Introduction

A literature review is a critical evaluation of literature published on a particular topic. In this context, literature refers to sources of high quality, written by authors with expertise, and can be in a variety of formats.

These formats commonly include scholarly journal articles, conference papers, books and book-chapters, but can also refer to government publications, theses and dissertations, and depending on your topic, even media reports or websites.

Purpose

Literature reviews:

Provide useful background information to your topic, which enables readers to better understand your research topic.
Demonstrate your knowledge of the subject area.
Make clear your perspectives on the topic.
Justify your choice of research design. For instance, your choice of qualitative over quantitative approaches, or your method of data analysis.
Explain how your work will fill in a gap in the scholarly literature.

How is a literature review different to an essay?

While literature reviews and essays require many of the same skills – for instance, critical thinking skills, academic writing skills and referencing skills – they have different purposes. Whereas essays require you to support your own arguments, literature reviews require you to critique the arguments of others.

What about an annotated bibliography?

While literature reviews and annotated bibliographies both require you to summarise sources, literature reviews involve much more than this. Annotated bibliographies are primarily descriptive, whereas literature reviews are primarily analytical.

Literature reviews and annotated bibliographies are also structured differently. Annotated bibliographies are presented in an alphabetical list format, and each reference is treated separately. In contrast, literature reviews synthesise the ideas contained in each reference, and are structured around a central concept divided by subheadings.

See the UNSW resource for more information on how to create an annotated bibliography.

Characteristics of a literature review

Focus on key publications

Literature reviews do not require you to include everything that has been written on your research topic. Your focus should be on publications that have made a big impact on the field. If a reference has been cited numerous times by other reputable authors, it is fair to assume that it is a key publication. It is also important to include recent publications to show that you are up to date with ideas and developments in the field.

Look at the ‘Big Picture’

Although literature reviews often involve analysing small details of a reference, it is important to always keep your eye on the big picture. Make sure you provide a comprehensive overview of the topic for your readers – point out who the leading theorists are, what the key publications have been, and any gaps in the research (areas that have been neglected by researchers). Writing a literature review is like assembling a puzzle –you need to figure out how each piece fits together as well as whether there are any missing pieces. It is only by completing the puzzle that the overall topic becomes clear.

Say something new!

When writing a literature review it is important to say something new about your research topic. Either examine a topic that has never been written about before (this is quite rare) or look at an old topic in a new way. No one will be interested in your literature review if it simply restates old knowledge.

State your contribution to the literature

It is not enough to critically evaluate the literature – you must make clear how your interpretation of the literature extends and enriches our understanding of the topic. This step is the one most often neglected by researchers.

Finding examples of a literature review

A quick way to understand how to structure and write a good literature review is to find existing examples and take note of the conventions used. Pick up on which elements of the literature reviews help the authors to communicate their critiques clearly. You’ll need to develop your own style of writing, but existing literature reviews can show you how to synthesise sources, structure your review using headings, make the link between the existing literature and your own research, and reference multiple sources correctly.

Find a thesis

A typical thesis will have a literature review chapter towards the beginning. It is usually a discrete chapter labelled literature review, but just be aware that some authors choose to integrate their review of the literature in a less explicit way.

Use the Library’s finding theses page to discover how to search for University of Sydney, Australian and international theses.

Not all available theses will be of a high-standard, so make sure you critically evaluate any you find for quality.

Find a literature review article in a database

Some journal articles are concerned strictly with reviewing the literature related to a specific topic. These can be found by searching a relevant subject database in a way that restricts your results to this type of article.

If the database allows for it, run your keyword search and limit your results by literature review (or similar).

Image of a search screen containing three lines of search fields. first line displays Search for : Everything option selected other options are online only and library collections. On the next line, any field contains the keywords online gaming addiction. On the third line the boolean operator and includes title which contains the words literature review — Here is an example of a keyword search with limits on Library Search

Alternatively, enter your key words in addition to the term literature review, as per the example above. Note: if the database searches the full text by default, you may want to change the search field so that results are returned where the words literature review only appear in the title or the metadata.

Further resources

Open Learning Environment (OLE) unit on Canvas

This unit, aimed at University of Sydney posgraduate students writing their thesis, will comprehensively guide you through planning and conducting your literature review.

Learning Centre workshops

The Learning Centre regularly run face-to-face and mixed delivery method worshops for postgraduate students. They are free for University of Sydney students. Find details on their website.

Library resources

The Library holds a range of resources in its collections that support undertaking a literature review. View books and book chapters here.

Other university guides

Nearly every university will have a guide to writing literature reviews. Click here to run a Google search that returns results from websites with an Australian, US or UK education domain.