up a review is extremely intimidating, but having the literature matrix makes this process that bit easier. I won’t go into too many details as there are already loads of resources out there going into the details of writing up a review, but here’s a brief overview of my own process:

Identify your research themes

Using your literature matrix, review each research theme or question and decide which ones you are going to focus on. These will form the different sections of your literature review and help you write your thesis statement(s). You can also think about how your questions link to ensure that you’re telling a coherent story with your review.

Choose and summarize literature related to each theme

For each section, gather up the most important related literature and summarize the key points of each source. A good literature review doesn’t need to cover all the literature out there, just the most significant sources. I try to stick to around 10 or fewer key sources per section.

Critical evaluation of sources

This is where you utilize the ‘questions for critical engagement’. Make sure you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the studies you’re writing about. By doing this, you can establish where our knowledge is lacking which will come in helpful later when establishing a research gap.

Analyse each source in relation to other literature

Try to make sure that you are telling a coherent story by linking between your sources. You can go back to the literature matrix here and use it to group similar studies to compare and contrast them. You should also discuss the relevance of the source’s findings in relation to the broader field and core papers.

Situate your research in a research gap

This is where you justify your own research. Using what you have laid out in the rest of the review, show that there is a research gap that you plan to fill and explain how you are going to do that. This should mean that your thesis flows nicely into the next section where you’ll cover the materials and methods you used in your research project.

In some ways, a literature review never really ends. As you can see in the flowchart at the beginning of this post, I regularly update and revise my literature review as well as refining my research questions. At this point in my PhD, I think that most of my research questions are quite well defined, so I’m mostly just adding any newly published work into my review. I don’t spend much time reading literature at the moment but I’m sure I’ll return to it more regularly when I’m in the write-up phase of my PhD. There is a balance to be had between reading and writing for your literature review and actually getting on with your own research!

Here’s the link to my Notion Literature Review Template . You can duplicate it and adapt it however you want, but this should save you some time setting up the initial databases if you’d like to use my method for organizing your own literature review.

Here are some resources on how to do a literature review that I’ve found useful during my PhD:

• The Literature Review: Step-by-Step Guide for Students
• 3 Steps to Save You From Drowning in Your Literature Review
• How to write a literature review
• How to become a literature searching ninja
• Mind the gap
• 7 Secrets to Write a PhD Literature Review The Right Way

If you like my work, I’d love your support!

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11 thoughts on “Doing a literature review using digital tools (with Notion template)”

Thank you so much for your insight and structured process. This will help me a lot kicking off my Master Thesis.

The perfect method to organize the literature that I have read and will read in the future. I am so glad to have found your website, this will save me from thrashing around in the swamp of literature. I was already feeling the limits of my memory when I was doing my master thesis and this will be so helpful during my PhD.

Thank you so much for this detailed post! Lily 🙂

Thank you very much for this. I’m doing my undergrad atm and reading a lot of papers. This seems like an excellent way of tracking everything.

Thank you, you made my beginning less stressful. I like your system and i helped me a lot. I have one question (more might come later), What do you mean by " journal club with my supervisor."

This piece is really really helpful! I started from this one and went through the rest blog writings. I agree on many points with Daisy. I had an unhappy experience of PhD two years ago and now just started a new one in another country. I will take it as an adventure and enjoy it.

This is an AMAZING template. I've found this so helpful for my own workflow. Thank you so much!

I found this post really helpful. Thank you.

thank you very much!

Hi! Thank you very much for posting this guide and sharing your notion template! I do have a question—do you manually enter the references into Notion, or is there any way to speed up the process? Ta x

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Research Methods and Design

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Literature Review

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A literature review is a discussion of the literature (aka. the "research" or "scholarship") surrounding a certain topic. A good literature review doesn't simply summarize the existing material, but provides thoughtful synthesis and analysis. The purpose of a literature review is to orient your own work within an existing body of knowledge. A literature review may be written as a standalone piece or be included in a larger body of work.

You can read more about literature reviews, what they entail, and how to write one, using the resources below. 

Am I the only one struggling to write a literature review?

Dr. Zina O'Leary explains the misconceptions and struggles students often have with writing a literature review. She also provides step-by-step guidance on writing a persuasive literature review.

An Introduction to Literature Reviews

Dr. Eric Jensen, Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, and Dr. Charles Laurie, Director of Research at Verisk Maplecroft, explain how to write a literature review, and why researchers need to do so. Literature reviews can be stand-alone research or part of a larger project. They communicate the state of academic knowledge on a given topic, specifically detailing what is still unknown.

This is the first video in a whole series about literature reviews. You can find the rest of the series in our SAGE database, Research Methods:

Videos covering research methods and statistics

Identify Themes and Gaps in Literature (with real examples) | Scribbr

Finding connections between sources is key to organizing the arguments and structure of a good literature review. In this video, you'll learn how to identify themes, debates, and gaps between sources, using examples from real papers.

4 Tips for Writing a Literature Review's Intro, Body, and Conclusion | Scribbr

While each review will be unique in its structure--based on both the existing body of both literature and the overall goals of your own paper, dissertation, or research--this video from Scribbr does a good job simplifying the goals of writing a literature review for those who are new to the process. In this video, you’ll learn what to include in each section, as well as 4 tips for the main body illustrated with an example.

• Literature Review This chapter in SAGE's Encyclopedia of Research Design describes the types of literature reviews and scientific standards for conducting literature reviews.
• UNC Writing Center: Literature Reviews This handout from the Writing Center at UNC will explain what literature reviews are and offer insights into the form and construction of literature reviews in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
• Purdue OWL: Writing a Literature Review The overview of literature reviews comes from Purdue's Online Writing Lab. It explains the basic why, what, and how of writing a literature review.

Organizational Tools for Literature Reviews

One of the most daunting aspects of writing a literature review is organizing your research. There are a variety of strategies that you can use to help you in this task. We've highlighted just a few ways writers keep track of all that information! You can use a combination of these tools or come up with your own organizational process. The key is choosing something that works with your own learning style.

Citation Managers

Citation managers are great tools, in general, for organizing research, but can be especially helpful when writing a literature review. You can keep all of your research in one place, take notes, and organize your materials into different folders or categories. Read more about citations managers here:

• Manage Citations & Sources

Concept Mapping

Some writers use concept mapping (sometimes called flow or bubble charts or "mind maps") to help them visualize the ways in which the research they found connects.

There is no right or wrong way to make a concept map. There are a variety of online tools that can help you create a concept map or you can simply put pen to paper. To read more about concept mapping, take a look at the following help guides:

• Using Concept Maps From Williams College's guide, Literature Review: A Self-guided Tutorial

Synthesis Matrix

A synthesis matrix is is a chart you can use to help you organize your research into thematic categories. By organizing your research into a matrix, like the examples below, can help you visualize the ways in which your sources connect. 

• Walden University Writing Center: Literature Review Matrix Find a variety of literature review matrix examples and templates from Walden University.
• Writing A Literature Review and Using a Synthesis Matrix An example synthesis matrix created by NC State University Writing and Speaking Tutorial Service Tutors. If you would like a copy of this synthesis matrix in a different format, like a Word document, please ask a librarian. CC-BY-SA 3.0
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Frequently Asked Questions (And Answers) About Literature Reviews

• Literature Review FAQ
• Literature Review FAQ Videos

If you feel overwhelmed or confused about writing a literature review, you are not alone! Read on for some frequently asked questions about literature reviews...

What is a literature review?

Flip the words around and you have the beginning of your answer: a review of the literature.

“The literature”  means scholarly sources (mostly academic journal articles and books) conducted on a specific topic.

“Review”  means that you’ve read that work carefully in order to create a piece of writing that  organizes, summarizes, analyzes, and makes connections between sources , as well as  identifying areas of research still needed .

Why write a literature review?

A lit review can serve several purposes:

• Orient the reader to a topic of study  in order to validate the need for a new study.
• Reveal patterns or problems in previous research , which is its own kind of “finding” or result.

In primary research that includes the results of an experiment or fieldwork, it precedes the results and  sets up a later discussion of the results  in the context of previous findings.

What is the difference between a literature review and an annotated bibliography?

There is not just one way to write a literature review or an annotated bibliography, so differences vary. However,  one of the main differences is that an annotated bibliography is typically organized source by source —each one has its own paragraph of explanation, analysis, etc.

In a literature review, the   writing is organized thematically , often with multiple sources addressed in each paragraph, and there is an overarching narrative driving the review.

Although there are “bibliographic essays” that are essentially narratively-driven annotated bibliographies ,  in general  annotated bibliographies are a drafting step toward a more formal piece of writing , while a literature review is more likely to be that more formal piece itself.

Ok, what about the difference between a literature review and a research paper?

Here’s a secret: there’s no such thing as “A Research Paper.” There are papers that use research in many different ways, and a literature review is one of those ways. Typically, though, if your assignment is specifically to write a “literature review,” it may mean you are being asked to focus  less  on creating your own argument, driven by a thesis with research as supporting evidence, and more on  finding something to say based on the patterns and questions of the research you’ve read .

How should I organize a literature review?

Typically,  literature reviews are organized thematically , not chronologically or source by source. This means that you will need to identify several sub-topics and figure out how to group sources to tell a story in themes. Some sources may show up in multiple sections, and some sources will only appear once. For practical suggestions on how to organize, see  organizing a literature review (as of 3/23/20: in progress!).

How comprehensive should my review be?

This really depends on the assignment or type of literature review that you’re doing. Some reviews are quite extensive and aim to be “exhaustive,” looking at every article on a particular topic. Chances are, yours is not that. For guidance  you may want to ask your professor this question , or more specific questions like, “should I consider articles published more than 20 years ago? What about 10?” etc.

You may also want to consider  if it makes sense to narrow your focus to a particular region, demographic, or even type of study or article,  such as focusing on specific methods used.

Finally,  the scope of your review may also be influenced by the state of prior research . If you are exploring a relatively under-researched or interdisciplinary topic, you may draw from a broader and more diverse set of articles. If you are looking at something that has a well-established scholarly history, your focus will likely be much narrower.

How do I know if I’m “done” researching/haven’t missed anything?

The truth is, research is never “done.” But it’s true you have to come to a stopping point so you can write and finish your review! Here are a few tips for making this assessment:

• You see the same authors being cited over and over again in your sources and you have those sources, too . That can be a sign that you’ve hit on a particular scholarly conversation and identified most of the major voices in it.
• Ask a librarian to help you!  While librarians are great at finding sources, we can also help you determine if there are no more sources available to find. 
• Outline your review  and make sure that each section of your review is supported by adequate research. If you have sections that are much lighter than others, you may want to give those a second look.
• Make sure you’ve given yourself achievable parameters . If you feel like there are just thousands more articles on your exact topic, you may need to narrow yours down, or at least explain why you have selected certain articles instead of other, similar ones.
• Finally, don’t forget  to evaluate as you write . It’s likely that the writing process itself will help you determine whether you have the sources you need to achieve your goals.

A literature review can be challenging, and requires a lot of careful thinking as well as the steps of finding articles and writing. But with time, patience, and help, you can do it, and you'll be proud of the results once you're done.

Gallin-Parisi, A. (n.d.).  Social Science Research Skills . Coates Library: Trinity University.  https://libguides.trinity.edu/socialresearch/faq

Tutorial: Using a Synthesis Matrix

This 5-minute video is intended to walk students through the steps of creating a matrix tool to help integrate sources in order to organize them by main idea or theme instead of by source. From Coates Library, Trinity University. A PDF copy of slides in this video (no narration) can be found here:  Using a synthesis matrix to organize your literature review .

Examples of Synthesis Matrices

• Synthesis Matrix Template (.xlsx format) This Excel sample is formatted so rows track main ideas and columns track sources.
• Literature Review Matrix Sample (.xlsx format) Another Excel template, this one is slightly different then the one above with rows tracking sources and columns track main ideas
• Writing A Literature Review and Using a Synthesis Matrix (NC State University) Handout created by NC State University Writing and Speaking Tutorial Service.
• Synthesis Matrix Sample (Ashford University) This is a synthesis matrix sample using the topic of anxiety in graduate students from the Writing Center at Ashford University.
• Literature Matrix "How-To Guide" using Google Drive This longer video (approximately 30 minutes) is a step-by-step guide to creating a Literature Matrix using Google Drive (Sheets).

Additional Resources

Many librarians in many institutions are helping undergraduate and graduate students prepare literature reviews. The links below will take you to some of these resources. Of course, you can find further reading by Googling, but this list should give you plenty to work with.

• Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper (USC Libraries) This is a LibGuide from the University of Southern California's Libraries. It is an invaluable guide for working through the many challenges you will face in constructing your research. Highly recommended.
• Theoretical Framework (USC Libraries) This portion of the guide is explicitly dedicated to strategies for developing a theoretical framework for your research paper.
• Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students (NCSU Libraries) A longer video tutorial, that may help you wrap your head around the entire concept of literature reviews and get you started in the right direction.
• The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It This is just that: tips. It might help you get going when you are feeling stuck or uncertain about the literature you are collecting.
• The Writing Center: Literature Reviews (UNC-Chapel Hill) A wordy but very useful guide, walking you through various aspects of the lit review. One of the most highly cited lit review guides out on the web.
• How To Read A Paper (S. Keshav) This is just one professor's perspective on how to read an article (and he is a computer scientist). Its included here because it is important to stop and actually create a strategy for how you will read the materials you collect. Be thoughtful about your selections but also smart about how you read.

Attributions

Developed by Stefanie Lapka, Medical & Health Sciences Librarian; and Dr. Monique T. Mills, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

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Further Reading

• Last Updated: Jan 18, 2024 5:11 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uh.edu/commdisorders