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Master of Child and Family Health: Literature reviews

What is a literature review?

A literature review is the presentation, classification and evaluation of what other researchers have written on a particular subject. It is not simply a “shopping list” of what others have said, however. It is organised according to your research objective, research question, and/or the problem/issue you wish to address. With the research objective, the literature review forms a focused and structured outline of what others have done in the area that you are concerned with investigating. A literature review surveys and evaluates what has already been written on a given topic. It presents all the debates and existing knowledge on a topic and condenses them for the reader.

North Carolina State University Libraries. (July, 2009). Literature reviews: An overview for graduate students. [video file]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2d7y_r65HU

Writing a literature review

A literature review has an introduction, body and conclusion, well-formed paragraphs, and a logical structure. The  main aim in a literature review for an assignment is to summarise and compare/contrast the literature.

Introduction An introduction should provide your reader with answers to the following questions: • What is your topic? • Why is it important to investigate this topic? • What are the key themes that you are going to discuss? Body The role of the body of a literature review is to break down your topic into themes based on what has emerged from the literature. A paragraph should include: • A main statement / idea that you are putting forward, e.g. topic sentence related to a specific theme • A discussion that compares and contrasts the literature (do the various studies or papers make similar points or are there differences?); the discussion should identify any gaps • analysis and evaluation of the research literature/themes where appropriate • summing up and linking to the next idea in the next paragraph. Conclusion • As with any essay, the job of the conclusion is to: • Summarise the key findings within the literature • Summarise the main points you have made • Restate your argument/draw your final conclusions

Take notes

The first step is to write a number of annotated bibliography entries for each article you plan to review. This essentially summarises each article and comments on its relevance to your topic. You will need to critically analyse each study. You should be able to see common themes in the arguments the authors provide. You could create a table to easily compare and contrast the studies.

Sort it out

Set out the literature into categories. One way of doing this is the Yes/No method.

  •  ‘YES’ literature agrees with the statement and offers arguments and evidence to support it.
  • ‘NO’ literature does the same in opposition to the statement.
  • ‘Yes BUT’ literature is on the ‘YES’ side of the debate but raises major concerns or reservations about it
  • ‘No BUT’ literature is on the ‘NO’ side of the debate but has majors concerns or reservations about it 

Outline

Create a rough outline of your essay and paragraphs to organise what points you wish to make. One way of doing this is using dot points. You can then flesh out the outline into a first draft.

The language you use when writing a literature review is important. It helps your reader to understand where you stand on the particular topic or subject area. The purpose of academic writing in this context is to lead your reader to the conclusions or views you want them to reach. 

  • Explain: Use clear descriptions to explain what you are doing. Choose language that helps guide your reader through the literature and the connections between the ideas, concepts and findings. 
  • Cite: To prevent your literature review from reading like a shopping list, vary the way you report data. That is, try to avoid a single pattern of writing.
  • Tenses: When writing about others’ research, getting the tense right helps to demonstrate your understanding.
  • Verbs: Reporting verbs can either indicate your views on the veracity of the work, or the author’s views about the content of the literature. Your use of reporting verbs can help you to achieve a confident tone in your argument, one that is objective and fair, convincing and decisive. Examples of reporting verbs are demonstrates, informs, argues, etc.
  • Paraphrase: make sure to paraphrase, or put ideas in your own words. Use quotations sparingly.

Critical reviews are a response to a text. Typically, they summarise the key ideas, then appraise or critique them, assessing the positive and negative elements of the text. They may use formal checklists, such as CASP, to evaluate the article. 

For more detail on critically analysing and reviewing an article, see the Critical analysis page.

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