key words to use in literature review

17 strong academic phrases to write your literature review (+ real examples)

A well-written academic literature review not only builds upon existing knowledge and publications but also involves critical reflection, comparison, contrast, and identifying research gaps. The following 17 strong academic key phrases can assist you in writing a critical and reflective literature review.

Academic key phrases to present existing knowledge in a literature review

The topic has received significant interest within the wider literature..

Example: “ The topic of big data and its integration with AI has received significant interest within the wider literature .” ( Dwivedi et al. 2021, p. 4 )

The topic gained considerable attention in the academic literature in…

Studies have identified….

Example: “ Studies have identified the complexities of implementing AI based systems within government and the public sector .” ( Dwivedi et al. 2021, p. 6 )

Researchers have discussed…

Recent work demonstrated that….

Example: “Recent work demonstrated that dune grasses with similar morphological traits can build contrasting landscapes due to differences in their spatial shoot organization.” ( Van de Ven, 2022 et al., p. 1339 )

Existing research frequently attributes…

Prior research has hypothesized that…, prior studies have found that….

Example:  “ Prior studies have found that court-referred individuals are more likely to complete relationship violence intervention programs (RVIP) than self-referred individuals. ” ( Evans et al. 2022, p. 1 )

Academic key phrases to contrast and compare findings in a literature review

While some scholars…, others…, the findings of scholar a showcase that… . scholar b , on the other hand, found….

Example: “ The findings of Arinto (2016) call for administrators concerning the design of faculty development programs, provision of faculty support, and strategic planning for online distance learning implementation across the institution. Francisco and Nuqui (2020) on the other hand found that the new normal leadership is an adaptive one while staying strong on their commitment. ” ( Asio and Bayucca, 2021, p. 20 )

Interestingly, all the arguments refer to…

This argument is similar to….

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Academic key phrases to highlight research gaps in a literature review

Yet, it remains unknown how…, there is, however, still little research on…, existing studies have failed to address….

Example: “ University–industry relations (UIR) are usually analysed by the knowledge transfer channels, but existing studies have failed to address what knowledge content is being transferred – impacting the technology output aimed by the partnership.”  (Dalmarco et al. 2019, p. 1314 )

Several scholars have recommended to move away…

New approaches are needed to address…, master academia, get new content delivered directly to your inbox, 26 powerful academic phrases to write your introduction (+ real examples), 13 awesome academic phrases to write your methodology (+ real examples), related articles, dealing with failure as a phd student, how to write a convincing research statement, 13 great academic phrases to write your discussion (+ published examples), how to revise a manuscript by responding to reviewer comments.

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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.

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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Literature Reviews

• Introduction: What, Who & Why
• Define a topic
• Identify keywords

Identifying keywords

Comprehesive vs precise, using text mining to identify keywords.

• More search tips
• Understand & Analyse
• More resources
• Accessing help
• Systematic Style Reviews Guide

It is important to find all the relevant keywords for the topic to ensure the search is comprehensive by identifying:

• different spellings, tenses and word variants of keywords
• related concepts
• names of people or authors associated with these ideas

There are many  ways to locate these terms, including

• recommended readings, textbooks and other review articles that provide an overview of the field of  research
• dictionaries, thesauri, handbooks and encyclopedias that provide definitions and general information about topics.
• database thesauri or subject headings that tell you which terms are used in the databases and professional literature.
• text mining tools that allow you to analyse large amounts of text or information and identify commonly used terms in the field.

The process of searching will also help identify more terms that you should be adding to your list.

There needs to be a balance in searching between making the search comprehensive enough to encompass everything on the topic and precise enough to only capture those results that are specifically relevant.

Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages

Increasing the comprehensiveness (or sensitivity) of a search will reduce its precision and will retrieve more non-relevant articles.

Text mining will help identify how often terms come up in the literature and help identify other related terms and subject headings that have not been considered or thought of as being useful.

Text mining is a process used to look at large amounts of text and find relationships in the results by using computer programs designed to extract and analyse this data. 

It is used to categorise information and identify trends and patterns which can be done across large documents or multiple sources (or both).

1. Mining for terms Use these tools to find alternate search terms that are related by identifying how often keywords appear and which other terms appear with them by number of occurrences.

2. Mine within the text Locate terms within blocks of text (e.g. an article) to find word patterns and frequency. More frequent words are more likely to be relevant to the topic.

3. Use visualising tools These tools create word clouds related to search terms

These are just some of the tools available for mining text that are available on the web. There is also both commercial and free software that can be downloaded and installed. The web pages linked below have lists of yet more tools.

Further reading:

• EPC Methods: An Exploration of the Use of Text-Mining Software in Systematic Reviews Paynter R., Bañez L. L., Berliner E., Erinoff, E., Lege-Matsuura, J., Potter, S., & Uhl, S. (2016). EPC methods: An exploration of the use of text-mining software in systematic reviews. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK362044/
• << Previous: Search the literature
• Next: More search tips >>
• Last Updated: Jul 15, 2024 12:14 PM
• URL: https://libguides.jcu.edu.au/litreview

Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library

• Collections
• Research Help

YSN Doctoral Programs: Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

• Biomedical Databases
• Global (Public Health) Databases
• Soc. Sci., History, and Law Databases
• Grey Literature
• Trials Registers
• Data and Statistics
• Public Policy
• Google Tips
• Recommended Books
• Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

APA7 Style resources

APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
• << Previous: Recommended Books
• Last Updated: Jun 20, 2024 9:08 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.yale.edu/YSNDoctoral

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Writing a Literature Review

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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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• CAREER FEATURE
• 04 December 2020
• Correction 09 December 2020

How to write a superb literature review

Andy Tay is a freelance writer based in Singapore.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Credit: Getty

Literature reviews are important resources for scientists. They provide historical context for a field while offering opinions on its future trajectory. Creating them can provide inspiration for one’s own research, as well as some practice in writing. But few scientists are trained in how to write a review — or in what constitutes an excellent one. Even picking the appropriate software to use can be an involved decision (see ‘Tools and techniques’). So Nature asked editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews for their tips.

WENTING ZHAO: Be focused and avoid jargon

Assistant professor of chemical and biomedical engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

When I was a research student, review writing improved my understanding of the history of my field. I also learnt about unmet challenges in the field that triggered ideas.

For example, while writing my first review 1 as a PhD student, I was frustrated by how poorly we understood how cells actively sense, interact with and adapt to nanoparticles used in drug delivery. This experience motivated me to study how the surface properties of nanoparticles can be modified to enhance biological sensing. When I transitioned to my postdoctoral research, this question led me to discover the role of cell-membrane curvature, which led to publications and my current research focus. I wouldn’t have started in this area without writing that review.

Collection: Careers toolkit

A common problem for students writing their first reviews is being overly ambitious. When I wrote mine, I imagined producing a comprehensive summary of every single type of nanomaterial used in biological applications. It ended up becoming a colossal piece of work, with too many papers discussed and without a clear way to categorize them. We published the work in the end, but decided to limit the discussion strictly to nanoparticles for biological sensing, rather than covering how different nanomaterials are used in biology.

My advice to students is to accept that a review is unlike a textbook: it should offer a more focused discussion, and it’s OK to skip some topics so that you do not distract your readers. Students should also consider editorial deadlines, especially for invited reviews: make sure that the review’s scope is not so extensive that it delays the writing.

A good review should also avoid jargon and explain the basic concepts for someone who is new to the field. Although I trained as an engineer, I’m interested in biology, and my research is about developing nanomaterials to manipulate proteins at the cell membrane and how this can affect ageing and cancer. As an ‘outsider’, the reviews that I find most useful for these biological topics are those that speak to me in accessible scientific language.

Bozhi Tian likes to get a variety of perspectives into a review. Credit: Aleksander Prominski

BOZHI TIAN: Have a process and develop your style

Associate professor of chemistry, University of Chicago, Illinois.

In my lab, we start by asking: what is the purpose of this review? My reasons for writing one can include the chance to contribute insights to the scientific community and identify opportunities for my research. I also see review writing as a way to train early-career researchers in soft skills such as project management and leadership. This is especially true for lead authors, because they will learn to work with their co-authors to integrate the various sections into a piece with smooth transitions and no overlaps.

After we have identified the need and purpose of a review article, I will form a team from the researchers in my lab. I try to include students with different areas of expertise, because it is useful to get a variety of perspectives. For example, in the review ‘An atlas of nano-enabled neural interfaces’ 2 , we had authors with backgrounds in biophysics, neuroengineering, neurobiology and materials sciences focusing on different sections of the review.

After this, I will discuss an outline with my team. We go through multiple iterations to make sure that we have scanned the literature sufficiently and do not repeat discussions that have appeared in other reviews. It is also important that the outline is not decided by me alone: students often have fresh ideas that they can bring to the table. Once this is done, we proceed with the writing.

I often remind my students to imagine themselves as ‘artists of science’ and encourage them to develop how they write and present information. Adding more words isn’t always the best way: for example, I enjoy using tables to summarize research progress and suggest future research trajectories. I’ve also considered including short videos in our review papers to highlight key aspects of the work. I think this can increase readership and accessibility because these videos can be easily shared on social-media platforms.

ANKITA ANIRBAN: Timeliness and figures make a huge difference

Editor, Nature Reviews Physics .

One of my roles as a journal editor is to evaluate proposals for reviews. The best proposals are timely and clearly explain why readers should pay attention to the proposed topic.

It is not enough for a review to be a summary of the latest growth in the literature: the most interesting reviews instead provide a discussion about disagreements in the field.

Careers Collection: Publishing

Scientists often centre the story of their primary research papers around their figures — but when it comes to reviews, figures often take a secondary role. In my opinion, review figures are more important than most people think. One of my favourite review-style articles 3 presents a plot bringing together data from multiple research papers (many of which directly contradict each other). This is then used to identify broad trends and suggest underlying mechanisms that could explain all of the different conclusions.

An important role of a review article is to introduce researchers to a field. For this, schematic figures can be useful to illustrate the science being discussed, in much the same way as the first slide of a talk should. That is why, at Nature Reviews, we have in-house illustrators to assist authors. However, simplicity is key, and even without support from professional illustrators, researchers can still make use of many free drawing tools to enhance the value of their review figures.

Yoojin Choi recommends that researchers be open to critiques when writing reviews. Credit: Yoojin Choi

YOOJIN CHOI: Stay updated and be open to suggestions

Research assistant professor, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon.

I started writing the review ‘Biosynthesis of inorganic nanomaterials using microbial cells and bacteriophages’ 4 as a PhD student in 2018. It took me one year to write the first draft because I was working on the review alongside my PhD research and mostly on my own, with support from my adviser. It took a further year to complete the processes of peer review, revision and publication. During this time, many new papers and even competing reviews were published. To provide the most up-to-date and original review, I had to stay abreast of the literature. In my case, I made use of Google Scholar, which I set to send me daily updates of relevant literature based on key words.

Through my review-writing process, I also learnt to be more open to critiques to enhance the value and increase the readership of my work. Initially, my review was focused only on using microbial cells such as bacteria to produce nanomaterials, which was the subject of my PhD research. Bacteria such as these are known as biofactories: that is, organisms that produce biological material which can be modified to produce useful materials, such as magnetic nanoparticles for drug-delivery purposes.

Synchronized editing: the future of collaborative writing

However, when the first peer-review report came back, all three reviewers suggested expanding the review to cover another type of biofactory: bacteriophages. These are essentially viruses that infect bacteria, and they can also produce nanomaterials.

The feedback eventually led me to include a discussion of the differences between the various biofactories (bacteriophages, bacteria, fungi and microalgae) and their advantages and disadvantages. This turned out to be a great addition because it made the review more comprehensive.

Writing the review also led me to an idea about using nanomaterial-modified microorganisms to produce chemicals, which I’m still researching now.

PAULA MARTIN-GONZALEZ: Make good use of technology

PhD student, University of Cambridge, UK.

Just before the coronavirus lockdown, my PhD adviser and I decided to write a literature review discussing the integration of medical imaging with genomics to improve ovarian cancer management.

As I was researching the review, I noticed a trend in which some papers were consistently being cited by many other papers in the field. It was clear to me that those papers must be important, but as a new member of the field of integrated cancer biology, it was difficult to immediately find and read all of these ‘seminal papers’.

That was when I decided to code a small application to make my literature research more efficient. Using my code, users can enter a query, such as ‘ovarian cancer, computer tomography, radiomics’, and the application searches for all relevant literature archived in databases such as PubMed that feature these key words.

The code then identifies the relevant papers and creates a citation graph of all the references cited in the results of the search. The software highlights papers that have many citation relationships with other papers in the search, and could therefore be called seminal papers.

My code has substantially improved how I organize papers and has informed me of key publications and discoveries in my research field: something that would have taken more time and experience in the field otherwise. After I shared my code on GitHub, I received feedback that it can be daunting for researchers who are not used to coding. Consequently, I am hoping to build a more user-friendly interface in a form of a web page, akin to PubMed or Google Scholar, where users can simply input their queries to generate citation graphs.

Tools and techniques

Most reference managers on the market offer similar capabilities when it comes to providing a Microsoft Word plug-in and producing different citation styles. But depending on your working preferences, some might be more suitable than others.

Reference managers

Here is a comparison of the more popular collaborative writing tools, but there are other options, including Fidus Writer, Manuscript.io, Authorea and Stencila.

Collaborative writing tools

*Markdown and LaTex are code-based formatting languages favoured by physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists who code on a regular basis, and less popular in other disciplines such as biology and chemistry.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Updates & Corrections

Correction 09 December 2020 : An earlier version of the tables in this article included some incorrect details about the programs Zotero, Endnote and Manubot. These have now been corrected.

Hsing, I.-M., Xu, Y. & Zhao, W. Electroanalysis 19 , 755–768 (2007).

Article   Google Scholar  

Ledesma, H. A. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 14 , 645–657 (2019).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Brahlek, M., Koirala, N., Bansal, N. & Oh, S. Solid State Commun. 215–216 , 54–62 (2015).

Choi, Y. & Lee, S. Y. Nature Rev. Chem . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-020-00221-w (2020).

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Literature review

How to write a literature review in 6 steps

How do you write a good literature review? This step-by-step guide on how to write an excellent literature review covers all aspects of planning and writing literature reviews for academic papers and theses.

How to write a systematic literature review [9 steps]

How do you write a systematic literature review? What types of systematic literature reviews exist and where do you use them? Learn everything you need to know about a systematic literature review in this guide

What is a literature review? [with examples]

Not sure what a literature review is? This guide covers the definition, purpose, and format of a literature review.

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Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

2 Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

Literature Reviews

Before you begin, steps to take.

• Sample Literature Reviews from the APA
• Topic Selection
• Keywords & Search Terms
• Advanced Search Techniques
• Government Information
• Find Images This link opens in a new window
• News & Journalism
• Evaluating Information Sources This link opens in a new window
• Citation Style Help This link opens in a new window
• Citation Management

Organizing Sources

Need help grouping and synthesizing your sources? Try a synthesis matrix!

• Synthesis Matrix One way that seems particularly helpful in organizing literature reviews is the synthesis matrix. The synthesis matrix is a chart that allows a researcher to sort and categorize the different arguments presented on an issue.

Questions to Consider

• What is the scope of your literature review? What does your research question want to answer?
• What are the key sources in the field?
• What are the key theories, concepts, and ideas tied to your topic?
• What are the major issues and debates about the topic?
• What are the origins of the topic?
• What are the main questions and problems that have been covered already?
• Why is your topic important in your field?
• Can you identify gaps where further research is needed?

Step 1. Define your project.

First, you must choose, explore and focus your topic. After some basic background research, you may discover that you need to tweak the scope of your question. If your topic is too broad, refine your research question so that it is specific enough to lead you to the relevant literature. If you are finding too little research, brainstorm related ideas and fields to broaden your search. Choose your methodology or methodologies.

Develop a working list of keywords and refer to it often. This list of keywords will expand and change as you continue your research.

Stumped? Brainstorm with a librarian for useful subject terms to get you started.

Step 2. Do preliminary research.

If you're just starting out in the field, look for books first or journals that are well-known in your area. Try CatSearch for items local to MSU and and other Montana libraries. If you find something at another library that looks promising, request it via Interlibrary Loan. MSU might not have everything you need to be thorough in your research, so be sure to use this great service!

To gather articles, go to the library databases with your list of keywords and related fields. Start with databases in your field, but be sure to look at databases in related fields. Import appropriate articles directly to Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote. Explore and note the keywords assigned to the best articles, and use those for subsequent searches. Keep notes (electronically or in a notebook) to refer back to throughout the writing process. Read and critically evaluate these sources, making quick notes in your citation manager.

Step 3. Refine your focus and take a deeper dive into the research.

Now that you have a broad idea of the state of the field, identify the most important scholars and works. Use Google Scholar or Web of Science to determine who has cited the most important works. Read critically and identify how your work fits into the scholarly conversation. Evaluate at a deeper level. You're starting to look at significance now, rather than quality.

Step 4. Group and synthesize the literature.

Identify schools of thought and experiment with the organization of your literature review. You don't have to include everything you have found during the course of your literature review your work, but include enough so your reader understands the history of the field (or related fields) and how your work relates to that history. Make sure you are analyzing the scholarship, not simply describing it.

Step 5. Place the literature in context as you write the review. 

Determine where your research question fits within the literature as a whole. Are you going to perform a study that will fill the gaps you've identified in the scholarship so far? If so, make this point clear to your reader. Be ready to rewrite your literature review as you progress through your project (capstone, thesis, dissertation, etc). There may be references you did not include in your first draft that become more important to include as your complete your study.

Reid, M., Taylor, A., Turner, J. & Shahabudin, K. (n.d.). University of Reading Study Advice team & LearnHigher CETL (Reading).  Literature reviews.

Rowland, D. R. (n.d.) The Learning Hub, Student Services, The University of Queensland.  Reviewing the literature: A short guide for research students .

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• Last Updated: Jul 3, 2024 10:23 AM
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Accessibility Statement

What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of literature review? 
• a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction: 
• b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes: 
• c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs: 
• d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts: 

How to write a good literature review 

• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal? 
• Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review?

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

What is the purpose of literature review?

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

1. Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 

2. Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field. 

Find academic papers related to your research topic faster. Try Research on Paperpal  

3. Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 

4. Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 

5. Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 

6. Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

Strengthen your literature review with factual insights. Try Research on Paperpal for free!    

Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

Write and Cite as you go with Paperpal Research. Start now for free.   

Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

Whether you’re exploring a new research field or finding new angles to develop an existing topic, sifting through hundreds of papers can take more time than you have to spare. But what if you could find science-backed insights with verified citations in seconds? That’s the power of Paperpal’s new Research feature!  

How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal?

Paperpal, an AI writing assistant, integrates powerful academic search capabilities within its writing platform. With the Research feature, you get 100% factual insights, with citations backed by 250M+ verified research articles, directly within your writing interface with the option to save relevant references in your Citation Library. By eliminating the need to switch tabs to find answers to all your research questions, Paperpal saves time and helps you stay focused on your writing.   

Here’s how to use the Research feature:  

• Ask a question: Get started with a new document on paperpal.com. Click on the “Research” feature and type your question in plain English. Paperpal will scour over 250 million research articles, including conference papers and preprints, to provide you with accurate insights and citations. 
• Review and Save: Paperpal summarizes the information, while citing sources and listing relevant reads. You can quickly scan the results to identify relevant references and save these directly to your built-in citations library for later access. 
• Cite with Confidence: Paperpal makes it easy to incorporate relevant citations and references into your writing, ensuring your arguments are well-supported by credible sources. This translates to a polished, well-researched literature review. 

The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a good literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. By combining effortless research with an easy citation process, Paperpal Research streamlines the literature review process and empowers you to write faster and with more confidence. Try Paperpal Research now and see for yourself.  

Frequently asked questions

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

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Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide: Writing Literature Review

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Literature Review Writing Tips

Synthesize your findings. Your findings are your evaluation of the literature reviewed: what you consider the strengths and weakness of the studies reviewed; the comparison you did between studies; research trends and gaps in the research that you found while researching your topic, etc...

Across the articles that you read, pay attention to what are the:

• Common/contested findings
• Important trends
• Influential theories

Keep this in mind when writing your literature review:

• Do not over-quote:  If you only quote from every single author you found, then you are not showing any original thinking or analysis. Use quotes judiciously. Use quotes to highlight a particular passage or thought that exemplifies the research, theory or topic you are researching.
• Instead, use paraphrasing:  Restate the main ideas of a paragraph or section to highlight, in your own words, the important points made by the author.
• Summarize findings, important sections, a whole article or book: This is different from paraphrasing since you are not re-stating the author's words but summarizing the main point of what you are reading in a concise matter for your readers.
• Citation Styles by Teaching & Learning Last Updated Jul 30, 2024 9333 views this year

Literature Reviews: Useful Sites

The majority of these sites focus on literature reviews in the social sciences unless otherwise noted. For systematic literature reviews, we recommend you to contact directly your subject librarian for help.

• How to Write a Literature Review Nice and concise handout on how to write a literature review
• Six Steps to Writing a Literature Review This blog, written by a successful Ph.D., offers good advice about reviews from the point of view of an experienced professional. This blog is written by Tanya Golash-Boza, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Merced.
• How to Write a Historiography (Literature Review for History) This is an excellent site to learn how to write this particular literature review in History.

Writing Tutorials & other Resources

• Literature Review Online Tutorial (North Carolina State University Libraries)
• Literature Review Tutorial (CQ University-Australia)
• Paraphrase: Write it in Your Own Words (OWL Purdue Writing Lab)
• Quoating and Paraphrasing (UW-Madison's Writing Center)
• How to Synthesize Excellent explanation about how to synthesize your findings for a Literature Review
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• Last Updated: Mar 5, 2024 11:44 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.ucsb.edu/litreview

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Building a Strong Literature Review: Words and Phrases to Include

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• Writing Articles & Reviews
• December 27, 2023

A literature review is an essential part of any academic paper or research project. IT provides a comprehensive overview of the existing literature on a specific topic, identifies gaps in the current knowledge, and sets the context for the research to be conducted. Building a strong literature review requires careful selection of words and phrases to ensure that IT is well-structured, informative, and persuasive. In this article, we will discuss the words and phrases that are crucial for building a strong literature review.

Words and Phrases to Include in a Literature Review

1. “According to” – This phrase is commonly used to introduce evidence from scholarly sources. For example, “According to Smith (2016), the impact of climate change on biodiversity is a pressing concern.”

2. “ IT has been argued that” – This phrase is useful for presenting different viewpoints on a topic. For example, “ IT has been argued that technological advancements have both positive and negative effects on societal well-being.”

3. “Previous research has shown” – This phrase is effective for referencing existing studies that are relevant to the research topic. For example, “Previous research has shown a strong correlation between smoking and lung cancer.”

4. “A significant body of literature” – This phrase is used to indicate the volume and depth of existing research on a particular topic. For example, “A significant body of literature exists on the psychological impact of social media use.”

5. “In line with previous studies” – This phrase is used to establish continuity with existing research findings. For example, “In line with previous studies, our results indicate a positive association between exercise and mental health.”

6. “Key findings suggest” – This phrase is useful for summarizing the main conclusions of the literature review. For example, “Key findings suggest that mindfulness meditation can improve attention and cognitive performance.”

7. “ IT is evident that” – This phrase is used to emphasize the clarity or strength of evidence supporting a particular argument. For example, “ IT is evident that socioeconomic status has a profound impact on educational outcomes.”

8. “This is consistent with the findings of” – This phrase is used to demonstrate the alignment of the current research with existing literature. For example, “This is consistent with the findings of prior studies that have highlighted the importance of early childhood education.”

9. “Existing literature has identified” – This phrase is useful for highlighting specific issues or phenomena that have been documented in prior research. For example, “Existing literature has identified a range of factors that influence consumer purchasing behavior.”

10. “This study builds upon previous research by” – This phrase is used to emphasize the novelty or contribution of the current research. For example, “This study builds upon previous research by examining the long-term effects of climate change on coastal ecosystems.”

A strong literature review is essential for providing a solid foundation for any research endeavor. By incorporating the words and phrases discussed in this article, researchers can effectively convey the relevance, scope, and depth of the existing literature on their chosen topic. Careful selection and deployment of these words and phrases can enhance the clarity, coherence, and persuasiveness of the literature review, ultimately contributing to the overall strength and quality of the research project.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

A literature review serves several purposes, including providing an overview of existing research on a specific topic, identifying gaps in the current knowledge, and setting the context for a new research study. IT also helps to demonstrate the researcher’s familiarity with and understanding of the relevant literature in their field.

How do I structure a literature review?

A literature review typically follows a structured format, including an introduction, the body of the review (organized by themes or topics), and a conclusion. IT should present a coherent and logical argument, synthesizing and critically analyzing the existing literature on the chosen topic.

What are some common mistakes to avoid in a literature review?

Common mistakes in a literature review include focusing too much on summarizing individual studies without providing critical analysis, failing to clearly articulate the relevance of the literature to the research topic, and not including a sufficient variety of sources to support the argument being made. IT is also important to avoid presenting personal opinions without backing them up with evidence from the literature.

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Literature Review

How to search effectively.

• Find examples of literature reviews
• How to write a literature review
• Grey literature

The  Literature searching interactive tutorial  includes self-paced, guided activities to assist you in developing  effective search skills..

1. Identify search words

Analyse your research topic or question.

• What are the main ideas?
• What concepts or theories have you already covered?
• Write down your main ideas, synonyms, related words and phrases.
• If you're looking for specific types of research, use these suggested terms: qualitative, quantitative, methodology, review, survey, test, trend (and more).
• Be aware of UK and US spelling variations. E.g. organisation OR organization, ageing OR aging.
• Interactive Keyword Builder
• Identifying effective keywords

2. Connect your search words

Find results with one or more search words.

Use OR between words that mean the same thing.

E.g.  adolescent  OR  teenager

This search will find results with either (or both) of the search words.

Find results with two search words

Use AND between words which represent the main ideas in the question.

E.g. adolescent AND “physical activity”

This will find results with both of the search words.

Exclude search words

Use NOT to exclude words that you don’t want in your search results.

E.g. (adolescent OR teenager) NOT “young adult”

3. Use search tricks

Search for different word endings.

Truncation *

The asterisk symbol * will help you search for different word endings.

E.g. teen* will find results with the words: teen, teens, teenager, teenagers

Specific truncation symbols will vary. Check the 'Help' section of the database you are searching.

Search for common phrases

Phrase searching “...........”

Double quotation marks help you search for common phrases and make your results more relevant.

E.g. “physical activity” will find results with the words physical activity together as a phrase.

Search for spelling variations within related terms

Wildcards ?

Wildcard symbols allow you to search for spelling variations within the same or related terms.

E.g. wom?n will find results with women OR woman

Specific wild card symbols will vary. Check the 'Help' section of the database you are searching.

Search terms within specific ranges of each other

Proximity  w/#

Proximity searching allows you to specify where your search terms will appear in relation to each other.

E.g.  pain w/10 morphine will search for pain within ten words of morphine

Specific proximity symbols will vary. Check the 'Help' section of the database you are searching.

4. Improve your search results

All library databases are different and you can't always search and refine in the same way. Try to be consistent when transferring your search in the library databases you have chosen.

Narrow and refine your search results by:

• year of publication or date range (for recent or historical research)
• document or source type (e.g. article, review or book)
• subject or keyword (for relevance). Try repeating your search using the 'subject' headings or 'keywords' field to focus your search
• searching in particular fields, i.e. citation and abstract. Explore the available dropdown menus to change the fields to be searched.

When searching, remember to:

Adapt your search and keep trying.

Searching for information is a process and you won't always get it right the first time. Improve your results by changing your search and trying again until you're happy with what you have found.

Keep track of your searches

Keeping track of searches saves time as you can rerun them, store references, and set up regular alerts for new research relevant to your topic.

Most library databases allow you to register with a personal account. Look for a 'log in', 'sign in' or 'register' button to get started.

• Literature review search tracker (Excel spreadsheet)

Manage your references

There are free and subscription reference management programs available on the web or to download on your computer.

• EndNote - The University has a license for EndNote. It is available for all students and staff, although is recommended for postgraduates and academic staff.
• Zotero - Free software recommended for undergraduate students.
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Writing a Literature Review

• Getting Started
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• Finding the Literature
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• Managing Your Research
• Writing the Review
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Boolean Operators

Controlled vocabulary, proximity operators, search strings.

A summary of the source, normally a paragraph or two, that is provided by the author when submitting for publication. A key field to look within for relevant terms.

The classic ones are AND, OR and NOT; these are used to combine keywords or search strings in particular ways. There are additional terms like proximity operators that combine things in specialised ways. Named after George Boole, a professor of mathematics who taught in Cork!

Most databases have a list of standardised terms for subjects called subject headings ; everything on that topic can then hopefully be found under the relevant heading, if one exists. Individual sources are tagged by the database to be about those concepts, no matter what words were used in the source itself. Often called a thesaurus in a database.

An indexed area in a source (e.g., a journal article or book chapter) such as the title, year of publication, and author. There are normally lots of these for any record, some derived from the source itself, some added by the database after studying the source.

Can refer to the author's keywords – which are supplied by the author and may be a field you can search - or just the terms you want to use in your search. However, some databases use the term "keywords" specifically for their controlled vocabulary or other topic headings, so it's a bit confusing.

Also called filters . These are restrictions on your search that can be applied by making selections within the database, such as stating the articles need to be in English, or published after a certain date.

MeSH stands for Medical Subject Heading . These terms are a type of controlled vocabulary in biomedical databases like MEDLINE and PubMed, as well as several other medical databases that use the exact same list of subject headings. Sometimes used as a synonym by people for controlled vocabulary in other databases that aren’t the same list, so watch out.

A way of specifying the order terms are combined using Boolean operators . This allows you to know exactly what is being combined together in clauses, so that the correct operations are applied and it does what you think it is doing.

Some examples:

(Cat AND Dog) OR Rabbit

...means it must mention both Cat and Dog, or, alternatively, could just mention Rabbit.

(Cat) AND (Dog OR Rabbit)

...means it must mention Cat, but then also either Dog or Rabbit (or indeed both).

Cat AND Dog OR Rabbit

...without any brackets can be interpreted in those two different ways, depending on the database and in what order it applies the operators.

Nearly all databases let you search for phrases – those exact words in that exact order – using quote marks. Some databases have an issue with the curved Smart Quotes that Words uses automatically, so it’s better to stick to simple quotes "like these ones" - you may need to turn off Smart Quotes in Word . If you need a few words in-between your search terms, you can explore proximity operators .

People often confuse the name of the company that makes the database, or the platform that it's on, with the database itself. For example, EBSCO is a company that provide access to many databases. There is no database called "EBSCO", however. The name of its platform - EBSCOhost - implies there is a commonality in the ways the databases look and feel, and the syntax they use to run searches. Again, there is no database as such called "EBSCOhost".

It's often possible to search multiple databases at the same time on one platform; however, while this is tempting, it's not always the best approach!

Some of those databases (ERIC, Medline, PsycInfo, for example) from EBSCO are also available on other platforms from other providers, such as Ovid and ProQuest. They look and work differently to each other, but the same database from another company should have the same data within it. Sometimes, for legacy reasons, a provider can have different platforms that give access to multiple databases that work in different ways - for example, when two companies have merged.

These are a special type of combining tool that mean words have to be close to each other within a field , rather than being anywhere in that field or indeed in the record. Sometimes you can specify how many words there can be in-between, or what order they have to be. The syntax for this will vary from database to database; PubMed doesn’t allow this, but most others do.

A search normally looks for a number of terms. When put together this is referred to as a search string . This can refer to the whole search put together that can be pasted into a database and run as-is, or individual elements within it (so, strings or strands ). May include the syntax to make it look in different fields , or may just be the important words.

Synonyms of your terms are a vital part of a search, generally used in fields like the title and abstract . You needs to think of words that mean the same thing, in case someone uses that in the source instead of the word you originally thought of. So for "cancer*" you might also use "oncolog*", or "tumour*" OR "tumor*", or "neoplasm*", or "malignan*", or "carcinoma*" (note all the wildcards !). Plus the names of different types of cancers, like leukemia. These are added together using the Boolean operator OR.

Codes and words in a search that tell it to look in particular fields (like the abstract or title index ) or to combine searches in different ways using Boolean operators . Different databases are likely to have wildly different syntax, but ones provided by the same company tend to use the same codes, if they are on tghe same platform .

Wildcards are a way you can search for variations of a word, such as plurals, verb forms and UK/US spellings. How you do this depends on the database, but nearly all will let you use a stem word with an asterisk to find longer variants. Some databases allow you to have variant letters in the middle of the word, but that’s often trickier to use.

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• Last Updated: Oct 10, 2023 1:52 PM
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Training videos   |   Faqs

Academic Phrases for Writing Literature Review Section of a Research Paper

Overview |   Abstract   | Introduction | Literature Review | Materials & Methods | Results & Discussion | Conclusion & Future Work | Acknowledgements & Appendix

The literature review should clearly demonstrate that the author has a good knowledge of the research area. Literature review typically occupies one or two passages in the introduction section. A well-written literature review should provide a critical appraisal of previous studies related to the current research area rather than a simple summary of prior works. The author shouldn’t shy away from pointing out the shortcomings of previous works. However, criticising other’s work without any basis can weaken your paper. This is a perfect place to coin your research question and justify the need for such a study. It is also worth pointing out towards the end of the review that your study is unique and there is no direct literature addressing this issue. Add a few sentences about the significance of your research and how this will add value to the body of knowledge.

The literature review section of your research paper should include the following:

• Previous literature
• Limitations of previous research
• Research questions
• Research to be explored

1. Previous literature

The literature review shows that __ Previous research showed __ Seminal contributions have been made by __ A series of recent studies has indicated that __ Several theories have been proposed to __, some focusing on __, others on __ There has been numerous studies to investigate __ This has been used in several studies to assess __ Previous studies have shown __ Several studies suggest that __ This has also been explored in prior studies by __ Prior research suggests that __ Previous studies have emphasized __ The majority of prior research has applied __ Most early studies as well as current work focus on __ For instance, the following studies were conducted on __ Studies of __are well documented, it is also well acknowledged that __ A number of authors have recognized __ Some authors have also suggested that  __ Some authors have driven the further development of __ This has been discussed by a great number of authors in literature. For example, research has provided evidence for __ The authors bring some information about the background of the problem, __ As has been previously reported in the literature, __ A large number of existing studies in the broader literature have examined __ The literature review shows that __ There exists a considerable body of literature on  __ In short, the literature pertaining to __ strongly suggests that __ Over time, an extensive literature has developed on __ This section presents a review of recent literature on __ This paper begins with a short review of the literature regarding the __ Several methods are reported in the literature to address this issue. There is a wide choice of __ available in the literature. This section reviews the literature related to __ It was reported in literature that __ A recent study by __ concluded that __ In the light of reported __ it is conceivable that __ The method introduced by __ has the advantage that __ One method employed by __ is __ A more comprehensive description can be found in __ For example, recent research suggests that __ This was successfully established as described by __ The author employed a __ methodology which prescribes the use of __

2. Limitations of previous research

A number of questions regarding __ remain to be addressed. A closer look to the literature on __, however, reveals a number of gaps and shortcomings. This question has previously never been addressed because__ Most studies have relied on __ Previous studies by __ cannot be considered as conclusive because __ Previous studies have almost exclusively focused on __ This has been previously assessed only to a very limited extent because __ In the present studies __ were constrained to __ In previous studies were limited to __ Although results appear consistent with prior research, they appear inconsistent with __ These are previously unstudied because __ As far as we know, no previous research has investigated __ Moreover, although research has illuminated __ no study to date has examined __ Despite decades of research, this continues to be debated among __ This section points out some of the problems encountered in the extant research. Although there are many studies, the research in __ remains limited. However, the existing research has many problems in representing __ The literature on __ is less consistent Historically, there has been a great deal of confusion in the literature regarding __ This approach remains briefly addressed in the literature. These are rarely analyzed in the literature as __ There are key questions and notions that are still not discussed in the literature __ This is not clearly presented in the literature because __ This paper addresses the need for __, so far lacking in the scientific literature. To fill this literature gap, this paper identifies __ Only a few works in literature demonstrate __ Although studies have been conducted by many authors, this problem is still insufficiently explored. To our knowledge, no prior studies have examined __ However, the existing research has many problems in __ Therefore, important issue in the literature is __ However, we argue that previous literature suffers from certain weaknesses: __ Previous research can only be considered a first step towards a more profound understanding of __ The previous studies reveal that __ are usually the most problematic to __

3. Research questions

More specific research questions will be introduced and investigated in __ A further question is whether __ Finally, another promising line of research would be __ The study addresses several further questions on __ Some of the interesting questions in this context are __ In order to address the questions outlined above, we report here __ These questions are of central interest as much recent research in __ Furthermore, __ is arguably an important question to be addressed. The question now is how __ can be used to explain __ Study addresses the research question __ In order to properly address this question, we __ An important question associated with __ is __ A critical open question is whether __ A still unsolved question is whether __ This remains an open question as __ This question has previously never been addressed because __ This study offers a test of __ research question Study addresses the research question __ Even in general __ research strategies is needed to explain __ The researcher should be interested here in __ Many questions remain unanswered __ There are some potentially open questions about the validity of __ The question that then naturally arises is __ The question then becomes how best to define__ This was an important question to study as __

4. Research to be explored

A more systematic and theoretical analysis is required for __ As the authors note earlier, more work is necessary to__ Additional studies to understand more completely the key tenets of __ are required. The unexpected findings signal the need for additional studies to understand more about __ This paper addresses __, so far lacking in the scientific literature. A new approach is therefore needed for __ One of the tough challenges for all researchers in this domain is __

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Literature Review - Finding the Resources

• The Literature
• Search Tools
• Formulating your search statement

Keyword search

More search tips - 1, more search tips - 2.

• Buliding on what you have found
• Keeping Track
• Academic Reading
• Citing Sources
• The Learning Lounge

During your literature search, especially when you search for articles in databases, you will rely very much on keyword searching. To conduct a keyword search , you need to formulate a search statement .

Below are the basic steps to develop a search statement. After going through these steps, try to build up your own search statement using this  worksheet [pdf]

Here is a diagram to help you understand:

1. Identify the keywords or the main concepts of your research topic.

• For example, for the topic Globalization of Chinese companies , the keywords are Globalization , Chinese and Companies .

2. Think of similar terms (synonyms) or phrases that might also be used to describe these concepts, to ensure that you do not miss out any relevant information. You can use a thesaurus to help you find synonyms. For example, you can first arrange the main concepts in columns. Then under each column write down similar terms or phrases that may also be used to represent that concept:  

3. Combine your search terms in a way that a database can understand. To do this, you need to use the words AND , OR , NOT (Boolean operators).

• AND combines different concepts (e.g. Globalization and Chinese listed in different columns of the table above are different concepts).
• OR combines similar concepts (e.g. Chinese and China listed in the same column above are similar concepts).
• NOT excludes the undesirable concepts

4. Make use of truncation, wildcards, parentheses and phrase searching for more productive searching. Symbols commonly used in many search tools including catalogues and databases are:

5. A search statement can then be developed

e.g. Globali?ation AND (Chinese OR China) AND (Compan* OR Corporat* OR Firm*)

Use a form (sometimes called "Quick Search", "Advanced Search" or "Form Search") to search if possible.

For example, this is more user-friendly

When necessary, in order to make the search more focused, limit the search by

• Specific search fields (e.g. journal titles, abstracts, subjects)
• Document types (e.g. scholarly articles, conferences)
• Year of publication, etc.
• << Previous: Search Techniques
• Next: Buliding on what you have found >>
• Last Updated: Jun 27, 2024 5:24 PM
• URL: https://libguides.library.cityu.edu.hk/litreview

© City University of Hong Kong | Copyright | Disclaimer

How to do a Literature Search: Choosing keywords

• Introduction
• Choosing a database
• Choosing keywords
• Using keywords
• Author searching
• Managing your search/results

Choosing keywords: things to think about

It may be tempting to simply type the title of your project into the database search box, but this will not give you the best results!  You need to carefully put together a search strategy taking into account the following:

• Endings of words

Abbreviations

American vs english spellings.

On this page we will look at these in turn. The following page will look at how to construct a search strategy.

A synonym is another word with the same meaning.  The main problem with topic searching is that there are many words which different authors can use to describe the same topic. For example, if you are looking for articles about drug addiction an author could have used any of the following words or phrases:  drug addiction, drug abuse, substance abuse, street drugs, narcotics, heroin use/abuse etc.

Ideally, you should use as many synonyms as possible in your search strategy, particularly if you're having difficulty finding enough information.  

If you have difficulty thinking of synonyms, start with one article that is relevant to your topic and view the full record in the library database.  It may provide added keywords that will help.

Word endings

Many Library databases, and Google, will automatically find a simple plural for you.  For example if you type in drug  many databases will search for drug or drugs .  Some will attempt to find other word endings too, but with varying levels of success.  For example if you type in drug addiction will the database also find articles with the phrase drug addict ?  We recommend that you take account of different word endings in your search strategy.  

Most databases use a special character to represent zero or any number of letters, called a truncation symbol.   It is normally an asterisk  *.  

addict*   will find  addic t

                          addic ts

                          addic ted

                           addic tion

                           addic tions

Phrase searching

A phrase is two or more words linked together in a particular order, for example football match , social work . Most databases will allow you to search for a phrase, in other words to insist that your keywords appear next to each other in a specific order.  Entering the phrase in double quotes " " will normally work, but check your specific database help guide to be certain.  For example:

"General practitioner" will help you to find articles about GP practices.  If you do not use quotes you could find articles on any type of practitioner, that just happen to have the commonly used word word 'general' in the title or abstract.

Is there a common abbreviation for your search topic?  The author of an article may have used the abbreviation instead of the full term, so you need to look for both:

• GP or General Practitioner
• ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
• UFO or Unidentified Flying Object

Journals published in Europe will normally use UK English spellings but journals published in North America will use US English spellings.  If you want to find all the articles, you need to take different spellings into account.  Here are some common differences in spellings:

US English generally uses fewer vowels:

• Color / colour
• Fetus / foetus
• Archeology / archaeology

US English often uses 'z' where UK English uses 's' near the end of a word:

• Analyze / analyse
• Marketize / marketise

US English sometimes uses 'er' where UK English uses 're':

• Meter / metre
• Fiber / fibre

US English sometimes uses one L near the end of a word where UK English uses two:

• Labeled / labelled
• Canceled / cancelled

The reason is that the first image has been catalogued with the UK English word ' boot ' and the second one with the American English word ' trunk '. The only way to find both images is to search for both words. 

Video: tips for keyword searching (04:38)

• << Previous: Choosing a database
• Next: Using keywords >>
• Last Updated: Nov 22, 2022 9:56 AM
• URL: https://library.bath.ac.uk/literaturesearch

Citation Styles

• Chicago Style
• Annotated Bibliographies

What is a Lit Review?

How to write a lit review.

• Video Introduction to Lit Reviews

Main Objectives

Examples of lit reviews, additional resources.

• Zotero (Citation Management)

What is a literature review?

• Either a complete piece of writing unto itself or a section of a larger piece of writing like a book or article
• A thorough and critical look at the information and perspectives that other experts and scholars have written about a specific topic
• A way to give historical perspective on an issue and show how other researchers have addressed a problem
• An analysis of sources based on your own perspective on the topic
• Based on the most pertinent and significant research conducted in the field, both new and old

• A descriptive list or collection of summaries of other research without synthesis or analysis
• An annotated bibliography
• A literary review (a brief, critical discussion about the merits and weaknesses of a literary work such as a play, novel or a book of poems)
• Exhaustive; the objective is not to list as many relevant books, articles, reports as possible
• To convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic
• To explain what the strengths and weaknesses of that knowledge and those ideas might be
• To learn how others have defined and measured key concepts    
• To keep the writer/reader up to date with current developments and historical trends in a particular field or discipline
• To establish context for the argument explored in the rest of a paper
• To provide evidence that may be used to support your own findings
• To demonstrate your understanding and your ability to critically evaluate research in the field
• To suggest previously unused or underused methodologies, designs, and quantitative and qualitative strategies
• To identify gaps in previous studies and flawed methodologies and/or theoretical approaches in order to avoid replication of mistakes
• To help the researcher avoid repetition of earlier research
• To suggest unexplored populations
• To determine whether past studies agree or disagree and identify strengths and weaknesses on both sides of a controversy in the literature

• Choose a topic that is interesting to you; this makes the research and writing process more enjoyable and rewarding.
• For a literature review, you'll also want to make sure that the topic you choose is one that other researchers have explored before so that you'll be able to find plenty of relevant sources to review.

• Your research doesn't need to be exhaustive. Pay careful attention to bibliographies. Focus on the most frequently cited literature about your topic and literature from the best known scholars in your field. Ask yourself: "Does this source make a significant contribution to the understanding of my topic?"
• Reading other literature reviews from your field may help you get ideas for themes to look for in your research. You can usually find some of these through the library databases by adding literature review as a keyword in your search.
• Start with the most recent publications and work backwards. This way, you ensure you have the most current information, and it becomes easier to identify the most seminal earlier sources by reviewing the material that current researchers are citing.

The organization of your lit review should be determined based on what you'd like to highlight from your research. Here are a few suggestions:

• Chronology : Discuss literature in chronological order of its writing/publication to demonstrate a change in trends over time or to detail a history of controversy in the field or of developments in the understanding of your topic.  
• Theme: Group your sources by subject or theme to show the variety of angles from which your topic has been studied. This works well if, for example, your goal is to identify an angle or subtopic that has so far been overlooked by researchers.  
• Methodology: Grouping your sources by methodology (for example, dividing the literature into qualitative vs. quantitative studies or grouping sources according to the populations studied) is useful for illustrating an overlooked population, an unused or underused methodology, or a flawed experimental technique.

• Be selective. Highlight only the most important and relevant points from a source in your review.
• Use quotes sparingly. Short quotes can help to emphasize a point, but thorough analysis of language from each source is generally unnecessary in a literature review.
• Synthesize your sources. Your goal is not to make a list of summaries of each source but to show how the sources relate to one another and to your own work.
• Make sure that your own voice and perspective remains front and center. Don't rely too heavily on summary or paraphrasing. For each source, draw a conclusion about how it relates to your own work or to the other literature on your topic.
• Be objective. When you identify a disagreement in the literature, be sure to represent both sides. Don't exclude a source simply on the basis that it does not support your own research hypothesis.
• At the end of your lit review, make suggestions for future research. What subjects, populations, methodologies, or theoretical lenses warrant further exploration? What common flaws or biases did you identify that could be corrected in future studies?

• Double check that you've correctly cited each of the sources you've used in the citation style requested by your professor (APA, MLA, etc.) and that your lit review is formatted according to the guidelines for that style.

Your literature review should:

• Be focused on and organized around your topic.
• Synthesize your research into a summary of what is and is not known about your topic.
• Identify any gaps or areas of controversy in the literature related to your topic.
• Suggest questions that require further research.
• Have your voice and perspective at the forefront rather than merely summarizing others' work.
• Cyberbullying: How Physical Intimidation Influences the Way People are Bullied
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• Literature Review Tutorials and Samples - Wilson Library at University of La Verne
• Literature Reviews: Introduction - University Library at Georgia State
• Literature Reviews - The Writing Center at UNC Chapel Hill
• Writing a Literature Review - Boston College Libraries
• Write a Literature Review - University Library at UC Santa Cruz
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• Next: Zotero (Citation Management) >>
• Last Updated: Jun 26, 2024 3:01 PM
• URL: https://researchguides.elac.edu/Citation

[a] 1]organization=Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, addressline= Kumargaon, citysep=, postcode=Sylhet-3114, country=Bangladesh

[a] \fnmark [b]

[a] 2]organization=La Trobe University, addressline=Bundoora, city=VIC, postcode=3086, country=Australia

3]organization=BRAC University, addressline=Dhaka, postcode=1206, country=Bangladesh 4]organization=Imperial College London, addressline=London, postcode=SW7 2AZ, country=UK \cortext [cor3]Corresponding authors

A Systematic Literature Review on the Use of Blockchain Technology in Transition to a Circular Economy

The circular economy has the potential to increase resource efficiency and minimize waste through the 4R framework of reducing, reusing, recycling, and recovering. Blockchain technology is currently considered a valuable aid in the transition to a circular economy. Its decentralized and tamper-resistant nature enables the construction of transparent and secure supply chain management systems, thereby improving product accountability and traceability. However, the full potential of blockchain technology in circular economy models will not be realized until a number of concerns, including scalability, interoperability, data protection, and regulatory and legal issues, are addressed. More research and stakeholder participation are required to overcome these limitations and achieve the benefits of blockchain technology in promoting a circular economy. This article presents a systematic literature review (SLR) that identified industry use cases for blockchain-driven circular economy models and offered architectures to minimize resource consumption, prices, and inefficiencies while encouraging the reuse, recycling, and recovery of end-of-life products. Three main outcomes emerged from our review of 41 documents, which included scholarly publications, Twitter-linked information, and Google results. The relationship between blockchain and the 4R framework for circular economy; discussion the terminology and various forms of blockchain and circular economy; and identification of the challenges and obstacles that blockchain technology may face in enabling a circular economy. This research shows how blockchain technology can help with the transition to a circular economy. Yet, it emphasizes the importance of additional study and stakeholder participation to overcome potential hurdles and obstacles in implementing blockchain-driven circular economy models.

1 Introduction

The linear economy paradigm is currently one of the largest problems on Earth. The linear “take, make, and dispose” economy is generating increased price volatility, supply chain risks, and growing pressures on resources ( Macarthur , 2015 ) . The only thing that moves from extraction to processing to assembly of the finished product are raw materials ( Michelini et al. , 2017 ) . By using only raw materials for value creation, the difficulties and detrimental effects of the existing economic paradigm are expected to double in the next 20 years ( Macarthur and Cowes , 2019 ) . As a result, researchers, policymakers, and business leaders are considering a new economic model in light of the economic losses, structural waste, supply and market risk, excessive resource use, and loss of natural systems that are reflected in this linear model ( Macarthur , 2015 ) . Therefore, the concept of circular economy (CE) is gaining considerable attention. A circular economy is one that is designed for the restoration and regeneration in mind to maintain the usability and worth of goods, parts, and materials at all times recognizing the differences between biological and technological cycles at times. Thus, CE can be essential for achieving environmental sustainability.

In a recent literature review, authors in Lobo et al. ( 2021 ) identified 24 key barriers to achieving CE. With the advent of Industry 4.0, blockchain technology (BCT) may provide a solution to some of these obstacles. The use of blockchain to enable the circular economy has yet to be demonstrated. This is an area of study, and only a small number of industries have been utilizing this. Researchers proposed numerous "R" frameworks for constructing CE, including the 3R ( Ghisellini et al. , 2016a ) , 4R ( Sihvonen and Ritola , 2015 ) , 6R ( Yan and Feng , 2014 ) , and 9R ( Potting et al. , 2017 ) (explained in Section 2.2 ). The approach that best illustrates how CE operates is the 4R (reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover) framework ( Kirchherr et al. , 2017 ) . This paper’s emphasis is on the 4R framework-based, blockchain-driven CE.

Blockchain’s decentralized, distributed ledger architecture, traceable, and tamper-proof characteristics can have a significant role in achieving the above 4R framework-based CE ( Narayan and Tidström , 2020 ) . Reuse, reduce, recycle, and recovery have all been linked to the blockchain, according to a number of authors Khadke et al. ( 2021b ) Rejeb et al. ( 2022b ) . Blockchain technology has been adopted by a number of industries, which have decreased carbon footprints, facilitated cyclical business models, enhanced performance, and simplified communication along the supply chain, thus supporting the circular economy ( Narayan and Tidström , 2020 ; Upadhyay et al. , 2021 ) . Authors in (Adams et al., 2018 ) discovered that tracking the possible environmental and social factors that might create health, environmental, and safety hazards is a critical application focus for Blockchain Technology.

Although blockchain has attracted a lot of interest for its potential to address CE issues, there is no recent survey, review, or systematic literature review for a 4R-based CE employing blockchain. Hence, we carried out a thorough systematic literature review on the potential uses of blockchain in the circular economy. We have studied and analyzed how researchers and businesses have used blockchain to enable reducing, reusing, recycling, and recovering for sustainable development and the limitations of the technology in corresponding aspects.

Section 2 presents the background about blockchain and circular economy. Research methodology is discussed in section 3. We have analysed our findings using resarch question in section 4. A detail discussion is presented in section 5. Finally, we concluded in section 6.

2 Background

In this segment, we discuss blockchain and its different aspects, the circular economy, the adaptation of the R framework, and the research perspectives on these subjects.

2.1 Blockchain

Initially, blockchain was proposed as a peer-to-peer electronic currency system rather than the wide variety of applications it now sees. Despite the fact that Haber and Stornetta were the first to introduce the concept of blocks connected by cryptographic chains and developed a system to prevent tampering or alteration of data recorded with timestamps, Nakamoto introduced hash function methods to create blocks in the chain and proposed bitcoin as a form of decentralized electronic currency ( Bodkhe et al. , 2020 ) . Blockchain is now much more than just an electronic money system coupled with the industrial and Buterin et al. ’s invention of smart contracts. Viriyasitavat and Hoonsopon defined blockchain as,

“A technology that enables immutability, and integrity of data in which a record of transactions made in a system are maintained across several distributed nodes that are linked in a peer-to-peer network” .

To add a new block to the blockchain, different consensus algorithms are used. A consensus algorithm is a way for all peers in a blockchain network to agree on the current state of the distributed ledger. The most common consensus algorithms are PoW (Proof of Work), PoS (Proof of Stake), DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake), PBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance), and RAFT ( Ferdous et al. , 2021 , 2020 ) . In a decentralized network, these algorithms improve network security and foster trust among untrusted parties.

2.1.1 Key Features of Blockchain

According to Chowdhury et al. , blockchain has a number of features that make it useful in a wide range of fields. The features are discussed below.

Distributed consensus on the blockchain state: One of the most important aspects of blockchain is the different kinds of consensus algorithms. These consensus algorithms allow all of the peers to arrive at an agreement regarding the present state of the blockchain in a distributed manner.

Immutable and irreversible blockchain state: The chain state becomes immutable and irreversible when a large number of blockchain nodes participate in the distributed consensus process. In addition, the immutability of blockchain is ensured through the usage of DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology).

Data persistence: As long as there are nodes participating in peer-to-peer networking, data kept in the blockchain persists.

Data provenance: A transaction is a process of storing information on a blockchain. Every transaction on the blockchain is signed by a digital signature, such as public-key cryptography, in order to preserve the data’s integrity and authenticity.

Distributed data control: Blockchain stores and retrieves data via a peer-to-peer distributed ledger. As a consequence, Blockchain has no single point of failure.

Accountability and transparency: Because any authorized participant is able to view the current state of the blockchain as well as any transaction that has taken place between participants, it ensures accountability and transparency.

2.1.2 Types of Blockchain

According to a survey on blockchain by Gamage et al. , there are primarily two types of blockchain:

Permissionless Blockchain: A permissionless blockchain is decentralized and open by nature. This means that any peer can join in the process of determining what blocks are added to the chain without providing identifying information, and no one is responsible for controlling entry ( Buterin , 2015 ) . Bitcoin ( Nakamoto , 2008 ) and Ethereum ( Buterin et al. , 2014 ) are instances of permissionless blockchain.

Permissioned Blockchains: Permissioned blockchain, as defined in ( Lai and LEE Kuo Chuen , 2018 ) , is a blockchain that requires its participants’ identity authentication and authorization of network access. A central authority gives each peer the right to take part in writing or reading operations on the blockchain. One of the most widely used permissioned blockchains is Corda ( Brown et al. , 2016 ) and Hyperledger Fabric (Androulaki et al., 2018 ) .

2.1.3 Smart Contracts

The idea of a smart contract has become more well-known as Blockchain 2.0 has been developed. While Szabo first introduced the idea behind smart contract ( Szabo , 1997 ) , Vitalik Buterin later introduced Ethereum to realise the concept practically ( Buterin et al. , 2014 ) in which a Turing-complete programming language was introduced for writing code and executing smart contracts in decentralized applications (dApps) on top of EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) and Ethereum Blockchain. a smart contract is a simple blockchain-based computer program that is executed when specific conditions are met. It is used to automate the process of putting an agreement into action so that all parties involved are aware of the outcome without the need for intermediaries or time-consuming delays ( IBM , ) . Smart contracts store data on the blockchain as transactions. This makes it possible for computer logic to be immutable. Figure 1 illustrates the execution processes for a smart contract.

Smart contracts are very important for private blockchain to be functional ( Lai and LEE Kuo Chuen , 2018 ) . Industry and businesses are creating smart contract-based applications to utilize blockchain in the food industry, construction industry, supply chain management, document verification, e-voting, medical data storage, FinTech, and other areas. Figure 2 depicts how smart contracts are widely used in the industry.

2.2 Circular Economy and R Framework

Natural resource shortages will result from the current linear “take-make-dispose” economic approach. The current economic paradigm must be redesigned and shifted to a more sustainable model. Our surroundings are still being polluted by the disposal or dispersion of wastes produced by industry systems based on linear economies. A staggering 99 percent of consumer goods are thrown away within six months of purchase, which represents a dismal failure in the field of material recovery ( J.D.Roth , 2008 ) . Since the late 1970s, the notion of Circular Economy(CE) has been gaining traction ( MacArthur et al. , 2013 ) . Several authors cite Pearce et al. as the originators of the concept. CE has been a theoretical and practical alternative to neoclassical economics since its inception. It recognizes the critical importance of the environment, its functions, and the relationship between the environment and the economic system ( Ghisellini et al. , 2016a ) . CE defines a new approach to sustainability and social responsibility by emphasizing the social components of sustainability ( Upadhyay et al. , 2021 ) . Macarthur defines CE as below,

“A circular economy is one that is restorative and regenerative by design and aims to keep products, components, and materials at their highest utility and value at all times, distinguishing between technical and biological cycles.”

The concept of a cyclical closed-loop and Cradle to cradle ( McDonough and Braungart , 2010 ) systems are the common denominators across several authors who have linked the term "Circular Economy" to a wide variety of themes ( Murray et al. , 2017 ) .

According to the World Economic Forum ( Foundation and Company , 2014 ) , the CE will bolster net material savings; mitigate volatility and supply concerns; drive innovation and job development; enhance land productivity and soil health; and provide long-term economic resilience. Circular business models may be a subset of “sustainable business models” ( Stubbs and Cocklin , 2008 ) . The study of the CE is typically divided into three themes ( Sehnem et al. , 2019 ) :

Innovation in technology, organization, and society ( Martins , 2016a , b ) .

Value chains, material flows, and applications specific to certain products ( Figge et al. , 2018 ) .

Tools and methods for making policy ( Winans et al. , 2017 ) .

According to ( Kirchherr et al. , 2017 ; Geng et al. , 2009 ) , CE could help improve resource productivity and eco-efficiency, reform environmental management, and realize sustainable development. As a result, businesses are increasingly willing to adopt the concept of a CE in an effort to use sustainable methods in the economy (Bocken et al., 2016 ) .

The R-framework relates to multiple techniques to embrace circularity, known as R-strategies. Authors in ( Reike et al. , 2018 ) mentioned complex material hierarchies, also known as R-hierarchies or R-frameworks , as one of the key components of a more transformative perspective and evaluated and incorporated R-frameworks into a unified systemic typology comprising 10 resource value retention options (Rs) or R strategies. The 10Rs are Refuse, Rethink, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, Repurpose, Recycle, and Recover. The majority of R-lists define a priority order for approaches to circularity, with the first R being more significant than the second R and so on ( Potting et al. , 2017 ) . Figure 3 illustrates a brief introduction to 10Rs.

Researchers proposed different R-frameworks based on these R-strategies such as:

3R Framework: Ghisellini et al. proposed 3R framework consisting of Reduce (R2), Reuse (R3), and Recycle (R8) ( Ghisellini et al. , 2016b ) . The framework accounts for the circular system in which all materials are recycled and all energy is generated from renewable sources; activities support and restore the ecosystem and promote human health and a healthy society; and resources are used to create values ( Heshmati , 2016 ) . It is one of the most popular frameworks for achieving circularity.

4R Framework: : Sihvonen et al. introduced the 4R framework, consisting of Reduce (R2), Reuse (R3), Recycle (R8) and Recover(R9) ( Sihvonen and Ritola , 2015 ) . The order of the R-strategies in the 4R framework indicates the amount of resource value retained. The higher the strategy, the more the resource value is retained ( Henry et al. , 2020 ) . The European Union’s waste framework directive is based on the 4R framework ( Commission , 2008 ) . The 4R Principle is one of the most prevalent principles in the field of solid waste management and sustainable development ( Team , 2020 ) .

6R Framework: Yan et al. presented the 6R approach, which consists of Reduce (R2), Reuse (R3), Recycle (R8), Recover (R9), Redesign (R7), and Remanufacture (R6) ( Yan and Feng , 2014 ) . This 6R framework provides a closed-loop, multi-product life-cycle system as the basis for sustainable manufacturing ( Jawahir and Bradley , 2016 ) . Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be made more comprehensive by adding the 6R elements, and it can be used to determine the impact or burden on the environment ( Rosenthal et al. , 2016 ) .

9R Framework: Potting et al. presented the 9R framework consisting of Refuse (R0), Rethink (R1), Reduce (R2), Reuse (R3), Repair (R4), Refurbish (R5), Remanufacture (R6), Repurpose (R7), Recycle (R8) and Recover (R9) ( Potting et al. , 2017 ) . Optimizing resource and product usage is the goal of the 9R framework, which aims to create a more sustainable manufacturing capability (Ang et al., 2021 ) . Using the 9R framework in advanced manufacturing, companies can achieve cleaner production and gain a competitive advantage ( Kirchherr et al. , 2017 ) .

These are, in conclusion, the most significant frameworks for describing CE. The aspects of these R frameworks have been accepted by the industry, which is currently seeking to devise more effective ways to implement them. There are further CE frameworks, such as ReSOLVE ( MacArthur et al. , 2015 ) . The 3R framework does not cover the entire material flow cycle, and the 6R and 9R are far too sophisticated for blockchain implementation. We utilized the 4R framework in this study due to its potential blockchain application.

3 Research Methodology

As part of this SLR, we reviewed prior research on how Blockchain can be utilized to establish a circular economy. Using blockchain technology, the 4Rs (Reusing, Reducing, Recycling, and Recovering) have been studied as a means of constructing a circular economy. Additionally, we examined blockchain-based industries for various CE techniques.

3.1 Research Questions

After evaluating a significant number of research publications, we created five Research Questions (RQ). Table 1 illustrates the RQs.

3.2 Search Strategy

The ultimate purpose of the search is to identify all related studies. We utilized the PRISMA-Framework for our research ( Page et al. , 2021 ) . The inclusion-exclusion technique was adopted for archiving. We used search strings on multiple electronic databases for primary searching. We applied both forward and backward citation tracing for a secondary search. The primary selection procedure is comprised of relevant keywords, literature sources, and a screening procedure.

3.2.1 Search terms and relevant keywords:

We made several search strings and used them on online databases to look for studies that met our criteria. Figure 4 shows the PRISMA Flow diagram,that depicts how different research papers are sorted for this systematic literature review. This explains how the search procedure works as a whole. Table 2 shows the relevant keywords we used for the search.

3.2.2 Literature Sources:

During this process, we used seven different electronic databases and a number of different search strings. Google Scholar, IEEE, ACM DL, ScienceDirect, Springer, Willey Online Library, and MDPI are the databases that were used. We also looked at the name of the journal, the year it was published, Bibliographies, the paper’s title, the number of citations, and the link to the paper.

3.2.3 Search Process:

SLR is required to conduct an exhaustive search of all sources that are relevant; hence, we have defined the search process by splitting it into two phases listed below.

Search Term Based Searching: Seven independent web database searches were conducted. We used search phrases from table 2 with the logical operators "OR" and "AND," parentheses, and quote marks to narrow our search. After retrieval, the papers were included in a set of candidate papers.

Reference Based Searching: The reference lists of the relevant papers were searched for more relevant papers and if any were discovered, they were included in the set.

As an archival of our search results, we utilized an Excel spreadsheet. We collected 81,422 articles from the original search (Table 3 ) and 8 papers from the reference search.

3.3 Selection phase

We found a large number of candidate papers after the search process, however, not all of them were significant to our RQs. Therefore, we used an additional filtering selection process which has the following two phases:

Inclusion-exclusion based selection: Using an inclusion-exclusion selection strategy, we were able to pick relevant papers from our pool of candidate papers. The materials in these papers may be beneficial to our RQs. The inclusion and exclusion criteria are presented in Table 4 and Table 5 .

Final Selection: We used some criteria to judge the quality of relevant papers during this process. After passing a quality check, certain papers were used to get the data. Section 3.3.1 defines the standards that are employed.

3.3.1 Study Quality Assessment

We made some Quality Assessment Questions (QAQs) to make sure that the papers are of good quality. Table 6 defines these QAQs. We chose each paper based on how many QAQs it meets in total. If a paper meets at least half of the QAQs, we have picked it in the final selection of studies. In the end, we chose 35 papers.

The collected papers have been grouped into five categories: Reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, and others.

Reduce represents the studies that have discussed the use of blockchain in the transition to CE utilizing the “Reduce” component of the 4R-framework. This group focused primarily on the solutions provided by industries and researchers for reducing resource and material consumption using any blockchain system.

Reuse represents the collection of studies that have discussed blockchain for the “Reuse” component of the 4R-framework. Specifically, these publications have used blockchain as a solution for reusing materials and resources, thus prolonging its lifespan.

Recycle represents the research that have been conducted on blockchain for the “Recycle” component of the 4R-framework. Articles which also considered the resource / waste recycling options with blockchain as the underlying technology has been placed under this category.

Recover represents the collection of studies that have discussed blockchain for the “Recover” component of the 4R-framework. These researches have demonstrated how blockchain might be utilized as a ledger for waste or material recovery.

Others represents the collection of articles that do not directly refer to any of the 4Rs but are beneficial to the community. Examples inlude resource circularity, market value development and life cycle analysis from a blockchain perspective.

4.1 RQ1: How blockchain technology can facilitate Reduce in CE?

To answer the aforementioned question, we analyzed various blockchain-based solutions proposed by other scholars that could aid in establishing the concept of “reduce” in CE. Numerous industry use cases aiming at eliminating obstacles linked with CE transition and the “reduce” idea were identified. In addition, these solutions are being discussed.

The notion of reduce in the 4R framework attempts to optimize resource consumption and reduce waste output. This can be effectively implemented through blockchain. The distributed ledger of the blockchain eliminates the need for a third-party auditor of transactions. In addition, the ability of a blockchain ledger to maintain an immutable, permanent record of transactions makes the supply chain transparent and traceable. A transparent and traceable supply chain is more significant and circular because it reduces waste and resource consumption.

To reduce waste: To reduce dangerous e-waste, authors in ( Chen and Ogunseitan , 2021 ) have proposed analyzing the entire life cycle of electronic devices using a blockchain-based architecture. Chidepatil et al. ( Chidepatil et al. , 2020a ) demonstrated that using artificial intelligence and multi-sensor data fusion, blockchain smart contracts can help us reduce plastic waste. Using IBM’s hyperledger fabric, Walmart tracked pork and mangoes along the supply chain to ensure complete traceability and reduce food waste associated with those products ( Kouhizadeh et al. , 2020 ) . Kamilaris et al. ( Kamilaris et al. , 2019 ) mentioned Plastic Bank ( Steenmans and Taylor , 2018 ) , a Canadian recycling company, which was aiming to reduce plastic waste in developing countries like Haiti, Peru, Colombia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Blockchain-secured digital tokens are given to customers who bring plastic waste to bank recycling facilities. These tokens can be used by users of the Plastic Bank app to buy additional goods. With 1 million participants, 2000 collector units around 3 million kilograms of plastic waste collected since 2014. Authors in ( Kassou et al. , 2021 ) suggested a blockchain-based system to reduce medical waste. They have developed a design for a blockchain-based medical and water waste management system. Users will receive digital tokens as rewards that can be exchanged for different benefits. There are Echchain, ElectricChain, Suncontract, and other platforms that use blockchain technology to reduce waste in the supply chain ( Futurethinkers , 2017 ) .

To reduce intermediaries & costs: Blockchain technology has an impact on administrative control and digital regulations. Data is stored in shared databases in blockchain, where it is more transparent, less likely to be deleted or changed, and immutable ( Esmaeilian et al. , 2020 ) . The blockchain’s transparent transaction system reduces the need for intermediaries like brokers, exchanges, and banks ( Crosby et al. , 2016 ) . This mitigates the possibility of opportunistic behavior ( Saberi et al. , 2018 ) . According to the analysis in ( Kouhizadeh et al. , 2019 ) analysis, the advantages of decentralization are increased by connecting buyers and sellers directly and reducing transaction costs, which can stimulate secondary market activities. Users can exchange their services and goods directly through a blockchain network. Blockchain technology improves capital flow by reducing transaction costs and investment risk. Energy systems built on the blockchain can use less electricity during long-distance transmissions. As a result, there would be less need for energy use, which would save resources and transaction costs on the network ( Saberi et al. , 2018 ) . Tushar et al. Tushar et al. highlighted the benefits of using a peer-to-peer approach to reduce the costs of energy expenditure. Small consumers will sell their excess energy units to those who do not have enough to save money. The cost of networking is reduced due to blockchain. Numerous businesses use blockchain-based crowdfunding to support the development of new platforms ( Esmaeilian et al. , 2020 ) . Figure 5 illustrates the reduction in cost scenarios using blockchain.

To reduce fraud: Cole et al. ( Cole et al. , 2019 ) proposed blockchain as a solution to reduce illegal counterfeiting by disclosing a product’s origin. They also mentioned the technology to reduce the cost of processes via automated systems, enabling real-time inspection through time-stamping, thereby reducing the complexity of the supply chain. Kouhizadeh et al. ( Kouhizadeh et al. , 2020 ) have analyzed the industry and businesses that have embraced blockchain for their products to achieve economic circularity. They cited Toyota, which utilized blockchain to reduce advertising fraud, and ad purchases. Authors in (Alangot et al., 2017 ) proposed developing a system to track the distribution of drugs. In this system, Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as barcode readers, smartphones, and other devices scan serial numbers or RFID tags on drug packages. They created a GDP controller that employs blockchain technology to monitor transactions and reduce fraud. In spite of the widespread consumption of genuine Australian beef, there is a substantial amount of fake beef on the market. Data61 of the CISRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian scientific research agency) employs blockchain technology to combat this fraud ( Lin et al. , 2017 ) . Blockchain improves information transparency throughout the supply chain and reduces the likelihood of data manipulation and vulnerability to crashes, fraud, and hacking ( Zheng et al. , 2018 ) . Reduced fraud can increase the supply chain’s transparency and traceability, which benefits towards a transition to a circular economy.

To reduce overproduction: Blockchain technology can help in the reduction of overproduction by enabling a more effective supply chain, which will lower the consumption of raw materials and resources and speed up the transition to a circular economy. To address issues in the supply chain for the fast fashion business, Wang et al. proposed a system based on blockchain. The three stages of a fashion item’s life — prior to production, during production, and the following production — were examined. The suggested system architecture is accessible to everyone, including fast-fashion businesses, designers, merchants, and manufacturers. Everyone must share information, keep track of inventory, and collaborate on forecasting, planning, and gap-filling for the system to function. This can make the entire process circular by reducing inventories and overproduction. The authors in ( Bodkhe et al. , 2020 ) presented Ethereum-based smart contracts as a means to address medical overproduction and underconsumption. The system employs four smart contracts to capture events automatically and safeguard the integrity and provenance of the data. It sets rules for the medical supply chain’s phases of agreement, production, delivery, and use. Overproduction depletes resources and increases the risks for the circular economy. Xu et al ( Xu et al. , 2019 ) suggested a blockchain-based system for keeping track of the electronics supply chain and identifying hardware based on certificate authorities (CA), which would make the system less vulnerable and reduce overproduction.

4.2 RQ2: How blockchain technology can facilitate the Reuse in CE?

Reuse is the use of discarded products, components, or materials for the same purpose for which they were originally designed, with minimum modification. When reduction is not possible, reusing is the best next option. Blockchain technology could facilitate a decentralized marketplace for reusing goods. Increasing the transparency and verifiability of information enables secondary markets for old goods and materials. Using blockchain technology, everyone can determine the quality of second-hand items ( Shen et al. , 2020 ) . On a blockchain, real-time information about reused products and resources can aid the circular economy movement. Shojaei et al. ( Shojaei et al. , 2021 ) performed a life cycle analysis on HVAC (Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) products, such as air conditioners, package units, gas furnaces, and split system heat pumps, using hyperledger fabric and a web interface. They kept track of the life cycles of the products to assist in decision making and proactive planning for the maximum amount of material reuse. Nandi et al. Nandi et al. ( 2021 ) proposed blockchain for repairability and reuse of medical equipment. Locating devices will be used to store or deliver replacement parts. By using a public blockchain, designs for 3D-printable products will be shared for repair and reuse, also mitigating concerns over property rights. To maintain circular supply chain management in the fast fashion industry, Rehman Khan et al. have designed a system architecture and implemented blockchain for material reuse management at the application layer of the architecture. The study in ( Shou and Domenech , 2022 ) investigated how blockchain technology can help create a secondary market for previously used leather handbags. The study delved deeper into how to keep track of used goods to facilitate the expansion of the secondary market. The results indicate that used-goods trading platforms can be established if products and their life cycles can be monitored. This would boost secondary market performance and might even make primary production obsolete. Currently, construction and demolition trash are seen as chores, although it is a consequence of the construction process. This debris can be reused and traded, and blockchain technology could be used to develop a universal waste management system that treats garbage as a resource ( Perera et al. , 2020 ) . According to ( Kouhizadeh et al. , 2019 ) , blockchain technology can provide a decentralized used-goods market. With the support of information transparency and verifiability of used goods’ quality and condition, the transition to a circular economy can move even more quickly and may produce new goods that utilize the secondary market. In another study, authors in ( Hatzivasilis et al. , 2021 ) mentioned Cablenet, noting that the company resells its circular assets if their utility exceeds a certain threshold. This facilitates the economic reuse of products. Iyer et al. implemented a system to reuse wastewater utilizing IoT, machine learning, and IBM’s Hyperledger fabric blockchain. Industries receive tokens in the form of cryptocurrency based on how much waste they reuse.

4.3 RQ3: How blockchain technology can facilitate the Recycle in CE?

Recycling means disassembling products into their component parts and dissolving or reprocessing them into new forms. Figure 6 illustrates the waste recycling procedure. A blockchain-based product analysis enables the transition toward a circular business model. Using blockchain, it is possible to track all products from their point of origin through their sale and recycling. Centobelli et al. implemented a circular supply chain by implementing Hyperledger Fabric and a PoC (proof of concept) consensus mechanism. A circular supply network, including manufacturers, reverse logistics service providers, recycling centers, selection centers, and landfill, was modeled. Each is a participant in the permissioned blockchain. Here, the selection center collects all recyclable garbage and the recycling center recycles and distributes the items to the manufacturers. Recereum is a blockchain-based platform for profiting from trash and recyclables ( Consortium et al. , 2017 ) . This blockchain facilitates direct communication between users and the trash collection provider. Recereum network rewards users with Recereum coins, the blockchain’s native currency, based on the value of their recyclables. Ethereum powers the Recereum network. Chidepatil et al. ( Chidepatil et al. , 2020a ) introduced a blockchain-based, multi-sensor, AI-driven system for recycling plastic waste. Participants validate digital data recorded as a transaction; this data can then be used to facilitate the recycling or repurposing of plastic products. To incentivize participation in the validation process, participants receive cryptocurrency rewards. One of the major problems of the digital circular economy is motivating rivals to trade data while preserving property rights and privacy and fostering trust for recycled products (Antikainen et al., 2018 ) . Smart contracts can be used to protect intellectual property rights and designs from counterfeiting and unauthorized usage. Cobalt Blockchain (COBC) has been offered 40,000 tons of cobalt concentrate/annum with a minimum grade of 1% cobalt from DRC artisanal mines using blockchain to trace cobalt from mines to the point of consumption, hence enabling cobalt recycling ( Chen and Ogunseitan , 2021 ) . Shojaei et al. Shojaei et al. developed a blockchain-based system to monitor the product lifecycle throughout the supply chain. They noted that material traceability and performance records can be used to boost future output. The record of products and materials in each facility, as well as their current condition, could facilitate active recycling. The authors in ( Kouhizadeh et al. , 2019 ) mentioned that businesses could share recyclable waste without the use of intermediaries using blockchain technology, increasing their profit margin. Furthermore, depending on aspects like the quantity, quality, and reusability of the waste, smart contracts can be used to exchange waste. Furthermore, to ensure ownership rights for waste, recyclable data can also be recorded on blockchain. Using blockchain, information about the supply chain and the recycling status of products can be stored, updated, and published. Users will then be able to identify eco-friendly products before making a purchase, promoting the circular economy ( Wolf et al. , 2022 ) . Consumers’ eco-conscious behaviors can provide a significant boost to the Circular economy transition. Numerous companies reward crypto-tokens or cryptocurrency to customers who purchase environmentally friendly products. Recycling, waste reduction, local consumption, etc. are examples of eco-friendly consumer practices ( Esmaeilian et al. , 2020 ) .

4.4 RQ4: How blockchain technology can facilitate the Recover in CE?

In the circular economy, recovery refers to the extraction of resources and compounds from waste, by-products, and residues. It is feasible to confirm the authenticity of the recovered components using blockchain technology. Once chemicals or residues have been recovered, the associated data can be recorded on a blockchain, which allows for circular economy incentives to be implemented when the recovered components are used in another product. Using smart contracts, blockchain can record the terms and conditions of waste management and related initiatives, enabling a digital waste recovery process in addition to enhancing the circular economy ( Rejeb et al. , 2022a ) . The authors in ( Magrini et al. , 2021 ) have provided solutions and business models to enable a circular economy, stating that blockchain is anticipated to address the inefficiencies of the traditional Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system by establishing a link between the product’s origin and its recovery. This can accelerate the recovery process. As part of the EU Circular Foam program, Electrolux is working with polymer manufacturer Covestro to recover polyurethane foam from refrigerators ( Murphy and MacArthur Foundation , ) . Using blockchain can enable producers to record information about proper refrigerator disassembly and the most efficient method for foam recovery. Integrating blockchain with the “Aitana” artificial intelligence platform and Telefónica Tech’s Blockchain-based TrustOs, Telefónica Tech and Exxita Be Circular created the “Green passport” for circular management of device life cycles ( Tech , 2022 ) . The Green passport uses consumer information and device tracing mechanisms to promote device recovery. Green passports have been distributed in roughly 500,000 devices that are recovered annually. Efficient “product return management” will require data-driven decision-making in e-commerce reverse logistics, and blockchain application in logistics can play a significant role in value recovery ( Dutta et al. , 2020 ) . Blockchain can record data about material wastage and copyright and recovery processes. Consequently, any recovery facility or remanufacturer can trace products and implement recovery strategies ( Chen and Ogunseitan , 2021 ) .

4.5 RQ5: What potential barriers could a blockchain-based Circular economy face?

Blockchain has the potential to support a circular economy, but it must first overcome obstacles such as scalability, the need for sophisticated software development tools, consumer behavior, and complex systems ( Kouhizadeh et al. , 2019 ) . Also, organizational, financial, technological, environmental and social barriers may prevail ( Queiroz and Wamba , 2019 ) . We have researched relevant literature on the constraints of blockchain-based business models for the circular economy and have identified eight significant barriers for shifting toward a circular economy. They are: i. lack of consumers’ understanding and motivation; ii. the existing linear system; iii. an expensive process of 4R products; iv. scalability and slow transactions per second (TPS); v. very few experts in blockchain; vi. inter/intra organizational obstacles; vii. government regulations and policies and viii. high resource requirements for blockchain. We have provided a brief description of each barrier in Table 7 and referred to related studies that mentioned it.

5 Discussion

The traditional “take-make-dispose” economic model is rapidly degrading the environment around us. Therefore, the transition to a circular economy is vital for everyone. Though blockchain is in its early stages, it already has showcased enormous potential. However, there are several obstacles that prevent it from being used to its fullest capacity. To overcome the constraints of this technology, several forces must collaborate and a massive research effort is necessary.

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the many blockchain-based solutions that serve as foundations or drivers in the creation and implementation of CE models. In this paper, we have used research questions to investigate the potential role of blockchain technology in facilitating the transition to a circular economy within the context of the 4R framework, as well as the challenges inherent to a blockchain-based CE. We summarise our findings in this section.

From the standpoint of our research questions, we first present the following summary.

There were five types of categories we utilized to determine how relevant anything was to the 4Rs: (1) Reduce, (2) Reuse, (3) Recycle, (4) Recover, and (5) Applicability to all four ideas, as shown in Table 8 .

The most striking finding of Table 8 is that most of the research is primarily focused on the “reduce” CE notion. This fits perfectly the structured organization of the CE frameworks. Putting “reduce” ahead of “reuse“, “recycle” and “recover” is crucial because it helps avoid problems such as quality degradation that can occur during recycling and reuse, the consumption of resources required by recycling and restoration, and so on. In “reduce” potential residual asset flows are cut off well before the product even goes into circulation. On the other hand, just a few answers were pertinent to the “recover” idea by itself. And unfortunately, only one research revealed applicability to all four concepts. Not only are there a few theoretical examples of how CE might profit from blockchain technology, but there are also limited actual case studies that deal with sustainability challenges. Since all of the 4R concepts are closely related to each other, finding a solution for one CE concept does not mean that it cannot also be used for another CE concept. That is why it is important to study this 4R approach in greater depth.

Table 7 also shows that the most frequently cited barriers in the transition to a circular economy are the lack of customer knowledge and motivation, inter/intra-organizational obstacles, and high resource requirements for blockchain. Figure 7 presents the percentage of frequently cited barriers in the reviewed studies.

A further significant observation is that several of the solutions utilized technology from many categories. This is because IoT, blockchain, machine learning, and AI are intertwined. Integrating blockchain with IoT in a supply chain, for instance, might boost business performance, as IoT devices are not only more productive than people but also make fewer mistakes in inventory management. In addition, it might be helpful to provide real-time traceability of goods within storage facilities, warehouses, or other places, which can help reduce product damage and maximize its utility.

6 Conclusion and further research scopes

There is no doubt that blockchain technology can bring benefits to the notion of circular economy. By altering the current state of recordkeeping and the value proposition, blockchain will accelerate the entire process. However, blockchain have obstacles to overcome.

This article summarizes previous research in this field and concludes that the 4R-framework of circular economy (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover) can be successfully implemented with blockchain serving as a key enabler. This article classifies blockchain’s role as a CE enabler into four distinct categories. (1) promoting a circular economy by rewarding NFTs and cryptocurrencies; (2) enhancing the transparency of the product life cycle; (3) reducing operational costs and enabling efficient systems; and (4) enhancing organizational performance through data sharing. These four categories act as catalysts for the implementation of a circular economy by extending product life, decreasing resource consumption, and providing transparency for reused and recovered products. In addition, we identified eight barriers to a CE-based circular economy, including a lack of consumer understanding and motivation, the existing linear system, an expensive process for 4R products, scalability and slow transaction per second (TPS), very few blockchain experts, inter/intra-organizational obstacles, government regulations and policies, and high resource requirements for blockchain. Simply put, blockchain is a technology, but the circularity of the economy is contingent on the vision and strategies selected by businesses to govern their processes. Blockchain can be an effective option, but additional research and optimization are necessary to expand its applications.

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Transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy: Literature review and red-flag symptom clusters for each cardiology specialty

Affiliations.

• 1 Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan.
• 2 Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan.
• 3 Department of Cardiology and Geriatrics, Kochi Medical School, Kochi University, Kochi, Japan.
• 4 Department of Cardiology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
• 5 Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Shinshu University School of Medicine, Matsumoto, Japan.
• 6 Pfizer Japan Inc., Tokyo, Japan.
• PMID: 39168835
• DOI: 10.1002/ehf2.15016

Wild-type transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTRwt-CM) is a progressive and infiltrative cardiac disorder that may cause fatal consequences if left untreated. The estimated survival time from diagnosis is approximately 3-6 years. Because of the non-specificity of initial symptom manifestation and insufficient awareness among treating physicians, approximately one-third of patients with ATTRwt-CM are initially misdiagnosed with other cardiac diseases. Although heart failure (HF) is the most common initial manifestation of ATTRwt-CM, observed in nearly 70% of affected patients, patients may also present with other cardiologic symptoms, such as atrial fibrillation (AF) and aortic stenosis (AS). This non-specific and diverse nature of the initial ATTRwt-CM presentation indicates that various cardiology subspecialties are involved in patient diagnosis and management. Standard guideline-directed pharmacological treatment for HF is not recommended for patients with ATTRwt-CM because of its limited effectiveness. However, no established algorithms are available regarding HF management in this patient population. This literature review provides an overview of the red flags for ATTRwt-CM and research findings regarding HF management in this patient population. In addition to commonly recognized red flags for ATTRwt-CM (e.g., HF, AF and severe AS), published literature identified potential red flags such as coronary microvascular dysfunction. For HF management in patients with ATTRwt-CM, the use of mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRAs) was reported as a well-tolerated option associated with a low discontinuation rate and reduced mortality. Although there is no concrete evidence for recommendations against sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor (SGLT2i) administration, research supporting its use is limited to small-scale studies. Robust evidence is lacking for AF ablation, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators and cardiac resynchronization therapy. Based on the published findings and our clinical experience as Japanese ATTRwt-CM experts, red-flag symptom clusters for each cardiology specialty (HF, arrhythmia and ischaemia/structural heart disease) and a treatment scheme for HF management are presented. As this research area remains at an exploratory stage, our observations would require further discussion among experts worldwide.

Keywords: arrhythmia; heart failure; ischaemia; management; red flags; transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy.

© 2024 Pfizer Japan Inc and The Authors. ESC Heart Failure published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Society of Cardiology.

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• Tahara N, Lairez O, Endo J, Okada A, Ueda M, Ishii T, et al. 99mTechnetium‐pyrophosphate scintigraphy: A practical guide for early diagnosis of transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy. ESC Heart Fail 2022;9:251‐262. doi:10.1002/ehf2.13693
• Kitaoka H, Izumi C, Izumiya Y, Inomata T, Ueda M, Kubo T, et al. JCS 2020 guideline on diagnosis and treatment of cardiac amyloidosis. Circ J 2020;84:1610‐1671. doi:10.1253/circj.CJ‐20‐0110
• Inomata T, Tahara N, Nakamura K, Endo J, Ueda M, Ishii T, et al. Diagnosis of wild‐type transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy in Japan: Red‐flag symptom clusters and diagnostic algorithm. ESC Heart Fail 2021;8:2647‐2659. doi:10.1002/ehf2.13473
• Maurer MS, Schwartz JH, Gundapaneni B, Elliott PM, Merlini G, Waddington‐Cruz M, et al. Tafamidis treatment for patients with transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy. N Engl J Med 2018;379:1007‐1016. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1805689
• Ruberg FL, Berk JL. Transthyretin (TTR) cardiac amyloidosis. Circulation 2012;126:1286‐1300. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.111.078915

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