The review of the literature in the introduction section of a research report is an example of a

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

Writing a literature review involves finding relevant publications [such as books and journal articles], critically analyzing them, and explaining what you found. There are five key steps:

1. Search for relevant literature
2. Evaluate sources
3. Identify themes, debates and gaps
4. Outline the structure
5. Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Literature Review Tips for the Introduction and Discussion Sections

Manuscript drafting tips

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A literature review is a summary of studies related to a particular area of research. It identifies and summarizes all the relevant research conducted on a particular topic. It is important that your literature review is focused. Therefore, you should choose a limited number of studies that are central to your topic rather than trying to collect a wide range of studies that might not be closely connected.

Literature reviews help you accomplish the following:

• Evaluate past research
  Collecting relevant resources will help you see what research has already been done. This will also help avoid duplication.

• Identify experts
  It is important to identify credible researchers who have knowledge in a given field, in order to seek their help if you get stuck with certain aspects of your research.

• Identify key questions
  Your ultimate aim isto bring something new to the conversation. Collecting resources will help you determine the important questions that need to be addressed.

• Determine methodologies used in past studies
  Knowing how others have approached a particular topic will give you the opportunity to identify problems and find new ways to research and study a topic. If the reported methodology was successful, you can use it and save time that you would otherwise be spending on optimization.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

A literature review is an objective, concise, critical summary of published research literature relevant to a topic being researched in an article.

What a literature review does NOT do:

It does NOT just reference and list all of the material you have cited in your paper.

• Presenting material that is not directly relevant to your study will distract and frustrate the reader and make them lose sight of the purpose of your study.
• Starting a literature review with “A number of scholars have studied the relationship between X and Y” and simply listing who has studied the topic and what each scholar concluded is not going tostrengthen your paper.

A good literature review WILL:

• Present a brief typology that orders articles and books into groups to help readers focus on unresolved debates, inconsistencies, tensions, and new questions about a research topic.
• Summarize the most relevant and important aspects of the scientific literature related to your area of research
• Synthesize what has been done in this area of research and by whom, highlight what previous research indicates about a topic, and identify potential gaps and areas of disagreement in the field
• Give the reader an understanding of the background of the field and show which studies are important–and perhaps highlight errors in previous studies.