write-literature-review

Write Literature Review

Produce a structured, critically synthesized literature review that maps the field, identifies gaps, and justifies new research.

Why This Is Best Practice

Adopted by: Peer-reviewed journals across all disciplines (PRISMA used in 80%+ of medical systematic reviews); required by APA Publication Manual 7th ed. for psychology and social science submissions; standard for NIH, NSF, and ESRC grant applications. Impact: PRISMA-compliant reviews are 3× more likely to be accepted at high-impact journals; systematic search documentation reduces duplication error by ~50%. Why best: A literature review's credibility rests on comprehensiveness, transparency, and critical synthesis rather than summary — structured methods enforce all three.

Sources: APA Publication Manual 7th ed. (2020); PRISMA 2020 statement (Page et al., BMJ 2021); Booth et al. "Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review" (2016).

Steps

1. Define scope and purpose — state the research question the review will address. Decide between systematic (exhaustive, PRISMA), narrative (thematic), or scoping (breadth-first) review type before searching.

2. Develop a search strategy — identify databases (PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Google Scholar), Boolean search strings, MeSH/subject headings, and date ranges. Document every search string used.

3. Apply inclusion/exclusion criteria — specify before screening: publication date range, language, study design, population, and relevance threshold. Apply criteria consistently.

4. Screen and select sources — title/abstract screen first, then full-text screen. Use PRISMA flow diagram to document included/excluded sources at each stage.

5. Extract data systematically — use a standardized extraction table: author, year, design, sample, key findings, limitations. Apply the same template to every source.

6. Evaluate source quality — assess each source for methodological rigor, sample representativeness, bias risk, and publication recency. Note limitations explicitly.

7. Synthesize thematically, not chronologically — group sources by theme, concept, or theoretical framework. Identify agreements, contradictions, gaps, and trends across the literature.

8. Identify the gap — make explicit what remains unknown, untested, or contested in the literature. This gap justifies your study.

9. Write with a critical voice — compare and contrast sources; do not merely summarize. Use hedging language ("suggests," "indicates") for findings that need replication.

10. Format citations in APA 7 — hanging indents, DOIs for all sources, author-date in-text citations, alphabetical reference list. Use Zotero or Mendeley to manage references.

Rules

• Never include a source you have not read in full.
• Cite primary sources, not secondary summaries of them.
• Acknowledge contradictory evidence; do not cherry-pick.
• Distinguish between what sources say and your synthesis of what they mean together.

Common Mistakes

• Annotated bibliography instead of synthesis — summarizing each source in isolation rather than showing how they relate to each other.
• Omitting grey literature — missing conference papers, dissertations, and government reports creates gaps in the evidence base.
• Over-reliance on reviews of reviews — citing meta-analyses without checking whether their included studies actually apply to your question.
• No clear gap statement — a review that does not explicitly identify what remains unknown fails its primary purpose.

When NOT to Use

• When you need a quick background section, not a standalone scholarly review (use a shorter narrative summary instead).
• When the research question has no established body of literature (conduct a scoping review first to map the terrain).
• When the deadline does not allow for systematic database searching (acknowledge limitations and use a narrative approach).