Writing 101-10: Writing in the Disciplines - Psychology (Sandoval, Fall 2024)

A literature review is a comprehensive examination of resources that are relevant to a research project. At the university level, most literature reviews cover scholarly resources, although some reviews may include popular and non-scholarly resources. Additionally, some literature reviews may include works in non-written media, like maps, videos, and so forth.

A literature review is NOT an annotated bibliography, although an annotated bibliography is often a precursor to a literature review. See the tab on annotated bibliographies for the differences between the two.

What's it for?

A good literature will offer:

• A critical look at relevant literature or resources;
• A discussion of how the relevant literature or resources are related to your topic;
• An analysis of any gaps or unanswered questions in the relevant literature or resources, which your work will address and answer; and
• A rationale for doing your work in the first place -- i.e., it will answer the question: why is your work important?

A good literature review will clarify your thinking for you. Writing the literature review will help you organize your thoughts, broaden your knowledge in your topic area by requiring you to review relevant resources, and help you situate your own work within the larger context of your topic or subject.

The most important aspects of your literature review are:

• to make clear to your readers that you are indeed familiar with the existing scholarship and research relevant to your topic. In other words, it establishes that you've done your homework.
• to demonstrate to your readers how your work builds upon earlier research and offers answers to unanswered questions. In other words, it explains how and why your work adds to intellectual endeavor in your field.

Because your literature review should do all of the above, it should:

• be organized around and related directly to your topic or research question;
• offer a clear and concise summary of the knowns and unknowns in your field;
• point out controversies and areas of uncertainty in the literature; and
• point out issues and questions needing additional research and answers.

While there are many types of literature reviews, this class will focus on traditional or narrative literature reviews.

Traditional or narrative literature reviews are typically broad in scope. They cover as much as possible of the existing literature or research on a given topic or subject. Often, this sort of literature review is included in theses and dissertations written for degree credit at universities. They're written as an essential part of the theoretical framework for the thesis or dissertation writer's argument: here's what's known, here's what's not known, here's what my work needs to answer and will answer. Because they describe what's known and not, their focus tends to be descriptive rather than analytical.

Because a traditional or narrative literature review is so often a part of a thesis or dissertation, it's good to look at dissertations to find examples of literature reviews. The following links will take you to dissertations with literature reviews; check the tables of contents to find the literature reviews within the dissertations. They're usually the second chapter of the dissertation.

Coleman, B. N. (2015). The association between electronic cigarette use and cigarette smoking behavior among young adults in the United States (Publication no. 3712206). University of Maryland, College Park. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.