Research for Thesis & Dissertation Literature Reviews: What is a Literature Review?

A Literature Review...

• Provides comprehensive discussion of the scholarly research that has already been done on a topic.
• Includes some summary of important articles on a topic.
• Includes comparison: between how different authors discuss the same topic and how the topic has been handled over time.
• Synthesizes previous ideas on a topic, but also looks for gaps in the literature: what needs to be investigated further?

A Literature Review should...

• Relate directly and clearly to your thesis or research question.
• Synthesize and contextualize results, not just report them.
• Identify areas of controversy in the literature.
• Formulate questions that need further research.

Adapted from “The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting It”, by Dena Taylor and Margaret Procter, University of Toronto: www.writing.utoronto.ca (file linked below)

This excellent overview of the literature review explains what a literature review and outlines processes and best practices for doing one. It includes input from an NCSU professor on what a literature review is and what it should do. (Shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US license, attributed to North Carolina State University Libraries).