What is a literature review?
A literature review (also called a research review or review of the literature) is a summary of existing research on a topic. It reviews the scholarly "literature" on that topic. It is often a preliminary part of a publication where the author identifies and comments on the relevant previous research, but it can also be a stand-alone work.
How to find literature reviews
To find articles that review the literature on a topic, you can:
- Click on the suggested terms in the library's Discovery Search, or in an individual database, that pop up when you start typing literature review, like literature review or review of the literature or overview or systematic review or meta analysis. Add your other search terms for your topic.
- Add "literature review" OR "review of the literature" to your searches.
- Use an Advanced Search in one of the library's databases that has journal articles. An Advanced Search screen will often allow you to select "Literature Review" as a document type to filter your search (be sure not to select "Review," as that will only get you critical reviews of books, articles, movies, etc.)
Pro tip: Use the Advanced Search feature to add the phrase literature n5 review* to your keyword(s). This search looks for the words literature, review, reviewer, reviews, reviewing within 5 words of each other in any order.
