LibGuides: The Literature Review: Steps

Steps 1 - 2: Getting Started

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1. Explore, select, then focus on a topic.

a. This is the beginning of your question formation, research question, or hypothesis.
b. Look at “recommendations for further research” in the conclusions of articles or other items.
c. Use this to formulate your goal or objective of the review.
d. (Generally for a systematic review or meta-analysis) Determine the inclusion or pre-established criteria.

2. Prepare for your search.

a. Identify information sources for your topic and field: library and information resources, organizations, special collections or archives, etc.
b. Consider other fields that also study your topic. Some topics may be studied by multiple disciplines (e.g., aging can be studied in the fields of medicine, psychology and social work, and from their frame of reference).
c. Familiarize yourself with your organization’s library or information services, including interlibrary loan or document delivery.
d. Choose keywords and search strategy: terminology, synonyms, and combining terms (Boolean Operators AND, OR, NOT).
e. Read other literature reviews of your topics if available.

Steps 3 - 4: Searching and Organizing

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3. Start your search.

a. Keep track of your search strategies and results.
b. Skim, scan, read, or annotate what you find.
c. Try chain or citation searching to find additional documents. This is also known as pearl mining/ growing, citation analysis, mining, or reference searching.
d. Manual or hand searching: visit the stacks or your journal’s online version. Also, browse, flip or skim through publications or journals on your topic.
e. Search alerts: create a personal account in library databases, search engines and journal packages to get notifications.

Saved searches: many indexes and databases have features that will send alerts when new publications are available on your saved searches.
Table of content (TOC) alerts: most journals and other publications will send the table of contents for their upcoming issues, which is good for locating the most current information or scholarly works.
Citation alerts: when a work is cited, an alert can be sent that shows it has been used, which also can provide current or new information on a topic.

4. Organize your documents, data, and information.

a. Use citation management software (EndNote, Mendeley, etc): their features may allow storing, sharing, and formatting your citations, and may include plug-ins to insert citations into your document.

b. Identify file saving or sharing options (and necessities) like Google Drive or DropBox: cloud-based, on your device, etc.

c. Storing information: have a plan or structure

i. Create a filing system that makes sense to you (and others if you are working in a group or a team).

ii. Establish file naming conventions that describe the document to assist with finding and organizing.

Steps 5 - 7: Survey, Critique and Synthesize

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5. Survey and review what is found.

a. Identify major themes and concepts.

b. Highlight important papers.

c. Determine what is important, out of scope, or disputed.

d. Discern the research premise, design, and methodology utilized.

e. Review described limitations of study or recommendations for future research.

6. Analyze and critique the literature

a. Identify critical gaps, disagreements, and anomalies.

b. Discover relationships between sources (backward and forward searching of cited references).

c. Think about how various pieces can be integrated into a whole.

d. Consider what literature is most relevant and appropriate to include in your review.

Remember, the literature review is an iterative process. You may need to revisit parts of this search, find new or additional information, or update your research question based on what you find.

7. Provide a synthesis and overview of the literature; this can be organized by themes or chronologically.

When Can I Stop?

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There typically isn't a set amount of time for searching to determine when to stop your literature search. The number of publications located usually won't indicate when to stop unless your review or assignment requirements specify this. To summarize our conversations with professors and graduate students, and to draw conclusions from our own literature reviews, we suggest considering these points to decide when to finish your search:

Repetition of results with various searches. If your search results become repetitive or continue to give the same publications after using various strategies, keywords, and search engines, you may have exhausted your search.
Sources Used for Search. Did you search the standard information sources in your subject area? Searches were done using standard information sources for your field (e.g., PsycInfo for psychology) and also general library sources (FAU Libraries' OneSearch).
Amount of time spent and strategy used in your searches. Did you use both keywords (also known as natural language searching or using everyday words) and controlled vocabulary in your search strategy? Using both approaches ensures you've done a thorough search.
Your search includes current or recent publications. Has your search included newer studies or recently published or created works?
Amount and quality of articles/ evidence. Have you located strong or well-designed studies in your area? Are the results of the studies valid or reliable?
Being able to identify seminal works and authorities on topic. Have you found important or highly cited articles on your topic? Can you identify experts on your topic and their publications? Do you know which institutions or organizations specialize on your topic?
Feedback from your advisor, colleagues, etc. Let them know your search strategy and what you are finding, and then ask for suggestions to your search.