1. Look for Patterns and Themes that Emerge
- What assumptions did the researchers seem to make?
- What common methodologies did they use?
- Who are the experts in the field that are frequently referenced?
- Are there conflicts in the theories, results, methodologies?
- What are the popular theories and did this change over time?
- Can you find two or three important trends in the research?
- What are the most influential theories that emerged?
- Evaluate and synthesize the research results and conclusions.
2. Organize your literature review based on the findings from Step 1: Develop appropriate headings and subheadings for your outline based on themes that emerged (not by just by descriptions of each article.)
3. Write the body of the literature review: Follow the plan you developed and be sure that each section links logically to the ones before and after it.
- Divide into chronological, thematic, methodological and/or theoretical sections.
- Describe important results from recent primary literature articles.
- Explain how those results shape our current understanding of the topic.
- Describe the types of experiments done and their corresponding data, but do not repeat the procedures step-by-step.
- Point out and address any controversies in the field.
- Use figures and/or tables to present your own synthesis of the original data or to show key data taken directly from the original papers
4. Focus on Analysis, not Description
Adapted from https://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/get-assistance/writing/specific-types-papers/writing-literature-review
