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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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• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

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.

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 summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

Why write 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, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will 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 scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. 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 objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. 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 if 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 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 use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

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.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

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?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• 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 find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

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’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference 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.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to 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 organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

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 summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse 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 organise 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.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

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, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, 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 transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

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

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

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 dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

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

• To familiarise 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  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

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A literature review surveys prior research published in books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE: Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

• An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
• Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
• An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

• Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
• Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
• Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
• Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

• Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
• Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
• History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
• Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
• Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

• Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
• You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
• Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
• Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
• Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
• Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
• Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

• How are they organizing their ideas?
• What methods have they used to study the problem?
• What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
• What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
• How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

• Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
• Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
• Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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Research Methods

• Getting Started
• Literature Review Research
• Research Design
• Research Design By Discipline
• SAGE Research Methods
• Teaching with SAGE Research Methods

Literature Review

• What is a Literature Review?
• What is NOT a Literature Review?
• Purposes of a Literature Review
• Types of Literature Reviews
• Literature Reviews vs. Systematic Reviews
• Systematic vs. Meta-Analysis

Literature Review  is a comprehensive survey of the works published in a particular field of study or line of research, usually over a specific period of time, in the form of an in-depth, critical bibliographic essay or annotated list in which attention is drawn to the most significant works.

Also, we can define a literature review as the collected body of scholarly works related to a topic:

• Summarizes and analyzes previous research relevant to a topic
• Includes scholarly books and articles published in academic journals
• Can be an specific scholarly paper or a section in a research paper

The objective of a Literature Review is to find previous published scholarly works relevant to an specific topic

• Help gather ideas or information
• Keep up to date in current trends and findings
• Help develop new questions

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.
• Helps focus your own research questions or problems
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Suggests unexplored ideas or populations
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Tests assumptions; may help counter preconceived ideas and remove unconscious bias.
• Identifies critical gaps, points of disagreement, or potentially flawed methodology or theoretical approaches.
• Indicates potential directions for future research.

All content in this section is from Literature Review Research from Old Dominion University 

Keep in mind the following, a literature review is NOT:

Not an essay 

Not an annotated bibliography  in which you summarize each article that you have reviewed.  A literature review goes beyond basic summarizing to focus on the critical analysis of the reviewed works and their relationship to your research question.

Not a research paper   where you select resources to support one side of an issue versus another.  A lit review should explain and consider all sides of an argument in order to avoid bias, and areas of agreement and disagreement should be highlighted.

A literature review serves several purposes. For example, it

• provides thorough knowledge of previous studies; introduces seminal works.
• helps focus one’s own research topic.
• identifies a conceptual framework for one’s own research questions or problems; indicates potential directions for future research.
• suggests previously unused or underused methodologies, designs, quantitative and qualitative strategies.
• identifies gaps in previous studies; identifies flawed methodologies and/or theoretical approaches; avoids replication of mistakes.
• helps the researcher avoid repetition of earlier research.
• suggests unexplored populations.
• determines whether past studies agree or disagree; identifies controversy in the literature.
• tests assumptions; may help counter preconceived ideas and remove unconscious bias.

As Kennedy (2007) notes*, it is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the original studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally that become part of the lore of field. In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews.

Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are several approaches to how they can be done, depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study. Listed below are definitions of types of literature reviews:

Argumentative Review      This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply imbedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews.

Integrative Review      Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication.

Historical Review      Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical reviews are focused on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review      A review does not always focus on what someone said [content], but how they said it [method of analysis]. This approach provides a framework of understanding at different levels (i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches and data collection and analysis techniques), enables researchers to draw on a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection and data analysis, and helps highlight many ethical issues which we should be aware of and consider as we go through our study.

Systematic Review      This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review. Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?"

Theoretical Review      The purpose of this form is to concretely examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review help establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

* Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature."  Educational Researcher  36 (April 2007): 139-147.

All content in this section is from The Literature Review created by Dr. Robert Larabee USC

Robinson, P. and Lowe, J. (2015),  Literature reviews vs systematic reviews.  Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 39: 103-103. doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.12393

What's in the name? The difference between a Systematic Review and a Literature Review, and why it matters . By Lynn Kysh from University of Southern California

Systematic review or meta-analysis?

A  systematic review  answers a defined research question by collecting and summarizing all empirical evidence that fits pre-specified eligibility criteria.

A  meta-analysis  is the use of statistical methods to summarize the results of these studies.

Systematic reviews, just like other research articles, can be of varying quality. They are a significant piece of work (the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at York estimates that a team will take 9-24 months), and to be useful to other researchers and practitioners they should have:

• clearly stated objectives with pre-defined eligibility criteria for studies
• explicit, reproducible methodology
• a systematic search that attempts to identify all studies
• assessment of the validity of the findings of the included studies (e.g. risk of bias)
• systematic presentation, and synthesis, of the characteristics and findings of the included studies

Not all systematic reviews contain meta-analysis. 

Meta-analysis is the use of statistical methods to summarize the results of independent studies. By combining information from all relevant studies, meta-analysis can provide more precise estimates of the effects of health care than those derived from the individual studies included within a review.  More information on meta-analyses can be found in  Cochrane Handbook, Chapter 9 .

A meta-analysis goes beyond critique and integration and conducts secondary statistical analysis on the outcomes of similar studies.  It is a systematic review that uses quantitative methods to synthesize and summarize the results.

An advantage of a meta-analysis is the ability to be completely objective in evaluating research findings.  Not all topics, however, have sufficient research evidence to allow a meta-analysis to be conducted.  In that case, an integrative review is an appropriate strategy. 

Some of the content in this section is from Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: step by step guide created by Kate McAllister.

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YSN Doctoral Programs: Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

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• 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.
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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: .

• 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.

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.

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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: 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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How to write a good literature review 

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. 

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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. 

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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: 3 Essential Ingredients

The theoretical framework, empirical research and research gap

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Reviewer: Eunice Rautenbach (DTech) | July 2023

Writing a comprehensive but concise literature review is no simple task. There’s a lot of ground to cover and it can be challenging to figure out what’s important and what’s not. In this post, we’ll unpack three essential ingredients that need to be woven into your literature review to lay a rock-solid foundation for your study.

This post is based on our popular online course, Literature Review Bootcamp . In the course, we walk you through the full process of developing a literature review, step by step. If it’s your first time writing a literature review, you definitely want to use this link to get 50% off the course (limited-time offer).

Overview: Essential Ingredients

• Ingredients vs structure
• The theoretical framework (foundation of theory)
• The empirical research
• The research gap
• Summary & key takeaways

Ingredients vs Structure

As a starting point, it’s important to clarify that the three ingredients we’ll cover in this video are things that need to feature within your literature review, as opposed to a set structure for your chapter . In other words, there are different ways you can weave these three ingredients into your literature review. Regardless of which structure you opt for, each of the three components will make an appearance in some shape or form. If you’re keen to learn more about structural options, we’ve got a dedicated post about that here .

1. The Theoretical Framework

Let’s kick off with the first essential ingredient – that is the theoretical framework , also called the foundation of theory . 

The foundation of theory, as the name suggests, is where you’ll lay down the foundational building blocks for your literature review so that your reader can get a clear idea of the core concepts, theories and assumptions (in relation to your research aims and questions) that will guide your study. Note that this is not the same as a conceptual framework .

Typically you’ll cover a few things within the theoretical framework:

Firstly, you’ll need to clearly define the key constructs and variables that will feature within your study. In many cases, any given term can have multiple different definitions or interpretations – for example, different people will define the concept of “integrity” in different ways. This variation in interpretation can, of course, wreak havoc on how your study is understood. So, this section is where you’ll pin down what exactly you mean when you refer to X, Y or Z in your study, as well as why you chose that specific definition. It’s also a good idea to state any assumptions that are inherent in these definitions and why these are acceptable, given the purpose of your study.

Related to this, the second thing you’ll need to cover in your theoretical framework is the relationships between these variables and/or constructs . For example, how does one variable potentially affect another variable – does A have an impact on B, B on A, and so on? In other words, you want to connect the dots between the different “things” of interest that you’ll be exploring in your study. Note that you only need to focus on the key items of interest here (i.e. those most central to your research aims and questions) – not every possible construct or variable.

Lastly, and very importantly, you need to discuss the existing theories that are relevant to your research aims and research questions . For example, if you’re investigating the uptake/adoption of a certain application or software, you might discuss Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model and unpack what it has to say about the factors that influence technology adoption. More importantly, though, you need to explain how this impacts your expectations about what you will find in your own study . In other words, your theoretical framework should reveal some insights about what answers you might expect to find to your research questions .

If this sounds a bit fluffy, don’t worry. We deep dive into the theoretical framework (as well as the conceptual framework) and look at practical examples in Literature Review Bootcamp . If you’d like to learn more, take advantage of the limited-time offer (60% off the standard price).

Need a helping hand?

2. The Empirical Research

Onto the second essential ingredient, which is  empirical research . This section is where you’ll present a critical discussion of the existing empirical research that is relevant to your research aims and questions.

But what exactly is empirical research?

Simply put, empirical research includes any study that involves actual data collection and analysis , whether that’s qualitative data, quantitative data, or a mix of both . This contrasts against purely theoretical literature (the previous ingredient), which draws its conclusions based exclusively on logic and reason , as opposed to an analysis of real-world data.

In other words, theoretical literature provides a prediction or expectation of what one might find based on reason and logic, whereas empirical research tests the accuracy of those predictions using actual real-world data . This reflects the broader process of knowledge creation – in other words, first developing a theory and then testing it out in the field.

Long story short, the second essential ingredient of a high-quality literature review is a critical discussion of the existing empirical research . Here, it’s important to go beyond description . You’ll need to present a critical analysis that addresses some (if not all) of the following questions:

• What have different studies found in relation to your research questions ?
• What contexts have (and haven’t been covered)? For example, certain countries, cities, cultures, etc.
• Are the findings across the studies similar or is there a lot of variation ? If so, why might this be the case?
• What sorts of research methodologies have been used and how could these help me develop my own methodology?
• What were the noteworthy limitations of these studies?

Simply put, your task here is to present a synthesis of what’s been done (and found) within the empirical research, so that you can clearly assess the current state of knowledge and identify potential research gaps , which leads us to our third essential ingredient.

The Research Gap

The third essential ingredient of a high-quality literature review is a discussion of the research gap (or gaps).

But what exactly is a research gap?

Simply put, a research gap is any unaddressed or inadequately explored area within the existing body of academic knowledge. In other words, a research gap emerges whenever there’s still some uncertainty regarding a certain topic or question.

For example, it might be the case that there are mixed findings regarding the relationship between two variables (e.g., job performance and work-from-home policies). Similarly, there might be a lack of research regarding the impact of a specific new technology on people’s mental health. On the other end of the spectrum, there might be a wealth of research regarding a certain topic within one country (say the US), but very little research on that same topic in a different social context (say, China).

These are just random examples, but as you can see, research gaps can emerge from many different places. What’s important to understand is that the research gap (or gaps) needs to emerge from your previous discussion of the theoretical and empirical literature . In other words, your discussion in those sections needs to start laying the foundation for the research gap.

For example, when discussing empirical research, you might mention that most studies have focused on a certain context , yet very few (or none) have focused on another context, and there’s reason to believe that findings may differ. Or you might highlight how there’s a fair deal of mixed findings and disagreement regarding a certain matter. In other words, you want to start laying a little breadcrumb trail in those sections so that your discussion of the research gap is firmly rooted in the rest of the literature review.

But why does all of this matter?

Well, the research gap should serve as the core justification for your study . Through your literature review, you’ll show what gaps exist in the current body of knowledge, and then your study will then attempt to fill (or contribute towards filling) one of those gaps. In other words, you’re first explaining what the problem is (some sort of gap) and then proposing how you’ll solve it.

Key Takeaways

To recap, the three ingredients that need to be mixed into your literature review are:

• The foundation of theory or theoretical framework
• The empirical or evidence-based research

As we mentioned earlier, these are components of a literature review and not (necessarily) a structure for your literature review chapter. Of course, you can structure your chapter in a way that reflects these three components (in fact, in some cases that works very well), but it’s certainly not the only option. The right structure will vary from study to study , depending on various factors.

If you’d like to get hands-on help developing your literature review, be sure to check out our private coaching service , where we hold your hand through the entire research journey, step by step. 

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

very good , as the first writer of the thesis i will need ur advise . please give me a piece of idea on topic -impact of national standardized exam on students learning engagement . Thank you .

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Literature Reviews

• What is a Literature Review?
• Steps for Creating a Literature Review
• Providing Evidence / Critical Analysis
• Challenges when writing a Literature Review
• Systematic Literature Reviews

Developing a Literature Review

1. Purpose and Scope

To help you develop a literature review, gather information on existing research, sub-topics, relevant research, and overlaps. Note initial thoughts on the topic - a mind map or list might be helpful - and avoid unfocused reading, collecting irrelevant content.  A literature review serves to place your research within the context of existing knowledge. It demonstrates your understanding of the field and identifies gaps that your research aims to fill. This helps in justifying the relevance and necessity of your study.

To avoid over-reading, set a target word count for each section and limit reading time. Plan backwards from the deadline and move on to other parts of the investigation. Read major texts and explore up-to-date research. Check reference lists and citation indexes for common standard texts. Be guided by research questions and refocus on your topic when needed. Stop reading if you find similar viewpoints or if you're going off topic.

You can use a "Synthesis Matrix" to keep track of your reading notes. This concept map helps you to provide a summary of the literature and its connections is produced as a result of this study. Utilizing referencing software like RefWorks to obtain citations, you can construct the framework for composing your literature evaluation.

2. Source Selection

Focus on searching for academically authoritative texts such as academic books, journals, research reports, and government publications. These sources are critical for ensuring the credibility and reliability of your review. 

• Academic Books: Provide comprehensive coverage of a topic.
• Journal Articles: Offer the most up-to-date research and are essential for a literature review.
• Research Reports: Detailed accounts of specific research projects.
• Government Publications: Official documents that provide reliable data and insights.

3. Thematic Analysis

Instead of merely summarizing sources, identify and discuss key themes that emerge from the literature. This involves interpreting and evaluating how different authors have tackled similar issues and how their findings relate to your research.

4. Critical Evaluation

Adopt a critical attitude towards the sources you review. Scrutinize, question, and dissect the material to ensure that your review is not just descriptive but analytical. This helps in highlighting the significance of various sources and their relevance to your research.

Each work's critical assessment should take into account:

Provenance:  What qualifications does the author have? Are the author's claims backed up by proof, such as first-hand accounts from history, case studies, stories, statistics, and current scientific discoveries? Methodology:  Were the strategies employed to locate, collect, and evaluate the data suitable for tackling the study question? Was the sample size suitable? Were the findings properly reported and interpreted? Objectivity : Is the author's viewpoint impartial or biased? Does the author's thesis get supported by evidence that refutes it, or does it ignore certain important facts? Persuasiveness:  Which of the author's arguments is the strongest or weakest in terms of persuasiveness? Value:  Are the author's claims and deductions believable? Does the study ultimately advance our understanding of the issue in any meaningful way?

5. Categorization

Organize your literature review by grouping sources into categories based on themes, relevance to research questions, theoretical paradigms, or chronology. This helps in presenting your findings in a structured manner.

6. Source Validity

Ensure that the sources you include are valid and reliable. Classic texts may retain their authority over time, but for fields that evolve rapidly, prioritize the most recent research. Always check the credibility of the authors and the impact of their work in the field.

7. Synthesis and Findings

Synthesize the information from various sources to draw conclusions about the current state of knowledge. Identify trends, controversies, and gaps in the literature. Relate your findings to your research questions and suggest future directions for research.

Practical Tips

• Use a variety of sources, including online databases, university libraries, and reference lists from relevant articles. This ensures a comprehensive coverage of the literature.
• Avoid listing sources without analysis. Use tables, bulk citations, and footnotes to manage references efficiently and make your review more readable.
• Writing a literature review is an ongoing process. Start writing early and revise as you read more. This iterative process helps in refining your arguments and identifying additional sources as needed.  

Brown University Library (2024) Organizing and Creating Information. Available at: https://libguides.brown.edu/organize/litreview (Accessed: 30 July 2024).

Pacheco-Vega, R. (2016) Synthesizing different bodies of work in your literature review: The Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump (CSED) technique . Available at: http://www.raulpacheco.org/2016/06/synthesizing-different-bodies-of-work-in-your-literature-review-the-conceptual-synthesis-excel-dump-technique/ (Accessed: 30 July 2024).

Study Advice at the University of Reading (2024) Literature reviews . Available at: https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/literaturereview/developing (Accessed: 31 July 2024).

Further Reading

Frameworks for creating answerable (re)search questions  How to Guide

Literature Searching How to Guide

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Home » Literature Review – Types Writing Guide and Examples

Literature Review – Types Writing Guide and Examples

Table of Contents

Literature Review

Definition:

A literature review is a comprehensive and critical analysis of the existing literature on a particular topic or research question. It involves identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing relevant literature, including scholarly articles, books, and other sources, to provide a summary and critical assessment of what is known about the topic.

Types of Literature Review

Types of Literature Review are as follows:

• Narrative literature review : This type of review involves a comprehensive summary and critical analysis of the available literature on a particular topic or research question. It is often used as an introductory section of a research paper.
• Systematic literature review: This is a rigorous and structured review that follows a pre-defined protocol to identify, evaluate, and synthesize all relevant studies on a specific research question. It is often used in evidence-based practice and systematic reviews.
• Meta-analysis: This is a quantitative review that uses statistical methods to combine data from multiple studies to derive a summary effect size. It provides a more precise estimate of the overall effect than any individual study.
• Scoping review: This is a preliminary review that aims to map the existing literature on a broad topic area to identify research gaps and areas for further investigation.
• Critical literature review : This type of review evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature on a particular topic or research question. It aims to provide a critical analysis of the literature and identify areas where further research is needed.
• Conceptual literature review: This review synthesizes and integrates theories and concepts from multiple sources to provide a new perspective on a particular topic. It aims to provide a theoretical framework for understanding a particular research question.
• Rapid literature review: This is a quick review that provides a snapshot of the current state of knowledge on a specific research question or topic. It is often used when time and resources are limited.
• Thematic literature review : This review identifies and analyzes common themes and patterns across a body of literature on a particular topic. It aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature and identify key themes and concepts.
• Realist literature review: This review is often used in social science research and aims to identify how and why certain interventions work in certain contexts. It takes into account the context and complexities of real-world situations.
• State-of-the-art literature review : This type of review provides an overview of the current state of knowledge in a particular field, highlighting the most recent and relevant research. It is often used in fields where knowledge is rapidly evolving, such as technology or medicine.
• Integrative literature review: This type of review synthesizes and integrates findings from multiple studies on a particular topic to identify patterns, themes, and gaps in the literature. It aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current state of knowledge on a particular topic.
• Umbrella literature review : This review is used to provide a broad overview of a large and diverse body of literature on a particular topic. It aims to identify common themes and patterns across different areas of research.
• Historical literature review: This type of review examines the historical development of research on a particular topic or research question. It aims to provide a historical context for understanding the current state of knowledge on a particular topic.
• Problem-oriented literature review : This review focuses on a specific problem or issue and examines the literature to identify potential solutions or interventions. It aims to provide practical recommendations for addressing a particular problem or issue.
• Mixed-methods literature review : This type of review combines quantitative and qualitative methods to synthesize and analyze the available literature on a particular topic. It aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the research question by combining different types of evidence.

Parts of Literature Review

Parts of a literature review are as follows:

Introduction

The introduction of a literature review typically provides background information on the research topic and why it is important. It outlines the objectives of the review, the research question or hypothesis, and the scope of the review.

Literature Search

This section outlines the search strategy and databases used to identify relevant literature. The search terms used, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and any limitations of the search are described.

Literature Analysis

The literature analysis is the main body of the literature review. This section summarizes and synthesizes the literature that is relevant to the research question or hypothesis. The review should be organized thematically, chronologically, or by methodology, depending on the research objectives.

Critical Evaluation

Critical evaluation involves assessing the quality and validity of the literature. This includes evaluating the reliability and validity of the studies reviewed, the methodology used, and the strength of the evidence.

The conclusion of the literature review should summarize the main findings, identify any gaps in the literature, and suggest areas for future research. It should also reiterate the importance of the research question or hypothesis and the contribution of the literature review to the overall research project.

The references list includes all the sources cited in the literature review, and follows a specific referencing style (e.g., APA, MLA, Harvard).

How to write Literature Review

Here are some steps to follow when writing a literature review:

• Define your research question or topic : Before starting your literature review, it is essential to define your research question or topic. This will help you identify relevant literature and determine the scope of your review.
• Conduct a comprehensive search: Use databases and search engines to find relevant literature. Look for peer-reviewed articles, books, and other academic sources that are relevant to your research question or topic.
• Evaluate the sources: Once you have found potential sources, evaluate them critically to determine their relevance, credibility, and quality. Look for recent publications, reputable authors, and reliable sources of data and evidence.
• Organize your sources: Group the sources by theme, method, or research question. This will help you identify similarities and differences among the literature, and provide a structure for your literature review.
• Analyze and synthesize the literature : Analyze each source in depth, identifying the key findings, methodologies, and conclusions. Then, synthesize the information from the sources, identifying patterns and themes in the literature.
• Write the literature review : Start with an introduction that provides an overview of the topic and the purpose of the literature review. Then, organize the literature according to your chosen structure, and analyze and synthesize the sources. Finally, provide a conclusion that summarizes the key findings of the literature review, identifies gaps in knowledge, and suggests areas for future research.
• Edit and proofread: Once you have written your literature review, edit and proofread it carefully to ensure that it is well-organized, clear, and concise.

Examples of Literature Review

Here’s an example of how a literature review can be conducted for a thesis on the topic of “ The Impact of Social Media on Teenagers’ Mental Health”:

• Start by identifying the key terms related to your research topic. In this case, the key terms are “social media,” “teenagers,” and “mental health.”
• Use academic databases like Google Scholar, JSTOR, or PubMed to search for relevant articles, books, and other publications. Use these keywords in your search to narrow down your results.
• Evaluate the sources you find to determine if they are relevant to your research question. You may want to consider the publication date, author’s credentials, and the journal or book publisher.
• Begin reading and taking notes on each source, paying attention to key findings, methodologies used, and any gaps in the research.
• Organize your findings into themes or categories. For example, you might categorize your sources into those that examine the impact of social media on self-esteem, those that explore the effects of cyberbullying, and those that investigate the relationship between social media use and depression.
• Synthesize your findings by summarizing the key themes and highlighting any gaps or inconsistencies in the research. Identify areas where further research is needed.
• Use your literature review to inform your research questions and hypotheses for your thesis.

For example, after conducting a literature review on the impact of social media on teenagers’ mental health, a thesis might look like this:

“Using a mixed-methods approach, this study aims to investigate the relationship between social media use and mental health outcomes in teenagers. Specifically, the study will examine the effects of cyberbullying, social comparison, and excessive social media use on self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. Through an analysis of survey data and qualitative interviews with teenagers, the study will provide insight into the complex relationship between social media use and mental health outcomes, and identify strategies for promoting positive mental health outcomes in young people.”

Reference: Smith, J., Jones, M., & Lee, S. (2019). The effects of social media use on adolescent mental health: A systematic review. Journal of Adolescent Health, 65(2), 154-165. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.03.024

Reference Example: Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number), page range. doi:0000000/000000000000 or URL

Applications of Literature Review

some applications of literature review in different fields:

• Social Sciences: In social sciences, literature reviews are used to identify gaps in existing research, to develop research questions, and to provide a theoretical framework for research. Literature reviews are commonly used in fields such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, and political science.
• Natural Sciences: In natural sciences, literature reviews are used to summarize and evaluate the current state of knowledge in a particular field or subfield. Literature reviews can help researchers identify areas where more research is needed and provide insights into the latest developments in a particular field. Fields such as biology, chemistry, and physics commonly use literature reviews.
• Health Sciences: In health sciences, literature reviews are used to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments, identify best practices, and determine areas where more research is needed. Literature reviews are commonly used in fields such as medicine, nursing, and public health.
• Humanities: In humanities, literature reviews are used to identify gaps in existing knowledge, develop new interpretations of texts or cultural artifacts, and provide a theoretical framework for research. Literature reviews are commonly used in fields such as history, literary studies, and philosophy.

Role of Literature Review in Research

Here are some applications of literature review in research:

• Identifying Research Gaps : Literature review helps researchers identify gaps in existing research and literature related to their research question. This allows them to develop new research questions and hypotheses to fill those gaps.
• Developing Theoretical Framework: Literature review helps researchers develop a theoretical framework for their research. By analyzing and synthesizing existing literature, researchers can identify the key concepts, theories, and models that are relevant to their research.
• Selecting Research Methods : Literature review helps researchers select appropriate research methods and techniques based on previous research. It also helps researchers to identify potential biases or limitations of certain methods and techniques.
• Data Collection and Analysis: Literature review helps researchers in data collection and analysis by providing a foundation for the development of data collection instruments and methods. It also helps researchers to identify relevant data sources and identify potential data analysis techniques.
• Communicating Results: Literature review helps researchers to communicate their results effectively by providing a context for their research. It also helps to justify the significance of their findings in relation to existing research and literature.

Purpose of Literature Review

Some of the specific purposes of a literature review are as follows:

• To provide context: A literature review helps to provide context for your research by situating it within the broader body of literature on the topic.
• To identify gaps and inconsistencies: A literature review helps to identify areas where further research is needed or where there are inconsistencies in the existing literature.
• To synthesize information: A literature review helps to synthesize the information from multiple sources and present a coherent and comprehensive picture of the current state of knowledge on the topic.
• To identify key concepts and theories : A literature review helps to identify key concepts and theories that are relevant to your research question and provide a theoretical framework for your study.
• To inform research design: A literature review can inform the design of your research study by identifying appropriate research methods, data sources, and research questions.

Characteristics of Literature Review

Some Characteristics of Literature Review are as follows:

• Identifying gaps in knowledge: A literature review helps to identify gaps in the existing knowledge and research on a specific topic or research question. By analyzing and synthesizing the literature, you can identify areas where further research is needed and where new insights can be gained.
• Establishing the significance of your research: A literature review helps to establish the significance of your own research by placing it in the context of existing research. By demonstrating the relevance of your research to the existing literature, you can establish its importance and value.
• Informing research design and methodology : A literature review helps to inform research design and methodology by identifying the most appropriate research methods, techniques, and instruments. By reviewing the literature, you can identify the strengths and limitations of different research methods and techniques, and select the most appropriate ones for your own research.
• Supporting arguments and claims: A literature review provides evidence to support arguments and claims made in academic writing. By citing and analyzing the literature, you can provide a solid foundation for your own arguments and claims.
• I dentifying potential collaborators and mentors: A literature review can help identify potential collaborators and mentors by identifying researchers and practitioners who are working on related topics or using similar methods. By building relationships with these individuals, you can gain valuable insights and support for your own research and practice.
• Keeping up-to-date with the latest research : A literature review helps to keep you up-to-date with the latest research on a specific topic or research question. By regularly reviewing the literature, you can stay informed about the latest findings and developments in your field.

Advantages of Literature Review

There are several advantages to conducting a literature review as part of a research project, including:

• Establishing the significance of the research : A literature review helps to establish the significance of the research by demonstrating the gap or problem in the existing literature that the study aims to address.
• Identifying key concepts and theories: A literature review can help to identify key concepts and theories that are relevant to the research question, and provide a theoretical framework for the study.
• Supporting the research methodology : A literature review can inform the research methodology by identifying appropriate research methods, data sources, and research questions.
• Providing a comprehensive overview of the literature : A literature review provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge on a topic, allowing the researcher to identify key themes, debates, and areas of agreement or disagreement.
• Identifying potential research questions: A literature review can help to identify potential research questions and areas for further investigation.
• Avoiding duplication of research: A literature review can help to avoid duplication of research by identifying what has already been done on a topic, and what remains to be done.
• Enhancing the credibility of the research : A literature review helps to enhance the credibility of the research by demonstrating the researcher’s knowledge of the existing literature and their ability to situate their research within a broader context.

Limitations of Literature Review

Limitations of Literature Review are as follows:

• Limited scope : Literature reviews can only cover the existing literature on a particular topic, which may be limited in scope or depth.
• Publication bias : Literature reviews may be influenced by publication bias, which occurs when researchers are more likely to publish positive results than negative ones. This can lead to an incomplete or biased picture of the literature.
• Quality of sources : The quality of the literature reviewed can vary widely, and not all sources may be reliable or valid.
• Time-limited: Literature reviews can become quickly outdated as new research is published, making it difficult to keep up with the latest developments in a field.
• Subjective interpretation : Literature reviews can be subjective, and the interpretation of the findings can vary depending on the researcher’s perspective or bias.
• Lack of original data : Literature reviews do not generate new data, but rather rely on the analysis of existing studies.
• Risk of plagiarism: It is important to ensure that literature reviews do not inadvertently contain plagiarism, which can occur when researchers use the work of others without proper attribution.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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• J Grad Med Educ
• v.8(3); 2016 Jul

The Literature Review: A Foundation for High-Quality Medical Education Research

a  These are subscription resources. Researchers should check with their librarian to determine their access rights.

Despite a surge in published scholarship in medical education 1 and rapid growth in journals that publish educational research, manuscript acceptance rates continue to fall. 2 Failure to conduct a thorough, accurate, and up-to-date literature review identifying an important problem and placing the study in context is consistently identified as one of the top reasons for rejection. 3 , 4 The purpose of this editorial is to provide a road map and practical recommendations for planning a literature review. By understanding the goals of a literature review and following a few basic processes, authors can enhance both the quality of their educational research and the likelihood of publication in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education ( JGME ) and in other journals.

The Literature Review Defined

In medical education, no organization has articulated a formal definition of a literature review for a research paper; thus, a literature review can take a number of forms. Depending on the type of article, target journal, and specific topic, these forms will vary in methodology, rigor, and depth. Several organizations have published guidelines for conducting an intensive literature search intended for formal systematic reviews, both broadly (eg, PRISMA) 5 and within medical education, 6 and there are excellent commentaries to guide authors of systematic reviews. 7 , 8

• A literature review forms the basis for high-quality medical education research and helps maximize relevance, originality, generalizability, and impact.
• A literature review provides context, informs methodology, maximizes innovation, avoids duplicative research, and ensures that professional standards are met.
• Literature reviews take time, are iterative, and should continue throughout the research process.
• Researchers should maximize the use of human resources (librarians, colleagues), search tools (databases/search engines), and existing literature (related articles).
• Keeping organized is critical.

Such work is outside the scope of this article, which focuses on literature reviews to inform reports of original medical education research. We define such a literature review as a synthetic review and summary of what is known and unknown regarding the topic of a scholarly body of work, including the current work's place within the existing knowledge . While this type of literature review may not require the intensive search processes mandated by systematic reviews, it merits a thoughtful and rigorous approach.

Purpose and Importance of the Literature Review

An understanding of the current literature is critical for all phases of a research study. Lingard 9 recently invoked the “journal-as-conversation” metaphor as a way of understanding how one's research fits into the larger medical education conversation. As she described it: “Imagine yourself joining a conversation at a social event. After you hang about eavesdropping to get the drift of what's being said (the conversational equivalent of the literature review), you join the conversation with a contribution that signals your shared interest in the topic, your knowledge of what's already been said, and your intention.” 9

The literature review helps any researcher “join the conversation” by providing context, informing methodology, identifying innovation, minimizing duplicative research, and ensuring that professional standards are met. Understanding the current literature also promotes scholarship, as proposed by Boyer, 10 by contributing to 5 of the 6 standards by which scholarly work should be evaluated. 11 Specifically, the review helps the researcher (1) articulate clear goals, (2) show evidence of adequate preparation, (3) select appropriate methods, (4) communicate relevant results, and (5) engage in reflective critique.

Failure to conduct a high-quality literature review is associated with several problems identified in the medical education literature, including studies that are repetitive, not grounded in theory, methodologically weak, and fail to expand knowledge beyond a single setting. 12 Indeed, medical education scholars complain that many studies repeat work already published and contribute little new knowledge—a likely cause of which is failure to conduct a proper literature review. 3 , 4

Likewise, studies that lack theoretical grounding or a conceptual framework make study design and interpretation difficult. 13 When theory is used in medical education studies, it is often invoked at a superficial level. As Norman 14 noted, when theory is used appropriately, it helps articulate variables that might be linked together and why, and it allows the researcher to make hypotheses and define a study's context and scope. Ultimately, a proper literature review is a first critical step toward identifying relevant conceptual frameworks.

Another problem is that many medical education studies are methodologically weak. 12 Good research requires trained investigators who can articulate relevant research questions, operationally define variables of interest, and choose the best method for specific research questions. Conducting a proper literature review helps both novice and experienced researchers select rigorous research methodologies.

Finally, many studies in medical education are “one-offs,” that is, single studies undertaken because the opportunity presented itself locally. Such studies frequently are not oriented toward progressive knowledge building and generalization to other settings. A firm grasp of the literature can encourage a programmatic approach to research.

Approaching the Literature Review

Considering these issues, journals have a responsibility to demand from authors a thoughtful synthesis of their study's position within the field, and it is the authors' responsibility to provide such a synthesis, based on a literature review. The aforementioned purposes of the literature review mandate that the review occurs throughout all phases of a study, from conception and design, to implementation and analysis, to manuscript preparation and submission.

Planning the literature review requires understanding of journal requirements, which vary greatly by journal ( table 1 ). Authors are advised to take note of common problems with reporting results of the literature review. Table 2 lists the most common problems that we have encountered as authors, reviewers, and editors.

Sample of Journals' Author Instructions for Literature Reviews Conducted as Part of Original Research Article a

Common Problem Areas for Reporting Literature Reviews in the Context of Scholarly Articles

Locating and Organizing the Literature

Three resources may facilitate identifying relevant literature: human resources, search tools, and related literature. As the process requires time, it is important to begin searching for literature early in the process (ie, the study design phase). Identifying and understanding relevant studies will increase the likelihood of designing a relevant, adaptable, generalizable, and novel study that is based on educational or learning theory and can maximize impact.

Human Resources

A medical librarian can help translate research interests into an effective search strategy, familiarize researchers with available information resources, provide information on organizing information, and introduce strategies for keeping current with emerging research. Often, librarians are also aware of research across their institutions and may be able to connect researchers with similar interests. Reaching out to colleagues for suggestions may help researchers quickly locate resources that would not otherwise be on their radar.

During this process, researchers will likely identify other researchers writing on aspects of their topic. Researchers should consider searching for the publications of these relevant researchers (see table 3 for search strategies). Additionally, institutional websites may include curriculum vitae of such relevant faculty with access to their entire publication record, including difficult to locate publications, such as book chapters, dissertations, and technical reports.

Strategies for Finding Related Researcher Publications in Databases and Search Engines

Search Tools and Related Literature

Researchers will locate the majority of needed information using databases and search engines. Excellent resources are available to guide researchers in the mechanics of literature searches. 15 , 16

Because medical education research draws on a variety of disciplines, researchers should include search tools with coverage beyond medicine (eg, psychology, nursing, education, and anthropology) and that cover several publication types, such as reports, standards, conference abstracts, and book chapters (see the box for several information resources). Many search tools include options for viewing citations of selected articles. Examining cited references provides additional articles for review and a sense of the influence of the selected article on its field.

Box Information Resources

• Web of Science a
• Education Resource Information Center (ERIC)
• Cumulative Index of Nursing & Allied Health (CINAHL) a
• Google Scholar

Once relevant articles are located, it is useful to mine those articles for additional citations. One strategy is to examine references of key articles, especially review articles, for relevant citations.

Getting Organized

As the aforementioned resources will likely provide a tremendous amount of information, organization is crucial. Researchers should determine which details are most important to their study (eg, participants, setting, methods, and outcomes) and generate a strategy for keeping those details organized and accessible. Increasingly, researchers utilize digital tools, such as Evernote, to capture such information, which enables accessibility across digital workspaces and search capabilities. Use of citation managers can also be helpful as they store citations and, in some cases, can generate bibliographies ( table 4 ).

Citation Managers

Knowing When to Say When

Researchers often ask how to know when they have located enough citations. Unfortunately, there is no magic or ideal number of citations to collect. One strategy for checking coverage of the literature is to inspect references of relevant articles. As researchers review references they will start noticing a repetition of the same articles with few new articles appearing. This can indicate that the researcher has covered the literature base on a particular topic.

Putting It All Together

In preparing to write a research paper, it is important to consider which citations to include and how they will inform the introduction and discussion sections. The “Instructions to Authors” for the targeted journal will often provide guidance on structuring the literature review (or introduction) and the number of total citations permitted for each article category. Reviewing articles of similar type published in the targeted journal can also provide guidance regarding structure and average lengths of the introduction and discussion sections.

When selecting references for the introduction consider those that illustrate core background theoretical and methodological concepts, as well as recent relevant studies. The introduction should be brief and present references not as a laundry list or narrative of available literature, but rather as a synthesized summary to provide context for the current study and to identify the gap in the literature that the study intends to fill. For the discussion, citations should be thoughtfully selected to compare and contrast the present study's findings with the current literature and to indicate how the present study moves the field forward.

To facilitate writing a literature review, journals are increasingly providing helpful features to guide authors. For example, the resources available through JGME include several articles on writing. 17 The journal Perspectives on Medical Education recently launched “The Writer's Craft,” which is intended to help medical educators improve their writing. Additionally, many institutions have writing centers that provide web-based materials on writing a literature review, and some even have writing coaches.

The literature review is a vital part of medical education research and should occur throughout the research process to help researchers design a strong study and effectively communicate study results and importance. To achieve these goals, researchers are advised to plan and execute the literature review carefully. The guidance in this editorial provides considerations and recommendations that may improve the quality of literature reviews.

Progress in adaptive governance research and hotspot analysis: a global scientometric visualization analysis

• Open access
• Published: 03 September 2024
• Volume 5 , article number  234 , ( 2024 )

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• Guanhu Zhao 1 ,
• Xu Hui 2 , 3 ,
• Yao Lu 1 &
• Yuting Zhang 1  

Adaptive governance has emerged as a prominent theoretical and methodological approach in environmental governance, recognized for its capacity to address evolving conditions and future uncertainties. Despite the extensive literature on adaptive governance since its inception in 2003, a comprehensive review of the literature spanning two decades remains to be conducted. This study addresses that gap by selecting 3274 articles from the Web of Science Core Collection and performing a global scientometric visualization analysis. Our analysis identifies the most productive institutions, authors, journals, publication trends, and research frontiers in adaptive governance research. The findings reveal that there has been a significant acceleration in global research on adaptive governance over the past two decades. Furthermore, the majority of contributions to the field of adaptive governance research have been made by scholars based in the United States, Australia, England, Canada, and the Netherlands. Additionally, existing studies in adaptive governance field focus mainly on subject categories of environmental studies, environmental sciences, and ecology. Finally, the concept of adaptive governance, environmental governance, social-ecological systems, climate change adaptation and social learning were identified as hot topics and emerging trends. This study provides researchers and practitioners with an extensive understanding of the salient research themes, trends, and patterns in global adaptive governance research in an intuitive manner.

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1 Introduction

Traditional, top-down, command-and-control approaches to governance are insufficient to address the intricate interdependencies and feedback loops in social-ecological systems [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. There is a growing recognition that social-ecological systems are complex, dynamic and often unpredictable, and therefore require a governance framework that can adapt to changing conditions and uncertainty [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. The growing global focus on sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals has given further impetus to the development of adaptive governance. The concept of adaptive governance has guided the design of policies and institutions that are more flexible, participatory and better able to respond to complex environmental and social challenges [ 7 , 8 ]. It has also facilitated the practice of adaptive management, including monitoring results, learning from them and adjusting management strategies [ 9 , 10 ]. In addition, adaptive governance promotes an interdisciplinary approach, integrating knowledge from different scientific disciplines, and it fosters the development of resilience thinking to provide more inclusive and effective solutions for sustainable development [ 5 , 11 ]. Adaptive governance has contributed to meeting the challenges of environmental management and sustainable development, but there are many skeptics. Critics argue that adaptive governance can be difficult to implement due to resistance to change, power imbalances, and a lack of clear guidelines, the conceptual underpinnings of adaptive governance remain largely theorized [ 6 , 12 ]. While adaptive governance embraces uncertainty, critics point out that it can sometimes lead to paralysis in decision-making or inaction due to lack more information communication [ 3 , 13 ]. Assessing the success of adaptive governance is challenging due to the lack of clear metrics and the long-term nature of results [ 14 ]. Academic evaluations of adaptive governance have been mixed and have attracted sustained attention and in-depth research. However, existing research has not fully answered the critics' questions, and few studies have provided an overview of adaptive governance.

More than two decades have passed since the formal introduction of the term "adaptive governance" by Dietz et al. in the journal Science in 2003 [ 15 ]. Adaptive governance has been described as an ‘outgrowth’ of managing uncertainty and complexity in social-ecological systems [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ] and is defined as ‘an emergent, self-organized process’ and a practice [ 12 , 20 ]. Based on the systems of social and ecological interdependence, adaptive governance is widely used in environmental governance research [ 21 , 22 ]. Meanwhile, it has also garnered attention in various other disciplines. Adaptive governance is also described as the purposeful collective actions to resist, adapt, or transform when faced with shocks [ 23 ]. The theoretical and empirical research of adaptive governance is ongoing in areas such as water governance [ 24 ], biosecurity governance [ 25 ], food security [ 26 ], disaster research [ 27 ], law [ 28 ], political science [ 29 ], entrepreneurial learning [ 30 ], policy science [ 31 ], community resilience [ 32 ], and public administration [ 33 ], and international trade [ 34 ].

The term "adaptive governance" has varying interpretations among different scholars from different disciplines [ 18 , 25 ]. researchers have summarized adaptive governance mainly focusing on aspects of environmental governance, social-ecological system management, water governance, marine resources, and resilience [ 16 , 35 , 36 ]. However, the literature to date has been conducted in isolated studies where related topics are discussed separately. These studies have not delved into the evolution of adaptive governance research over the past 20 years, which limits our ability to integrate it effectively into different disciplines. To bridge this gap, we used literature data visualization software to outline the research trend of adaptive governance research, summarize the current state, and clarify possible future developments from multiple disciplines' perspectives by gathering a large number of publications.

Bibliometric methods can be used as a quantitative analytical tool to understand the current status and gaps a specific research area [ 37 , 38 ]. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric and visual analysis of adaptive governance research over the past two decades. The primary objective of this paper is to address four key research questions pertaining to adaptive governance. These questions include: (1) What is the overall trend in the number of publications on the subject of adaptive governance research worldwide? (2) Which countries or regions have made significant contributions to the field of adaptive governance? (3) Which institutions, disciplines, journals, authors and literatures have exerted the most significant impact on adaptive governance research? (4) What are the primary intellectual foundations and research hotspots in adaptive governance research? The contributions of this paper are as follows. Firstly, it provides a comprehensive review of the progress of adaptive governance from a multidisciplinary perspective. Secondly, the trends and hot topics identified in this study can assist scholars in further developing research on adaptive governance.

2 Data sources and methods

Review articles can provide valuable summaries of a growing body of original research [ 39 ]. The most common methods for conducting a literature review are systematic literature reviews, meta-analysis and bibliometric analysis. Systematic literature reviews encapsulate the acquisition, arrangement, and assessment of the extant literature using systematic procedures, which are typically carried out manually (e.g., thematic and content analyses) by scholars [ 40 ]. Systematic literature reviews is qualitative research methods, which typically include a smaller number of papers (e.g., between tens or hundreds), and their research scope is narrower [ 41 ]. Therefore, systematic literature reviews are more suitable for confined studies (e.g., social learning in adaptive governance) or niche research areas (e.g., the impact of digital technologies on adaptive governance). Meta-analysis estimates "the across-study variance in the distribution of effect-size estimates and the factors that explain this variance" [ 42 ]. Specifically, meta-analysis is a quantitative research method, which often analyses the direction and strength of relationships between variables by summarising quantitative empirical evidence. Therefore, meta-analysis is often used as a theory extension tool that reveals mixed empirical findings and boundary conditions (moderating effects analysis) [ 43 ]. Bibliometrics is also a quantitative research method, which initially introduced by Pritchard, uses quantitative and statistical methods to reveal the characteristics of research attributes within a specific field [ 44 ]. Qualitative research methods may be subject to the interpretative bias of scholars from different academic backgrounds [ 45 ], which can be avoided or mitigated by bibliometric analyses that rely on quantitative techniques. Bibliometric analyses can analyze the social and structural relationships between different research components (e.g. authors and institutions) and summarise the structure of knowledge in a field [ 46 ]. This paper considers a dataset of over three thousand papers that do not involve variable effect size analyses. Therefore, bibliometric methods were used in this paper without the use of alternative meta-analyses and systematic literature reviews.

By using bibliometric methods and visualization software for knowledge mapping, the knowledge distribution and emerging trends of adaptive governance research can be analyzed from different multidimensional perspectives. Citation visualization analysis methods is one of the most important components of bibliometrics, which combines bibliometrics and data visualization methods to reveal the intrinsic connections between disciplines and research patterns [ 47 ]. The bibliometric method has been utilized in numerous research fields, including safety culture research [ 48 ], green supply chain management [ 49 ], knowledge management [ 50 ] and human resource analytics [ 51 ]. Consequently, bibliometrics has emerged as an important research tool across disciplines.

Since the concept of adaptive governance was formally introduced in 2003, there have been more than 20 years of interdisciplinary research on adaptive governance, during which a great deal of knowledge has been accumulated. To facilitate the advancement of innovative research on adaptive governance, it is essential to conduct a comprehensive review of the progress and research hotspots of adaptive governance research over the past 20 years. By utilizing a bibliometric approach and the extensive adaptive governance literature, this study identifies emerging research focal points and trends in adaptive governance literature, as well as provides practitioners and researchers with a general overview of adaptive governance and guidelines for finding new research directions.

2.1 Data collection

Literature databases such as Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar are often used by international scholars. However, some scholars have demonstrated that the knowledge map generated by the literature within the Web of Science database is better, as evidenced by the use of CiteSpace software for visual analysis [ 52 , 53 ]. In light of these findings, the "Web of Science" database was chosen to search and collect the literature data required for this study's analysis. To ensure the acquisition of authentic and representative data, the literature database of the Web of Science Core Collection including the Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index was searched, boasting the world's largest collection of literature covering numerous disciplines. This extensive coverage enables WOSCC to provide more comprehensive text information for bibliometric analysis.

Before commencing the search, a pre-search strategy was developed, primarily based on keywords. Following a meticulous review of relevant articles, and drawing on topic search methods from existing research, a topic-specific search was conducted using the query: TS = "adaptive governance" [ 4 , 54 ]. The search encompassed the period from January 2003 to December 2022, focusing specifically on articles. This process yielded a total of 3302 records. By utilizing the refinement functions of WOS categories and document types, we excluded non-English articles and removed duplicates, resulting in a final count of 3274 records. The 3274 records include the following information: Article Title, Author Information, Journal Information, Keywords, Citation Information, and so on.

We collected data on the characteristics of all accessed publications, including publication years, document types, languages, authors, journals, countries/regions, and institutes. Additionally, we obtained information on the H-index, the top 15 research areas with the most publications, the top 10 countries with the most publications, the top 10 institutes with the most publications, and the top 10 authors with the most publications. Furthermore, we gathered data on the publication count of the top 10 most cited journals, the 2022 journal Impact Factor (IF) and 5-year Impact Factor (IF), total citations, and average citations per paper. Lastly, we documented the starting year, betweenness centrality, and citation frequency of the top 10 most-cited references.

2.2 Data analysis

The collected data were analyzed using various software tools, including Microsoft Excel 2021 (Redmond WA, USA) [ 55 ], CiteSpace 6.4 (Chaomei Chen, China) [ 56 ], VOSviewer 1.6.16 (Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands) [ 57 ], Gephi 0.10.1 (Gephi Consortium, Paris, France) [ 58 ] and Scimago Graphica 1.0.36 (Scimago Research, Spain) [ 59 ]. CiteSpace, VOSviewer and Gephi software were used for bibliometric analysis, while Scimago Graphica was used to visualize the collaborative relationships in countries/regions.

The parameters and knowledge maps that result from the subsequent scientometric analyses are uniformly explained here. In the knowledge maps, the size of the nodes represents the frequency of occurrence of authors, countries, institutions, and journals, while the connections between the nodes indicate that the authors (or countries, institutions, and journals) represented by these nodes appear in the same article [ 60 ]. Generally, when two or more authors (countries, institutions, etc.) appear in the same paper, it suggests a scientific research cooperation relationship between those authors (countries, institutions, etc.) [ 61 ]. Betweenness centrality refers to the extent to which the node is in the middle of a path that connects other nodes in the network [ 62 ]. CiteSpace employs the betweenness centrality indicator to measure the importance of nodes in a network to discover and measure the importance of documents (or authors, countries, institutions, journals, etc.) [ 63 ]. Betweenness centrality ranges from [0, 1], the higher the value the more important node in a network. The H-index is a metric proposed by physicist George Hirsch of the University of California, USA, which indicates that h of the N papers published in a journal have been cited at least h times. The starting year represents the year when the article was first published. Total citations represents the total citations of papers published by a country or institution in a given field, while average citations represent the average of citations of papers published by a country or institution in a given field [ 64 ].

CiteSpace proposes two indicators to judge the effect of spectrogram drawing: the modularity value and the silhouette value [ 63 ]. The silhouette value evaluates the clustering effect by measuring the homogeneity of the network, while the modularity measures the structural characteristics of the overall clustering network. Both the silhouette and modularity values range from 0 to 1, and the silhouette of each cluster should be above 0.7 [ 65 ]. The closer the silhouette value is to 1, the more perfect the clustering is. A silhouette value closer to 1 indicates higher network homogeneity and greater reliability of the clustering results, especially above 0.7.

3.1 Distribution characteristics of adaptive governance research

3.1.1 publications trends.

Changes in the number of scientific research results can provide insights into scholars' attention toward a specific subject area. This serves as an important indicator for revealing the development trends in scientific research [ 66 ]. Figure  1 depicts the quantity and trend of published papers in the field of adaptive governance research. Annual publications can explain the dynamics of adaptive governance research in the past and assist scholars in assessing its future developmental trajectory. It is observed that overall publications exhibit an increasing trend with fluctuations: the quantity of publications in 2022 surpasses that of 2003 by approximately 50-fold. In particular, the cumulative publications over the latest five-year period (2018–2022) amount to 1676 (constituting 51.19% of the calculated years), providing evidence of the escalating scholarly attention garnered by adaptive governance research and the amplifying production of academic literature.

Number of publications on adaptive governance research from 2003 to 2022 and the fitted trend line

Furthermore, it can be found that the number of annual publications exhibits fluctuations (the trend is not consistently increasing), which is a common occurrence in academic research due to the existence of study periods for research domains. Despite a marginal decline observed in 2022, characterized by the publication of only 257 papers, it is enough to show that this research field has continuously stimulated the interest of many scholars. In conclusion, the increasing trend shows that research on adaptive governance is still widespread. According to the fitted trend line y  = 21.307 x  − 60.021 ( R 2  = 0.9123 > 0.75, y is the annual publications, x is the year) shows substantial predictive power [ 67 ], which means the rapid growth trend of adaptive governance studies in the past 20 years.

3.1.2 Distribution of countries/regions

The analysis of papers' country/region information can assist researchers in comprehending the global geographical distribution of adaptive governance research and the cooperation among countries/regions. Over the past 20 years, 135 countries from 6 continents have been involved in research on adaptive governance. We used Scimago Graphica software to map the geographical distribution and collaboration of adaptive governance research, as demonstrated in Fig.  2 . The figure displays that research on adaptive governance is carried out across several continents, including Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas and Oceania. Among these regions, Europe dominates with 76.42% of the published articles, followed by North America at 41.45% and Asia at 19.43%. These figures highlight Europe's significant research contribution in advancing the field of adaptive governance. This may be related to policies such as The European Commission’s Climate Change Adaptation Strategy published in 2013, the European Green Deal in 2019, and the new European Commission’s Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change in 2021. Adaptation to climate change is an important part of these policies, fuelling research on adaptive governance by European scholars.

Geographical distribution and cooperation

By analyzing the network of cooperation between countries and regions, it is possible to identify priority countries and regions that have published a large number of papers in a given field and have had a significant influence [ 68 ]. The co-authorship network can reflect the cooperation relationship among objects such as authors, organizations, and countries/regions [ 69 ]. The CiteSpace software was used to create the national or regional cooperation relationship network map, as depicted in Fig.  3 . The size of each circle represents the number of publications, while the lines between them denote cooperative relationships [ 70 ].

Visualization map of countries/regions cooperation relationship network

The thickness of the lines indicates the strength of links between the countries or regions. The betweenness centrality of countries or regions helps discover and measure their importance. Pink circles are used to highlight countries or regions with high betweenness centrality. Figure  3 shows that the United States, England, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany publish a greater number of papers and have greater betweenness centrality, while Australia has a greater number of publications but lower betweenness centrality. Figure  3 illustrates that countries or regions exhibit close cooperation, with a network density of 0.1522.

According to betweenness centrality in Table  1 and Fig.  3 , the United States has the thickest outer circle, with a betweenness centrality value of 0.19, which indicates its critical role in the knowledge dissemination process of adaptive governance research. Other countries with a betweenness centrality greater than 0.1 include England, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany. Regarding the commencement of adaptive governance research, the USA and England were pioneers, starting in 2003. Following suit, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, China, and Spain joined the endeavor in 2004. Lastly, South Africa began studying adaptive governance in 2005. There is a positive correlation between a country's starting year and its total citations. This is because earlier publications are more likely to be cited. As a whole, numerous countries and regions tend to collaborate and communicate with each other, highlighting the strong global network characteristics of adaptive governance research.

3.1.3 Distribution of productive institutions

In bibliometrics, a 'productive institution' is usually an academic or research institution that has a high level of productivity in terms of publications in peer-reviewed journals. An analysis of organizational cooperation allows for the identification of the most productive and influential institutions [ 71 ].

A clear overview of institutional cooperation was presented using Gephi software, which generated a cooperation network map for institutions with more than eight articles, as depicted in Fig.  4 . In the map, the larger the node, the higher the centrality of the nodes; the thicker the lines between the nodes, the closer the cooperation between the two nodes [ 72 ]. Stockholm University is the largest node in the network, indicating that it has published the largest number of papers on adaptive governance in collaboration with other research institutions and has made the most significant contributions to adaptive governance research. In addition, the cooperation between productive institutions is rather loose and needs to be further strengthened.

Visualization map of cooperation network between productive institutions

Table 2 lists the top 10 productive institutions in adaptive governance research. With 130 publications, Stockholm University is the most productive institution in this field and has the highest betweenness centrality 0.14, indicating that the institution is engaged in extensive collaboration. This may be related to the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, where one of the strategic focuses is on complex adaptive systems. Since its launch in 2007, the Stockholm Resilience Centre has developed into a global reference point for sustainability science and resilience thinking. The University of Queensland came second with 77 articles published, closely followed by James Cook University and Arizona State University in third and fourth place, respectively. It is worth mentioning that Stockholm University, Arizona State University, and James Cook University have impressively high average citation frequencies of 113.77, 104.68, and 67.03, respectively. This indicates the quality and wide availability of their papers as references for scholars in the field. It is worth noting that research on adaptive Governance began a decade ago (2004–2011) in all of these top 10 productive institutions, highlighting the sustained attention that this important area of research has received.

3.1.4 Distribution of category

The co-occurrence visualization map of the category network depicted in Fig.  5 was generated using CiteSpace. According to the analysis conducted by the CiteSpace software, we identified 134 topic categories within adaptive governance research, with 15 of them occurring more than 90 times (Table  3 ).

The co-occurrence visualization map of the category network

First, the categories with the highest number of publications in adaptive governance research are, in order, "environmental studies", "environmental science" and "ecology", accounting for shares of 36.5%, 31.9%, and 13.3% respectively. According to the Web of Science research area classification, environmental science and environmental studies belong to different research areas [ 73 ]. Whereas environmental science is rooted in the natural sciences and technical solutions to environmental problems, environmental studies is more interdisciplinary, focusing on the socio-political and human aspects of environmental issues. This could indicate that adaptive governance research is a multidisciplinary field of study in the natural and social sciences.

Among the top 15 disciplines, "environmental studies" has the highest betweenness centrality (betweenness centrality = 0.29), playing a pivotal role in the field of adaptive governance research. Following closely is "environmental science" (betweenness centrality = 0.21), and then "ecology” (betweenness centrality = 0.13). It is evident that "environmental studies", "environmental science", and "ecology" are the primary disciplines studying adaptive governance and play a crucial role in leading its development. Second, the categories within the natural sciences, including "Water Resources" (Frequency = 304), "Green and Sustainable Science and Technology" (Frequency = 261), "Geography" (Frequency = 235), and "Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences" (Frequency = 131), have shown consistent growth and have contributed a significant number of research results to the field of adaptive governance. Third, the social sciences categories, including "Regional and Urban Planning" (Frequency = 199), "Development Studies" (Frequency = 167), "International Relations" (Frequency = 139), "Management" (Frequency = 122), "Economics" (Frequency = 120), "Public Administration" (Frequency = 116), "Urban Studies" (Frequency = 112), and "Political Science" (Frequency = 93), have all demonstrated continuous growth and have produced a diverse range of research outcomes. In summary, adaptive governance research is a multidisciplinary field that encompasses a wide range of disciplines, and the development of different disciplines has contributed significantly to the integration of adaptive governance research into multidisciplinary science.

3.1.5 Distribution of co-citation journals

Co-citation analysis shows the relationship between items that have been cited together a number of times, and its abilities lie in the prevention of academic isolation and the acceleration of knowledge integration for consistency across different disciplines [ 74 ]. Journal co-citation is when two articles published in different journals are simultaneously cited by a third article in another journal [ 53 ]. The VOSviewer was used to perform a Co-citation analysis of journals. By setting the minimum number of citations of a source to 80, a total of 298 nodes were generated. Figure  6 presents the network visualization map of co-citation journals in adaptive governance. The top 10 highly cited journals and their corresponding statistical parameters in adaptive governance research are demonstrated in Table  4 . Ecology and Society, which is hosted in Canada, is the most influential journal in terms of citation frequency. This journal has been cited a total of 8319 times and has a total link strength of 338,556. Global Environmental Change, hosted by the United Kingdom, is the second-ranked journal with 6097 citations and a total link strength of 249,811. Both the total citation frequency and total link strength of these journals are significantly higher than other journals, indicating their highest unparalleled recognition and expertise in adaptive governance research. They are followed by Science, Environmental Science & Policy, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, and Marine Policy. All of these journals have received more than 2000 citations, and their total connection strengths exceed 90,000, highlighting their substantial influence in adaptive governance research. Adaptive governance is a multidisciplinary field of research, and there has been a notable increase in the number of papers on adaptive governance published in both general academic journals and journals focusing on sustainability or climate research. Concurrently, researchers engaged in the field of adaptive governance continue to publish a greater number of papers in journals specializing in sustainability or climate research, and have the highest number of citations compared to general academic journals.

Network visualization map of co-citation journals

Upon analysis of the ten most highly cited journals, our research reveals that there is a concentration of such influential publications in Europe and North America. Specifically, out of the top-ranked journals, five are from the USA, three originate from the UK, and the remaining two are from the Netherlands and Canada, respectively. The concentration of these publications implies that adaptive governance research in the USA and the UK is driving further progress in this field.

3.1.6 Distribution and collaboration of authors

A total of 9702 researchers have made contributions to the realm of adaptive governance. The average number of authors per article was 2.96, indicating that collaborative efforts among multiple authors are a prominent characteristic in the field of adaptive governance research. Table 5 presents the top 10 productive authors in adaptive governance research, providing statistical information such as their number of publications, institution, country, and H-index. The highest number of publications was achieved by Claudia Pahl-Wostl and Ryan Plummer, who published 26 articles each. Carl Folke follows closely in second place with 23 papers. Derek Armitage tied for third place with 21 papers. Ahjond Garmestani published 17 articles, and authors who have published 15 articles are Per Angelstam, Julia Baird, Brian C. Chaffin, Henrik Österblom, and Lisen Schultz. The top 10 prolific authors produced outstanding results in the adaptive governance field, as most of the authors have an H-index greater than 30. The publication years of these high-yield authors indicate that they became active in the field after 2006. This highlights the last two decades as a critical period for adaptive governance research, particularly the last ten years.

The authors having published more than five articles were counted, and a network map depicting the main authors' cooperative relationships was generated using VOSviewer software (See Fig.  7 ). Each node on the map represents an author, and its size indicates the number of articles published by that author. Figure  7 illustrates the presence of multiple potential cooperation teams within the network. Notably, there are four prominent teams represented by green, red, blue and yellow networks. The first research team (green) is represented by Ahjond Garmestani and Brian C. Chaffin. The second research team (red) is represented by Carl Folke, Per Olsson and Henrik Österblom. The third research team (blue) is represented by Sarah Clement, Susan A Moore and Michael Lockwood. The fourth research team (yellow) is represented by Ryan Plummer, Derek Armitage, Julia Baird and Lisen Schultz. There is extensive and productive collaboration within these four teams. However, the overall network of co-authorship appears to be relatively loose. Therefore, there is a need to encourage cross-institutional and cross-border collaboration between authors in the field of adaptive governance research, which will facilitate knowledge sharing for the joint publication of higher-level scientific papers.

Visualization map of main author cooperation network

Authors with a citation frequency exceeding 100 were identified via the VOSviewer software, displaying their co-citation network in Fig.  8 . The publications of co-cited authors can be categorized into four themes, represented by the yellow, green, red, and blue colors. As adaptive governance is an interdisciplinary field, most of the citations between co-cited authors span different topics. Notably, Carl Folke, Elinor Ostrom, Claudia Pahl-Wostl, Fikret Berkes, W. Neil Adger, Per Olsson, Crawford Stanley Holling, and Brian Walker were co-cited most frequently.

Network visualization map of co-cited authors

Table 6 shows the 10 most cited authors with their frequency, total link strength, institution, year of publication and H-index. However, the most productive authors are not the most influential authors. Among these authors, Carl Folke of Stockholm University is recognized as the most influential, with his work cited 1916 times, ranking first among the list. Folke C et al. are credited with publishing the first paper directly related to adaptive governance. One of his most influential articles is “Adaptive governance of social-ecological systems” published in 2005. This article introduced the social dimension necessary for adaptive ecosystem-based management, focusing on the experiences of adaptive governance during periods of abrupt change and exploring social sources of renewal and reorganization [ 18 ]. Elinor Ostrom from Indiana University Bloomington has accumulated 1508 citations for articles in the field of adaptive governance and is ranked second among highly cited authors. The article "A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems", published in Science in 2008 by Ostrom E et al., provided a multilevel, nested framework for analyzing the outcomes achieved in social-ecological systems [ 75 ]. Claudia Pahl-Wostl from Osnabrück University has been cited 1,144 times in the field of adaptive governance and is ranked third among highly cited authors. In 2009, Claudia Pahl-Wostl published a conference paper titled “A conceptual framework for analyzing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resource governance regimes”. This paper developed a conceptual framework for analyzing the dynamics and adaptive capacity of resource governance regimes as multi-level learning processes, capable of responding to resource governance challenges.

In addition to the aforementioned authors, the top 10 highly cited authors consist of Fikret Berkes, W. Neil Adger, Per Olsson, Crawford Stanley Holling, Brian Walker, Derek Armitage, and Ryan Plummer. It is noteworthy that these authors have contributed significantly to adaptive governance fields.

3.2 Intellectual bases and hotspots of adaptive governance research

3.2.1 intellectual bases of adaptive governance research.

Analysis of highly cited literature

Mutual citations of documents can reflect the objective laws of the development of the field of study [ 76 ]. Furthermore, top-cited publications commonly serve as the foundation and foundation for a specific field [ 77 ]. Based on citation frequency, this study selected the top ten references in adaptive governance research, providing detailed information about them in Table  7 . It should be noted that the citation frequency in this article is restricted to the mutual citation among these 3274 articles. Therefore, the precise citation frequency differs from the stats provided by the Web of Science. Table 7 shows three of the top ten most cited articles from Ecology and Society, as well as top journals such as science. These cited journals represent the research main foundation of in adaptive governance research.

The review "A decade of adaptive governance scholarship: synthesis and future directions" has been cited 99 times, making it the most frequently cited paper in the field of adaptive governance. This paper provides an overview of the principal literature on adaptive governance in the decade following 2003. Adaptive governance is defined as a range of interactions between actors, networks, organizations, and institutions emerging in pursuit of a desired state for social-ecological systems [ 16 ]. The second most cited article, titled “A conceptual framework for analyzing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resource governance regimes” was cited 82 times. This paper developed a conceptual framework that facilitates flexible and context-sensitive analysis, addressing the dynamics and adaptive capacity of resource governance regimes as multi-level learning processes [ 78 ]. The article “Evolution of co-management: role of knowledge generation, bridging organizations and social learning”, published in 2009, is the third most cited literature with 79 citations. This paper critically reviewed the theory and practice of co-management, and analyzed the role of knowledge generation, bridging organizations, social learning and adaptation, and demonstrated the similarities and distinctions among co-management, adaptive management, and adaptive co-management [ 79 ]. In conclusion, the majority of highly cited documents are comprehensive papers that provide summaries and valuable commentary.

Meanwhile, the book "Resilience thinking: sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world", published in 2012, stands as the most widely read book in adaptive governance research. Resilience thinking is strongly interconnected with adaptive governance and emphasizes the criticality of considering the interdependencies of social and ecological systems. This book, authored by Walker B and Salt D, presented an accessible introduction to the emerging paradigm of resilience and is frequently cited by scholars in the field of adaptive governance [ 82 ]. Additionally, the article "Adaptive governance of social-ecological systems" holds the highest betweenness centrality, which is deemed to be highly significant in the realm of adaptive governance research. This paper examines the social dimensions of achieving ecosystem-based adaptive management, with a specific focus on experiences of adaptive governance in social-ecological systems during times of crisis. It emphasizes that a resilient social-ecological system can leverage a crisis as an opportunity for transformation towards a more desirable state [ 18 ].

Cluster analysis of literature co-citation network

We used CiteSpace software for conducting a cluster analysis of the highly cited literature, as shown in Fig.  9 . To gain a deeper understanding of clustering, Table  8 provides more detailed information on clustering.

Knowledge map of co-citation literature cluster network

The modularity value and the silhouette value can be used to judge the effect of spectrogram drawing. The larger the silhouette, the more perfect the clustering. The mean silhouette value of clusters in Fig.  9 is 0.9545, and all the silhouette values of each part are above 0.7, suggesting high network reliability [ 65 ]. Additionally, Modularity can measure the structural characteristics of the overall clustering network. The modularity of the clustering is 0.8961in Fig.  9 , indicating the fitting effect is preferable [ 65 ]. Upon integrating the clustered content, the intellectual foundations of adaptive governance were classified into seven categories: the evolution of adaptive governance knowledge, social capital mechanisms, social-ecological systems, dynamic systems theory, climate change, and local knowledge [ 63 ].

3.2.2 Research hotspots of adaptive governance

Keywords provide a high-level overview of research papers, and analyzing keywords in a particular field can identify research hotspots [ 47 ]. Table 9 presents only the top 30 high-frequency keywords due to length limitations. It was found that the top 10 high-frequency keywords are governance, management, climate change, adaptive governance, resilience, adaptive capacity, framework, adaptation, policy, and adaptive management. The top 50 high-frequency keywords were extracted to form clusters, as illustrated in Fig.  10 . The clustering is perfect, with the average modularity and silhouette values of the clustering depicted in Fig.  10 being 0.8508 and 0.9537, respectively. Finally, five hotspots were derived by summarizing all clusters identified by CiteSpace, and detailed analyses are as follows:

The cluster network mapping of high-frequency keywords

Topic one: the concept of adaptive governance (cluster zero and cluster three)

Despite the popularity of adaptive governance, the distinction between its concept and its neighboring concepts is not yet clear enough. However, some scholars mistakenly conflate adaptive governance with adaptive management, adaptive co-management, and adaptive institutions [ 85 , 86 ]. There are varying interpretations and definitions of adaptive governance across different fields. However, establishing a clear definition and differentiation of these concepts to reach a consensus remains a pressing issue for researchers in adaptive governance. Consequently, numerous scholars have turned their attention to untangling the concept of adaptive governance and its related concepts. According to Hasselman different epistemologies and the resulting interpretations of uncertainty are central to the confusion surrounding the concept of adaptive governance [ 86 ]. In terms of its links to neighboring concepts, adaptive governance is closely related to resilience, collaborative governance, and participatory decision-making. These concepts often intersect and influence one another in practice. Empirically, adaptive governance has delivered positive outcomes in various contexts, such as natural resource management [ 87 , 88 ], disaster governance [ 89 ], risk governance [ 90 ] and climate change adaptation [ 91 ]. It has been shown to enhance the ability of decision-makers to address complex and uncertain challenges [ 92 ]. Practical policy and governance recommendations stemming from adaptive governance include fostering collaboration between different stakeholders [ 93 ], building social capital [ 94 , 95 ], and enhancing the capacity for learning and innovation within governance structures [ 91 , 96 ].

Topic two: environmental governance (cluster one, cluster two and cluster seven).

Luhmann considered system-environment relations to be precarious, while the recurrent ecological crisis shows the problems of environmental sustainability [ 97 ]. It is increasingly recognized that environmental problems around the world are not only a result of inadequate management but also a failure of governance [ 78 ]. Due to the rapidly changing environment, it is difficult for a top-down, state-orientated governance system to be fully effective in addressing the problems of environmental governance characterized by uncertainty, complexity and across large-scale ecosystems that cross multiple jurisdiction boundaries [ 98 , 99 ]. As a response to dramatic environmental changes, adaptive governance is frequently advocated as a solution [ 1 ]. Adaptive governance challenges the traditional environmental governance knowledge and common sense of centralized governance, top-down directive and state-based governance. The attributes of adaptive governance include a variety (hierarchical, networks), institutional nesting (complex, redundant, layered) and analytical deliberation [ 100 ]. Adaptive governance has significantly contributed to environmental governance debates by highlighting the importance of flexibility, stakeholder inclusivity, polycentric governance structures, iterative learning processes, and resilience. Namely, adaptive governance brings together formal and informal institutions to address the uncertainty and complexity associated with vital environmental challenges, such as transboundary pollution and tropical deforestation [ 16 , 101 ]. However, critics have identified some limitations in adaptive governance. They argue that the approach's embrace of uncertainty and the need to synthesize complexities is too theoretical to be effectively implemented in practice. In reality, stakeholders and practitioners must grapple with the often ambiguous and always complex requirements of adaptive governance. Therefore, the researcher focuses on operationalizing adaptive governance in environmental governance and emphasizes the necessity for further research on cross-institutional learning, ranging from local to international levels [ 102 ]. Over the past two decades, researchers engaged in the study of complex environmental governance issues have gradually refined the theory of adaptive governance and presented evidence of successful adaptive governance practices in numerous case studies. As a result, environmental governance has emerged as a prominent research topic within the field of adaptive governance.

Topic three: social-ecological systems (cluster four and cluster six)

Researchers have used the concepts of coupled socioecological systems [ 103 ] and ecosocial systems [ 104 ] to illustrate the interactions between societies and ecosystems, but the use of either social or ecological as a prefix can lead to misinterpretation by decreasing their weight in the analytical process. Consequently, Berkes and Folke (1998) introduced the term 'socio-ecological' systems to emphasize the integration and interdependence of humans and nature [ 105 ]. Dietz et al. describe the need for ‘adaptive’ governance of socio-ecological systems, pointing out that our understanding of any system can be wrong and incomplete, and that the governance required may change as biophysical and social system components change [ 15 ]. In theory, adaptive governance posits that the higher the level of adaptiveness of the governance system to the functioning and changes in the socio-ecological system, the greater the likelihood of achieving sustainable development goals [ 106 ].

The boundaries of socio-ecological systems are not fixed or easily delineated due to the complex and interdependent nature of these systems. Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom advanced the view that social-ecological complexity should be embraced and developed a framework for social-ecological systems to facilitate a deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to the success or failure of different social-ecological systems contexts [ 107 ]. The analytical framework developed by Elinor Ostrom and others is often used to study the effects and outcomes of natural resource governance in various social-ecological systems. A common criticism of Ostrom's framework is that it fails to account for power dynamics and historical influences [ 108 ]. However, the widespread use of the Ostrom framework has facilitated extensive comparisons of various social-ecological systems, thereby opening up avenues for subsequent improvements. These comparisons have yielded a wealth of knowledge on the adaptive governance of social-ecological systems.

In recent years, the concept of adaptive governance for social-ecological systems has attracted increasing scientific and policy interest [ 22 ]. A key strength of adaptive governance is its ability to provide a theoretical framework for research that integrates the analysis of new governance capacities, including adaptive capacity, collaboration, scalability, knowledge, and learning. For instance, Folke et al. identified four key features that are essential for the implementation of adaptive governance in social-ecological systems [ 18 ]. Huber-Stearns and Cheng studied the changing role of government in the context of adaptive governance for freshwater social-ecological systems [ 109 ]. Tuda et al. argue that promoting adaptive governance for transboundary marine ecosystem services requires creating policy frameworks that enable cross-sectoral integration and provide opportunities to collaborate among stakeholders [ 110 ]. The existence of various social-ecological systems is a ubiquitous phenomenon, occurring wherever human communities and large-scale activities are present. Consequently, the scope of research on adaptive socio-ecological governance is extremely broad, to achieve the goal of sustainable development.

Topic four: climate change adaptation (cluster five and cluster eight)

Climate change presents a widespread challenge facing human society, with uncertain but potentially severe consequences affecting natural and human systems, across generations. Climate change adaptation is implemented to mitigate the detrimental impact of climate change [ 111 ]. In the climate context, adaptations is defined as the "adjustments in individual groups and institutional behavior to reduce society's vulnerability to climate" [ 112 ]. The concept of adaptation implies the capacity to overcome stress and respond to change, as well as the ability to transform social-ecological systems into improved states [ 18 ]. In this treatment of the term, “adaptation” can be distinguished from “adaptive” features that allow societies to function within their environments [ 113 ]. Adaptive capacity is defined as the ability of a system to adjust to climate change, mitigate potential damages, benefit from opportunities, or cope with consequences [ 114 ]. Adaptive capacity can be categorized into four factors: flexibility and diversity, organizational capacity, learning and knowledge, and access to assets [ 115 ]. Adaptive capacity is closely related to other concepts, including resilience, adaptability, management capacity, coping ability, flexibility and stability. As the impacts of climate change become more apparent and urgent, researchers are dedicated to understanding how governance systems can effectively address and adapt to these changes. The concept of adaptive governance has proven useful in devising strategies to cope with climate change-related transformations [ 116 ]. Given that uncertainty is an inherent feature of climate change, adaptive governance is considered an important approach to improving climate change adaptation. Furthermore, Climate change adaptation benefits from flexible decision-making approaches that can be linked to key principles of adaptive governance. Munaretto et al. proposed a framework that integrates key features of adaptive governance into a participatory multi-criteria approach to climate adaptation governance [ 92 ]. Huh et al. explored the approach to multilateral governance for adapting to climate change in Korea and found that it is characterized by both vertical and horizontal adaptation governance principles [ 117 ]. Vella et al. propose a more systematic scaling up of governance and planning to facilitate the meeting of multilevel climate change adaptation needs [ 118 ]. Sauer, et al. identified the barriers and enablers of adaptive governance using social network analysis combined with qualitative information [ 119 ]. Adaptive governance responds to systemic, wicked, complex climate change by enhancing adaptive capacity and social learning [ 120 ]. An adaptive governance system that responds to climate change would include elements of an adaptive management system that monitors and assesses the impact of development decisions; forms of adaptive co-management in the rationing of resources; and anticipatory governance mechanisms that use scenario planning to develop adaptation strategies and assess whether current policies will be sufficient in the changing climate of the future [ 120 ]. A substantial corpus of research exists on the subject of adaptive governance in the context of climate change adaptation. This field of study has emerged as a significant area of interest within adaptive governance.

Topic five: social learning (cluster nine)

Social learning has been defined as "achieving concerted action in complex and uncertain situations" [ 121 ]. Definitions of the concept of social learning in the existing literature are often ambiguous, and some are so broad that they could cover almost any social process. In the context of adaptive governance processes, social learning can be conceptualized as a cyclic and iterative process in which individuals and collectives learn through social interactions with others, both online and offline [ 122 , 123 , 124 ].

Social learning is at the heart of solving environmental problems that arise in repeated iterations. Social learning plays a critical role in adaptive governance as it serves as an indicator of adaptive capacity [ 125 , 126 ]. Social learning enhances resilience by providing access to knowledge negotiation and knowledge sharing [ 78 , 127 , 128 ], meanwhile, learning during emergencies can lead to innovation [ 129 , 130 ]. Due to its significance in fostering adaptive governance, social learning has become a focal point in adaptive governance research. Learning initially proposed by Argyris and Schön, has evolved into different forms, including single-loop learning, double-loop learning, and triple-loop learning [ 32 , 131 ]. Single-loop learning focuses on making adjustments based on mistakes and improving routine practices. Double-loop learning involves examining the underlying assumptions behind actions in response to a crisis. Triple-loop learning involves challenging and changing the fundamental values and norms that guide action. Triple-loop learning has the potential to induce a paradigm shift in disaster management, thereby changing the overall approach, strategy and practical actions of disaster management [ 132 ].

Scholars have long recognized the significant role of social learning in adaptive governance [ 78 , 133 ]. Researchers have employed a variety of metaphors to elucidate the concept of social learning, and have identified a multitude of roles and functions of social learning in adaptive governance [ 134 ]. Previous studies have primarily examined the role through which various forms of social learning contribute to adaptive governance and the development of system resilience [ 32 , 78 , 135 ]. Moreover, researchers have increasingly emphasized the importance of institutionalizing social learning, arguing that it serves as a pathway to successful adaptive governance [ 136 ].

4 Discussion

As one of the most widely used theories in the field of environmental governance and social ecology, adaptive governance has attracted the attention of an increasing number of researchers and practitioners [ 137 , 138 ], there is a high probability that the number of adaptive governance papers will continue to grow in the future. For gaining a deeper understanding of the current state and trends of research in the field of adaptive governance, scientometric techniques such as co-author analysis, co-word analysis, co-citation analysis, and cluster analysis were used to provide an overview of adaptive governance.

4.1 General information

The research on adaptive governance has predominantly been conducted in developed countries/regions. Leading the field are countries such as the USA, Australia, England, Canada, the Netherlands, and Sweden. This indicates a deficiency in the existing literature on adaptive governance in the Global South. Moreover, the potential of adaptive governance for environmental governance in the Global South has yet to be fully realized. Adaptive governance is rooted in the developed economies of the world, and researchers inevitably question its suitability for other economic and socio-political environments [ 22 ]. Bridging this gap presents a valuable opportunity to apply the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of adaptive governance developed in developed countries to research conducted in developing countries. The socio-economic-political aspects of the Global North are different from those of the Global South, which means that adaptive governance requires modifying frameworks in terms of policies, technologies and solutions in line with the Global South [ 139 ].

Based on the findings, it is evident that universities are at the forefront of studies on adaptive governance, yet there is a significant gap in the form of deeper engagement with industry and governmental organizations. Adaptive governance emphasizes the involvement and collaboration of scientific research, government, industry and multiple stakeholders in a continuous problem-solving process [ 6 , 7 , 140 ]. In the realm of future research on adaptive governance, it is crucial to enhance collaboration among industry, academia, and government organizations, which can ensure that our research outcomes are not only more targeted but also highly practical. Moreover, such an interdisciplinary approach can stimulate a broader spectrum of research interests within the field. For instance, integrating adaptive governance with digital technology could pave the way for innovative and groundbreaking research outcomes.

4.2 Research bases and hotspots

This study explores the research bases and hotspots in the adaptive governance area, focusing on two aspects: Literature co-citation analysis and keyword co-occurrence analysis.

Through the analysis of cited literature and clusters, this study has revealed that "adaptive governance", "adaptive management", "adaptive co-management", "social capital", "social-ecological systems", "dynamic systems theory", "adaptive capacity", "climate change", "local knowledge" are the research bases in the adaptive governance research field. Within the adaptive governance research field, adaptive governance systematically integrates adaptive management into political processes. Meanwhile, adaptive co-management has been interchangeably used to define adaptive governance, forming a core foundation for research [ 86 ]. The three concepts of "Adaptive governance", "adaptive management" and "adaptive co-management" collectively comprise the fundamental principles of adaptive governance research. Further, adaptive governance is seen as a pathway to achieving the desired end goal of adaptive capacity, gaining widespread support for its responsiveness to climate change adaptation and complex ecological systems [ 141 , 142 ]. Consequently, "social-ecological systems", "dynamic systems theory", "adaptive capacity" and “climate change" contribute significantly to the research on adaptive governance. In addition, in social–ecological systems, where local users and managers hold crucial knowledge, building social capital becomes a defining characteristic or key method of adaptive governance [ 4 , 143 ]. Thus, "local knowledge" and "social capital" emerge as integral components of the foundation of adaptive governance research.

The co-occurrence analysis of keywords can help grasp quickly the research hotspots of a specific research field [ 144 , 145 ]. Based on the results of the co-occurrence analysis of keywords, five main research topics in the field of adaptive governance were identified, including the concept of adaptive governance, environmental governance, social-ecological systems, climate change adaptation and social learning. We found that the research bases and research hotspots of adaptive governance are somewhat similar and highly interrelated. This suggests that themes related to the connotations of adaptive governance, environmental governance, social-ecological systems, climate change adaptation and social learning have received sustained attention from scholars. The ultimate goal of adaptive governance is to build resilience in a desirable regime [ 146 ]. To foster resilient communities, cities and societies, as well as sustainable global development, these topics above in the field of adaptive governance will receive long-lasting attention and research in the future.

In addition, empirical research on the contribution of social learning to adaptive governance and resilience remains limited [ 32 , 147 ]. Conceptual and methodological research on social learning and its relationship to adaptive governance has progressed sufficiently to facilitate detailed empirical research. This should concentrate on how attempts at social learning can be made more effective, for example, through the utilisation of digital technologies to facilitate the learning process. Moreover, scholars' research on adaptive governance evaluation is more limited and has not yet become a hotspot of adaptive governance research. To achieve effective adaptive governance, assessment of processes and outcomes needs to be seen as a core element [ 14 ]. Future research should strengthen the study of the adaptive governance evaluation, which is the key to monitoring, learning and improvement in the adaptive governance process. Of course, because adaptive governance embraces uncertainty, it is challenging to accurately assess the process and outcomes of adaptive governance.

This study intuitively provides a more comprehensive and holistic knowledge map to enhance the existing adaptive governance knowledge system, some limitations have been considered. Firstly, our findings are constrained by the only use of the Web of Science core collection database, thus some data that is not in this database may has been missed. Secondly, this paper does not incorporate grey literature on adaptive governance, in particular relevant local case studies, local knowledge systems and governance approaches to adaptive governance. Additionally, our analysis only considered documents written in English. Despite the extensive collection, screening and analysis of formal publications such as academic journals and conference papers, it is difficult to avoid omitting some relevant literature that has been published in informal literature or has not been widely cited. Consequently, caution has been maintained in summarising general trends in the field of adaptive governance over the past two decades. It is worth noting that despite these limitations, this paper can provide an initial overview of the achievements and developments in adaptive governance over the past 20 years by analyzing and summarising the existing literature and identifying important themes and trends, highlight issues that have not yet been explored in depth in the body of knowledge in the field.

5 Conclusion

In this study, we conducted a scientometric analysis to provide helpful insights into adaptive governance research based on data from 3274 literature sources retrieved from the WOS core collection from 2003 to 2022.

The results showed that the research on adaptive governance had grown linearly during the last two decades, especially with the advancement of the research on the socio-ecological theory and resilience theory. Moreover, developed countries, including the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and others, have exerted a considerable influence on the evolution of the field of adaptive governance, making notable contributions. The examination of the potential contribution of adaptive governance to the achievement of the sustainable development goals of the global South will be an important research topic in the future, particularly concerning poverty reduction, disaster mitigation and environmental sustainability.

The results also provided valuable information on the scientific output, core authors, significant institutions, high-impact journals, research cooperation networks, intellectual base, high frequency keywords, research topics, emerging trends and citations of the research on adaptive governance, which can enable scholars to understand the current status and trends of impactful research carried out by researchers, research institutes, and countries in the field.

In addition, the literature on adaptive governance concentrated on environmental studies, environmental sciences, and ecology, which was proved by the most cited papers. Knowledge from multidisciplinary fields contributes to the development of adaptive governance research. Exploring how big data analytics and digital technologies can facilitate evidence-based decision-making processes within an adaptive governance framework may also be a future research direction, that enables policymakers to use real-time data to develop and implement informed adaptive governance policies.

Data availability

The datasets are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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The authors thank the editor and three reviewers for their helpful comments on the article.

This work was supported by the Key Project of China Ministry of Education for Philosophy and Social Science under Big Data Driven Risk Research on City’s Public Safety [Grant No. 16JZD023]; National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21&ZD163).

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Zhao, G., Hui, X., Lu, Y. et al. Progress in adaptive governance research and hotspot analysis: a global scientometric visualization analysis. Discov Sustain 5 , 234 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-024-00435-8

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What Is a Theoretical Framework? | Guide to Organizing

Published on October 14, 2022 by Sarah Vinz . Revised on November 20, 2023 by Tegan George.

A theoretical framework is a foundational review of existing theories that serves as a roadmap for developing the arguments you will use in your own work.

Theories are developed by researchers to explain phenomena, draw connections, and make predictions. In a theoretical framework, you explain the existing theories that support your research, showing that your paper or dissertation topic is relevant and grounded in established ideas.

In other words, your theoretical framework justifies and contextualizes your later research, and it’s a crucial first step for your research paper , thesis , or dissertation . A well-rounded theoretical framework sets you up for success later on in your research and writing process.

Table of contents

Why do you need a theoretical framework, how to write a theoretical framework, structuring your theoretical framework, example of a theoretical framework, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about theoretical frameworks.

Before you start your own research, it’s crucial to familiarize yourself with the theories and models that other researchers have already developed. Your theoretical framework is your opportunity to present and explain what you’ve learned, situated within your future research topic.

There’s a good chance that many different theories about your topic already exist, especially if the topic is broad. In your theoretical framework, you will evaluate, compare, and select the most relevant ones.

By “framing” your research within a clearly defined field, you make the reader aware of the assumptions that inform your approach, showing the rationale behind your choices for later sections, like methodology and discussion . This part of your dissertation lays the foundations that will support your analysis, helping you interpret your results and make broader generalizations .

• In literature , a scholar using postmodernist literary theory would analyze The Great Gatsby differently than a scholar using Marxist literary theory.
• In psychology , a behaviorist approach to depression would involve different research methods and assumptions than a psychoanalytic approach.
• In economics , wealth inequality would be explained and interpreted differently based on a classical economics approach than based on a Keynesian economics one.

To create your own theoretical framework, you can follow these three steps:

• Identifying your key concepts
• Evaluating and explaining relevant theories
• Showing how your research fits into existing research

1. Identify your key concepts

The first step is to pick out the key terms from your problem statement and research questions . Concepts often have multiple definitions, so your theoretical framework should also clearly define what you mean by each term.

To investigate this problem, you have identified and plan to focus on the following problem statement, objective, and research questions:

Problem : Many online customers do not return to make subsequent purchases.

Objective : To increase the quantity of return customers.

Research question : How can the satisfaction of company X’s online customers be improved in order to increase the quantity of return customers?

2. Evaluate and explain relevant theories

By conducting a thorough literature review , you can determine how other researchers have defined these key concepts and drawn connections between them. As you write your theoretical framework, your aim is to compare and critically evaluate the approaches that different authors have taken.

After discussing different models and theories, you can establish the definitions that best fit your research and justify why. You can even combine theories from different fields to build your own unique framework if this better suits your topic.

Make sure to at least briefly mention each of the most important theories related to your key concepts. If there is a well-established theory that you don’t want to apply to your own research, explain why it isn’t suitable for your purposes.

3. Show how your research fits into existing research

Apart from summarizing and discussing existing theories, your theoretical framework should show how your project will make use of these ideas and take them a step further.

You might aim to do one or more of the following:

• Test whether a theory holds in a specific, previously unexamined context
• Use an existing theory as a basis for interpreting your results
• Critique or challenge a theory
• Combine different theories in a new or unique way

A theoretical framework can sometimes be integrated into a literature review chapter , but it can also be included as its own chapter or section in your dissertation. As a rule of thumb, if your research involves dealing with a lot of complex theories, it’s a good idea to include a separate theoretical framework chapter.

There are no fixed rules for structuring your theoretical framework, but it’s best to double-check with your department or institution to make sure they don’t have any formatting guidelines. The most important thing is to create a clear, logical structure. There are a few ways to do this:

• Draw on your research questions, structuring each section around a question or key concept
• Organize by theory cluster
• Organize by date

It’s important that the information in your theoretical framework is clear for your reader. Make sure to ask a friend to read this section for you, or use a professional proofreading service .

As in all other parts of your research paper , thesis , or dissertation , make sure to properly cite your sources to avoid plagiarism .

To get a sense of what this part of your thesis or dissertation might look like, take a look at our full example .

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Research bias

• Survivorship bias
• Self-serving bias
• Availability heuristic
• Halo effect
• Hindsight bias
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

 (AI) Tools

• Grammar Checker
• Paraphrasing Tool
• Text Summarizer
• AI Detector
• Plagiarism Checker
• Citation Generator

While a theoretical framework describes the theoretical underpinnings of your work based on existing research, a conceptual framework allows you to draw your own conclusions, mapping out the variables you may use in your study and the interplay between them.

A literature review and a theoretical framework are not the same thing and cannot be used interchangeably. While a theoretical framework describes the theoretical underpinnings of your work, a literature review critically evaluates existing research relating to your topic. You’ll likely need both in your dissertation .

A theoretical framework can sometimes be integrated into a  literature review chapter , but it can also be included as its own chapter or section in your dissertation . As a rule of thumb, if your research involves dealing with a lot of complex theories, it’s a good idea to include a separate theoretical framework chapter.

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Vinz, S. (2023, November 20). What Is a Theoretical Framework? | Guide to Organizing. Scribbr. Retrieved September 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/theoretical-framework/

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Sarah's academic background includes a Master of Arts in English, a Master of International Affairs degree, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. She loves the challenge of finding the perfect formulation or wording and derives much satisfaction from helping students take their academic writing up a notch.

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