How to Write a Literature Review
Step One: Get familiar with your topic
Ask:
- What stakeholders, terminology, and other key pieces of information are commonly associated with your topic?
- What do you need to know in order to be able to critically evaluate issues related to your topic?
Use Library Tools:
Step Two: Refine your research question and develop a search strategy
Ask:
- Is your topic too broad or narrow?
- How many resources do you need to find relating to your topic?
- What key words and terms are commonly associated with your topic? Which research databases will you enter these key terms into?
Tools:
- Carrot2
- Create a mind map of key words associated with your topic to plug into the search engine.
Step Three: Find scholarly articles related to your topic
Ask:
- What journals and scholars frequently write about my topic?
- Do the same authors and article titles appear frequently in the citation lists of the articles you’re finding?
- Are there any groundbreaking, or “seminal” works associated with your topic that you should be aware of?
- What ideas and themes repeatedly come up in scholarly articles relating to your topic?
Use Library Tools:
Step Four: Engage critically with your topic
Ask:
- What is currently known and unknown about my topic?
- What research is missing from the literature about my topic?
- Are there any problems or biases in this research that should be addressed?
- How will I use this information in my own research?