What is a literature review?
Literature reviews examine and evaluate the scholarly literature on a topic.
A literature review is conducted in the beginning stages of your research and is written either as a stand-alone document or as part of a larger piece of work (e.g. as a chapter in a thesis).
The purpose of a literature review is to:
- provide context for your research hypothesis or question
- ensure your research is original (i.e. not already published)
- identify where your research fits into the existing body of literature
- highlight the strengths and weaknesses in any previous relevant research
- make recommendations for further research.
A good literature review is:
- focused. It's relevant to your research and meets the purpose of a literature review as outlined above. It doesn't need to include everything you've read.
- analytical. It's focused on ideas and relationships between ideas, rather than just the authors.
- critical. It makes comparisons between different concepts/theories. Your own interpretation and evaluation need to be evident.