Literature Review

Good vs Great

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem.

Analytical Features

The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date

Purpose of Literature Reviews

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important]