How to Write a Literature Review - A Self-Guided Tutorial

A literature review is a piece of discursive prose, not a list summarizing one piece of literature after another. Organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory. You are not trying to list all the material, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or research question.

This handout from UNC - Chapel Hill provides several effective strategies for writing the literature review.

• Include only the most important points from each source -- you want to summarize, not quote from the sources.
• Include your own conclusions from analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing what you learned from these articles.
• Avoid plagiarism in your lit review. Consult this tutorial on Academic Integrity from IUPUI if you need some guidance.

From UNC-Chapel Hill and University of Toronto