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• Literature Review

A literature review establishes where your dissertation ‘fits in’ to the existing body of knowledge.

However, many academic papers have very brief literature reviews, and sometimes they are confined to the introduction rather than being a separate section in their own right.

You may want to follow this route – or you may decide to omit the literature review entirely. But many students normally spend some time making a separate section in which they discuss the existing literature.

Why do one?

Because a literature review allows you to demonstrate, in essay format, that you understand and can analyse the existing literature. The literature review allows you to answer the implicit question ‘What is the existing state of knowledge on this topic?’, and answer it in such a way that introduces any other work that you are doing.

The other key reason for doing a literature review is that it forces you to organise your thoughts. This can often make any theoretical or empirical work you do in other sections clearer, as you understand the topic more thoroughly.

How do I do one?

When researching your dissertation, it is not uncommon to read 20-30 journal articles. These will form the basis of discussion in any literature review. As you will probably have to read some articles anyway, the reading burden is not excessive.

Identifying which articles are important is a stumbling block. Asking members of your department or supervisors for key readings can get you started. Remember that your university library will likely have many electronic journals and databases in which you can search for papers. Databases such as Econlit are helpful, although they might miss some important contributions as they depend on how you phrase your search. Once you have a few recent papers you can normally use the bibliography to steer you towards further readings.

Of course, as well as reading the articles, you need to demonstrate that you understand them. The section ‘ Effective Reading ‘ can help – in particular, many students waste time trying to understand overly complex and irrelevant journal articles. Being selective, and understanding what is important, can save huge amounts of time and angst.

The next step is planning what you are going to write. As discussed in the ‘ Essay Writing ‘ section you might want to organise the section thematically.

Themes (sub-sections) might be different theories which try to explain a phenomenon, or they might discuss how the debate has evolved.

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What is a Literature Review?

A literature review is a synthesis of a variety of scholarly sources that inform the reader about the state of scholarship on a given topic. It organizes and evaluates the major points or arguments of each source into sections that make sense, whether that be according to present themes, trends, theory, or chronology. Do not simply summarize every article. The reader does not want to know every detail about the article. What they  do  want to know about each article is:

• What argument did the author(s) make?
• What did the author(s) discover?
• How is this article related to your topic/assignment?

It is your duty to answer all of these questions throughout your literature review. Usually, question 3 will be answered near the beginning of each paragraph, as you want to explain to the reader not only why the sources in this paragraph are grouped together, but why they are even included in the paper to begin with. 

The Parts of a Literature Review

Usually, literature reviews follow the basic essay structure of having an introduction, body, and conclusion. The length of your introduction and conclusion will depend upon if your literature review is a part of a larger paper or a standalone piece.

Introduction

• Introduce what your topic and thesis are.
• Give an overview of the key topics that you will cover in the review.
• Highlight trends in what has been published about this topic; gaps in research; or conflicts in theory, methodology, evidence, conclusions, etc.
• If your literature review is a standalone piece, you may want to discuss your goals and research methods, as well as how you analyzed the sources to include them in your review and why you organized them in the way you did.
• Refer to the next section ("Organizing a Literature Review") to learn about some of the ways you can structure the body of your literature review.
• Analyze and interpret: Include your own thoughts where possible. How are these findings significant in the grand scheme of things?
• Be critical: Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each source.
• Do not feel that you're obligated to mention every study conducted within an article. Focus on your topic and only include what is most relevant for the purpose and scope of your literature review.
• Summarize the most noteworthy findings you have gotten from your sources and explain their significance
• Connect things back to your initial research question and thesis.

Organizing a Literature Review

There are a variety of ways that you can organize your literature review depending on what you're trying to accomplish. By finding commonalities between your sources, you can organize your paper in a way that makes sense and is easy for readers to follow. Some examples are:

Chronological

When organizing your paper chronologically, you are tracing the development of your topic over time. Be careful that you do not just simply list and summarize your sources in order. Dissect and analyze patterns, turning points, and noteworthy debates that have influenced the development of the field. 

Suppose you noticed some consistently reoccurring themes throughout the sources that you will continue to discuss in your project. In that case, it can be beneficial to organize your literature review according to these themes, breaking it down into subsections that focus on different aspects of the topic. 

Methodological

If your sources use a variety of research methods or come from different disciplines or fields, you can compare and contrast the results and conclusions that are drawn from different approaches. For example:

• Quantitative versus qualitative research
• Theoretical versus empirical
• Separate the research into sociological, cultural, or historical sources

Other Options

This is not an exhaustive list of organizational methods for literature reviews. If you have an idea that isn't on this list, that's okay! Do whatever makes sense for your paper. If you get stuck, consider scheduling an appointment with a librarian or someone in the University Writing Center (visit the "Need Help?" page to learn how).

Sample Literature Reviews

• The Political Effects of Immigration: Culture or Economics? Alesina, A., & Tabellini, M. (2024). The Political Effects of Immigration: Culture or Economics? Journal of Economic Literature, 62(1), 5–46. https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.20221643
• How Do You Capture Liquidity? A Review of the Literature on Low-Frequency Stock Liquidity Le, H., & Gregoriou, A. (2020). How Do You Capture Liquidity? A Review of the Literature on Low-Frequency Stock Liquidity. Journal of Economic Surveys, 34(5), 1170–1186.
• Graphical Methods, Inductive Causal Inference, and Econometrics: A Literature Review Kwon, D.-H., & Bessler, D. A. (2011). Graphical Methods, Inductive Causal Inference, and Econometrics: A Literature Review. Computational Economics, 38(1), 85–106. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10614-010-9236-9
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What's on this Page

This page is meant to help you create a literature review for academic projects and publications. Each tab outlines a different aspect of what a literature review is and how to build one. If you need help finding sources for your literature reviews, check out How To pages.

How to Build a Literature Review

• What is a Lit Review?
• Why Write a Lit Review?
• Building a Lit Review
• Prepping for a Lit Review
• Basic Example
• Other Resources/Examples

What is a Literature Review?

A literature review is a comprehensive summary and analysis of previously published research on a particular topic. Literature reviews should give the reader an overview of the important theories and themes that have previously been discussed on the topic, as well as any important researchers who have contributed to the discourse. This review should connect the established conclusions to the hypothesis being presented in the rest of the paper.

What a Literature Review Is Not:

• Annotated Bibliography: An annotated bibliography summarizes and assesses each resource individually and separately. A literature review explores the connections between different articles to illustrate important themes/theories/research trends within a larger research area. 
• Timeline: While a literature review can be organized chronologically, they are not simple timelines of previous events. They should not be a list of any kind. Individual examples or events should be combined to illustrate larger ideas or concepts.
• Argumentative Paper: Literature reviews are not meant to be making an argument. They are explorations of a concept to give the audience an understanding of what has already been written and researched about an idea. As many perspectives as possible should be included in a literature review in order to give the reader as comprehensive understanding of a topic as possible.

Why Write a Literature Review?

After reading the literature review, the reader should have a basic understanding of the topic. A reader should be able to come into your paper without really knowing anything about an idea, and after reading the literature, feel more confident about the important points.

A literature review should also help the reader understand the focus the rest of the paper will take within the larger topic. If the reader knows what has already been studied, they will be better prepared for the novel argument that is about to be made.

A literature review should help the reader understand the important history, themes, events, and ideas about a particular topic. Connections between ideas/themes should also explored. Part of the importance of a literature review is to prove to experts who do read your paper that you are knowledgeable enough to contribute to the academic discussion. You have to have done your homework.

A literature review should also identify the gaps in research to show the reader what hasn't yet been explored. Your thesis should ideally address one of the gaps identified in the research. Scholarly articles are meant to push academic conversations forward with new ideas and arguments. Before knowing where the gaps are in a topic, you need to have read what others have written.

What does a literature review look like?

As mentioned in other tabs, literature reviews should discuss the big ideas that make up a topic. Each literature review should be broken up into different subtopics. Each subtopic should use groups of articles as evidence to support the ideas. There are several different ways of organizing a literature review. It will depend on the patterns one sees in the groups of articles as to which strategy should be used. Here are a few examples of how to organize your review:

Chronological

If there are clear trends that change over time, a chronological approach could be used to organize a literature review. For example, one might argue that in the 1970s, the predominant theories and themes argued something. However, in the 1980s, the theories evolved to something else. Then, in the 1990s, theories evolved further. Each decade is a subtopic, and articles should be used as examples. 

Themes/Theories

There may also be clear distinctions between schools of thought within a topic, a theoretical breakdown may be most appropriate. Each theory could be a subtopic, and articles supporting the theme should be included as evidence for each one. 

If researchers mainly differ in the way they went about conducting research, literature reviews can be organized by methodology. Each type of method could be a subtopic,  and articles using the method should be included as evidence for each one.

Preliminary Steps for Literature Review

• Define your research question
• Compile a list of initial keywords to use for searching based on question
• Search for literature that discusses the topics surrounding your research question
• Assess and organize your literature into logical groups
• Identify gaps in research and conduct secondary searches (if necessary)
• Reassess and reorganize literature again (if necessary)
• Write review

Here is an example of a literature review, taken from the beginning of a research article. You can find other examples within most scholarly research articles. The majority of published scholarship includes a literature review section, and you can use those to become more familiar with these reviews.

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• ISU Writing Assistance The Julia N. Visor Academic Center provides one-on-one writing assistance for any course or need. By focusing on the writing process instead of merely on grammar and editing, we are committed to making you a better writer.
• University of Toronto: The Literature Review Written by Dena Taylor, Health Sciences Writing Centre
• Purdue OWL - Writing a Lit Review Goes over the basic steps
• UW Madison Writing Center - Review of Literature A description of what each piece of a literature review should entail.
• USC Libraries - Literature Reviews Offers detailed guidance on how to develop, organize, and write a college-level research paper in the social and behavioral sciences.
• Creating the literature review: integrating research questions and arguments Blog post with very helpful overview for how to organize and build/integrate arguments in a literature review
• Understanding, Selecting, and Integrating a Theoretical Framework in Dissertation Research: Creating the Blueprint for Your “House” Article focusing on constructing a literature review for a dissertation. Still very relevant for literature reviews in other types of content.

A note that many of these examples will be far longer and in-depth than what's required for your assignment. However, they will give you an idea of the general structure and components of a literature review. Additionally, most scholarly articles will include a literature review section. Looking over the articles you have been assigned in classes will also help you.

• Sample Literature Review (Univ. of Florida) This guide will provide research and writing tips to help students complete a literature review assignment.
• Sociology Literature Review (Univ. of Hawaii) Written in ASA citation style - don't follow this format.
• Sample Lit Review - Univ. of Vermont Includes an example with tips in the footnotes.
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• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

Why write a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1: search for relevant literature, step 2: evaluate and select sources, step 3: identify themes, debates and gaps, step 4: outline your literature review’s structure, step 5: write your literature review, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list if you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models and methods? Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible, and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly-visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat – this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organise your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, 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 transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

In the conclusion, you should summarise the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasise their significance.

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarise yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

Cite this Scribbr article

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McCombes, S. (2022, June 07). What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 14 May 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/literature-review/

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What is a literature review.

A literature review is a narrative compilation of selected academic sources related to your topic. Lit reviews describe the research you have studied and develop in your reason for the study, as well as provide criticism of past research. The end result should be a narrative showing the inherent need for your research in the field. Grounding your intended research in the current movements of the field will provide you with evidence of trends on where the field is headed. It also offers you the snapshot of the methodologies used in those studies. You can see what questions are being asked and find answers based on differing approaches to the topic.

An ideal literature review serves two purposes in your study. It strengthens your thesis and justifies your research question. By providing a critical summary of foundational and contemporary research on the topic, a literature review can show readers how your research fills important knowledge gaps. Pinpointing the other work in the field can show the unique perspective your study will provide. It can also offer a thoughtful critique of existing work that shows your full understanding of the opportunities and obstacles in your discipline.

Do not confuse it with:

• an  Annotated Bibliography , which lists citations to books, articles and documents, followed by a brief descriptive and evaluative paragraph,
• a Book Review , or short critical discussion about the merits and weaknesses or a specific works,
• or a Business Report , which provides analysis of a situation, either a real one or from a case study, applyng business principles and theories to identify a range of possible solutions to a problem. 

Why a Literature Review?

To demonstrate that you can:

• effectively use research methods to collect and curate information that is useful in answering significant questions;
• foster the ability to make decisions based on rigorous evidence;
• effectively communicate research results in a written form;
• develop the discipline to work with autonomy;
• understand the value, purpose, and methodologies of insightful research.

Purpose of a literature review from Academic Research Foundations: Quantitative by Rolin Moe

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Definition of Literature Reviews

A literature review surveys books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to your research topic or thesis statement. It should provide a theoretical summary or critical evaluation of these scholarly works. You will need to analyze, evaluate , and s ynthesize the research that you’ve found on your topic. A literature review should give context to your thesis and, if possible, reveal any gaps in current literature. 

5 Steps for completing your Literature Review

• Look at other literature reviews
• Choose a topic that interests you
• This is important to do otherwise the literature you find will be too massive 
• You can look for books using the Library Search
• ​Preferably in EconLit
• Find sources from the reference papers that relate to your topic
• Search for those items by typing in the titles in the University Libraries “ Find It ” box
• I recommend keeping notes with Evernote because it is Open Source and once you create an account you can access it from any device
• I recommend Zotero , again it is Open Source and accessible from anywhere
• Once you've collected, read, noted, and saved your citations and resources you should begin to see patterns
• ​​Skim your notes to sort out themes (methodologies, data, results, etc.) 
• Does a topic develop over time 
• Do authors agree with each other or disagree on methodology or conclusions
• What strengths or weaknesses did you find in the literature
• Don't forget that you're trying to relate this literature to the story you wish to tell and you may find some of your articles fall out of your scope--make note of that to determine whether to mention them or not--talk to your professor about out of scope titles
• Make an outline or structural form of your review
• Remember your audience when writing
• Avoid too much jargon
• ​Be concise; don't go off on tangents; stay focused on your thesis statement
• Your purpose for writing the review
• Overview of the problem
• What is the scope of your review
• Talk about the amount of literature you found
• Chronological order
• Advancements of theories 
• Questions related to topic
• Summarize your findings
• Expose gaps in knowledge
• Provide a rationale for future research
• References in APA style

What is in a Literature Review?

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but i t 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
• 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.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

• To demonstrate to your readers what you know about your topic
• To bring your readers up-to-date and fill them in on what has been published on your topic
• To allow you a better understanding of your topic

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Information

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• Dissertation Research & Literature Reviews

Endnote Software

Endnote is a tool that will allow you to store & organize citation information for the articles, books and other materials you consult during the dissertation writing process. It can also be used with word processor software to build and  insert citations as you write and to create the document's bibliography in the style of your choice.

Purchase and download EndNote from Wayne State C&IT

• Select the  Student Software  or  Employee Owned Software
• Login with your Wayne State Access ID and Password
• Select  Student Software  or  Employee Owned Software  in the menu bar at the top
• Select  EndNote  and follow the directions to purchase and download.
• How to Use Endnote This guide will explain more about Endnote including how to get it, how to use it, and how to get assitance with it.

So, you are embarking on one of the last legs of you doctoral journey!!!

This guide is designed to guide you to information on how to understand the process of researching and writing the Literature Review and the Doctoral Dissertation and to make your research and writing more efficient and effective.

Preparing the Literature Review

• The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It This is a brief page with several lists of questions to ask yourself during the process of researching and writing your literature review.
• Approaching literature review for academic purposes: The Literature Review Checklist This paper discusses the purposes of LRs in dissertations and theses and describes five steps for developing a review: defining the main topic, searching the literature, analyzing the results, writing the review and reflecting on the writing.
• A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review This article first discusses the reasons for writing a literature review. It then elaborates the steps involved in doing so. Finally it describes some of the common mistakes made in literature reviews and how to avoid them.

• << Previous: Finding Health Statistics

Finding Dissertations and Theses

Were you looking for information on how to  FIND  Dissertations and Theses using the resources at Wayne State?  Then try the Finding WSU and Non-WSU Dissertations & Theses Research Guide

WSU Graduate School

• Degree Requirements for Ph.D. Students This page lists the main university-wide requirements for PhD. completion.
• Forms for Ph.D. Students This page provide links to each of the forms required by the Wayne State University Graduate School of all PhD students as they progress through the degree process.
• Last Updated: Apr 4, 2024 10:31 AM
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Researching and writing for Economics students

4 literature review and citations/references.

Figure 4.1: Literature reviews and references

Your may have done a literature survey as part of your proposal. This will be incorporated into your dissertation, not left as separate stand-alone. Most economics papers include a literature review section, which may be a separate section, or incorporated into the paper’s introduction. (See organising for a standard format.)

Some disambiguation:

A ‘Literature survey’ paper: Some academic papers are called ‘literature surveys’. These try to summarise and discuss the existing work that has been done on a particular topic, and can be very useful. See, for example, works in The Journal of Economic Perspectives, the Journal of Economic Literature, the “Handbook of [XXX] Economics”

Many student projects and undergraduate dissertations are mainly literature surveys.

4.1 What is the point of a literature survey?

Your literature review should explain:

what has been done already to address your topic and related questions, putting your work in perspective, and

what techniques others have used, what are their strengths and weaknesses, and how might they be relevant tools for your own analysis.

Figure 4.2: Take notes on this as you read, and write them up.

4.2 What previous work is relevant?

Focus on literature that is relevant to your topic only.

But do not focus only on articles about your exact topic ! For example, if your paper is about the relative price of cars in the UK, you might cite papers (i) about the global automobile market, (ii) about the theory and evidence on competition in markets with similar features and (iii) using econometric techniques such as “hedonic regression” to estimate “price premia” in other markets and in other countries.

Consider: If you were Colchester a doctor and wanted to know whether a medicine would be effective for your patients, would you only consider medical studies that ran tests on Colchester residents, or would you consider more general national and international investigations?

4.3 What are “good” economics journal articles?

You should aim to read and cite peer-reviewed articles in reputable economics journals. (Journals in other fields such as Finance, Marketing and Political Science may also be useful.) These papers have a certain credibility as they have been checked by several referees and one or more editors before being published. (In fact, the publication process in Economics is extremely lengthy and difficult.)

Which journals are “reputable”? Economists spend a lot of time thinking about how to rank and compare journals (there are so many papers written about this topic that they someone could start a “Journal of Ranking Economics Journals”. For example, “ REPEC ” has one ranking, and SCIMAGO/SCOPUS has another one. You may want to focus on journals ranked in the top 100 or top 200 of these rankings. If you find it very interesting and relevant paper published somewhere that is ranked below this, is okay to cite it, but you may want to be a bit more skeptical of its findings.

Any journal you find on JSTOR is respectable, and if you look in the back of your textbooks, there will be references to articles in journals, most of which are decent.

You may also find unpublished “working papers”; these may also be useful as references. However, it is more difficult to evaluate the credibility of these, as they have not been through a process of peer review. However, if the author has published well and has a good reputation, it might be more likely that these are worth reading and citing.

Unpublished “working papers”

You may also find unpublished “working papers” or ‘mimeos’; these may also be useful as references. In fact, the publication process in Economics is so slow (six years from first working paper to publication is not uncommon) that not consulting working papers often means not being current.

However, it is more difficult to evaluate the credibility of this ‘grey literature’, as they have not been through a process of peer review. However, if the author has published well and has a good reputation, it might be more likely that these are worth reading and citing. Some working paper series are vetted, such as NBER; in terms of credibility, these might be seen as something in between a working paper and a publication.

Which of the following are “peer-reviewed articles in reputable economics journals”? Which of the following may be appropriate to cite in your literature review and in your final project? 8

Klein, G, J. (2011) “Cartel Destabilization and Leniency Programs – Empirical Evidence.” ZEW - Centre for European Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 10-107

Spencer, B. and Brander, J.A. (1983) “International R&D Rivalry and Industrial Strategy”, Review of Economic Studies Vol. 50, 707-722

Troisi, Jordan D., Andrew N. Christopher, and Pam Marek. “Materialism and money spending disposition as predictors of economic and personality variables.” North American Journal of Psychology 8.3 (2006): 421.

The Economist,. ‘Good, Bad And Ugly’. Web. 11 Apr. 2015. [accessed on…]

Mecaj, Arjola, and María Isabel González Bravo. “CSR Actions and Financial Distress: Do Firms Change Their CSR Behavior When Signals of Financial Distress Are Identified?.” Modern Economy 2014 (2014).

Universities, U. K. “Creating Prosperity: the role of higher education in driving the UK’s creative economy.” London Universities UK (2010).

4.4 How to find and access articles

You should be able to find and access all the relevant articles online. Leafing through bound volumes and photocopying should not be neededs. (Having been a student in the late 90’s and 2000’s, I wish I could get those hours back.)

Figure 4.3: The old way!

Good online tools include Jstor (jstor.org) and Google Scholar (scholar.google.co.uk). Your university should have access to Jstor, and Google is accessible to all (although the linked articles may require special access). You will usually have the ‘most access’ when logged into your university or library computing system.If you cannot access a paper, you may want to consult a reference librarian.

It is also ok, if you cannot access the journal article itself, to use the last working paper version (on Google scholar find this in the tab that says “all X versions”, where X is some number, and look for a PDF). However, authors do not always put up the most polished versions, although they should do to promote open-access. As a very last resort, you can e-mail the author and ask him or her to send you the paper.

When looking for references, try to find ones published in respected refereed economics journals (see above ).

4.5 Good starting points: Survey article, course notes, and textbooks

A “survey article” is a good place to start; this is a paper that is largely a categorization and discussion of previous work on a particular topic. You can often find such papers in journals such as

• the Journal of Economic Perspectives,
• the Journal of Economic Surveys,
• and the Journal of Economic Literature.

These will be useful as a “catalog” of papers to read and considers citing. They are also typically very readable and offer a decent introduction to the issue or the field.

It is also helpful to consult module (course) notes and syllabi from the relevant field. Do not only limit yourself to the ones at your own university; many of universities make their course materials publicly accessible online. These will not only typically contain reading lists with well-respected and useful references, they may also contain slides and other material that will help you better understand your topic and the relevant issues.

However, be careful not to take material from course notes without properly citing it. (Better yet, try to find the original paper that the course notes are referring to.)

Textbooks serve as another extremely useful jumping off point. Look through your own textbooks and other textbooks in the right fields. Textbooks draw from, and cite a range of relevant articles and papers. (You may also want to go back to textbooks when you are finding the articles you are reading too difficult. Textbooks may present a simpler version of the material presented in an article, and explain the concepts better.)

4.6 Backwards and forwards with references

When you find a useful paper, look for its “family.” You may want to go back to earlier, more fundamental references, by looking at the articles that this paper cited. See what is listed as “keywords” (these are usually given at the top of the paper), and “JEL codes”. Check what papers this paper cites, and check what other papers cited this paper. On Google scholar you can follow this with a link “Cited by…” below the listed article. “Related articles” is also a useful link.

4.7 Citations

Keep track of all references and citations

You may find it helpful to use software to help you manage your citations

A storage “database” of citations (e.g., Jabref, Zotero, Endnote, Mendeley); these interface well with Google Scholar and Jstor

An automatic “insert citation” and “insert bibliography” in your word processing software

Use a tool like Endnote to manage and insert the bibliographies, or use a bibliography manager software such as Zotero or Jabref,

Further discussion: Citation management tools

List of works cited

Put your list of references in alphabetical order by author’s last name (surname).

Include all articles and works that you cite in your paper; do not include any that you don’t cite.

Avoiding plagiarism and academic offenses**

Here is a definition of plagiarism

The main point is that you need to cite everything that is not your own work. Furthermore, be clear to distinguish what is your own work and your own language and what is from somewhere/someone else.

Why cite? Not just to give credit to others but to make it clear that the remaining uncited content is your own.

Here are some basic rules:

(Rephrased from University of Essex material, as seen in Department of Economics, EC100 Economics for Business Handbook 2017-18, https://www1.essex.ac.uk/economics/documents/EC100-Booklet_2017.pdf accessed on 20 July 2019, pp. 15-16)

Do not submit anything that is not your own work.

Never copy from friends.

Do not copy your own work or previously submitted work. (Caveat: If you are submitting a draft or a ‘literature review and project plan’ at an earlier stage, this can be incorporated into your final submission.

Don’t copy text directly into your work, unless:

• you put all passages in quotation marks: beginning with ’ and ending with ’, or clearly offset from the main text
• you cite the source of this text.

It is not sufficient merely to add a citation for the source of copied material following the copied material (typically the end of a paragraph). You must include the copied material in quotation marks. … Ignorance … is no defence.’ (ibid, pp. 15 )

(‘Ibid’ means ‘same as the previous citation’.)

Your university may use sophisticated plagiarism-detection software. Markers may also report if the paper looks suspect

Before final submission, they may ask you to go over your draft and sign that you understand the contents and you have demonstrated that the work is your own.

Not being in touch with your supervisor may put you under suspicion.

Your university may give a Viva Voce oral exam if your work is under suspicion. It is a cool-sounding word but probably something you want to avoid.

Your university may store your work in its our database, and can pursue disciplinary action, even after you have graduated.

Penalties may be severe, including failure with no opportunity to retake the module (course). You may even risk your degree!

Comprehension questions; answers in footnotes

True or false: “If you do not directly quote a paper you do not need to cite it” 9

You should read and cite a paper (choose all that are correct)… 10

• If it motivates ‘why your question is interesting’ and how it can be modeled economically
• Only if it asks the same question as your paper
• Only if it is dealing with the same country/industry/etc as you are addressing
• If it has any connection to your topic, question, or related matters
• If it answers a similar question as your paper
• If it uses and discusses techniques that inform those you are using

4.8 How to write about previous authors’ analysis and findings

Use the right terminology.

“Johnson et al. (2000) provide an analytical framework that sheds substantial doubt on that belief. When trying to obtain a correlation between institutional efficiency and wealth per capita, they are left with largely inconclusive results.”

They are not trying to “obtain a correlation”; they are trying to measure the relationship and test hypotheses.

“Findings”: Critically examine sources

Don’t take everything that is in print (or written online) as gospel truth. Be skeptical and carefully evaluate the arguments and evidence presented. Try to really survey what has been written, to consider the range of opinions and the preponderance of the evidence. You also need to be careful to distinguish between “real research” and propaganda or press releases.

The returns to higher education in Atlantis are extremely high. For the majority of Atlanian students a university degree has increased their lifetime income by over 50%, as reported in the “Benefits of Higher Education” report put out by the Association of Atlantian Universities (2016).

But don’t be harsh without explanation:

Smith (2014) found a return to education in Atlantis exceeding 50%. This result is unlikely to be true because the study was not a very good one.

“Findings:” “They Proved”

A theoretical economic model can not really prove anything about the real world; they typically rely on strong simplifying assumptions.

Through their economic model, they prove that as long as elites have incentives to invest in de facto power, through lobbying or corruption for example, they will invest as much as possible in order to gain favourable conditions in the future for their businesses.

In their two period model, which assumes \[details of key assumptions here\] , they find that when an elite Agent has an incentive to invest in de facto power, he invests a strictly positive amount, up to the point where marginal benefit equals marginal cost”

Empirical work does not “prove” anything (nor does it claim to).

It relies on statistical inference under specific assumptions, and an intuitive sense that evidence from one situation is likely to apply to other situations.

“As Smith et al (1999) proved using data from the 1910-1920 Scandanavian stock exchange, equity prices always increase in response to reductions in corporate tax rates.”

“Smith et al (199) estimated a VAR regression for a dynamic CAP model using data from the 1910-1920 Scandanavian stock exchange. They found a strongly statistically significant negative coefficient on corporate tax rates. This suggests that such taxes may have a negative effect on publicly traded securities. However, as their data was from a limited period with several simultaneous changes in policy, and their results are not robust to \[something here\] , further evidence is needed on this question.”

Use the language of classical 11 statistics:

Hypothesis testing, statistical significance, robustness checks, magnitudes of effects, confidence intervals.

Note that generalisation outside the data depends on an intuitive sense that evidence from one situation is likely to apply to other situations.

“Findings”: How do you (or the cited paper) claim to identify a causal relationship?

This policy was explained by Smith and Johnson (2002) in their research on subsidies and redistribution in higher education. Their results showed that people with higher degree have higher salaries and so pay higher taxes. Thus subsidizing higher education leads to a large social gain.

The results the student discusses seem to show an association between higher degrees and higher salaries. The student seems to imply that the education itself led to higher salaries. This has not been shown by the cited paper. Perhaps people who were able to get into higher education would earn higher salaries anyway. There are ways economists used to try to identify a “causal effect” (by the way, this widely used term is redundant as all effects must have a cause), but a mere association between two variables is not enough

As inflation was systematically lower during periods of recession, we see that too low a level of inflation increases unemployment.

Economists have long debated the nature of this “Phillips curve” relationship. There is much work trying to determine whether the association (to the extent it exists) is a causal one. We could not rule out reverse causality, or third factor that might cause changes in both variables.

4.9 …Stating empirical results

Don’t write: “I accept the null hypothesis.”

Do write: “The results fail to reject the null hypothesis, in spite of a large sample size and an estimate with small standard errors” (if this is the case)

Note: The question of what to infer from acceptance/rejection of null hypotheses is a complex difficult one in Classical (as opposed to Bayesian) statistics. This difficulty is in part philosophical: classical hypothesis testing is deductive , while inference is necessarily inductive.

4.10 What to report

You need to read this paper more clearly; it is not clear what they conclude nor what their evidence is.

4.11 Organising your literature review

A common marking comment:

These papers seem to be discussed in random order – you need some structure organising these papers thematically, by finding, by technique, or chronologically perhaps.

How should you organise it? In what order?

Thematically (usually better)

By method, by theoretical framework, by results or assumptions, by field

Chronologically (perhaps within themes)

Exercise: Compare how the literature review section is organized in papers you are reading.

Figure 4.4: Organising a set of references

Q: What sort of structure am I using in the above outline?

It may also be helpful to make a ‘table’ of the relevant literature, as in the figure below. This will help you get a sense of the methods and results, and how the papers relate, and how to assess the evidence. You may end up putting this in the actual paper.

Figure 4.5: Organisational table from Reinstein and Riener, 2012b

4.12 What if you have trouble reading and understanding a paper?

Consult a survey paper, textbook, or lecture notes that discuss this paper and this topic

Try to find an easier related paper

Ask your supervisor for help; if he or she can

Try to understand what you can; do not try to “fake it”

4.13 Some literature survey do’s and don’ts

Do not cite irrelevant literature.

Do not merely list all the papers you could find.

Discuss them, and their relevance to your paper.

What are their strengths and weaknesses? What techniques do they use, and what assumptions do they rely on? How do they relate to each other?

Use correct citation formats.

Try to find original sources (don’t just cite a web link).

Don’t just cut and paste from other sources. And make sure to attribute every source and every quote. Be clear: which part of your paper is your own work and what is cited from others? The penalties for plagiarism can be severe!

• Critically examine the sources, arguments, and methods

4.14 Comprehension questions: literature review

How to discuss empirical results: “Causal” estimation, e.g., with Instrumental Variables

Which is the best way to state it? 12

“As I prove in table 2, more lawyers lead to slower growth (as demonstrated by the regression analysis evidence).”

“Table 2 provides evidence that a high share of lawyers in a city’s population leads to slower growth.”

3.“Table 2 shows that a high share of lawyers in a city’s population is correlated with slower growth.”

Which is better? 13

• “However, when a set of observable determinants of city growth (such as Census Region growth) are accounted for, the estimate of this effect becomes less precise.”
• “In the correct regression I control for all determinants of city growth and find that there is no effect of lawyers on growth”

Stating empirical results: descriptive

“Using the US data from 1850-1950, I find that inflation is lower during periods of recession. This is statistically significant in a t-test [or whatever test] at the 99% level, and the difference is economically meaningful. This is consistent with the theory of …, which predicts that lower inflation increases unemployment. However, other explanations are possible, including reverse causality, and unmeasured covarying lags and trends.”

“I find a significantly lower level of inflation during periods of recession, and the difference is economically meaningful. This relationship is statistically significant and the data is accurately measured. Thus I find that inflation increases unemployment.”

Some tips on writing a good paper– relevant to literature reviews

• Answer the question
• Provide clear structure and signposting
• Demonstrate an ability for critical analysis
• Refer to your sources
• Produce a coherent, clear argument
• Take time to proofread for style and expresssion
• Source “Assignment Writing Skills EBS 3rd year 2012”"

Answer: only b is a ‘peer reviewed article in a reputable economics journal’. All of these might be useful to cite, however. ↩

False. You need to cite any content and ideas that are not your own. ↩

Answers: 1, 5, and 6. Note that 2 and 3 are too narrow criteria, and 4 is too broad. ↩

or Bayesian if you like ↩

The second one; if this is really causal evidence. ↩

The first one. There is no ‘correct regression’. It is also not really correct in classical statistics to ‘find no effect’. ↩

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Dissertation: Literature Review

Module overview.

This module forms the first part of a dissertation in Economics. You will undertake a substantive piece of independent work in composing a literature review on your chosen research topic. You will motivate the research topic, survey and review the relevant academic literature and identify gaps in our knowledge by proposing a research question and appropriate methodology for future research. This is designed to demonstrate your ability to manage your own learning, to draw together information from a variety of sources and to demonstrate your ability to understand and convey the current state of academic research on an economic topic.

Linked modules

Co-requisites: ECON3037 or ECON3038

Aims and Objectives

Learning outcomes, subject specific intellectual and research skills.

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Retrieve, organise, and present economic results in an informative manner.

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• State of art analytical methods in economics and the mathematical or statistical tools for economic analysis.

Transferable and Generic Skills

• Work independently to a deadline, demonstrating initiative through identifying possibl sources, and self-management by structuring the workload over one semester.
• Communicate logical arguments and quantitative reasoning in economic contexts as part of an essay reviewing scientific literature;
• Identify, select and access a range of sources as a means to the development and presentation of arguments and evidence;

The module starts with a series of lectures that focus on how to search for, identify and efficiently read scientific economic literature, and how to summarise, synthesise and critically evaluate this literature. This is complemented by a library skills session. Thus prepared students work independently on their review under the guidance of their assigned supervisor.

Learning and Teaching

Teaching and learning methods.

Lectures, staff consultations, library skills workshop.

Assessment strategy

Library skills online exercise at the beginning and the literature review (4000 words essay) at the end of the semester. This is the same for an internal repeat. Referral assessment and external repeat assessment is through 100% literature review (4000 words).

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External

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What Is A Literature Review?

A plain-language explainer (with examples).

By:  Derek Jansen (MBA) & Kerryn Warren (PhD) | June 2020 (Updated May 2023)

If you’re faced with writing a dissertation or thesis, chances are you’ve encountered the term “literature review” . If you’re on this page, you’re probably not 100% what the literature review is all about. The good news is that you’ve come to the right place.

Literature Review 101

• What (exactly) is a literature review
• What’s the purpose of the literature review chapter
• How to find high-quality resources
• How to structure your literature review chapter
• Example of an actual literature review

What is a literature review?

The word “literature review” can refer to two related things that are part of the broader literature review process. The first is the task of  reviewing the literature  – i.e. sourcing and reading through the existing research relating to your research topic. The second is the  actual chapter  that you write up in your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s look at each of them:

Reviewing the literature

The first step of any literature review is to hunt down and  read through the existing research  that’s relevant to your research topic. To do this, you’ll use a combination of tools (we’ll discuss some of these later) to find journal articles, books, ebooks, research reports, dissertations, theses and any other credible sources of information that relate to your topic. You’ll then  summarise and catalogue these  for easy reference when you write up your literature review chapter. 

The literature review chapter

The second step of the literature review is to write the actual literature review chapter (this is usually the second chapter in a typical dissertation or thesis structure ). At the simplest level, the literature review chapter is an  overview of the key literature  that’s relevant to your research topic. This chapter should provide a smooth-flowing discussion of what research has already been done, what is known, what is unknown and what is contested in relation to your research topic. So, you can think of it as an  integrated review of the state of knowledge  around your research topic. 

What’s the purpose of a literature review?

The literature review chapter has a few important functions within your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s take a look at these:

Purpose #1 – Demonstrate your topic knowledge

The first function of the literature review chapter is, quite simply, to show the reader (or marker) that you  know what you’re talking about . In other words, a good literature review chapter demonstrates that you’ve read the relevant existing research and understand what’s going on – who’s said what, what’s agreed upon, disagreed upon and so on. This needs to be  more than just a summary  of who said what – it needs to integrate the existing research to  show how it all fits together  and what’s missing (which leads us to purpose #2, next). 

Purpose #2 – Reveal the research gap that you’ll fill

The second function of the literature review chapter is to  show what’s currently missing  from the existing research, to lay the foundation for your own research topic. In other words, your literature review chapter needs to show that there are currently “missing pieces” in terms of the bigger puzzle, and that  your study will fill one of those research gaps . By doing this, you are showing that your research topic is original and will help contribute to the body of knowledge. In other words, the literature review helps justify your research topic.  

Purpose #3 – Lay the foundation for your conceptual framework

The third function of the literature review is to form the  basis for a conceptual framework . Not every research topic will necessarily have a conceptual framework, but if your topic does require one, it needs to be rooted in your literature review. 

For example, let’s say your research aims to identify the drivers of a certain outcome – the factors which contribute to burnout in office workers. In this case, you’d likely develop a conceptual framework which details the potential factors (e.g. long hours, excessive stress, etc), as well as the outcome (burnout). Those factors would need to emerge from the literature review chapter – they can’t just come from your gut! 

So, in this case, the literature review chapter would uncover each of the potential factors (based on previous studies about burnout), which would then be modelled into a framework. 

Purpose #4 – To inform your methodology

The fourth function of the literature review is to  inform the choice of methodology  for your own research. As we’ve  discussed on the Grad Coach blog , your choice of methodology will be heavily influenced by your research aims, objectives and questions . Given that you’ll be reviewing studies covering a topic close to yours, it makes sense that you could learn a lot from their (well-considered) methodologies.

So, when you’re reviewing the literature, you’ll need to  pay close attention to the research design , methodology and methods used in similar studies, and use these to inform your methodology. Quite often, you’ll be able to  “borrow” from previous studies . This is especially true for quantitative studies , as you can use previously tried and tested measures and scales. 

How do I find articles for my literature review?

Finding quality journal articles is essential to crafting a rock-solid literature review. As you probably already know, not all research is created equally, and so you need to make sure that your literature review is  built on credible research . 

We could write an entire post on how to find quality literature (actually, we have ), but a good starting point is Google Scholar . Google Scholar is essentially the academic equivalent of Google, using Google’s powerful search capabilities to find relevant journal articles and reports. It certainly doesn’t cover every possible resource, but it’s a very useful way to get started on your literature review journey, as it will very quickly give you a good indication of what the  most popular pieces of research  are in your field.

One downside of Google Scholar is that it’s merely a search engine – that is, it lists the articles, but oftentimes  it doesn’t host the articles . So you’ll often hit a paywall when clicking through to journal websites. 

Thankfully, your university should provide you with access to their library, so you can find the article titles using Google Scholar and then search for them by name in your university’s online library. Your university may also provide you with access to  ResearchGate , which is another great source for existing research. 

Remember, the correct search keywords will be super important to get the right information from the start. So, pay close attention to the keywords used in the journal articles you read and use those keywords to search for more articles. If you can’t find a spoon in the kitchen, you haven’t looked in the right drawer. 

Need a helping hand?

How should I structure my literature review?

Unfortunately, there’s no generic universal answer for this one. The structure of your literature review will depend largely on your topic area and your research aims and objectives.

You could potentially structure your literature review chapter according to theme, group, variables , chronologically or per concepts in your field of research. We explain the main approaches to structuring your literature review here . You can also download a copy of our free literature review template to help you establish an initial structure.

In general, it’s also a good idea to start wide (i.e. the big-picture-level) and then narrow down, ending your literature review close to your research questions . However, there’s no universal one “right way” to structure your literature review. The most important thing is not to discuss your sources one after the other like a list – as we touched on earlier, your literature review needs to synthesise the research , not summarise it .

Ultimately, you need to craft your literature review so that it conveys the most important information effectively – it needs to tell a logical story in a digestible way. It’s no use starting off with highly technical terms and then only explaining what these terms mean later. Always assume your reader is not a subject matter expert and hold their hand through a journe y of the literature while keeping the functions of the literature review chapter (which we discussed earlier) front of mind.

Example of a literature review

In the video below, we walk you through a high-quality literature review from a dissertation that earned full distinction. This will give you a clearer view of what a strong literature review looks like in practice and hopefully provide some inspiration for your own. 

Wrapping Up

In this post, we’ve (hopefully) answered the question, “ what is a literature review? “. We’ve also considered the purpose and functions of the literature review, as well as how to find literature and how to structure the literature review chapter. If you’re keen to learn more, check out the literature review section of the Grad Coach blog , as well as our detailed video post covering how to write a literature review . 

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

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16 Comments

Thanks for this review. It narrates what’s not been taught as tutors are always in a early to finish their classes.

Thanks for the kind words, Becky. Good luck with your literature review 🙂

This website is amazing, it really helps break everything down. Thank you, I would have been lost without it.

This is review is amazing. I benefited from it a lot and hope others visiting this website will benefit too.

Timothy T. Chol [email protected]

Thank you very much for the guiding in literature review I learn and benefited a lot this make my journey smooth I’ll recommend this site to my friends

This was so useful. Thank you so much.

Hi, Concept was explained nicely by both of you. Thanks a lot for sharing it. It will surely help research scholars to start their Research Journey.

The review is really helpful to me especially during this period of covid-19 pandemic when most universities in my country only offer online classes. Great stuff

Great Brief Explanation, thanks

So helpful to me as a student

GradCoach is a fantastic site with brilliant and modern minds behind it.. I spent weeks decoding the substantial academic Jargon and grounding my initial steps on the research process, which could be shortened to a couple of days through the Gradcoach. Thanks again!

This is an amazing talk. I paved way for myself as a researcher. Thank you GradCoach!

Well-presented overview of the literature!

This was brilliant. So clear. Thank you

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PhD Assistance

How to conduct literature review for phd economic dissertation, literature review: introduction.

A critical evaluation of the read and gathered resources (literature) regarding the particular subject (economics) and then identifying a gap, if any in the literature gathered earlier is basically what we call a dissertation literature review. A Dissertation Literature Review can be a basic summarization of important source materials or it can also be a critical assessment of the research materials for conveying a personal opinion on the same.

The basic summarization isn’t authentically a perfect A Dissertation Literature Review since it extends much beyond that. A  Dissertation Literature Review is something that might bring a new perspective regarding a classic Research Paper there might also be a combination of both the old interpretations as well as that of the new. A literature review might also include outlining of developments in a field, critically made and focused on major debates that are polemical in nature. Literature reviews also include source assessments for the reader to realize its validity and pertinence to the particular subject that is under research.

There is a major confusion that still prevails on a general basis regarding academic papers and literature review while they are not really the same thing. Academic papers aim at providing a particular subject with new research material while literature reviews form a part of this process. In other words, in academic papers, the basis of it is formed by the literature reviews helping in highlighting any kind of research gap that might have been left unnoticed.

How to Economic Literature review write: what are the necessary steps to be kept in mind?

• Identifying sources : for starting to Write a Economic Dissertation , we need to have a narrowed down list of resources that we want to used for the review. We should go through other literature reviews on the economic subject with specific topics. As we go through this, we need to Choose a Topic to be Reviewed and with this we simply need to narrow down the list of contents to be used since otherwise subjects become too massive to be gone through thoroughly.
• Going through the identified sources : as we finish organizing our sources, we need to start going through them thoroughly one by one. We can lookout for articles to be used in the dissertation in some of the economics databases, preferably Primarily a skimming should be done on the abstracts, methodologies and references and items relating to our topic should be only used. After this a Citation Chase should be conducted with related books and topics.
• Considering gaps in the sources : one of the most important things to be done in a Economics Dissertation Literature Review is to identify the research gaps in the sources. Notes should be kept while reading through the sources. Gap identification is specifically important in case such review forms a Part of a Research Proposal . Such review shall be shall be deemed to have been designed to fill the identified gaps. Identification of gaps is also considered as a part of critical analysis of the subject and sources.
• Starting to write the reviews : now that we have organized and went through all the resources, we can already start seeing the patterns and are all ready to start writing our review. We should write our review keeping in mind the audience and that the sources are chronological in order and are as current as possible, author controversies are referred to, it is concise and focused on the thesis statement, sample literature reviews are used as citations and proper paragraphing is maintained.
• Adding conclusion : the implications of the source material should be summarized and added to the conclusion section of the review and then such summary should be linked to the arguments and general research questions.

The gaps found in the literature should be exposed in the conclusion and possible rationale for future research should be suggested.

Some other miscellaneous points to be remembered

• Being selective: it is important to be selective regarding the sources used in the review. Detailed writing is not necessary in every section. Using terms like ‘robust’ ‘ample’ helps in avoiding details regarding a topic, than necessary.
• Usage of ample evidence: one of the most important parts of a literature review is the usage of a large number of evidences from various sources to back the used arguments in the review.
• Lesser reliance on direct quotes: quotes in a review should be used as least as possible and only to emphasis a point
• Proper referencing: referencing should properly be done in each of the projects with the specified referencing style.
• Verme, P., & Schuettler, K. (2021). The impact of forced displacement on host communities a review of the empirical literature in economics.  Journal of Development Economics , 102606.
• Fazio, G. (2021).  A Review of Creative Trade in the Economics literature . PEC Discussion Paper.
• Schmitt, A., & Hörner, S. (2021). Systematic literature review–improving business processes by implementing agile.  Business Process Management Journal .
• Brodeur, A., Gray, D. M., Islam, A., & Bhuiyan, S. (2020). A Literature Review of the Economics of COVID-19.
• Woessmann, L., & Bettinger, E. (2020). Literature Review Article: New Directions in the Economics of Higher Education.  New Directions in the Economics of Higher Education .
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Dissertation literature review: a text and a process

Welcome back to the LSE LIFE podcasts series! I'm Helen Green, and I’ll be sharing some ideas on one particular aspect of studying at LSE.

In this series of podcasts about your dissertation, we’re considering the dissertation in terms of the finished, written product, but also in terms of the process of developing and creating that product.  Today I’d like to focus on the literature review.

So we know that the literature review is part of your dissertation, maybe a couple thousand words, a few thousand words – depending on how you choose to structure your dissertation. But what else is there to know?  I’ve got three main ideas in mind with respect to your literature review.  First I’d like to talk about what a literature review is, and what it  does  – what functions it should fulfill. Then I have some advice on how to go about reviewing the literature and writing this part of your dissertation.  Finally, I’d like to reflect on some qualities of a good literature review, and some common problems to try to avoid. 

Podcast transcript

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Students in the School of Economics at the University of Nottingham consistently produce work of a very high standard in the form of coursework essays, dissertations, research work and policy articles.

Below are some examples of the excellent work produced by some of our students. The authors have agreed for their work to be made available as examples of good practice.

Undergraduate dissertations

• The Causal Impact of Education on Crime Rates: A Recent US Analysis . Emily Taylor, BSc Hons Economics, 2022
• Does a joint income taxation system for married couples disincentivise the female labour supply? Jodie Gollop, BA Hons Economics with German, 2022
• Conditional cooperation between the young and old and the influence of work experience, charitable giving, and social identity . Rachel Moffat, BSc Hons Economics, 2021
• An Extended Literature Review on the Contribution of Economic Institutions to the Great Divergence in the 19th Century . Jessica Richens, BSc Hons Economics, 2021
• Does difference help make a difference? Examining whether young trustees and female trustees affect charities’ financial performance. Chris Hyland, BSc Hons Economics, 2021

Postgraduate dissertations

• The impact of Covid-19 on the public and health expenditure gradient in mortality in England . Alexander Waller, MSc Economic Development & Policy Analysis, 2022
• Impact of the Child Support Grant on Nutritional Outcomes in South Africa: Is there a ‘pregnancy support’ effect? . Claire Lynam, MSc Development Economics, 2022
• An Empirical Analysis of the Volatility Spillovers between Commodity Markets, Exchange Rates, and the Sovereign CDS Spreads of Commodity Exporters . Alfie Fox-Heaton, MSc Financial Economics, 2022
• The 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season and Labour Market Transitions . Edward Allenby, MSc Economics, 2022
• The scope of international agreements . Sophia Vaaßen, MSc International Economics, 2022

Thank you to all those students who have agreed to have their work showcased in this way.

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Provide an overview of the topic and explain the significance of addressing the question.

Outline the research goal and ensure the objective matches the identified problem.

Describe the research design and provide a concise overview of the data analysis plan.

Briefly explain the topic and context to help readers understand the subject.

State the problem in the existing literature and the importance of addressing this gap.

Raise concise research questions that present the goal of your research.

Rigorous search to collect relevant articles, books, and other relevant materials.

Classify the literature based on themes, concepts, or methodologies.

Analyze each selected source and discuss the implications of the literature for research.

Divide the full dissertation body into distinct chapters and outline the purpose and scope.

Methodology chapter with research design, sampling, data collection, and analysis procedure.

Present findings and discuss the implications of findings. Also, suggest areas for future research.

Provide a concise summary of the main findings from the research.

Highlight the importance of your contribution in the field context.

Offering suggestions for future research and any potential application.

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Experience 5+ years

Experience 4 years

Experience 5 years

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