Q. What is a literature review?

For some of your assignments, your professors may ask you to include a literature review. In a literature review, you are required to do exactly that -- provide a synthesis of the literature (journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, etc.). Basically, you need to show that you are familiar with the current trends in an area of research.

Here are some tips to get started on a literature review:

• Find an encyclopedia entry on your topic; these will often highlight important areas of research. Try starting at Gale eBooks (formerly called Gale Virtual Reference Library).
• Do a broad search -- you want to find out everything on your topic. Try starting at OneSearch or EBSCOHost.
• Try to figure out who the leaders in the field are and look for their publications. Which scholars are the most well-respected in this particular area of study? Some things to look for are the number of times their articles are cited by other researchers in the field or if they are published in prominent journals.
• You must cite each of the sources you include in your literature review. Include these at the end of your paper in a works cited list.

For more information on how to write a literature review, visit the following sites:

• Purdue OWL: Literature Reviews
• UC Santa Cruz Library: Write a Literature Review