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Literature reviews

The literature review 

A literature review analyses and evaluates existing knowledge within a particular domain.

The review, like other forms of academic writing, has an introduction, body and conclusion, well-formed paragraphs, and a logical structure. However, in other kinds of expository writing, you use relevant literature to support the discussion of your thesis; in a literature review, the literature itself is the subject of discussion.

Literature covers everything relevant that is written on a topic: books, journal articles, newspaper articles, historical records, government reports, theses and dissertations. The important word is 'relevant'. Check with your supervisor or lecturer when in doubt.

A literature review gives an overview of what has already been said on the topic, who the key writers are, what the prevailing theories and hypotheses are, what questions are being asked, and what methodologies and methods are appropriate and useful.

A critical literature review shows how prevailing ideas fit into your own thesis, and how your thesis agrees or differs from them.

This depends on what the literature review is for, and what stage you are at in your studies. Your supervisor or lecturer should specify a minimum number of references.

Generally speaking, a reasonable number of references in a literature review would be:

  • Undergraduate review: 5-20 titles depending on level
  • Honours dissertation: 20+ titles
  • Masters thesis: 40+ titles
  • Doctoral thesis: 50+ titles.

1. Conduct the literature search

Find out what has been written on your subject. Places to start are:

  • Bibliographies and references in key textbooks and recent journal articles. Your supervisor or tutor should tell you which are the key texts and relevant journals.
  • Library search
  • Databases – not all databases can be searched via Library Search. Consider searching subject specific databases individually to ensure you comprehensively conducting your literature review.
  • RISE Research Repository – UniSQ's repository of research outputs.
  • Google Scholar – can be useful for finding resources, such as conference papers, and research in other universities’ repositories. 

Many abstracting journals and electronic databases are available. Subject support is available for databases and bibliographies relevant to your field. 

2. Note the bibliographical details

Write down the full bibliographical details of each book or article as soon as you find a reference to it. This will save you an enormous amount of time later on. Referencing management software, such as EndNote, can be useful to manage citation information.

3. Read the literature

Take notes as you read the literature. You are reading to find out how each piece of writing approaches the subject of your research, what it has to say about it, and (especially for research students) how it relates to your own thesis.

Questions to consider include:

  • Is it a general textbook or does it deal with a specific issue(s)?
  • Does it follow a particular school of thought?
  • What is its theoretical basis?
  • What definitions does it use?
  • What is its general methodological approach? What methods are used?
  • What kinds of data does it use to back up its argument?
  • What conclusions does it come to?

Other questions may be relevant. It depends on the purpose of the review.

4. Write the review

Having gathered the relevant details about the literature, you now need to write the review. The kind of review you write, and the amount of detail, will depend on the level of your studies.

A literature review synthesises many texts in one paragraph. Each paragraph (or section if it is a long thesis) of the literature review should classify and evaluate a common theme you have discovered in your research which is relevant to your thesis.

Like all academic writing, a literature review should have an introduction, body, and conclusion.

The introduction should include:

  • the topic of your thesis
  • the parameters of the topic (what it includes and excludes)
  • why you have selected the literature.

The body paragraphs could include relevant paragraphs on:

  • historical background including classic texts
  • current mainstream versus alternative theoretical or ideological viewpoints, including differing theoretical assumptions, differing political outlooks, and other conflicts
  • possible approaches to the subject (empirical, philosophical, historical, postmodernist, etc.)
  • definitions in use
  • current research studies
  • current discoveries about the topic
  • principal questions that are being asked
  • general conclusions that are being drawn
  • methodologies and methods in use.

The conclusion should include:

  • A summary of major agreements and disagreements in the literature
  • A summary of general conclusions that are being drawn
  • A summary of where your thesis sits in the literature.