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Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• 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 sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

Literature Review: Assess your Literature Review

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Assess your Literature Review

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• Use the rubric below to evaluate the quality of your literature review.  If your instructor has provided you with a rubric, you should use the criteria listed in that course or assignment rubric to ensure that your paper will meet the expectations for the course. ( Download a copy of the rubric.)

Adapted from Education 690: Assessment Rubric/Criteria for Literature Review, retrieved September 29,2010 from http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/ed690dr/grading/literaturereviewrubrique.html and Boote, D.N. & Biele, P. (2005). Scholars before researchers: On the centrality of the dissertation literature review in research preparation. Educational Researcher. 34(6) p. 8.

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What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

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1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of literature review? 
• a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction: 
• b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes: 
• c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs: 
• d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts: 

How to write a good literature review 

• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal? 
• Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review?

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

What is the purpose of literature review?

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

1. Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 

2. Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field. 

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3. Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 

4. Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 

5. Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 

6. Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

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Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

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Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

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How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal?

Paperpal, an AI writing assistant, integrates powerful academic search capabilities within its writing platform. With the Research feature, you get 100% factual insights, with citations backed by 250M+ verified research articles, directly within your writing interface with the option to save relevant references in your Citation Library. By eliminating the need to switch tabs to find answers to all your research questions, Paperpal saves time and helps you stay focused on your writing.   

Here’s how to use the Research feature:  

• Ask a question: Get started with a new document on paperpal.com. Click on the “Research” feature and type your question in plain English. Paperpal will scour over 250 million research articles, including conference papers and preprints, to provide you with accurate insights and citations. 
• Review and Save: Paperpal summarizes the information, while citing sources and listing relevant reads. You can quickly scan the results to identify relevant references and save these directly to your built-in citations library for later access. 
• Cite with Confidence: Paperpal makes it easy to incorporate relevant citations and references into your writing, ensuring your arguments are well-supported by credible sources. This translates to a polished, well-researched literature review. 

The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a good literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. By combining effortless research with an easy citation process, Paperpal Research streamlines the literature review process and empowers you to write faster and with more confidence. Try Paperpal Research now and see for yourself.  

Frequently asked questions

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

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What Is a Literature Review?

A literature review is intended to provide an overview of the previous research that has been done on a topic. This research then serves as the basis for you to develop your own hypothesis. A primary reason for conducting a literature review is to ensure that your hypothesis or thesis has not already been completed.This page will provide more information and techniques to guide you through the process of conducting your own literature review. 

Literature Reviews Handout:

This guide is provided by the Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hil

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco Puatasso, in  Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review , sets out some practical guidelines for the literature review:

• Define a topic and audience
• Search and re-search the literature
• Take notes while reading
• Choose the type of review you wish to write
• Keep the review focused, but make it of broad interest
• Be critical and consistent
• Find a logical structure
• Make use of feedback
• Include your own relevant research, but be objective
• Be up-to-date, but do not forget older studies

Pautasso, M. (2013, July). Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review. PLoS Computational Biology. pp. 1-4. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003149.

Literature Review Scoring Rubric

This is an example of a method for evaluating the scholarly literature you find, taken from "Scholars Before Researchers: On the Centrality of the Dissertation Literature Review in Research Preparation" by David N. Boote and Penny Beile Educational Researcher 2005 vol 34 issue 3

• Literature Review Scoring Rubrci

What is a Literature Review?

While you should always refer to your instructor's specific assignment guidelines when doing a literature review, you are safe to assume the following are true. A literature review ...

• Summarizes of the major literature on a specific topic showing relationships between theories, studies
• Produces unique observations and flows like any other original academic paper
• Contains central ideas and presents themes with supportive evidence
• It is NOT just a list of articles with summaries, that is an annotated bibliography

A Video Overview of the Literature Review

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Rubric Sample

Name:   Rubric for Literature Review

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Common Assignments: Literature Review Matrix

Literature review matrix.

As you read and evaluate your literature there are several different ways to organize your research. Courtesy of Dr. Gary Burkholder in the School of Psychology, these sample matrices are one option to help organize your articles. These documents allow you to compile details about your sources, such as the foundational theories, methodologies, and conclusions; begin to note similarities among the authors; and retrieve citation information for easy insertion within a document.

You can review the sample matrixes to see a completed form or download the blank matrix for your own use.

• Literature Review Matrix 1 This PDF file provides a sample literature review matrix.
• Literature Review Matrix 2 This PDF file provides a sample literature review matrix.
• Literature Review Matrix Template (Word)
• Literature Review Matrix Template (Excel)

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Criteria for Evaluation of Literature Reviews - Rubric

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A Rubric to Assess Critical Literature Evaluation Skills

To develop and describe the use of a rubric for reinforcing critical literature evaluation skills and assessing journal article critiques presented by pharmacy students during journal club exercises.

A rubric was developed, tested, and revised as needed to guide students in presenting a published study critique during the second through fourth years of a first-professional doctor of pharmacy degree curriculum and to help faculty members assess student performance and provide formative feedback. Through each rubric iteration, the ease of use and clarity for both evaluators and students were determined with modifications made as indicated. Student feedback was obtained after using the rubric for journal article exercises, and interrater reliability of the rubric was determined.

Student feedback regarding rubric use for preparing a clinical study critique was positive across years. Intraclass correlation coefficients were high for each rubric section. The rubric was modified a total of 5 times based upon student feedback and faculty discussions.

A properly designed and tested rubric can be a useful tool for evaluating student performance during a journal article presentation; however, a rubric can take considerable time to develop. A rubric can also be a valuable student learning aid for applying literature evaluation concepts to the critique of a published study.

INTRODUCTION

There has been increased interest over the past decade in using evidence-based medicine (EBM) as a basis for clinical decision making. Introduced in 1992 by the McMaster University-based Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group, EBM has been defined as “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.” 1 Current best evidence is disseminated via original contributions to the biomedical literature. However, the medical literature has expanded greatly over time. Medline, a biomedical database, indexes over 5000 biomedical journals and contains more than 15 million records. 2 With this abundance of new medical information, keeping up with the literature and properly utilizing EBM techniques are difficult tasks. A journal club in which a published study is reviewed and critiqued for others can be used to help keep abreast of the literature. A properly designed journal club can also be a useful educational tool to teach and reinforce literature evaluation skills. Three common goals of journal clubs are to teach critical appraisal skills, to have an impact on clinical practice, and to keep up with the current literature. 3 , 4 Journal clubs are a recognized part of many educational experiences for medical and pharmacy students in didactic and experiential settings, as well as for clinicians. Journal clubs have also been described as a means of teaching EBM and critical literature evaluation skills to various types of medical residents.

Cramer described use of a journal club to reinforce and evaluate family medicine residents' understanding and use of EBM concepts. 5 Pre- and posttests were used during each journal club to assess the residents' understanding of key EBM concepts related to the article discussed. Pretest scores improved over the year from 54.5% to 78.9% ( p < 0.001) and posttest scores improved from 63.6% to 81.6% ( p < 0.001), demonstrating the journal club's ability to help residents utilize EBM techniques. Linzer and colleagues compared a journal club to a control seminar series with regard to medical interns' reading habits, epidemiology and biostatistics knowledge, and ability to read and incorporate the medical literature into their practice of medicine. 6 Forty-four interns were randomized to participate in the journal club or a seminar series. After a mean of 5 journal club sessions, 86% of the journal club group improved their reading habits compared to none in the seminar group. Knowledge scores increased more with the journal club and there was a trend toward more knowledge gained with sessions attended. Eighty percent of the journal club participants reported improvement in their ability to incorporate the literature into medical practice compared to 44% of the seminar group.

Journal clubs have also been used extensively to aid in the education and training of pharmacy students and residents. The journal club was a major component in 90% and 83% of drug information practice experiences offered by first professional pharmacy degree programs and nontraditional PharmD degree programs, respectively. 7

When a journal club presentation is used to promote learning, it is important that an appropriate method exists for assessing performance and providing the presenter with recommendations for improvement. Several articles have listed important questions and criteria to use when evaluating published clinical studies. 8 - 11 However, using such questions or criteria in the form of a simple checklist (ie, indicating present or absent) does not provide judgments of the quality or depth of coverage of each item. 12 A rubric is a scoring tool that contains criteria for performance with descriptions of the levels of performance that can be used for performance assessments. 12 , 13 Performance assessments are used when students are required to demonstrate application of knowledge, particularly for tasks that resemble “real-life” situations. 14 This report describes the development and use of a rubric for performance assessments of “journal club” study critiques by students in the didactic curriculum and during an advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE).

Two journal article presentations have been a required part of the elective drug information APPE at the West Virginia Center for Drug and Health Information for many years. For these presentations, students select a recent clinical study to evaluate and present their study overview and critique to the 2 primary drug information preceptors. Prior to rubric development, these presentations were evaluated using a brief checklist based upon the CONSORT criteria for reporting of randomized controlled trials. 15 Work on a scoring rubric for the student presentations began in 2002. The first step in its development involved identifying the broad categories and specific criteria that were expected from the journal club presentation. The broad categories selected were those deemed important for a journal club presentation and included: “Content and Description,” “Study Analysis,” “Conclusion,” “Presentation Style,” and “Questions.” The criteria in “Content and Description” involved accurate and complete presentation of the study's objective(s), rationale, methods, results, and author(s)' conclusion. Other criteria within the rubric categories included important elements of statistical analyses, analysis of study strengths and weaknesses, the study drug's role in therapy, communication skills, and ability to handle questions appropriately and provide correct answers. The first version of the rubric was tested in 2003 during the drug information APPE, and several rubric deficiencies were identified. Some sections were difficult to consistently interpret or complete, other criteria did not follow a logical presentation sequence, and a few of the levels of performance were based on numbers that were difficult to quantitate during the presentation. For example, the criteria under “Content and Description” were too broad; students could miss one aspect of a study's design such as blinding but correctly identify the rest, making it difficult to accurately evaluate using the rubric.

Version 2 of the rubric was reformatted to remedy the problems. The description and content categories were expanded to make it easier to identify the specific parts of the study that the students should describe, and the “Study Overview” category was divided into distinct parts that included introduction, study design, patients/subjects, treatment regimens, outcome measures, data handling method, dropouts per group, statistics, results, and conclusion. To facilitate ease of use by evaluators, a check box was placed next to each item within the individual parts. This format also allowed the student to see in advance exactly which criteria they needed to include during their presentation, as well as any that were later missed. The use of a checklist also aided evaluators when determining the overall score assigned to the subsections within this category. “Study Analysis and Critique” directed students to refer to the “Study Overview” category as a guide to the parts of the study they should critically analyze. “Study Conclusion” divided the scoring criteria into an enumeration of key strengths, key limitations, and the conclusion of the group/individual student. “Preparedness” included criteria for knowledge of study details and handling of questions. The “Presentation” category included criteria for desired communication skills. This rubric version was tested during 8 journal club presentations during the drug information rotation, and on a larger scale in 2003 in the required medical literature evaluation course for second-professional year students. During the second-professional year journal club assignment, groups of 2 or 3 students were each given 1 published clinical study to evaluate, which they later presented to 2 evaluators consisting of a faculty member plus either a fourth-professional year drug information rotation student or a pharmacy resident. The faculty members evaluating students included the 2 rubric developers as well as 2 additional faculty evaluators. The evaluators first completed the rubric independently to assess student performance; evaluators then discussed their scores and jointly completed a rubric that was used for the grade. The rubric was given to the students in advance to serve as a guide when preparing their journal club presentation. In addition, to provide students with actual experience in using the rubric, 2 fourth-professional year drug information APPE students each presented a journal article critique to the second-professional year class. The fourth-professional year students first gave their presentations to the drug information preceptors as practice and to ensure that complete and accurate information would be relayed to the second-professional year class. The second-professional year students then used the rubric to evaluate the fourth-professional year students' presentations; the completed rubrics were shared with the fourth-professional year students as feedback.

Based on student and evaluator feedback at the end of the journal club assignment, additional revisions to the rubric were needed. Students stated they had difficulty determining the difference between the “Study Analysis and Critique” category and the key strengths and weaknesses parts of the rubric; they felt they were simply restating the same strengths and weaknesses. Students also felt there was insufficient time to discuss their article. The evaluators had difficulty arriving at a score for the “Study Analysis and Critique” category, and students often did not know the important aspects to focus on when critiquing a study. Revisions to the rubric included expanding the presentation time from a maximum of 12 to a maximum of 15 minutes, explaining that the strengths and weaknesses should relate to the areas listed under “Study Overview,” and stating that only the key limitations that impacted the study findings should be summarized as part of the conclusion.

Version 3 of the rubric was tested during the 2004 journal club assignment for the second-professional year students. A brief survey was used to obtain student feedback about the rubric and the assignment as a tool for learning to apply literature evaluation skills. The rubric was revised once again based on the feedback plus evaluator observations. Through use of the first 3 versions of the rubric, the evaluators continually noted that students skipped key areas of the analysis/critique section when presenting their journal articles. Thus, for version 4, a list of questions was developed by the drug information faculty members to aid students in identifying the key considerations that should be included in their analysis (Appendix 1 ). To prepare this list, several sources were located that detailed questions or issues to take into account when evaluating a published study. 8 - 11 Specific questions were also added based upon areas that were consistently overlooked or inappropriately discussed during the journal club presentations. Version 4 of the rubric was used by the 2 primary drug information preceptors to evaluate the fourth-professional year student journal club presentations during the drug information rotation. Following each fourth-professional year student's journal club presentation, each evaluator independently completed the rubric. The evaluators then met together to briefly review their scores, discuss discrepancies, and modify their individual scores if desired. This was important because one evaluator would occasionally miss a correct or incorrect statement made by a student and score the student inappropriately lower or higher for a particular section. Based upon further feedback from students and evaluators, final revisions were made to the rubric. The final and current version (Appendix 2 ) was used for all subsequent fourth-professional year journal club presentations, for the second-professional year students' journal club assignments during 2005 and 2006, and for a new, similar journal club assignment added to the curriculum for third-professional year students in 2006. Feedback about the finalized rubric was obtained from the second- and third-professional year students.

To evaluate the rubric's reliability, 3 drug information faculty members used the final rubric to evaluate the journal club presentations by 9 consecutive fourth-professional year drug information experiential students. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated for each rubric section and the total score.

Five versions of the rubric were developed over a 3-year time period. The majority of the revisions involved formatting changes, clarifications in wording, and additions to the criteria. However, the change that appeared to have the greatest positive impact on the student presentations was the addition of the specific questions that should be considered during the study analysis and critique. Second- and third-professional year student feedback from the final version of the rubric is shown in Table ​ Table1 1 and is very positive overall. Representative comments from the students included: “Very helpful for putting the class info to use,” “Great technique for putting all concepts together,” and “This assignment helped me to become more comfortable with understanding medical studies.” The suggestions for change primarily involved providing points for the assignment (it was graded pass/fail for the second-professional year students), better scheduling (the journal club assignment was due at the end of the semester when several other assignments or tests were scheduled), and providing more pre-journal club assistance and guidance to students. A small number of students indicated they still found it confusing to critique a study after the journal club assignment, which was expected since literature evaluation skills take considerable practice and experience to master.

Pharmacy Students Feedback Concerning a Journal Club Assignment in Which the Rubric Was Used for Evaluation

*Items specific to rubric

† Based on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree

‡ Positive response = agree or strongly agree

A survey of 7 recent fourth-professional year students who used the rubric to prepare for journal club presentations and who were also evaluated using the rubric found that all of the students agreed or strongly agreed with each item shown in Table ​ Table1. 1 . One representative comment was, “I was surprised at how articles appear to be good when I first read them but then after going through them again and using the form, I was able to find so many more limitations than I expected. I definitely feel that journal club has helped me to interpret studies better than I had been able to in the past.” Several fourth-professional year students took the rubric with them to use during other rotations that required a journal club presentation. After establishing that the rubric was user-friendly to evaluators and that students could clearly follow and differentiate the various sections, the reliability of the rubric in each of the 12 rating areas was determined (Table ​ (Table2). 2 ). The intra-class correlation coefficient demonstrated a high level of correlation between evaluators for each student for 11 of the 12 areas. A score of 0.618 was found for the section involving the students' response to questions. This was still considered acceptable; however, given that a fairly low variability in ratings affected the intra-class correlation coefficient due to the small scale (0-3 points) used in the rubric, with a relatively small number of observations. The intra-class correlation coefficient was calculated using the fourth-professional year students' journal club evaluations from the drug information rotation. Thus, by necessity, the evaluators consisted of the 2 primary faculty drug information preceptors and a drug information resident. These evaluators had previously used the rubric and the 2 faculty evaluators worked to develop the rubric. This may have increased the level of correlation between evaluators due to their familiarity with the sections of the rubric.

Rubric Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (N = 9)

*95% confidence interval

About 5 minutes are required for an individual evaluator to complete the rubric, with an additional 5 minutes needed for score comparison and discussion. In almost all cases, the reasons for any differences were easily identified through discussion and resulted from an evaluator simply missing or not correctly hearing what was said during the presentation. In general, evaluators found the rubric easy to use and did not require an extensive amount of time to consistently assess literature evaluation skills.

A rubric can be a useful tool for evaluating student performance in presenting and critiquing published clinical studies, as well as a valuable learning aid for students. However, developing a rubric that appropriately guides students in achieving the targeted performance, provides proper student feedback, and is user-friendly and reliable for evaluators requires a significant initial investment of time and effort. Multiple pilot tests of the rubric are generally required, with subsequent modifications needed to improve and refine the rubric's utility as an evaluation and learning tool. Once the rubric is developed, though, it can be used to quickly evaluate student performance in a more consistent manner.

As part of the development and use of a rubric, it is important that the rubric's criteria be thoroughly reviewed with students and they are provided the opportunity to observe examples of desired performance. Once a rubric is used to evaluate student performance, the completed rubric should be shared with students so they can identify areas of deficiency. This feedback will help enable students to appropriately modify their performance.

The journal club evaluation rubric can be used when teaching literature evaluation skills throughout all levels of education and training. Students early in their education will probably need to extensively refer to and rely upon the supplemental questions to help them identify key considerations when analyzing a study. However, as students progress with practice and experience and their literature evaluation skills are reinforced in actual clinical situations, their need to consult the supplemental questions should diminish.

Despite the considerable time and effort invested, the evaluation rubric has proven to be a valuable and ultimately timesaving tool for evaluating student performance when presenting a published study review and critique. More importantly, the rubric has provided students with clear expectations and a guide for desired performance.

Appendix 1. Study Analysis and Critique – Supplement

Appendix 2. Final evaluation rubric for journal club presentations

How to cite ChatGPT

Use discount code STYLEBLOG15 for 15% off APA Style print products with free shipping in the United States.

We, the APA Style team, are not robots. We can all pass a CAPTCHA test , and we know our roles in a Turing test . And, like so many nonrobot human beings this year, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about issues related to large language models, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated text, and specifically ChatGPT . We’ve also been gathering opinions and feedback about the use and citation of ChatGPT. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and shared ideas, opinions, research, and feedback.

In this post, I discuss situations where students and researchers use ChatGPT to create text and to facilitate their research, not to write the full text of their paper or manuscript. We know instructors have differing opinions about how or even whether students should use ChatGPT, and we’ll be continuing to collect feedback about instructor and student questions. As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post.

Quoting or reproducing the text created by ChatGPT in your paper

If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications , with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.

When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Creating a reference to ChatGPT or other AI models and software

The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large language models (e.g., Bard), algorithms, and similar software.

The reference and in-text citations for ChatGPT are formatted as follows:

• Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
• Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Let’s break that reference down and look at the four elements (author, date, title, and source):

Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

Other questions about citing ChatGPT

You may have noticed the confidence with which ChatGPT described the ideas of brain lateralization and how the brain operates, without citing any sources. I asked for a list of sources to support those claims and ChatGPT provided five references—four of which I was able to find online. The fifth does not seem to be a real article; the digital object identifier given for that reference belongs to a different article, and I was not able to find any article with the authors, date, title, and source details that ChatGPT provided. Authors using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for research should consider making this scrutiny of the primary sources a standard process. If the sources are real, accurate, and relevant, it may be better to read those original sources to learn from that research and paraphrase or quote from those articles, as applicable, than to use the model’s interpretation of them.

We’ve also received a number of other questions about ChatGPT. Should students be allowed to use it? What guidelines should instructors create for students using AI? Does using AI-generated text constitute plagiarism? Should authors who use ChatGPT credit ChatGPT or OpenAI in their byline? What are the copyright implications ?

On these questions, researchers, editors, instructors, and others are actively debating and creating parameters and guidelines. Many of you have sent us feedback, and we encourage you to continue to do so in the comments below. We will also study the policies and procedures being established by instructors, publishers, and academic institutions, with a goal of creating guidelines that reflect the many real-world applications of AI-generated text.

For questions about manuscript byline credit, plagiarism, and related ChatGPT and AI topics, the APA Style team is seeking the recommendations of APA Journals editors. APA Style guidelines based on those recommendations will be posted on this blog and on the APA Style site later this year.

Update: APA Journals has published policies on the use of generative AI in scholarly materials .

We, the APA Style team humans, appreciate your patience as we navigate these unique challenges and new ways of thinking about how authors, researchers, and students learn, write, and work with new technologies.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

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APA Style Guidelines

Browse APA Style writing guidelines by category

• Abbreviations
• Bias-Free Language
• Capitalization
• In-Text Citations
• Italics and Quotation Marks
• Paper Format
• Punctuation
• Research and Publication
• Spelling and Hyphenation
• Tables and Figures

Full index of topics