what is a literature review in social work

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Social Work Literature Review Guidelines

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This handout provides an overview of how to write literature reviews in the field of social work. It provides a list of suggestions and examples.

Literature reviews are designed to do two things: 1) give your readers an overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic or idea and 2) demonstrate how your research fits into the larger field of study, in this case, social work.

Unlike annotated bibliographies which are lists of references arranged alphabetically that include the bibliographic citation and a paragraph summary and critique for each source, literature reviews can be incorporated into a research paper or manuscript. You may quote or paraphrase from the sources, and all references to sources should include in-text parenthetical citations with a reference list at the end of the document. Sometimes, however, an instructor may require a separate literature review document and will have specific instructions for completing the assignment.

Below you will find general guidelines to consider when developing a literature review in the field of social work. Because social work is a social science field, you will most likely be required to use APA style. Please see our APA materials for information on creating parenthetical citations and reference lists.

1. Choose a variety of articles that relate to your subject, even if they do not directly answer your research question. You may find articles that loosely relate to the topic, rather than articles that you find using an exact keyword search. At first, you may need to cast a wide net when searching for sources.

For example: If your research question focuses on how people with chronic illnesses are treated in the workplace, you may be able to find some articles that address this specific question. You may also find literature regarding public perception of people with chronic illnesses or analyses of current laws affecting workplace discrimination.

2. Select the most relevant information from the articles as it pertains to your subject and your purpose. Remember, the purpose of the literature review is to demonstrate how your research question fits into a larger field of study.

3. Critically examine the articles. Look at methodology, statistics, results, theoretical framework, the author's purpose, etc. Include controversies when they appear in the articles.

For example: You should look for the strengths and weaknesses of how the author conducted the study. You can also decide whether or not the study is generalizable to other settings or whether the findings relate only to the specific setting of the study. Ask yourself why the author conducted the study and what he/she hoped to gain from the study. Look for inconsistencies in the results, as well.

4. Organize your information in the way that makes most sense. Some literature reviews may begin with a definition or general overview of the topic. Others may focus on another aspect of your topic. Look for themes in the literature or organize by types of study.

For example: Group case studies together, especially if all the case studies have related findings, research questions, or other similarities.

5. Make sure the information relates to your research question/thesis. You may need to explicitly show how the literature relates to the research question; don't assume that the connection is obvious.

6. Check to see that you have done more than simply summarize your sources. Your literature review should include a critical assessment of those sources. For more information, read the Experimental Psychology - Writing a Literature Review handout for questions to think about when reading sources.

7. Be sure to develop questions for further research. Again, you are not simply regurgitating information, but you are assessing and leading your reader to questions of your own, questions and ideas that haven't been explored yet or haven't been addressed in detail by the literature in the field.

Social Work Research: Literature Reviews

• Getting Started
• Finding Scholarly Articles
• Citation Searching
• Evaluating Sources This link opens in a new window
• Literature Reviews
• Evidence-Based This link opens in a new window
• Finding Instruments This link opens in a new window
• Writing & Citing

Using A Literature Review

A literature review is a very practical part of the research process.  It's how you build on other research in the field - identify best practices and tools and learn what doesn't work.  The resources on the page are here to help you structure you literature review so it's as useful as possible.  

Also take a look at any literature reviews you find as you search for articles - in addition to content and further references they'll also provide helpful structural hints. 

• Social Work Literature Review Guidelines Literature reviews are designed to do two things: 1) give your readers an overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic or idea and 2) demonstrate how your research fits into the larger field of study, in this case, social work.
• Considerations in Writing a Literature Review This article will briefly outline key points for you to keep in mind when writing literature reviews for social work.
• Undertaking a literature review: a step-by-step approach The purpose of this article is to present a step-by-step guide to facilitate understanding by presenting the critical elements of the literature review process. While reference is made to different types of literature reviews, the focus is on the traditional or narrative review that is undertaken, usually either as an academic assignment or part of the research process.

Conducting a Literature Review & Other Research Methods

What is a Literature Review?

"Literature reviews are systematic syntheses of previous work around a particular topic. Nearly all scholars have written literature reviews at some point; such reviews are common requirements for class projects or as part of theses, are often the first section of empirical papers, and are sometimes written to summarize a field of study. Given the increasing amount of literature in many fields, reviews are critical in synthesizing scientific knowledge." - Encyclopedia of Research Design

• APA Style Sample Papers (seventh edition) by the APA
• Sample APA Paper (lit. review begins page 3)
• Dissertations and Theses Full-Text Global Search here for examples of literature reviews from masters and doctoral theses.

Thinking About A Literature Review

Literature Reviews: An Overview

Additional How-To Guides

• CSU, Chico Office of Graduate Studies - Thesis Assistance Instructions, policies, and guidelines for graduate studies theses/projects.
• CSU, Chico Writing Center Make a one-on-one appointment with a writing tutor to help with your writing assignments.
• Learn How to Write a Review of the Literature University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Literature Review: An Overview for Graduate Students Video overview by North Carolina State University Libraries
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide University of Connecticut University Libraries
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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.

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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.

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

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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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What is a Literature Review?

A literature review, generally, is a summary and synthesis of existing research on a topic. Most scholarly articles or papers include a literature review to introduce the research question or thesis. But some literature reviews stand alone as individual papers.

There are also different types of review articles that have other purposes; read more below.

If you are asked to write a literature review for an assignment, read the instructions and consult with your instructor to be sure you understand exactly what is expected of the literature review for this assignment.

• Literature Reviews - UNC Writing Center An introduction to literature reviews and ways to organize a literature review.
• The Literature Review: Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper - USC Libraries A good overview including types of literature reviews, ways to organize a literature review, and a recommended process.
• Social Work Literature Review Guidelines Brief guidelines from Purdue OWL
• Social Work Research Skills Workbook : A Step-By-Step Guide to Conducting Agency-Based Research Chapter 3, Review of the Literature, provides excellent guidance on conducting a literature review. This library ebook requires an EMU NetID.

More Types of Review Articles

Review articles are generally a kind of secondary source.  That is, they are not presenting empirical findings from a single research project.  They are, however, original , in the sense that the author is using skill, knowledge and creativity to compile and write something new about the material (books, articles) under review.

There are several kinds of review articles.  Book Reviews are a special case, because sometimes they are written by experts but sometimes they are written by journalists or just fans of the book. Typically, a book review describes the main contents of the book, how it relates to existing ideas or works, and gives a judgment as to its value to various readers.  Some book reviews are just a paragraph, but the reviews in scholarly journals can be several pages.  In Esearch, you can limit search results to book reviews only, or screen book reviews out of the results, by clicking into the left-hand column under Content Type . 

Stand-alone Review Articles or Literature Reviews are common in the social sciences. The authors of these articles are experts, usually scholars. The review articles will address a current topic, lay out the main theories or ideas, recent developments in research, and suggest where further research is needed. Typical review articles are published in series such as:

• Annual Reviews This link opens in a new window Critical reviews of primary research literature in the sciences and social sciences. EMU access does not include the most recent 5 years.

In the health fields, Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses are articles that go a step further. Not only do they summarize and research on a topic, but they carefully analyze the research and may attempt to draw conclusions based on the compiled studies.  For more on these kinds of reviews, see:

• What is a Systematic Review? (Curtin Univ) This guide distinguishes several different kinds of reviews, such as literature review, systematic review, scoping review, etc.
• What is a systematic review? (Cochrane)
• Systematic Reviews (EPPI centre)

Search relevant library databases and other resources as part of your literature review. Use the sources recommended on these sections of the Social Work guide:

• Find Articles

Use Key Articles to Find More Sources

Approaches for finding more sources related to key articles. Many library databases offer these features:

• References - look for relevant sources cited in the key article
• Cited By - find more recent sources that cite the key article
• Related Items / Related Articles - finds sources that the database calculates to be related to the key article.

Google Scholar : look for Cited By and Related articles links

Esearch : look for References / Cited by links

Reading Research Articles

• How to Read a Social Science Journal Article Explains the structure of a research article and offers tips for reading strategically.
• Notetaking template for reading research articles Copy this Google Doc template and use it to take organized notes when reading research articles.
• Use a Literature Matrix for Note Taking How to use a matrix to summarize and synthesize the sources you read. Matrix templates available for Microsoft Word and Excel .

Organizing References

• Citation Tools Zotero and other citation tools are useful for saving and organizing your sources, and also help you create citations and reference lists.
• << Previous: Honors Theses

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Social Work Research Guide: Literature Review

• Getting Started
• Outside Sources
• Search Techniques
• Literature Review
• Writing Help
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Literature Review Overview

NCSU. (n.d.). “Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students.” [YouTube]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/t2d7y_r65HU

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a systematic review of the published literature on a specific topic or research question.  The literature review is designed to analyze-- not just summarize-- 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.

University of Pittsburgh. (n.d.).  Retrieved from  http://pitt.libguides.com/c.php?g=210872&p=1391698

• Social Work Literature Review Guidelines

Planning your literature review

Planning your literature review.

Writing a literature review will take time to gather and analyze the research relevant to your topic, so it best to start early and give yourself enough time to gather and analyze your sources.  The process of writing a literature review usually covers the following steps:

• Define your Research question
• Plan your approach to your research and your review
• Search the Literature
• Analyze the material you’ve found
• Manage the results of your research
• Write your Review

Defining Your Research Question

One of the hardest parts of a literature review is developing a good research question.  You don't want a research question that is so broad it encompasses too many research areas and can't be reasonably answered. 

Defining your topic may require an initial review of literature to get a sense of the scope about your topic.   Select a topic of interest, and do a preliminary search to see what kinds of research is being done and what is trending in that area.  This will give you a better sense of the subject and help you focus your research question.

In specifying your topic or research question, you should think about setting appropriate limitations on the research you are seeking. Limiting, for example, by time, personnel, gender, age, location, nationality etc. results in a more focused and meaningful topic. 

Using an example from the Duke University Writing Studio, you may start with a general question: 

Why did the chicken cross the road ?  This question is so general that you could be gathering relevant research for days. 

A more precise research question might be: 

What are some of the environmental factors that occurred in New York City between November and December 2017 that would cause a chicken to cross Amsterdam Avenue at 185th Street?   This research question is specific about a number of variables like time, geography, etc.

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
• Relying exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data
• Uncritically accepting another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis
• Not describing the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review
• Reporting isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods
• Only includes research that validates assumptions and not considering contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature

USC. (n.d.). Retrieved from  http://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/literaturereview

• When working on a literature review, it's a good idea to save your research in a citation manager such as RefWorks or Zotero.
• If a book or article is not available in the YU Libraries, it can be ordered through Interlibrary Loan.  You should never need to pay for your information.
• The Dissertations & Theses Global database is a good place to start.  You will see what research has already been done on your topic.
• For more detailed information, see below:
• Systematic Literature Searching in Social Work: A Practical Guide with Database Appraisal
• Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples
• Literature Reviews (From UNC College of Arts & Sciences)
• The Literature Review: a Few Tips on Conducting It
• Conducting a Literature Review: A Brief Interactive Tutorial

Books on Literature Review

These books can be found on reserve at the Pollack Library:

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A literature review is a means of demonstrating an author's knowledge about a particular field of study, including vocabulary, theories, key variables and phenomena, and its methods and history. Conducting a literature review also informs the student of the influential researchers and research groups in the field.

Randolph, Justus J. "A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation 14.13 (2009): 1-13.

What is a Literature Review?

At the top of this page is a general definition for what a literature review can encompass. Here are some additional criteria for you to consider as you begin to consider research studies to use in the paper that you will write:

• What has been done: this includes methods, populations, when was it studied?
• What are the gaps: what aspects haven't been researched?
• What are you going to do with the information you have found?

When you begin writing your literature review, it should be more than just a summary of what others have done. You need to interact with the research that you find. 

What does this mean for you as a student researcher?

• Don't settle for the quickest and easiest search results that you run across.
• Research the books and journal articles that you use in a deliberate way (this guide will help with that aspect).
• Think critically about the information that you find. What you're doing is much more than just a simple summary of other people's research.
• Be able to justify why you are including a research study in your review. How does it influence the research study you would plan or hope to do?
• Identify potential risks or benefits of the research methods used and how they might have impacted the study.

What is the Purpose of a Literature Review?

• distinguishing what has been done from what needs to be done
• discovering important variable relevant to the topic
• synthesizing and gaining a new perspective
• identifying relationships between ideas and practices
• establishing the context of the topic or problem
• rationalizing the significance of the problem
• enhancing and acquiring the subject vocabulary
• understanding the structure of the subject
• relating ideas and theory to application
• identifying the main methodologies and research techniques that have been used
• placing the research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the art developments

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination. London: Sage Publications, 1998, p.27.

What is Peer-Review?

Peer-reviewed journals and articles are a way of communicating ideas and information within a specific field of study or academic discipline.

Key features:

• use specialized vocabulary
• written by scholars and experts for other scholars and experts
• assumes that readers have basic knowledge of subject area
• they serve to advance knowledge by introducing new ideas and points of view while remaining in the known field of study
• evaluate the quality of manuscript
• validate the accuracy of the research methodology and procedures
•  it may also have been revised under advisement of the peer reviewers
• articles that don’t meet the standards set by a journal or association are not published

Identifying Peer-Review Articles & Research Studies

A research article is a scholarly article that essentially reports the results of original, primary research and typically appears in peer-reviewed or refereed periodicals. For this reason, research articles are considered the pinnacle of information sources. Research articles are almost always written in the same format. Understanding the format of research articles should help you to more easily navigate databases and select appropriate sources for you to use for your research. Most research articles incorporate five standard elements. The format that research articles follow mirror the research process.

• Introduction : summarizes the problem researched, its significance, and the nature of the study
• Literature review : provides a framework for understanding the problem and the theoretical rationale behind conducting the study; sources cited are typically listed at the end in some sort of reference page
• Methodology : describes how the data were collected, including things like the population studies and the data collection instrument used
• Results/findings : presents a summary of the data collected, typically in the form of charts and tables with accompanying narrative
• Discussion/conclusion : includes such information as the interpretation of the data, recommendations for further study, and limitations of the study.

Other elements that you many find in research articles are an abstract or summary, information about the author(s), and a list of references. The references can be very helpful in directing your to other possible sources of information.

"The student's survival guide to research," M.L. McAdoo, p. 123-4.

Books About Literature Reviews and Thesis Writing

• Worksheet for Literature Reviews This worksheet will aid in creating a summary for the research articles you read. Use the matrices to determine if it meets your criteria.

Source: McLean, Lindsey. "Literature Review."  CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments) , 2015.  https://www.projectcora.org/assignment/literature-review.

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4.1 What is a literature review?

Learning objectives.

• Describe the components of a literature review
• Recognize commons errors in literature reviews

Pick up nearly any book on research methods and you will find a description of a literature review . At a basic level, the term implies a survey of factual or nonfiction books, articles, and other documents published on a particular subject. Definitions may be similar across the disciplines, with new types and definitions continuing to emerge. Generally speaking, a literature review is a:

• “comprehensive background of the literature within the interested topic area” (O’Gorman & MacIntosh, 2015, p. 31).  [1]
• “critical component of the research process that provides an in-depth analysis of recently published research findings in specifically identified areas of interest” (Houser, 2018, p. 109).  [2]
• “written document that presents a logically argued case founded on a comprehensive understanding of the current state of knowledge about a topic of study” (Machi & McEvoy, 2012, p. 4).  [3]

Literature reviews are indispensable for academic research. “A substantive, thorough, sophisticated literature review is a precondition for doing substantive, thorough, sophisticated research…A researcher cannot perform significant research without first understanding the literature in the field” (Boote & Beile, 2005, p. 3).  [4] In the literature review, a researcher shows she is familiar with a body of knowledge and thereby establishes her credibility with a reader. The literature review shows how previous research is linked to the author’s project, summarizing and synthesizing what is known while identifying gaps in the knowledge base, facilitating theory development, closing areas where enough research already exists, and uncovering areas where more research is needed. (Webster & Watson, 2002, p. xiii).  [5] They are often necessary for real world social work practice. Grant proposals, advocacy briefs, and evidence-based practice rely on a review of the literature to accomplish practice goals.

A literature review is a compilation of the most significant previously published research on your topic. Unlike an annotated bibliography or a research paper you may have written in other classes, your literature review will outline, evaluate, and synthesize relevant research and relate those sources to your own research question. It is much more than a summary of all the related literature. A good literature review lays the foundation for the importance of the problem your research project addresses defines the main ideas in your research question and their interrelationships.

Literature review basics

All literature reviews, whether they focus on qualitative or quantitative data, will at some point:

• Introduce the topic and define its key terms.
• Establish the importance of the topic.
• Provide an overview of the important literature on the concepts in the research question and other related concepts.
• Identify gaps in the literature or controversies.
• Point out consistent finding across studies.
• Arrive at a synthesis that organizes what is known about a topic, rather than just summarizing.
• Discusses possible implications and directions for future research.

There are many different types of literature reviews, including those that focus solely on methodology, those that are more conceptual, and those that are more exploratory. Regardless of the type of literature review or how many sources it contains, strong literature reviews have similar characteristics. Your literature review is, at its most fundamental level, an original work based on an extensive critical examination and synthesis of the relevant literature on a topic. As a study of the research on a particular topic, it is arranged by key themes or findings, which should lead up to or link to the research question.

A literature review is a mandatory part of any research project. It demonstrates that you can systematically explore the research in your topic area, read and analyze the literature on the topic, use it to inform your own work, and gather enough knowledge about the topic to conduct a research project. Literature reviews should be reasonably complete, and not restricted to a few journals, a few years, or a specific methodology or research design. A well-conducted literature review should indicate to you whether your initial research questions have already been addressed in the literature, whether there are newer or more interesting research questions available, and whether the original research questions should be modified or changed in light of findings of the literature review. The review can also provide some intuitions or potential answers to the questions of interest and/or help identify theories that have previously been used to address similar questions and may provide evidence to inform policy or decision-making (Bhattacherjee, 2012).  [6]

Literature reviews are also beneficial to you as a researcher and scholar in social work. By reading what others have argued and found in their work, you become familiar with how people talk about and understand your topic. You will also refine your writing skills and your understanding of the topic you have chosen. The literature review also impacts the question you want to answer. As you learn more about your topic, you will clarify and redefine the research question guiding your inquiry. Literature reviews make sure you are not “reinventing the wheel” by repeating a study done so many times before or making an obvious error that others have encountered. The contribution your research study will have depends on what others have found before you. Try to place the study you wish to do in the context of previous research and ask, “Is this contributing something new?” and “Am I addressing a gap in knowledge or controversy in the literature?”

In summary, you should conduct a literature review to:

• Locate gaps in the literature of your discipline
• Avoid “reinventing the wheel”
• Carry on the unfinished work of other scholars
• Identify other people working in the same field
• Increase breadth and depth of knowledge in your subject area
• Read the seminal works in your field
• Provide intellectual context for your own work
• Acknowledge opposing viewpoints
• Put your work in perspective
• Demonstrate you can find and understand previous work in the area

Common literature review errors

Literature reviews are more than a summary of the publications you find on a topic. As you have seen in this brief introduction, literature reviews are a very specific type of research, analysis, and writing. We will explore these topics more in the next chapters. As you begin your literature review, here are some common errors to avoid:

• Accepting another researcher’s finding as valid without evaluating methodology and data
• Ignoring contrary findings and alternative interpretations
• Using findings that are not clearly related to your own study or using findings that are too general
• Dedicating insufficient time to literature searching
• Simply reporting isolated statistical results, rather than synthesizing the results
• Relying too heavily on secondary sources
• Overusing quotations from sources
• Not justifying arguments using specific facts or theories from the literature

  For a quick review of some of the pitfalls and challenges a new researcher faces when she begins work, see “ Get Ready: Academic Writing, General Pitfalls and (oh yes) Getting Started! ”.

Key Takeaways

• Literature reviews are the first step in any research project, as they help you learn about the topic you chose to study.
• You must do more than summarize sources for a literature review. You must have something to say about them and demonstrate you understand their content.
• Literature review- a survey of factual or nonfiction books, articles, and other documents published on a particular subject

Image attributions

Book library by MVA CC-0

• O’Gorman, K., & MacIntosh, R. (2015).  Research methods for business & management: A guide to writing your dissertation (2nd ed.). Oxford: Goodfellow Publishers. ↵
• Houser, J., (2018). Nursing research reading, using, and creating evidence (4th ed.) . Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett. ↵
• Machi, L., & McEvoy, B. (2012). The literature review: Six steps to success (2nd ed) . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. ↵
• Boote, D., & Beile, P. (2005). Scholars before researchers: On the centrality of the dissertation literature review in research preparation. Educational Researcher   34 (6), 3-15. ↵
• Webster, J., & Watson, R. (2002). Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: Writing a literature review.  MIS Quarterly , 26 (2), xiii-xxiii.  https://web.njit.edu/~egan/Writing_A_Literature_Review.pdf ↵
• Bhattacherjee, A., (2012). Social science research: Principles, methods, and practices.  Textbooks Collection . 3.  http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/oa_textbooks/3 ↵

Scientific Inquiry in Social Work Copyright © 2018 by Matthew DeCarlo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What is a Literature Review?

A literature review is an essential component of every research project! It requires reviewing what credible scholars in the field have said, done, and found in order to help you:

• Identify what is currently known in your area of interest
• Establish an empirical/ theoretical/ foundation for your research
• Identify potential gaps in knowledge that you might fill
• Develop viable research questions and hypotheses
• Determine appropriate methodologies
• Decide upon the scope of your research
• Demonstrate the importance of your research to the field

Helpful Tools for Literature Reviews

• Academic Phrasebank Examples of common phrases used in literature reviews and reports of research findings. The items in the Academic Phrasebank are mostly content neutral and generic in nature; in using them, therefore, you are not stealing other people’s ideas and this does not constitute plagiarism.
• How to Read a Journal Article Tips and tricks to make reading and understanding social science journal articles easier from ICPSR.

As you read, you'll encounter various ideas, disagreements, methods, and perspectives which can be hard to organize in a meaningful way. Because you'll be reading a number of resources, a synthesis matrix helps you record the main points of each source and document how sources relate to each other.

• Writing a Literature Review & Using a Synthesis Matrix
• Excel Matrix Customize columns to fit your needs

Introduction to Literature Reviews in Social Work

Kelsey Cheshire, Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Librarian from VCU Libraries, and Audrey Wells, Student Success Writing Advisor from the School of Social Work, present an introduction to literature reviews.

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About Literature Reviews

The Literature Review is part of a research paper in which the author provides a historical account of the research on the topic, along with recent developments. While other parts of an paper may cite non-research articles, the Literature Review only cites research articles.

It is also an important way for you to become familiar with the specifics of your topic, including specialized language used, key researchers, and which journals are publishing on the topic. 

Research articles are primary sources. Secondary Sources include books or trade papers citing original research, while General Sources include newspapers, magazines, blogs, and Wikipedia. 

What steps do I take?

You'll want to use at least two databases as you begin your searching for research articles. These tips will help you as you go.

• Pay attention to the language being used and incorporate the terms into your search. For instance, are they referring to a group as "children" or "youth"?
• Don't read the full article at first. Start with the Abstract, then move to the Conclusion, then to Methodology, and finally the Literature Review and full paper. 
• Keep track of the articles you read in a Google Doc, Word Doc, or even a citation management tool like Zotero (video tutorial). The last thing you want is to recall a paper you read but not be able to find it again!
• After you read the article, write your own brief summary of the article, including who the researchers are, what demographic or other community they are studying, what data they collected, and what their results concluded. Finally, add a sentence or two on how the article relates to your topic area and the other articles you've read. 
• As you find relevant articles, pay attention to how the researchers write their own Literature Review section and use that as a model. 
• Also, pay attention to what other research the authors are citing, and which articles are citing them (video tutorial on this).
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Literature Reviews in Social Work

About this guide.

• What is a Literature Review
• Types of Literature Reviews
• Guidelines for Writing a Literature Review
• Searching for Books, Articles, and Other Resources
• Associations and Research Institutes
• Statistical Sources
• Government Resources
• Citing Your Sources

The purpose of this guide is to provide background and guidelines related to literature reviews in social work. Included are BU databases useful for social work research, search tips, and a listing of some associations and research institutes that produce research reports or provide links to research literature that might be useful in a review. The correct citation of sources is particularly important in a literature review and this guide includes a listing of the various style manuals, including APA and the Chicago Manual of Style. (Original author, Meredith Kirkpatrick, 2021)

Related Guides

• Social Work
• Social Work Policy Resources
• Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences
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3.2 Synthesizing literature

Learning objectives.

• Connect the sources you read with key concepts in your research question and proposal
• Systematize the information and facts from each source you read

Putting the pieces together

Combining separate elements into a whole is the dictionary definition of synthesis. It is a way to make connections among and between numerous and varied source materials. A literature review is not an annotated bibliography, organized by title, author, or date of publication. Rather, it is grouped by topic and argument to create a whole view of the literature relevant to your research question.

Your synthesis must demonstrate a critical analysis of the papers you collected, as well as your ability to integrate the results of your analysis into your own literature review. Each source you collect should be critically evaluated and weighed based on the criteria from Chapter 2 before you include it in your review.

Begin the synthesis process by creating a grid, table, or an outline where you will summarize your literature review findings, using common themes you have identified and the sources you have found. The summary, grid, or outline will help you compare and contrast the themes, so you can see the relationships among them as well as areas where you may need to do more searching. A basic summary table is provided in Figure 3.2. Whichever method you choose, this type of organization will help you to both understand the information you find and structure the writing of your review. Remember, although “the means of summarizing can vary, the key at this point is to make sure you understand what you’ve found and how it relates to your topic and research question” (Bennard et al., 2014, para. 10).

As you read through the material you gather, look for common themes as they may provide the structure for your literature review. And, remember, writing a literature review is an iterative process. It is not unusual to go back and search academic databases for more sources of information as you read the articles you’ve collected.

Literature reviews can be organized sequentially or by topic, theme, method, results, theory, or argument. It’s important to develop categories that are meaningful and relevant to your research question. Take detailed notes on each article and use a consistent format for capturing all the information each article provides. These notes and the summary table can be done manually using note cards. However, given the amount of information you will be recording, an electronic file created in a word processing or spreadsheet (like this example Literature Search Template ) is more manageable. Examples of fields you may want to capture in your notes include:

• Authors’ names
• Article title
• Publication year
• Main purpose of the article
• Methodology or research design
• Participants
• Measurement
• Conclusions

Other fields that will be useful when you begin to synthesize the sum total of your research:

• Specific details of the article or research that are especially relevant to your study
• Key terms and definitions
• Strengths or weaknesses in research design
• Relationships to other studies
• Possible gaps in the research or literature (for example, many research articles conclude with the statement “more research is needed in this area”)
• Finally, note how closely each article relates to your topic. You may want to rank these as high, medium, or low relevance. For papers that you decide not to include, you may want to note your reasoning for exclusion, such as small sample size, local case study, or lacks evidence to support conclusions.

An example of how to organize summary tables by author or theme is shown in Table 3.1.

Here is an example summary table template .

Creating a topical outline

An alternative way to organize your articles for synthesis it to create an outline. After you have collected the articles you intend to use (and have put aside the ones you won’t be using), it’s time to extract as much as possible from the facts provided in those articles. You are starting your research project without a lot of hard facts on the topics you want to study, and by using the literature reviews provided in academic journal articles, you can gain a lot of knowledge about a topic in a short period of time.

As you read an article in detail, try copying the information you find relevant to your research topic in a separate word processing document. Copying and pasting from PDF to Word can be a pain because PDFs are image files not documents. To make that easier, use the HTML version of the article, convert the PDF to Word in Adobe Acrobat or another PDF reader, or use “paste special” command to paste the content into Word without formatting. If it’s an old PDF, you may have to simply type out the information you need. It can be a messy job, but having all of your facts in one place is very helpful for drafting your literature review.  Of course, you will not be using other authors’ words in your own literature review, but this is a good way to start compiling your notes.

You should copy and paste any fact or argument you consider important. Some good examples include definitions of concepts, statistics about the size of the social problem, and empirical evidence about the key variables in the research question, among countless others. It’s a good idea to consult with your professor and the syllabus for the course about what they are looking for when they read your literature review. Facts for your literature review are principally found in the introduction, results, and discussion section of an empirical article or at any point in a non-empirical article. Copy and paste into your notes anything you may want to use in your literature review.

Importantly, you must make sure you note the original source of that information. Nothing is worse than searching your articles for hours only to realize you forgot to note where your facts came from. If you found a statistic that the author used in the introduction, it almost certainly came from another source that the author cited in a footnote or internal citation. You will want to check the original source to make sure the author represented the information correctly. Moreover, you may want to read the original study to learn more about your topic and discover other sources relevant to your inquiry.

Assuming you have pulled all of the facts out of multiple articles, it’s time to start thinking about how these pieces of information relate to each other. Start grouping each fact into categories and subcategories as shown in Figure 3.3. For example, a statistic stating that homeless single adults are more likely to be male may fit into a category of gender and homelessness. For each topic or subtopic you identified during your critical analysis of each paper, determine what those papers have in common. Likewise, determine which ones in the group differ. If there are contradictory findings, you may be able to identify methodological or theoretical differences that could account for the contradiction. For example, one study may sample only high-income earners or those in a rural area. Determine what general conclusions you can report about the topic or subtopic, based on all of the information you’ve found.

Create a separate document containing a topical outline that combines your facts from each source and organizes them by topic or category. As you include more facts and more sources into your topical outline, you will begin to see how each fact fits into a category and how categories are related to each other. Your category names may change over time, as may their definitions. This is a natural reflection of the learning you are doing.

A complete topical outline is a long list of facts, arranged by category about your topic. As you step back from the outline, you should understand the topic areas where you have enough information to make strong conclusions about what the literature says. You should also assess in what areas you need to do more research before you can write a robust literature review. The topical outline should serve as a transitional document between the notes you write on each source and the literature review you submit to your professor. It is important to note that they contain plagiarized information that is copied and pasted directly from the primary sources. That’s okay because these are just notes and are not meant to be turned in as your own ideas. For your final literature review, you must paraphrase these sources to avoid plagiarism. More importantly, you should keep your voice and ideas front-and-center in what you write as this is your analysis of the literature. Make strong claims and support them thoroughly using facts you found in the literature. We will pick up the task of writing your literature review in section 3.3.

Additional resources for synthesizing literature

There are many ways to approach synthesizing literature. We’ve reviewed two examples here: summary tables and topical outlines. Other examples you may encounter include annotated bibliographies and synthesis matrices. As you are learning research, find a method that works for you. Reviewing the literature is a core component of evidence-based practice in social work at any level. See the resources below if you need some additional help:

Literature Reviews: Using a Matrix to Organize Research  / Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota

Literature Review: Synthesizing Multiple Sources  / Indiana University

Writing a Literature Review and Using a Synthesis Matrix  / Florida International University

Sample Literature Reviews Grid  / Complied by Lindsay Roberts

Killam, Laura (2013) . Literature review preparation: Creating a summary table . Includes transcript.

Key Takeaways

• It is necessary to take notes on research articles as you read. Try to develop a system that works for you to keep your notes organized, such as a summary table.
• Summary tables and topical outlines help researchers synthesize sources for the purpose of writing a literature review.

Image attributions

Pieces of the puzzle by congerdesign cc-0, adult diary by pexels cc-0.

• Figure 3.2 copied from Frederiksen, L. & Phelps, S. F. (2018). Literature reviews for education and nursing graduate students. Shared under a CC-BY 4.0 license. ↵
• This table was adapted from the work of Amanda Parsons ↵

Guidebook for Social Work Literature Reviews and Research Questions Copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Mauldin and Matthew DeCarlo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Literature reviews.

• Introduction: who will benefit from this guide?
• Getting started: what is a literature review?
• How to develop a researchable question
• How to find the literature
• How to manage the reading and take notes that make sense
• How to bring it all together: examples, templates, links, guides

Who will benefit from this guide?

This guide is written for undergraduates and postgraduate, course work students who are doing their first literature review.

Higher degree research candidates and academic researchers, please also refer to the Resources for Researchers library guides for more detailed information on writing theses and systematic reviews. 

What is a literature review?

A literature review is an examination of research in a particular field. 

• It gathers, critically analyses, evaluates, and synthesises current research literature in a discipline,
• indicates where there may be strengths, gaps,  weaknesses, and agreements in the current research.

It considers:

• what has been done,
•  the current thinking,
• research trends,
•  principal debates,
• dominant ideas,
• methods used in researching the topic
• gaps and flaws in the research.

  http://libguides.lib.msu.edu/c.php?g=96146&p=904793

Different Types of reviews

You may be asked to complete a literature review that is done in a systematic way, that is like a systematic review.

Mostly, the literature review you will be asked to do will be integrative – that is, conclusions are drawn from the literature in order to create something new, such as a new hypothesis to address a question, a solution to a complex problem, a new workplace procedure or training program.

Some elements of what you are asked to do may be like a systematic review, particularly in health fields.

Systematic approach does not mean a systematic review.

A true systematic review is a complex research project:

•  conducted in a scientific manner,
• usually with more than one person involved,
• they take a long time to complete
• are generally a project in themselves.

For more information have a look at the Systematic Review library guide .

If you would like to know more about different types of reviews, have a look at the document below: 

At the core of a literature review is a synthesis of the research. 

While both analysis and synthesis are involved, s ynthesis goes beyond analysis and is a higher order thinking.(Bloom's taxonomy).

Looking at the diagram below, it is evident that synthesis goes well beyond just analysis. 

• Analysis asks you to break something down into its parts and compare and contrast with other research findings.
• where they agree and disagree
• the major themes, arguments, ideas in a field
• the questions raised and those yet to be answered.
• This will show the relationships between different aspects of the research findings in the literature.
• It is not a summary, but rather is organised around concepts and themes, where there is a combining of elements to form something new.

Watch this short clip from Utah State University which defines how to go about achieving synthesis. 

Synthesis: True or False. 

Quick Quiz: check your understanding of synthesis from the video by deciding which of these statements are true or false .

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A Social Work Analysis of Facilitators of and Barriers to Adopting Technology in Older Adults: A Systematic Literature Review

Affiliations.

• 1 Departamento de Trabajo Social, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), España.
• 2 Área de Trabajo Social y Servicios Sociales, Universidad de Cádiz, Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), España.
• PMID: 38605522
• DOI: 10.1080/01634372.2024.2339977

Increasing concern within social work about delivering comprehensive and high-quality care to older adults necessitates exploring their interest in information and communication technologies. The aim is to determine, via a systematic review using the PRISMA method, how the scientific literature on older adults' technology experiences through the lens of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The review differentiates between enabling factors and barriers that influence older adults' use and acceptance of technology from their own perspective. It provides social workers with a comprehensive overview of use of technologies and identify general guidelines to enhance older adults' personal and communal autonomy.

Keywords: Older adults; TAM (technology acceptance model); gender; quality of life; social work; technology.

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• Bibliography

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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• Understanding linguistic inequities in healthcare: moving from the technical to the social
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• Christina Reppas-Rindlisbacher 1 , 2 ,
• http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8466-1193 Shail Rawal 1 , 2
• 1 Department of Medicine , Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto , Toronto , Ontario , Canada
• 2 Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics , University Health Network and Sinai Health System , Toronto , Ontario , Canada
• Correspondence to Dr Shail Rawal, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; shail.rawal{at}uhn.ca

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2023-016873

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• Communication
• Health policy
• Quality improvement
• Social sciences
• Performance measures

When patients and clinicians do not speak the same language, the quality and safety concerns that can arise seem evident. However, the literature on the association between language and a host of health outcomes is vast and varied. In this issue of BMJQS , Chu et al share the results of their well-conducted systematic review and meta-analysis of the relationship between a patient’s spoken language and hospital readmissions and emergency department (ED) revisits. 1 They report that adult inpatients who prefer a non-dominant language are more likely to experience an unplanned hospital readmission or ED revisit after discharge. Moreover, they found that children whose parents spoke a non-dominant language had more ED revisits. The authors’ work is a thoughtful synthesis of a somewhat disparate literature and offers a starting point to consider key challenges in the broader area of research on linguistic inequities in healthcare.

Language as a variable

There are several challenges that arise when language is used as a quantitative variable in research. The first challenge is one of definition. Chu et al describe the heterogeneous approach to the measurement of language in the studies they reviewed as a limitation of their results. Some studies used dominant language proficiency, while others used preferred language, and yet others used primary language. Each measure assesses a different construct. And so, it becomes difficult to aggregate outcomes across studies when fundamentally different concepts are measured and compared.

Importantly, spoken language typically involves both speakers and listeners. However, the current literature almost exclusively examines patients’ language use and rarely reports or assesses that of clinicians. This makes the patient the focus of study rather than the clinician. 2 Future research must consider how to measure the languages used by clinicians and their concordance with a patient’s preferred language, especially given the ample evidence that language concordant care is associated with improved patient outcomes. 3–6

The role of dominant language speakers and institutions

Interactions between patients and clinicians occur within institutions that are embedded in a wider healthcare system and social context. A focus on the patient’s language use as the primary subject of study obscures the role of dominant language speakers, institutions and the health system in shaping linguistic equity. For example, do institutions offer meaningful access to interpretation services? Do they have policies that govern the use of interpretation? Do their hiring practices reflect the linguistic diversity of the communities they serve? What is the institutional culture as it relates to health equity? Understanding linguistic inequities requires that we move beyond measuring the patient’s language to assessing the degree to which institutions provide multilingual care.

Measuring the impact of interpretation services

Chu et al’s work underscores the challenges of understanding how interpretation services influence health outcomes such as readmission rates. In a stratified analysis by ‘access to or use of interpretation services’, the authors found higher odds of readmission from studies that did not describe interpretation services and no difference in readmission rates from studies that did describe interpretation services. Thus, the authors conclude that ‘interpretation access’ could be a mitigating factor in the association between language discordance and hospital readmissions. This finding should be interpreted with some caution due to the small sample size of the two studies analysed and the imprecise definition of interpretation access and use. One of the two studies verified patient-level interpretation and described the clinician who used the service but not the form of interpretation used (in-person, video, telephone). 7 While the other study described the form of interpretation used (telephone) but was unable to match an interpreted encounter to a specific patient or describe the clinical context of the interaction. 8

Thus, although the benefits of interpretation services are well established, 9 a significant barrier to better characterising the relationship between interpretation and health system outcomes, such as hospital readmission, remains the absence of patient-level data on whether interpretation was received by a patient, what form it took (telephone, in-person, video), and what type of communication it was used for (medication reconciliation, discharge counselling, etc). Institutions must create policies to collect such data at the level of the individual patient while also taking steps to protect personal health information. This would allow for a more nuanced understanding of the causative factors underlying the association between interpretation and health outcomes of interest. It would also allow institutions to identify areas for quality improvement and move from simply providing access to interpretation services to setting benchmarks for interpretation use.

The need for theory to inform the claims we make

Chu et al’s work offers an opportunity to reconsider how we account for the relationship between a patient’s spoken language and a given health outcome. Typically, poor communication between language-discordant patients and clinicians is theorised to be the primary mediator of poor patient outcomes. Professional interpretation is known to improve clinical care. 9 Thus, increasing the use of interpretation services is seen as the principal method for improving outcomes and remedying inequities for patients who speak non-dominant languages. However, the outcomes experienced by patients from language minority communities are likely shaped by more than poor communication alone, requiring an understanding of language as a social process.

Chu et al note that an important challenge in the analysis of research on linguistic inequities is the ‘complex relationship between language, race/ethnicity, migration status and socioeconomic status’. Language intersects with these characteristics in ways that are not well examined in conventional healthcare research. For example, it is unclear what proportion of the studies reviewed by the authors collected sociodemographic data from participants. Other studies that have explored these factors have found that patients who do not speak English in English-dominant countries are more likely to be racialised and live in poverty. 10 11 Thus, when considering Chu et al’s findings, non-dominant language speakers may have less access to home care and other social services that support a transition from hospital to home. Using a sociolinguistic lens, we might also consider how perceptions of a person’s language use are linked to racism or xenophobia. For example, a white French speaker in an English-dominant institution may be cared for in a different manner from a French speaker who is not white. 2 Similarly, language hierarchies position European languages above others, 12 and discourses related to migration, assimilation, and visible markers of cultural or religious difference may also shape the care of speakers who are deemed to be inadequately proficient in the dominant language.

Moving forward

At a time when global migration is reshaping population demographics, Chu et al’s study provides an opportunity to reflect on the status of research on linguistic inequities in healthcare. First, it brings to light the need for a standardised approach to defining language use in order to better synthesise findings across studies. This requires greater coordination among researchers and the development of a consensus view on how best to report the complex dimensions of language. Health systems must also be mandated to collect such data. Self-reported language preference is a useful starting point, 13 but we must develop the theory and methods needed to move beyond a binary understanding of language to one that considers the reality that patients and clinicians may speak multiple languages with varying proficiency and preference.

Second, the study reminds us to characterise the context in which communication occurs, so that the role of both speakers and listeners are examined. This requires that data on clinician language be included in health and administrative records so that language concordant care can be studied. It also underwscores the need for sociodemographic data be collected so that the scope of analysis can be expanded to include consideration of the effects of racism, xenophobia, religious discrimination and classism on health outcomes in non-dominant language speakers. Finally, the study highlights the need to develop measures and quality standards to assess how well institutions provide multilingual care. Such efforts must be grounded in the views of patients who speak non-dominant languages, and begin with collecting patient-level interpretation data.

Remedying linguistic inequities requires us to move from understanding language as a technical problem of poor communication, 14 to one that accounts for social context. It requires us to enrich our view of language and its intersections with race, migration status, religion and socioeconomic position, and to recognise that interventions to address linguistic inequities should occur in concert with broader efforts to improve health equity. Only then can we better understand the associations between the variables we seek to describe and move towards substantive action to address the inequities experienced by language minority communities.

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Ethics approval

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Contributors CR-R and SR contributed to the conception, drafting and critical review of this article.

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

Competing interests CR-R reported receiving the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship Award, the Eliot Phillipson Clinician-Scientist Training Program Award and the PSI Foundation Resident Research Grant outside the present manuscript. SR is supported by an award from the Mak Pak Chiu and Mak-Soo Lai Hing Chair in General Internal Medicine, University of Toronto.

Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

Linked Articles

• Systematic review Association between language discordance and unplanned hospital readmissions or emergency department revisits: a systematic review and meta-analysis Janet N Chu Jeanette Wong Naomi S Bardach Isabel Elaine Allen Jill Barr-Walker Maribel Sierra Urmimala Sarkar Elaine C Khoong BMJ Quality & Safety 2023; - Published Online First: 30 Dec 2023. doi: 10.1136/bmjqs-2023-016295

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