how to describe literature review in resume

Explore Jobs

• Jobs Near Me
• Remote Jobs
• Full Time Jobs
• Part Time Jobs
• Entry Level Jobs
• Work From Home Jobs

Find Specific Jobs

• $15 Per Hour Jobs
• $20 Per Hour Jobs
• Hiring Immediately Jobs
• High School Jobs
• H1b Visa Jobs

Explore Careers

• Business And Financial
• Architecture And Engineering
• Computer And Mathematical

Explore Professions

• What They Do
• Certifications
• Demographics

Best Companies

• Health Care
• Fortune 500

Explore Companies

• CEO And Executies
• Resume Builder
• Career Advice
• Explore Majors
• Questions And Answers
• Interview Questions

How To Put Research On Your Resume (With Examples)

• How To Write A Resume
• How To Build A Resume
• Specific Resume Words
• Action Verbs On A resume
• Words To Describe Yourself
• Resume Outline
• How To Make A Resume
• How To Make A Resume On Word
• How To Write A Resume Profile
• General Resume Examples
• Resume With No Experience
• Student Resume
• College Resume
• Entry Level Resume
• Military Resume
• Internship Resume
• First Resume
• College Application Resume
• 2 Page Resume
• Blank Resume Template
• College Freshman Resume
• Work History
• Resume Templates
• Resume Tips
• Best Resume Writing Services
• Things To Avoid On A Resume
• Resume Paper To Use
• What To Include In A Resume
• How To Write A Bio
• How To Write A Personal Statement
• Lied on Your Resume?
• Avoid Age Discrimination
• Words and Phrases You Shouldn't Include in Your Resume
• How Many Skills Should You List On A Resume
• Send A Resume As A Pdf
• Resume Critique
• Make A Resume Stand Out
• Resume Spelling
• Resume Past Or Present Tense
• How To List Projects On A resume
• Best Resume Action Words
• How To Quantify Your Resume
• Resume Bullet Points
• Are Resume Writers Worth It
• How Many Jobs To List On Resume
• Please Find Attached My Resume
• How To List Contract Work On Your Resume
• How To Put Research On Your Resume
• What Is A CV?
• CV Vs Resume
• CV Templates
• CV Examples

Find a Job You Really Want In

Research experiences and skills are an incredibly important aspect of many job applications, so it’s important to know how to put them on your resume correctly. Hiring managers and recruiters want employees who can help drive innovation by being able to apply research skills to problem solve and come up with creative growth solutions.

If you’re a job seeker looking to include your research skills on a resume , we’ll go over how to list research on resume, where you can include it on a resume, and give you some examples.

Key Takeaways:

If you don’t have traditional research experience, highlight the skills used for research that you’ve used in past jobs.

Consider creating a separate research section in your resume if you have a lot of research experience or merge sections, depending on which section you want to bolster with research.

Research experience is one of the best assets to include on a resume so be on the lookout for more opportunities.

What are research skills?

Where to put research experience on your resume

How to include research on your resume, examples of research on a resume, how to put research on your resume faq.

• Sign Up For More Advice and Jobs

Research skills are any skills related to your ability to locate, extract, organize, and evaluate data relevant to a particular subject. It also involves investigation, critical thinking , and presenting or using the findings in a meaningful way.

Depending on what job you’re applying for, research skills could make or break your ability to land the job. Almost every job requires some research skills and you probably already have some of those skills mastered by now.

For most careers, research is a vital process to be able to answer questions. “Research skills” are not a single skill, but multiple ones put together.

Some skills that are necessary for research are organization, problem-solving, critical thinking, communication, and specific technical skills, like coding, Excel, and copywriting.

Including research experience and skills on a resume can be incredibly flexible. When thinking about how to add it to your resume, you want to consider how the research experience adds to your resume.

Your research experience can be included in a few different sections of your resume. Some of those sections include:

Academic accomplishments

Research experience

Work experience/history

College activities

Volunteer work

Presentations and publications

Skills section

If you’ve had smaller research roles but no “official” research experience, you can highlight the skills associated with the types of research mentioned above in your job description under the work history section in your resume.

If your job history is a research position, then naturally, you would include research under the work history section. You can also merge your sections depending on what type of position you are applying for.

For example, you could create a “Research and Education” section or a “Research and Publications” section. If your research is not related to your education and you don’t have any publications, you can also detail it in a separate “Research” section in your resume.

To include your research on your resume, you should gather all the necessary information and then quantify your accomplishments to fit into specific sections. Here is a more detailed list of how to write about research experience in resume:

Gather all the necessary information. The first step is to collect all of the important details like the title of the research project, the location of the research project, the principal investigator of the project (if applicable), and the dates of the project. You will list these details much like you would list a company you have worked for in the past.

Read the job description carefully. Every resume and cover letter you write should be tailored to the job you’re applying for. When a hiring manager puts a necessary qualification in their job posting, you must be sure to include it in your resume.

Make sure that you highlight the right types of research skills on your job applications and resumes.

Quantify your accomplishments. When describing your role on the project, you will want to summarize your accomplishments and deliverables. Hiring managers and recruiters love seeing numbers. When you write out the deliverables from your project, make sure you quantify them.

Incorporate into your work history section. If there were times when you used your research skills in your past employment opportunities, include them in your work experience section. You can also include publications, conferences you may have presented at, and any awards or recognition your research had received.

If you have completed research in an academic setting, then presentations (oral and poster) are an important part of the research process. You should include those details along with the titles of your publications.

Add to your research section. Other aspects of research that you can detail to make your application more competitive are adding skills specific to your project to the skills section of your resume.

These skills will vary depending on the subject matter, but some examples include coding languages, interviewing skills, any software you used and are proficient in using, managerial skills , and public speaking if you have presented your research at conferences.

Add research to your skills section. If the specific research you did is less important than the skills you used to perform it, highlight that in your skills section. That way, you don’t have to take up a lot of work or education history with slightly irrelevant information, but hiring managers can still see you have research skills.

Just be sure you’re more specific about a research methodology you’re an expert in because the skills section doesn’t give you as much room to explain how you leveraged these abilities.

Sprinkle research throughout your resume. If you have a lot of experience performing research in professional, volunteer, and educational settings, pepper it in a few different sections. The more hands-on experience you have with research, the better (for jobs that require research).

Let’s look at some examples of how research can be included on a resume:

University research example

EDUCATION Undergraduate Thesis, University of Connecticut, Dec. 2017-May 2018 Worked alongside UCONN English Department head Penelope Victeri to research the poetry of New England writers of the 20th century. Explored common themes across the works of Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, and Robert Lowell. Performed online and in-person research on historical documents relating to each author , including information on the political, religious, and economic landscape of the US at the time. Analyzed poetic works of each author and drew on similar contemporary regional authors’ works. Prepared 20,000 words thesis entitled “Place, Allegory, and Religion: Three 20th Century New England Poets” and defended my written arguments to a panel of English professors.

Customer service research example

WORK EXPERIENCE Conducted interviews with 20 customers each week to gain insight into the user experience with company products Used Google analytics to determine which pages were driving most web traffic, and increased traffic by 11% Reviewed thousands of customer surveys and compiled findings into monthly reports with graphic findings Presented at weekly marketing meeting to inform marketing team of trends in customer experience with our products

Laboratory research example

RESEARCH Conducted experiments on rat brains by introducing various novel chemical compounds and levels of oxygen Ran electricity through brain slices to view interaction of different chemical compounds on active brain cells Prepared sterile samples for daily check and maintained 89% percent yield over the course of a 3-month study Presented findings in a final 15 -page research report and presentation to the Research and Development team

Examples of common research skills to list on your resume

Here are examples of research skills in action that you may have overlooked:

Searching for local business competition

Sending out customer satisfaction surveys

Summarizing current policies and laws in effect for a particular topic

Creating lesson plans based on current education standards

Reading literature reviews and implementing changes in clinical practice

Attention to detail

Problem-solving skills

Critical thinking

Project management skills

Communication skills

Why are research skills important?

Research skills are important because they can help you identify a problem, gather information, and evaluate that information for relevancy. Including your research skills on a resume will show hiring managers that you have the ability to suggest new ideas and help their organization adapt and change as the industry changes.

Some common research skills include:

critical thinking

Computer skills

Can I list research as a skill?

Yes, you can list research as a skill on your resume. Including your research skills in your resume can help show a potential employer that you have the ability to suggest new ideas and use critical thinking to find solutions to problems. Most research skills will use attention to detail, problem-solving, and project management skills.

California State University San Bernardino – Incorporating Research Project Experience on Your Resume

University of Missouri – How to Put Research on Your Resume

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating / 5. Vote count:

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.

Heidi Cope is a former writer for the Zippia Career Advice blog. Her writing focused primarily on Zippia's suite of rankings and general career advice. After leaving Zippia, Heidi joined The Mighty as a writer and editor, among other positions. She received her BS from UNC Charlotte in German Studies.

Recent Job Searches

• Registered Nurse Jobs Resume Location
• Truck Driver Jobs Resume Location
• Call Center Representative Jobs Resume Location
• Customer Service Representative Jobs Resume
• Delivery Driver Jobs Resume Location
• Warehouse Worker Jobs Resume Location
• Account Executive Jobs Resume Location
• Sales Associate Jobs Resume Location
• Licensed Practical Nurse Jobs Resume Location
• Company Driver Jobs Resume

Related posts

What Is The Average Retirement Age? [2023]

9 Things To Remove from Your Resume ASAP

11 Tips For Decorating Your Office Cubicle

10 Resume Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them)

• Career Advice >
• Get The Job >
• How To Put Research On Resume Research Experience

Resume builder

The Best Research Skills for a Resume

If you want to apply for a research position, you need to provide evidence of research skills on your resume. In this article, we explore what the best research skills for a resume are, why they are important and how to list them properly. We also provide a researcher resume sample to get you started – you can use it as inspiration or a template.

Table of Contents

What Are Research Skills?

A career like research is an excellent option for anyone who can collect, analyze and interpret data, solve complex problems, dive deep into discovery, and offer innovative solutions. The best thing about being a researcher is that you can not only succeed in science and academia but also climb up the career ladder in the corporate world. Indeed, having solid research skills opens the door to many roles and industries, including academic environments, government settings, transnational corporations, startups, tech giants, and non-profit organizations, to name but a few.

From human behavior to regional studies to biotech, there are myriads of research spheres where a qualified individual can make a difference. Researchers utilize their skills to explore a variety of topics, and if you have your mind set on pursuing a career as a researcher, you need to understand what skill set is pivotal for success in this field.

In a nutshell, research skills are all about searching ways to resolve problems. They are knowledge, abilities and competencies that ensure you can investigate particular topics, perform critical analysis, extract and organize data, interpret results, form hypotheses, and derive data-driven conclusions.

As a researcher, you are expected to be capable of relaying your findings to other people in a compelling and digestible form and even inspire action, both in yourself and in others.

Whether you are a seasoned researcher or a novice in this field, you need to put the right skills on your resume . Below you will find a list of the most in-demand research skills in today’s job market.

The Top 10 Research Skills for a Resume

Communication.

Communication is a crucial aspect of a research career since you are required to share information, relay findings and spread knowledge efficiently and effectively, both orally and in writing . While communication skills certainly have a place on your resume , that doesn’t mean adding “Communication” to your list of skills is enough to move on. You need to provide relevant examples verifying that you can research things as part of a team and work towards a common goal. You could add something like this to add credibility to your claim:

Recruited 7 research assistants for clinical studies by visiting clinics and sending out email invites, increasing participation by 20%.

Explained 100+ research procedures to a group of study participants in 10 days, resulting in a 0% incident rate.

Problem Solving

Being an advanced problem solver means you can consistently identify issues and find effective and efficient solutions to them . It is an extremely valuable skill when it comes to research-based activities, and 86% of employers look for workers who are capable of solving problems in the workplace according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ Job Outlook 2022 survey. If you want to add problem-solving skills to your resume, you need to underpin them with relevant accomplishments. For instance, you could add examples like these:

Resolved course accessibility issues by creating interactive presentations for remote learners, increasing student satisfaction by 89%.

Developed and introduced a new computing environment for analysis, identifying 100% of failure patterns and improving issue detection by 75%.

Analytical Skills

Having analytical skills means you can parse data into digestible pieces, interpret them correctly and make data-based connections and conclusions . Data analysis incorporates a vast set of competencies, including technical skills like proficiency in programming languages, such as Python and R, familiarity with data visualization tools, like Tableau and Power BI, and a strong grasp of statistical analysis methods, such as hypothesis testing, regression analysis, and sample size determination. Armed with these skills, a researcher can take data to the next level and drive both innovation and profitability.

Being able to make sense of facts and figures both manually and using automated solutions will help you thrive in most roles, so recruiters would love to know that you are an analytical thinker when considering your candidacy. Your best bet here is to make sure they can find this out by examining your resume. You can add examples like the ones below to prove you can tackle complicated issues using your analytical skill set:

Collected, cleaned and analyzed first-party data from 10+ departments to identify the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the company.

Performed regression analysis to determine the effects of a company-wide minimum wage increase, concluding that the hiring process was accelerated by 25% due to the wage change in question.

Qualitative Analysis

Qualitative analysis allows you to analyze a research subject using non-numerical and non-quantifiable parameters, characteristics and indicators and is based on abstract concepts . For instance, you can use qualitative attributes like human behavior or brand reputation to make business decisions or recognize investment opportunities. This skill is in demand today as it helps researchers use their observations to make conclusions, identify patterns and tackle challenges. Since you cannot quantify this area of your expertise, you need to provide relevant context to convince the reader that you are capable of analyzing non-tangible aspects of a subject. You can do that by using appropriate examples, like the following ones:

Evaluated the quality and accuracy of 200+ data sources in a month.

Performed quality control of high-volume content in a rapidly changing environment, maintaining a quality score of 99.9%.

Quantitative Analysis

Quantitative analysis is an approach that allows you to collect, study, measure, and analyze data . From statistical research to financial modeling, quantitative analysis includes a powerful toolkit that helps a researcher refine and simplify vast amounts of raw data to make better decisions and forecast trends.

Quantitative analysis has countless applications: with it, you can track metrics, measure variables and evaluate parameters in multiple fields, from finance and accounting to molecular biology and astrophysics. Therefore, it is no wonder that it is one of the most important research skills for a resume and highlighting it the right way is likely to help you move forward in the job searching process. You can prove that you know how to work with tangible data by providing relevant examples, like the following ones:

Designed a new data analysis technique, saving 30 monthly hours in parameter comparisons.

Used SQL to analyze customer data and identify areas for improvement related to customer conversions, resulting in a conversion boost by 75%.

Academic Writing

Academic writing is the ability to create complex documents containing scientific data, such as formulas, graphs, and charts . Academic writing skills help researchers prepare reports, presentations and articles for scientific journals and magazines, and if you have them, it means you know how to present technical information clearly and concisely. Recruiters from scientific fields are especially interested in candidates capable of writing academically, so submitting a resume with examples of written work is likely to help you secure a position as a researcher. Listing your publications to prove your expertise is the best option here, but since you might not have enough space to add all your papers, books and articles, you could highlight your academic writing proficiency with something like this:

Created 350+ articles on the principles of academic research for the university’s database, increasing student satisfaction by 60%.

Published 30+ papers focused on structural changes in protein conformations.

Literature Review

Literature review is a methodology that implies conducting rigorous research on a particular topic . Having literature review skills means you can explore your subject area in greater depth using sources like books, journal articles, industry magazines, etc. Such competencies allow you to build upon existing knowledge and generate new ideas, accelerating your research and pushing it to its full potential. Naturally, your literature review skills are a valuable asset to your resume. We recommend you to illuminate them with appropriate examples, focusing on tangible outcomes:

Gathered and reviewed 10+ articles on Stata to extract variables from a dataset.

Performed 100+ literature reviews to implement changes in clinical practice, boosting quality of care by 70%.

Time Management

Time management is a powerful soft skill that is especially valuable in research environments. It allows you to manage your time effectively, break large tasks into manageable chunks and prioritize them properly, set up measurable, attainable, and time-bound goals, and even juggle your responsibilities . Proper time management helps you stay focused on your work, boosts your productivity and thereby leads to consistently high results and impressive outcomes. From carrying out experiments to writing reports to teaching, as a researcher, you need to apply time management strategies on a daily basis to successfully accomplish your tasks. You can show you are good at time management on your resume by showcasing your successes, like in the examples below:

Developed a database for organizing behavioral data for 100+ study participants, decreasing data processing time by 30%.

Implemented data analysis techniques in Python, increasing the amount of data analyzed per hour by 17% and accelerating project completion by 40%.

Attention to Detail

Paying attention to detail is a vital aspect of being a researcher. Having this skill helps you gather credible information, perceive meaningful connections, notice discrepancies, and deliver high-quality work based on correct evidence. Since each and every aspect of a career in research requires efficiency and trustworthiness, attention to detail is something you cannot go without – otherwise, your progress will come to a screeching halt. Naturally, you need to illuminate this skill on your resume as recruiters seek candidates who can look at details with a critical eye and minimize distractions. And the best way to do that is by providing a relevant example of success. You can use the ones below for reference:

Checked 10 + data sheets for completion and quality per day, resulting in a <1% error rate.

Supervised the maintenance and updates of the lab’s database with a 99% accuracy rate.

Editing & Proofreading

Editing and proofreading skills are essential to perform successful research since they ensure it is both accurate and easy to read . While editing is more about making your text more digestible and improving the overall quality of your writing, proofreading corrects surface issues like errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar. Both require you to have a solid command of the language you use and a certain degree of focus. The devil is indeed in the details, so you need to always polish your texts before submitting them. Only this way will they be perceived by your peers and superiors as constructive and professional. And to prove you are good at editing and proofreading, you need to add appropriate examples to your resume. Here is how you can demonstrate your ability to provide high-quality texts:

Edited 11 federal grant proposals designed by my team, which generated $200+ in lab funding.

Edited a research paper co-authored with 2 postdoctoral employees regarding protein generation, which received the Best Paper Award in 2020.

How to List Research Skills on a Resume

Your resume is the best place to highlight your research experience and the value you could bring to your next role. The key here is to put your research skills in the right section so that they get noticed by the reader. You have no fewer than 7 options here:

• A dedicated research section
• Your work experience section
• The education section
• The list of your research publications
• The projects section
• The skills section
• Your resume summary

If you have a solid research background, you may want to create a separate section on your resume and call it Research or Research Experience . This place will help you expand on your projects and their details, specify the nature of your research, and describe the specifics of your previous roles, providing relevant examples and demonstrating the most prominent accomplishments.

If your career is all things research, the work/professional experience section can incorporate your research skills and accomplishments. List your employers and your duties, along with the dates of your employment, like you would do when describing your non-research work experience.

Your education section is an appropriate place to highlight your research skills if you are a student or a recent graduate. You can put it at the top of your resume if you want to draw more attention to your research background when applying for your first job in science or academia.

If you have a whole host of published works, it could be a great idea to create a separate section for listing your publications . This will help you add credibility to your research skills and accomplishments. Research-related accomplishments can also be highlighted as projects on your resume. This might be appropriate if your research background is not so extensive or not quite relevant to your current career aspirations.

You can list your research skills in your skills section as long as they are tangible and relevant for the job you want to land. We recommend you to avoid general skills here and focus on industry-specific expertise, illuminating it with the keywords you can find in the corresponding job listing and relevant skill levels .

Highlighting your research skills in the summary section is appropriate if you are applying for a role where a robust research background is essential. Your resume summary is just a few lines appearing at the top of the document, so make sure to add only the most important research skills there – those that you want the reader to see first and foremost.

Why Are Research Skills Important?

Research-oriented positions and most jobs in academia require you to have a solid set of research skills. Employees outside these roles can also benefit from research experience – research skills are transferable , meaning you can bring them to the table no matter your position, career field or job level. Therefore, they are a valuable addition to a resume in many cases.

Businesses and organizations are eager to employ candidates with proven research skills because they can

• come up with original plans and ideas,
• design innovative products and services,
• improve processes,
• keep up with technology,
• identify customers’ needs and requirements and find ways to meet them,
• resolve complicated issues,
• analyze competitors’ strengths and weaknesses,

By adding research skills to your resume, you show recruiters that you can think outside the box, know how to work with data and technology, are capable of making well-informed decisions, and are good at solving problems. This makes you a valuable hire in today’s skill-based job market

A Resume Sample to Apply for a Research Position

JOHN/JANE DOE Research Assistant Location ⋅ Email ⋅ Phone number Diligent and hardworking clinical researcher seeking a position at [Name of Company] to apply academic expertise and facilitate biological research. PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Company/Organization, Location Dates of Employment Research Assistant Assisted scientists in 30+ research projects related to therapeutics for COVID-19 Conducted data-driven testing with an accuracy rate of 98% Supervised a team of 3 junior research assistants with daily laboratory duties Company/Organization, Location Dates of Employment Graduate Research Assistant Participated in cell research projects as part of a cross-departmental team of 30 researchers. Performed cell counts with 99% accuracy Was engaged in developing a platform to investigate immune responses to virus-infected hepatocytes. … Company/Organization, Location Dates of Employment Research Student Assistant Gathered and analyzed data and evidence for 10+ clinical research cases monthly. Awarded “Research Impact Award” in recognition of consistent research excellence (only 1 student is awarded in a class of 100). … EDUCATION NAME OF UNIVERSITY Location Degree, Major Dates of Education SKILLS Molecular cloning RNA isolation Cell counting Knowledge of SQL code and queries Data analysis Literature review

A career in research is an extremely exciting yet quite a demanding path. Since the competition for positions in the field is very fierce, as a researcher, you need to have high levels of determination and persistence and a powerful combination of skills. The research skills we have outlined in this article are what recruiters expect to see on your resume, so make sure to expand on them to get the job of your dream, rise to the top of your game and deliver ground-breaking research.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Press Enter to search

How to List Research Experience on Your Resume

Applying for a role that requires research skills? Here’s how to list your research experience on a resume, with examples you can follow.

3 years ago   •   7 min read

Research experience isn’t just for science and academia. Research is a valuable skill that’s required for a number of roles and industries, which means it almost certainly has a place on your resume. And no — that doesn’t mean writing “research” in your skills section and moving on.

Why you should list research experience on your resume

If you’re applying for a job that involves research, listing research experience is a no-brainer. Research-specific positions, scientific jobs like Research Assistants , Lab Assistants or Technicians, graduate school applications, and most jobs in academia all require evidence of research skills. Even outside these positions, research experience demonstrates valuable transferable skills, like critical thinking and attention to detail . Which is not to say that you need to include research experience on every resume — if it makes you a stronger candidate, include it, but if it isn’t relevant and doesn’t add anything else to your candidacy, leave it off.

Research experience resume example

Before we dive right in, here's a sample resume that emphasizes research skills. You can use this as a template or as inspiration to write your own resume from scratch.

Download: PDF | Google Docs

How to list research experience in your resume

Like a lot of desirable skills, research is a soft skill , meaning it’s not something you can claim as an objective fact on your resume without backing it up. What you can do instead is prove it — what previous role involved a lot of research? What resume accomplishments do you have that highlight your research experience? Showing how you used research skills in action is the best way to demonstrate the value you could bring to the company and role you’re applying for.

There are a number of ways you can highlight research experience on your resume:

In a dedicated section

In your work experience, in your education section, listing research publications, in a projects section, in your skills section, in your resume summary.

Let's take a look at each of these options in a little more depth. But first, let's look at an annotated example to help set the context.

If you come from a research background, you might want to title your work experience ‘Research.’ Alternatively, you could create two experience sections — one titled ‘Work Experience’ and one titled ‘Research Experience’ — if you also have a lot of non-research experience but want to highlight your most relevant experience first. You can go into more detail when applying for a research-focused role by describing the project and specifying the nature of the research and your role in it.

More information: How to title different sections of your resume

Including research experience in your main work experience section is appropriate if it was paid work or if it was your most recent and relevant experience. List the employer — for example, the university or research department — job title, dates, and accomplishments, just like you would any other work experience.

More information: How to list your work experience on your resume

If you’re a current student or recent graduate, you can list your education section at the top of your resume. You can also make this section a little more comprehensive if you don’t have a lot of work experience, by including things like awards, coursework, and academic research.

If you undertook research as part of your studies and it demonstrates skills relevant to the job you’re applying for, list your research accomplishments in bullet points under the education section of your resume.

More information: The must-haves when writing your education on your resume

If you have a lot of publications that came out of your research, and you want to draw attention to them — and if they’re relevant to the job you’re applying for — consider creating a separate publications section . Formal publications like these are an excellent way to add credibility to your research experience.

List each publication in a new bullet point with the title, year, and name of the magazine, website, or journal. Academic publications can be listed more formally if it’s relevant, like if you’re applying for graduate school or a role in academia.

When it comes to listing research on your resume, like other soft skills, you need to show you’ve used this skill in your previous roles by showcasing your research related accomplishments. Upload your resume to the tool below to find out if your resume highlights your most relevant research experience and achievements.

If your research experience is less extensive or wasn’t quite relevant enough to include alongside your work experience or education, you can still highlight it in a projects section. Keep this brief and include 1-2 bullet points showcasing your key research accomplishments.

More information: How to list projects on a resume

Research skills can go in your skills section — as long as they’re hard skills. Steer clear of listing generic skills like “Research” — instead, use our keyword finder to look for relevant skills and keywords and include specific hard skills like data analysis, project management, software proficiency, and certifications.

You can also use the skills search tool below to get a list of hard skills relevant to the research-focused role you’re applying for.

More information: How to write a resume skills section

If you’re applying for a position where research experience is essential, consider emphasizing your experience by including a short resume summary at the top of your resume. This should include the title of the job you’re applying for and a brief overview of your background and key skills.

More information: Generate a summary for your resume

Examples of listing research experience on your resume

No matter where you choose to include it, always list research experience in concise, accomplishment-focused bullet points . These should follow the structure of action verb + what you did + what the result was. Here are some examples of resume bullet points you can use or modify to suit your own research experiences.

Highlight research projects

• Assisted with cell development research projects as part of the Leukemia Research team — identifying cell changes, determining cell counts and coulter counters with 98% accuracy.

If you have significant research experience, describe it! The more relevant it is to the position you’re applying for, the more detail you can go into. Make sure to specify exactly what stages of research you worked on and what your contribution was.

Mention awards for your research

• Awarded “Total Quality Award” in recognition of consistent high standards of quality work for research excellence (only 3 awarded in class of 500).

If the high quality of your work has been acknowledged by an award, early promotion , or similar outside recognition, include it! In addition to the name of the award or accolade, don’t forget to specify context (e.g. 'out of class of 500 people' to increase its credibility.

Demonstrate technical expertise

• Created over 75 3D models with CAD tools such as Solidworks and ANSYS.

If you have experience with specific software or tools that you’ll be using in the position you’re applying for, include a bullet point accomplishment specifying how you’ve used them. While this isn't direct 'research' experience, it uses tools that are relevant to research projects — this is a good way of showing that you have research skill sets without having formal research experience.

Use 'research-focused' action verbs

• Researched and edited two articles and one book chapter on prenatal substance abuse, policy implication of Human Genome Project.

Use action verbs like "Researched" or "Scoured" which clearly emphasize research skills. In some cases (like in this example), you can list publications in your bullet points itself. If you’ve authored academic papers, books, or articles, this is a great way to show the validity and importance of your research.

Include accomplishments related to research studies

• Oversaw screening and recruitment of over 100 participants to study, liaised with laboratory personnel and site coordinators to ensure study is completed on time with 100% success.

Not all research positions involve pure research. Make sure you highlight appropriate related accomplishments, like managing research study participant data and enrolments or managing a team of research assistants.

Include accomplishments relating to research in your field

• Conducted legal research; organized and analyzed data and evidence for over 50 cases annually.

If research is part of the job description, make sure you include at least one bullet point highlighting how you’ve used those skills in the past. Including metrics, like the number of cases you’ve researched, contextualizes your accomplishments and helps them stand out.

• Conducted marketing research for both buy-side and sell-side resulting in 15 strong leads.

Research isn’t just limited to science and academia. Demonstrate your skills in action by the context and end results of your research, like the number of leads it generated or the increase in sales figures.

Spread the word

Hiring manager’s guide: how to list work experience on your resume, you lied on your resume and got the job. what now, keep reading, how to show bilingualism on your resume (with examples), oops what to do if there’s a mistake on your resume, getting the basics right: resume line spacing, subscribe to our newsletter.

Stay updated with Resume Worded by signing up for our newsletter.

🎉 Awesome! Now check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription.

Please enter a valid email address

Oops! There was an error sending the email, please try later

Thank you for the checklist! I realized I was making so many mistakes on my resume that I've now fixed. I'm much more confident in my resume now.

Get science-backed answers as you write with Paperpal's Research feature

What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of literature review? 
• a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction: 
• b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes: 
• c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs: 
• d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts: 
• How to write a good literature review 
• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review?

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

What is the purpose of literature review?

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

• Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 
• Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field. 
• Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 
• Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 
• Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 
• Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

How to write a good literature review

Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. 

Frequently asked questions

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

Paperpal is an AI writing assistant that help academics write better, faster with real-time suggestions for in-depth language and grammar correction. Trained on millions of research manuscripts enhanced by professional academic editors, Paperpal delivers human precision at machine speed.  

Try it for free or upgrade to  Paperpal Prime , which unlocks unlimited access to premium features like academic translation, paraphrasing, contextual synonyms, consistency checks and more. It’s like always having a professional academic editor by your side! Go beyond limitations and experience the future of academic writing.  Get Paperpal Prime now at just US$19 a month!

Related Reads:

• Empirical Research: A Comprehensive Guide for Academics 
• How to Write a Scientific Paper in 10 Steps 
• Life Sciences Papers: 9 Tips for Authors Writing in Biological Sciences
• What is an Argumentative Essay? How to Write It (With Examples)

6 Tips for Post-Doc Researchers to Take Their Career to the Next Level

Self-plagiarism in research: what it is and how to avoid it, you may also like, what is hedging in academic writing  , how to use ai to enhance your college..., ai + human expertise – a paradigm shift..., how to use paperpal to generate emails &..., ai in education: it’s time to change the..., is it ethical to use ai-generated abstracts without..., do plagiarism checkers detect ai content, word choice problems: how to use the right..., how to avoid plagiarism when using generative ai..., what are journal guidelines on using generative ai....

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• 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.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

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.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

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.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing - try for free!

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Try for free

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.

Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint

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 .  

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved April 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, what is a theoretical framework | guide to organizing, what is a research methodology | steps & tips, how to write a research proposal | examples & templates, unlimited academic ai-proofreading.

✔ Document error-free in 5minutes ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

• Knowledge Base
• Free Resume Templates
• Resume Builder
• Resume Examples
• Free Resume Review

Should I include research experience on my resume?

If this is you debating whether or not you should include your research experience on your resume, you’ve come to the right place.

When it comes to landing your dream job, having relevant experience on your resume can make all the difference.

This is especially true in the field of research, where employers are often looking for candidates with strong skills and experience.

In fact, surveys show that 65% of recruiters prefer their candidates to have relevant work experience. when evaluating job candidates.

So if you are seeking jobs related to research, it is indeed crucial to showcase your research experience on your resume in a way that can help you stand out from other candidates and increase your chances of landing an interview.

In this article, we'll discuss the key strategies for highlighting your research experience on your resume, including the types of information to include, how to structure your resume, and other tips for effectively showcasing your skills and experience.

• What is research experience on a resume and why is research experience important?
• How to put research experience on a resume?
• Where to put research experience on a resume?
• What is an example of research experience?

What is Research Experience on Resume and Why is it Important?

Research experience refers to any experience you have had conducting research, whether as part of an academic course, an internship, or a job.

Depending on the industry, it could involve conducting literature reviews, collecting and analyzing data, performing experiments, and presenting research findings.

Research experience can be incredibly valuable in a variety of fields, including science, engineering, healthcare, education, and social sciences. It shows potential employers that you have the skills and expertise needed to work in a research-oriented role.

Including research experience on your resume can be highly advantageous. Here are some reasons why:

Demonstrates critical thinking and problem-solving skills: Research requires careful analysis and critical thinking, demonstrating your ability to approach complex problems and develop solutions.

Shows attention to detail: Conducting research often requires meticulous attention to detail and a focus on accuracy, qualities that are highly valued in many industries.

Highlights technical skills: Depending on the type of research you conducted, you may have developed technical skills, such as data analysis, statistical analysis, or programming.

Shows initiative and independence: Research often involves working independently and taking the initiative to design and execute research projects. This shows potential employers that you are self-motivated and can take the lead when necessary.

Also Read: How to write a research assistant resume in 2023?

How to Describe Research Experience on Resume?

To make the most of your research experience, it's important to know how to include it on your resume effectively. Here are some tips to help you get started:

Choose the Right Format

There are several different resume formats you can use, including chronological, functional, and combination formats.

When highlighting your research experience, the chronological format is typically the best choice. This format lists your research experience in reverse chronological order, starting with your most recent experience.

Tailor Your Resume to the Job Description

When crafting your resume, make sure to tailor your research experience to the job description you're applying for. This means highlighting the research experience that is most relevant to the position you're seeking.

For instance, if you're applying for a research position at a company, and the job description specifically mentions experience with qualitative research methods. You must highlight your experience with these research methods on your resume.

You can write, “Experienced in qualitative research methods, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, and content analysis.”

Use Action-Oriented Language

Ensure to use action-oriented language that emphasizes your accomplishments and responsibilities while describing your research experience on your resume.

This means you need to use strong verbs and quantify your achievements wherever possible. Here are a few examples:

• Instead of writing "Conducted research on topic X," write "Led a research project on topic X, resulting in a published paper in Journal Y."
• Rather than writing "Assisted with data analysis," write "Developed and implemented a data analysis plan that identified key trends and insights."

By using action-oriented language and emphasizing your specific accomplishments and skills, you can demonstrate to the employer that you're a proactive and results-driven candidate.

Thereby, helping you increase your chances of landing an interview and ultimately getting the job.

Highlight Your Technical Skills

If you developed technical skills through your research experience, make sure to highlight them on your resume.

This could include experience with statistical software, programming languages, or laboratory techniques.

Provide Specific Examples

Rather than blatantly listing your research experience on your resume, provide specific examples of your accomplishments and the results of your research.

This can help potential employers see the impact of your work and understand the skills you bring to the table better. It also adds credibility to your research skills and experiences.

Also Read: How to build a stellar academic resume?

Where to Put Research Experience on Resume?

When it comes to where to put research experience on your resume, there are a few options:

Under a "Research Experience" section: This is the most straightforward option and allows you to list your research experience and projects in a dedicated section. Be sure to include the project title, your role, the duration, and any relevant details such as methodology or results.

Under your "Experience" section: If your research experience is relevant to your previous jobs or internships, you can list it under the corresponding job entry. For example, if you conducted research as part of an internship or a job, you could include a bullet point under that entry that describes your research experience.

In a separate "Publications" or "Presentations" section: If you have published research papers or presented at conferences, you can include them in a separate section that highlights these accomplishments. Be sure to include the title of the paper or presentation, the conference or journal name, and the date.

Also Read: How to showcase work experience effectively in a resume in 2023?

Examples of Research Experience on Resumes

For your reference, given below are some examples of research experience on a resume:

• Conducted research on the effectiveness of a new cancer treatment, including developing research protocols, collecting and analyzing data, and presenting findings to a team of oncologists.
• Collaborated with a team of researchers to conduct a qualitative study on the experiences of women in STEM fields, including conducting interviews and focus groups, analyzing data using NVivo software, and presenting findings at a national conference.
• Completed an independent research project on the impact of social media on mental health, including conducting a literature review, designing and administering a survey, and analyzing data using SPSS software.
• Assisted a team of researchers in analyzing data from a large-scale epidemiological study, including cleaning and formatting data, running statistical analyses, and creating visualizations using R software.
• Participated in a summer research program, working with a mentor to conduct research on the impact of climate change on coastal ecosystems, including collecting and analyzing data, writing reports, and presenting findings at a research symposium.
• Conducted a research project as part of a senior thesis, exploring the relationship between exercise and cognitive function in older adults, including designing and implementing a study, collecting and analyzing data, and presenting findings at a departmental conference.

Also Read: What is the difference between a CV and a resume?

Key Takeaways

• What is research experience on a resume and why is it important?

Research experience encompasses conducting research in various settings, such as academic courses, internships, or jobs, which can provide critical thinking and problem-solving skills, attention to detail, technical skills, and show initiative and independence. By including research experience on a resume, potential employers can gain insight into the candidate's expertise, skills, and suitability for research-oriented roles, which can be beneficial in many industries.

• How to list research experience on a resume?

To highlight your research experience effectively, it is crucial to choose the right format, tailor your resume to the job description, use action-oriented language, highlight your technical skills, and provide specific examples of your accomplishments in your research.

There are 3 options when it comes to placing your research experience on your resume - a dedicated "Research Experience" section, your "Experience" section, or in a separate "Publications" or "Presentations" section. Wherever you decide to showcase them, ensure to include details like project title, duration, methodology, or results.

If you want to build a stellar resume that showcases your research experience perfectly, use Hiration’s ChatGPT-powered resume builder with 24x7 chat support. You can also reach us at [email protected] if you have any queries.

Share this blog

Subscribe to Free Resume Writing Blog by Hiration

Get the latest posts delivered right to your inbox

Stay up to date! Get all the latest & greatest posts delivered straight to your inbox

Is Your Resume ATS Friendly To Get Shortlisted?

Upload your resume for a free expert review.

• Career Development

How to List Publications on Your Resume: A Guide for Researchers (+Examples)

Job seekers whose experience includes research and publications often wonder how to include that information in their resumes. After all, few resume templates are designed to highlight such accomplishments, and most people are reluctant to significantly alter those widely-accepted resume formats. 

So, how can people in the scientific, literature, or academic fields properly showcase their research and publications on a resume or curriculum vitae (CV)? We have the tips you need to properly document those important achievements and citation examples you can use as a helpful guide.

Why publications matter on a resume

If you have experience doing academic/scientific research or writing publications, then you have skills that set you apart from most job seekers. Your research and publications identify you as someone with clear writing skills.

They also demonstrate analytical skills – which employers tend to value highly – and a capacity for being a thought leader. Those qualities are important qualifications for anyone seeking a job in academia or any science and engineering field.

For published authors and writers, having material go through to publishing can speak volumes about your experience and the quality of your work. 

Publications on a resume example

Regardless of which option you choose, it is important to use the proper APA formatting for publications when including your publications on your resume. Be sure to use a consistent format when listing publications and describe your research, focus, and efforts as briefly as possible. Consider the following examples.

Published article or paper

[Your Name], [Title of article], [Title of publication], [Publication date], [Pages]

Authored Book

[Your last name, Your first name], [Title of your book], [Place of publication and publisher], [Year published]

Your options for including publications on a resume

Fortunately, you have several options when it comes to listing publications in your resume. The option you choose will probably depend upon the nature of your research and publications and the type of position you’re seeking.

There are three main options for including these details in your resume in an organized manner: creating a separate section, using a summary, or documenting them on a separate page.

Option # 1: Create a separate section for your research and publications

One way to highlight your publications is to create a separate section for them.

(We wrote a good post here on what sections a resume should include )

You should only consider this option if you have a limited number of citations to list or if your work has appeared in important industry journal publications.

By separating them in this way, you can help to focus attention on these accomplishments. At the same time, that separation helps to ensure that your other skills and achievements are not overshadowed in any way.

Option # 2: Using a summary for your publications

Another great way to showcase relevant publications in your resume is to include them in a short summary. This option is best used when the achievements are not crucial to landing a job. It's also a good option when there are only one or two citations to list.

Simply insert a bullet point or two at the end of your achievements section and include the appropriate details.

Option # 3: Create a separate page for your publications

If you have a substantial number of accomplishments that involve research and publications, you could consider a separate page for those details.

Simply create a list of these citations for a page titled “Publications” or “Research.” There, you can list all relevant citations in reverse chronological order. If you choose this option, be sure to mention in your cover letter that you've included the list.

What are research skills?

As we move on from talking about publications to discussing research, let’s first define research skills. Research skills are all those skills needed to investigate and analyze a subject and then communicate your findings to others. In short, there is no simple easily-defined skill that encompasses all these talents. Instead, your ability to research involves the effective use of a range of other skills, including

Critical thinking

Data interpretation

Information synthesis

Effective communication

Research skills are highly prized across a wide spectrum of industries. The fact is that researchers are invaluable for many employers and hiring managers. After all, new ideas often come only after an exhaustive analysis of existing practices. Is it any surprise, then, that many of the most innovative companies in the world look for employees who possess these skills?

The good news is that most of us possess at least some skill in researching. Unfortunately, too many of us don’t recognize those skills or why they matter to employers. Most of these skills relate to critical thinking in some way. They involve accumulating information and using it to draw reasoned conclusions. Naturally, those conclusions need to be conveyed to others with effective communication skills.

Research skills are among the most highly-prized transferable skills employers are looking for in today's competitive job market.

Employers value these skills because they are essential to progress. Innovation only comes from research and inspired insight. As a result, companies that rely on innovation to remain competitive tend to rely on employees who are talented researchers. Obviously, there are entire fields of industry that use researchers only for that purpose. In a more general sense, however, research skills are widely used by many different types of employees. And they use them in almost every industry in the marketplace.

How to list research on a resume

Including information about your research skills on a resume can be challenging because people perform research in a number of different capacities. Regardless of if you were the lead researcher or part of a team, it’s encouraged to include your research projects on your resume. You can detail how your efforts helped them move the project forward and what contributions you made. 

Even if your findings weren't published, or are in the process of being published, you should include your work in research on your resume still. This is because the skills acquired during research are, again, highly prized by employers. It’s less about the result and more about what kind of professional qualifications your research efforts are able to embody. 

Including research on your resume:

To describe your experience performing research on a subject, summarize your accomplishments in a brief section. You should include a description of your role in the research, the topic that you were exploring, and some information about your findings. 

Example of research listed on a resume:

Economics Research Project, Dynamic University 

Dec 2017 – Apr 2020

Key participant in research project examining blockchain technology’s potential impact on financial intermediation. Explored use case studies for cross-border payment systems, intrabank transactions, and microtransactions for e-commerce.

Designed model simulation to study blockchain-based payment system

Worked in tandem with Alpha and Delta Finance to create simulated intrabank transfers using digitalized tokens

Studied e-commerce script integration for cryptocurrency payments

Member of a 3-person team tasked with presenting findings to 2018 National Banking Technology Conference

You can also combine your research with other sections:

Research and Publications

Research and Professional Development

Educations and Research

Why the cover letter may be a superior choice

There are some very good reasoning for using a cover letter as a vehicle for talking about research and publication citations. That option can help you avoid confusion within your resume and keep the resume length under control. It can also help to ensure that your cover letter is more than just a rehash of your resume. Most importantly, using the cover letter in this way can help to establish your expertise right away.

If you have a lot of experience in research, it can help you save space on your resume too. Your resume can have lists of your participating research and publications, but that list doesn’t always represent your efforts well. In your cover letter, you can expand upon the specific professional skills that you developed from your experience. 

Even though the cover letter is formatted differently than a resume, when including research and publications in a resume or cover letter, make sure you use proper citations and give credit where due. 

Research and publications can land coveted interviews

While it is tempting to include every noteworthy achievement in your life, it is important to maintain focus and perspective. Only cite publications that enhance your qualifications or demonstrate skills relevant to the position. Anything relevant to your industry or skill set obviously falls into this category. Casual articles published in a hobbyist magazine probably don’t need to be shared.

However, your research and publications can help employers to identify you as a recognized expert in your field. That can only help to enhance your chances of landing a great job. So, choose your resume options carefully and make sure that you use proper citation formats to convey this important information to every prospective employer.

ZipJob’s team of professional resume writers knows how to properly showcase your publications on a resume to get past an ATS and impress a hiring manager. 

Recommended reading:

10 Best Skills to Put on Your Resume

Resume Format Types: Examples & Which Option Is Best?

How to Include Research on a Resume

Emma Elizabeth, Resume Writer, Emma Elizabeth, Resume Writer

Emma is a certified employment specialist with over 6 years of experience in career mentorship and employment training. With an affinity for technical writing, Emma is passionate about developing training, policy, and procedure manuals. In 2020 she helped design Colorado’s first state-certified training program for people with disabilities entering the workforce.

Our resume services get results.

We’ve helped change over 30,000 careers.

Get a free resume review today

Our experts will review your resume’s grammar, layout, and ability to pass ATS — all free and delivered straight to your inbox.

PROTECT YOUR DATA

This site uses cookies and related technologies for site operation, and analytics as described in our   Privacy Policy. You may choose to consent to our use of these technologies, reject non-essential technologies, or further manage your preferences.

• UConn Library
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
• Introduction

Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide — Introduction

• Getting Started
• How to Pick a Topic
• Strategies to Find Sources
• Evaluating Sources & Lit. Reviews
• Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
• Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
• Citation Resources
• Other Academic Writings

What are Literature Reviews?

So, what is a literature review? "A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries." Taylor, D.  The literature review: A few tips on conducting it . University of Toronto Health Sciences Writing Centre.

Goals of Literature Reviews

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?  A literature could be written to accomplish different aims:

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews .  Review of General Psychology , 1 (3), 311-320.

What kinds of sources require a Literature Review?

• A research paper assigned in a course
• A thesis or dissertation
• A grant proposal
• An article intended for publication in a journal

All these instances require you to collect what has been written about your research topic so that you can demonstrate how your own research sheds new light on the topic.

Types of Literature Reviews

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Narrative review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.

• Example : Predictors and Outcomes of U.S. Quality Maternity Leave: A Review and Conceptual Framework:  10.1177/08948453211037398  

Systematic review : "The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find." (p. 139). Nelson, L. K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders . Plural Publishing.

• Example : The effect of leave policies on increasing fertility: a systematic review:  10.1057/s41599-022-01270-w

Meta-analysis : "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing research findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occurred in different studies." (p. 197). Roberts, M. C., & Ilardi, S. S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology . Blackwell Publishing.

• Example : Employment Instability and Fertility in Europe: A Meta-Analysis:  10.1215/00703370-9164737

Meta-synthesis : "Qualitative meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic." (p.312). Zimmer, L. (2006). Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts .  Journal of Advanced Nursing , 53 (3), 311-318.

• Example : Women’s perspectives on career successes and barriers: A qualitative meta-synthesis:  10.1177/05390184221113735

Literature Reviews in the Health Sciences

• UConn Health subject guide on systematic reviews Explanation of the different review types used in health sciences literature as well as tools to help you find the right review type
• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: How to Pick a Topic >>
• Last Updated: Sep 21, 2022 2:16 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/literaturereview

Book Reviewer Resume Example & Writing Guide

Use this Book Reviewer resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.

Book reviewers are an integral part of the publishing industry, providing valuable feedback for writers and publishers alike. If you have a passion for books and words, along with a knack for identifying what makes a story or its characters resonate with readers, book reviewing might be the perfect career for you.

Before you can start writing book reviews for a living, you’ll need to build up an impressive portfolio of work. And to do that, you’ll need a stellar book review example to follow. Here are some tips and an example to help you write your own fantastic book review.

Passionate book reviewer with five years of experience writing for top publications. Specializes in contemporary fiction, nonfiction, and young adult literature. Eager to leverage skills in editorial evaluation, critical thinking, and persuasive writing in a new book review position.

• Reviewed books for various publishers and edited manuscripts, including copy-editing, proofreading, and formatting.
• Managed the review process of book proposals from authors to determine marketability and feasibility.
• Assisted in marketing efforts by attending conferences and events as a representative of the publisher(s).
• Created promotional materials such as press releases, postcards, flyers, etc., for new titles or special promotions/events.
• Maintained contact with authors regarding their projects through email correspondence and phone calls when necessary.
• Reviewed book proposals and manuscripts for content, organization, clarity and adherence to publishing guidelines
• Conducted research on authors’ backgrounds, previous publications and credentials to determine credibility
• Consistently met deadlines while maintaining a professional tone in reviews of books, articles and films
• Collaborated with marketing team to develop promotional campaigns based on book review analysis
• Regularly updated database of reviewers (including contact information) using Excel spreadsheets
• Read and corrected errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar in manuscripts, reports, and other documents.
• Reviewed copy for content, format, and style, and marked changes or corrections.
• Compared revised copy with original to ensure that all changes were made correctly.

Industry Knowledge: Reading, Writing, Editing, Book Club Technical Skills: Microsoft Office Suite, WordPress Soft Skills: Communication, Time Management, Problem Solving, Creativity, Critical Thinking

How to Write a Book Reviewer Resume

Here’s how to write a book reviewer resume of your own.

Write Compelling Bullet Points

When it comes to writing book reviews, it’s important to focus on the most relevant aspects of the book. For example, if the book is historical fiction set during World War II, you could mention the setting, the characters, or the plot.

You could also mention the author’s writing style or the themes that are explored in the book. The more specific you can be, the better.

Identify and Include Relevant Keywords

When you submit your resume as a book reviewer, it’s likely that it will be scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) for certain keywords. This program will search your resume for specific terms related to the job, like “reading” or “writing.” If your resume doesn’t have enough of the right terms, the ATS might filter out your application.

To increase your chances of getting noticed, use this list of common book reviewer keywords as a starting point to help you add relevant terms to your resume:

• Book Reviews
• Proofreading
• Writing Books
• Copy Editing
• Non-fiction
• Web Content Writing
• Academic Writing
• Copywriting
• Creative Writing
• Content Strategy
• Storytelling
• Creative Writing Classes
• Publishing Books
• Ghostwriting
• Magazines & Periodicals
• Editing Books
• Proofreading Services
• Digital Publishing

Showcase Your Technical Skills

As a book reviewer, you need to be proficient in the use of technology in order to do your job effectively. This might include familiarity with social media platforms, word processing programs, and email. Additionally, book reviewers need to be able to use technology to communicate with other members of the book review team, including editors and publishers.

Some of the programs and systems that book reviewers are typically expected to be proficient in include: Microsoft Office Suite, Google Suite, and various social media platforms.

Chargeback Specialist Resume Example & Writing Guide

General surgery physician assistant resume example & writing guide, you may also be interested in..., splunk administrator resume example & writing guide, gym owner resume example & writing guide, violin teacher resume example & writing guide, airport duty manager resume example & writing guide.

eDiscovery Attorney

How to list document review on your resume.

Recently, I’ve helped several friends locate document review positions, with both my current company and agencies I’ve worked with in the past. Each time, I am reminded that everyone struggles with how best to list document review experience on their resume.

In general, I am a fan of simplicity and reducing clutter. Where possible, it seems reasonable to compress multiple projects into a single block with one description and timeframe, especially if the projects were close in time and for the same agency. Treat each employer/agency as a single job, even if they have overlapping timelines. If you’re applying to non-review jobs, this compressed format helps show the consistency of your employment history.

If your work history has a rather problematic timeline, consider creating a functional resume instead of a chronological one.  With this format, you can list your skills and experience separate and apart from the individual jobs you’ve held.

I generally advocate having a separate review-specific resume, including additional detail that is relevant to document review work but unnecessary on a less focused position.  Some important items that you might want to use in your description for a document review-specific resume:

• Area of Law
• Paper or Electronic Review
• Review Platform
• Type of review (responsiveness, privilege, significant issue coding, etc)
• Quality Control or other similar work performed
• Any other feedback you received – were you ranked as a fast, accurate coder or invited back for second level work?
• If you did more than just code documents, point that out.

Skills that may be of particular interest to document review recruiters include foreign languages and computer or database skills. Be careful about getting in over your head, though. Just because you took an intro to Farsi course in college, you likely won’t be able to work efficiently in a review situation. Expect to have your language skills tested when you join a foreign language project.

If you’ve never used any document review platforms, consider going through some of the online tutorials offered for free on company websites. Having some basic understanding of what to expect could help when you start a new project. For example, Relativity , Concordance  and iCONECT offer free online training options. Those without free online training, like Xerox Omnix , might offer sales or other promotional materials you can use to familiarize yourself with the tool.  Often, this information can be found in a “support” section of the company’s website. Don’t pass on a project because of inexperience with a specific platform, however. If you have any reasonable level of technical skills, you will likely be able to quickly master the platform with a small amount of training.

One important thing not to do, however, is identify clients and law firms as employers or in your description without explicit authorization. While it is perfectly acceptable to say you worked at Law Staffers for an AmLaw 50 firm working on an admiralty matter for an international beverage manufacturer, Listing Anonymous Law Firm LLP or Major Shipping Services, S.A. as your employer is inappropriate (you should, however, provide such information during conflict checks as necessary).

In a separate log , you should maintain a personal list of conflicts information. Here, you would want to track the start and end date, agency, case, client and opposing parties. When you’re asked to complete a conflicts form, this list will allow you to quickly (and accurately) provide the requested information. After a while, projects all seem to blend together. Remembering the name of a client from that weekend project last year gets difficult twelve projects down the road.

Finally, it’s important to get a second set of eyes to take a look at your resume.  Send it to a trusted friend or colleague in the exact same manner you will use for applications – for emailed copies you should always send as PDF unless another format is specifically requested.  If your word processor doesn’t save to PDF, look for a PDF printer like PDF995 .  I like to personally save my file as  Lyon, Mark – Resume.pdf .  Recruiters will often save many resumes in one large folder – making certain yours has a unique name will simplify things for them.

Resume image courtesy of Kafka4Prez .

• Posted In: Document Review , Front Page , Tips
• Managing Conflicts as a Contract Attorney
• Please Remember Your Passwords

Recent Posts

• Burndown Charts for Document Review
• Refinancing Student Loans
• The Basics of eDiscovery
• How Contract Attorneys Should Approach Downtime
• Getting Staffed
• Black Friday eDiscovery Training Deals
• Training a Review Team
• Keep Responsive and Privilege Separate
• TrueCrypt Security
• Logikcull – An Amazing, Self-Service eDiscovery Experience
• Nextpoint Discovery Cloud
• Microsoft Urges eDiscovery Rules Changes
• Asking Questions During Training
• Quitting a Doc Review Project Early

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing a Literature Review

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• PLoS Comput Biol
• v.9(7); 2013 Jul

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

2 Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, automatically generate references for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Dissertation
• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

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.

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 summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Be assured that you'll submit flawless writing. Upload your document to correct all your mistakes.

Table of contents

Why write 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, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will 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 scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Correct my document today

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 objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. 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 if 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 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 use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

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.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

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?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• 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 find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

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’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference 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.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to 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 organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

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 summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse 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 organise 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.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

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, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, 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 transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

In the conclusion, you should summarise the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasise their significance.

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

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 dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarise 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  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

McCombes, S. (2022, June 07). What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 9 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, how to write a dissertation proposal | a step-by-step guide, what is a theoretical framework | a step-by-step guide, what is a research methodology | steps & tips.

• University of Oregon Libraries
• Research Guides

How to Write a Literature Review

• 7. Write a Literature Review
• Literature Reviews: A Recap
• Reading Journal Articles
• Does it Describe a Literature Review?
• 1. Identify the Question
• 2. Review Discipline Styles
• Searching Article Databases
• Finding Full-Text of an Article
• Citation Chaining
• When to Stop Searching
• 4. Manage Your References
• 5. Critically Analyze and Evaluate
• 6. Synthesize

Write a Literature Review

Writing support on campus, need more help.

Photo Credit: UO Libraries

Some points to remember

• Include only the most important points from each source -- you want to digest, not quote from, the sources.
• The value of the review for you audience will consist in a clear, well-organized synopsis of what has been found so far on your topic. 
• Avoid plagiarism in your lit review. Consult this UO Libraries tutorial on Academic Integrity if you need some guidance.

If you would like more pointers about how to approach your literature review, this this handout from The Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill  suggests several effective strategies.

From UNC-Chapel Hill  and  University of Toronto

Note : Please check the websites below for availability of online or remote services:

• Writing Lab Service Customized academic assistance for all international students
• How to Write a Literature Review (UO Libraries tutorial)
• Exploring Academic Integrity in Your Research

If you have questions related to a field or discipline, consider reaching out to a Subject Librarian by email, phone, or by scheduling an appointment for a free consultation:

• Subject Librarians
• << Previous: 6. Synthesize
• Last Updated: Jan 10, 2024 4:46 PM
• URL: https://researchguides.uoregon.edu/litreview

Contact Us Library Accessibility UO Libraries Privacy Notices and Procedures

1501 Kincaid Street Eugene, OR 97403 P: 541-346-3053 F: 541-346-3485

• Visit us on Facebook
• Visit us on Twitter
• Visit us on Youtube
• Visit us on Instagram
• Report a Concern
• Nondiscrimination and Title IX
• Accessibility
• Privacy Policy
• Find People

• Affiliate Program

• UNITED STATES
• 台灣 (TAIWAN)
• TÜRKIYE (TURKEY)
• Academic Editing Services
• - Research Paper
• - Journal Manuscript
• - Dissertation
• - College & University Assignments
• Admissions Editing Services
• - Application Essay
• - Personal Statement
• - Recommendation Letter
• - Cover Letter
• - CV/Resume
• Business Editing Services
• - Business Documents
• - Report & Brochure
• - Website & Blog
• Writer Editing Services
• - Script & Screenplay
• Our Editors
• Client Reviews
• Editing & Proofreading Prices
• Wordvice Points
• Partner Discount
• Plagiarism Checker
• APA Citation Generator
• MLA Citation Generator
• Chicago Citation Generator
• Vancouver Citation Generator
• - APA Style
• - MLA Style
• - Chicago Style
• - Vancouver Style
• Writing & Editing Guide
• Academic Resources
• Admissions Resources

How to Make a Literature Review in Research (RRL Example)

What is an RRL in a research paper?

A relevant review of the literature (RRL) is an objective, concise, critical summary of published research literature relevant to a topic being researched in an article. In an RRL, you discuss knowledge and findings from existing literature relevant to your study topic. If there are conflicts or gaps in existing literature, you can also discuss these in your review, as well as how you will confront these missing elements or resolve these issues in your study.

To complete an RRL, you first need to collect relevant literature; this can include online and offline sources. Save all of your applicable resources as you will need to include them in your paper. When looking through these sources, take notes and identify concepts of each source to describe in the review of the literature.

A good RRL does NOT:

A literature review does not simply reference and list all of the material you have cited in your paper.

• Presenting material that is not directly relevant to your study will distract and frustrate the reader and make them lose sight of the purpose of your study.
• Starting a literature review with “A number of scholars have studied the relationship between X and Y” and simply listing who has studied the topic and what each scholar concluded is not going to strengthen your paper.

A good RRL DOES:

• Present a brief typology that orders articles and books into groups to help readers focus on unresolved debates, inconsistencies, tensions, and new questions about a research topic.
• Summarize the most relevant and important aspects of the scientific literature related to your area of research
• Synthesize what has been done in this area of research and by whom, highlight what previous research indicates about a topic, and identify potential gaps and areas of disagreement in the field
• Give the reader an understanding of the background of the field and show which studies are important—and highlight errors in previous studies

How long is a review of the literature for a research paper?

The length of a review of the literature depends on its purpose and target readership and can vary significantly in scope and depth. In a dissertation, thesis, or standalone review of literature, it is usually a full chapter of the text (at least 20 pages). Whereas, a standard research article or school assignment literature review section could only be a few paragraphs in the Introduction section .

Building Your Literature Review Bookshelf

One way to conceive of a literature review is to think about writing it as you would build a bookshelf. You don’t need to cut each piece by yourself from scratch. Rather, you can take the pieces that other researchers have cut out and put them together to build a framework on which to hang your own “books”—that is, your own study methods, results, and conclusions.

What Makes a Good Literature Review?

The contents of a literature review (RRL) are determined by many factors, including its precise purpose in the article, the degree of consensus with a given theory or tension between competing theories, the length of the article, the number of previous studies existing in the given field, etc. The following are some of the most important elements that a literature review provides.

Historical background for your research

Analyze what has been written about your field of research to highlight what is new and significant in your study—or how the analysis itself contributes to the understanding of this field, even in a small way. Providing a historical background also demonstrates to other researchers and journal editors your competency in discussing theoretical concepts. You should also make sure to understand how to paraphrase scientific literature to avoid plagiarism in your work.

The current context of your research

Discuss central (or peripheral) questions, issues, and debates in the field. Because a field is constantly being updated by new work, you can show where your research fits into this context and explain developments and trends in research.

A discussion of relevant theories and concepts

Theories and concepts should provide the foundation for your research. For example, if you are researching the relationship between ecological environments and human populations, provide models and theories that focus on specific aspects of this connection to contextualize your study. If your study asks a question concerning sustainability, mention a theory or model that underpins this concept. If it concerns invasive species, choose material that is focused in this direction.

Definitions of relevant terminology

In the natural sciences, the meaning of terms is relatively straightforward and consistent. But if you present a term that is obscure or context-specific, you should define the meaning of the term in the Introduction section (if you are introducing a study) or in the summary of the literature being reviewed.

Description of related relevant research

Include a description of related research that shows how your work expands or challenges earlier studies or fills in gaps in previous work. You can use your literature review as evidence of what works, what doesn’t, and what is missing in the field.

Supporting evidence for a practical problem or issue your research is addressing that demonstrates its importance: Referencing related research establishes your area of research as reputable and shows you are building upon previous work that other researchers have deemed significant.

Types of Literature Reviews

Literature reviews can differ in structure, length, amount, and breadth of content included. They can range from selective (a very narrow area of research or only a single work) to comprehensive (a larger amount or range of works). They can also be part of a larger work or stand on their own.

• A course assignment is an example of a selective, stand-alone work. It focuses on a small segment of the literature on a topic and makes up an entire work on its own.
• The literature review in a dissertation or thesis is both comprehensive and helps make up a larger work.
• A majority of journal articles start with a selective literature review to provide context for the research reported in the study; such a literature review is usually included in the Introduction section (but it can also follow the presentation of the results in the Discussion section ).
• Some literature reviews are both comprehensive and stand as a separate work—in this case, the entire article analyzes the literature on a given topic.

Literature Reviews Found in Academic Journals

The two types of literature reviews commonly found in journals are those introducing research articles (studies and surveys) and stand-alone literature analyses. They can differ in their scope, length, and specific purpose.

Literature reviews introducing research articles

The literature review found at the beginning of a journal article is used to introduce research related to the specific study and is found in the Introduction section, usually near the end. It is shorter than a stand-alone review because it must be limited to very specific studies and theories that are directly relevant to the current study. Its purpose is to set research precedence and provide support for the study’s theory, methods, results, and/or conclusions. Not all research articles contain an explicit review of the literature, but most do, whether it is a discrete section or indistinguishable from the rest of the Introduction.

How to structure a literature review for an article

When writing a literature review as part of an introduction to a study, simply follow the structure of the Introduction and move from the general to the specific—presenting the broadest background information about a topic first and then moving to specific studies that support your rationale , finally leading to your hypothesis statement. Such a literature review is often indistinguishable from the Introduction itself—the literature is INTRODUCING the background and defining the gaps your study aims to fill.

The stand-alone literature review

The literature review published as a stand-alone article presents and analyzes as many of the important publications in an area of study as possible to provide background information and context for a current area of research or a study. Stand-alone reviews are an excellent resource for researchers when they are first searching for the most relevant information on an area of study.

Such literature reviews are generally a bit broader in scope and can extend further back in time. This means that sometimes a scientific literature review can be highly theoretical, in addition to focusing on specific methods and outcomes of previous studies. In addition, all sections of such a “review article” refer to existing literature rather than describing the results of the authors’ own study.

In addition, this type of literature review is usually much longer than the literature review introducing a study. At the end of the review follows a conclusion that once again explicitly ties all of the cited works together to show how this analysis is itself a contribution to the literature. While not absolutely necessary, such articles often include the terms “Literature Review” or “Review of the Literature” in the title. Whether or not that is necessary or appropriate can also depend on the specific author instructions of the target journal. Have a look at this article for more input on how to compile a stand-alone review article that is insightful and helpful for other researchers in your field.

How to Write a Literature Review in 6 Steps

So how do authors turn a network of articles into a coherent review of relevant literature?

Writing a literature review is not usually a linear process—authors often go back and check the literature while reformulating their ideas or making adjustments to their study. Sometimes new findings are published before a study is completed and need to be incorporated into the current work. This also means you will not be writing the literature review at any one time, but constantly working on it before, during, and after your study is complete.

Here are some steps that will help you begin and follow through on your literature review.

Step 1: Choose a topic to write about—focus on and explore this topic.

Choose a topic that you are familiar with and highly interested in analyzing; a topic your intended readers and researchers will find interesting and useful; and a topic that is current, well-established in the field, and about which there has been sufficient research conducted for a review. This will help you find the “sweet spot” for what to focus on.

Step 2: Research and collect all the scholarly information on the topic that might be pertinent to your study.

This includes scholarly articles, books, conventions, conferences, dissertations, and theses—these and any other academic work related to your area of study is called “the literature.”

Step 3: Analyze the network of information that extends or responds to the major works in your area; select the material that is most useful.

Use thought maps and charts to identify intersections in the research and to outline important categories; select the material that will be most useful to your review.

Step 4: Describe and summarize each article—provide the essential information of the article that pertains to your study.

Determine 2-3 important concepts (depending on the length of your article) that are discussed in the literature; take notes about all of the important aspects of this study relevant to the topic being reviewed.

For example, in a given study, perhaps some of the main concepts are X, Y, and Z. Note these concepts and then write a brief summary about how the article incorporates them. In reviews that introduce a study, these can be relatively short. In stand-alone reviews, there may be significantly more texts and more concepts.

Step 5: Demonstrate how these concepts in the literature relate to what you discovered in your study or how the literature connects the concepts or topics being discussed.

In a literature review intro for an article, this information might include a summary of the results or methods of previous studies that correspond to and/or confirm those sections in your own study. For a stand-alone literature review, this may mean highlighting the concepts in each article and showing how they strengthen a hypothesis or show a pattern.

Discuss unaddressed issues in previous studies. These studies that are missing something you address are important to include in your literature review. In addition, those works whose theories and conclusions directly support your findings will be valuable to review here.

Step 6: Identify relationships in the literature and develop and connect your own ideas to them.

This is essentially the same as step 5 but focused on the connections between the literature and the current study or guiding concepts or arguments of the paper, not only on the connections between the works themselves.

Your hypothesis, argument, or guiding concept is the “golden thread” that will ultimately tie the works together and provide readers with specific insights they didn’t have before reading your literature review. Make sure you know where to put the research question , hypothesis, or statement of the problem in your research paper so that you guide your readers logically and naturally from your introduction of earlier work and evidence to the conclusions you want them to draw from the bigger picture.

Your literature review will not only cover publications on your topics but will include your own ideas and contributions. By following these steps you will be telling the specific story that sets the background and shows the significance of your research and you can turn a network of related works into a focused review of the literature.

Literature Review (RRL) Examples

Because creating sample literature reviews would take too long and not properly capture the nuances and detailed information needed for a good review, we have included some links to different types of literature reviews below. You can find links to more literature reviews in these categories by visiting the TUS Library’s website . Sample literature reviews as part of an article, dissertation, or thesis:

• Critical Thinking and Transferability: A Review of the Literature (Gwendolyn Reece)
• Building Customer Loyalty: A Customer Experience Based Approach in a Tourism Context (Martina Donnelly)

Sample stand-alone literature reviews

• Literature Review on Attitudes towards Disability (National Disability Authority)
• The Effects of Communication Styles on Marital Satisfaction (Hannah Yager)

Additional Literature Review Format Guidelines

In addition to the content guidelines above, authors also need to check which style guidelines to use ( APA , Chicago, MLA, etc.) and what specific rules the target journal might have for how to structure such articles or how many studies to include—such information can usually be found on the journals’ “Guide for Authors” pages. Additionally, use one of the four Wordvice citation generators below, choosing the citation style needed for your paper:

Wordvice Writing and Academic Editing Resources

Finally, after you have finished drafting your literature review, be sure to receive professional proofreading services , including paper editing for your academic work. A competent proofreader who understands academic writing conventions and the specific style guides used by academic journals will ensure that your paper is ready for publication in your target journal.

See our academic resources for further advice on references in your paper , how to write an abstract , how to write a research paper title, how to impress the editor of your target journal with a perfect cover letter , and dozens of other research writing and publication topics.

• LEARNING SKILLS
• Writing a Dissertation or Thesis

Researching and Writing a Literature Review

Search SkillsYouNeed:

Learning Skills:

• A - Z List of Learning Skills
• What is Learning?
• Learning Approaches
• Learning Styles
• 8 Types of Learning Styles
• Understanding Your Preferences to Aid Learning
• Lifelong Learning
• Decisions to Make Before Applying to University
• Top Tips for Surviving Student Life
• Living Online: Education and Learning
• 8 Ways to Embrace Technology-Based Learning Approaches
• Critical Thinking Skills
• Critical Thinking and Fake News
• Understanding and Addressing Conspiracy Theories
• Critical Analysis
• Study Skills
• Exam Skills
• How to Write a Research Proposal
• Ethical Issues in Research
• Dissertation: The Introduction
• Writing your Methodology
• Dissertation: Results and Discussion
• Dissertation: Conclusions and Extras

Writing Your Dissertation or Thesis eBook

Part of the Skills You Need Guide for Students .

• Research Methods
• Teaching, Coaching, Mentoring and Counselling
• Employability Skills for Graduates

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and start improving your life in just 5 minutes a day.

You'll get our 5 free 'One Minute Life Skills' and our weekly newsletter.

We'll never share your email address and you can unsubscribe at any time.

A literature review demonstrates that you have read around your topic and have a broad understanding of previous research, including its limitations.

In the literature review, you summarise the main viewpoints and important facts that you encountered in your reading as they relate to your chosen topic . You will also use the literature review to justify the value of doing research on your topic by showing what is already known, what is not yet known, and how it is relevant.

Your literature review should not simply be descriptive but should also provide a critical analysis of the body of work, and demonstrate that you understand how it fits together as a whole and how your own research fits with previous studies.

A key aspect of a literature review is what sources you select to include, and which you exclude.

Finding Sources

Thanks to the internet, literature searches are now relatively easy, and can be done from the comfort of your own laptop without needing to go anywhere near a library.

However, a word of warning is in order here. The ease with which anybody can access and publish to the internet means that many items published online have not been scrutinised by anybody other than the author.

In other words, content has not necessarily been checked, you have no way of knowing whether the author’s facts and claims are at all accurate and you could easily land yourself in trouble by blindly following or citing from online sources. 

Furthermore, because items on the internet are frequently changed, you may find that something you read yesterday is no longer available in the same form today. However, internet sources can be very useful for up-to-date information, especially current affairs or ongoing or very recent research.

Blogs and sites like the encyclopaedia Wikipedia are particularly prone to these problems.  For these reasons, a general rule of thumb is that you should only rely on internet resources from the websites of organisations whose information you already know to be reputable, like SkillsYouNeed.

See our page: Assessing Internet Information for more.

Do not underestimate how much physical libraries and librarians may be able to help you.

Librarians are usually hugely experienced in using all the search tools and databases, and can often show you much quicker ways of doing things, as well as tips and tricks to help you refine your search.

Furthermore, libraries may have copies of books and academic journals that are not available online. So a trip to your library may prove to be very helpful.

If you haven’t already done so, get yourself an ATHENS account through your university and/or school library. Spend time working out which of the available databases are going to be most useful for your topic, including asking the librarians for advice.

A simple way to get started with finding appropriate materials is simply to ask people who are likely to know.

You might for example ask your tutor or supervisor, or an expert or practitioner working on your chosen topic. Often, they will be able to give you some very helpful ideas about where to begin your reading.

However, be aware that some professionals may find constant requests for information intrudes on their time. Always be courteous and sensitive to the level of demand you may be making on someone’s time.

See our page: Sources of Information for more about the types of resources that you might use and how to access them.

Choosing and Refining your Search Terms

Your search terms are one of the most important elements of finding the right sources for your research project and developing them is an ongoing process.

It’s a good idea to start with a phrase that you think others will have used about the topic, perhaps that you have identified from your lectures and/or earlier study. You will probably find that your first few searches don’t turn up much that’s useful.

Use the one or two articles that you find that are on the right lines to identify alternative search terms, and continue to search until you turn up useful articles.

You can also use a tool such as Google Adword Keyword Research Tool to identify phrases and keywords that are similar to your chosen term(s). This tool is usually used by internet marketing professionals to help them find keywords similar to their own but can be useful for academic research too.

If you’re really struggling to find articles on the right topic, but you’re certain that they must be out there, drop your supervisor a note asking about possible search terms. Tell them what you’ve already used, and ask them for a few alternatives to get you started. However, this should be a last resort, as you don’t want to demonstrate your ignorance too obviously!

Finally, keep searching. You need to read a lot of sources to find the most relevant and will probably end up discarding more than half of what you read. Use abstracts to decide which articles are worth reading, and don’t read those that aren’t relevant: keep checking back to your research questions and decide whether each article is useful. If not, move on.

Critical Reading

Your literature review should not only show that you have been reading a range of materials related to your topic, but also that you have been reading them critically and have thought about the wider contexts and how they apply to your own area of research.

Critical reading is a skill that, like any other skill, is acquired with practice.

In essence, reading critically means that you do not take the claims at face value: you question the basis for claims, why the author may have done and said things in the particular way he or she did, what the wider context is, and whose interests are being served by the claims you encounter.

See our page, Critical Reading for more information.

How Many Sources?

Your university or college supervisor will be able to give you an idea of how many sources you should include in your literature review.

You will probably need to read at least double that number to find enough that are suitable for inclusion. You should also try to find several different sorts of sources: books, journal articles, dissertations, conference papers, working papers, and so on.

You need to make sure that you identify the key texts for the subject. Check a few references, and see which texts are cited most often, or ask the librarians how to use the databases to check how often each article is cited. A good way to identify when you have read enough is if your reading keeps turning up the same points and you’re not learning anything new.

A Note on Dates

There are some theories or articles which are so important in a particular field that they need to be cited, however long ago they were originally published. But those apart, you should generally prefer more recent sources published in the last five or ten years. As a rough guide, the balance of publication dates should be about two thirds from the last 10 years, and no more than one third older than that.

Writing your Literature Review

In general, your literature review should start with one or two broad paragraphs, demonstrating your understanding of the breadth of your area of study.

You should then discuss the literature that deals with your area of research and, finally, consider and critique the studies that are most directly relevant.

You should spend most time on the latter.

Writing your literature review should be an iterative process.

The best way to do it is probably to summarise each source as you go along, referencing it carefully, and grouping your sources by themes.

You will almost certainly find that the themes develop as you go along, and so do your search terms. Use headings to store your summaries and then write a more polished section under that heading when you have enough sources to be able to ‘compare and contrast’ opposing views, and particularly to draw out areas where there is disagreement and/or conflicting evidence as these are the most fruitful for further research.

Where there are gaps, you can then go back and search for more sources on that area. The best literature reviews are not only descriptive, but draw together similar thinking and provide a critical analysis of the previous research, including highlighting really good studies, or identifying flaws and gaps.

To make sure that you carrying out a critical analysis, make sure that you ask yourself the question ‘ Do I agree with this viewpoint? Why? ’, and also consider whether the methods used are strong or weak and why. This will also help you to decide on your own methodology.

Another way of checking whether you are evaluating or merely describing is to look at whether you have discussed work chronologically (likely to be descriptive) or in terms of whether there is general agreement on a topic (much more likely to be evaluative).

Checklist of Questions for Critical Reading

Ask yourself the following questions to decide whether or not a particular piece of work is worth including in your literature review.

• Who is the author? What can I find out about him/her? Has he/she written other books, articles etc.?
• What is the author’s position in the research process, e.g., gender, class, politics, life experience, relationship to research participants?
• Where and when was the document produced? What type of document is it?
• Is it reporting original research that the author has done, or is it presenting second-hand information about a topic?
• Is it formal or informal?
• Is it 'authoritative' (e.g., academic, scientific) or 'popular' (newspaper or magazine article)?
• How has it been produced? Is it glossy, with lots of pictures, diagrams, etc.?
• If it is contained on a website, is the website from a reputable organisation, or is the document drawn from some other reputable source?

The Message

• What is being said?
• What is not being said?
• How is the argument presented? Why?
• What use has been made of diagrams, pictures etc.?
• Who was or is the intended audience?
• Whose interests are being served by this message? Are there political implications, for instance?
• What evidence is presented to support the claims that are made?
• Does the evidence actually support the claims? Is the evidence presented in enough detail for you to make up your own mind whether you agree with the claims?
• Are there errors or inconsistencies?
• What is the significance to my topic and the research that I wish to carry out?

Your literature review should also demonstrate how your study does or will relate to previous work, and how it either fills gaps, or responds to calls for further work.

Your literature review will help you to refine your research question. It should also help you to explain how your methodology fits with previous work, and help you to identify and evaluate possible research methods.

A Note on Tense

When you are describing someone’s findings or opinions, it is probably best to use the past tense.

For example:

“Jones (2001) argued that…”.

Many authors of academic papers prefer the present tense when describing opinions or views (“Jones (2001) argues that…”). However, it is always possible that Jones has subsequently changed his/her view, and therefore the past tense is preferable.

The past tense is always going to be correct for something that was expressed in the past; the present tense may no longer be true.

Citations and References

Your university will almost certainly have a preferred style for citations and references that you will need to use. Make sure you understand how this works before you start writing your literature review and use it consistently throughout.

Keep your references up to date as you go, and make sure that you always cite the reference as you write: it’s much easier than trying to build a reference list at the end.

See our page on Academic Referencing for more information

For scientific subjects, Vancouver (numerical) referencing is often preferred.

However, it is much harder to check that your references are correct using this system. It is therefore better to use a (name, date) system of citations until you are certain that you have finished revising the document.

Alternatively, use a system of end-notes which will automatically update the numbering if you move a citation as you will otherwise end up hopelessly confused.

Draft, Draft and Redraft

Finally, once you have written each section by theme, go back and read the whole thing to check that the sections flow logically one from another, and that the whole literature review reads sensibly and coherently.

As with any essay or extended piece of writing, editing and redrafting will improve the quality of your writing, as will asking someone else to read it over and check for errors or inconsistencies.

You should also do a search to check for consistent use of British or American spellings (-ise and -ize, for example), double spaces after words, and double/single inverted commas around quotations. You might think such details are less important than the content, but the marker may not share your view.

Continue to: Writing a Research Proposal Writing a Dissertation: The Introduction

See also: Writing a Methodology Dissertation Results and Discussion Dissertation Conclusions and Extra Sections

Our websites may use cookies to personalize and enhance your experience. By continuing without changing your cookie settings, you agree to this collection. For more information, please see our University Websites Privacy Notice .

Office of Undergraduate Research

Undergraduate research cvs and résumés, cv vs. résumé - what's the difference.

A curriculum vitae, or CV, is a document that provides a comprehensive overview of your educational background, academic accomplishments, and qualifications, including your research experience, publications, awards, presentations, and honors. CVs are typically used when applying for academic, scientific, or research positions. A CV may also be used for graduate school, fellowship, or grant applications.

Résumés provide a concise (1-2 page) summary of your education, experience, and skill set. Résumés are typically used for non-academic opportunities, such as jobs, internships, or leadership positions.

At the undergraduate level, these documents may overlap, with similar content found in both. As you progress throughout your career, they will diverge as your experience level changes and your materials are tailored to address a particular audience and to match the conventions within your discipline.

Make sure to review the application information provided by the program or opportunity to determine whether a CV or résumé is preferred.

Are you new to research and developing your first résumé? The Center for Career Development has resources to assist you with preparing a résumé that highlights the transferable skills developed through academics, work experiences, volunteer activities, and extracurricular involvement, as well as connecting those transferable skills to the opportunities you are applying for.

Preparing an Undergraduate CV

Sections: how to organize your content.

The sections on your CV will depend on your experiences and what you want to highlight. For a research-focused undergraduate CV, you can include any of the following sections, modifying the specific section heading to fit your needs:

• Research Experience

Publications

Presentations.

• Grants or Fellowships
• Awards or Honors
• Skills (laboratory, technical, computer, design) and Certifications
• Internships (or relevant work experiences)
• Professional Memberships, Professional Affiliations, or Professional Societies
• Leadership, Volunteer Work, Service, Community Involvement, Extracurricular Activities

When determining the order of your sections, consider what content is applicable and relevant to the program or opportunity to which you are applying. A general guideline is to include your most relevant sections first. Within each section, organize your content in reverse chronological order, listing the most recent experiences or content first, and working your way back to older content.

Begin your CV with your name and contact information. Contact information may include your school or home address, or you may choose to exclude your address and limit your contact information to your email address, phone number, and if applicable, your personal website or LinkedIn URL.

Your name is typically in a larger font, one to two sizes larger than the content. Consider using bold so that it stands out.

Education is typically the first section of an undergraduate CV after your heading. Include the institution name, degree you are completing, your major(s), minor(s), and expected graduation date. If you are writing a thesis, you can also include the title and name(s) of your thesis advisor(s).

Academic honors may be included here as well, though you also have the option of having a separate section to highlight awards and honors.

Including your GPA is optional and will depend on what you are using your CV for. If you are submitting your CV to an opportunity where a GPA is requested, include it. GPA is not commonly included on graduate CVs, an important note to keep in mind as you progress through your academic career and move on to advanced study.

If you studied abroad, you can include the institution name, dates of attendance, and relevant coursework or focus of your studies.

Tip: It is essential that you correctly indicate the degree you are pursuing and your academic major and minor. If you are unsure of how to list your major on your CV (e.g., Psychological Sciences – not Psychology), check with your academic advisor or check your transcript to see how your major is listed. UConn undergraduate degrees include: Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Bachelor of Social Work.

University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT Bachelor of Arts in History, Minor: Human Rights, expected May 20XX

• Honors Program (20XX-20XX), Dean’s List (Fall 20XX, Spring 20XX), 20XX New England Scholar
• Senior Thesis: Thesis Title
• Thesis Advisor: Dr. Jonathan Husky, Associate Professor, Department of History

University of Connecticu t, Storrs, CT Bachelor of Science, Molecular and Cell Biology , May 20XX Bachelor of Arts, Psychological Sciences , May 20XX Minor: Healthcare Management and Insurance Studies Honors Scholar and University Honors Laureate, Dean’s List (20XX-20XX, Fall 20XX)

Study Abroad in Florence, Italy, Summer 20XX Coursework: History of the European Union; Identity and Culture in Italy: A Comparative Approach

Essential information to include for each research experience:

• Dr. Jonathan Husky, Associate Professor, Statistics Department
• ABC Research Group, Biomedical Engineering Department
• University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
• Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Hartford, CT
• Undergraduate Researcher, Summer 20XX (12 weeks, full time)
• Research Assistant, August 20XX-Present (10 hrs/week)
• If you are assisting with a research project funded by an external source (e.g., NSF, NIH), talk with your faculty mentor about the correct way to list that on your resume.
• If you received funding to support your work (e.g., SURF Award, UConn IDEA Grant), include that at the end of your description.

The order of information may vary based on how you are formatting your CV. Regardless of the order, it is essential that you are consistent. For example, if you lead with the project title for one research experience, you should lead with the title in all experiences. If you lead with the lab or research group name, stick with that throughout. Consistency is key.

Describing Your Research

For each research experience or research project you’ve engaged in, prepare descriptive sentences that explain the research, outlining the project goals and objectives, the steps you took to achieve your research goals, including methods used, and your results. Use action verbs to paint a picture of your research involvement and contributions. When possible, quantify your statements and incorporate scope, context, and purpose.

• Descriptions on a CV are typically in paragraph form, though you may opt for bullet points for organization and clarity.

Framework for structuring your descriptive statements:

• Overview of the project (Researched... to determine...; Explored and evaluated... for the purpose of...; Investigated the role of...)
• Key steps you took along the way (Surveyed...; Traveled to... for...; Examined...; Analyzed...; Collaborated with...; Evaluated...; Created...; Acquired and digitized...)
• Results/Outcomes (How did your work add value? What can we learn from your project? Established a correlation between....; Developed prototype of...; Drafted.....; Contributed to...)
• Awards/funding, if applicable (Awarded $4000 grant from the University of Connecticut as part of competitive University-wide application process to fund the project)

Research Lab Name, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, CT PI: Dr. First, Last Name, Title Research Assistant , Start Date (Month & Year) to End Date (or Present) Topic: One-line description of research topic

• Description – overview of the research, big picture goals and objectives for context, methods used, and key findings.
• Your Role - break down your project responsibilities and contributions towards the goals and objectives. Elaborate on your accomplishments.
• Funding/Awards - If you received funding or awards related to this project, you can indicate that here, still listing the funding/awards in the relevant category. If the project you worked on was funded by an external source, list that as well.
• Formatting – this content can be in one robust paragraph, or you can choose to break it into smaller segments using bullet points.

Dr. Jonathan Husky, Center for Advanced Animal Research, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT Research Assistant, August 20XX-Present (8 hrs/week) Project Title/Overview/Research Focus Participate in NIH funded research study investigating _____. Maintain _____ and conduct _____ for the purpose of _____. Use _____ methods to measure _____. Attend bi-weekly research group meetings to _____. Conduct literature reviews, analyze relevant scientific papers, and present to research group on a monthly basis.

Capturing multiple roles or involvement in multiple projects

If you have worked with the same research mentor for several years or on a variety of projects, consider starting with your research mentor’s information, then listing each research project with corresponding descriptions of your contributions to the work, starting with the current/most recent project and working backwards.

Research Assistant to Dr. ABC, Department of Psychological Sciences University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, Start Date (Month & Year) to Present

Project Title/Research Focus (dates working on this project) Description – overview of the research, big picture goals and objectives for context, methods used, key findings. Break down your role and contributions towards the goals and objectives. Elaborate on your accomplishments. If you received funding or awards related to this project, you can indicate that here, still listing the funding/awards in the relevant category. If the project you worked on was funded by an external source, list that as well (e.g., Collaborated on NSF-funded research assessing...)

Project Title/Research Focus (dates working on this project) Description – Conduct literature review on _____. Developed 70-question Qualtrics survey to assess _____. Collected responses from 500 participants using _____. Collaborated with team of 3 graduate student researchers to code data using _____. Co-presented results at XYZ conference in Chicago, IL.

Research Group Name, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT PI: Dr. First Last, Title, Department

Undergraduate Student Researcher , September 20XX-Present Topic: Description – overview of the research, big picture goals and objectives for context, methods used, key findings. Break down your role and contributions towards the goals and objectives. Elaborate on your accomplishments. If you received funding or awards related to this project, you can indicate that here, still listing the funding/awards in the relevant category. If the project you worked on was funded by an external source, list that as well (e.g., Collaborated on NSF-funded research assessing...)

Summer Undergraduate Research Fund (SURF) Award Recipient , Summer 20XX Project Title: Description of research and your role.

Independent research

If you have engaged in a self-directed or independent research project, you can make that clear in your description of the project. If you received support or mentorship from faculty, you may choose to include that in your description.

Project Title Independent Researcher , University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT (Dates) Faculty Mentor: Dr. First Last, Title, Department

Designed and conducted independent research project investigating the relationship between... Interviewed... to assess... Transcribed, coded, analyzed... Developed comprehensive resource booklet...

Funding: Awarded $4000 research grant from the University of Connecticut IDEA Grant program to fund the project.

Publications should be formatted in a manner appropriate for your field of study (e.g., APA, MLA), so your listings may vary from the examples provided below. Use the full citation when published. If accepted but not yet published, you can include “forthcoming” in place of the publication date.

If you are preparing a manuscript, but have not yet submitted your work for publication, or it has not been accepted, consider including that information in the description of your research.

If you have more than one manuscript that has been submitted or under review, but not yet accepted for publication, you might consider using a “Manuscripts under Review” section to highlight those.

Author(s) (in order). Title of Article. Journal Name, Edition/Year of Publication, Pages.

Husky, J. Huskies Forever: Establishing an Alumni Outreach Program. Journal of College Student Success. 20XX; 22(1): 44-48.

Last F, Husky J. Wellness, Motivation, and Healthy Lifestyles in College Students. Journal of College Student Success . Forthcoming, accepted for publication in April 20XX.

Presenting your research at a professional conference or similar event is a valuable experience and one that should be noted on your CV. Presentations can be in their own section, or you can list them with each research experience. Consider having a separate presentations category when you have multiple experiences to include, or if you want to draw attention to your presentations.

Formatting for presentations will be based on the conventions within your field of study. Talk with faculty mentors about the correct way to go about this for your academic discipline.

Wellness, Motivation, and Healthy Lifestyles in College Students , 10th Annual Conference on Undergraduate Research, June 1, 20XX, Boston, MA.

Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Poster Exhibition, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, April 20XX. Husky, Jonathan. “Huskies Forever: Establishing an Alumni Outreach Program” (poster presentation).

“History of Mascots at the University of Connecticut: 1934 to 2014.” Presented at 4th Annual College Sports Symposium. New York, NY, May 20XX (oral presentation).

Husky, Jonathan. (20XX, June XX-XX). Self-Esteem, Motivation, and Healthy Lifestyles in College Students (Poster Session). 10th Annual Conference on Undergraduate Research, Boston, MA.

Skills and Certifications

Skills and certifications may be combined into one category, or you can divide them into their own categories. Consider including laboratory skills, equipment, technology and software, animal handling, sample preparation and processing, database management, languages, and certifications that are relevant to your academic discipline and goals.

If you have a significant amount of skills in a particular area that you want to draw attention to, consider breaking down your skills into additional categories (see example 2).

Laboratory: ELISA, Fluorescent microscopy, microdissection, cell culture, Gel Electrophoresis, PCR Technology: MatLab, Minitab, SPSS, Stata Certifications: CITI Human Subjects Research Course – Biomedical Research and Social/Behavioral Research, American Red Cross CPR/AED, Pediatric CPR and First Aid Languages: Fluent in Hindi, Advanced Urdu

Laboratory Skills

• Crystallization; Fractional, Vacuum, and Steam Distillation; Gravity and Vacuum Filtration; Thin-layer Chromatography, Interpretation of HPLC, NMR, UV/VIS and IR spectra
• Spectrophotometry; Ion Exchange, Gel Filtration, and Affinity Chromatography; Western Blot Technique; SDS-PAGE
• PAGE and Agarose Gel, Fluorescence Spectroscopy, DNA synthesis, PCR, Transcription, Enzymatic Ligation
• Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), Zeta Potential, DNA Functionalized Nanoparticles

Honors and Awards

Significant honors and awards that are not recognizable outside of UConn should be explained to give you credit for your accomplishments. Consider including a brief description to help readers understand the purpose and scope of the award. As you advance in your career, descriptions of undergraduate awards may be removed, listing only the award name and year.

• UConn IDEA Grant Recipient , April 20XX: Awarded $4000 grant from the University of Connecticut to support an independent research project conducted under the mentorship of Dr. Jonathan Husky.

20XX University Scholar, University of Connecticut

• Selected as one of XX students to participate in a prestigious program that supports design and pursuit of an intensive three-semester research project and learning plan during the final undergraduate semesters.

Summer Undergraduate Research Fund Award Recipient, Summer 20XX

• Awarded $4500 grant from the University of Connecticut through competitive application process to support an independent research project in collaboration with the ABC Lab.

CV Formatting and General Tips

• Review your CV with your faculty mentor/PI to assure you are not disclosing confidential research results or information and to assure you are clearly explaining the research project. Faculty mentors can also guide you on the appropriate conventions within your field of study.
• Be truthful – give yourself credit for what you’ve accomplished but do not exaggerate or mislead your role in the research.
• Be careful with acronyms. If it is one that is widely used and recognizable within your field, it is fine to use it. If not, spell it out.
• CVs do not have a page limit. However, that does not mean you should include absolutely everything you have done. You want to strategically edit content and limit your CV to relevant information.
• CVs are formatted in an uncomplicated way. Avoid over-designing your CV. Use bold and italics strategically and minimally. Avoid underlining; this is typically reserved for hyperlinks.
• Use 11-12 point font and 1 inch margins. Your name should be 1-2 pts larger. Section headings can also be larger. Choose an easy-to-read font (e.g., Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman).
• Don’t crowd your content; use space!
• Faculty often include their CVs on their bio page or website. Review these to understand how this document is used and the conventions within your academic discipline.

Converting Your Undergraduate CV into a Research Résumé

The research résumé.

Your résumé provides potential employers and programs a snapshot of your background, skills, and experiences to help them assess your candidacy. Think of it as a marketing tool that you can use to strategically highlight and emphasize your most relevant background experiences and significant accomplishments.

Résumés are typically shorter than a CV (1-2 pages, depending on your field/industry), focusing on key highlights that are relevant to the opportunity you are seeking. You will need to tailor your résumé for each application or opportunity.

To convert your CV into a résumé, start by identifying the most relevant, applicable content. Copy that content into a new document. From there, you can adjust your formatting to fit your content on one page, possibly two, depending on the field/industry.

When formatting a résumé, you want to condense and tighten your formatting. Consider reducing the spacing between experiences, adjusting the margins to make them smaller (try .75” instead of 1”), and perhaps reducing the font size (10 or 11pt).

Key details about your research experience that are included on your CV need to be included on your résumé. These include your affiliations, PI/faculty mentor’s name, your position or title, and dates affiliated. Consider shortening your descriptions, trimming down to the most pertinent information that helps readers recognize the transferable skills gained through a research experience. Focus on the process and results of your work, aligning the skills you demonstrated and developed to the position you’re applying for. If your descriptions are in paragraph form, consider changing those to a bulleted list, as this is more common on a résumé.

General Research Résumé Tips

• Review your résumé with your faculty mentor/PI to assure you’re not disclosing confidential research results or information and that you are clearly explaining the research.
• Utilize strong action verbs to describe your research experiences. Contextualize your research experiences and contributions to the project.
• Quantify and qualify – provide numbers and details to help readers get a picture of your research involvement.
• Tailor your résumé to your target audience. Use different versions and/or format for different fields or types of opportunities.
• Make the category headings work for you. Similar to your CV, you can group related experiences together in categories such as Research Experience, Academic Accomplishments, Publications, and Presentations. Don’t feel limited to standard resume categories such as Work Experience or Activities.
• Use the correct tense: present tense for experiences you’re actively engaged in and past tense for those you are no longer engaged in.
• The higher up something is on the page, the more likely it will be read; be strategic about the order in which you present information.
• Format should be easy to read and not cluttered or text-heavy.
• Have your résumé reviewed by trusted advisors.
• Save your résumé as a PDF to maintain formatting (unless the program or recipient specifically requests it in another format).
• Be truthful – give yourself credit for what you’ve accomplished, but do not exaggerate or mislead.