In brief, "a literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries." Taylor, D. The literature review: A few tips on conducting it. University of Toronto Health Sciences Writing Centre.
A literature could be written to accomplish different aims:
Sources that require a literature review:
All these instances require you to collect what has been written about your research topic so that you can demonstrate how your own research sheds new light on the topic.
Types of Literature Reviews:
Narrative review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.
Systematic review: "Descriptive and thematic analyses were undertaken to examine 158 studies, and the findings have been presented in this chapter. Research highlights the acknowledgment and awareness of various individual and organizational stressors and its consequences in the [local] context and also identifies important literature trends like the popularity of cross-sectional studies and quantitative research approach." Sharma, K., Cooper, C., & Pestonjee, D.M. (Eds.). (2021). Organizational Stress Around the World: Research and Practice (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429292538
Meta-analysis: "To identify studies that tested relationships among practices, systems, human capital, and performance, as well as reported the statistics needed for meta-analysis, we first conducted a keyword search of ABI Inform, Business Source Premier, JSTOR, and ScienceDirect. We used the keywords “high performance work practices,” “high performance work systems,” “human capital,” and “performance” to identify relevant articles and dissertations." Ketchen, David J., and others, 'Managing Human Capital: A Meta-Analysis of Links Among Human Resource Practices and Systems, Human Capital, and Performance', in Michael A. Hitt, and others (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Strategy Implementation, Oxford Handbooks (2017; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 July 2014), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190650230.013.19, accessed 26 Sept. 2023.
Meta-synthesis: "In this meta-synthesis, we reviewed 368 meta-analyses and review articles published this millennium, sampled from the vast body of research relevant to employee health and well-being." (Barnes, C. M., Wagner, D. T., Schabram, K., & Boncoeur, D. (2023). Human Sustainability and Work: A Meta-Synthesis and New Theoretical Framework. Journal of Management, 49(6), 1965–1996. https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063221131541
Evaluation of Resources
o be able to write a good literature review, you need to be able to read critically. Below are some tips that will help you evaluate the sources for your paper.
Reading critically (summary from How to Read Academic Texts Critically)
Useful links:
Criteria to evaluate sources:
Authority: Who is the author? what is his/her credentials--what university he/she is affliliated? Is his/her area of expertise?
Usefulness: How this source related to your topic? How current or relevant it is to your topic?
Reliability: Does the information comes from a reliable, trusted source such as an academic journal?
Useful sites
Adapted from: https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/literaturereview