academic discipline literature review

University of Oregon Libraries
Research Guides

How to Write a Literature Review

2. Review Discipline Styles
Literature Reviews: A Recap
Reading Journal Articles
Does it Describe a Literature Review?
1. Identify the Question

Review discipline styles

Visualize disciplinary 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
7. Write a Literature Review

As you prepare to write your own review, it is a good idea to look at examples from your disciplinary area (humanities, social sciences, or natural or applied sciences). Here are some sample literature reviews taken from the introductory section of articles from different fields. The last article on the list is a systematic review article , that is, an article that does not present the results of a new study but rather discusses the results of the existing studies that have been published on its chosen topic.

At the end of each citation is a link to the full text of the article.

Mosher, C. E., Winger, J. G., Hanna, N., Jalal, S. I., Fakiris, A. J., Einhorn, L. H., Birdas, T. J., Kesler, K. A., & Champion, V. L. (2014). Barriers to mental health service use and preferences for addressing emotional concerns among lung cancer patients. Psycho-Oncology , 23 (7), 812–819. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.3488
Gibau, G. S. (2015). Considering Student Voices: Examining the Experiences of Underrepresented Students in Intervention Programs. CBE Life Sciences Education, 14(3). http://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.14-06-0103
León, D., Arzola, N., & Tovar, A. (2015). Statistical analysis of the influence of tooth geometry in the performance of a harmonic drive. Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering, 37(2), 723-735. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40430-014-0197-0
Sawesi, S., Rashrash, M., Phalakornkule, K., Carpenter, J. S., & Jones, J. F. (2016). The Impact of Information Technology on Patient Engagement and Health Behavior Change: A Systematic Review of the Literature. JMIR Medical Informatics, 4(1), e1. http://doi.org/10.2196/medinform.4514

See below for screen captures of some aspects of each article's style . To compare these with articles by UO authors, please visit UO Scholars' Bank .

These screen captures from the articles listed above show some aspects of style from each article. Click the links in the box above to view the rest of the articles. In-text citations are highlighted because citation style is an important aspect of overall style.

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Next: 3. Search the Literature >>
Last Updated: Jan 10, 2024 4:46 PM
URL: https://researchguides.uoregon.edu/litreview

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Writing a Literature Review

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

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

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

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

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

What are the parts of a lit review?

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

Introduction:

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

Conclusion:

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

How should I organize my lit review?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Write a Literature Review

Developing a Research Question
Database Searching
Documenting Your Search and Findings
Discipline-Specific Literature Reviews

Are You Conducting a Literature Review in the Health Sciences?

We have a guide specific to Health Sciences Literature Reviews .

Your Librarian Can Help!

Because literature reviews can vary based on discipline, subject specialist librarians can provide online or in-person assistance with your literature review search. If ever you are in need of research assistance, don't hesitate to consult a specialist based on your subject area.

You may also find additional guidance about conducting literature reviews in your discipline by browsing our Research Guides by Subject .

Find Examples for Your Discipline

You can look for other literature reviews in your subject area to see how they are written. To see how a literature review is formatted in a particular discipline, look for peer-reviewed examples of other work in that field. You’ll find literature reviews in the introduction to a primary research article, but they can also stand alone to summarize the current state of knowledge in a field.

A screenshot of a search comprised of the terms "School to prison pipeline" AND "literature review"

Additional Ebooks on Discipline-Specific Literature

VCU Libraries has various online books about conducting research that can provide you with in depth information about conducting literature reviews.

<< Previous: Documenting Your Search and Findings
Last Updated: Oct 16, 2023 1:53 PM
URL: https://guides.library.vcu.edu/lit-review

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Literature Review Guide

The Literature Review

What is a Literature Review?
Plan Your Literature Review
Identify a Research Gap
Define Your Research Question
Search the Literature
Analyze Your Research Results
Manage Research Results
Write the Literature Review

What is a Literature Review? What is its purpose?

The purpose of a literature review is to offer a comprehensive review of scholarly literature on a specific topic along with an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of authors' arguments . In other words, you are summarizing research available on a certain topic and then drawing conclusions about researchers' findings. To make gathering research easier, be sure to start with a narrow/specific topic and then widen your topic if necessary.

A thorough literature review provides an accurate description of current knowledge on a topic and identifies areas for future research. Are there gaps or areas that require further study and exploration? What opportunities are there for further research? What is missing from my collection of resources? Are more resources needed?

It is important to note that conclusions described in the literature you gather may contradict each other completely or in part. Recognize that knowledge creation is collective and cumulative. Current research is built upon past research findings and discoveries. Research may bring previously accepted conclusions into question. A literature review presents current knowledge on a topic and may point out various academic arguments within the discipline.

What a Literature Review is not

A literature review is not an annotated bibliography . An annotated bibliography provides a brief summary, analysis, and reflection of resources included in the bibliography. Often it is not a systematic review of existing research on a specific subject. That said, creating an annotated bibliography throughout your research process may be helpful in managing the resources discovered through your research.
A literature review is not a research paper . A research paper explores a topic and uses resources discovered through the research process to support a position on the topic. In other words, research papers present one side of an issue. A literature review explores all sides of the research topic and evaluates all positions and conclusions achieved through the scientific research process even though some conclusions may conflict partially or completely.

From the Online Library

SAGE Research Methods is a web-based research methods tool that covers quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods. Researchers can explore methods and concepts to help design research projects, understand a particular method or identify a new method, and write up research. Sage Research Methods focuses on methodology rather than disciplines, and is of potential use to researchers from the social sciences, health sciences and other research areas.

Sage Research Methods Project Planner - Reviewing the Literature View the resources and videos for a step-by-step guide to performing a literature review.

The Literature Review: Step by Step

Follow this step-by-step process by using the related tabs in this Guide.

Define your Research question
Analyze the material you’ve found
Manage the results of your research
Write your Review

Getting Started

Consider the following questions as you develop your research topic, conduct your research, and begin evaluating the resources discovered in the research process:

What is known about the subject?
Are there any gaps in the knowledge of the subject?
Have areas of further study been identified by other researchers that you may want to consider?
Who are the significant research personalities in this area?
Is there consensus about the topic?
What aspects have generated significant debate on the topic?
What methods or problems were identified by others studying in the field and how might they impact your research?
What is the most productive methodology for your research based on the literature you have reviewed?
What is the current status of research in this area?
What sources of information or data were identified that might be useful to you?
How detailed? Will it be a review of ALL relevant material or will the scope be limited to more recent material, e.g., the last five years.
Are you focusing on methodological approaches; on theoretical issues; on qualitative or quantitative research?

What is Academic Literature?

What is the difference between popular and scholarly literature?

To better understand the differences between popular and scholarly articles, comparing characteristics and purpose of the publications where these articles appear is helpful.

Database Search Tips

Boolean Operators
Keywords vs. Subjects
Creating a Search String
Library databases are collections of resources that are searchable, including full-text articles, books, and encyclopedias.
Searching library databases is different than searching Google. Best results are achieved when using Keywords linked with Boolean Operators .
Applying Limiters such as full-text, publication date, resource type, language, geographic location, and subject help to refine search results.
Utilizing Phrases or Fields , in addition to an awareness of Stop Words , can focus your search and retrieve more useful results.
Have questions? Ask a Librarian

Boolean Operators connect keywords or concepts logically to retrieve relevant articles, books, and other resources. There are three Boolean Operators:

Using AND

Narrows search results
Connects two or more keywords/concepts
All keywords/concepts connected with "and" must be in an article or resource to appear in the search results list

Venn diagram of the AND connector

Example: The result list will include resources that include both keywords -- "distracted driving" and "texting" -- in the same article or resource, represented in the shaded area where the circles intersect (area shaded in purple).

Broadens search results ("OR means more!")
Connects two or more synonyms or related keywords/concepts
Resources appearing in the results list will include any of the terms connected with the OR connector

Venn diagram of the OR connector

Example: The result list will include resources that include the keyword "texting" OR the keyword "cell phone" (entire area shaded in blue); either is acceptable.

Excludes keywords or concepts from the search
Narrows results by removing resources that contain the keyword or term connected with the NOT connector
Use sparingly

Venn diagram of the NOT connector

Example: The result list will include all resources that include the term "car" (green area) but will exclude any resource that includes the term "motorcycle" (purple area) even though the term car may be present in the resource.

A library database searches for keywords throughout the entire resource record including the full-text of the resource, subject headings, tags, bibliographic information, etc.

Natural language words or short phrases that describe a concept or idea
Can retrieve too few or irrelevant results due to full-text searching (What words would an author use to write about this topic?)
Provide flexibility in a search
Must consider synonyms or related terms to improve search results
TIP: Build a Keyword List

Example: The keyword list above was developed to find resources that discuss how texting while driving results in accidents. Notice that there are synonyms (texting and "text messaging"), related terms ("cell phones" and texting), and spelling variations ("cell phone" and cellphone). Using keywords when searching full text requires consideration of various words that express an idea or concept.

Subject Headings
Predetermined "controlled vocabulary" database editors apply to resources to describe topical coverage of content
Can retrieve more precise search results because every article assigned that subject heading will be retrieved.
Provide less flexibility in a search
Can be combined with a keyword search to focus search results.
TIP: Consult database subject heading list or subject headings assigned to relevant resources

Example 1: In EBSCO's Academic Search Complete, clicking on the "Subject Terms" tab provides access to the entire subject heading list used in the database. It also allows a search for specific subject terms.

Example 2: A subject term can be incorporated into a keyword search by clicking on the down arrow next to "Select a Field" and selecting "Subject Terms" from the dropdown list. Also, notice how subject headings are listed below the resource title, providing another strategy for discovering subject headings used in the database.

When a search term is more than one word, enclose the phrase in quotation marks to retrieve more precise and accurate results. Using quotation marks around a term will search it as a "chunk," searching for those particular words together in that order within the text of a resource.

"cell phone"

"distracted driving"

"car accident"

TIP: In some databases, neglecting to enclose phrases in quotation marks will insert the AND Boolean connector between each word resulting in unintended search results.

Truncation provides an option to search for a root of a keyword in order to retrieve resources that include variations of that word. This feature can be used to broaden search results, although some results may not be relevant. To truncate a keyword, type an asterisk (*) following the root of the word.

For example:

Library databases provide a variety of tools to limit and refine search results. Limiters provide the ability to limit search results to resources having specified characteristics including:

Resource type
Publication date
Geographic location

In both the EBSCO and ProQuest databases, the limiting tools are located in the left panel of the results page.

EBSCO ProQuest

The short video below provides a demonstration of how to use limiters to refine a list of search results.

Each resource in a library database is stored in a record. In addition to the full-text of the resources, searchable Fields are attached that typically include:

Journal title
Date of Publication

Incorporating Fields into your search can assist in focusing and refining search results by limiting the results to those resources that include specific information in a particular field.

In both EBSCO and ProQuest databases, selecting the Advanced Search option will allow Fields to be included in a search.

For example, in the Advanced Search option in EBSCO's Academic Search Complete database, clicking on the down arrow next to "Select a Field" provides a list of fields that can be searched within that database. Select the field and enter the information in the text box to the left to use this feature.

Stop words are short, commonly used words--articles, prepositions, and pronouns-- that are automatically dropped from a search. Typical stop words include:

In library databases, a stop word will not be searched even if it is included in a phrase enclosed in quotation marks. In some instances, a word will be substituted for the stop word to allow for the other words in the phrase to be searched in proximity to one another within the text of the resource.

For example, if you searched company of America, your result list will include these variatons:

company in America
company of America
company for America

Creating an Search String

This short video demonstrates how to create a search string -- keywords connected with Boolean operators -- to use in a library database search to retrieve relevant resources for any research assignment.

Database Search Menu Template Use this search menu template to plan a database search.
Last Updated: Feb 16, 2024 10:01 AM
URL: https://guides.rasmussen.edu/LitReview

Literature review: your definitive guide

Joanna Wilkinson

This is our ultimate guide on how to write a narrative literature review. It forms part of our Research Smarter series .

How do you write a narrative literature review?

Researchers worldwide are increasingly reliant on literature reviews. That’s because review articles provide you with a broad picture of the field, and help to synthesize published research that’s expanding at a rapid pace .

In some academic fields, researchers publish more literature reviews than original research papers. The graph below shows the substantial growth of narrative literature reviews in the Web of Science™, alongside the percentage increase of reviews when compared to all document types.

It’s critical that researchers across all career levels understand how to produce an objective, critical summary of published research. This is no easy feat, but a necessary one. Professionally constructed literature reviews – whether written by a student in class or an experienced researcher for publication – should aim to add to the literature rather than detract from it.

To help you write a narrative literature review, we’ve put together some top tips in this blog post.

Best practice tips to write a narrative literature review:

Don’t miss a paper: tips for a thorough topic search
Identify key papers (and know how to use them)
Tips for working with co-authors
Find the right journal for your literature review using actual data
Discover literature review examples and templates

We’ll also provide an overview of all the products helpful for your next narrative review, including the Web of Science, EndNote™ and Journal Citation Reports™.

1. Don’t miss a paper: tips for a thorough topic search

Once you’ve settled on your research question, coming up with a good set of keywords to find papers on your topic can be daunting. This isn’t surprising. Put simply, if you fail to include a relevant paper when you write a narrative literature review, the omission will probably get picked up by your professor or peer reviewers. The end result will likely be a low mark or an unpublished manuscript, neither of which will do justice to your many months of hard work.

Research databases and search engines are an integral part of any literature search. It’s important you utilize as many options available through your library as possible. This will help you search an entire discipline (as well as across disciplines) for a thorough narrative review.

We provide a short summary of the various databases and search engines in an earlier Research Smarter blog . These include the Web of Science , Science.gov and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Like what you see? Share it with others on Twitter:

[bctt tweet=”Writing a #LiteratureReview? Check out the latest @clarivateAG blog for top tips (from topic searches to working with coauthors), examples, templates and more”]

Searching the Web of Science

The Web of Science is a multidisciplinary research engine that contains over 170 million papers from more than 250 academic disciplines. All of the papers in the database are interconnected via citations. That means once you get started with your keyword search, you can follow the trail of cited and citing papers to efficiently find all the relevant literature. This is a great way to ensure you’re not missing anything important when you write a narrative literature review.

We recommend starting your search in the Web of Science Core Collection™. This database covers more than 21,000 carefully selected journals. It is a trusted source to find research papers, and discover top authors and journals (read more about its coverage here ).

Learn more about exploring the Core Collection in our blog, How to find research papers: five tips every researcher should know . Our blog covers various tips, including how to:

Perform a topic search (and select your keywords)
Explore the citation network
Refine your results (refining your search results by reviews, for example, will help you avoid duplication of work, as well as identify trends and gaps in the literature)
Save your search and set up email alerts

Try our tips on the Web of Science now.

2. Identify key papers (and know how to use them)

As you explore the Web of Science, you may notice that certain papers are marked as “Highly Cited.” These papers can play a significant role when you write a narrative literature review.

Highly Cited papers are recently published papers getting the most attention in your field right now. They form the top 1% of papers based on the number of citations received, compared to other papers published in the same field in the same year.

You will want to identify Highly Cited research as a group of papers. This group will help guide your analysis of the future of the field and opportunities for future research. This is an important component of your conclusion.

Writing reviews is hard work…[it] not only organizes published papers, but also positions t hem in the academic process and presents the future direction. Prof. Susumu Kitagawa, Highly Cited Researcher, Kyoto University

3. Tips for working with co-authors

Writing a narrative review on your own is hard, but it can be even more challenging if you’re collaborating with a team, especially if your coauthors are working across multiple locations. Luckily, reference management software can improve the coordination between you and your co-authors—both around the department and around the world.

We’ve written about how to use EndNote’s Cite While You Write feature, which will help you save hundreds of hours when writing research . Here, we discuss the features that give you greater ease and control when collaborating with your colleagues.

Use EndNote for narrative reviews

Sharing references is essential for successful collaboration. With EndNote, you can store and share as many references, documents and files as you need with up to 100 people using the software.

You can share simultaneous access to one reference library, regardless of your colleague’s location or organization. You can also choose the type of access each user has on an individual basis. For example, Read-Write access means a select colleague can add and delete references, annotate PDF articles and create custom groups. They’ll also be able to see up to 500 of the team’s most recent changes to the reference library. Read-only is also an option for individuals who don’t need that level of access.

EndNote helps you overcome research limitations by synchronizing library changes every 15 minutes. That means your team can stay up-to-date at any time of the day, supporting an easier, more successful collaboration.

Start your free EndNote trial today .

4.Finding a journal for your literature review

Finding the right journal for your literature review can be a particular pain point for those of you who want to publish. The expansion of scholarly journals has made the task extremely difficult, and can potentially delay the publication of your work by many months.

We’ve written a blog about how you can find the right journal for your manuscript using a rich array of data. You can read our blog here , or head straight to Endnote’s Manuscript Matcher or Journal Citation Report s to try out the best tools for the job.

5. Discover literature review examples and templates

There are a few tips we haven’t covered in this blog, including how to decide on an area of research, develop an interesting storyline, and highlight gaps in the literature. We’ve listed a few blogs here that might help you with this, alongside some literature review examples and outlines to get you started.

Literature Review examples:

Aggregation-induced emission
Development and applications of CRISPR-Cas9 for genome engineering
Object based image analysis for remote sensing

(Make sure you download the free EndNote™ Click browser plugin to access the full-text PDFs).

Templates and outlines:

Learn how to write a review of literature , Univ. of Wisconsin – Madison
Structuring a literature review , Australian National University
Matrix Method for Literature Review: The Review Matrix , Duquesne University

Additional resources:

Ten simple rules for writing a literature review , Editor, PLoS Computational Biology
Video: How to write a literature review , UC San Diego Psychology

Demonstrating socioeconomic impact – a historical perspective of ancient wisdom and modern challenges.

Unlocking U.K. research excellence: Key insights from the Research Professional News Live summit

For better insights, assess research performance at the department level

University of Texas Libraries

Literature Reviews

What is a literature review?
Steps in the Literature Review Process
Define your research question
Determine inclusion and exclusion criteria
Choose databases and search
Review Results
Synthesize Results
Analyze Results
Librarian Support

What is a Literature Review?

A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important past and current research and practices. It provides background and context, and shows how your research will contribute to the field.

A literature review should:

Provide a comprehensive and updated review of the literature;
Explain why this review has taken place;
Articulate a position or hypothesis;
Acknowledge and account for conflicting and corroborating points of view

From S age Research Methods

Purpose of a Literature Review

A literature review can be written as an introduction to a study to:

Demonstrate how a study fills a gap in research
Compare a study with other research that's been done

Or it can be a separate work (a research article on its own) which:

Organizes or describes a topic
Describes variables within a particular issue/problem

Limitations of a Literature Review

Some of the limitations of a literature review are:

It's a snapshot in time. Unlike other reviews, this one has beginning, a middle and an end. There may be future developments that could make your work less relevant.
It may be too focused. Some niche studies may miss the bigger picture.
It can be difficult to be comprehensive. There is no way to make sure all the literature on a topic was considered.
It is easy to be biased if you stick to top tier journals. There may be other places where people are publishing exemplary research. Look to open access publications and conferences to reflect a more inclusive collection. Also, make sure to include opposing views (and not just supporting evidence).

Source: Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. “A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies.” Health Information & Libraries Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 91–108. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x.

Meryl Brodsky : Communication and Information Studies

Hannah Chapman Tripp : Biology, Neuroscience

Carolyn Cunningham : Human Development & Family Sciences, Psychology, Sociology

Larayne Dallas : Engineering

Janelle Hedstrom : Special Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Ed Leadership & Policy

Susan Macicak : Linguistics

Imelda Vetter : Dell Medical School

For help in other subject areas, please see the guide to library specialists by subject .

Periodically, UT Libraries runs a workshop covering the basics and library support for literature reviews. While we try to offer these once per academic year, we find providing the recording to be helpful to community members who have missed the session. Following is the most recent recording of the workshop, Conducting a Literature Review. To view the recording, a UT login is required.

October 26, 2022 recording
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Health Serv Res
v.42(1 Pt 1); 2007 Feb

Defining Interdisciplinary Research: Conclusions from a Critical Review of the Literature

To summarize findings from a systematic exploration of existing literature and views regarding interdisciplinarity, to discuss themes and components of such work, and to propose a theoretically based definition of interdisciplinary research.

Data Sources/Study Setting

Two major data sources were used: interviews with researchers from various disciplines, and a systematic review of the education, business, and health care literature from January 1980 through January 2005.

Study Design

Systematic review of literature, one-on-one interviews, field test (survey).

Data Collection/Extraction Methods

We reviewed 14 definitions of interdisciplinarity, the characteristics of 42 interdisciplinary research publications from multiple fields of study, and 14 researcher interviews to arrive at a preliminary definition of interdisciplinary research. That definition was then field tested by 12 individuals with interdisciplinary research experience, and their responses incorporated into the definition of interdisciplinary research proposed in this paper.

Principal Findings

Three key definitional characteristics were identified: the qualitative mode of research (and its theoretical underpinnings), existence of a continuum of synthesis among disciplines, and the desired outcome of the interdisciplinary research.

Existing literature from several fields did not provide a definition for interdisciplinary research of sufficient specificity to facilitate activities such as identification of the competencies, structure, and resources needed for health care and health policy research. This analysis led to the proposed definition, which is designed to aid decision makers in funding agencies/program committees and researchers to identify and take full advantage the interdisciplinary approach, and to serve as a basis for competency-based formalized training to provide researchers with interdisciplinary skills.

As scientific knowledge in a wide range of disciplines has advanced, scholars have become increasingly aware of the need to link disciplinary fields to more fully answer critical questions, or to facilitate application of knowledge in a specific area. For example, the discovery that tobacco use was associated with high rates of lung disease was not sufficient to lead to smoking cessation; the addition of research on risk assessment, motivation, and reasoned action were all important in designing programs that have fostered the current lower rates of tobacco use. This recognition has stimulated a steadily growing interest within the scientific community in developing new knowledge through research that combines the skills and perspectives of multiple disciplines. This may be in part a parallel of the wider societal interest in holistic perspectives that do not reduce human experience to a single dimension of descriptors, and to awareness that a number of extremely important and productive fields of study are themselves interdisciplinary: biochemistry, biophysics, social psychology, geophysics, informatics, and others. Recent publications in Health Services Research exemplify the complexities involved in health services research and the need for an interdisciplinary approach ( Glied et al. 2005 ; Gonzales et al. 2005 ; Hunt, Gaba, and Lavizzo-Mourey 2005 ; McLaughlin 2005 ).

A number of research centers funded over the past decade by the National Institutes of Health (NIH; e.g., Center for Evidence-Based Practice in the Underserved; Center on Population, Gender, and Social Inequality; Interdepartmental Neuroscience Center) are labeled as interdisciplinary and have involved scholars from multiple disciplines in productive research endeavors. NIH has identified interdisciplinarity as an essential contributor to needed knowledge and made it an explicit priority in its recent Roadmap. The Roadmap, a new strategic plan for future NIH funding ( http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/interdisciplinary/index.asp ), describes interdisciplinary research as that which:

integrates the analytical strengths of two or more often disparate scientific disciplines to solve a given biological problem. For instance, behavioral scientists, molecular biologists, and mathematicians might combine their research tools, approaches, and technologies to more powerfully solve the puzzles of complex health problems such as pain and obesity. By engaging seemingly unrelated disciplines, traditional gaps in terminology, approach, and methodology might be gradually eliminated . With roadblocks to potential collaboration removed, a true meeting of minds can take place: one that broadens the scope of investigation into biomedical problems, yields fresh and possibly unexpected insights, and may even give birth to new hybrid disciplines that are more analytically sophisticated (emphasis added).

While descriptive statements and lists of disciplines may be of value in informing observers about interdisciplinary research, they lack the precision needed to determine whether a given research effort is truly interdisciplinary, or simply happens to have been conducted by individuals with different credentials or employed in different academic departments.

Although scholars in the health sciences have developed research teams that often include members of multiple disciplines, the nature of interdisciplinarity and the concept of interdisciplinary research varies across disciplines, as do expectations and values of participants regarding the process of interdisciplinary research. A more precise definition of interdisciplinary research is needed so that funding agencies and researchers themselves can identify the competencies and resources necessary for successful interdisciplinary contributions to science. Such knowledge would be of great use in guiding both research design and funding decisions.

One endeavor to support and enhance interdisciplinary research within the Roadmap is the funding of 21 exploratory centers for interdisciplinary research ( http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/interdisciplinary/exploratorycenters/ ). The authors are associated with one of these interdisciplinary centers, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (CIRAR, http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/nursing/CIRAR/ ). Currently our research collaborative team includes persons from the disciplines of epidemiology, microbiology, pediatrics, infectious disease, nursing, economics, health policy, education, biostatistics, economics, informatics, public health, and more. Before joining CIRAR, these individuals had been engaged in research programs that range from bench science at the cellular level, clinical trials in hospitals and communities, cost–benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis and community-based participatory research. All of the members of CIRAR have engaged in collaborative work in the past, using their own sense of good scholarship to guide the process. Like many researchers, their experience with the “practice” of interdisciplinarity is a valuable resource, but in order to realize the full potential of this approach to research there must be an effort made to pool these resources across multiple fields.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize findings from a systematic exploration of existing literature and views regarding interdisciplinarity, to discuss themes and components of such work, and to propose a theoretically based definition of interdisciplinary research. Before the review of literature, the authors held interviews with individuals engaged in successful research involving multiple disciplines. A preliminary definition based on the interviews and subsequent literature review was composed. The definition was then field tested and modified to arrive at our proposed definition of interdisciplinary research. The aim of the project was to propose a definition that could then be used, among other applications, to identify the competencies needed for successful interdisciplinary research practice from which curriculum to teach interdisciplinarity could be developed.

This analysis of interdisciplinary research used two primary data sources: interviews with experienced researchers and a systematic literature review. The first data source was a series of one-on-one systematic interviews conducted by the CIRAR director with the 14 researchers (physicians, nurses, and researchers from public health and the social sciences) who were core members of the CIRAR interdisciplinary research center. These individuals had been selected for Center membership because they were experienced and successful researchers whose work bridged several disciplines. In these interviews, respondents were queried regarding their own work styles and the specific characteristics, which they sought in others in order to achieve successful interdisciplinary collaborations. The interviewer asked 10 questions on the researcher's attitudes and behaviors regarding their own professional lives and their disciplinary and interdisciplinary collaborations. The responses were categorized and summarized descriptively.

The larger data source was a systematic literature review conducted in three bodies of academic literature: education, business, and health care. Each was searched by one or more collaborators with expertise in the respective field. Inclusive dates for searches were January 1980 through January 2005 (25 years); only English language books and peer-review journal articles were included, and search terms used were “interdisciplinarity,” “interdisciplinary research,” and “collaborative research.” Databases searched included ProQuest ABI/INFORM Global ( http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb ), which includes business, economics, and management literature; PubMed ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB =pubmed ) for biomedical literature; and the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database: (Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education) for educational literature. In addition to the peer-reviewed search engines, a review of unindexed reports and publications from health-related foundations with a known interest in interdisciplinary efforts was added. In the articles reviewed, factors identified as important to the success of interdisciplinary research were categorized as environmental/institutional factors, team factors, or individual characteristics of team members.

The initial search produced over 500 sources related in some way to interdisciplinarity. Articles or books were then evaluated for their content; only sources that addressed some aspect of the interdisciplinary research process and theory were included. Many of the sources excluded were examples of interdisciplinary research studies that did not include an analysis of the interdisciplinary process itself or any discussion of definitions.

Based on information synthesized from the literature review and the researcher interviews, a preliminary definition of interdisciplinary research was composed. As a final step, this preliminary definition was field tested by a set of researchers experienced in interdisciplinary work. Twelve individuals (four senior researchers with extensive interdisciplinary experience from academic institutions in three other states and eight members of CIRAR) were asked to review both the NIH definition of interdisciplinary research and the preliminary definition proposed by selected members of the CIRAR Interdisciplinary Working Group based upon a review of the literature. No one involved in the creation of the draft definition participated in the field test. Each individual completed a written survey that included both the NIH definition and draft definition. They were asked to identify critical elements of the draft definition, delete elements that did not belong in the definition, suggest additions from the NIH definition, and make other suggestions related to additions or refinements.

Researcher Interviews

Themes that emerged regarding successful interdisciplinary work included respect for the scientific process and importance of collaborative research; identifying interesting topics; management, focus, and editing of work; and the ability to make mistakes gracefully. The researchers interviewed were seasoned professionals with a history of successful interdisciplinary research; their attitudes and behaviors toward scholarly work and collaboration was greatly informative as successful “case studies.” They identified 27 personal characteristics that they valued in collaborators and 13 ways in which interdisciplinary research could contribute to their work. Although the data from these interviews helped in getting a sense for how senior interdisciplinary researchers think, no definitional specifics emerged from these interviews.

Literature Search

While >500 articles or books related to the general theme of interdisciplinarity were initially identified, only 42 articles or books were specific to the topic of interdisciplinary research (as opposed to examples of interdisciplinary research). The majority of these papers (30/42, 71.4 percent) were from the health and social sciences literature and had a mean of 2.8 ( Table 1 ) ( Allen 1992 ; Barnes, Pashby, and Gibbons 2002 ; Beersma et al. 2003 ; Aram 2004 ; Cummings 2004 ; Hobman, Bordia, and Gallois 2004 ; Guimera et al. 2005 ) authors/article, 59.5 percent of whom were from the social sciences. Of these papers, one-third (14, 33.3 percent) were empirically based research about interdisciplinarity ( Allen 1992 ; White 1999 ; Kone et al. 2000 ; Sullivan et al. 2001 ; Barnes, Pashby, and Gibbons 2002 ; Lattuca 2002 ; Beersma et al. 2003 ; Morillo, Bordons, and Gomez 2003 ; Schulz, Israel, and Lantz 2003 ; Aram 2004 ; Cummings 2004 ; Hobman, Bordia, and Gallois 2004 ; Senior and Swailes 2004 ; Guimera et al. 2005 ); the others were general discussions ( Woollcott 1979 ; Jacobs and Borland 1986 ; Bloedon and Stokes 1994 ; Nissani 1997 ; Israel et al. 1998 ; Lindauer 1998 ; Northridge et al. 2000 ; Stead and Harrington 2000 ; Anderson 2001 ; Aagaard-Hansen and Ouma 2002 ; Board of Health Care Services 2003 ; Frost and Jean 2003 ; Nyden 2003 ; Jacobson, Butterill, and Goering 2004 ; Slatin et al. 2004 ), cases studies ( Dodgson 1992 ; Rosenfield 1992 ; Bisby 2001 ; Higgins, Maciak, and Metzler 2001 ; Lantz et al. 2001 ; Lattuca 2001 ; Cheadle et al. 2002 ; Austin 2003 ; Baba et al. 2004 ; Daniels 2004 ; Tennenhouse 2004 ) and one literature review ( Berkowitz 2000 ). Eleven (26.1 percent) of the papers included an explicit definition of interdisciplinarity and only five papers (11.9 percent) described or cited any type of conceptual framework or theoretical underpinnings for their approach to interdisciplinary research (three distinct typologies, see Table 2 ).

Reviewed Articles from the Health Care, Business, and Education Literatures ( n =42)

Typologies of Interdisciplinary Research

Authors described multiple factors essential to the success of interdisciplinary work. In these papers, 54.8 percent discussed environmental/institutional factors such as an explicit institutional commitment to interdisciplinarity and sufficient resources; 61.9 percent mentioned team factors such as communication, leadership, and trust; and 19.0 percent described individual characteristics of team members such as commitment, flexibility, and being agreeable to work with.

Divergent Paradigms of Interdisciplinary Research

Divergent paradigms of inquiry were reflected in the physical and social sciences as contrasted with the humanities, with associated differences in methodologies and premises. The physical and social sciences employed a positivist or postpositivist mode of inquiry in which an appreciable reality exists and is objectively (although sometimes imperfectly) knowable. The methodologies of the physical and social sciences are primarily hypothesis driven and use experimentation and manipulation to achieve objectivism. The typology proposed by Rosenfield (1992) ( Table 2 ), consistent with the hypothesis-driven approach employed by these fields in which the starting point for all collaborations is a common problem or question, was most cited by references from the social, health, and physical sciences. The humanities employed a critical theory or constructivist mode of inquiry in which reality is experientially based, historically shaped, and its understanding is only relative in nature. The methodologies are not hypothesis driven and the approach emphasizes subjectivism and the inherent interaction between the investigator and the subject, as defined by Guba and Lincoln (1994) . The finding that qualitative modes were a key feature suggests that the quantitative approach is more of a technique than a way of knowing. Explicated assumptions and values are part of qualitative inquiry, and perhaps better set the stage for dialogue.

Key Definitional Components

Of the 42 references identified, 14 contained some language describing key definitional components of interdisciplinary research. The components offered were a synthesis of both the author's personal experience and his or her knowledge of the interdisciplinary literature. A single exception ( Morillo, Bordons, and Gomez 2003 ) was an attempt to empirically define interdisciplinarity based on bibliometric methods in which the degree of interdisciplinarity of a given field of study was determined by the number of subject categories assigned to disciplinary journals by the various citation indices.

The key definitional components from the literature review were:

Qualitatively different modes of interdisciplinary research There were three predominant typologies of interdisciplinary research cited in the literature. Distinctions were often made based upon where along the continuum of synthesis the various disciplines fell. Different points along the continuum represent qualitatively different forms of collaboration. These typologies are categorized in Table 2 .
Existence of a continuum of collaboration . In all sources there was common acknowledgement of a continuum with respect to interdisciplinary research and the degree of synthesis involved in the process and achieved in the outcome. One example describing the process: “interaction may range from simple communication of ideas to the mutual integration of organizing concepts, methodology, procedures, epistemology, terminology, data, and organization of research and education in a fairly large field.”( OECD [1998] quoted in Morillo, Bordons, and Gomez [2003 , p. 1237]).
Definition and fidelity to disciplinarity . Several references defined the disciplinarity of interacting members by content (e.g., “thought domains” [ Aram 2004 ], “specific body of teachable knowledge” [ Woollcott 1979 ], “conceptual specificity” [ Robertson, Martin, and Singer 2003 ], or “journal sets” [ Morillo, Bordons, and Gomez 2003 ]) or by social factors (e.g.,“isolated domains of human experience possessing its own community of experts” [ Nissani 1997 ], or “self-regulating and self-sustaining communities” [ Lattuca 2002 ]).
Degree of cooperation or interaction . A critical component of a vast majority of the definitions was the degree of cooperation or interaction between members of the collaborative teams, the amount of contact between team members and the degree of sharing of information. Modes of interdisciplinary research with low degrees of synthesis (see Table 2 ) necessitate very little, if any, cooperation between researchers. Modes of interdisciplinary research with even a moderate degree of synthesis between disciplines require ever-greater degrees of interaction between researchers. Distinctions were often made with respect to what is shared, that is, whether it is limited to the specific research topic of concern or extended to include discussions regarding methods and conceptual frameworks.

Characteristics of Multidisciplinary, Interdisciplinary, and Transdisciplinary Research

Outcome of the collaboration (e.g., solution to discrete problem, new language). Finally, the outcome of the collaboration was often included as a component of the definition. Authors noted that interdisciplinary research may result in the solution of a discreet problem, a single or group of publications, the development of a new field and/or language, and by some in the humanities, the process of the interdisciplinary endeavor itself was the intended outcome. Transdisciplinary endeavors set out to create synthesis between disciplines and are the mode most likely to result in the development of a new field of study or language.

A preliminary definition of interdisciplinary research was developed, based on the key themes and continuum identified in the literature search: “Any study or group of studies undertaken by scholars from two or more distinct academic fields, based on a conceptual model that links or integrates theoretical frameworks from those disciplines, using study design and methodology that is not limited to any one field, and requiring the use of perspectives and skills of the involved disciplines in all phases from study design through data collection, data analysis, specifying conclusions and preparing manuscripts and other reports of work completed.” This preliminary definition was then subjected to a field test of review by twelve experts in interdisciplinary research. All but one reviewer had self-identified expertise in more than one discipline including biochemistry, economics, epidemiology, genetics, health care-associated infections, health policy, infectious disease, internal medicine, medicine, microbiology, molecular biology, nursing, nursing informatics, patient safety, pharmacology, pharmacy, public health, quantitative research, radiology, sociomedical sciences, women's health, and infectious diseases.

Issues raised and discussed by the group included the scope of the definition (i.e., whether it should be limited to health-related research) and the extent to which it should be limited to academic disciplines. One addition to the draft definition was suggested with six reviewers indicating that some variation of the NIH statement “to solve a given biologic problem” should be incorporated, but only two of these reviewers left biologic in the statement. The primary focus of suggestions for replacement text was the phrase “academic fields.” In some instances, academic was simply deleted. Other replacements included: scientific disciplines, disciplines, and investigative fields.

Based on the field test, we chose not to include the statement “to solve a biologic problem” in order to retain a broader definition not limited to health sciences and to describe those involved in interdisciplinary research as “scholars” rather than members of an academic discipline.

Based on our systematic literature review, interviews and field test with interdisciplinary researchers, the authors recommend the following definition of interdisciplinary research:

Interdisciplinary research is any study or group of studies undertaken by scholars from two or more distinct scientific disciplines. The research is based upon a conceptual model that links or integrates theoretical frameworks from those disciplines, uses study design and methodology that is not limited to any one field, and requires the use of perspectives and skills of the involved disciplines throughout multiple phases of the research process.

This definition may prove useful to decision makers in funding agencies or on program committees. The mere addition of researchers from various disciplines or with different academic and professional credentials is not sufficient to make a research effort interdisciplinary. Analysis of the conceptual framework, study design and execution, data analysis, and conclusions can be used to establish the true degree of interdisciplinarity. As noted in the results, serious consideration was given to limiting this definition of interdisciplinary research to biologic problems. While this limitation may apply to much research on the specific topic of CIRAR, or of many NIH-funded studies, the definition was not intended to apply only to those cases. There are many interdisciplinary studies in the heath field that are primarily directed toward a systemic, economic, or social issue with a much more remote link to a biologic problem. Any group of scholars, or any funding agency, will place some limitation on the type of problem to be solved, and could easily do so by modifying “problem” in the generic definition provided.

Further, the use of this definition will provide the basis for the specification of the competencies necessary for an individual researcher to move from accomplishment in his/her original discipline to successful participation in interdisciplinary work. Focus on needed competencies can then drive team development within established interdisciplinary centers and training programs for the next generation of interdisciplinary scholars. Our proposed definition may also shed more light on other practical issues needed to facilitate interdisciplinary research endeavors, as an example, those addressed by the National Academy of Sciences ( NAS 2005 ) such as institutional handling of promotion/tenure, and training for students, fellows, and faculty. Clarification of interdisciplinarity in health-related research will provide the foundation for a more complete understanding of transdisciplinary efforts, if experience proves that this third stage is an essential element of our efforts.

The focus on more holistic views of knowledge and the world have emerged in part as a counter to what is seen as the reductionistic efforts of single scientific disciplines. NIH and others have not abandoned the precision and detail that can emerge from single-discipline studies but the addition of truly interdisciplinary efforts can facilitate moving beyond individually established facts to meeting the complex challenges we face with more dynamic applications of emerging knowledge.

In summary, many researchers have conducted interdisciplinary research because they have recognized the limitations of their disciplinary perspective when faced with complex health care and health policy research questions. At this time, however, such interdisciplinary research often occurs by default or in an unsystematic manner, depending upon the initiative of individual researchers. We believe that interdisciplinary research must increasingly become the standard rather than the exception because the approaches needed and the implications of health care and health policy research are by their very nature interdisciplinary. The development of an expanded definition of interdisciplinary research is a first step in the evolution of interdisciplinarity within health-related research from a random, unsystematic occurrence to an essential, teachable research approach.

Acknowledgments

This review was written in collaboration with The Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Antimicrobial Research, CIRAR ( http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/nursing/CIRAR/ ), funded by The National Center for Research Resources, P20 RR020616.

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Breast implant illness as a clinical entity: a systematic review of the literature.

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Raeesa Kabir, Eloise Stanton, Thomas J Sorenson, Kshipra Hemal, Carter J Boyd, Nolan S Karp, Mihye Choi, Breast Implant Illness as a Clinical Entity: A Systematic Review of the Literature, Aesthetic Surgery Journal , 2024;, sjae095, https://doi.org/10.1093/asj/sjae095

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Breast implant illness (BII) has become a contentious subject in recent years. While some studies have reported associations between breast implants and autoimmune diseases, others have failed to establish a definitive link.

The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date evaluation of the literature surrounding BII, with an emphasis on identifying patient-related factors that may be associated with BII.

A systematic review was performed following PRISMA guidelines using Pubmed (MEDLINE), EMBASE, and Cochrane databases to search for relevant studies published in the last twenty years.

Thirty-one studies were included with a total of 39,505 implant patients and mean age of 44.2 ± 9.30 years. Fifteen studies reported implant explantation status with 72.4% patients choosing to remove their implants. Among these, nine studies reported symptom improvement in 83.5% patients. Fifty-three percent of patients undergoing explantation had total capsulectomy. Twenty-eight studies documented total numbers of patients experiencing symptoms related to BII, with 31.3% patients reporting such symptoms. Among these, sixteen studies of 4,109 BII patients distinguished whether the reason for implantation was cosmetic augmentation or reconstruction. When specified, more patients experiencing BII-related symptoms received implants for “cosmetic” versus “reconstructive” reasons (Cosmetic: 3,864/4,109; 94.0% vs. Reconstruction: 245/4,109; 5.96%, p < 0.001).

This review provides an overview of the current state of knowledge regarding BII. Our study highlights a potential relationship between BII and indication for implants (cosmetic vs. reconstructive) among other variables, offering valuable insight on factors associated with BII and directions for future research.

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IMAGES

Literature Review
Academic Discipline/Meaning,Nature,Scope||Understanding Discipline
[PDF] Approaching literature review for academic purposes: The
literature review article examples Sample of research literature review
50 Smart Literature Review Templates (APA) ᐅ TemplateLab
Academic Discipline

VIDEO

Minds, Worlds, & Non-duality: Interview with Sebastjan Vörös
Podcast 6: Disciplinary genres, domain vocabularies #ALL110
Literature searching in the context of scoping and systematic reviews
NIGHT
Notes on 'the review of the literature' and 'the theoretical framework'
Literature Review

COMMENTS

2. Review Discipline Styles
Review discipline styles As you prepare to write your own review, it is a good idea to look at examples from your disciplinary area (humanities, social sciences, or natural or applied sciences). Here are some sample literature reviews taken from the introductory section of articles from different fields.
How to Write a Literature Review
Step 5 - Write your literature review. 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. Introduction. The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.
Writing a Literature Review
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).
Discipline-Specific Literature Reviews
You can locate examples by adding "literature review" to your search terms, as demonstrated in the screenshot below: Additional Ebooks on Discipline-Specific Literature VCU Libraries has various online books about conducting research that can provide you with in depth information about conducting literature reviews.
Writing a literature review
Writing a literature review requires a range of skills to gather, sort, evaluate and summarise peer-reviewed published data into a relevant and informative unbiased narrative. Digital access to research papers, academic texts, review articles, reference databases and public data sets are all sources of information that are available to enrich ...
Guidance on Conducting a Systematic Literature Review
Literature review is an essential feature of academic research. Fundamentally, knowledge advancement must be built on prior existing work. To push the knowledge frontier, we must know where the frontier is. By reviewing relevant literature, we understand the breadth and depth of the existing body of work and identify gaps to explore.
Literature Review Guide
Academic journals publish the results of research studies performed by experts in an academic discipline. Articles selected for publication go through a rigorous peer-review process. This process includes a thorough evaluation of the research submitted for publication by journal editors and other experts or peers in the field.
Literature review: your definitive guide
Learn top tips to write an academic literature review, including topic searches and working with co-authors, and see review examples, templates and more. Support; Investors; ... (as well as across disciplines) for a thorough narrative review. We provide a short summary of the various databases and search engines in an earlier Research Smarter blog.
PDF The Science of Literature Reviews: Searching, Identifying, Selecting
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Literature review as a research methodology: An ...
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Conducting systematic literature reviews and bibliometric analyses
Literature reviews play an essential role in academic research to gather existing knowledge and to examine the state of a field. However, researchers in business, management and related disciplines continue to rely on cursory and narrative reviews that lack a systematic investigation of the literature.
Approaching literature review for academic purposes: The Literature
A sophisticated literature review (LR) can result in a robust dissertation/thesis by scrutinizing the main problem examined by the academic study; anticipating research hypotheses, methods and results; and maintaining the interest of the audience in how the dissertation/thesis will provide solutions for the current gaps in a particular field.
Chapter 9 Methods for Literature Reviews
Literature reviews play a critical role in scholarship because science remains, first and foremost, a cumulative endeavour (vom Brocke et al., 2009). As in any academic discipline, rigorous knowledge syntheses are becoming indispensable in keeping up with an exponentially growing eHealth literature, assisting practitioners, academics, and graduate students in finding, evaluating, and ...
Literature Reviews, Theoretical Frameworks, and Conceptual Frameworks
Discipline-based education research (DBER) ... A literature review should connect to the study question, guide the study methodology, and be central in the discussion by indicating how the analyzed data advances what is known in the field. ... Beyond academic and social integration: Understanding the impact of a STEM enrichment program on the ...
What is a literature review?
A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important ...
Teaching the Literature Review: A Practical Approach for ...
Teaching the Literature Review: A Practical Approach for College Instructors ABSTRACT Instructors across the disciplines require their students to write literature reviews. Although numerous sources describe the literature review process, instructors and students face difficulty when approaching the structure of a literature review.
The Academic Discipline of Information Technology: A Systematic
This paper used a systematic literature review methodology and retrieved 143 primary studies from the ACM and IEEE Xplore digital libraries to review the development phases of the IT discipline as ...
Literature reviews in operations research: A new taxonomy and a meta review
Based upon the literature of several academic disciplines, Banomyong et al. (2019) distinguish six types of literature reviews: (i) The "argumentative review" (Petticrew and Roberts, 2006) examines the literature selectively to support or refute an argument, a deeply embedded assumption, or a philosophical problem established in the ...
Promoting Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration: A Systematic Review
A Systematic Review of the Literature I conducted a systematic review of the academic literature on strategies for enabling discipline- based researchers to initiate new collaborations with one another across their disciplinary bound-aries. The review was conducted in July 2021.
The Academic Discipline of Information Technology: A Systematic
This paper used a systematic literature review methodology and retrieved 143 primary studies from the ACM and IEEE Xplore digital libraries to review the development phases of the IT discipline as a contributing factor in understanding why, when, and how the population of professionals in IT and other relevant computing disciplines has changed ...
Defining Interdisciplinary Research: Conclusions from a Critical Review
As the literature review proceeded, the existence of a continuum from multidisciplinary to interdisciplinary to transdisciplinary was apparent. ... and the extent to which it should be limited to academic disciplines. One addition to the draft definition was suggested with six reviewers indicating that some variation of the NIH statement "to ...
The School Discipline Dilemma: A Comprehensive Review of Disparities
The vast majority of studies included in this interdisciplinary literature review are from scholarly, peer-reviewed academic journals, and most of the included studies document and explain discipline disparities. Although this review does not encompass the entire stock of scholarly literature on K-12 school discipline in the United States ...
(PDF) Interdisciplinarity: a literature review
Interdisciplinarity: a literature review 16. Interdisciplinary knowledge strengthens connections between disciplines and in that. process it weakens the division of labour in disciplines, exposes ...
Breast Implant Illness as a Clinical Entity: A Systematic Review of the
Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways: ... A Systematic Review of the Literature - 24 Hours access EUR €38.00 GBP £33.00 USD $41.00 Rental. This ...
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One undergraduate student, Eden Yadegar, accused Columbia leaders during the press conference of sitting "idly by as a tsunami of antisemitism," including harassment, intimidation and threats ...