Literature Review Guidelines:

developed by Catherine Palczewski and Victoria DeFrancisco

1. Types of literature reviews: A review of literature is similar to term papers you probably wrote in high school or college. In this case, you should rely on primary rather than secondary sources, but in both types of papers, you need a thesis statement – you form an argument based on the literature you have reviewed. A thesis statement “is a clear assertion of a position on the subject you plan to support. It is not a personal opinion or belief. You must demonstrate the proposition with evidence from the research literature” (Ruben et al., 2010, p. 237). If you had to state your conclusion after reviewing the research in one sentence, what would it be? That is likely your thesis statement.

As you conduct research for your topic of interest, you will likely come across two types of scholarly literature reviews. The most common is what you are being asked to write (taken from Rubin, et al., 2010, pp. 236-237).

A. Rationale for an Original Research Project. This is a more succinct summation of what researchers already know (and do not know) on a relatively narrowed topic of interest. Think of it as an extended rationale leading to a more specific approach to conduct further research on the topic. It tells the reader why the author is suggesting more work is needed in the direction selected in the conclusion, rather than traveling in a different direction.

B. State of the Art/Field of Knowledge. The other type of literature review is a much more expansive review that attempts to summarize everything researchers know at the present time on a given topic. In it, the author also points out themes and holes for needed future research, but the goal is not to serve as a preface for an original study. State of the field of knowledge articles are often written by senior scholars in the field and published in anthologies with multiple authors writing separate chapters, each reviewing what is know spellingn thus far about a different topic. As with the other type of literature review, these reviews are considered secondary sources of information because the author(s) is not reporting current original research. The author(s) necessarily has to leave out lots of contextual information about each source cited in order to identify themes and summarize a vast area of study. While extremely useful for helping readers get a fuller picture of a field of study, in order to cite specific sources from the review, the reader needs to go to the original sources.

2. Purpose of a literature review

A. To demonstrate that you have "done your homework." A lit review establishes that you have done sufficient reading on a topic to make reasonable judgments about others' conclusions. It also allows a reader/advisor know if you have missed any major works or areas of research.

B. To lay the groundwork for your contributions. Depending on the nature of your scholarly project, the lit review will do one or more of the following:

1. Isolate a gap in the research. Here, your purpose in summarizing others' work is to indicate why your paper represents a unique contribution. Others may have written about women and sports, and how the media presents women in sports, but no one has analyzed how women's sports advocates describe women in sports. Thus, you describe and summarize others' work to point out an absence. Or it may be that a group has been excluded, or a particular document has not been studied.

2. Function as a springboard for your research. Here, your argument is not that others have failed to study some thing, but, instead, is that others' work establishes an intellectual trajectory that your essay will complete. This is often associated with a study that examines some contemporary event. While scholars may have written generally about abortion, for example, they have not yet written about recent changes in abortion discourse. So, the function of the literature review is to establish how you can complete what others have begun. For example, if writing about abortion, you could use Celeste Condit's study of the abortion controversy to lay the groundwork for your essay on the contemporary controversy. Her study, which argues there are 7 periods in the controversy, ends in the 1980s. You could argue you have isolated the next stage, which emerged in the late 1980s.

3. Establish the significance of your research. For example, if studying a presidential speech, you would want to quote Hart, Tulis, Jamieson, Campbell, etc. to establish the significance of presidential discourse and why it is an area worthy of study. Thus, even if you have isolated a gap in the research, you can use existing scholarship to help justify the focus of your study.

4. Prove that your are not repeating others' work. If someone else has already made the argument you are advancing, then you need to reconsider the focus of your essay.

5. Provide theoretical background for your essay. For example, if you are making a claim about the significance of a letter format for a particular essay, you need to review the work on letter writing. Having reviewed it, you can use other's conclusions to help refine your arguments about a particular letter.

3. Scope of a Literature Review:

A. Most literature reviews for academic papers will require you to read 50+ articles, books and book chapters. You may only end up citing 15, but to make sure you are citing the right 15, you need to read 50+.

B. You should rely on primary research. A newspaper article's summary of a study is not an acceptable citation, nor is a journal article's summary. If you read about study in a magazine article, or see it referenced in an academic journal, go get the cited article and read it for yourself.

4. Format of a Literature Review:

A. What it is not: Many literature reviews read like a series of article summaries -- an annotated bibliography presented in paragraph form. This is NOT the way to write a literature review. Reviews written this way lack a coherent voice and structure. The voice of the author of the review is needed to connected the pieces and help the reader make meaning regarding why each piece was selected. One test: Are you opening paragraphs (or sentences) with authors' names? If so, then you are leadings with the author, and not with your idea. Lead with your idea.

B. What it is: Synthesis of themes in the literature and a critical commentary on the literature.

i. Synthesize: Instead of saying Author 1 says x, Author 2 says x and y, Author 3 says z, find themes in the literature, and organize the literature review thematically. This is particularly important if you are pulling from a variety of sources because your essay addresses a complex subject. For example, if writing a literature review about Gloria Anzaldúa's "Letter to Third World Women Writers," you could pull from literature on Chicana rhetoric, post-colonial studies, letter writing (Mexican and European traditions), public address, and feminist theory.

So, for a thematic organization, you would write something like:

Scholars have isolated a number of themes concerning women and sports. First, . . . Second, . . . Third, . . . etc.

Then, devote a paragraph to each theme, citing all the authors who discuss it. Thus, the same author may appear in numerous themes.

ii. Criticize: You should provide a critical analysis of the literature cited that is fair, insightful, and well-supported. You should focus on pertinent issues, recognize strengths and limitations of previous research, offer support for claims, and point to specific needed directions for future research questions. Sometimes it is difficult to know how much you need to summarize from previous research to adequately support your claims. Remember, the paper is not intended to be a group of detailed abstracts of each study (including their methods used for creating the results), so only report what you think is newsworthy to help explain the conclusions you have formed after reading the research regarding themes, remaining areas of needed research, etc. Sometimes there is a key study for a topic that you may feel needs to be described in more detail, but often there is not. NOTE: while Ruben et al., 2010 suggest the author saves the critical evaluation for the end of the review of literature, we recommend you weave your critical analysis throughout so that your voice as the author is the thread that connects the parts taken from previous research to create a coherent, unique perspective on the topic being reviewed. It should lead the reader to your thesis statement/conclusion. Thus the conclusion may be previewed in the introduction or you may build an argument toward that conclusion in the end of the review.

C. Possible outline:

Introduction

1. General statement of the problem (problem is defined very broadly here) that you feel must be reviewed.

2. Why is this review needed? (e.g. “Researchers need to examine social class assumptions in the scholarship in the field of communication education because. . .”)

3. Thesis statement . What are your 3-5 main points/headings to support your thesis statement?

4. Define key concepts that will be used throughout the paper. These are likely the key terms you used to search your topic (e.g. social media, crisis management) and locate them in a context—field of study (e.g. public relations).

5. Transition to the body of the paper.

Body of the Literature Review: Most often organized by themes or topics, but also consider any of the following:

• Topical
• Chronological
• Broad to Specific (especially done if we were following with a proposal)
• Problem-Solution
• Compare and contrast
• Prominent theories, schools of thoughts, authors

Conclusion of the Literature Review:

1. What did you learn – summary of findings?
2. Why is this information useful? Here is where you locate your thesis statement in the larger context of the field reviewed. Does it make a contribution to scholarship – theory, methods and/or content area?Does it make a pragmatic contribution to better people’s lives?
3. Limitations of the findings (may be the boundaries you had to set around what you reviewed or limitations of the field itself that you reviewed) (this can be brief, you are concluding, not starting another paper.)
4. Future Directions suggested from these limitations and/or your review of the literature (this can be brief). If this review were a part of a research proposal, it usually would end by posing research questions to frame/focus the proposed study. If this review were a part of a quantitative research proposal, it might end by positing null (no significant findings) and directional (significant) finding.

5. Overall strategy.

Basically, tell your readers a story. You have done scads of research on a topic. So, tell me what you know and what has led you to those conclusions. Justify your choice of focus given what is already out there.

6. Additional resources

Pin, M. Ling. (2013). Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative
 approaches (4th ed.). Glendale, CA: Pyrezak Publishing.

Smith, E., Duckett, K., Bankston, S., Classen, J., Orphanides, A., & Baker, S. (n.d.).
Literature reviews: An overview for graduate students. North Carolina State University Libraries. Retrieved from http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/litreview/