Literature Reviews

Before you begin writing your paper, you will need to decide upon a way to organize your information. You can organize your paper using a number of different strategies, such as the following:

• Topics and subtopics: Discussing your sources in relation to different topics and subtopics; probably the most common approach
• Chronologically: Discussing your sources from oldest to newest in order to show trends or changes in the approach to a topic over time
• Methods: Discussing your sources by different methods that are used to approach the topic

When literature reviews are incorporated into a research paper, they are often structured using the funnel method, which begins with a broad overview of a topic and then narrows down to more specific themes before focusing in on the specific research question that the paper will address.

A literature review paper often follows this basic organization:

Introduction

• Describes the importance of the topic
• Defines key terms
• Describes the goals of the review
• Provides an overview of the literature to be discussed (e.g., methods, trends, etc.) (optional)
• Describes parameters of the review and particular search methods used (optional)

Body

• Discusses findings of sources, as well as strengths, weaknesses, similarities, differences, contradictions, and gaps
• Divides content into sections (for longer reviews), uses headings and subheadings to indicate section divisions, and provides brief summaries at the end of each section

Conclusion

• Summarizes what is known about the topic
• Discusses implications for practice
• Discusses areas for further research

A literature review paper not only describes and evaluates the scholarly research literature related to a particular topic, but it also synthesizes that information. Synthesis is the process of weaving together information from sources to arrive at new analyses and insights.

To help you prepare to synthesize sources in your paper, you can take the topic matrix that you prepared as you were organizing your sources, and flesh it out into a synthesis matrix that contains detailed notes from each source as they relate to different topics and subtopics of your literature review. Once you've completed your synthesis matrix, you can more easily identify ways that sources relate to each other in terms of their similarities and differences, methodological strengths and weakness, and contradictions and gaps. The video below shows how to create a synthesis matrix.

Video: Synthesis Matrix Tutorial by Andrew Davis.

A literature review paper should flow logically from one topic to the next. As you write your paper, consider these tips:

• Write in a formal voice and with an impartial tone.
• Define critical terms and describe key theories.
• Use topic sentences to clearly indicate what each paragraph is about.
• Use transitions to make links between sections.
• Introduce acronyms upon first using them.
• Call attention to seminal (i.e., highly influential; groundbreaking) studies.
• Clearly distinguish between your ideas and those of the authors you cite.
• Cite multiple sources for a single idea, if appropriate.
• Create a list of references that follows appropriate style guidelines.
• Give your paper a title that conveys what the literature review is about.
• Once you have written your paper, carefully proofread it for errors.