literature review structure uq

How To Structure Your Literature Review

3 options to help structure your chapter.

By: Amy Rommelspacher (PhD) | Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | November 2020 (Updated May 2023)

Writing the literature review chapter can seem pretty daunting when you’re piecing together your dissertation or thesis. As  we’ve discussed before , a good literature review needs to achieve a few very important objectives – it should:

• Demonstrate your knowledge of the research topic
• Identify the gaps in the literature and show how your research links to these
• Provide the foundation for your conceptual framework (if you have one)
• Inform your own  methodology and research design

To achieve this, your literature review needs a well-thought-out structure . Get the structure of your literature review chapter wrong and you’ll struggle to achieve these objectives. Don’t worry though – in this post, we’ll look at how to structure your literature review for maximum impact (and marks!).

But wait – is this the right time?

Deciding on the structure of your literature review should come towards the end of the literature review process – after you have collected and digested the literature, but before you start writing the chapter. 

In other words, you need to first develop a rich understanding of the literature before you even attempt to map out a structure. There’s no use trying to develop a structure before you’ve fully wrapped your head around the existing research.

Equally importantly, you need to have a structure in place before you start writing , or your literature review will most likely end up a rambling, disjointed mess. 

Importantly, don’t feel that once you’ve defined a structure you can’t iterate on it. It’s perfectly natural to adjust as you engage in the writing process. As we’ve discussed before , writing is a way of developing your thinking, so it’s quite common for your thinking to change – and therefore, for your chapter structure to change – as you write. 

Need a helping hand?

Like any other chapter in your thesis or dissertation, your literature review needs to have a clear, logical structure. At a minimum, it should have three essential components – an  introduction , a  body   and a  conclusion . 

Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

1: The Introduction Section

Just like any good introduction, the introduction section of your literature review should introduce the purpose and layout (organisation) of the chapter. In other words, your introduction needs to give the reader a taste of what’s to come, and how you’re going to lay that out. Essentially, you should provide the reader with a high-level roadmap of your chapter to give them a taste of the journey that lies ahead.

Here’s an example of the layout visualised in a literature review introduction:

Your introduction should also outline your topic (including any tricky terminology or jargon) and provide an explanation of the scope of your literature review – in other words, what you  will   and  won’t   be covering (the delimitations ). This helps ringfence your review and achieve a clear focus . The clearer and narrower your focus, the deeper you can dive into the topic (which is typically where the magic lies). 

Depending on the nature of your project, you could also present your stance or point of view at this stage. In other words, after grappling with the literature you’ll have an opinion about what the trends and concerns are in the field as well as what’s lacking. The introduction section can then present these ideas so that it is clear to examiners that you’re aware of how your research connects with existing knowledge .

2: The Body Section

The body of your literature review is the centre of your work. This is where you’ll present, analyse, evaluate and synthesise the existing research. In other words, this is where you’re going to earn (or lose) the most marks. Therefore, it’s important to carefully think about how you will organise your discussion to present it in a clear way. 

The body of your literature review should do just as the description of this chapter suggests. It should “review” the literature – in other words, identify, analyse, and synthesise it. So, when thinking about structuring your literature review, you need to think about which structural approach will provide the best “review” for your specific type of research and objectives (we’ll get to this shortly).

There are (broadly speaking)  three options  for organising your literature review.

Option 1: Chronological (according to date)

Organising the literature chronologically is one of the simplest ways to structure your literature review. You start with what was published first and work your way through the literature until you reach the work published most recently. Pretty straightforward.

The benefit of this option is that it makes it easy to discuss the developments and debates in the field as they emerged over time. Organising your literature chronologically also allows you to highlight how specific articles or pieces of work might have changed the course of the field – in other words, which research has had the most impact . Therefore, this approach is very useful when your research is aimed at understanding how the topic has unfolded over time and is often used by scholars in the field of history. That said, this approach can be utilised by anyone that wants to explore change over time .

For example , if a student of politics is investigating how the understanding of democracy has evolved over time, they could use the chronological approach to provide a narrative that demonstrates how this understanding has changed through the ages.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you structure your literature review chronologically.

• What is the earliest literature published relating to this topic?
• How has the field changed over time? Why?
• What are the most recent discoveries/theories?

In some ways, chronology plays a part whichever way you decide to structure your literature review, because you will always, to a certain extent, be analysing how the literature has developed. However, with the chronological approach, the emphasis is very firmly on how the discussion has evolved over time , as opposed to how all the literature links together (which we’ll discuss next ).

Option 2: Thematic (grouped by theme)

The thematic approach to structuring a literature review means organising your literature by theme or category – for example, by independent variables (i.e. factors that have an impact on a specific outcome).

As you’ve been collecting and synthesising literature , you’ll likely have started seeing some themes or patterns emerging. You can then use these themes or patterns as a structure for your body discussion. The thematic approach is the most common approach and is useful for structuring literature reviews in most fields.

For example, if you were researching which factors contributed towards people trusting an organisation, you might find themes such as consumers’ perceptions of an organisation’s competence, benevolence and integrity. Structuring your literature review thematically would mean structuring your literature review’s body section to discuss each of these themes, one section at a time.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when structuring your literature review by themes:

• Are there any patterns that have come to light in the literature?
• What are the central themes and categories used by the researchers?
• Do I have enough evidence of these themes?

PS – you can see an example of a thematically structured literature review in our literature review sample walkthrough video here.

Option 3: Methodological

The methodological option is a way of structuring your literature review by the research methodologies used . In other words, organising your discussion based on the angle from which each piece of research was approached – for example, qualitative , quantitative or mixed  methodologies.

Structuring your literature review by methodology can be useful if you are drawing research from a variety of disciplines and are critiquing different methodologies. The point of this approach is to question  how  existing research has been conducted, as opposed to  what  the conclusions and/or findings the research were.

For example, a sociologist might centre their research around critiquing specific fieldwork practices. Their literature review will then be a summary of the fieldwork methodologies used by different studies.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself when structuring your literature review according to methodology:

• Which methodologies have been utilised in this field?
• Which methodology is the most popular (and why)?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the various methodologies?
• How can the existing methodologies inform my own methodology?

3: The Conclusion Section

Once you’ve completed the body section of your literature review using one of the structural approaches we discussed above, you’ll need to “wrap up” your literature review and pull all the pieces together to set the direction for the rest of your dissertation or thesis.

The conclusion is where you’ll present the key findings of your literature review. In this section, you should emphasise the research that is especially important to your research questions and highlight the gaps that exist in the literature. Based on this, you need to make it clear what you will add to the literature – in other words, justify your own research by showing how it will help fill one or more of the gaps you just identified.

Last but not least, if it’s your intention to develop a conceptual framework for your dissertation or thesis, the conclusion section is a good place to present this.

Example: Thematically Structured Review

In the video below, we unpack a literature review chapter so that you can see an example of a thematically structure review in practice.

Let’s Recap

In this article, we’ve  discussed how to structure your literature review for maximum impact. Here’s a quick recap of what  you need to keep in mind when deciding on your literature review structure:

• Just like other chapters, your literature review needs a clear introduction , body and conclusion .
• The introduction section should provide an overview of what you will discuss in your literature review.
• The body section of your literature review can be organised by chronology , theme or methodology . The right structural approach depends on what you’re trying to achieve with your research.
• The conclusion section should draw together the key findings of your literature review and link them to your research questions.

If you’re ready to get started, be sure to download our free literature review template to fast-track your chapter outline.

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 .

28 Comments

Great work. This is exactly what I was looking for and helps a lot together with your previous post on literature review. One last thing is missing: a link to a great literature chapter of an journal article (maybe with comments of the different sections in this review chapter). Do you know any great literature review chapters?

I agree with you Marin… A great piece

I agree with Marin. This would be quite helpful if you annotate a nicely structured literature from previously published research articles.

Awesome article for my research.

I thank you immensely for this wonderful guide

It is indeed thought and supportive work for the futurist researcher and students

Very educative and good time to get guide. Thank you

Great work, very insightful. Thank you.

Thanks for this wonderful presentation. My question is that do I put all the variables into a single conceptual framework or each hypothesis will have it own conceptual framework?

Thank you very much, very helpful

This is very educative and precise . Thank you very much for dropping this kind of write up .

Pheeww, so damn helpful, thank you for this informative piece.

I’m doing a research project topic ; stool analysis for parasitic worm (enteric) worm, how do I structure it, thanks.

comprehensive explanation. Help us by pasting the URL of some good “literature review” for better understanding.

great piece. thanks for the awesome explanation. it is really worth sharing. I have a little question, if anyone can help me out, which of the options in the body of literature can be best fit if you are writing an architectural thesis that deals with design?

I am doing a research on nanofluids how can l structure it?

Beautifully clear.nThank you!

Lucid! Thankyou!

Brilliant work, well understood, many thanks

I like how this was so clear with simple language 😊😊 thank you so much 😊 for these information 😊

Insightful. I was struggling to come up with a sensible literature review but this has been really helpful. Thank you!

You have given thought-provoking information about the review of the literature.

Thank you. It has made my own research better and to impart your work to students I teach

I learnt a lot from this teaching. It’s a great piece.

I am doing research on EFL teacher motivation for his/her job. How Can I structure it? Is there any detailed template, additional to this?

You are so cool! I do not think I’ve read through something like this before. So nice to find somebody with some genuine thoughts on this issue. Seriously.. thank you for starting this up. This site is one thing that is required on the internet, someone with a little originality!

I’m asked to do conceptual, theoretical and empirical literature, and i just don’t know how to structure it

Asking questions are actually fastidious thing if you are not understanding anything fully, but this article presents good understanding yet.

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

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

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

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

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

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

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

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Table of contents

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

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

Download Word doc Download Google doc

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

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

Make a list of keywords

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

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

Search for relevant sources

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

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

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

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

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

For each publication, ask yourself:

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

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

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

Take notes and cite your sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chronological

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

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

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

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

Methodological

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

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

Theoretical

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

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

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

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

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

As you write, you can follow these tips:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Statistics

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

Research bias

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Writing a literature review [webinar]

This workshop outlines strategies to use when reading for and writing your lit review. It focuses on critical reading and examines the unique features  and structure of a literature review.

This session will provide answers to the questions: 1.    What is a literature review? 2.    What is its purpose? 3.    What does it involve? 4.    How should it be structured? 5.    What type of language should I use?

Presented by Learning Advisors from Student Services.

About Writing skills

The ability to write well is critical to success in your research degree and a ‘top 10’ skill sought by employers. Learning the strategies for good writing will help you write efficiently.  Knowing not only what to write, but how to write it for a particular audience, will help you communicate your research effectively.

Useful links

• UQ Academic Writing [online at UQ]
• Improving writing through corpora [online at UQ]
• Getting started with a literature review  (Library)
• Getting started with a Systematic Review  (Library)

Other upcoming sessions

Writing a literature review [gatton], introduction to systematic reviews [webinar], enhancing academic writing with ai: strategies, opportunities and considerations [webinar].

• Writing well

How to write a literature review

• Starting well
• How to write an annotated bibliography
• How to write a case study response
• How to write a critique
• How to write an empirical article
• How to write an essay
• How to write a reflective task
• How to write a report
• Finishing well

Structure of a literature review

Determine your purpose.

Work out what you need to address in the literature review. What are you being asked to do in your literature review? What are you searching the literature to discover? Check your assignment question and your criteria sheet to know what to focus on.

Do an extensive search of the literature

Find out what has been written on the topic.

What kind of literature?

Select appropriate source material: Use a variety of academic or scholarly sources that are relevant, current and authoritative. An extensive review of relevant material will include — books, journal articles, reports, government documents, conference proceedings and web resources. The Library would be the best place to search for your sources.

How many resources?

The number of sources that you will be required to review will depend on what the literature review is for and how advanced you are in your studies. It could be from five sources at first year undergraduate level to more than fifty for a thesis. Your lecturer will advise you on these details.

Note the bibliographical details of your sources

Keep a note of the publication title, date, authors’ names, page numbers and publishers. These details will save you time later.

Read the literature

• Critically read each source, look for the arguments presented rather than for facts.
• Take notes as you read and start to organise your review around themes and ideas.
• Consider using a table, matrix or concept map to identify how the different sources relate to each other.

Analyse the literature you have found

In order for your writing to reflect strong critical analysis, you need to evaluate the sources. For each source you are reviewing ask yourself these questions:

• What are the key terms and concepts?
• How relevant is this article to my specific topic?
• What are the major relationships, trends and patterns?
• How has the author structured the arguments?
• How authoritative and credible is this source?
• What are the differences and similarities between the sources?
• Are there any gaps in the literature that require further study?

Write the review

• Start by writing your thesis statement. This is an important introductory sentence that will tell your reader what the topic is and the overall perspective or argument you will be presenting.
• Like essays, a literature review must have an introduction, a body and a conclusion.

Introduction

Your introduction should give an outline of:

• why you are writing a review, and why the topic is important
• the scope of the review — what aspects of the topic will be discussed
• the criteria used for your literature selection (e.g. type of sources used, date range)
• the organisational pattern of the review.

Body paragraphs

Each body paragraph should deal with a different theme that is relevant to your topic. You will need to synthesise several of your reviewed readings into each paragraph, so that there is a clear connection between the various sources. You will need to critically analyse each source for how they contribute to the themes you are researching.

The body could include paragraphs on:

• historical background
• methodologies
• previous studies on the topic
• mainstream versus alternative viewpoints
• principal questions being asked
• general conclusions that are being drawn.

Your conclusion should give a summary of:

• the main agreements and disagreements in the literature
• any gaps or areas for further research
• your overall perspective on the topic.
• outlined the purpose and scope?
• identified appropriate and credible (academic/scholarly) literature?
• recorded the bibliographical details of the sources?
• analysed and critiqued your readings?
• identified gaps in the literature and research?
• explored methodologies / theories / hypotheses / models?
• discussed the varying viewpoints?
• written an introduction, body and conclusion?
• checked punctuation and spelling?

Further information

• HiQ: Managing weekly readings
• HiQ: Notetaking
• HiQ: Structuring your assignment
• RMIT University: Literature review - Overview

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• Assignment structure and writing
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The literature review 

A literature review analyses and evaluates existing knowledge within a particular domain.

The review, like other forms of academic writing, has an introduction, body and conclusion, well-formed paragraphs, and a logical structure. However, in other kinds of expository writing, you use relevant literature to support the discussion of your thesis; in a literature review, the literature itself is the subject of discussion.

A literature review gives an overview of what has already been said on the topic, who the key writers are, what the prevailing theories and hypotheses are, what questions are being asked, and what methodologies and methods are appropriate and useful.

A critical literature review shows how prevailing ideas fit into your own thesis, and how your thesis agrees or differs from them.

This depends on what the literature review is for, and what stage you are at in your studies. Your supervisor or lecturer should specify a minimum number of references.

Generally speaking, a reasonable number of references in a literature review would be:

• Undergraduate review: 5-20 titles depending on level
• Honours dissertation: 20+ titles
• Masters thesis: 40+ titles
• Doctoral thesis: 50+ titles.

1. Conduct the literature search

Find out what has been written on your subject. Places to start are:

• Bibliographies and references in key textbooks and recent journal articles. Your supervisor or tutor should tell you which are the key texts and relevant journals.
• Library search
• Databases – not all databases can be searched via Library Search. Consider searching subject specific databases individually to ensure you comprehensively conducting your literature review.
• RISE Research Repository – UniSQ's repository of research outputs.
• Google Scholar – can be useful for finding resources, such as conference papers, and research in other universities’ repositories. 

Many abstracting journals and electronic databases are available. Subject support is available for databases and bibliographies relevant to your field. 

2. Note the bibliographical details

Write down the full bibliographical details of each book or article as soon as you find a reference to it. This will save you an enormous amount of time later on. Referencing management software, such as EndNote , can be useful to manage citation information.

3. Read the literature

Take notes as you read the literature. You are reading to find out how each piece of writing approaches the subject of your research, what it has to say about it, and (especially for research students) how it relates to your own thesis.

Questions to consider include:

• Is it a general textbook or does it deal with a specific issue(s)?
• Does it follow a particular school of thought?
• What is its theoretical basis?
• What definitions does it use?
• What is its general methodological approach? What methods are used?
• What kinds of data does it use to back up its argument?
• What conclusions does it come to?

Other questions may be relevant. It depends on the purpose of the review.

4. Write the review

Having gathered the relevant details about the literature, you now need to write the review. The kind of review you write, and the amount of detail, will depend on the level of your studies.

A literature review synthesises many texts in one paragraph. Each paragraph (or section if it is a long thesis) of the literature review should classify and evaluate a common theme you have discovered in your research which is relevant to your thesis.

Like all academic writing, a literature review should have an introduction, body, and conclusion.

The introduction should include:

• the topic of your thesis
• the parameters of the topic (what it includes and excludes)
• why you have selected the literature.

The body paragraphs could include relevant paragraphs on:

• historical background including classic texts
• current mainstream versus alternative theoretical or ideological viewpoints, including differing theoretical assumptions, differing political outlooks, and other conflicts
• possible approaches to the subject (empirical, philosophical, historical, postmodernist, etc.)
• definitions in use
• current research studies
• current discoveries about the topic
• principal questions that are being asked
• general conclusions that are being drawn
• methodologies and methods in use.

The conclusion should include:

• A summary of major agreements and disagreements in the literature
• A summary of general conclusions that are being drawn
• A summary of where your thesis sits in the literature.

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All Answers (4)

• Introduction: Provides background information on the topic and states the research question or problem.
• Review of the Literature: Presents a critical analysis of the existing research, organized chronologically or thematically. Each study is evaluated in terms of its methodology, findings, and implications.
• Discussion: Synthesizes the findings of the reviewed studies and identifies patterns, gaps, or contradictions in the literature.
• Conclusion: Summarizes the main points of the review and provides recommendations for future research.

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Systematic reviews

What is a systematic review, identifying the need for a systematic review, types of systematic reviews, other reviews, literature review vs systematic review.

• Steps in a systematic review
• Formulate the question
• Create a protocol (plan)
• Sources to search
• Conduct a thorough search
• Post search phase
• Select studies (screening)
• Appraise the quality of the studies
• Extract data, synthesise and analyse
• Interpret results and write
• Guides and manuals
• Training and support

"Systematic reviews aim to identify, evaluate and summarise the findings of all relevant individual studies, thereby making the available evidence more accessible to decisionmakers. When appropriate, combining the results of several studies gives a more reliable and precise estimate of an intervention’s effectiveness than one study alone." 

Centre for Reviews and Dissemination. Systematic Reviews: CRD's guidance for undertaking reviews in health care . York (GB): Centre for Reviews and Dissemination; 2009.

A systematic review is a review that reports or includes the following:

• research question
• sources that were searched, with a reproducible search strategy (naming of databases, naming of search platforms/engines, search date and complete search strategy)
• inclusion and exclusion criteria
• selection (screening) methods
• critically appraises and reports the quality/risk of bias of the included studies
• information about data analysis and synthesis that allows the reproducibility of the results

Krnic Martinic M, Pieper D, Glatt A, Puljak L. Definition of a systematic review used in overviews of systematic reviews, meta-epidemiological studies and textbooks. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2019;19(1):203.

The reasons for a systematic review may include:

• Uncertainty in the research literature where there are conflicting results
• An identified gap in knowledge
• An area in which research and interest are growing
• To prove effectiveness

Watch: Features and benefits of a systematic review (YouTube, 1m 49s)

Part of establishing the need for your planned systematic review is to check that a systematic review doesn't already exist for your topic. See the section of this guide ' Finding existing systematic reviews '.

Systematic reviews have a focused answerable question often developed and defined by a PICO statement. Systematic and transparent methods must be used and reported which enable repeatability and eliminate bias. A rigorous and sensitive search strategy should be developed to attempt to find all published and unpublished relevant literature. Studies for analysis should be chosen using clear, pre-determined inclusion/exclusion criteria. Selected studies should be appraised and all relevant data analysed with the results used to drive policy and practice.

Meta-analysis and systematic review have, in the past, been used interchangeably, however meta-analysis (or meta-synthesis for qualitative research) is now more often used to describe the data analysis that takes place within the systematic review process.

Rapid reviews aim to use the methodology of the systematic review but where a systematic review may take 18 months results may be expected in 6 to 8 weeks. Generally, an effective rapid review requires more subject knowledge and understanding of the systematic review process of the reviewers than does a systematic review. To achieve best results, given the time constraints reviewers could chose to interrogate fewer databases, perhaps 3 as opposed to the 7 or more used in the typical systematic review. Grey literature may not be included and the screening process may be undertaken by a single reviewer after a benchmarking search involving more reviewers looks at a small percentage of the papers to be screened. The aim of a rapid review is to quickly translate findings to policy and practice.

State of the art reviews are very similar to systematic reviews but are interested only in very recent research, more often in emerging areas.

Umbrella reviews undertake much the same process as systematic reviews, however no primary studies are considered, they are reviews of reviews. The aims are the same as systematic reviews, to influence policy and practice but they have the capacity to do so for a broader concept.

Literature reviews  (narrative, critical) have been with us as long as literature and generally seek to find a subset of papers in a selected area and summarise them. 

Scoping reviews , as far as searching, reporting and study selection are concerned, can be much the same as systematic reviews. The question may be much broader than that of a systematic review often considering concepts rather than focused questions. The final analysis and goals of the scoping review are the fundamental differences between scoping and systematic reviews. Charting is the term most often used to describe the “analysis” of the results of a scoping review. The scope or reach of the concept is charted perhaps geographically, socially, temporally or other respects. A scoping review can determine whether a systematic review on the topic is warranted or viable.

Systematic quantitative literature review.  This method developed by Griffith University's School of Environment bridges the gap between traditional narrative review methods and meta-analyses.

Systematised literature review.  This method attempts to include elements of the systematic review process while stopping short of the systematic review. Systematised reviews are typically conducted as a postgraduate student assignment, in recognition that they are not able to draw upon the resources required for a full systematic review (such as two reviewers).

Systematic reviews are very different to narrative (literature) reviews. The list below highlights some of the principle features which set systematic and narrative reviews apart.

Systematic Review

• Has a clear question or hypothesis to be answered
• Searches are rigorous to locate all potentially relevant literature
• Includes explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Assesses study quality for inclusion and provides a synthesis of results

Narrative (Traditional) Review

• Starts with a question but includes general discussion and no hypothesis
• Does not locate all relevant literature
• Does not have explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Does not always require included studies to be methodologically sound or of a certain quality

Mark, P. Systematic reviews from astronomy to zoology: myths and misconceptions.  BMJ. 2001;322(7278):98-101.

For more information on how to search for, store, organise, evaluate and critique information for your literature review (any type) see our  Literature reviews guide . Includes techniques, books, articles and more to help you do your literature review. If your project requires a systematic approach then the information in this guide (Systematic Reviews) may be the most helpful.

• Next: Steps in a systematic review >>
• Last Updated: Jun 27, 2024 9:31 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.uq.edu.au/research-techniques/systematic-reviews

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