Conduct a literature review

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a summary of the published work in a field of study. This can be a section of a larger paper or article, or can be the focus of an entire paper. Literature reviews show that you have examined the breadth of knowledge and can justify your thesis or research questions. They are also valuable tools for other researchers who need to find a summary of that field of knowledge.

Pre-work: Organize your tools

Set up your tools before you begin to make the process manageable and help you build toward synthesis, not just organization. 

Build your search strategy

Before your search, list your keywords, related terms, and broader/narrower concepts. Use our search tutorial and worksheet to help you develop a search strategy.

Use a citation manager

Citation management tools like Zotero or EndNote help you collect and cite your sources. They also support the analysis stage of the literature review by allowing you to: 

  • Tag articles with themes and keywords to see emerging patterns.
  • Group sources into folders (e.g methods, theories, subtopics).
  • Annotate directly in the citation manager.

Step 1: Understand literature reviews in your discipline

Expectations for literature reviews vary across fields. Before you start, explore what a strong literature review looks like in your discipline.

Find one published article about your topic or discipline to help you understand the conversation around your literature review topic. This "anchor" article can guide your search terms and literature review structure. 

As you read, look for:

  • How they structure the review.
  • How the author(s) organize themes, discussions, and approaches.

Step 2: Define your research scope

  • What is the specific research question that your literature review helps to define?
  • Are there limits on methods, populations, time periods, or locations?
  • Are there a maximum or minimum number of sources that your review should include?

Ask us if you have questions about refining your topic, search methods, writing tips, or citation management.

Step 3: Identify the literature

Start by searching broadly. Literature for your review will typically be acquired through scholarly books, journal articles, and/or dissertations. Develop an understanding of what is out there, what terms are accurate and helpful, etc.

First, identify where to search for literature by selecting a subject-specific database. 

Use citation searching to track how scholars interact with, and build upon, previous research:

  • Mine the references cited section of each relevant source for additional key sources.
  • Use Google Scholar or Scopus to find other sources that have cited a particular work.

For more help deciding what sources to keep and how to find similar ones, see the FAQs: How do I know if an article is significant in my field? and How do I find more articles like the good one that I already have?

Step 4: Critically analyze the literature

Key to your literature review is a critical analysis of the literature collected around your topic. Your analysis will explore relationships, major themes, and any critical gaps in the research expressed in the work. Read and summarize each source with an eye toward analyzing authority, currency, coverage, methodology, and relationship to other works. The University of Toronto's Writing Center provides a comprehensive list of questions you can use to analyze your sources. The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Writing Center also provides guidance on how to structure your writing in the Learn how to write a review of literature guide.

Step 5: Categorize your resources

Divide the available resources that pertain to your research into categories reflecting their roles in addressing your research question. Possible ways to categorize resources include organization by:

  • chronology
  • theme
  • methodology
  • theoretical/philosophical approach

Regardless of the division, each category should be accompanied by thorough discussions and explanations of strengths and weaknesses, value to the overall survey, and comparisons with similar sources. You may have enough resources (known as saturation point) when:

  • You've used multiple databases and other resources (web portals, repositories, etc.) to get a variety of perspectives on the research topic.
  • Additional sources no longer change your understanding of the topic.
  • The same citations are showing up in a variety of articles. 

Step 6: Consult with others, then iterate

Research is not a linear process and literature reviews often require several cycles of searching, refining, and analyzing. 

Meet with your instructor, advisor, mentor, or librarian to get feedback. They can help you narrow/broaden your scope, identify gaps in your search strategy, or suggest new directions. Then, use the feedback to revisit earlier steps as needed. 

More resources