PHE 478/479 Program Planning and Evaluation: Literature Reviews

• Introduction to Literature Reviews
• What Should a Literature Review Do?
• What's a Literature Review?
• Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students
• Annual Reviews
• Types of Literature Reviews
• Research Log
• Related Guides

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?

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).

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)

Annual Reviews articles:

• Capture current understanding of a topic, including what is well supported and what is controversial;
• Set the work in historical context;
• Highlight the major questions that remain to be addressed and the likely course of research in upcoming years; and
• Outline the practical applications and general significance of research to society.