literature review in german

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Wie führt man einen Literatur-Review durch?

Veröffentlicht am 9. November 2015 von Annelien Krul . Aktualisiert am 15. August 2023.

Wenn du eine Abschlussarbeit schreibst, ist es unbedingt nötig, dass du einen Literatur-Review durchführst. Aber was genau bedeutet das? Wie strukturierst du in erster Linie diesen Review und wie integrierst du anschließend die Informationen, die du findest, in deine Arbeit?

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Was ist ein literatur-review, literatur-wegweiser, wie verweist du auf deine quellen, standardsätze die sie verwenden können, häufig gestellte fragen.

Bei einem Literatur-Review handelt es sich um eine Methode, die angewandt wird, um Wissen, das bereits in Bezug auf ein bestimmtes Thema oder Problem besteht, zu sammeln. Diese Informationen können in verschiedenen Quellen, wie Zeitschriftenartikel, Bücher, Papers, Abschlussarbeiten und Archivmaterial, gefunden werden.

Durch die Durchführung eines Literatur-Reviews kannst du dir einen Einblick in bereits bestehende Kenntnisse und Theorien in Bezug auf dein Thema verschaffen. Dies stellt außerdem sicher, dass deine Abschlussarbeit über eine starke wissenschaftliche Fundierung verfügt.

Wenn er richtig durchgeführt wird, entsteht aus einem Literatur-Review nicht nur eine einfache Liste oder Zusammenfassung der verfügbaren Daten. Dein Ziel ist es stattdessen, die relevantesten Ideen und Informationen, die du herausgefunden hast, im Rahmen deines theoretischen Rahmens kritisch zu diskutieren.

Was ist der Unterschied zwischen einem Literatur-Review und einem systematic Review?

Ein systematic Review ist systematischer und formaler als ein Litertur-Review.

Bei einem Literatur-Review werden existierende Arbeiten qualitativ zusammenfasst und evaluiert, ohne dass eine formale, explizite Methode verwendet wird.

Was ist der Unterschied zwischen einem Literatur-Review und einem theoretischen Rahmen?

Der Literatur-Review dient als echter Grundstein für die Analyse des Problems, das du untersuchst. Abhängig vom Aufbau deiner Abschlussarbeit kann er auch als Grundlage verwendet werden, um einen umfassenden theoretischen Rahmen zu entwickeln.

Beispiel theoretische Rahmen

Vorbereitende Erforschung des Problems

Sobald du einen allgemeinen Überblick über das Problem und die Forschungsfragen, die du in deiner Abschlussarbeit ansprechen möchtest, hast, ist der erste Schritt oft, mit einem Literatur-Review zu beginnen. Dies ist eine wertvolle Möglichkeit, um dich selbst innerhalb des Forschungsfeldes besser zu orientieren und dich auf das Problem, das du untersuchen willst, genauer auszurichten.

Diese Einblicke in die bestehenden Kenntnisse und Theorien, die du durch den Literatur-Review gewinnst, werden dir auch dabei helfen, einen starken wissenschaftlichen Ausgangspunkt für den Rest deiner Forschung zu schaffen.

Nachdem du eine klare Problemstellung und Forschungsfrage(n) bestimmt hast, ist der nächste Schritt, dass du dich eingehender in dein Thema und die einschlägige Literatur vertiefst.

Dies kann eine echte Herausforderung sein, angesichts der Menge der verfügbaren Literatur und der begrenzten Zeit, die dir unter Umständen für das Schreiben deiner Abschlussarbeit zur Verfügung steht. Deshalb ist es wichtig, dass du an diesen Prozess so effizient und systematisch wie möglich herangehst.

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Zu deiner Korrektur

Hältst du dich an diesen Vier-Stufen-Wegweiser, wird dir das dabei helfen, deinen Literatur-Review effektiv durchzuführen.

• Vorbereitung
• Literatur sammeln
• Literatur bewerten und auswählen
• Literatur verarbeiten

1. Vorbereitung

Der erste Schritt umfasst, dass du dich selbst auf dein Thema ausrichtest, damit du ein umfassenderes Bild des Untersuchungsgebietes erlangst. Dazu gehört auch die Erstellung einer Liste von Schlüsselbegriffen, die als Grundlage für den nächsten Schritt dient.

• Lies eine aktuelle Publikation zu deinem Thema. Wähle eine Publikation von einem renommierten Autor, in der alle (oder möglichst viele) Facetten deines Themas erörtert werden. Dadurch erhältst du einen allgemeinen Überblick über dein Forschungsfeld. Frage deinen Betreuer, falls Fragen auftauchen.
• Notiere während des Lesens die Begriffe, die dir am wichtigsten/relevantesten erscheinen.
• Identifiziere auch die wichtigsten/relevantesten Begriffe deines (Ausgangs-) Problems und deiner Forschungsfrage(n).
• Nonverbale Kommunikation
• Nonverbale Signale
• Nonverbale Gesten
• Körpersprache

2. Literatur sammeln

Diese Vorbereitungsarbeit macht es nun viel einfacher, nach spezifischer Literatur und nach anderen Quellen zu suchen. Diese Suche beginnt oftmals online. Dabei ist es sehr wichtig, dass die richtigen Schlüsselbegriffe verwendet werden, weshalb der erste Schritt dieses Wegweisers die Zusammenstellung einer Liste umfasst.

Suche nach diesen Begriffen sowohl in deutscher Sprache als auch in allen anderen Sprachen, in denen du über Lesekompetenzen verfügst. Es ist auch hilfreich zu versuchen, Synonyme und verschiedene Kombinationen von Begriffen zu verwenden.

Es gibt viele verschiedene Arten von Datenbanken, die du vielleicht durchforsten möchtest:

• Der Online-Katalog deiner Schule oder der Universitätbibliothek. Die meisten wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken haben einen großen Bestand an physischen Ressourcen, einschließlich Büchern, Papers, Zeitschriften und Magazinen. Die meisten haben jedoch ihre Angebote exponentiell durch das Abonnieren wissenschaftlicher Ressourcen, einschließlich Fachzeitschriften sowie wissenschaftlicher Datenbanken (siehe unten), erweitert.
• Google Scholar. Über www.scholar.google.de gelangst du zu der speziellen Suchmaschine von Google für wissenschaftliche Literatur. Wenn du auf einen Artikel, an dem du interessiert bist, nicht kostenlos zugreifen kannst, versuche stattdessen über die Bibliothek deines Instituts darauf zuzugreifen.
• Länderspezifische Datenbanken. Manche Datenbanken werden auf nationaler Ebene betrieben. Beispielsweise kann auf die Datenbank PiCarta fast immer über Bibliotheken niederländischer Institute zugegriffen werden. Sie enthält Daten zu allen verfügbaren Publikationen in den Niederlanden, einschließlich Büchern und Magazinen, die nicht in deiner eigenen Bibliothek verfügbar sind.
• Fachübergreifende Datenbanken. Datenbanken wie JSTOR und EBSCO sind digitale Bibliotheken, die Fachzeitschriften, Bücher und Primärliteratur zu einer Vielzahl von Themen beinhalten. Die meisten Institutsbibliotheken abonnieren mehrere davon.
• Fachspezifische Datenbanken. Mehrere Datenbanken konzentrieren sich auf bestimmte Disziplinen (oder Gruppen von verwandten Disziplinen). Ein Beispiel hierfür ist die AGRIS-Datenbank, die ein breites Spektrum an Themen in Bezug auf Landwirtschaft und Umwelt abdeckt.

Wenn du eine nützliche Quelle gefunden hast, prüfe die Biografie dieser Publikation auf andere relevante Quellen (dies wird als „Schneeball“-Forschungsmethode bezeichnet). Taucht ein Autorname immer wieder auf? Dann bedeutet das normalerweise, dass diese Person eine umfangreiche Forschung zu diesem Thema geleistet hat.

Ein Blick auf seine/ihre Webseite oder die Suche nach seinem/ihrem Namen direkt in einem (Online-) Katalog wird wahrscheinlich zu weiteren Ergebnissen führen.

3. Literatur bewerten und auswählen

Es ist wahrscheinlich, dass du eine überwältigende Menge an Literatur entdeckst. Da dir nur ein begrenztes Ausmaß an Zeit zur Verfügung steht, ist es wichtig, dass du dich auf die wichtigsten Quellen konzentrierst. Wir schlagen vor, die Literatur, die du gefunden hast, zuerst in Hinblick auf ihre Relevanz und anschließend auf ihre wissenschaftliche Qualität zu bewerten.

Relevanz Eine relevante Publikation ist eine, die gut zu deinem Thema oder deinem Problem passt. Um die Relevanz eines Buches oder Artikels, ohne es/ihn in seiner Gesamtheit zu lesen, zu bestimmen, beginne nur mit der Einleitung und dem Fazit . Dies wird dir häufig genügend Informationen liefern, um zu beurteilen, ob die Publikation für deine Arbeit relevant ist.

Qualität Die Qualität einer Publikation wird durch eine Reihe von Faktoren bestimmt. Als allgemeine Regel gilt: Versuche nur die Artikel, die in renommierten Fachzeitschriften veröffentlicht wurden, zu verwenden. Rankings wie die Journal Quality List helfen dir dabei herauszufinden, welche Zeitschriften qualitativ sind.

Ein Blick auf die Fachkenntnisse mitwirkender Autoren kann ebenfalls hilfreich sein. Fachkundige Autoren sind normalerweise einem akademischen Institut zugehörig, publizieren umfangreich und werden häufig von anderen zitiert.

Bedenke, dass Informationen von Webseiten, mit Ausnahme von Webseiten, die von wissenschaftlichen, staatlichen oder zwischenstaatlichen Institutionen betrieben werden, häufig nicht zuverlässig sind. Es ist auch wichtig, wenn möglich die neueste Literatur zu nutzen; wenn du das nicht machst, läufst du Gefahr, deine Arbeit auf veralteten Informationen aufzubauen.

4. Literatur verarbeiten

Sobald du die Literatur, auf die du dich konzentrieren willst, bestimmt hast, findet im nächsten Schritt die Verarbeitung der Informationen, die du herausgefunden hast, statt (zum Beispiel durch eine Problemanalyse oder einen theoretischen Rahmen). Es ist natürlich wichtig, damit zu beginnen, die ausgewählten Publikationen gründlich zu studieren. Stell dir dabei die folgenden Fragen:

• Was ist das zu untersuchende Problem und wie nimmt es die Forschung in Angriff?
• Was sind die Schlüsselkonzepte und wie werden diese definiert?
• Welche Theorien und Modelle verwendet der Autor?
• Was sind die Ergebnisse und Schlossfolgerungen der Studie?
• Wie steht diese Publikation verwandten Publikationen innerhalb dieses Forschungsfeldes gegenüber?
• Wie kann ich diese Forschung auf meine eigene anwenden?

Die Analyse all deiner Quellen auf diese Art und Weise wird dir ein klares Bild des Forschungsfeldes und wie deine Forschung dazu passt, vermitteln. Danach bist du dazu in der Lage, die Literatur auf eine kritische und gut fundierte Weise zu diskutieren.

Die Art und Weise, wie du die Ergebnisse deines Literatur-Reviews präsentieren sollst, variiert je nach Programm. Die entsprechenden Leitlinien deines Fachgebiets sollten dir zur Verfügung gestellt werden. Wenn du den Literatur-Review verwendest, um beispielweise einen theoretischen Rahmen vorzubereiten, würde der Schwerpunkt auf der Definition und Analyse von Theorien und Modellen liegen.

Die Zitate in deinem Literatur-Review sollten sehr genau sein. Viele Schulen und Universitäten nutzen die Zitierweise der American Pscyhological Association ( APA ). Nutze den kostenlosen Scribbr-Zitiergenerator , der dir dabei hilft, Zitate schnell und korrekt zu erstellen.

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• Durch Studien (Smith, 1988; Driessen, 2007) zu X wird die Wichtigkeit von…hervorgehoben
• Frühere Untersuchungen (Smith, 1988) zum Vergleich von X und Y zeigen, dass…
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• Previous research (Smith, 1988) comparing X and Y has found…
• Research carried out by Smith (1988) indicated that …

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Beachte diese vier Schritte, um einen Literatur-Review zu schreiben:

Für Inhalte von Theorien, Definitionen und Fakten benutzt du im Literatur-Review den Indikativ Präsens. Abgeschlossene Studien und Ergebnisse von anderen Untersuchern werden im Indikativ Perfekt geschrieben.

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Krul, A. (2023, 15. August). Wie führt man einen Literatur-Review durch?. Scribbr. Abgerufen am 1. April 2024, von https://www.scribbr.de/aufbau-und-gliederung/wie-fuehrt-man-einen-literatur-review-durch/

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German Language & Literature Library Guide: How To Do A Literature Review

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The Literature Review

A literature review is:

1) A list of books and journal articles,

2) on a specific topic,

3) grouped by theme,

4) and evaluated with regard to your research. This evaluation would identify connections, contradictions and gaps in the literature you have found.

The purpose of a literature review, therefore, is:

1) To get a feel for the agreed academic opinion on the subject (the connections).

2) To discover the disagreements on the subject (the contradictions).

3) To find opportunities, (the gaps), for developing and expressing your own opinions.

The classic pattern of academic arguments is

THESIS, ANTITHESIS, SYNTHESIS

An Idea (Thesis) is proposed, an opposing Idea (Antithesis) is proposed, and a revised Idea incorporating (Synthesis) the opposing Idea is arrived at. This revised idea sometimes sparks another opposing idea, another synthesis, and so on…

If you can show this pattern at work in your literature review, and, above all, if you can suggest a new synthesis of two opposing views, or demolish one of the opposing views, then you are almost certainly on the right track.

Steps in compiling a literature review are:

1) Select a specific topic (the more focussed, the better, or you’ll go on for ever).

2) Collect the most relevant (usually "peer reviewed") books and articles.

3) Read/skim them, using the abstract (a short summary attached to the article).

4) Group the articles into the sub-themes of your topic.

5) Identify within each sub-theme those points on which the articles agree, those points on which they disagree, and those points which they don’t cover at all.

1) Choosing your topic

Seek advice from a lecturer or tutor on this, if a topic is not already assigned. It is very common for students to bite off more than they can chew, simply because they have not realised the full breadth and complexity of an apparently simple topic. It is better to cover a tiny topic perfectly, than a huge topic superficially.

Look for a topic on which there is polarised opinion. It often helps to pick one in which a question is being asked, for example: Is a particular taxation policy beneficial or disadvantageous to a developing country?

When authors disagree, this provides an opportunity for you to enter the debate and argue for one side or another in your essay. Taking a hatchet to someone’s opinions (a) gives you something to write about, (b) is fun, (c) is the foundation of much modern scholarly writing.

2) Collect the most relevant (usually "peer reviewed") articles and books

The three tools for finding these books and articles are, in this order:

(a) the relevant section of a good subject encyclopedia, which usually describes the development of the discourse on that subject, gives you an overview of the territory, and ends with a bibliography of the key works on that field. 

(b) the library catalogue and

(c) the library databases of electronic journal articles.

Before you search them, spend a minute thinking about the best terms to use. Make a list of alternative words that describe your subject, and also think about general terms and more specific terms. This is important because the journal databases are good for finding very specific terms in articles, but the library catalogue tends to use more general terms.

To access the library catalogue (Primo) go to  www.lib.uct.ac.za  and use the Primo search interface.

If you find a good book reference, scroll down to the bottom of the reference and you will find the subject terms the library cataloguers have assigned to it. Click on that term to call up more books just like the one you have found.

A quick way to check the relevance of any books you find is to glance at the table of contents, the introduction and any descriptive blurbs on the back cover. The index at the back of the book not only helps you dive to very narrow topics in the book, but also gives you an indication of how much attention (i.e. how many pages) the book spends on that specific topic.

If you are satisfied with the book, look at the bibliography in the back – this can help identify other relevant sources. Following a chain of references in a bibliography like this, whether in a book or a journal article, is one of the most basic techniques of scholarship – find something that is relevant and look at the sources it used.

The library’s journal databases are particularly helpful for literature reviews. Journal articles are short and cover very specific topics, so they are more digestible than books and more likely to deal exactly with your topic. They are also quicker to publish than books and so are more likely to be up to date.

To find journal articles by subject go to the library home page at  www.lib.uct.ac.za  , mouse over  Search & Find , and select  Databases A-Z.

Many of these databases allow you to restrict your search to "Peer Reviewed" journals only – these are the most scholarly journals, for which each article has to be vetted by other academics before it is accepted.

Many of our databases are Full Text – so you can usually get the whole article on your desktop for downloading, e-mailing or printing – you don’t have to find it in print on the shelves.

While you can search Primo, or individual journal databases, as simply as you search Google, you can also type in very precise searches by using And, Or, Not operators, Wildcards and Logical Brackets.

An example of such a search would be:

Information Technology AND Brain Drain AND (Employ* OR Jobs OR Labo?r) NOT United States

The AND operator narrows a search – all listed elements must be mentioned in each article: in this example we want articles that cover both Information Technology AND the Brain Drain.

The OR operator expands a search – any of the listed elements must be mentioned in each article: in this example we wanted Information Technology Brain Drain articles that discussed either Employment or Jobs or Labour. The OR operator is useful for dealing with alternative terms which different authors might use when writing on a similar topic. 

The Brackets tie the options to the required material. In this example they make sure that any articles we get on labour or employment are concerned with Information Technology and the Brain Drain. If we didn’t have brackets here the search would just bring up every reference to labour in the database, whether relevant to Information Technology or not.

The Wildcards, * and ?, expand a search: The * deals with related words. In this example Employ* means that we get all words starting with "Employ…" – such as Employment, Employee, Employees, Employers…

The ? fills in a missing letter, and is used for covering alternative spellings in British and American English, both Labour and Labor in this example.

NOT weeds out anything you’ve got too much of. Many of our databases are American products, for example, and you can often be flooded with reports on the American situation unless you weed it out.

3) Read/Skim the articles, using their abstracts

Most of the articles will have an abstract. This is a short paragraph at the head of the article that lists the main facts and arguments in each article. By reading these you will quickly get the gist of what each article is about and where it fits into the pattern you are building up in your literature survey.

How many books and articles should you have? It’s wise to check this with your lecturer or tutor. In general, though, your aim is not to cover every single book or article, but every major opinion or theme on the topic. Many of the books or articles will add very little that is new.

Therefore a short list of really scholarly, relevant, comprehensive articles is often more effective than a list of hundreds of superficial or tangential articles.

What you are ideally looking for are the "seminal" articles (seed articles) on which most of the other authors are basing their work.

4) Group the Articles into the themes and sub-themes of your topic

Obviously, it helps to have a structure in mind already, but the articles you find will often help to suggest a structure or cause you to redesign your existing one.

Herewith a hard-learned tip:

There are tides and seasons in academic publishing – a topic is often hot for a few months, then dies, then is revived to be attacked from a different angle, then dies, then is revived again to be discussed from a third angle… remember, Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis?

This has two implications for studying the results on a database search:

Just because there is nothing much in the recent articles does not mean that it was not hot a few months or years ago, so scroll back in time down the list, or jump right to the earliest reference and scroll up through time to look for a hot spot.

The tides of article titles often tell a story that can help you shape your literature review.

For example, in a list of journal articles on Information Technology and Employment you might find that:

The earliest articles are all about how hard it is to find skilled IT workers.

Later you get articles about UK and US firms desperately recruiting school-leavers and training them in IT skills on the job.

A year later you get articles about how countries like India and South Africa are doing the same thing.

And not long after that you get articles about India and South Africa having a huge, skilled IT workforce, working far more cheaply than the US and UK workforce, and lots of UK and US projects being outsourced to them.

Then you get complaints about unemployment in the IT sector in the UK and USA.

Then you get stories about how employers in the UK and USA have become very choosy about whom they employ, insisting on really good academic training, loads of experience and very-specialised skills.

Then you get the latest stories which are all about how new IT entrants, without that experience, start packing their bags to gain experience elsewhere…

See? Story!

Many database lists of academic articles tell this sort of story when they are looked at in date order. Either they reflect swings in world events or they are reflecting swings in academic debate and opinion. Seeing such a story in the literature is a great help in structuring any literature review.

In particular, look out for the major triggers of such changes: When did the first swing to a new track happen, and what event or article provoked it?

When you find an article that has provoked a major swing, or started a whole new debate, then you are looking at the "Seminal" (Seed) article that I mentioned earlier. This sort of article is often the best sort of article to identify in a literature review – many of the other articles will just build on, comment on, or attack its basic arguments.

Using a Citation Database

If you find a seed article, or any other really good article, we have a magic database, called the ISI Citation Database, which can find all the other articles which have cited that article, either because they support it or because they disagree with it.

The ISI Citation Database is on our database list under ISI WEB OF SCIENCE. There are three versions of it, covering the Sciences, Social Sciences, and Arts and Humanities. You can search all three at once.

Go to "Cited Ref Search" and type in the author’s last name, the journal in which his article appeared and the year it appeared in the appropriate boxes. This will bring up the authors and articles that have followed or disagreed with that author.

Unfortunately this database is not full text, but you can often get the full text of the articles off one or other of our alternative databases.

Another way of doing a citation search is to download Harzing's  Publish or Perish  software from  http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm . This does a lovely job of tracing citations on Google Scholar.

6) Identify within each sub-theme those points on which the articles agree, those points on which they disagree, and those points which they don’t cover at all.

The abstracts can help with this, of course. The main trick is coming up with, or spotting, the sub themes and that is simply a matter of brain work. But if it is done well, and you have taken the trouble to find good sources, then you will find, quite magically, that you have constructed the skeleton and a good bit of the flesh and blood of your essay or research project.

In fact, a good literature review can result in an essay that virtually writes itself.

The Literature Review Demo - a step-by-step guide to the tools and techniques

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Übersicht über bestehende Literatur: (Literatur) Reviews

• First Online: 03 June 2023

Cite this chapter

• Valentin Ritschl 4 ,
• Lisa Sperl 4 ,
• Tanja Stamm 4 ,
• Peter Putz 5 &
• Agnes Sturma 6 , 7  

Part of the book series: Studium Pflege, Therapie, Gesundheit ((SPTG))

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Zusammenfassung

Wenn das Ziel eines Forschungsprojekts darin besteht, sich mit bereits bestehender Literatur kritisch auseinanderzusetzten, dann eignen sich dafür unterschiedliche Formen von Literaturstudien und Reviews. Dieses Kapitel gibt einen Einblick in die verschiedenen Arten von Reviews, wie z. B. systematische Reviews, Meta-Analysen und Scoping Reviews, sowie in deren Durchführung und ihre Bedeutung als eigenständige Forschungsmethode.

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Ritschl, V., Sperl, L., Stamm, T., Putz, P., Sturma, A. (2023). Übersicht über bestehende Literatur: (Literatur) Reviews. In: Ritschl, V., Weigl, R., Stamm, T. (eds) Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten und Schreiben. Studium Pflege, Therapie, Gesundheit . Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66501-5_8

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

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