seven steps to producing a literature review

Write a Literature Review

1. narrow your topic and select papers accordingly, 2. search for literature, 3. read the selected articles thoroughly and evaluate them, 4. organize the selected papers by looking for patterns and by developing subtopics, 5. develop a thesis or purpose statement, 6. write the paper, 7. review your work.

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Consider your specific area of study. Think about what interests you and what interests other researchers in your field.

Talk to your professor, brainstorm, and read lecture notes and recent issues of periodicals in the field.

Limit your scope to a smaller topic area (ie. focusing on France's role in WWII instead of focusing on WWII in general).

• Four Steps to Narrow Your Research Topic (Video) This 3-minute video provides instructions on how to narrow the focus of your research topic.
• Developing a Research Question + Worksheet Use this worksheet to develop, assess, and refine your research questions. There is also a downloadable PDF version.

Define your source selection criteria (ie. articles published between a specific date range, focusing on a specific geographic region, or using a specific methodology).

Using keywords, search a library database.

Reference lists of recent articles and reviews can lead to other useful papers.

Include any studies contrary to your point of view.

Evaluate and synthesize the studies' findings and conclusions.

Note the following:

• Assumptions some or most researchers seem to make
• Methodologies, testing procedures, subjects, material tested researchers use
• Experts in the field: names/labs that are frequently referenced
• Conflicting theories, results, methodologies
• Popularity of theories and how this has/has not changed over time
• Findings that are common/contested
• Important trends in the research
• The most influential theories

Tip: If your literature review is extensive, find a large table surface, and on it place post-it notes or filing cards to organize all your findings into categories.

• Move them around if you decide that (a) they fit better under different headings, or (b) you need to establish new topic headings.
• Develop headings/subheadings that reflect the major themes and patterns you detected

Write a one or two sentence statement summarizing the conclusion you have reached about the major trends and developments you see in the research that has been conducted on your subject.

• Templates for Writing Thesis Statements This template provides a two-step guide for writing thesis statements. There is also a downloadable PDF version.
• 5 Types of Thesis Statements Learn about five different types of thesis statements to help you choose the best type for your research. There is also a downloadable PDF version.
• 5 Questions to Strengthen Your Thesis Statement Follow these five steps to strengthen your thesis statements. There is also a downloadable PDF version.

Follow the organizational structure you developed above, including the headings and subheadings you constructed.

Make certain that each section links logically to the one before and after.

Structure your sections by themes or subtopics, not by individual theorists or researchers.

• Tip: If you find that each paragraph begins with a researcher's name, it might indicate that, instead of evaluating and comparing the research literature from an analytical point of view, you have simply described what research has been done.

Prioritize analysis over description.

• For example, look at the following two passages and note that Student A merely describes the literature, whereas Student B takes a more analytical and evaluative approach by comparing and contrasting. You can also see that this evaluative approach is well signaled by linguistic markers indicating logical connections (words such as "however," "moreover") and phrases such as "substantiates the claim that," which indicate supporting evidence and Student B's ability to synthesize knowledge.

Student A: Smith (2000) concludes that personal privacy in their living quarters is the most important factor in nursing home residents' perception of their autonomy. He suggests that the physical environment in the more public spaces of the building did not have much impact on their perceptions. Neither the layout of the building nor the activities available seem to make much difference. Jones and Johnstone make the claim that the need to control one's environment is a fundamental need of life (2001), and suggest that the approach of most institutions, which is to provide total care, may be as bad as no care at all. If people have no choices or think that they have none, they become depressed.

Student B: After studying residents and staff from two intermediate care facilities in Calgary, Alberta, Smith (2000) came to the conclusion that except for the amount of personal privacy available to residents, the physical environment of these institutions had minimal if any effect on their perceptions of control (autonomy). However, French (1998) and Haroon (2000) found that availability of private areas is not the only aspect of the physical environment that determines residents' autonomy. Haroon interviewed 115 residents from 32 different nursing homes known to have different levels of autonomy (2000). It was found that physical structures, such as standardized furniture, heating that could not be individually regulated, and no possession of a house key for residents limited their feelings of independence. Moreover, Hope (2002), who interviewed 225 residents from various nursing homes, substantiates the claim that characteristics of the institutional environment such as the extent of resources in the facility, as well as its location, are features which residents have indicated as being of great importance to their independence.

• How to Integrate Critical Voice into Your Literature Review (Video)
• Look at the topic sentences of each paragraph. If you were to read only these sentences, would you find that your paper presented a clear position, logically developed, from beginning to end? The topic sentences of each paragraph should indicate the main points of your literature review.
• Make an outline of each section of the paper and decide whether you need to add information, to delete irrelevant information, or to re-structure sections.
• Read your work out loud. That way you will be better able to identify where you need punctuation marks to signal pauses or divisions within sentences, where you have made grammatical errors, or where your sentences are unclear.
• Since the purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate that the writer is familiar with the important professional literature on the chosen subject, check to make certain that you have covered all of the important, up-to-date, and pertinent texts. In the sciences and some of the social sciences it is important that your literature be quite recent; this is not so important in the humanities.
• Make certain that all of the citations and references are correct and that you are referencing in the appropriate style for your discipline. If you are uncertain which style to use, ask your professor.
• Check to make sure that you have not plagiarized either by failing to cite a source of information, or by using words quoted directly from a source. (Usually if you take three or more words directly from another source, you should put those words within quotation marks, and cite the page.)
• Text should be written in a clear and concise academic style; it should not be descriptive in nature or use the language of everyday speech.
• There should be no grammatical or spelling errors.
• Sentences should flow smoothly and logically.
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Literature Reviews

Steps in the literature review process.

• What is a literature review?
• Define your research question
• Determine inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Choose databases and search
• Review Results
• Synthesize Results
• Analyze Results
• Librarian Support
• You may need to some exploratory searching of the literature to get a sense of scope, to determine whether you need to narrow or broaden your focus
• Identify databases that provide the most relevant sources, and identify relevant terms (controlled vocabularies) to add to your search strategy
• Finalize your research question
• Think about relevant dates, geographies (and languages), methods, and conflicting points of view
• Conduct searches in the published literature via the identified databases
• Check to see if this topic has been covered in other discipline's databases
• Examine the citations of on-point articles for keywords, authors, and previous research (via references) and cited reference searching.
• Save your search results in a citation management tool (such as Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote)
• De-duplicate your search results
• Make sure that you've found the seminal pieces -- they have been cited many times, and their work is considered foundational 
• Check with your professor or a librarian to make sure your search has been comprehensive
• Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of individual sources and evaluate for bias, methodologies, and thoroughness
• Group your results in to an organizational structure that will support why your research needs to be done, or that provides the answer to your research question  
• Develop your conclusions
• Are there gaps in the literature?
• Where has significant research taken place, and who has done it?
• Is there consensus or debate on this topic?
• Which methodological approaches work best?
• For example: Background, Current Practices, Critics and Proponents, Where/How this study will fit in 
• Organize your citations and focus on your research question and pertinent studies
• Compile your bibliography

Note: The first four steps are the best points at which to contact a librarian. Your librarian can help you determine the best databases to use for your topic, assess scope, and formulate a search strategy.

Videos Tutorials about Literature Reviews

This 4.5 minute video from Academic Education Materials has a Creative Commons License and a British narrator.

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• Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

What is a literature review?

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

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

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

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

APA7 Style resources

APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

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

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

2. Decide on the scope of your review

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

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

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

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

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

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

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

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

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

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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Writing a Literature Review

• What is a Literature Review?
• Step 1: Choosing a Topic
• Step 2: Finding Information
• Step 3: Evaluating Content
• Step 4: Taking Notes
• Step 5: Synthesizing Content
• Step 6: Writing the Review
• Step 7: Citing Your Sources
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Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

2 Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

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Conducting a Literature Review

Steps in conducting a literature review.

• Benefits of Conducting a Literature Review
• Summary of the Process
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• Literature Review Tutorial by American University Library
• The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It by University of Toronto
• Write a Literature Review by UC Santa Cruz University Library

Conducting a literature review involves using research databases to identify materials that cover or are related in some sense to the research topic. In some cases the research topic may be so original in its scope that no one has done anything exactly like it, so research that is at least similar or related will provide source material for the literature review. The selection of databases will be driven by the subject matter and the scope of the project.

Selecting Databases -- Most academic libraries now provide access to a majority of their databases and their catalog via a so-called discovery tool. A discovery tool makes searching library systems more "Google-like" in that even the simplest of queries can be entered and results retrieved. However, many times the results are also "Google-like" in the sheer quantity of items retrieved. While a discovery tool can be invaluable for quickly finding a multitude of resources on nearly any topic, there are a number of considerations a researcher should keep in mind when using a discovery tool, especially for the researcher who is attempting a comprehensive literature review.

No discovery tool works with every database subscribed to by a library. Some libraries might subscribe to two or three hundred different research databases covering a large number of subject areas. Competing discovery systems might negotiate agreements with different database vendors in order to provide access to a large range of materials. There will be other vendors with whom agreements are not forthcoming, therefore their materials are not included in the discovery tool results. While this might be of only minor concern for a researcher looking to do a fairly limited research project, the researcher looking to do a comprehensive review of the literature in preparation for writing a master's thesis or a doctoral dissertation will run the risk of missing some materials by limiting the search just to a particular library's discovery system. If only one system covered everything that a researcher could possibly need, libraries would have no need to subscribe to hundreds of different databases. The reality is that no one tool does it all. Not even Google Scholar.

Book collections might be excluded from results delivered by a discovery tool. While many libraries are making results from their own catalogs available via their discovery tools, they might not cover books that are discoverable from other library collections, thus making a search of book collections incomplete. Most libraries subscribe to an international database of library catalogs known as WorldCat. This database will provide comprehensive coverage of books, media, and other physical library materials available in libraries worldwide.

Features available in a particular database might not be available in a discovery tool. Keep in mind that a discovery tool is a search system that enables searching across content from numerous individual databases. An individual database might have search features that cannot be provided through a discovery tool, since the discovery tool is designed to accommodate a large number of systems with a single search. For example, the nursing database  CINAHL  includes the ability to limit a search to specific practice areas, to limit to evidence-based practice, to limit to gender, and to search using medical subject headings, among other things, all specialized facets that are not available in a discovery tool. To have these advanced capabilities, a researcher would need to go directly to  CINAHL  and search it natively.

Some discovery tools are set, by default, to limit search results to those items directly available through a particular library's collections. While many researchers will be most concerned with what is immediately available to them at their own library, a researcher concerned with finding everything that has been done on a particular topic will need to go beyond what's available at his or her home library and include materials that are available elsewhere. Master's and doctoral candidates should take care to notice if their library's discovery tool automatically limits to available materials and broaden the scope to include ALL materials, not just those available.

With the foregoing in mind, a researcher might start a search by using the library's discovery tool and then follow up by reviewing which databases have been included in the search and, more importantly, which databases have not been included. Most libraries will facilitate locating its individual databases through a subject arrangement of some kind. Once those databases that are not discoverable have been identified, the researcher would do well to search them individually to find out if other materials can be identified outside of the discovery tool. One additional tool that a doctoral researcher should of necessity include in a search is ISI's  Web of Knowledge . The two major systems searchable within ISI's  Web  are the  Social Sciences Citation Index  and the  Science Citation Index . The purpose of these two systems is to enable a researcher to determine what research has been cited over the years by any number of researchers and how many times it has been cited.

Formulating an Effective Search Strategy -- Key to performing an effective literature review is selecting search terms that will effectively identify materials that are relevant to the research topic. An initial strategy for selecting search terminology might be to list all possible relevant terms and their synonyms in order to have a working vocabulary for use in the research databases. While an individual subject database will likely use a "controlled vocabulary" to index articles and other materials that are included in the database, the same vocabulary might not be as effective in a database that focuses on a different subject area. For example, terminology that is used frequently in psychological literature might not be as effective in searching a human resources management database. Brainstorming the topic before launching into a search will help a researcher arrive at a good working vocabulary to use when probing the databases for relevant literature.

As materials are identified with the initial search, the researcher will want to keep track of other terminology that could be of use in performing additional searches. Sometimes the most effective search terminology can be found by reading the abstracts of relevant materials located through a library's research databases. For example, an initial search on the concept of "mainstreaming" might lead the researcher to articles that discuss mainstreaming but which also look into the concept of "inclusion" in education. While the terms mainstreaming and inclusion are sometimes used synonymously, they really embody two different approaches to working with students having special needs. Abstracts of articles located in the initial search on mainstreaming will uncover related concepts such as inclusion and help a researcher develop a better, more effective vocabulary for fleshing out the literature review.

In addition to searching using key concepts aligned with the research topic, a researcher likely also will want to search for additional materials produced by key authors who are identified in the initial searches. As a researcher reviews items retrieved in the initial stages of the survey, he or she will begin to notice certain authors coming up over and over in relation to the topic. To make sure that no stone is left unturned, it would be advisable to search the available, relevant library databases for other materials by those key authors, just to make sure something of importance has not been missed. A review of the reference lists for each of the items identified in the search will also help to identify key literature that should be reviewed.

Locating the Materials and Composing the Review -- In many cases the items identified through the library's databases will also be available online through the same or related databases. This, however, is not always the case. When materials are not available online, the researcher should check the library's physical collections (print, media, etc.) to determine if the items are available in the library, itself. For those materials not physically available in the home library, the researcher will use interlibrary loan to procure copies from other libraries or services. While abstracts are extremely useful in identifying the right types of materials, they are no substitute for the actual items, themselves. The thorough researcher will make sure that all the key literature has been retrieved and read thoroughly before proceeding too far with the original research.

The end result of the literature review is a discussion of the central themes in the research and an overview of the significant studies located by the researcher. This discussion serves as the lead section of a paper or article that reports the findings of an original research study and sets the stage for presentation of the original study by providing a review of research that has been conducted prior to the current study. As the researcher conducts his or her own study, other relevant materials might enter into the professional literature. It is the researcher's responsibility to update the literature review with newly released information prior to completing his or her own study.

Updating the Initial Search -- Most research projects will take place over a period of time and are not completed in the short term. Especially in the case of master's and doctoral projects, the research process might take a year or several years to complete. During this time, it will be important for the researcher to periodically review the research that has been going on at the same time as his or her own research. Revisiting the search strategies employed in the initial pass of the ltierature will turn up any new studies that might have come to light since the initial search. Fortunately, most research databases and discovery systems provide researchers with the means for automatically notifying them when new materials matching the search strategy have entered the system. This requires that a researcher sign up for a personal "account" with the database in order to save his or her searches and set up "alerts" when new materials come online. Setting up an account does not involve charges to the researcher; this is all a part of the cost borne by the home library in providing access to the databases.

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Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review A Multimodal and Cultural Approach

• Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie
• Rebecca Frels - Lamar University, USA
• Description

What makes this book unique:

• Focuses on multimodal texts and settings such as observations, documents, social media, experts in the field and secondary data so that your review covers the full research environment
• Puts mixed methods at the centre of the process
• Shows you how to synthesize information thematically, rather than merely summarize the existing literature and findings
• Brings culture into the process to help you address bias and understand the role of knowledge interpretation, guiding you through
• Teaches the CORE of the literature review – Critical thinking, Organization, Reflections and Evaluation – and provides a guide for reflexivity at the end of each of the seven steps
• Visualizes the steps with roadmaps so you can track progress and self-evaluate as you learn the steps

This book is the essential best practices guide for students and researchers, providing the understanding and tools to approach both the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of a rigorous, comprehensive, literature review.

This is by far the most comprehensive text on how to do comprehensive literature reviews!  Onwuegbuzie and Frels skilfully demonstrate that review has a methodology of its own.  Both novice and experienced scholars will benefit from detailed examples and step-by-step demonstrations of ways to maximize the effectiveness of literature reviews to build new theories and develop better explanations of behaviours and outcomes. 

This is the most comprehensive and user-friendly book I’ve seen on how to conduct a literature review. The authors take the distinction of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research seriously, showing how each adds something important and how being open-minded results in the use of literature based on all three approaches. Overall, the book provides a process theory of literature review, that is done before, during, and after each research study.  It is a must read for both PhD students and research faculty.

With noteworthy scope of content, this book  is a must-have resource for beginning and experienced researchers alike. In addition to its effective pedagogical features such as visuals and end of chapter questions, this resource enables researchers to make informed decisions about the purposes of and procedures for undertaking a literature review. In so doing, the authors innovate and advance our understandings of the processes and products involved in a comprehensive literature review and provide practical guidance for each of the steps. I have been seeking such a book and plan to make this required reading for the graduate students I instruct, mentor, and supervise.

Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review is a comprehensive text book written to instruct master’s-level students, doctoral-level students, and new and experienced researchers in the process of writing a comprehensive literature review... Hopefully, this book will become an important text used by instructors as they guide college students into the writing of the literature review.

Sadly this book never arrived despite me being very interested to adopt for my MSc students dissertation stage.

The literature review is one of the toughest parts of any proposal (or postgraduate piece of work) for students to complete successfully because it asks the student to engage with the theory they will be using from the perspective of ideas alone. IT also asks the student to investigate other academics' work in a manner that they haven't really experienced before. All these "firsts" make the literature review a very confusing and oftentimes daunting process. Fortunately, "Seven Steps" provides the specific guidance that so many students need to navigate this difficult process. The systematic way in which the book approaches a topic that can be said to change with each application (e.g. How do you go about it? What to include? What to leave out? and most importantly, Why?) is indispensable for anyone teaching students new to postgraduate work, or for researchers looking for an alternative approach to a process they are otherwise well-acquainted with.

Very accessible book for students who wish to increase their capabilites in working at the front end of their papers.

Comprehensive, well structured book, which will be very useful to students planning a literature review.

this book is more relevant for the MSc students. it will be a good supplement for the student who wants to go a little further

it was actually a little more complex than I was hoping for. the text is dense and it is big book. for my BSc students it is jut a little too much

Preview this book

Sample materials & chapters.

Chapter 1: Foundations of the Literature Review

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Steps in doing a literature review

The steps below look sequential. However, doing a literature review is often an iterative process. That is, you may “circle back" to redo or modify earlier steps. You may also be working on a number of steps at the same time. 

General steps

State your research topic or question. Ask yourself: What is my central question or issue that the literature can help define? What is already known about the topic?

Clarify the purpose of your review. For example, is it to provide background information for a research paper? Is it for a “pro and con" discussion? Is it to provide a synthesis or summary of the "state of the discipline?" Is it to demonstrate that you are familiar with previous work that has been done in your discipline? You may have several purposes.

Develop a starting search plan. Ask yourself: Where will I find information? (Library databases? Google Scholar? Special digital or physical collections specific to your discipline?) What is the scope of the search? How broadly or narrowly should I search? (Hint: Check out Boston College Libraries' excellent guide on literature review scope .)

Consider using a search log to help you search more effectively. This one was created by the University of Leeds.

Do your search and choose sources that seem to have information on your topic.

Choose the exact information you want to use, discuss, or develop in your review. 

Organize and synthesize the information you've selected. Before beginning to write about the sources, you will probably find it useful to organize the sources -- perhaps thematically, perhaps chronologically. Ask yourself: What connections can be made between the texts? Is there a conflict or debate in the literature? How will reviewing the literature justify the topic I plan to investigate?

IUPUI has created a handy worksheet to help you synthesize multiple authors' research and viewpoints. Florida International University's "synthesis matrix" might also be useful.

Write a draft of the paper or article.

Acknowledgements: This page contains information adapted from Irene Clark's book Writing the Successful Thesis and Dissertation: Entering the Conversation (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2007), pp. 110-111; and from librarian Paul Fehrmann's "Literature Reviews" guide on the Kent State University Libraries website.

Some helpful resources

The following resources, available through the OU Libraries, will give you additional help in developing your literature review.

" How to Write a Literature Review ." By Andrew S. Denney and Richard Tewksbury. Journal of Criminal Justice Education , vol. 24, no. 2 (2013), pp. 218-234.

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7 easy steps to do a literature review

A literature review is a fundamental part of your thesis writing process. It critically informs you of the relevant literature by other scholars in your research area and situates your research in the conversation. Ultimately, the literature review helps you communicate how the new knowledge you are producing contributes to existing scholarship. 

The process of scanning literature in your area allows you to identify overlooked or understudied topics in your research field, and identify scholarships that support your arguments. The literature review provides the theoretical framework, methodology, concepts and problems that frame your research design. 

We attended the GradProSkills webinar Writing a Literature Review (GPLL37) , led by Joseph Brito, a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Religions and Cultures, to learn how to do a literature review efficiently and still be thorough. Joseph shared 7 steps to do a literature review in a stress-free manner:

1. Define your research scope

Establish the research area, topics and questions you want to address. Make a list of keywords (including synonyms) and main concepts linked to your research topic, and establish the connections between these concepts and your research question with a concept map . Then set some additional parameters to your searches like publication date, geographical coverage, and related disciplines.

2. Plan your research approach

Build a checklist with important aspects of your research area, like the existing scholarship covering your topic, under-researched or overlooked aspects by other researchers, and key scholars in the field. Identify where to search for research papers on Concordia’s online catalogue and databases , browse on Google Scholar , talk to a subject librarian or ask your advisor for tips. Identify credible scholarly publications like peer-reviewed journals, books from university presses and graduate thesis.  If in doubt, seek your supervisor’s guidance to acceptable sources.

3. Search strategically: be efficient but thorough

Use the keywords and concepts you identified in your research and explore combinations with boolean operators (or, and, not, etc), and truncated terms (develop* returns results like development, developer). Enhance your research expertise with GradProSkills webinar Library Skills & Resources (GPLL231) or chat with Concordia's librarians .

Keep research logs with critical aspects of your search: date, database, terms used and their combinations, and results. Establish categories for important themes, and organize search results within these major themes.

4. Manage your literature with online tools  

Keeping good referencing practices early on in your grad school saves you time during the writing phase. Zotero is a free online reference management tool to keep your citations and personal notes in one place. This software inserts the citation (author, date of publication, page number) into your word document and automatically creates a reference list as per the chosen citation style . Zotero training is available to grad students with GradProSkills webinar GPLL 243 - Using Zotero for Grads . 

5. Critical reading and analysis

Before reading your text, consider the author's argumentation and evidence to support your research question. Skim read the abstract, conclusion, and the first sentence of each paragraph to eliminate non-relevant literature. 

Keep an annotated bibliography for each source with its key points and importance to your research (about seven sentences), and place selected literature in conversation with each other. The literature review is an iterative process of searching, reading, taking notes and writing.

6. Benchmark from other literature reviews

Check existing literature reviews in the thesis and dissertations at Concordia’s Theses, dissertations, and research papers database . Organize the literature review keeping the connection between topics, with a smooth transition from one section to another. Avoid excessive direct quoting, and prefer to give your interpretation of other scholars’ perspectives in your research field.

7. Assemble the texts and write

Put all the sources together into your literature review when you are confident that you have covered the significant authors and debates in your field. You will know that you have reached this point when your search results and readings start repeating themselves, or if your advisor tells you to stop and write. A literature review is structured with an introduction, main body and conclusion. Concordia’s Student Success Centre shares handouts on how to structure essays and research papers . 

Joseph recommends starting the literature review process sooner rather than later to give yourself time to gather and analyze your sources. Manage the process like a small project with specific goals and timelines to increase efficiency and reduce stress. You can learn how to work efficiently with our Productivity in Grad School (GPLL50) webinar. 

You might also like:

• Concordia Library’s hidden gems are far more than just books and articles
• Overcome the Writing Challenges in Grad School

© Concordia University

Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review A Multimodal and Cultural Approach

Anthony j. onwuegbuzie.

• Rebecca Frels - Lamar University, USA

With noteworthy scope of content, this book  is a must-have resource for beginning and experienced researchers alike. In addition to its effective pedagogical features such as visuals and end of chapter questions, this resource enables researchers to make informed decisions about the purposes of and procedures for undertaking a literature review. In so doing, the authors innovate and advance our understandings of the processes and products involved in a comprehensive literature review and provide practical guidance for each of the steps. I have been seeking such a book and plan to make this required reading for the graduate students I instruct, mentor, and supervise.

This is the most comprehensive and user-friendly book I’ve seen on how to conduct a literature review. The authors take the distinction of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research seriously, showing how each adds something important and how being open-minded results in the use of literature based on all three approaches. Overall, the book provides a process theory of literature review, that is done before, during, and after each research study.  It is a must read for both PhD students and research faculty.

This is by far the most comprehensive text on how to do comprehensive literature reviews!  Onwuegbuzie and Frels skilfully demonstrate that review has a methodology of its own.  Both novice and experienced scholars will benefit from detailed examples and step-by-step demonstrations of ways to maximize the effectiveness of literature reviews to build new theories and develop better explanations of behaviours and outcomes. 

Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review is a comprehensive text book written to instruct master’s-level students, doctoral-level students, and new and experienced researchers in the process of writing a comprehensive literature review... Hopefully, this book will become an important text used by instructors as they guide college students into the writing of the literature review.

Sadly this book never arrived despite me being very interested to adopt for my MSc students dissertation stage.

Rebecca Frels

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Dr Ana Raquel Nunes

August 26th, 2016, book review: seven steps to a comprehensive literature review: a multimodal and cultural approach by anthony j. onwuegbuzie and rebecca frels.

3 comments | 2 shares

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

In Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach , Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie and Rebecca Frels offer a new guide on how to produce a comprehensive literature review through seven key steps that incorporate rigour, validity and reliability. Ana Raquel Nunes recommends this helpful, well-informed and well-organised book to those undertaking literature reviews as well as those reflecting on research methodologies more broadly. 

Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach. Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie and Rebecca Frels . Sage. 2016.

According to the authors, literature reviews should be systematic , defined ‘as a set of rigorous routines, documentation of such routines, and the way the literature reviewer negotiates particular biases throughout these routines’ (10). The authors acknowledge that this definition differs from the definitions of systematic literature reviews used in the health sciences. Instead, this book defines a comprehensive literature review (CLR) as an integrative review, being the combination of narrative review (i.e. theoretical, historical, general and methodological reviews) and systematic review (i.e. meta-analysis, meta-summary, rapid review and meta-synthesis).

Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review purposefully addresses CLR as ‘a methodological, culturally progressive approach involving the practice of documenting the process of inquiry into the current state of knowledge about a selected topic’ (18). Additionally, the authors’ approach to the CLR takes into account the researcher’s philosophical stance, research methods and practices which, when combined, create a framework for collecting, analysing and evaluating the information that will form the basis for conducting a literature review. The book thus presents five types of information – MODES: namely, Media; Observation(s); Documents; Experts(s); and Secondary Sources – that help the researcher in their journey through the literature review landscape, which in the end will produce either a separate output or inform primary research within a bigger research project.

Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review is an effective tool for an iterative process denoting a structured and chronological approach to conducting literature reviews. The book covers a range of research topics and practical examples arising from the authors’ own research including education, counselling and health systems research. Through these, the authors report an in-depth model characterised by a series of qualitative, quantitative and mixed research approaches, methods and techniques used to collect, analyse and evaluate data/information for the creation of new knowledge.

As its title suggests, the book is organised around seven sequential steps within three phases: the Exploration Phase includes Steps 1-5 (Exploring Beliefs and Topics; Initiating the Search; Storing and Organising Information; Selecting/Deselecting Information; and Expanding the Search (MODES)); the Interpretation Phase includes Step 6 (Analysing and Synthesising Information); and the Communication Phase includes Step 7 (Presenting the CLR Report). As the argument of the book develops, the differences between traditional literature reviews and the CLR become evident as the seven steps are unveiled. Traditional literature reviews are encapsulated within Steps 1-4, whilst a CLR goes further through the addition of Steps 5-7.

One of the steps that was of particular interest to me was Step 6 on analysing and synthesising information. The book advances research methodology knowledge and practice on the different elements of empirical data and how both qualitative and quantitative information can be analysed and synthesised to inform a CLR. In Step 6, the authors go to great lengths to explain and exemplify how users can perform qualitative and quantitative data analyses of information, as well as the level of integration that can be achieved when doing mixed methods analyses. Additionally, the authors explore the nature of data analysis and identify three levels or layers that need to be taken into consideration: namely, the research approach (e.g. grounded theory); the research method (e.g. measures if regression); and the research technique (e.g. content analysis) used. This is found to be essential as data analysis is considered to be a product of the research method used, which in turn is linked to the research approach.

Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review is not merely intended for those conducting a literature review, but it also works as a research methodology book as it addresses an extensive number of research methodologies, methods and techniques. The book offers a theoretically and practically informed discussion of increased integration of research processes, practices and products, raising important quality standards assurances necessary for a CLR, but also for research more generally. This is a very well-organised book which cleverly and effectively uses tables, figures and boxes throughout to illustrate and help contextualise detailed examples of the different steps involved in conducting a literature review.

Accordingly, readers seeking a tool or a guide on conducting literature reviews will find this a very helpful book. It will also be of use to a broader readership interested in research methodology more generally as it encompasses the different research traditions (qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods) as well as the stages of the research process (the research problem, the literature review, research design, data collection, data analysis and interpretation and report writing). For the reasons above, it will appeal widely to students, academics and practitioners interested in conducting literature reviews within the social, behavioural and health sciences. It is suitable for different levels of experience in conducting literature reviews and doing research in general. Furthermore, this is a book that should be at-hand and used as a guide each time one decides to conduct a piece of research that includes a literature review as it will provide new ideas and directions depending on the topic and disciplinary perspective.

Note: This review gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above  Amazon  affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.

Image Credit: ( Ines Hegedus-Garcia CC BY 2.0 ).

About the author

Dr Ana Raquel Nunes is a Research Fellow in the Division of Health Sciences at the Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, and a Research Methodologist and Adviser for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research Design Service (RDS). She is an interdisciplinary and mixed methods researcher working at the interface between public health, environmental science and social science. Her active interests include human vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to stresses and threats (e.g. climate change), housing and health, and fuel poverty. You can find more about her research here.

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The PhD Experience

• Call for Contributions

8 steps to writing a literature review

By Sam Grinsell |

Almost every PhD student, and many others doing research projects, will have to write a literature review. For some of you this will be the first chapter of your thesis that you work on. But the literature review can seem an unfamiliar form, different from anything you’ve written for standard student assignments. It’s one thing to investigate the existing scholarship , but how do you go about producing a written review of it? Follow these key steps to make the writing process as pain-free as possible:

1. Understand your audience

The literature review is a required part of your PhD because it is the place where you prove to your examiners that you understand the relationship between your work and your discipline. You are writing it specifically for them and your supervisors. It is unlikely anyone else will read it. (This can be a liberating thought!)

It is vital, therefore, that your literature review fulfills its goal of communicating to your examiners that you understand your field and your place within it. It really has little purpose beyond the thesis, as it will almost certainly be cut from any future published version. You should keep closely focused on communicating the key points to your audience, this is not the place for high-flown rhetoric or literary experimentation.

2. Read a literature review

These days a lot of theses are available online through institutional research repositories, and your library should also hold physical copies. These are a valuable resource for understanding the PhD thesis as a form, and you should at least skim through a few to get an idea of how they can be structured and how arguments are developed. Literature reviews are among the most formalised elements of the PhD thesis, so reading these should give you a good idea of how yours should look. Do remember, however, that the norms can vary between different disciplines and subject areas, so pay particular attention to those produced for your department.

3. Know your thesis

One of the most challenging things about writing a literature review is that although you are not writing about your research, the whole chapter is really about just that. Ideally you should describe the existing literature in such a way that the need for your thesis is always clear. In order to do this, you should first write out a rough idea of your thesis or research questions. Remember that this will change as your project evolves, it doesn’t need to be a final statement. It is, however, a necessary step in establishing how your work relates to your field.

4. What are you doing?

Just to wildly simplify things for a moment, there are two types of contribution you might be making with your PhD: providing a new answer to existing questions, or examining previously unexplored questions. (Many projects will in fact combine these.) If you are doing the former, you will need to make very clear exactly how you are departing from previous views, and why. You should make sure that you describe the current consensus accurately, and are explicit about why you are departing from it.

If, on the other hand, you are asking new questions or examining previously unexplored material, your challenge is to make sure that your research remains grounded in established scholarship. You should lay out the types of work that have been relevant to the formation of your project, and how your findings will contribute to these. You should prove that you are able to relate your research to existing work, even where this may cover different ground from yours.

5. Group your readings

A good first step to understanding how you might structure your literature review is to group your readings according to theme, sub-discipline, methodology, or whatever category makes sense to you. Then think about how your work relates to each of these categories: are you disputing this existing area, building on it, or adapting it for a new context. Be clear enough about this that you can write sentences in these formats: ‘this thesis will contribute to the following areas of scholarship…’ ‘this thesis builds on existing scholarship on…’ ‘this thesis uses theoretical approaches from the following types of research…’

6. Criticise existing scholarship

Another of the challenging elements of writing a literature review is that although you are writing about what other researchers have already done, you need to identify weaknesses or gaps in this work. This needn’t involve directly arguing with individual scholars (although it might), more important is to identify what has already been found and, from this, what has not yet been answered, or answered clearly. This goes back to point four: if you are providing a new answer to existing questions, this will involve directly engaging with the work of others who have provided different answers. Be very clear about where you disagree with them and why. It is possible that you agree with most existing scholarship, but make it clear that this work has not already answered the questions that you address.

7. Use a reference manager

Drew mentioned this last week , but if you are not already using a reference manager then stop reading this and get one. No, now. ( Zotero , Mendeley , Qiqqa )

8. Don’t worry

As said earlier, the literature review is not for anyone except for you and your examiners. As such, there is no pressure to produce something beautiful in its own terms. This is your chance to demonstrate the work that you have done. You can also see it as an opportunity to think about yourself as a scholar. Imagine your thesis as a published book: who are you next to on the shelf? Whose work do you dispute or build on? A convincing literature review will play an important role in proving yourself as researcher ready for your place on that shelf.

Sam Grinsell is the chair of Pubs and Publications, and is about to finish his first year as a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. His research is on British Imperial Architecture in the Nile valley. He can be found on twitter and hcommons .

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Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach Paperback – March 10 2016

Purchase options and add-ons.

What makes this book unique:

• Focuses on multimodal texts and settings such as observations, documents, social media, experts in the field and secondary data so that your review covers the full research environment
• Puts mixed methods at the centre of the process
• Shows you how to synthesize information thematically, rather than merely summarize the existing literature and findings
• Brings culture into the process to help you address bias and understand the role of knowledge interpretation, guiding you through
• Teaches the CORE of the literature review - Critical thinking, Organization, Reflections and Evaluation - and provides a guide for reflexivity at the end of each of the seven steps
• Visualizes the steps with roadmaps so you can track progress and self-evaluate as you learn the steps

This book is the essential best practices guide for students and researchers, providing the understanding and tools to approach both the 'how' and 'why' of a rigorous, comprehensive, literature review.

• ISBN-10 1446248925
• ISBN-13 978-1446248928
• Edition 1st
• Publisher Sage Publications
• Publication date March 10 2016
• Language English
• Dimensions 18.59 x 2.54 x 23.19 cm
• Print length 440 pages
• See all details

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This is the most comprehensive and user-friendly book I've seen on how to conduct a literature review. The authors take the distinction of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research seriously, showing how each adds something important and how being open-minded results in the use of literature based on all three approaches. Overall, the book provides a process theory of literature review, that is done before, during, and after each research study. It is a must read for both PhD students and research faculty.

With noteworthy scope of content, this book is a must-have resource for beginning and experienced researchers alike. In addition to its effective pedagogical features such as visuals and end of chapter questions, this resource enables researchers to make informed decisions about the purposes of and procedures for undertaking a literature review. In so doing, the authors innovate and advance our understandings of the processes and products involved in a comprehensive literature review and provide practical guidance for each of the steps. I have been seeking such a book and plan to make this required reading for the graduate students I instruct, mentor, and supervise.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sage Publications; 1st edition (March 10 2016)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 440 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1446248925
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1446248928
• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 800 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 18.59 x 2.54 x 23.19 cm
• #455 in Social Sciences Research
• #697 in Anthropology Textbooks
• #1,138 in Sociology Textbooks

About the author

Anthony j. onwuegbuzie.

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Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review A Multimodal and Cultural Approach

Anthony j. onwuegbuzie.

• Rebecca Frels - Lamar University, USA
• Description
• Author(s) / Editor(s)

What makes this book unique:

• Focuses on multimodal texts and settings such as observations, documents, social media, experts in the field and secondary data so that your review covers the full research environment
• Puts mixed methods at the centre of the process
• Shows you how to synthesize information thematically, rather than merely summarize the existing literature and findings
• Brings culture into the process to help you address bias and understand the role of knowledge interpretation, guiding you through
• Teaches the CORE of the literature review – Critical thinking, Organization, Reflections and Evaluation – and provides a guide for reflexivity at the end of each of the seven steps
• Visualizes the steps with roadmaps so you can track progress and self-evaluate as you learn the steps

This book is the essential best practices guide for students and researchers, providing the understanding and tools to approach both the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of a rigorous, comprehensive, literature review.

This is by far the most comprehensive text on how to do comprehensive literature reviews!  Onwuegbuzie and Frels skilfully demonstrate that review has a methodology of its own.  Both novice and experienced scholars will benefit from detailed examples and step-by-step demonstrations of ways to maximize the effectiveness of literature reviews to build new theories and develop better explanations of behaviours and outcomes. 

This is the most comprehensive and user-friendly book I’ve seen on how to conduct a literature review. The authors take the distinction of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research seriously, showing how each adds something important and how being open-minded results in the use of literature based on all three approaches. Overall, the book provides a process theory of literature review, that is done before, during, and after each research study.  It is a must read for both PhD students and research faculty.

With noteworthy scope of content, this book  is a must-have resource for beginning and experienced researchers alike. In addition to its effective pedagogical features such as visuals and end of chapter questions, this resource enables researchers to make informed decisions about the purposes of and procedures for undertaking a literature review. In so doing, the authors innovate and advance our understandings of the processes and products involved in a comprehensive literature review and provide practical guidance for each of the steps. I have been seeking such a book and plan to make this required reading for the graduate students I instruct, mentor, and supervise.

Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review is a comprehensive text book written to instruct master’s-level students, doctoral-level students, and new and experienced researchers in the process of writing a comprehensive literature review... Hopefully, this book will become an important text used by instructors as they guide college students into the writing of the literature review.

Sadly this book never arrived despite me being very interested to adopt for my MSc students dissertation stage.

The literature review is one of the toughest parts of any proposal (or postgraduate piece of work) for students to complete successfully because it asks the student to engage with the theory they will be using from the perspective of ideas alone. IT also asks the student to investigate other academics' work in a manner that they haven't really experienced before. All these "firsts" make the literature review a very confusing and oftentimes daunting process. Fortunately, "Seven Steps" provides the specific guidance that so many students need to navigate this difficult process. The systematic way in which the book approaches a topic that can be said to change with each application (e.g. How do you go about it? What to include? What to leave out? and most importantly, Why?) is indispensable for anyone teaching students new to postgraduate work, or for researchers looking for an alternative approach to a process they are otherwise well-acquainted with.

Very accessible book for students who wish to increase their capabilites in working at the front end of their papers.

Comprehensive, well structured book, which will be very useful to students planning a literature review.

this book is more relevant for the MSc students. it will be a good supplement for the student who wants to go a little further

it was actually a little more complex than I was hoping for. the text is dense and it is big book. for my BSc students it is jut a little too much

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Sample materials & chapters.

Chapter 1: Foundations of the Literature Review

Rebecca Frels

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Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach

About this ebook.

What makes this book unique:

• Focuses on multimodal texts and settings such as observations, documents, social media, experts in the field and secondary data so that your review covers the full research environment
• Puts mixed methods at the centre of the process
• Shows you how to synthesize information thematically, rather than merely summarize the existing literature and findings
• Brings culture into the process to help you address bias and understand the role of knowledge interpretation, guiding you through
• Teaches the CORE of the literature review – Critical thinking, Organization, Reflections and Evaluation – and provides a guide for reflexivity at the end of each of the seven steps
• Visualizes the steps with roadmaps so you can track progress and self-evaluate as you learn the steps

This book is the essential best practices guide for students and researchers, providing the understanding and tools to approach both the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of a rigorous, comprehensive, literature review.

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What the data says about Americans’ views of climate change

A recent report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has underscored the need for international action to avoid increasingly severe climate impacts in the years to come. Steps outlined in the report, and by climate experts, include major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from sectors such as energy production and transportation.

But how do Americans feel about climate change, and what steps do they think the United States should take to address it? Here are eight charts that illustrate Americans’ views on the issue, based on recent Pew Research Center surveys.

Pew Research Center published this collection of survey findings as part of its ongoing work to understand attitudes about climate change and energy issues. The most recent survey was conducted May 30-June 4, 2023, among 10,329 U.S. adults. Earlier findings have been previously published, and methodological information, including the sample sizes and field dates, can be found by following the links in the text.

Everyone who took part in the June 2023 survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and its methodology .

A majority of Americans support prioritizing the development of renewable energy sources. Two-thirds of U.S. adults say the country should prioritize developing renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, over expanding the production of oil, coal and natural gas, according to a survey conducted in June 2023.

In a previous Center survey conducted in 2022, nearly the same share of Americans (69%) favored the U.S. taking steps to become carbon neutral by 2050 , a goal outlined by President Joe Biden at the outset of his administration. Carbon neutrality means releasing no more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than is removed.

Nine-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the U.S. should prioritize developing alternative energy sources to address America’s energy supply. Among Republicans and Republican leaners, 42% support developing alternative energy sources, while 58% say the country should prioritize expanding exploration and production of oil, coal and natural gas.

There are important differences by age within the GOP. Two-thirds of Republicans under age 30 (67%) prioritize the development of alternative energy sources. By contrast, 75% of Republicans ages 65 and older prioritize expanding the production of oil, coal and natural gas.

Americans are reluctant to phase out fossil fuels altogether, but younger adults are more open to it. Overall, about three-in-ten adults (31%) say the U.S. should completely phase out oil, coal and natural gas. More than twice as many (68%) say the country should use a mix of energy sources, including fossil fuels and renewables.

While the public is generally reluctant to phase out fossil fuels altogether, younger adults are more supportive of this idea. Among Americans ages 18 to 29, 48% say the U.S. should exclusively use renewables, compared with 52% who say the U.S. should use a mix of energy sources, including fossil fuels.

There are age differences within both political parties on this question. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, 58% of those ages 18 to 29 favor phasing out fossil fuels entirely, compared with 42% of Democrats 65 and older. Republicans of all age groups back continuing to use a mix of energy sources, including oil, coal and natural gas. However, about three-in-ten (29%) Republicans ages 18 to 29 say the U.S. should phase out fossil fuels altogether, compared with fewer than one-in-ten Republicans 50 and older.

There are multiple potential routes to carbon neutrality in the U.S. All involve major reductions to carbon emissions in sectors such as energy and transportation by increasing the use of things like wind and solar power and electric vehicles. There are also ways to potentially remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it, such as capturing it directly from the air or using trees and algae to facilitate carbon sequestration.

The public supports the federal government incentivizing wind and solar energy production. In many sectors, including energy and transportation, federal incentives and regulations significantly influence investment and development.

Two-thirds of Americans think the federal government should encourage domestic production of wind and solar power. Just 7% say the government should discourage this, while 26% think it should neither encourage nor discourage it.

Views are more mixed on how the federal government should approach other activities that would reduce carbon emissions. On balance, more Americans think the government should encourage than discourage the use of electric vehicles and nuclear power production, though sizable shares say it should not exert an influence either way.

When it comes to oil and gas drilling, Americans’ views are also closely divided: 34% think the government should encourage drilling, while 30% say it should discourage this and 35% say it should do neither. Coal mining is the one activity included in the survey where public sentiment is negative on balance: More say the federal government should discourage than encourage coal mining (39% vs. 21%), while 39% say it should do neither.

Americans see room for multiple actors – including corporations and the federal government – to do more to address the impacts of climate change. Two-thirds of adults say large businesses and corporations are doing too little to reduce the effects of climate change. Far fewer say they are doing about the right amount (21%) or too much (10%).

Majorities also say their state elected officials (58%) and the energy industry (55%) are doing too little to address climate change, according to a March 2023 survey.

In a separate Center survey conducted in June 2023, a similar share of Americans (56%) said the federal government should do more to reduce the effects of global climate change.

When it comes to their own efforts, about half of Americans (51%) think they are doing about the right amount as an individual to help reduce the effects of climate change, according to the March 2023 survey. However, about four-in-ten (43%) say they are doing too little.

Democrats and Republicans have grown further apart over the last decade in their assessments of the threat posed by climate change. Overall, a majority of U.S. adults (54%) describe climate change as a major threat to the country’s well-being. This share is down slightly from 2020 but remains higher than in the early 2010s.

Nearly eight-in-ten Democrats (78%) describe climate change as a major threat to the country’s well-being, up from about six-in-ten (58%) a decade ago. By contrast, about one-in-four Republicans (23%) consider climate change a major threat, a share that’s almost identical to 10 years ago.

Concern over climate change has also risen internationally, as shown by separate Pew Research Center polling across 19 countries in 2022. People in many advanced economies express higher levels of concern than Americans . For instance, 81% of French adults and 73% of Germans describe climate change as a major threat.

Climate change is a lower priority for Americans than other national issues. While a majority of adults view climate change as a major threat, it is a lower priority than issues such as strengthening the economy and reducing health care costs.

Overall, 37% of Americans say addressing climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress in 2023, and another 34% say it’s an important but lower priority. This ranks climate change 17th out of 21 national issues included in a Center survey from January.

As with views of the threat that climate change poses, there’s a striking contrast between how Republicans and Democrats prioritize the issue. For Democrats, it falls in the top half of priority issues, and 59% call it a top priority. By comparison, among Republicans, it ranks second to last, and just 13% describe it as a top priority.

Our analyses have found that partisan gaps on climate change are often widest on questions – such as this one – that measure the salience or importance of the issue. The gaps are more modest when it comes to some specific climate policies. For example, majorities of Republicans and Democrats alike say they would favor a proposal to provide a tax credit to businesses for developing technologies for carbon capture and storage.

Perceptions of local climate impacts vary by Americans’ political affiliation and whether they believe that climate change is a serious problem. A majority of Americans (61%) say that global climate change is affecting their local community either a great deal or some. About four-in-ten (39%) see little or no impact in their own community.

The perception that the effects of climate change are happening close to home is one factor that could drive public concern and calls for action on the issue. But perceptions are tied more strongly to people’s beliefs about climate change – and their partisan affiliation – than to local conditions.

For example, Americans living in the Pacific region – California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii and Alaska – are more likely than those in other areas of the country to say that climate change is having a great deal of impact locally. But only Democrats in the Pacific region are more likely to say they are seeing effects of climate change where they live. Republicans in this region are no more likely than Republicans in other areas to say that climate change is affecting their local community.

Our previous surveys show that nearly all Democrats believe climate change is at least a somewhat serious problem, and a large majority believe that humans play a role in it. Republicans are much less likely to hold these beliefs, but views within the GOP do vary significantly by age and ideology. Younger Republicans and those who describe their views as moderate or liberal are much more likely than older and more conservative Republicans to describe climate change as at least a somewhat serious problem and to say human activity plays a role.

Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to report experiencing extreme weather events in their area over the past year – such as intense storms and floods, long periods of hot weather or droughts – and to see these events as connected with climate change.

About three-quarters of Americans support U.S. participation in international efforts to reduce the effects of climate change. Americans offer broad support for international engagement on climate change: 74% say they support U.S. participation in international efforts to reduce the effects of climate change.

Still, there’s little consensus on how current U.S. efforts stack up against those of other large economies. About one-in-three Americans (36%) think the U.S. is doing more than other large economies to reduce the effects of global climate change, while 30% say the U.S. is doing less than other large economies and 32% think it is doing about as much as others. The U.S. is the second-largest carbon dioxide emitter , contributing about 13.5% of the global total.

When asked what they think the right balance of responsibility is, a majority of Americans (56%) say the U.S. should do about as much as other large economies to reduce the effects of climate change, while 27% think it should do more than others.

A previous Center survey found that while Americans favor international cooperation on climate change in general terms, their support has its limits. In January 2022 , 59% of Americans said that the U.S. does not have a responsibility to provide financial assistance to developing countries to help them build renewable energy sources.

In recent years, the UN conference on climate change has grappled with how wealthier nations should assist developing countries in dealing with climate change. The most recent convening in fall 2022, known as COP27, established a “loss and damage” fund for vulnerable countries impacted by climate change.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published April 22, 2022. Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and its methodology .

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