How to Locate Resources For a Literature Review
A literature review is an essential part of a research paper, capstone, thesis, or dissertation.
What's a Literature Review?
After choosing a topic, the literature review is usually the next step in the research process when preparing a writing assignment. Reviewing previous relevant literature on your topic is an especially important part of writing a capstone, thesis, or dissertation.
Your literature review evaluates existing research on a particular topic and serves as a means to demonstrate how different studies and ideas relate to one another.
A basic literature review summarizes current research, themes, or concepts published in academic articles, books, and other scholarly materials on a specific academic topic.
It provides scholarly and informative overviews of published literature, helping researchers stay up-to-date in their respective disciplinary areas.
A literature review can be as brief as a one-page summary in a journal article, a chapter in a thesis or dissertation, or a comprehensive, full-length, stand-alone article like those found in the Annual Reviews.
Why Are Literature Reviews Important?
Literature reviews are important in the following ways:
- They help readers understand the historical and current state of knowledge in a particular discipline or field of study, providing context for a research project.
- They identify key concepts, theories, methodologies, and other findings related to a research topic, which helps researchers build on theoretical frameworks based on established theories and concepts.
- They identify gaps in the existing literature where there may be a lack of research or conflicting findings.
- They also highlight major questions that should be addressed in further literature.
Remember, a literature review is not just a summary of sources. Its real purpose is to show what’s missing. Good literature reviews help researchers spot gaps, disagreements, or unanswered questions, which is often how brand-new research topics are born.
Oxford Bibliographies
Oxford Bibliographies provides scholarly bibliographies in various social science disciplines, including anthropology, communication, criminology, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology. Each bibliography provides a list of authoritative books, journal articles, websites, and other materials, all organized by academic scholars. Sources are organized thematically, including a summary and evaluation of each source and a brief description of its significance or relevance to the topic.
Types of Literature Reviews
There are many different types of literature reviews. Below, we’ve listed the most common types you will encounter when doing college-level research for the first time. After each description, we’ve included links to examples of each type related to the issue of climate change. If you are not sure which type of literature review is expected for a particular writing project, check with your instructor.
Critical Review
A critical review analyzes and evaluates the strengths, weaknesses, and contributions of the literature. It provides a critical examination of the theories, methodologies, findings, and gaps in existing studies and bodies of knowledge, often questioning assumptions and identifying contradictions or limitations.
Dorkenoo, K., Scown, M., & Boyd, E. (2022). A critical review of disproportionality in loss and damage from climate change. WIREs Climate Change, 13(4), e770. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.770
Mapping Review
A mapping review provides a broad overview of the existing research on a particular topic. Mapping reviews are primarily useful for research topics that are broad or emerging, or when you need to identify patterns in the literature.
Fernandez, A., Black, J., Jones, M., Wilson, L., Salvador-Carulla, L., Astell-Burt, T., & Black, D. (2015). Flooding and mental health: a systematic mapping review. PloS one, 10(4), e0119929. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0119929
Narrative Review
The narrative literature review is considered the traditional type of review that provides a summary and interpretation of existing research on a topic without following a strict systematic method. It provides a general, qualitative summary of the literature and typically provides up-to-date knowledge about a concept or topic, discussing its importance in a specific discipline. Narrative reviews typically focus on a limited number of studies that describe a specific topic, rather than being systematic.
Brandt, L., Adorjan, K., Catthoor, K., Chkonia, E., Falkai, P., Fiorillo, A., Gondek, T. M., Le Vay, J. N., Rojnic, M., Meyer-Lindenberg, A., Heinz, A., Dom, G., & Luykx, J. J. (2024). Climate change and mental health: Position paper of the European Psychiatric Association. European psychiatry: the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists, 67(1), e41. https://doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2024.1754
Systematic Review
Systematic reviews follow a structured, rigorous methodology to systematically gather, analyze, and synthesize all relevant studies on a specific literature topic. They use specific criteria to decide what literature to include. Systematic reviews are primarily used in the medical and psychological literature.
Cosh, S. M., Ryan, R., Fallander, K., Robinson, K., Tognela, J., Tully, P. J., & Lykins, A. D. (2024). The relationship between climate change and mental health: a systematic review of the association between eco-anxiety, psychological distress, and symptoms of major affective disorders. BMC psychiatry, 24(1), 833. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-024-06274-1
Meta-Analyses
Meta-analyses combine empirical statistical analysis research and data from multiple studies. The terms meta-analysis and systematic review are often used interchangeably.
Hornsey, M.J., Harris, E.A., Bain, P.G., & Fielding, K.S. (2016). Meta-analyses of the determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change. Nature Climate Change, 6, 622-626. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2943
Scoping Review
Scoping reviews map the literature broadly to identify key themes and gaps. Unlike systematic reviews, which have a narrow focus, scoping reviews are broader in scope and explore the diversity of the available literature in a given field.
Charlson, F., Ali, S., Benmarhnia, T., Pearl, M., Massazza, A., Augustinavicius, J., & Scott, J. G. (2021). Climate Change and Mental Health: A Scoping Review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(9), 4486. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094486
Locating Literature Reviews
Reviewing examples of literature reviews is a great way to learn how to write your own. You can see how scholars organize their introductions, thematic sections, and conclusions. You will notice the common patterns in the way researchers summarize, compare, and critique existing studies. And, you can see how scholars identify gaps in the literature, which can help you frame your own literature review.
Keywords to use when searching for literature reviews
When searching for literature reviews in academic databases, it’s important to use the right keywords and search strategies to find high-quality reviews. As seen in the examples above, most authors clearly specify the type of literature review in the article title. This makes it relatively easy to locate literature reviews in academic databases. Here’s how to refine your search:
- “literature review” AND “research topic”
- “systematic review” AND “research topic”
- “meta analysis” OR “meta-analysis” AND “research topic”
- “scoping review” AND “research topic”
Resources For Writing Literature Reviews
Several high-quality texts can help you write a strong literature review. They provide guidance on how to structure your literature review and critically analyse the articles you read.
The Annual Reviews are peer-reviewed academic journals that publish comprehensive and critical literature review articles in many academic disciplines. Each year, a new volume consisting of a series of review articles written by leading experts in the field is released, providing overviews of the most important and influential research and scholarship in various disciplines.
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses is a database of dissertations and theses from universities worldwide. It provides access to millions of full-text works across many disciplines, including the social sciences, humanities, sciences, and business. Each dissertation includes an abstract or summary that provides a concise overview of the research, its methodology, and key findings.
The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), compiled by the British Library of Political and Economic Science at the London School of Economics, provides access to a vast collection of scholarly literature in the social sciences. Covering multiple disciplines, IBSS includes references to journal articles, books, newspapers, and dissertations, with records dating back to 1951.
Google Scholar is a free academic search engine that helps researchers and studentsfind scholarly literature across disciplines. It indexes journal articles, books, conference papers, theses, patents, and other resources from academic publishers, universities, and professional organizations.
- Unlike subscription databases, which publish lists of journals in their collections, Google Scholar does not provide a list of the journals, books, repositories, or conference proceedings it indexes.
- General databases such as EBSCO and ProQuest allow you to limit your results to peer-reviewed articles only. Google Scholar does not filter results for peer-reviewed articles.
- When off your school’s network, you must enable your institution’s Google Scholar library links (review process) to see full-text articles available in your institution. If Library Links are not enabled, you’ll only see paywalls, publisher links, and what’s available open-access in the public domain.
JSTOR is an important scholarly research database for the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. It provides the full text of articles from thousands of influential academic journals. In addition to journal articles, users can access eBooks, book chapters, images, and primary source documents. JSTOR also provides an AI research tool that provides key points and arguments of articles.
JSTOR contains the full text of more than 2,000 journals from 1,000 publishers, with publication dates ranging from 1665 to 2015 (for certain titles). JSTOR also provides:
- Free access to Early Journal Content published before the last 95 years in the United States or before the last 143 years if initially published internationally.
- A collection of nearly 150 open-access journals covering the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
- JSTOR allows anyone to register for a free personal JSTOR account and provides access to 100 free monthly articles.
Oxford Bibliographies provides scholarly bibliographies in various social science disciplines, including anthropology, communication, criminology, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology. Each bibliography provides a list of authoritative books, journal articles, websites, and other materials, all organized by academic scholars. Sources are organized thematically, including a summary and evaluation of each source and a brief description of its significance or relevance to the topic.
Project MUSE offers online access to a vast collection of scholarly journals, books, and academic resources in the humanities, social sciences, and arts. As a leading provider of digital humanities content, it features high-quality, peer-reviewed publications from prestigious university presses, scholarly societies, and academic publishers.
ScienceDirect is a leading full-text scholarly scientific database that provides journal articles and book chapters from more than 2,500 peer-reviewed journals and more than 11,000 books. It covers over 24 major subjects in the physical sciences and engineering, life sciences, health sciences, social sciences, and the humanities.
Web of Science is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary research and citation index that provides access to a wide range of scientific, technical, social science, and humanities research. It maintains rigorous criteria for the journals and publications it indexes, ensuring that only high-quality, peer-reviewed content is included. Web of Science includes 98 million papers dating back to 1900.
Online Academic Guides
- Writing a Literature Review (Owl Purdue)– Produced by the Purdue University OWL (Online Writing Lab), it provides comprehensive writing resources, including guidance on writing a literature review.
