HOW TO WRITE A LITERATURE REVIEW – Muhammed Sani,

CET, Fedpoly Nasarawa

It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will
relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research. have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search.
Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable
Writing a literature review involves finding relevant publications (such as without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only
books and journal articles), critically analyzing them, and explaining what on a review of existing publications.
you found. There are five key steps:
Research question example: What is the impact of social media on body
 Search for relevant literature image among Generation Z?
 Evaluate sources
 Identify themes, debates and gaps -Make a list of keywords
 Outline the structure Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include
 Write your literature review each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any
A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources – it analyzes, synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list if you discover new
synthesizes, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of keywords in the process of your literature search.
knowledge on the subject. Keywords example
Why write a literature review? Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
When you write a thesis, dissertation, or research paper, you will have to Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing
knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to: Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

 Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context -Search for relevant sources
 Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to
 Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
search for journals and articles include:
 Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
Your university’s library catalogue
You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment.
In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and Google Scholar
demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.
JSTOR
The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of
conducting a literature review follows the same steps. EBSCO

Step 1: Search for relevant literature Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic. Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)

EconLit (economics)
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Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can use Boolean Operators to help narrow down your search: You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar
– a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and
AND to find sources that contain more than one keyword (e.g. social media should certainly be included in your literature review.
AND body image AND generation Z)
The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the
OR to find sources that contain one of a range of synonyms (e.g. generation sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you
Z OR teenagers OR adolescents) might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept
NOT to exclude results containing certain terms (e.g. apple NOT fruit) has changed in meaning over time).

Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. -Take notes and cite your sources
When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you
find other relevant sources. can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.
To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism.
recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full
your reading, make sure to seek them out. citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each
Step 2: Evaluate and select sources source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the
process.
You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been
written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant Here are some hints on in-text citation
to your questions. -One and two authors
-For each publication, ask yourself: Last name of author (year of publication)
What question or problem is the author addressing? -More than two authors
What are the key concepts and how are they defined? Last name of the first person et al. (year of publication)
What are the key theories, models and methods? Does the research use -Citing more than one articles/journals in a single text
established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
Last name of author of first article (year of publication); Last name of author
What are the results and conclusions of the study? of second article (year of publication); ….
How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it The above format is for the case where author(s) is mentioned before the
confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge? message. Example:
How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What Sani (2020) proposed that……
are its key insights and arguments?
The other case is when author(s) is mentioned after the message, Example:
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?
It was proposed that ……………………………….(Sani, 2020)
Make sure the sources you use are credible, and make sure you read any
landmark studies and major theories in your field of research. Step 3: Identify themes, debates, and gaps

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 The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time.
However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and
summarizing sources in order.
To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, you
need to understand the connections and relationships between the sources
you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for: Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the
direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain
Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches developments occurred.
become more or less popular over time?
Thematic
Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your
Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree? literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.
Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant
the direction of the field? health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language
Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.
be addressed? Methodological
This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety
(if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing of research methods, you might want to compare the results and conclusions
knowledge. that emerge from different approaches. For example:
Example of trends and gaps in reviewing the literature on social media and Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
body image, you note that:
Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical
Most research has focused on young women. scholarship
There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media. Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources
But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Theoretical
Instagram and Snapchat – this is a gap that you could address in your own
research. A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework. You
can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.
Step 4: Outline your literature review’s structure
You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or
There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.
You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.
Step 5: Write your literature review
Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an
of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but introduction, a main body, and a conclusion. What you include in each
each theme is discussed chronologically). depends on the objective of your literature review.
Chronological -Introduction

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the
literature review.
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Dissertation literature review: if you are writing the literature review as in the specific effects of social media. Perloff (2014) theorizes that the
part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research interactive aspects of social media may influence its impact on body image,
question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can and mentions that young women are among the most active social media
users. Several empirical studies have focused on Facebook usage in

emphasize the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on
the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been adolescent girls (Tiggermann & Slater, 2013; Meier & Gray, 2014) and in
much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”). young adult women (Smith & Joiner, 2013; Fardouly et al., 2015; Newton-
John & Slater, 2017), while a systematic review by Holland and Timmerman
Stand-alone literature review: if you are writing a stand-alone paper, give (2016) confirmed a relationship between social networking and body image
some background on the topic and its importance, discuss the scope of the for both women and men. Across these studies, there is consistent evidence
literature you will review (for example, the time period of your sources), and that body image issues are influenced not by social media usage in general,
state your objective. What new insight will you draw from the literature? but by engagement with the visual and interactive aspects of these platforms.
-Body Nonetheless, there is a lack of robust research on more highly visual social
media (HVSM) such as Instagram and Snapchat that have gained more recent
Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide popularity among younger generations.
the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time
period, or methodological approach. Conclusion (of the review)

As you write, you can follow these tips: In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken
from the literature and emphasize their significance.
Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each
source and combine them into a coherent whole Dissertation literature review if the literature review is part of your thesis or
dissertation, show how your research addresses gaps and contributes new
Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers—add your knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods
own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in to build a framework for your research. Stand-alone literature review if you
relation to the literature as a whole are writing a stand-alone paper, you can discuss the overall implications of
the literature or make suggestions for future research based on the gaps you
Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
have identified.
Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words (in addition,
When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t
furthermore, moreover, besides,….) and topic sentences to draw connections,
forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting.
comparisons and contrasts.

Example of a paragraph in a literature review

Body image issues have been widely associated with social media usage,
particularly in young women. The relation between media depictions and
body image concerns is well-established; a meta-analysis by Grabe and Hyde
(2008) concluded that exposure to mass media is linked to body image
dissatisfaction among women. However, in an era of rapidly changing digital
technologies, the mass media paradigm is no longer adequate for
understanding how people engage with images, and the findings of older
studies like this one may not be generalizable to younger generations. In light
of this changing landscape, researchers have become increasingly interested