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Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? 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 that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• 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.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

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.

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 developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

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.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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• UConn Library
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
• Introduction

Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide — Introduction

• Getting Started
• How to Pick a Topic
• Strategies to Find Sources
• Evaluating Sources & Lit. Reviews
• Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
• Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
• Citation Resources
• Other Academic Writings

What are Literature Reviews?

So, what is a literature review? "A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries." Taylor, D.  The literature review: A few tips on conducting it . University of Toronto Health Sciences Writing Centre.

Goals of Literature Reviews

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?  A literature could be written to accomplish different aims:

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews .  Review of General Psychology , 1 (3), 311-320.

What kinds of sources require a Literature Review?

• A research paper assigned in a course
• A thesis or dissertation
• A grant proposal
• An article intended for publication in a journal

All these instances require you to collect what has been written about your research topic so that you can demonstrate how your own research sheds new light on the topic.

Types of Literature Reviews

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Narrative review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.

• Example : Predictors and Outcomes of U.S. Quality Maternity Leave: A Review and Conceptual Framework:  10.1177/08948453211037398  

Systematic review : "The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find." (p. 139). Nelson, L. K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders . Plural Publishing.

• Example : The effect of leave policies on increasing fertility: a systematic review:  10.1057/s41599-022-01270-w

Meta-analysis : "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing research findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occurred in different studies." (p. 197). Roberts, M. C., & Ilardi, S. S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology . Blackwell Publishing.

• Example : Employment Instability and Fertility in Europe: A Meta-Analysis:  10.1215/00703370-9164737

Meta-synthesis : "Qualitative meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic." (p.312). Zimmer, L. (2006). Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts .  Journal of Advanced Nursing , 53 (3), 311-318.

• Example : Women’s perspectives on career successes and barriers: A qualitative meta-synthesis:  10.1177/05390184221113735

Literature Reviews in the Health Sciences

• UConn Health subject guide on systematic reviews Explanation of the different review types used in health sciences literature as well as tools to help you find the right review type
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A literature review surveys prior research published in books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE: Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

• An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
• Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
• An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

• Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
• Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
• Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
• Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

• Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
• Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
• History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
• Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
• Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

• Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
• You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
• Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
• Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
• Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
• Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
• Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

• How are they organizing their ideas?
• What methods have they used to study the problem?
• What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
• What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
• How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

• Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
• Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
• Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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Research Methods

• Getting Started
• Literature Review Research
• Research Design
• Research Design By Discipline
• SAGE Research Methods
• Teaching with SAGE Research Methods

Literature Review

• What is a Literature Review?
• What is NOT a Literature Review?
• Purposes of a Literature Review
• Types of Literature Reviews
• Literature Reviews vs. Systematic Reviews
• Systematic vs. Meta-Analysis

Literature Review  is a comprehensive survey of the works published in a particular field of study or line of research, usually over a specific period of time, in the form of an in-depth, critical bibliographic essay or annotated list in which attention is drawn to the most significant works.

Also, we can define a literature review as the collected body of scholarly works related to a topic:

• Summarizes and analyzes previous research relevant to a topic
• Includes scholarly books and articles published in academic journals
• Can be an specific scholarly paper or a section in a research paper

The objective of a Literature Review is to find previous published scholarly works relevant to an specific topic

• Help gather ideas or information
• Keep up to date in current trends and findings
• Help develop new questions

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Helps focus your own research questions or problems
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Suggests unexplored ideas or populations
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Tests assumptions; may help counter preconceived ideas and remove unconscious bias.
• Identifies critical gaps, points of disagreement, or potentially flawed methodology or theoretical approaches.
• Indicates potential directions for future research.

All content in this section is from Literature Review Research from Old Dominion University 

Keep in mind the following, a literature review is NOT:

Not an essay 

Not an annotated bibliography  in which you summarize each article that you have reviewed.  A literature review goes beyond basic summarizing to focus on the critical analysis of the reviewed works and their relationship to your research question.

Not a research paper   where you select resources to support one side of an issue versus another.  A lit review should explain and consider all sides of an argument in order to avoid bias, and areas of agreement and disagreement should be highlighted.

A literature review serves several purposes. For example, it

• provides thorough knowledge of previous studies; introduces seminal works.
• helps focus one’s own research topic.
• identifies a conceptual framework for one’s own research questions or problems; indicates potential directions for future research.
• suggests previously unused or underused methodologies, designs, quantitative and qualitative strategies.
• identifies gaps in previous studies; identifies flawed methodologies and/or theoretical approaches; avoids replication of mistakes.
• helps the researcher avoid repetition of earlier research.
• suggests unexplored populations.
• determines whether past studies agree or disagree; identifies controversy in the literature.
• tests assumptions; may help counter preconceived ideas and remove unconscious bias.

As Kennedy (2007) notes*, it is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the original studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally that become part of the lore of field. In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews.

Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are several approaches to how they can be done, depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study. Listed below are definitions of types of literature reviews:

Argumentative Review      This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply imbedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews.

Integrative Review      Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication.

Historical Review      Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical reviews are focused on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review      A review does not always focus on what someone said [content], but how they said it [method of analysis]. This approach provides a framework of understanding at different levels (i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches and data collection and analysis techniques), enables researchers to draw on a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection and data analysis, and helps highlight many ethical issues which we should be aware of and consider as we go through our study.

Systematic Review      This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review. Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?"

Theoretical Review      The purpose of this form is to concretely examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review help establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

* Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature."  Educational Researcher  36 (April 2007): 139-147.

All content in this section is from The Literature Review created by Dr. Robert Larabee USC

Robinson, P. and Lowe, J. (2015),  Literature reviews vs systematic reviews.  Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 39: 103-103. doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.12393

What's in the name? The difference between a Systematic Review and a Literature Review, and why it matters . By Lynn Kysh from University of Southern California

Systematic review or meta-analysis?

A  systematic review  answers a defined research question by collecting and summarizing all empirical evidence that fits pre-specified eligibility criteria.

A  meta-analysis  is the use of statistical methods to summarize the results of these studies.

Systematic reviews, just like other research articles, can be of varying quality. They are a significant piece of work (the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at York estimates that a team will take 9-24 months), and to be useful to other researchers and practitioners they should have:

• clearly stated objectives with pre-defined eligibility criteria for studies
• explicit, reproducible methodology
• a systematic search that attempts to identify all studies
• assessment of the validity of the findings of the included studies (e.g. risk of bias)
• systematic presentation, and synthesis, of the characteristics and findings of the included studies

Not all systematic reviews contain meta-analysis. 

Meta-analysis is the use of statistical methods to summarize the results of independent studies. By combining information from all relevant studies, meta-analysis can provide more precise estimates of the effects of health care than those derived from the individual studies included within a review.  More information on meta-analyses can be found in  Cochrane Handbook, Chapter 9 .

A meta-analysis goes beyond critique and integration and conducts secondary statistical analysis on the outcomes of similar studies.  It is a systematic review that uses quantitative methods to synthesize and summarize the results.

An advantage of a meta-analysis is the ability to be completely objective in evaluating research findings.  Not all topics, however, have sufficient research evidence to allow a meta-analysis to be conducted.  In that case, an integrative review is an appropriate strategy. 

Some of the content in this section is from Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: step by step guide created by Kate McAllister.

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How to Write a Literature Review

What is a literature review.

• What Is the Literature
• Writing the Review

A literature review is much more than an annotated bibliography or a list of separate reviews of articles and books. It is a critical, analytical summary and synthesis of the current knowledge of a topic. Thus it should compare and relate different theories, findings, etc, rather than just summarize them individually. In addition, it should have a particular focus or theme to organize the review. It does not have to be an exhaustive account of everything published on the topic, but it should discuss all the significant academic literature and other relevant sources important for that focus.

This is meant to be a general guide to writing a literature review: ways to structure one, what to include, how it supplements other research. For more specific help on writing a review, and especially for help on finding the literature to review, sign up for a Personal Research Session .

The specific organization of a literature review depends on the type and purpose of the review, as well as on the specific field or topic being reviewed. But in general, it is a relatively brief but thorough exploration of past and current work on a topic. Rather than a chronological listing of previous work, though, literature reviews are usually organized thematically, such as different theoretical approaches, methodologies, or specific issues or concepts involved in the topic. A thematic organization makes it much easier to examine contrasting perspectives, theoretical approaches, methodologies, findings, etc, and to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of, and point out any gaps in, previous research. And this is the heart of what a literature review is about. A literature review may offer new interpretations, theoretical approaches, or other ideas; if it is part of a research proposal or report it should demonstrate the relationship of the proposed or reported research to others' work; but whatever else it does, it must provide a critical overview of the current state of research efforts. 

Literature reviews are common and very important in the sciences and social sciences. They are less common and have a less important role in the humanities, but they do have a place, especially stand-alone reviews.

Types of Literature Reviews

There are different types of literature reviews, and different purposes for writing a review, but the most common are:

• Stand-alone literature review articles . These provide an overview and analysis of the current state of research on a topic or question. The goal is to evaluate and compare previous research on a topic to provide an analysis of what is currently known, and also to reveal controversies, weaknesses, and gaps in current work, thus pointing to directions for future research. You can find examples published in any number of academic journals, but there is a series of Annual Reviews of *Subject* which are specifically devoted to literature review articles. Writing a stand-alone review is often an effective way to get a good handle on a topic and to develop ideas for your own research program. For example, contrasting theoretical approaches or conflicting interpretations of findings can be the basis of your research project: can you find evidence supporting one interpretation against another, or can you propose an alternative interpretation that overcomes their limitations?
• Part of a research proposal . This could be a proposal for a PhD dissertation, a senior thesis, or a class project. It could also be a submission for a grant. The literature review, by pointing out the current issues and questions concerning a topic, is a crucial part of demonstrating how your proposed research will contribute to the field, and thus of convincing your thesis committee to allow you to pursue the topic of your interest or a funding agency to pay for your research efforts.
• Part of a research report . When you finish your research and write your thesis or paper to present your findings, it should include a literature review to provide the context to which your work is a contribution. Your report, in addition to detailing the methods, results, etc. of your research, should show how your work relates to others' work.

A literature review for a research report is often a revision of the review for a research proposal, which can be a revision of a stand-alone review. Each revision should be a fairly extensive revision. With the increased knowledge of and experience in the topic as you proceed, your understanding of the topic will increase. Thus, you will be in a better position to analyze and critique the literature. In addition, your focus will change as you proceed in your research. Some areas of the literature you initially reviewed will be marginal or irrelevant for your eventual research, and you will need to explore other areas more thoroughly. 

Examples of Literature Reviews

See the series of Annual Reviews of *Subject* which are specifically devoted to literature review articles to find many examples of stand-alone literature reviews in the biomedical, physical, and social sciences. 

Research report articles vary in how they are organized, but a common general structure is to have sections such as:

• Abstract - Brief summary of the contents of the article
• Introduction - A explanation of the purpose of the study, a statement of the research question(s) the study intends to address
• Literature review - A critical assessment of the work done so far on this topic, to show how the current study relates to what has already been done
• Methods - How the study was carried out (e.g. instruments or equipment, procedures, methods to gather and analyze data)
• Results - What was found in the course of the study
• Discussion - What do the results mean
• Conclusion - State the conclusions and implications of the results, and discuss how it relates to the work reviewed in the literature review; also, point to directions for further work in the area

Here are some articles that illustrate variations on this theme. There is no need to read the entire articles (unless the contents interest you); just quickly browse through to see the sections, and see how each section is introduced and what is contained in them.

The Determinants of Undergraduate Grade Point Average: The Relative Importance of Family Background, High School Resources, and Peer Group Effects , in The Journal of Human Resources , v. 34 no. 2 (Spring 1999), p. 268-293.

This article has a standard breakdown of sections:

• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Some discussion sections

First Encounters of the Bureaucratic Kind: Early Freshman Experiences with a Campus Bureaucracy , in The Journal of Higher Education , v. 67 no. 6 (Nov-Dec 1996), p. 660-691.

This one does not have a section specifically labeled as a "literature review" or "review of the literature," but the first few sections cite a long list of other sources discussing previous research in the area before the authors present their own study they are reporting.

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Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library

• Collections
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YSN Doctoral Programs: Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

• Biomedical Databases
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• Grey Literature
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• Google Tips
• Recommended Books
• Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

APA7 Style resources

APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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Libraries | Research Guides

Literature reviews, what is a literature review, learning more about how to do a literature review.

• Planning the Review
• The Research Question
• Choosing Where to Search
• Organizing the Review
• Writing the Review

A literature review is a review and synthesis of existing research on a topic or research question. A literature review is meant to analyze the scholarly literature, make connections across writings and identify strengths, weaknesses, trends, and missing conversations. A literature review should address different aspects of a topic as it relates to your research question. A literature review goes beyond a description or summary of the literature you have read. 

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Conducting a literature review: why do a literature review, why do a literature review.

• How To Find "The Literature"
• Found it -- Now What?

Besides the obvious reason for students -- because it is assigned! -- a literature review helps you explore the research that has come before you, to see how your research question has (or has not) already been addressed.

You identify:

• core research in the field
• experts in the subject area
• methodology you may want to use (or avoid)
• gaps in knowledge -- or where your research would fit in

It Also Helps You:

• Publish and share your findings
• Justify requests for grants and other funding
• Identify best practices to inform practice
• Set wider context for a program evaluation
• Compile information to support community organizing

Great brief overview, from NCSU

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• Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 1:10 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/litreview

Writing A Literature Review  

7 common (and costly) mistakes to avoid ☠️.

By: David Phair (PhD) | Reviewed By: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | June 2021

Crafting a high-quality literature review is critical to earning marks and developing a strong dissertation, thesis or research project. But, it’s no simple task. Here at Grad Coach, we’ve reviewed thousands of literature reviews and seen a recurring set of mistakes and issues that drag students down.

In this post, we’ll unpack 7 common literature review mistakes , so that you can avoid these pitfalls and submit a literature review that impresses.

Overview: 7 Literature Review Killers

• Over-reliance on low-quality sources
• A lack of landmark/seminal literature
• A lack of current literature
• Description instead of integration and synthesis
• Irrelevant or unfocused content
• Poor chapter structure and layout
• Plagiarism and poor referencing

Mistake #1: Over-reliance on low-quality sources

One of the most common issues we see in literature reviews is an over-reliance on low-quality sources . This includes a broad collection of non-academic sources like blog posts, opinion pieces, publications by advocacy groups and daily news articles.

Of course, just because a piece of content takes the form of a blog post doesn’t automatically mean it is low-quality . However, it’s (generally) unlikely to be as academically sound (i.e., well-researched, objective and scientific) as a journal article, so you need to be a lot more sceptical when considering this content and make sure that it has a strong, well-reasoned foundation. As a rule of thumb, your literature review shouldn’t rely heavily on these types of content – they should be used sparingly.

Ideally, your literature review should be built on a strong base of journal articles , ideally from well-recognised, peer-reviewed journals with a high H index . You can also draw on books written by well-established subject matter experts. When considering books, try to focus on those that are published by academic publishers , for example, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and Routledge. You can also draw on government websites, provided they have a strong reputation for objectivity and data quality. As with any other source, be wary of any government website that seems to be pushing an agenda.

Source: UCCS

As I mentioned, this doesn’t mean that your literature review can’t include the occasional blog post or news article. These types of content have their place , especially when setting the context for your study. For example, you may want to cite a collection of newspaper articles to demonstrate the emergence of a recent trend. However, your core arguments and theoretical foundations shouldn’t rely on these. Build your foundation on credible academic literature to ensure that your study stands on the proverbial shoulders of giants.

Mistake #2: A lack of landmark/seminal literature

Another issue we see in weaker literature reviews is an absence of landmark literature for the research topic . Landmark literature (sometimes also referred to as seminal or pivotal work) refers to the articles that initially presented an idea of great importance or influence within a particular discipline. In other words, the articles that put the specific area of research “on the map”, so to speak.

The reason for the absence of landmark literature in poor literature reviews is most commonly that either the student isn’t aware of the literature (because they haven’t sufficiently immersed themselves in the existing research), or that they feel that they should only present the most up to date studies. Whatever the cause, it’s a problem, as a good literature review should always acknowledge the seminal writing in the field.

But, how do you find landmark literature?

Well, you can usually spot these by searching for the topic in Google Scholar and identifying the handful of articles with high citation counts. They’ll also be the studies most commonly cited in textbooks and, of course, Wikipedia (but please don’t use Wikipedia as a source!).

So, when you’re piecing your literature review together, remember to pay homage to the classics , even if only briefly. Seminal works are the theoretical foundation of a strong literature review.

Mistake #3: A lack of current literature

As I mentioned, it’s incredibly important to acknowledge the landmark studies and research in your literature review. However, a strong literature review should also incorporate the current literature . It should, ideally, compare and contrast the “classics” with the more up to date research, and briefly comment on the evolution.

Of course, you don’t want to burn precious word count providing an in-depth history lesson regarding the evolution of the topic (unless that’s one of your research aims, of course), but you should at least acknowledge any key differences between the old and the new.

But, how do you find current literature?

To find current literature in your research area, you can once again use Google Scholar by simply selecting the “Since…” link on the left-hand side. Depending on your area of study, recent may mean the last year or two, or a fair deal longer.

So, as you develop your catalogue of literature, remember to incorporate both the classics and the more up to date research. By doing this, you’ll achieve a comprehensive literature base that is both well-rooted in tried and tested theory and current.

Mistake #4: Description instead of integration and synthesis

This one is a big one. And, unfortunately, it’s a very common one. In fact, it’s probably the most common issue we encounter in literature reviews.

All too often, students think that a literature review is simply a summary of what each researcher has said. A lengthy, detailed “he said, she said”. This is incorrect . A good literature review needs to go beyond just describing all the relevant literature. It needs to integrate the existing research to show how it all fits together.

A good literature review should also highlight what areas don’t fit together , and which pieces are missing . In other words, what do researchers disagree on and why might that be. It’s seldom the case that everyone agrees on everything because the “truth” is typically very nuanced and intricate in reality. A strong literature review is a balanced one , with a mix of different perspectives and findings that give the reader a clear view of the current state of knowledge.

A good analogy is that of a jigsaw puzzle. The various findings and arguments from each piece of literature form the individual puzzle pieces, and you then put these together to develop a picture of the current state of knowledge . Importantly, that puzzle will in all likelihood have pieces that don’t fit well together, and pieces that are missing. It’s seldom a pretty puzzle!

By the end of this process of critical review and synthesis of the existing literature , it should be clear what’s missing – in other words, the gaps that exist in the current research . These gaps then form the foundation for your proposed study. In other words, your study will attempt to contribute a missing puzzle piece (or get two pieces to fit together).

So, when you’re crafting your literature review chapter, remember that this chapter needs to go well beyond a basic description of the existing research – it needs to synthesise it (bring it all together) and form the foundation for your study.

Mistake #5: Irrelevant or unfocused content

Another common mistake we see in literature review chapters is quite simply the inclusion of irrelevant content . Some chapters can waffle on for pages and pages and leave the reader thinking, “so what?”

So, how do you decide what’s relevant?

Well, to ensure you stay on-topic and focus, you need to revisit your research aims, objectives and research questions . Remember, the purpose of the literature review is to build the theoretical foundation that will help you achieve your research aims and objectives, and answer your research questions . Therefore, relevant content is the relatively narrow body of content that relates directly to those three components .

Let’s look at an example.

If your research aims to identify factors that cultivate employee loyalty and commitment, your literature review needs to focus on existing research that identifies such factors. Simple enough, right? Well, during your review process, you will invariably come across plenty of research relating to employee loyalty and commitment, including things like:

• The benefits of high employee commitment
• The different types of commitment
• The impact of commitment on corporate culture
• The links between commitment and productivity

While all of these relate to employee commitment, they’re not focused on the research aims , objectives and questions, as they’re not identifying factors that foster employee commitment. Of course, they may still be useful in helping you justify your topic, so they’ll likely have a place somewhere in your dissertation or thesis. However, for your literature review, you need to keep things focused.

So, as you work through your literature review, always circle back to your research aims, objective and research questions and use them as a litmus test for article relevance.

Need a helping hand?

Mistake #6: Poor chapter structure and layout

Even the best content can fail to earn marks when the literature review chapter is poorly structured . Unfortunately, this is a fairly common issue, resulting in disjointed, poorly-flowing arguments that are difficult for the reader (the marker…) to follow.

The most common reason that students land up with a poor structure is that they start writing their literature review chapter without a plan or structure . Of course, as we’ve discussed before, writing is a form of thinking , so you don’t need to plan out every detail before you start writing. However, you should at least have an outline structure penned down before you hit the keyboard.

So, how should you structure your literature review?

We’ve covered literature review structure in detail previously , so I won’t go into it here. However, as a quick overview, your literature review should consist of three core sections :

• The introduction section – where you outline your topic, introduce any definitions and jargon and define the scope of your literature review.
• The body section – where you sink your teeth into the existing research. This can be arranged in various ways (e.g. thematically, chronologically or methodologically).
• The conclusion section – where you present the key takeaways and highlight the research gap (or gaps), which lays the foundation for your study.

Another reason that students land up with a poor structure is that they start writing their literature chapter prematurely . In other words, they start writing before they’ve finished digesting the literature. This is a costly mistake, as it always results in extensive rewriting , which takes a lot longer than just doing it one step at a time. Again, it’s completely natural to do a little extra reading as thoughts crop up during the writing process, but you should complete your core reading before you start writing.

Long story short – don’t start writing your literature review without some sort of structural plan. This structure can (and likely will) evolve as you write, but you need some sort of outline as a starting point. Pro tip – check out our free literature review template to fast-track your structural outline.

Mistake #7: Plagiarism and poor referencing

This one is by far the most unforgivable literature review mistake, as it carries one of the heaviest penalties , while it is so easily avoidable .

All too often, we encounter literature reviews that, at first glance, look pretty good. However, a quick run through a plagiarism checker and it quickly becomes apparent that the student has failed to fully digest the literature they’ve reviewed and put it into their own words.

“But, the original author said it perfectly…”

I get it – sometimes the way an author phrased something is “just perfect” and you can’t find a better way to say it. In those (pretty rare) cases, you can use direct quotes (and a citation, of course). However, for the vast majority of your literature review, you need to put things into your own words .

The good news is that if you focus on integrating and synthesising the literature (as I mentioned in point 3), you shouldn’t run into this issue too often, as you’ll naturally be writing about the relationships between studies , not just about the studies themselves. Remember, if you can’t explain something simply (in your own words), you don’t really understand it.

A related issue that we see quite often is plain old-fashioned poor referencing . This can include citation and reference formatting issues (for example, Harvard or APA style errors), or just a straight out lack of references . In academic writing, if you fail to reference a source, you are effectively claiming the work as your own, which equates to plagiarism. This might seem harmless, but plagiarism is a serious form of academic misconduct and could cost you a lot more than just a few marks.

So, when you’re writing up your literature review, remember that you need to digest the content and put everything into your own words. You also need to reference the sources of any and all ideas, theories, frameworks and models you draw on.

Recap: 7 Literature Review Mistakes

We’ve covered a lot of ground in this post. Let’s quickly recap on the 7 most common literature review mistakes.

Now that you’re aware of these common mistakes, be sure to also check out our literature review walkthrough video , where to dissect an actual literature review chapter . This will give you a clear picture of what a high-quality literature review looks like and hopefully provide some inspiration for your own.

If you have any questions about these literature review mistakes, leave a comment below and we’ll do our best to answer. If you’re interested in private coaching, book an initial consultation with a friendly coach to discuss how we can move you forward.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

10 Comments

Dear GradCoach,

Thank you for making our uni student lives better. Could you kindly do a video on how to use your literature review excel template? I am sure a lot of students would appreciate that.

Thank you so much for this inlightment concerning the mistakes that should be avoided while writing a literature review chapter. It is concise and precise. You have mentioned that this chapter include three main parts; introduction, body, and conclusion. Is the theoritical frameworke considered a part of the literature review chapter, or it should be written in a seperate chapter? If it is included in the literature review, should it take place at the beginning, the middle or at the end of the chapter? Thank you one again for “unpacking” things for us.

Hi I would enjoy the video on lit review. You mentioned cataloging references, I would like the template for excel. Would you please sent me this template.

on the plagiarism and referencing what is the correct way to cite the words said by the author . What are the different methods you can use

its clear, precise and understandable many thanks affectionately yours’ Godfrey

Thanks for this wonderful resource! I am final year student and will be commencing my dissertation work soon. This course has significantly improved my understanding of dissertation and has greater value in terms of its practical applicability compared to other literature works and articles out there on the internet. I will advice my colleague students more especially first time thesis writers to make good use of this course. It’s explained in simple, plain grammar and you will greatly appreciate it.

Thanks. A lot. This was excellent. I really enjoyed it. Again thank you.

The information in this article is very useful for students and very interesting I really like your article thanks for sharing this post!

Thank you for putting more knowledge in us. Thank you for using simple you’re bless.

This article is really useful. Thanks a lot for sharing this knowledge. Please continue the journey of sharing and facilitating the young researchers.

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Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide: Literature Reviews?

• Literature Reviews?
• Strategies to Finding Sources
• Keeping up with Research!
• Evaluating Sources & Literature Reviews
• Organizing for Writing
• Writing Literature Review
• Other Academic Writings

What is a Literature Review?

So, what is a literature review .

"A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available or a set of summaries." - Quote from Taylor, D. (n.d)."The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting it".

• Citation: "The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting it"

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Each field has a particular way to do reviews for academic research literature. In the social sciences and humanities the most common are:

• Narrative Reviews: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific research topic and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weaknesses, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section that summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.
• Book review essays/ Historiographical review essays : A type of literature review typical in History and related fields, e.g., Latin American studies. For example, the Latin American Research Review explains that the purpose of this type of review is to “(1) to familiarize readers with the subject, approach, arguments, and conclusions found in a group of books whose common focus is a historical period; a country or region within Latin America; or a practice, development, or issue of interest to specialists and others; (2) to locate these books within current scholarship, critical methodologies, and approaches; and (3) to probe the relation of these new books to previous work on the subject, especially canonical texts. Unlike individual book reviews, the cluster reviews found in LARR seek to address the state of the field or discipline and not solely the works at issue.” - LARR

What are the Goals of Creating a Literature Review?

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 
• Baumeister, R.F. & Leary, M.R. (1997). "Writing narrative literature reviews," Review of General Psychology , 1(3), 311-320.

When do you need to write a Literature Review?

• When writing a prospectus or a thesis/dissertation
• When writing a research paper
• When writing a grant proposal

In all these cases you need to dedicate a chapter in these works to showcase what has been written about your research topic and to point out how your own research will shed new light into a body of scholarship.

Where I can find examples of Literature Reviews?

Note:  In the humanities, even if they don't use the term "literature review", they may have a dedicated  chapter that reviewed the "critical bibliography" or they incorporated that review in the introduction or first chapter of the dissertation, book, or article.

• UCSB electronic theses and dissertations In partnership with the Graduate Division, the UC Santa Barbara Library is making available theses and dissertations produced by UCSB students. Currently included in ADRL are theses and dissertations that were originally filed electronically, starting in 2011. In future phases of ADRL, all theses and dissertations created by UCSB students may be digitized and made available.

Where to Find Standalone Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are also written as standalone articles as a way to survey a particular research topic in-depth. This type of literature review looks at a topic from a historical perspective to see how the understanding of the topic has changed over time. 

• Find e-Journals for Standalone Literature Reviews The best way to get familiar with and to learn how to write literature reviews is by reading them. You can use our Journal Search option to find journals that specialize in publishing literature reviews from major disciplines like anthropology, sociology, etc. Usually these titles are called, "Annual Review of [discipline name] OR [Discipline name] Review. This option works best if you know the title of the publication you are looking for. Below are some examples of these journals! more... less... Journal Search can be found by hovering over the link for Research on the library website.

Social Sciences

• Annual Review of Anthropology
• Annual Review of Political Science
• Annual Review of Sociology
• Ethnic Studies Review

Hard science and health sciences:

• Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science
• Annual Review of Materials Science
• Systematic Review From journal site: "The journal Systematic Reviews encompasses all aspects of the design, conduct, and reporting of systematic reviews" in the health sciences.
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Scholarly Articles: How can I tell?

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Literature Review

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The literature review section of an article is a summary or analysis of all the research the author read before doing his/her own research. This section may be part of the introduction or in a section called Background. It provides the background on who has done related research, what that research has or has not uncovered and how the current research contributes to the conversation on the topic. When you read the lit review ask:

• Does the review of the literature logically lead up to the research questions?
• Do the authors review articles relevant to their research study?
• Do the authors show where there are gaps in the literature?

The lit review is also a good place to find other sources you may want to read on this topic to help you get the bigger picture.

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Educational resources and simple solutions for your research journey

How to Write Review of Related Literature (RRL) in Research

A review of related literature (a.k.a RRL in research) is a comprehensive review of the existing literature pertaining to a specific topic or research question. An effective review provides the reader with an organized analysis and synthesis of the existing knowledge about a subject. With the increasing amount of new information being disseminated every day, conducting a review of related literature is becoming more difficult and the purpose of review of related literature is clearer than ever.  

All new knowledge is necessarily based on previously known information, and every new scientific study must be conducted and reported in the context of previous studies. This makes a review of related literature essential for research, and although it may be tedious work at times , most researchers will complete many such reviews of varying depths during their career. So, why exactly is a review of related literature important?    

Table of Contents

Why a review of related literature in research is important  

Before thinking how to do reviews of related literature , it is necessary to understand its importance. Although the purpose of a review of related literature varies depending on the discipline and how it will be used, its importance is never in question. Here are some ways in which a review can be crucial.  

• Identify gaps in the knowledge – This is the primary purpose of a review of related literature (often called RRL in research ). To create new knowledge, you must first determine what knowledge may be missing. This also helps to identify the scope of your study.  
• Avoid duplication of research efforts – Not only will a review of related literature indicate gaps in the existing research, but it will also lead you away from duplicating research that has already been done and thus save precious resources.  
• Provide an overview of disparate and interdisciplinary research areas – Researchers cannot possibly know everything related to their disciplines. Therefore, it is very helpful to have access to a review of related literature already written and published.  
• Highlight researcher’s familiarity with their topic 1  – A strong review of related literature in a study strengthens readers’ confidence in that study and that researcher.

Tips on how to write a review of related literature in research

Given that you will probably need to produce a number of these at some point, here are a few general tips on how to write an effective review of related literature 2 .

• Define your topic, audience, and purpose: You will be spending a lot of time with this review, so choose a topic that is interesting to you. While deciding what to write in a review of related literature , think about who you expect to read the review – researchers in your discipline, other scientists, the general public – and tailor the language to the audience. Also, think about the purpose of your review of related literature .  
• Conduct a comprehensive literature search: While writing your review of related literature , emphasize more recent works but don’t forget to include some older publications as well. Cast a wide net, as you may find some interesting and relevant literature in unexpected databases or library corners. Don’t forget to search for recent conference papers.
• Review the identified articles and take notes: It is a good idea to take notes in a way such that individual items in your notes can be moved around when you organize them. For example, index cards are great tools for this. Write each individual idea on a separate card along with the source. The cards can then be easily grouped and organized.  
• Determine how to organize your review: A review of related literature should not be merely a listing of descriptions. It should be organized by some criterion, such as chronologically or thematically.  
• Be critical and objective: Don’t just report the findings of other studies in your review of related literature . Challenge the methodology, find errors in the analysis, question the conclusions. Use what you find to improve your research. However, do not insert your opinions into the review of related literature. Remain objective and open-minded.  
• Structure your review logically: Guide the reader through the information. The structure will depend on the function of the review of related literature. Creating an outline prior to writing the RRL in research is a good way to ensure the presented information flows well.  

As you read more extensively in your discipline, you will notice that the review of related literature appears in various forms in different places. For example, when you read an article about an experimental study, you will typically see a literature review or a RRL in research , in the introduction that includes brief descriptions of similar studies. In longer research studies and dissertations, especially in the social sciences, the review of related literature will typically be a separate chapter and include more information on methodologies and theory building. In addition, stand-alone review articles will be published that are extremely useful to researchers.  

The review of relevant literature or often abbreviated as, RRL in research , is an important communication tool that can be used in many forms for many purposes. It is a tool that all researchers should befriend.  

• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Writing Center. Literature Reviews.  https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/literature-reviews/  [Accessed September 8, 2022]
• Pautasso M. Ten simple rules for writing a literature review. PLoS Comput Biol. 2013, 9. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003149.

Q:  Is research complete without a review of related literature?

A research project is usually considered incomplete without a proper review of related literature. The review of related literature is a crucial component of any research project as it provides context for the research question, identifies gaps in existing literature, and ensures novelty by avoiding duplication. It also helps inform research design and supports arguments, highlights the significance of a study, and demonstrates your knowledge an expertise.

Q: What is difference between RRL and RRS?

The key difference between an RRL and an RRS lies in their focus and scope. An RRL or review of related literature examines a broad range of literature, including theoretical frameworks, concepts, and empirical studies, to establish the context and significance of the research topic. On the other hand, an RRS or review of research studies specifically focuses on analyzing and summarizing previous research studies within a specific research domain to gain insights into methodologies, findings, and gaps in the existing body of knowledge. While there may be some overlap between the two, they serve distinct purposes and cover different aspects of the research process.

Q: Does review of related literature improve accuracy and validity of research?

Yes, a comprehensive review of related literature (RRL) plays a vital role in improving the accuracy and validity of research. It helps authors gain a deeper understanding and offers different perspectives on the research topic. RRL can help you identify research gaps, dictate the selection of appropriate research methodologies, enhance theoretical frameworks, avoid biases and errors, and even provide support for research design and interpretation. By building upon and critically engaging with existing related literature, researchers can ensure their work is rigorous, reliable, and contributes meaningfully to their field of study.

R Discovery is a literature search and research reading platform that accelerates your research discovery journey by keeping you updated on the latest, most relevant scholarly content. With 250M+ research articles sourced from trusted aggregators like CrossRef, Unpaywall, PubMed, PubMed Central, Open Alex and top publishing houses like Springer Nature, JAMA, IOP, Taylor & Francis, NEJM, BMJ, Karger, SAGE, Emerald Publishing and more, R Discovery puts a world of research at your fingertips.  

Try R Discovery Prime FREE for 1 week or upgrade at just US$72 a year to access premium features that let you listen to research on the go, read in your language, collaborate with peers, auto sync with reference managers, and much more. Choose a simpler, smarter way to find and read research – Download the app and start your free 7-day trial today !  

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Exploring the literature review 

Literature review model: 6 steps.

Adapted from The Literature Review , Machi & McEvoy (2009, p. 13).

Your Literature Review

Step 2: search, boolean search strategies, search limiters, ★ ebsco & google drive.

1. Select a Topic

"All research begins with curiosity" (Machi & McEvoy, 2009, p. 14)

Selection of a topic, and fully defined research interest and question, is supervised (and approved) by your professor. Tips for crafting your topic include:

• Be specific. Take time to define your interest.
• Topic Focus. Fully describe and sufficiently narrow the focus for research.
• Academic Discipline. Learn more about your area of research & refine the scope.
• Avoid Bias. Be aware of bias that you (as a researcher) may have.
• Document your research. Use Google Docs to track your research process.
• Research apps. Consider using Evernote or Zotero to track your research.

Consider Purpose

What will your topic and research address?

In The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students , Ridley presents that literature reviews serve several purposes (2008, p. 16-17).  Included are the following points:

• Historical background for the research;
• Overview of current field provided by "contemporary debates, issues, and questions;"
• Theories and concepts related to your research;
• Introduce "relevant terminology" - or academic language - being used it the field;
• Connect to existing research - does your work "extend or challenge [this] or address a gap;" 
• Provide "supporting evidence for a practical problem or issue" that your research addresses.

★ Schedule a research appointment

At this point in your literature review, take time to meet with a librarian. Why? Understanding the subject terminology used in databases can be challenging. Archer Librarians can help you structure a search, preparing you for step two. How? Contact a librarian directly or use the online form to schedule an appointment. Details are provided in the adjacent Schedule an Appointment box.

2. Search the Literature

Collect & Select Data: Preview, select, and organize

AU Library is your go-to resource for this step in your literature review process. The literature search will include books and ebooks, scholarly and practitioner journals, theses and dissertations, and indexes. You may also choose to include web sites, blogs, open access resources, and newspapers. This library guide provides access to resources needed to complete a literature review.

Books & eBooks: Archer Library & OhioLINK

Databases: Scholarly & Practitioner Journals

Review the Library Databases tab on this library guide, it provides links to recommended databases for Education & Psychology, Business, and General & Social Sciences.

Expand your journal search; a complete listing of available AU Library and OhioLINK databases is available on the Databases  A to Z list . Search the database by subject, type, name, or do use the search box for a general title search. The A to Z list also includes open access resources and select internet sites.

Databases: Theses & Dissertations

Review the Library Databases tab on this guide, it includes Theses & Dissertation resources. AU library also has AU student authored theses and dissertations available in print, search the library catalog for these titles.

Did you know? If you are looking for particular chapters within a dissertation that is not fully available online, it is possible to submit an ILL article request . Do this instead of requesting the entire dissertation.

Newspapers:  Databases & Internet

Consider current literature in your academic field. AU Library's database collection includes The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Wall Street Journal .  The Internet Resources tab in this guide provides links to newspapers and online journals such as Inside Higher Ed , COABE Journal , and Education Week .

The Chronicle of Higher Education has the nation’s largest newsroom dedicated to covering colleges and universities.  Source of news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty members and administrators

The Chronicle features complete contents of the latest print issue; daily news and advice columns; current job listings; archive of previously published content; discussion forums; and career-building tools such as online CV management and salary databases. Dates covered: 1970-present.

Offers in-depth coverage of national and international business and finance as well as first-rate coverage of hard news--all from America's premier financial newspaper. Covers complete bibliographic information and also subjects, companies, people, products, and geographic areas. 

Comprehensive coverage back to 1984 is available from the world's leading financial newspaper through the ProQuest database. 

Newspaper Source provides cover-to-cover full text for hundreds of national (U.S.), international and regional newspapers. In addition, it offers television and radio news transcripts from major networks.

Provides complete television and radio news transcripts from CBS News, CNN, CNN International, FOX News, and more.

Search Strategies & Boolean Operators

There are three basic boolean operators:  AND, OR, and NOT.

Used with your search terms, boolean operators will either expand or limit results. What purpose do they serve? They help to define the relationship between your search terms. For example, using the operator AND will combine the terms expanding the search. When searching some databases, and Google, the operator AND may be implied.

Overview of boolean terms

About the example: Boolean searches were conducted on November 4, 2019; result numbers may vary at a later date. No additional database limiters were set to further narrow search returns.

Database Search Limiters

Database strategies for targeted search results.

Most databases include limiters, or additional parameters, you may use to strategically focus search results.  EBSCO databases, such as Education Research Complete & Academic Search Complete provide options to:

• Limit results to full text;
• Limit results to scholarly journals, and reference available;
• Select results source type to journals, magazines, conference papers, reviews, and newspapers
• Publication date

Keep in mind that these tools are defined as limiters for a reason; adding them to a search will limit the number of results returned.  This can be a double-edged sword.  How? 

• If limiting results to full-text only, you may miss an important piece of research that could change the direction of your research. Interlibrary loan is available to students, free of charge. Request articles that are not available in full-text; they will be sent to you via email.
• If narrowing publication date, you may eliminate significant historical - or recent - research conducted on your topic.
• Limiting resource type to a specific type of material may cause bias in the research results.

Use limiters with care. When starting a search, consider opting out of limiters until the initial literature screening is complete. The second or third time through your research may be the ideal time to focus on specific time periods or material (scholarly vs newspaper).

★ Truncating Search Terms

Expanding your search term at the root.

Truncating is often referred to as 'wildcard' searching. Databases may have their own specific wildcard elements however, the most commonly used are the asterisk (*) or question mark (?).  When used within your search. they will expand returned results.

Asterisk (*) Wildcard

Using the asterisk wildcard will return varied spellings of the truncated word. In the following example, the search term education was truncated after the letter "t."

Explore these database help pages for additional information on crafting search terms.

• EBSCO Connect: Searching with Wildcards and Truncation Symbols
• EBSCO Connect: Searching with Boolean Operators
• EBSCO Connect: EBSCOhost Search Tips
• EBSCO Connect: Basic Searching with EBSCO
• ProQuest Help: Search Tips
• ERIC: How does ERIC search work?

★ EBSCO Databases & Google Drive

Tips for saving research directly to Google drive.

Researching in an EBSCO database?

It is possible to save articles (PDF and HTML) and abstracts in EBSCOhost databases directly to Google drive. Select the Google Drive icon, authenticate using a Google account, and an EBSCO folder will be created in your account. This is a great option for managing your research. If documenting your research in a Google Doc, consider linking the information to actual articles saved in drive.

EBSCO Databases & Google Drive

EBSCOHost Databases & Google Drive: Managing your Research

This video features an overview of how to use Google Drive with EBSCO databases to help manage your research. It presents information for connecting an active Google account to EBSCO and steps needed to provide permission for EBSCO to manage a folder in Drive.

About the Video:  Closed captioning is available, select CC from the video menu.  If you need to review a specific area on the video, view on YouTube and expand the video description for access to topic time stamps.  A video transcript is provided below.

• EBSCOhost Databases & Google Scholar

Defining Literature Review

What is a literature review.

A definition from the Online Dictionary for Library and Information Sciences .

A literature review is "a comprehensive survey of the works published in a particular field of study or line of research, usually over a specific period of time, in the form of an in-depth, critical bibliographic essay or annotated list in which attention is drawn to the most significant works" (Reitz, 2014). 

A systemic review is "a literature review focused on a specific research question, which uses explicit methods to minimize bias in the identification, appraisal, selection, and synthesis of all the high-quality evidence pertinent to the question" (Reitz, 2014).

Recommended Reading

About this page

EBSCO Connect [Discovery and Search]. (2022). Searching with boolean operators. Retrieved May, 3, 2022 from https://connect.ebsco.com/s/?language=en_US

EBSCO Connect [Discover and Search]. (2022). Searching with wildcards and truncation symbols. Retrieved May 3, 2022; https://connect.ebsco.com/s/?language=en_US

Machi, L.A. & McEvoy, B.T. (2009). The literature review . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press: 

Reitz, J.M. (2014). Online dictionary for library and information science. ABC-CLIO, Libraries Unlimited . Retrieved from https://www.abc-clio.com/ODLIS/odlis_A.aspx

Ridley, D. (2008). The literature review: A step-by-step guide for students . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

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Approaching literature review for academic purposes: The Literature Review Checklist

Debora f.b. leite.

I Departamento de Ginecologia e Obstetricia, Faculdade de Ciencias Medicas, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, BR

II Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Pernambuco, PE, BR

III Hospital das Clinicas, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Pernambuco, PE, BR

Maria Auxiliadora Soares Padilha

Jose g. cecatti.

A sophisticated literature review (LR) can result in a robust dissertation/thesis by scrutinizing the main problem examined by the academic study; anticipating research hypotheses, methods and results; and maintaining the interest of the audience in how the dissertation/thesis will provide solutions for the current gaps in a particular field. Unfortunately, little guidance is available on elaborating LRs, and writing an LR chapter is not a linear process. An LR translates students’ abilities in information literacy, the language domain, and critical writing. Students in postgraduate programs should be systematically trained in these skills. Therefore, this paper discusses the purposes of LRs in dissertations and theses. Second, the paper considers five steps for developing a review: defining the main topic, searching the literature, analyzing the results, writing the review and reflecting on the writing. Ultimately, this study proposes a twelve-item LR checklist. By clearly stating the desired achievements, this checklist allows Masters and Ph.D. students to continuously assess their own progress in elaborating an LR. Institutions aiming to strengthen students’ necessary skills in critical academic writing should also use this tool.

INTRODUCTION

Writing the literature review (LR) is often viewed as a difficult task that can be a point of writer’s block and procrastination ( 1 ) in postgraduate life. Disagreements on the definitions or classifications of LRs ( 2 ) may confuse students about their purpose and scope, as well as how to perform an LR. Interestingly, at many universities, the LR is still an important element in any academic work, despite the more recent trend of producing scientific articles rather than classical theses.

The LR is not an isolated section of the thesis/dissertation or a copy of the background section of a research proposal. It identifies the state-of-the-art knowledge in a particular field, clarifies information that is already known, elucidates implications of the problem being analyzed, links theory and practice ( 3 - 5 ), highlights gaps in the current literature, and places the dissertation/thesis within the research agenda of that field. Additionally, by writing the LR, postgraduate students will comprehend the structure of the subject and elaborate on their cognitive connections ( 3 ) while analyzing and synthesizing data with increasing maturity.

At the same time, the LR transforms the student and hints at the contents of other chapters for the reader. First, the LR explains the research question; second, it supports the hypothesis, objectives, and methods of the research project; and finally, it facilitates a description of the student’s interpretation of the results and his/her conclusions. For scholars, the LR is an introductory chapter ( 6 ). If it is well written, it demonstrates the student’s understanding of and maturity in a particular topic. A sound and sophisticated LR can indicate a robust dissertation/thesis.

A consensus on the best method to elaborate a dissertation/thesis has not been achieved. The LR can be a distinct chapter or included in different sections; it can be part of the introduction chapter, part of each research topic, or part of each published paper ( 7 ). However, scholars view the LR as an integral part of the main body of an academic work because it is intrinsically connected to other sections ( Figure 1 ) and is frequently present. The structure of the LR depends on the conventions of a particular discipline, the rules of the department, and the student’s and supervisor’s areas of expertise, needs and interests.

Interestingly, many postgraduate students choose to submit their LR to peer-reviewed journals. As LRs are critical evaluations of current knowledge, they are indeed publishable material, even in the form of narrative or systematic reviews. However, systematic reviews have specific patterns 1 ( 8 ) that may not entirely fit with the questions posed in the dissertation/thesis. Additionally, the scope of a systematic review may be too narrow, and the strict criteria for study inclusion may omit important information from the dissertation/thesis. Therefore, this essay discusses the definition of an LR is and methods to develop an LR in the context of an academic dissertation/thesis. Finally, we suggest a checklist to evaluate an LR.

WHAT IS A LITERATURE REVIEW IN A THESIS?

Conducting research and writing a dissertation/thesis translates rational thinking and enthusiasm ( 9 ). While a strong body of literature that instructs students on research methodology, data analysis and writing scientific papers exists, little guidance on performing LRs is available. The LR is a unique opportunity to assess and contrast various arguments and theories, not just summarize them. The research results should not be discussed within the LR, but the postgraduate student tends to write a comprehensive LR while reflecting on his or her own findings ( 10 ).

Many people believe that writing an LR is a lonely and linear process. Supervisors or the institutions assume that the Ph.D. student has mastered the relevant techniques and vocabulary associated with his/her subject and conducts a self-reflection about previously published findings. Indeed, while elaborating the LR, the student should aggregate diverse skills, which mainly rely on his/her own commitment to mastering them. Thus, less supervision should be required ( 11 ). However, the parameters described above might not currently be the case for many students ( 11 , 12 ), and the lack of formal and systematic training on writing LRs is an important concern ( 11 ).

An institutional environment devoted to active learning will provide students the opportunity to continuously reflect on LRs, which will form a dialogue between the postgraduate student and the current literature in a particular field ( 13 ). Postgraduate students will be interpreting studies by other researchers, and, according to Hart (1998) ( 3 ), the outcomes of the LR in a dissertation/thesis include the following:

• To identify what research has been performed and what topics require further investigation in a particular field of knowledge;
• To determine the context of the problem;
• To recognize the main methodologies and techniques that have been used in the past;
• To place the current research project within the historical, methodological and theoretical context of a particular field;
• To identify significant aspects of the topic;
• To elucidate the implications of the topic;
• To offer an alternative perspective;
• To discern how the studied subject is structured;
• To improve the student’s subject vocabulary in a particular field; and
• To characterize the links between theory and practice.

A sound LR translates the postgraduate student’s expertise in academic and scientific writing: it expresses his/her level of comfort with synthesizing ideas ( 11 ). The LR reveals how well the postgraduate student has proceeded in three domains: an effective literature search, the language domain, and critical writing.

Effective literature search

All students should be trained in gathering appropriate data for specific purposes, and information literacy skills are a cornerstone. These skills are defined as “an individual’s ability to know when they need information, to identify information that can help them address the issue or problem at hand, and to locate, evaluate, and use that information effectively” ( 14 ). Librarian support is of vital importance in coaching the appropriate use of Boolean logic (AND, OR, NOT) and other tools for highly efficient literature searches (e.g., quotation marks and truncation), as is the appropriate management of electronic databases.

Language domain

Academic writing must be concise and precise: unnecessary words distract the reader from the essential content ( 15 ). In this context, reading about issues distant from the research topic ( 16 ) may increase students’ general vocabulary and familiarity with grammar. Ultimately, reading diverse materials facilitates and encourages the writing process itself.

Critical writing

Critical judgment includes critical reading, thinking and writing. It supposes a student’s analytical reflection about what he/she has read. The student should delineate the basic elements of the topic, characterize the most relevant claims, identify relationships, and finally contrast those relationships ( 17 ). Each scientific document highlights the perspective of the author, and students will become more confident in judging the supporting evidence and underlying premises of a study and constructing their own counterargument as they read more articles. A paucity of integration or contradictory perspectives indicates lower levels of cognitive complexity ( 12 ).

Thus, while elaborating an LR, the postgraduate student should achieve the highest category of Bloom’s cognitive skills: evaluation ( 12 ). The writer should not only summarize data and understand each topic but also be able to make judgments based on objective criteria, compare resources and findings, identify discrepancies due to methodology, and construct his/her own argument ( 12 ). As a result, the student will be sufficiently confident to show his/her own voice .

Writing a consistent LR is an intense and complex activity that reveals the training and long-lasting academic skills of a writer. It is not a lonely or linear process. However, students are unlikely to be prepared to write an LR if they have not mastered the aforementioned domains ( 10 ). An institutional environment that supports student learning is crucial.

Different institutions employ distinct methods to promote students’ learning processes. First, many universities propose modules to develop behind the scenes activities that enhance self-reflection about general skills (e.g., the skills we have mastered and the skills we need to develop further), behaviors that should be incorporated (e.g., self-criticism about one’s own thoughts), and each student’s role in the advancement of his/her field. Lectures or workshops about LRs themselves are useful because they describe the purposes of the LR and how it fits into the whole picture of a student’s work. These activities may explain what type of discussion an LR must involve, the importance of defining the correct scope, the reasons to include a particular resource, and the main role of critical reading.

Some pedagogic services that promote a continuous improvement in study and academic skills are equally important. Examples include workshops about time management, the accomplishment of personal objectives, active learning, and foreign languages for nonnative speakers. Additionally, opportunities to converse with other students promotes an awareness of others’ experiences and difficulties. Ultimately, the supervisor’s role in providing feedback and setting deadlines is crucial in developing students’ abilities and in strengthening students’ writing quality ( 12 ).

HOW SHOULD A LITERATURE REVIEW BE DEVELOPED?

A consensus on the appropriate method for elaborating an LR is not available, but four main steps are generally accepted: defining the main topic, searching the literature, analyzing the results, and writing ( 6 ). We suggest a fifth step: reflecting on the information that has been written in previous publications ( Figure 2 ).

First step: Defining the main topic

Planning an LR is directly linked to the research main question of the thesis and occurs in parallel to students’ training in the three domains discussed above. The planning stage helps organize ideas, delimit the scope of the LR ( 11 ), and avoid the wasting of time in the process. Planning includes the following steps:

• Reflecting on the scope of the LR: postgraduate students will have assumptions about what material must be addressed and what information is not essential to an LR ( 13 , 18 ). Cooper’s Taxonomy of Literature Reviews 2 systematizes the writing process through six characteristics and nonmutually exclusive categories. The focus refers to the reviewer’s most important points of interest, while the goals concern what students want to achieve with the LR. The perspective assumes answers to the student’s own view of the LR and how he/she presents a particular issue. The coverage defines how comprehensive the student is in presenting the literature, and the organization determines the sequence of arguments. The audience is defined as the group for whom the LR is written.
• Designating sections and subsections: Headings and subheadings should be specific, explanatory and have a coherent sequence throughout the text ( 4 ). They simulate an inverted pyramid, with an increasing level of reflection and depth of argument.
• Identifying keywords: The relevant keywords for each LR section should be listed to guide the literature search. This list should mirror what Hart (1998) ( 3 ) advocates as subject vocabulary . The keywords will also be useful when the student is writing the LR since they guide the reader through the text.
• Delineating the time interval and language of documents to be retrieved in the second step. The most recently published documents should be considered, but relevant texts published before a predefined cutoff year can be included if they are classic documents in that field. Extra care should be employed when translating documents.

Second step: Searching the literature

The ability to gather adequate information from the literature must be addressed in postgraduate programs. Librarian support is important, particularly for accessing difficult texts. This step comprises the following components:

• Searching the literature itself: This process consists of defining which databases (electronic or dissertation/thesis repositories), official documents, and books will be searched and then actively conducting the search. Information literacy skills have a central role in this stage. While searching electronic databases, controlled vocabulary (e.g., Medical Subject Headings, or MeSH, for the PubMed database) or specific standardized syntax rules may need to be applied.

In addition, two other approaches are suggested. First, a review of the reference list of each document might be useful for identifying relevant publications to be included and important opinions to be assessed. This step is also relevant for referencing the original studies and leading authors in that field. Moreover, students can directly contact the experts on a particular topic to consult with them regarding their experience or use them as a source of additional unpublished documents.

Before submitting a dissertation/thesis, the electronic search strategy should be repeated. This process will ensure that the most recently published papers will be considered in the LR.

• Selecting documents for inclusion: Generally, the most recent literature will be included in the form of published peer-reviewed papers. Assess books and unpublished material, such as conference abstracts, academic texts and government reports, are also important to assess since the gray literature also offers valuable information. However, since these materials are not peer-reviewed, we recommend that they are carefully added to the LR.

This task is an important exercise in time management. First, students should read the title and abstract to understand whether that document suits their purposes, addresses the research question, and helps develop the topic of interest. Then, they should scan the full text, determine how it is structured, group it with similar documents, and verify whether other arguments might be considered ( 5 ).

Third step: Analyzing the results

Critical reading and thinking skills are important in this step. This step consists of the following components:

• Reading documents: The student may read various texts in depth according to LR sections and subsections ( defining the main topic ), which is not a passive activity ( 1 ). Some questions should be asked to practice critical analysis skills, as listed below. Is the research question evident and articulated with previous knowledge? What are the authors’ research goals and theoretical orientations, and how do they interact? Are the authors’ claims related to other scholars’ research? Do the authors consider different perspectives? Was the research project designed and conducted properly? Are the results and discussion plausible, and are they consistent with the research objectives and methodology? What are the strengths and limitations of this work? How do the authors support their findings? How does this work contribute to the current research topic? ( 1 , 19 )
• Taking notes: Students who systematically take notes on each document are more readily able to establish similarities or differences with other documents and to highlight personal observations. This approach reinforces the student’s ideas about the next step and helps develop his/her own academic voice ( 1 , 13 ). Voice recognition software ( 16 ), mind maps ( 5 ), flowcharts, tables, spreadsheets, personal comments on the referenced texts, and note-taking apps are all available tools for managing these observations, and the student him/herself should use the tool that best improves his/her learning. Additionally, when a student is considering submitting an LR to a peer-reviewed journal, notes should be taken on the activities performed in all five steps to ensure that they are able to be replicated.

Fourth step: Writing

The recognition of when a student is able and ready to write after a sufficient period of reading and thinking is likely a difficult task. Some students can produce a review in a single long work session. However, as discussed above, writing is not a linear process, and students do not need to write LRs according to a specific sequence of sections. Writing an LR is a time-consuming task, and some scholars believe that a period of at least six months is sufficient ( 6 ). An LR, and academic writing in general, expresses the writer’s proper thoughts, conclusions about others’ work ( 6 , 10 , 13 , 16 ), and decisions about methods to progress in the chosen field of knowledge. Thus, each student is expected to present a different learning and writing trajectory.

In this step, writing methods should be considered; then, editing, citing and correct referencing should complete this stage, at least temporarily. Freewriting techniques may be a good starting point for brainstorming ideas and improving the understanding of the information that has been read ( 1 ). Students should consider the following parameters when creating an agenda for writing the LR: two-hour writing blocks (at minimum), with prespecified tasks that are possible to complete in one section; short (minutes) and long breaks (days or weeks) to allow sufficient time for mental rest and reflection; and short- and long-term goals to motivate the writing itself ( 20 ). With increasing experience, this scheme can vary widely, and it is not a straightforward rule. Importantly, each discipline has a different way of writing ( 1 ), and each department has its own preferred styles for citations and references.

Fifth step: Reflecting on the writing

In this step, the postgraduate student should ask him/herself the same questions as in the analyzing the results step, which can take more time than anticipated. Ambiguities, repeated ideas, and a lack of coherence may not be noted when the student is immersed in the writing task for long periods. The whole effort will likely be a work in progress, and continuous refinements in the written material will occur once the writing process has begun.

LITERATURE REVIEW CHECKLIST

In contrast to review papers, the LR of a dissertation/thesis should not be a standalone piece or work. Instead, it should present the student as a scholar and should maintain the interest of the audience in how that dissertation/thesis will provide solutions for the current gaps in a particular field.

A checklist for evaluating an LR is convenient for students’ continuous academic development and research transparency: it clearly states the desired achievements for the LR of a dissertation/thesis. Here, we present an LR checklist developed from an LR scoring rubric ( 11 ). For a critical analysis of an LR, we maintain the five categories but offer twelve criteria that are not scaled ( Figure 3 ). The criteria all have the same importance and are not mutually exclusive.

First category: Coverage

1. justified criteria exist for the inclusion and exclusion of literature in the review.

This criterion builds on the main topic and areas covered by the LR ( 18 ). While experts may be confident in retrieving and selecting literature, postgraduate students must convince their audience about the adequacy of their search strategy and their reasons for intentionally selecting what material to cover ( 11 ). References from different fields of knowledge provide distinct perspective, but narrowing the scope of coverage may be important in areas with a large body of existing knowledge.

Second category: Synthesis

2. a critical examination of the state of the field exists.

A critical examination is an assessment of distinct aspects in the field ( 1 ) along with a constructive argument. It is not a negative critique but an expression of the student’s understanding of how other scholars have added to the topic ( 1 ), and the student should analyze and contextualize contradictory statements. A writer’s personal bias (beliefs or political involvement) have been shown to influence the structure and writing of a document; therefore, the cultural and paradigmatic background guide how the theories are revised and presented ( 13 ). However, an honest judgment is important when considering different perspectives.

3. The topic or problem is clearly placed in the context of the broader scholarly literature

The broader scholarly literature should be related to the chosen main topic for the LR ( how to develop the literature review section). The LR can cover the literature from one or more disciplines, depending on its scope, but it should always offer a new perspective. In addition, students should be careful in citing and referencing previous publications. As a rule, original studies and primary references should generally be included. Systematic and narrative reviews present summarized data, and it may be important to cite them, particularly for issues that should be understood but do not require a detailed description. Similarly, quotations highlight the exact statement from another publication. However, excessive referencing may disclose lower levels of analysis and synthesis by the student.

4. The LR is critically placed in the historical context of the field

Situating the LR in its historical context shows the level of comfort of the student in addressing a particular topic. Instead of only presenting statements and theories in a temporal approach, which occasionally follows a linear timeline, the LR should authentically characterize the student’s academic work in the state-of-art techniques in their particular field of knowledge. Thus, the LR should reinforce why the dissertation/thesis represents original work in the chosen research field.

5. Ambiguities in definitions are considered and resolved

Distinct theories on the same topic may exist in different disciplines, and one discipline may consider multiple concepts to explain one topic. These misunderstandings should be addressed and contemplated. The LR should not synthesize all theories or concepts at the same time. Although this approach might demonstrate in-depth reading on a particular topic, it can reveal a student’s inability to comprehend and synthesize his/her research problem.

6. Important variables and phenomena relevant to the topic are articulated

The LR is a unique opportunity to articulate ideas and arguments and to purpose new relationships between them ( 10 , 11 ). More importantly, a sound LR will outline to the audience how these important variables and phenomena will be addressed in the current academic work. Indeed, the LR should build a bidirectional link with the remaining sections and ground the connections between all of the sections ( Figure 1 ).

7. A synthesized new perspective on the literature has been established

The LR is a ‘creative inquiry’ ( 13 ) in which the student elaborates his/her own discourse, builds on previous knowledge in the field, and describes his/her own perspective while interpreting others’ work ( 13 , 17 ). Thus, students should articulate the current knowledge, not accept the results at face value ( 11 , 13 , 17 ), and improve their own cognitive abilities ( 12 ).

Third category: Methodology

8. the main methodologies and research techniques that have been used in the field are identified and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed.

The LR is expected to distinguish the research that has been completed from investigations that remain to be performed, address the benefits and limitations of the main methods applied to date, and consider the strategies for addressing the expected limitations described above. While placing his/her research within the methodological context of a particular topic, the LR will justify the methodology of the study and substantiate the student’s interpretations.

9. Ideas and theories in the field are related to research methodologies

The audience expects the writer to analyze and synthesize methodological approaches in the field. The findings should be explained according to the strengths and limitations of previous research methods, and students must avoid interpretations that are not supported by the analyzed literature. This criterion translates to the student’s comprehension of the applicability and types of answers provided by different research methodologies, even those using a quantitative or qualitative research approach.

Fourth category: Significance

10. the scholarly significance of the research problem is rationalized.

The LR is an introductory section of a dissertation/thesis and will present the postgraduate student as a scholar in a particular field ( 11 ). Therefore, the LR should discuss how the research problem is currently addressed in the discipline being investigated or in different disciplines, depending on the scope of the LR. The LR explains the academic paradigms in the topic of interest ( 13 ) and methods to advance the field from these starting points. However, an excess number of personal citations—whether referencing the student’s research or studies by his/her research team—may reflect a narrow literature search and a lack of comprehensive synthesis of ideas and arguments.

11. The practical significance of the research problem is rationalized

The practical significance indicates a student’s comprehensive understanding of research terminology (e.g., risk versus associated factor), methodology (e.g., efficacy versus effectiveness) and plausible interpretations in the context of the field. Notably, the academic argument about a topic may not always reflect the debate in real life terms. For example, using a quantitative approach in epidemiology, statistically significant differences between groups do not explain all of the factors involved in a particular problem ( 21 ). Therefore, excessive faith in p -values may reflect lower levels of critical evaluation of the context and implications of a research problem by the student.

Fifth category: Rhetoric

12. the lr was written with a coherent, clear structure that supported the review.

This category strictly relates to the language domain: the text should be coherent and presented in a logical sequence, regardless of which organizational ( 18 ) approach is chosen. The beginning of each section/subsection should state what themes will be addressed, paragraphs should be carefully linked to each other ( 10 ), and the first sentence of each paragraph should generally summarize the content. Additionally, the student’s statements are clear, sound, and linked to other scholars’ works, and precise and concise language that follows standardized writing conventions (e.g., in terms of active/passive voice and verb tenses) is used. Attention to grammar, such as orthography and punctuation, indicates prudence and supports a robust dissertation/thesis. Ultimately, all of these strategies provide fluency and consistency for the text.

Although the scoring rubric was initially proposed for postgraduate programs in education research, we are convinced that this checklist is a valuable tool for all academic areas. It enables the monitoring of students’ learning curves and a concentrated effort on any criteria that are not yet achieved. For institutions, the checklist is a guide to support supervisors’ feedback, improve students’ writing skills, and highlight the learning goals of each program. These criteria do not form a linear sequence, but ideally, all twelve achievements should be perceived in the LR.

CONCLUSIONS

A single correct method to classify, evaluate and guide the elaboration of an LR has not been established. In this essay, we have suggested directions for planning, structuring and critically evaluating an LR. The planning of the scope of an LR and approaches to complete it is a valuable effort, and the five steps represent a rational starting point. An institutional environment devoted to active learning will support students in continuously reflecting on LRs, which will form a dialogue between the writer and the current literature in a particular field ( 13 ).

The completion of an LR is a challenging and necessary process for understanding one’s own field of expertise. Knowledge is always transitory, but our responsibility as scholars is to provide a critical contribution to our field, allowing others to think through our work. Good researchers are grounded in sophisticated LRs, which reveal a writer’s training and long-lasting academic skills. We recommend using the LR checklist as a tool for strengthening the skills necessary for critical academic writing.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Leite DFB has initially conceived the idea and has written the first draft of this review. Padilha MAS and Cecatti JG have supervised data interpretation and critically reviewed the manuscript. All authors have read the draft and agreed with this submission. Authors are responsible for all aspects of this academic piece.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to all of the professors of the ‘Getting Started with Graduate Research and Generic Skills’ module at University College Cork, Cork, Ireland, for suggesting and supporting this article. Funding: DFBL has granted scholarship from Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES) to take part of her Ph.D. studies in Ireland (process number 88881.134512/2016-01). There is no participation from sponsors on authors’ decision to write or to submit this manuscript.

No potential conflict of interest was reported.

1 The questions posed in systematic reviews usually follow the ‘PICOS’ acronym: Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes, Study design.

2 In 1988, Cooper proposed a taxonomy that aims to facilitate students’ and institutions’ understanding of literature reviews. Six characteristics with specific categories are briefly described: Focus: research outcomes, research methodologies, theories, or practices and applications; Goals: integration (generalization, conflict resolution, and linguistic bridge-building), criticism, or identification of central issues; Perspective: neutral representation or espousal of a position; Coverage: exhaustive, exhaustive with selective citations, representative, central or pivotal; Organization: historical, conceptual, or methodological; and Audience: specialized scholars, general scholars, practitioners or policymakers, or the general public.

Citation Styles

• Chicago Style
• Annotated Bibliographies

What is a Lit Review?

How to write a lit review.

• Video Introduction to Lit Reviews

Main Objectives

Examples of lit reviews, additional resources.

• Zotero (Citation Management)

What is a literature review?

• Either a complete piece of writing unto itself or a section of a larger piece of writing like a book or article
• A thorough and critical look at the information and perspectives that other experts and scholars have written about a specific topic
• A way to give historical perspective on an issue and show how other researchers have addressed a problem
• An analysis of sources based on your own perspective on the topic
• Based on the most pertinent and significant research conducted in the field, both new and old

• A descriptive list or collection of summaries of other research without synthesis or analysis
• An annotated bibliography
• A literary review (a brief, critical discussion about the merits and weaknesses of a literary work such as a play, novel or a book of poems)
• Exhaustive; the objective is not to list as many relevant books, articles, reports as possible
• To convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic
• To explain what the strengths and weaknesses of that knowledge and those ideas might be
• To learn how others have defined and measured key concepts    
• To keep the writer/reader up to date with current developments and historical trends in a particular field or discipline
• To establish context for the argument explored in the rest of a paper
• To provide evidence that may be used to support your own findings
• To demonstrate your understanding and your ability to critically evaluate research in the field
• To suggest previously unused or underused methodologies, designs, and quantitative and qualitative strategies
• To identify gaps in previous studies and flawed methodologies and/or theoretical approaches in order to avoid replication of mistakes
• To help the researcher avoid repetition of earlier research
• To suggest unexplored populations
• To determine whether past studies agree or disagree and identify strengths and weaknesses on both sides of a controversy in the literature

• Choose a topic that is interesting to you; this makes the research and writing process more enjoyable and rewarding.
• For a literature review, you'll also want to make sure that the topic you choose is one that other researchers have explored before so that you'll be able to find plenty of relevant sources to review.

• Your research doesn't need to be exhaustive. Pay careful attention to bibliographies. Focus on the most frequently cited literature about your topic and literature from the best known scholars in your field. Ask yourself: "Does this source make a significant contribution to the understanding of my topic?"
• Reading other literature reviews from your field may help you get ideas for themes to look for in your research. You can usually find some of these through the library databases by adding literature review as a keyword in your search.
• Start with the most recent publications and work backwards. This way, you ensure you have the most current information, and it becomes easier to identify the most seminal earlier sources by reviewing the material that current researchers are citing.

The organization of your lit review should be determined based on what you'd like to highlight from your research. Here are a few suggestions:

• Chronology : Discuss literature in chronological order of its writing/publication to demonstrate a change in trends over time or to detail a history of controversy in the field or of developments in the understanding of your topic.  
• Theme: Group your sources by subject or theme to show the variety of angles from which your topic has been studied. This works well if, for example, your goal is to identify an angle or subtopic that has so far been overlooked by researchers.  
• Methodology: Grouping your sources by methodology (for example, dividing the literature into qualitative vs. quantitative studies or grouping sources according to the populations studied) is useful for illustrating an overlooked population, an unused or underused methodology, or a flawed experimental technique.

• Be selective. Highlight only the most important and relevant points from a source in your review.
• Use quotes sparingly. Short quotes can help to emphasize a point, but thorough analysis of language from each source is generally unnecessary in a literature review.
• Synthesize your sources. Your goal is not to make a list of summaries of each source but to show how the sources relate to one another and to your own work.
• Make sure that your own voice and perspective remains front and center. Don't rely too heavily on summary or paraphrasing. For each source, draw a conclusion about how it relates to your own work or to the other literature on your topic.
• Be objective. When you identify a disagreement in the literature, be sure to represent both sides. Don't exclude a source simply on the basis that it does not support your own research hypothesis.
• At the end of your lit review, make suggestions for future research. What subjects, populations, methodologies, or theoretical lenses warrant further exploration? What common flaws or biases did you identify that could be corrected in future studies?

• Double check that you've correctly cited each of the sources you've used in the citation style requested by your professor (APA, MLA, etc.) and that your lit review is formatted according to the guidelines for that style.

Your literature review should:

• Be focused on and organized around your topic.
• Synthesize your research into a summary of what is and is not known about your topic.
• Identify any gaps or areas of controversy in the literature related to your topic.
• Suggest questions that require further research.
• Have your voice and perspective at the forefront rather than merely summarizing others' work.
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• Literature Review Tutorials and Samples - Wilson Library at University of La Verne
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Review of Related Literature: Format, Example, & How to Make RRL

A review of related literature is a separate paper or a part of an article that collects and synthesizes discussion on a topic. Its purpose is to show the current state of research on the issue and highlight gaps in existing knowledge. A literature review can be included in a research paper or scholarly article, typically following the introduction and before the research methods section.

This article will clarify the definition, significance, and structure of a review of related literature. You’ll also learn how to organize your literature review and discover ideas for an RRL in different subjects.

🔤 What Is RRL?

• ❗ Significance of Literature Review
• 🔎 How to Search for Literature
• 🧩 Literature Review Structure
• 📋 Format of RRL — APA, MLA, & Others
• ✍️ How to Write an RRL
• 📚 Examples of RRL

🔗 References

A review of related literature (RRL) is a part of the research report that examines significant studies, theories, and concepts published in scholarly sources on a particular topic. An RRL includes 3 main components:

• A short overview and critique of the previous research.
• Similarities and differences between past studies and the current one.
• An explanation of the theoretical frameworks underpinning the research.

❗ Significance of Review of Related Literature

Although the goal of a review of related literature differs depending on the discipline and its intended use, its significance cannot be overstated. Here are some examples of how a review might be beneficial:

• It helps determine knowledge gaps .
• It saves from duplicating research that has already been conducted.
• It provides an overview of various research areas within the discipline.
• It demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the topic.

🔎 How to Perform a Literature Search

Including a description of your search strategy in the literature review section can significantly increase your grade. You can search sources with the following steps:

🧩 Literature Review Structure Example

The majority of literature reviews follow a standard introduction-body-conclusion structure. Let’s look at the RRL structure in detail.

Introduction of Review of Related Literature: Sample

An introduction should clarify the study topic and the depth of the information to be delivered. It should also explain the types of sources used. If your lit. review is part of a larger research proposal or project, you can combine its introductory paragraph with the introduction of your paper.

Here is a sample introduction to an RRL about cyberbullying:

Bullying has troubled people since the beginning of time. However, with modern technological advancements, especially social media, bullying has evolved into cyberbullying. As a result, nowadays, teenagers and adults cannot flee their bullies, which makes them feel lonely and helpless. This literature review will examine recent studies on cyberbullying.

Sample Review of Related Literature Thesis

A thesis statement should include the central idea of your literature review and the primary supporting elements you discovered in the literature. Thesis statements are typically put at the end of the introductory paragraph.

Look at a sample thesis of a review of related literature:

This literature review shows that scholars have recently covered the issues of bullies’ motivation, the impact of bullying on victims and aggressors, common cyberbullying techniques, and victims’ coping strategies. However, there is still no agreement on the best practices to address cyberbullying.

Literature Review Body Paragraph Example

The main body of a literature review should provide an overview of the existing research on the issue. Body paragraphs should not just summarize each source but analyze them. You can organize your paragraphs with these 3 elements:

• Claim . Start with a topic sentence linked to your literature review purpose.
• Evidence . Cite relevant information from your chosen sources.
• Discussion . Explain how the cited data supports your claim.

Here’s a literature review body paragraph example:

Scholars have examined the link between the aggressor and the victim. Beran et al. (2007) state that students bullied online often become cyberbullies themselves. Faucher et al. (2014) confirm this with their findings: they discovered that male and female students began engaging in cyberbullying after being subject to bullying. Hence, one can conclude that being a victim of bullying increases one’s likelihood of becoming a cyberbully.

Review of Related Literature: Conclusion

A conclusion presents a general consensus on the topic. Depending on your literature review purpose, it might include the following:

• Introduction to further research . If you write a literature review as part of a larger research project, you can present your research question in your conclusion .
• Overview of theories . You can summarize critical theories and concepts to help your reader understand the topic better.
• Discussion of the gap . If you identified a research gap in the reviewed literature, your conclusion could explain why that gap is significant.

Check out a conclusion example that discusses a research gap:

There is extensive research into bullies’ motivation, the consequences of bullying for victims and aggressors, strategies for bullying, and coping with it. Yet, scholars still have not reached a consensus on what to consider the best practices to combat cyberbullying. This question is of great importance because of the significant adverse effects of cyberbullying on victims and bullies.

📋 Format of RRL — APA, MLA, & Others

In this section, we will discuss how to format an RRL according to the most common citation styles: APA, Chicago, MLA, and Harvard.

Writing a literature review using the APA7 style requires the following text formatting:

• When using APA in-text citations , include the author’s last name and the year of publication in parentheses.
• For direct quotations , you must also add the page number. If you use sources without page numbers, such as websites or e-books, include a paragraph number instead.
• When referring to the author’s name in a sentence , you do not need to repeat it at the end of the sentence. Instead, include the year of publication inside the parentheses after their name.
• The reference list should be included at the end of your literature review. It is always alphabetized by the last name of the author (from A to Z), and the lines are indented one-half inch from the left margin of your paper. Do not forget to invert authors’ names (the last name should come first) and include the full titles of journals instead of their abbreviations. If you use an online source, add its URL.

The RRL format in the Chicago style is as follows:

• Author-date . You place your citations in brackets within the text, indicating the name of the author and the year of publication.
• Notes and bibliography . You place your citations in numbered footnotes or endnotes to connect the citation back to the source in the bibliography.
• The reference list, or bibliography , in Chicago style, is at the end of a literature review. The sources are arranged alphabetically and single-spaced. Each bibliography entry begins with the author’s name and the source’s title, followed by publication information, such as the city of publication, the publisher, and the year of publication.

Writing a literature review using the MLA style requires the following text formatting:

• In the MLA format, you can cite a source in the text by indicating the author’s last name and the page number in parentheses at the end of the citation. If the cited information takes several pages, you need to include all the page numbers.
• The reference list in MLA style is titled “ Works Cited .” In this section, all sources used in the paper should be listed in alphabetical order. Each entry should contain the author, title of the source, title of the journal or a larger volume, other contributors, version, number, publisher, and publication date.

The Harvard style requires you to use the following text formatting for your RRL:

• In-text citations in the Harvard style include the author’s last name and the year of publication. If you are using a direct quote in your literature review, you need to add the page number as well.
• Arrange your list of references alphabetically. Each entry should contain the author’s last name, their initials, the year of publication, the title of the source, and other publication information, like the journal title and issue number or the publisher.

✍️ How to Write Review of Related Literature – Sample

Literature reviews can be organized in many ways depending on what you want to achieve with them. In this section, we will look at 3 examples of how you can write your RRL.

Thematic Literature Review

A thematic literature review is arranged around central themes or issues discussed in the sources. If you have identified some recurring themes in the literature, you can divide your RRL into sections that address various aspects of the topic. For example, if you examine studies on e-learning, you can distinguish such themes as the cost-effectiveness of online learning, the technologies used, and its effectiveness compared to traditional education.

Chronological Literature Review

A chronological literature review is a way to track the development of the topic over time. If you use this method, avoid merely listing and summarizing sources in chronological order. Instead, try to analyze the trends, turning moments, and critical debates that have shaped the field’s path. Also, you can give your interpretation of how and why specific advances occurred.

Methodological Literature Review

A methodological literature review differs from the preceding ones in that it usually doesn’t focus on the sources’ content. Instead, it is concerned with the research methods . So, if your references come from several disciplines or fields employing various research techniques, you can compare the findings and conclusions of different methodologies, for instance:

• empirical vs. theoretical studies;
• qualitative vs. quantitative research.

📚 Examples of Review of Related Literature and Studies

We have prepared a short example of RRL on climate change for you to see how everything works in practice!

Climate change is one of the most important issues nowadays. Based on a variety of facts, it is now clearer than ever that humans are altering the Earth's climate. The atmosphere and oceans have warmed, causing sea level rise, a significant loss of Arctic ice, and other climate-related changes. This literature review provides a thorough summary of research on climate change, focusing on climate change fingerprints and evidence of human influence on the Earth's climate system.

Physical Mechanisms and Evidence of Human Influence

Scientists are convinced that climate change is directly influenced by the emission of greenhouse gases. They have carefully analyzed various climate data and evidence, concluding that the majority of the observed global warming over the past 50 years cannot be explained by natural factors alone. Instead, there is compelling evidence pointing to a significant contribution of human activities, primarily the emission of greenhouse gases (Walker, 2014). For example, based on simple physics calculations, doubled carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere can lead to a global temperature increase of approximately 1 degree Celsius. (Elderfield, 2022). In order to determine the human influence on climate, scientists still have to analyze a lot of natural changes that affect temperature, precipitation, and other components of climate on timeframes ranging from days to decades and beyond.

Fingerprinting Climate Change

Fingerprinting climate change is a useful tool to identify the causes of global warming because different factors leave unique marks on climate records. This is evident when scientists look beyond overall temperature changes and examine how warming is distributed geographically and over time (Watson, 2022). By investigating these climate patterns, scientists can obtain a more complex understanding of the connections between natural climate variability and climate variability caused by human activity.

Modeling Climate Change and Feedback

To accurately predict the consequences of feedback mechanisms, the rate of warming, and regional climate change, scientists can employ sophisticated mathematical models of the atmosphere, ocean, land, and ice (the cryosphere). These models are grounded in well-established physical laws and incorporate the latest scientific understanding of climate-related processes (Shuckburgh, 2013). Although different climate models produce slightly varying projections for future warming, they all will agree that feedback mechanisms play a significant role in amplifying the initial warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. (Meehl, 2019).

In conclusion, the literature on global warming indicates that there are well-understood physical processes that link variations in greenhouse gas concentrations to climate change. In addition, it covers the scientific proof that the rates of these gases in the atmosphere have increased and continue to rise fast. According to the sources, the majority of this recent change is almost definitely caused by greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities. Citizens and governments can alter their energy production methods and consumption patterns to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and, thus, the magnitude of climate change. By acting now, society can prevent the worst consequences of climate change and build a more resilient and sustainable future for generations to come.

Have you ever struggled with finding the topic for an RRL in different subjects? Read the following paragraphs to get some ideas!

Nursing Literature Review Example

Many topics in the nursing field require research. For example, you can write a review of literature related to dengue fever . Give a general overview of dengue virus infections, including its clinical symptoms, diagnosis, prevention, and therapy.

Another good idea is to review related literature and studies about teenage pregnancy . This review can describe the effectiveness of specific programs for adolescent mothers and their children and summarize recommendations for preventing early pregnancy.

📝 Check out some more valuable examples below:

• Hospital Readmissions: Literature Review .
• Literature Review: Lower Sepsis Mortality Rates .
• Breast Cancer: Literature Review .
• Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Literature Review .
• PICO for Pressure Ulcers: Literature Review .
• COVID-19 Spread Prevention: Literature Review .
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Literature Review .
• Hypertension Treatment Adherence: Literature Review .
• Neonatal Sepsis Prevention: Literature Review .
• Healthcare-Associated Infections: Literature Review .
• Understaffing in Nursing: Literature Review .

Psychology Literature Review Example

If you look for an RRL topic in psychology , you can write a review of related literature about stress . Summarize scientific evidence about stress stages, side effects, types, or reduction strategies. Or you can write a review of related literature about computer game addiction . In this case, you may concentrate on the neural mechanisms underlying the internet gaming disorder, compare it to other addictions, or evaluate treatment strategies.

A review of related literature about cyberbullying is another interesting option. You can highlight the impact of cyberbullying on undergraduate students’ academic, social, and emotional development.

📝 Look at the examples that we have prepared for you to come up with some more ideas:

• Mindfulness in Counseling: A Literature Review .
• Team-Building Across Cultures: Literature Review .
• Anxiety and Decision Making: Literature Review .
• Literature Review on Depression .
• Literature Review on Narcissism .
• Effects of Depression Among Adolescents .
• Causes and Effects of Anxiety in Children .

Literature Review — Sociology Example

Sociological research poses critical questions about social structures and phenomena. For example, you can write a review of related literature about child labor , exploring cultural beliefs and social norms that normalize the exploitation of children. Or you can create a review of related literature about social media . It can investigate the impact of social media on relationships between adolescents or the role of social networks on immigrants’ acculturation .

📝 You can find some more ideas below!

• Single Mothers’ Experiences of Relationships with Their Adolescent Sons .
• Teachers and Students’ Gender-Based Interactions .
• Gender Identity: Biological Perspective and Social Cognitive Theory .
• Gender: Culturally-Prescribed Role or Biological Sex .
• The Influence of Opioid Misuse on Academic Achievement of Veteran Students .
• The Importance of Ethics in Research .
• The Role of Family and Social Network Support in Mental Health .

Education Literature Review Example

For your education studies , you can write a review of related literature about academic performance to determine factors that affect student achievement and highlight research gaps. One more idea is to create a review of related literature on study habits , considering their role in the student’s life and academic outcomes.

You can also evaluate a computerized grading system in a review of related literature to single out its advantages and barriers to implementation. Or you can complete a review of related literature on instructional materials to identify their most common types and effects on student achievement.

📝 Find some inspiration in the examples below:

• Literature Review on Online Learning Challenges From COVID-19 .
• Education, Leadership, and Management: Literature Review .
• Literature Review: Standardized Testing Bias .
• Bullying of Disabled Children in School .
• Interventions and Letter & Sound Recognition: A Literature Review .
• Social-Emotional Skills Program for Preschoolers .
• Effectiveness of Educational Leadership Management Skills .

Business Research Literature Review

If you’re a business student, you can focus on customer satisfaction in your review of related literature. Discuss specific customer satisfaction features and how it is affected by service quality and prices. You can also create a theoretical literature review about consumer buying behavior to evaluate theories that have significantly contributed to understanding how consumers make purchasing decisions.

📝 Look at the examples to get more exciting ideas:

• Leadership and Communication: Literature Review .
• Human Resource Development: Literature Review .
• Project Management. Literature Review .
• Strategic HRM: A Literature Review .
• Customer Relationship Management: Literature Review .
• Literature Review on International Financial Reporting Standards .
• Cultures of Management: Literature Review .

To conclude, a review of related literature is a significant genre of scholarly works that can be applied in various disciplines and for multiple goals. The sources examined in an RRL provide theoretical frameworks for future studies and help create original research questions and hypotheses.

When you finish your outstanding literature review, don’t forget to check whether it sounds logical and coherent. Our text-to-speech tool can help you with that!

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This paper is in the following e-collection/theme issue:

Published on 19.8.2024 in Vol 26 (2024)

This is a member publication of Open University

Prevalence of Health Misinformation on Social Media—Challenges and Mitigation Before, During, and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Literature Review

Authors of this article:

• Dhouha Kbaier 1 , PhD   ; 
• Annemarie Kane 2 , PhD   ; 
• Mark McJury 3   ; 
• Ian Kenny 1 , PhD  

1 School of Computing and Communications, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

2 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

3 School of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

Corresponding Author:

Dhouha Kbaier, PhD

School of Computing and Communications

The Open University

Walton Hall

Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA

United Kingdom

Email: [email protected]

Background: This scoping review accompanies our research study “The Experience of Health Professionals With Misinformation and Its Impact on Their Job Practice: Qualitative Interview Study.” It surveys online health misinformation and is intended to provide an understanding of the communication context in which health professionals must operate.

Objective: Our objective was to illustrate the impact of social media in introducing additional sources of misinformation that impact health practitioners’ ability to communicate effectively with their patients. In addition, we considered how the level of knowledge of practitioners mitigated the effect of misinformation and additional stress factors associated with dealing with outbreaks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, that affect communication with patients.

Methods: This study used a 5-step scoping review methodology following Arksey and O’Malley’s methodology to map relevant literature published in English between January 2012 and March 2024, focusing on health misinformation on social media platforms. We defined health misinformation as a false or misleading health-related claim that is not based on valid evidence or scientific knowledge. Electronic searches were performed on PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. We included studies on the extent and impact of health misinformation in social media, mitigation strategies, and health practitioners’ experiences of confronting health misinformation. Our independent reviewers identified relevant articles for data extraction.

Results: Our review synthesized findings from 70 sources on online health misinformation. It revealed a consensus regarding the significant problem of health misinformation disseminated on social network platforms. While users seek trustworthy sources of health information, they often lack adequate health and digital literacies, which is exacerbated by social and economic inequalities. Cultural contexts influence the reception of such misinformation, and health practitioners may be vulnerable, too. The effectiveness of online mitigation strategies like user correction and automatic detection are complicated by malicious actors and politicization. The role of health practitioners in this context is a challenging one. Although they are still best placed to combat health misinformation, this review identified stressors that create barriers to their abilities to do this well. Investment in health information management at local and global levels could enhance their capacity for effective communication with patients.

Conclusions: This scoping review underscores the significance of addressing online health misinformation, particularly in the postpandemic era. It highlights the necessity for a collaborative global interdisciplinary effort to ensure equitable access to accurate health information, thereby empowering health practitioners to effectively combat the impact of online health misinformation. Academic research will need to be disseminated into the public domain in a way that is accessible to the public. Without equipping populations with health and digital literacies, the prevalence of online health misinformation will continue to pose a threat to global public health efforts.

Introduction

The global adoption of the internet has made health information more accessible, and the development of digital technology has enabled its rapid dissemination. However, the internet has also made possible the dissemination of false and misleading health misinformation and disinformation, with negative consequences, including the potential to exacerbate health inequalities. Health practitioners have found themselves at the forefront of communicating with patients who have taken on board health misinformation in the context of its proliferation on the web. This paper (associated with the study by Ismail et al [ 1 ]) surveyed the current literature concerning online health misinformation to establish the extent and scope of the problem, with special reference to the needs of health practitioners in their efforts to mitigate its impact. Several studies have established useful definitions of the terms misinformation and disinformation and distinctions between them. Misinformation has been defined as information that is not supported by evidence and contradicts the best-supported evidence available [ 2 , 3 ]. Wang et al [ 4 ] made a further distinction between online misinformation and disinformation, in particular on social media platforms. For Wang et al [ 4 ], misinformation is information that is not known to be false and is shared without malice. By contrast, disinformation involves the knowing and sharing of false information with the purpose of causing harm. This paper follows the distinctions of Wang et al [ 4 ] to use the terms misinformation and disinformation as appropriate.

It is important to acknowledge at the outset that digital technology in health and social contexts presents both risks and opportunities for equity among different information audiences [ 5 ]. However, there has recently been a change in the reception and assessment of the role of the internet, social media in particular, among researchers, even predating the COVID-19 pandemic. In the early days of social media, researchers largely identified prosocial and altruistic uses of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter by the public. However, considerable disquiet about the impact of social media and its potential for the spread of “fake news” and the amplification of conspiracy theories has displaced the more positive evaluation that was apparent when social media was in its infancy [ 6 ]. In the majority of the current research, there is a view that digital technology, particularly social media, has amplified the problem of health misinformation. The risk most frequently identified, either explicitly or implicitly, is the susceptibility of ordinary users, who may be lacking sophisticated levels of health and digital literacies, to health misinformation. Further risks noted in the literature include disinformation disseminated by organized trolling networks and bots that can be hard to distinguish from human users. The recognition of these risks underpins an emerging policy discourse about the threat of health misinformation, particularly the role of social media in its spread, in which health information and misinformation has become a politicized issue. From one policy perspective, there is an assumption that social media users are vulnerable, even passive, recipients of health misinformation rather than reflective interpreters of the available information. The corollary of this is that correcting misinformation with authoritative knowledge will solve the problem. However, a survey of the literature suggested that neither assumption fully expresses the complexity of how health misinformation is disseminated, received, and used via the internet. This may be because although there is a growing body of evidence on the extent of online health misinformation, there is much less research about what users do with health misinformation, why users consume health misinformation, and why (and which) people believe health misinformation [ 7 - 9 ].

In this scoping review, we reviewed the current state of knowledge regarding the prevalence of online misinformation before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact that has on users’ understanding of health information. We considered this context with special reference to patients’ understanding, health practitioners’ practice in response to that, and policy makers’ concerns. The pressures and distractions that health professionals face in attempting to mitigate the impacts of online health misinformation are discussed in relation to patients’ health and digital literacies and the politicization of health information and misinformation.

Information Sources

We conducted a comprehensive literature search to identify relevant studies that explored health misinformation on social media platforms. The search was conducted across multiple electronic databases, including PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar.

The search terms included a combination of relevant keywords and phrases, including “health misinformation,” “social media,” “online health communities,” and “COVID-19 pandemic.” The search was not limited by publication date. Detailed search strategies are provided in Multimedia Appendix 1 .

Study Selection

Our study selection process followed a scoping approach, where we aimed to identify and include studies that provided insights into the prevalence and challenges of health misinformation on social media platforms. Initially, 2 researchers independently screened titles and abstracts of the identified articles to determine their relevance. Articles that did not meet the inclusion criteria were excluded at this stage.

Inclusion Criteria

Articles were included if they discussed health misinformation on social media, addressed the challenges posed by health misinformation, or were relevant to the period before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Any disagreements between the 2 researchers were resolved through discussion and consensus. Full-text articles were then retrieved for the remaining studies, and a further assessment of eligibility was conducted based on the same inclusion criteria.

Data Extraction

We gathered information on (1) study objectives, (2) research methods, (3) findings, and (4) key themes related to health misinformation. This process was performed independently by 2 researchers, and any discrepancies were resolved through discussion.

Data Synthesis and Analysis

We adopted a scoping review content analysis approach to analyze the data extracted from the selected articles. The analysis process involved identifying key themes and patterns related to health misinformation on social media. The content analysis allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges posed by health misinformation and the strategies for its mitigation, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results of Search

In our article selection process ( Figure 1 ), we initiated our search by identifying a total of 4563 articles from various databases. Following the removal of duplicates, 1295 articles were excluded, leaving us with 3268 unique articles. Subsequently, these articles underwent an initial screening, which involved evaluating their abstracts and titles, resulting in the exclusion of 2635 articles that did not align with our inclusion criteria. Further scrutiny was applied during full-text screening, which was conducted on 633 articles. Among these, 563 articles were found ineligible due to reasons such as not meeting the inclusion criteria (n=378 articles), being classified as literature reviews, editorials, or letters (n=174 articles), or the full texts being inaccessible (n=11 articles). A total of 70 articles were ultimately included in this scoping review.

Characteristics of Included Documents (n=70)

The majority (65/70, 93%) of documents were published in the last 10 years and originated predominantly in North America (42/70, 60%), Europe (19/70, 27%), and Asia (11/70, 16%). The funding sources were mainly public (61/70, 87%). The documents were classified as original research papers (38/70, 54%), subjective “opinion” articles (editorials, viewpoints, commentaries, and letters to the journal; 11/70, 16%), and knowledge syntheses or reviews (9/70, 13%) which included systematic reviews (n=6), descriptive reviews (n=2), and 1 integrated theoretic review.

Extent and Impact of Health Misinformation Disseminated Across a Range of Outlets

This section will review the literature concerning the extent and impact of the problem of health misinformation, including the spread of antivaccination discourse. In a study by Wood et al [ 10 ] among health practitioners in North Carolina, 94.2% of the respondents reported encounters with patient health misinformation within the previous year. While the sources of this misinformation were not broken down and identified by Wood et al [ 10 ], several other studies linked patient health misinformation to the prevalence of health misinformation on social media sites, identifying the latter as a significant problem [ 4 , 11 - 15 ]. There is a growing consensus among researchers, health professionals, and policy makers about the need to confront, challenge, and even prevent the online dissemination of health misinformation [ 16 ]. Since the emergence of online social networks, users have increasingly sought and shared health information on social media sites. It is estimated that around 70% of adult internet users search health matters on the web. With the emergence of social media platforms, there has been a rise in “peer-to-peer health care,” through which individuals seek and share health information, forming online health communities with others who have similar health concerns [ 3 ]. In addition, health organizations and health professionals are increasingly using social media to disseminate and promote health information and advice. The opportunities for sharing and promoting good health information via the internet are evident, and it is important to acknowledge that in online health communities, users share experiences and receive and give different kinds of support, including emotional support, to cope with specific health conditions. However, the medium has also enabled the dissemination of health misinformation, and the prosocial aspects of sharing are also likely to involve the sharing of misinformation, putting the health of users at risk [ 3 ].

Misinformation Spreads on Social Media

There is a high degree of consensus among researchers that mainly because of the increasing popularity of social media, the internet has become a space for the dissemination and amplification of “fake news,” misleading information, and rumor, including health misinformation and antivaccine conspiracy theories [ 17 ]. The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened these concerns, resulting in a proliferation of recent studies and rapid reviews focusing on the online spread of misinformation. Lee et al [ 18 ] proposed that the proliferation of health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic became a major public health issue. At the earliest signs of the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, the director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at the February 2020 Munich Security Conference, expressed concern about the risk of an infodemic of health misinformation disseminated via social media, identifying “vaccine hesitancy” as 1 of the top 10 global health threats [ 19 ]. Bapaye and Bapaye [ 20 ] agreed that the risks of misinformation on social networking sites constitute a global issue, referring specifically to the COVID-19 infodemic.

However, this is not in itself a new problem; longstanding concerns about “fake news” and misinformation in traditional media have been evident since the early decades of the 20th century [ 21 ], and the prevalence of misinformation on internet platforms certainly predates the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, because the COVID-19 pandemic has only intensified the concern regarding health misinformation, it might be more appropriate to see the pandemic as symptomatic of, and crystallizing, the challenges of countering health misinformation in the digital age, as the development of digital technology and the internet have brought about profound changes in the capacity of both misinformation and disinformation to spread globally and amplify rapidly [ 4 ].

Suarez-Lledo and Alvarez-Galvez [ 16 ] undertook a review of 69 studies of health misinformation on social media to identify the main health misinformation topics and their frequency on different social media platforms. The studies surveyed used a variety of research methods, including social network analysis (28%), evaluation of content (26%), evaluation of quality (24%), content/text analysis (16%), and sentiment analysis (6%). Suarez-Lledo and Alvarez-Galvez [ 16 ] concluded that the incidence of health misinformation was highest on Twitter, in particular, regarding the use of tobacco and other drugs, with some studies citing 87% of such posts containing misinformation. However, health misinformation about vaccines was also prevalent, with around 43% of posts containing misinformation, with the human papillomavirus vaccine being the most affected. This review by Suarez-Lledo and Alvarez-Galvez [ 16 ] confirmed many of the findings from earlier surveys. For example, in their survey of 57 articles, Wang et al [ 4 ] found that the most frequently discussed topics were regarding vaccination and infectious diseases, including Ebola and the Zika virus. Other topics such as nutrition, cancer, water fluoridation, and smoking were also prevalent. The studies they surveyed had tended to find that a high degree of misinformation on these topics was being shared and liked on social media.

Lee et al [ 18 ] conducted a cross-sectional online survey in South Korea to examine the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation and the impact of exposure to COVID-19 misinformation on beliefs and behaviors. They found that exposure to COVID-19 misinformation was associated with misinformation belief, which then resulted in fewer preventive behaviors. Therefore, they highlighted the potential of misinformation to undermine global efforts in disease control and argued that public health strategies are needed to combat the proliferation of misinformation. Bapaye and Bapaye [ 20 ] conducted a cross-sectional online questionnaire survey of 1137 WhatsApp users in India. They noted that most research on the prevalence of misinformation in social media has focused on Twitter and Facebook and on the Global North. Measured by age, researchers found that users aged >65 years were the most vulnerable to accepting the veracity of messages containing health misinformation (K=0.38, 95% CI 0.341-0.419) Respondents aged 19 to 25 years displayed much lower vulnerability (K=0.31, 95% CI 0.301-0.319) than those aged >25 years ( P <.05). Measured by occupational category, users employed in nonprofessional occupations had the highest vulnerability (K=0.38, 95% CI 0.356-0.404); this was significantly higher than those of professionals and students ( P <.05). Notably, the vulnerability of health professionals was not significantly different from those of other occupation groups ( P >.05).

The authors concluded that in a developing country, WhatsApp users aged >65 years and those involved in nonprofessional occupations are the most vulnerable to false information disseminated via WhatsApp. Crucially, they noted that health care workers, who might be expected by laypersons to have expert knowledge, were as likely to be vulnerable to health misinformation as other occupation groups.

Antivaxxer Spread Before, During, and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic

Much of the current unease from researchers, understandably, centers on health misinformation about vaccines in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, there is concern about the growth and spread of so-called antivaxxer misinformation and beliefs. In 2019, the United States had its biggest measles outbreak in 30 years, with most cases involving people who had not been vaccinated. Hotez [ 22 ] claimed that much of the reason for the growth of antivaccine beliefs is because of a campaign of misinformation. He argued that social media sites are meeting places for the sharing of antivaccine views. To evade social media platforms’ automated moderation tools, which tend to focus on words, several antivaxxer groups, including one with around 250,000 members, began using visual codes, such as the carrot emoji, to hide antivaxxer content.

However, some of the misinformation has gained credibility because it has come from sources that laypersons would expect to be trustworthy. For example, in 1998, the British medical journal The Lancet published a paper by Dr Andrew Wakefield claiming a link between the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine and the onset of autism spectrum disorder. Wakefield’s paper was later rebutted, and an overwhelming body of evidence now refutes its conclusions [ 23 ]. However, despite long being discredited, Wakefield’s claims have remained a part of the antivaccine discourse. The persistence of the antivaccination narrative demonstrates the power of such discourses even in the face of evidence to challenge them.

Although strong antivaccine beliefs, and the more ambivalent attitude of vaccine hesitancy, have been around as long as there have been vaccines, until recent decades, they were on the margins. However, evidence supports the claim that they have been gaining momentum in the United States and Europe.

A survey by Skafle et al [ 24 ] aimed to synthesize the results from 19 studies in which the effect of social media misinformation on vaccine hesitancy was measured or discussed. The authors noted that the “vast majority” of studies were from industrialized Western countries. Only 1 study contained misinformation about autism as a side effect of COVID-19 vaccines. Nevertheless, the studies implied that information spread on social media had a negative effect on vaccine hesitancy and uptake. The conclusions from Skafle et al [ 24 ] were supported by data from online polling agencies. For example, a US YouGov poll from May 2020 found that only 55% of respondents would definitely take a COVID-19 vaccine if one were to become available, whereas 19% of respondents said that they would refuse and 26% were still undecided [ 25 ].

While much of the research about online vaccine discourse comes from the United States, there is also evidence that vaccine hesitancy has risen elsewhere. For example, in an Ipsos-MORI survey taken in December 2020, only 40% of respondents in France said they would take a COVID-19 vaccine, a figure symptomatic of a steep and swift decline in vaccine confidence in France [ 26 ]. However, interestingly, the same Ipsos-MORI poll indicated a rise in vaccine confidence among respondents in the United States since the earlier YouGov poll, cited earlier, by approximately 10% to 65%, and respondents in the United Kingdom expressed a still higher willingness to take a COVID-19 vaccine at approximately 77%. It is notable that in the United States and United Kingdom, the Ipsos-MORI results came after a period of intermittent lockdowns. The contrast with the results from France is, nevertheless, striking.

Understanding the Challenges Surrounding Health Misinformation

Here, we consider the challenges created by health misinformation on the web: (1) the role played by malicious actors on social media in spreading vaccine disinformation and misinformation and (2) how contextual and cultural issues have different effects on patients’ understanding of what is considered genuine, valid, and authentic health information.

Spread of Health Misinformation on Social Media by Malicious Actors

One strand of research presents the issue of health misinformation as a contest between trolls and bots on the one hand and the voices of trustworthy public health agencies on the other [ 6 ]. This view was supported by Hotez [ 22 ] and Broniatowski et al [ 11 ]. The latter investigated the role of bots and trolls as malicious actors mobilizing vaccination discourse on the web. Their study focused specifically on vaccine-related health messaging on Twitter. Comparing the rates of vaccine-related messages, they found that sophisticated bots and Russian trolls tweeted at higher rates than “average users.” However, the respective content from bots and trolls differed. Whereas bots communicated antivaccine messages, Russian troll accounts provided a seemingly balanced discussion of both provaccination and antivaccination arguments, implying an equivalence between them. The authors argued that amplifying and normalizing a debate is done with the purpose of sowing discord and may lead to undermining public confidence in scientific consensus about the effectiveness of vaccines. Wang et al [ 4 ] acknowledged that it is a challenge to readily distinguish between misinformation and disinformation on the web. They noted that disinformation, such as antivaccine propaganda, can unknowingly be spread by users with genuine concerns [ 4 ], as individuals increasingly seek health and healthy lifestyle information via the internet.

Contextual Factors Influencing the Reception of and Responses to Misinformation: Politicization of the Problem of Health Misinformation

The identification of online trolls, bots, and orchestrated networks as major contributors to the spread of health disinformation and misinformation is now part of mainstream political discourse in the United States. On July 16, 2021, a quarrel broke out between the president of the United States, Joe Biden, and Facebook over the spread of health misinformation on the company’s social media platforms. Speaking to journalists, Biden blamed social media companies for a rise in the number of deaths from COVID-19 among the unvaccinated in the United States. Referring explicitly to Facebook, the president claimed that by allowing the proliferation of health misinformation on its platforms, the company was “killing people” [ 27 ]. Discursive interventions from politicians are never neutral; nevertheless, Biden’s claim about the impact of health misinformation on social media is backed up by many of the studies surveyed for this paper. Facebook immediately rebutted Biden’s accusation by citing their rules, introduced in February 2021, which banned posts that make identifiably false claims about vaccines. Furthermore, Facebook challenged Biden’s claim by asserting that not only has Facebook provided more authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines than any other internet site, reaching 2 billion people with such posts, but also that the platform’s vaccine finder tool had been used by more than 3 million Americans.

These figures suggest that although antivaxxer groups find ways to evade detection, their reach may be countered by that of information grounded in current science. A spokesperson for the company said that, far from killing people, “The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period” [ 27 ]. The argument between Biden and Facebook may indeed signal more lay awareness of the problem and echo the concerns of the recent academic research about the dissemination of health misinformation by organized bot and troll networks. Framed as it is, in terms of apportioning the blame for the spread of health misinformation, Biden’s intervention mirrors much of the academic discourse in the United States on the subject. However, it is also symptomatic of the politicization of health misinformation, arguably accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which may thwart evidence-based decision-making. This point was emphasized strongly by Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ]. They framed the problem of pervasive misinformation and disinformation in terms of prime movers and beneficiaries who use it to advance sociopolitical agendas and entrench asymmetrical power, especially in times of uncertainty and threat, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ] identified government failures to adopt evidence-informed decision-making. They noted that such failures have costs that not only are economic but, crucially, result in poorer health outcomes. They cited as an example the United Kingdom government’s initial prevaccine herd immunity strategy. The intention of this strategy was to allow SARS-CoV-2 to indiscriminately spread to a critical mass to build up population immunity. The authors noted that this was “a particularly concerning example of evidence framing by a government.” Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ] argued that public acceptance of health risk messages and adoption of health-protecting behaviors is highly contingent on the degree to which governments engage in evidence-informed decision-making and communicate this basis effectively. The authors cited several instances of government actors failing to recognize misinformation, disseminating inconsistent or inaccurate information, and not using evidence- and information-based decision-making processes. In recent years, the public policy discourse in the United Kingdom has been veering away from evidence- and information-based decision-making, as politicians have denounced “experts” and their “influence” on policy [ 28 , 29 ].

Finally, Gruzd et al [ 30 ] reported on the impact of coordinated link-sharing behavior to spread and amplify conspiracy-related misinformation. They found a coalition of Facebook accounts that engaged in coordinated link sharing behavior to promote COVID-19 related misinformation. This coalition included US-based pro-Trump, QAnon, and antivaccination accounts.

Contextual Factors Influencing the Reception of and Responses to Misinformation: Health Literacies and Inequality

While the approach of Broniatowski et al [ 11 ], for example, provided a persuasive account of ways in which online health misinformation can be disseminated, there are limitations to this approach, as it did not provide an account of how users respond to the misinformation they encounter. The responses of ordinary users were assumed rather than investigated. Research by Vosoughi et al [ 31 ] provided a caveat to the claim that it is bots that accelerate the spread of misinformation. Their work supported that of Broniatowski et al [ 11 ] in suggesting that bots spread accurate and false information at the same rate. However, Vosoughi et al [ 31 ] also explained that misinformation spreads more rapidly than accurate information because humans, rather than bots, are more likely to spread misinformation [ 31 ]. This claim was further supported by Wang [ 32 ], who suggested that in democracies, where ideas compete for attention in a marketplace, accurate scientific information, which, for the layperson, may be boring or difficult to understand, is easily crowded out by information that is more easily grasped or sensational. Mokhtari and Mirzaei [ 12 ] located this problem specifically in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. They considered that high mortality from COVID-19, its complexity, and its unknown features resulted in fear, anxiety, and mental pressure among people worldwide. To allay anxiety, people needed health information literacy, defined by the American Library Association as a set of abilities individuals require to recognize when information is needed and to locate, evaluate, and use it effectively [ 33 ]. In addition, Wang [ 32 ] noted that individuals are differentially vulnerable to health misinformation depending on their level of health literacy and that models need to account for this. Mokhtari and Mirzaei [ 12 ] argued that not only information and health literacies but also media literacy are needed. However, studies in the field of health literacy suggest that significant inequalities in health and digital literacies exist.

Researchers have argued that “vastly undervalued and unrecognized” health literacy ought to be considered the best “social vaccine” for preventing COVID-19 in populations [ 5 ]. However, inequalities in health literacy persist. Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ] defined health literacy as encompassing cognitive and social skills that determine individuals’ motivation and ability to access, understand, and use information, including quantitative health risk information, in ways that promote and maintain good health across the life course. They asserted that health literacy is an essential self-management skill and community resource for health, noting that health literacy is positively associated with patients’ involvement in clinical decision-making, willingness to express health concerns, and compliance with clinical guidance. However, despite research demonstrating the importance of health literacy, evidence, even from high-income countries, suggested relatively low levels of health literacy.

Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ] drew a link between health literacy and digital literacy. They suggested that the latter can be understood as health literacy in digital information and technology spaces. They argued that inequalities in health outcomes are exacerbated by a widening digital divide. While digital technology in health and social contexts presents both new risks and opportunities for equity in different information audiences, the ways in which power and privilege operated in the COVID-19 misinformation discourse have not been sufficiently examined. Although socially and economically disadvantaged groups were at a greater risk of exposure to COVID-19, their voices and experiences were often marginalized. In addition, inequalities in access to accurate information are not only related to issues of digital access and literacy but are also situational. For example, disadvantaged individuals may have fewer social connections, and low pay may necessitate longer working hours, militating against individuals having the resources of time and energy to seek out accurate health information and enhance their level of health literacy.

The experiences of specific groups may also go unreported. Quraishi [ 34 ] addressed the impact of misinformation on South Asian students—a fast-growing group in the United States, but one that often receives little media attention. Quraishi [ 34 ] concluded that there is a relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and students’ academic performance and mental health, as well as an increase in the spread of misinformation regarding COVID-19 public safety guidelines.

Older adults can be a vulnerable group in relation to their comparatively poor digital literacy. Zhou et al [ 35 ] reported on the accuracy of older adults in judging health information credibility. They found that on average, participants only successfully judged 41.38% of health articles. Attractive headlines increased participant credibility judgments on the content, and of the articles shared with others, 62.5% contained falsehoods.

Contextual Factors Influencing the Reception of and Responses to Misinformation: Cultures and Values

Larson and Broniatowski [ 19 ] argued that developing the kinds of literacy advocated by Mokhtari and Mirzaei [ 12 ] and Tully et al [ 2 ] will not address the deep-seated problems they identified. The work by Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ] supported this, and noted that the infodemic crisis is not merely a health and digital literacy issue. Some demographics may be more vulnerable to persuasive communication from broader sociocultural forces. Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ] argued that in considering the social determinants of health, attention must be paid not only to digital and health literacies but also to the ways in which these literacies coexist and interact with other influences. Larson and Broniatowski [ 19 ] suggested that one of the strongest determinants of vaccine confidence or vaccine hesitancy is the level of trust or distrust in the institutions that produce vaccines. A higher level of trust encourages the willingness to accept a high level of risk for a greater benefit. A lower level of trust militates against the acceptance of even a low level of perceived risk. For Larson and Broniatowski [ 19 ], it is not simply the presence of misinformation on social media networks but the social and cultural context of users’ reception of that information that influences responses. Health information operates in a complex and contentious social world. Individuals and communities respond to new information in terms of already developed political, cultural, and social values that influence whether they trust or distrust authority. Populations may be characterized by trust or mistrust of scientific institutions and government. Trust has been eroded through the exposure of fraud, research scandals, and misconduct by major multinational pharmaceutical companies, for example. Communities may be predisposed to distrust the government and its agents depending on their own status or identity. According to Goldenberg [ 36 ], these contexts can make misinformation and health conspiracy theories compelling.

Strategies to Correct Online Misinformation

We address the additional pressures on health professionals in communicating accurate information to mitigate the effects of misinformation, particularly with regard to the additional requirements imposed as a result of the precautions being taken during the pandemic. One area of disagreement in the literature concerns the usefulness of user correction response.

Research Into User Correction Strategies

There is some disagreement as to whether engagement with misinformation by users spreads and reinforces it or even whether extended debates over health misinformation cause users to doubt the possibility of knowable facts. For example, Broniatowski et al [ 11 ] argued that when ordinary users directly confront vaccine-skeptic messages from bots, it only serves to legitimize the “debate.” By contrast, Tully et al [ 2 ] argued that social media users have a role to play in either spreading or stopping the spread of misinformation across platforms. Their research aimed to uncover what factors influenced users’ responses. Tully et al [ 2 ] acknowledged that a range of factors can influence the spread or prevention of misinformation, including the behavior of malicious actors such as bots and trolls; the platform’s terms of service; and content moderation policies. As already noted, while most users are not creators of misinformation, they may spread and amplify it by liking, sharing, or replying. In opposition to the work of Broniatowski et al [ 11 ], Tully et al [ 2 ] argued that the content of engagement is particularly important, as their research suggested that multiple corrections by social media users may be required to reduce misperceptions. However, they claimed that most people simply ignore misinformation when they see it on social media.

Tully et al [ 2 ] noted the promise in mobilizing users to engage in such correction, given the vast numbers of users on these sites, in comparison with professional fact-checkers and health authorities.

They considered whether the tone of a correction would influence perceptions of the credibility of the message. However, despite some mixed evidence, they concluded that overall, the tone was not a significant factor and that neutral, affirmative, and uncivil corrections were all effective at reducing misperceptions. They found that participants were generally unlikely to reply to the misinformation tweet. However, their content analysis of hypothetical replies suggested that when users did reply, they mainly provided correct information, particularly after seeing other corrections. Tully et al [ 2 ] concluded that user corrections offer “untapped potential” in responding to misinformation on social media, but further work is needed to consider how users can be mobilized to provide corrections, given their overall unwillingness to reply. However, a limitation of the experimental approach of Tully et al [ 2 ], acknowledged by the researchers, is that in asking individuals what they would hypothetically do, this may not reflect what they actually do in a real social media setting, especially in relation to an issue they care more strongly about. Although the experiment gauged attitudes, it did not delve into how strongly these attitudes were held. It is also not clear to what degree corrections were effective at reducing misperceptions and how reductions were measured.

By contrast, the results of experimental studies by Ittefaq [ 37 ] and Mourali and Drake [ 38 ] suggested that correcting misinformation is by no means a straightforward proposition. They noted the previous research on rebuttal, which suggested that properly designed corrections can mitigate the effects of misinformation. However, such studies have tended to compare responses to misinformation followed by correction with responses of a control group that receives no correction or receives an alternative correction. Mourali and Drake [ 38 ] argued that this static approach misses the dynamic nature of social media debate. They noted that the correction of misinformation is generally followed up with a rebuke by the original poster, inciting further correction and prolonged back-and-forth debate. Mourali and Drake [ 38 ] cited previous studies showing that exposure to conflicting information about health topics, including mammography, nutrition, and the human papillomavirus vaccine, may increase confusion and negative attitudes toward that particular health topic. The researchers found that initial exposure to misinformation had a negative impact on attitudes and intentions toward masking, consistent with previous studies that concluded that exposure to misinformation negatively impacts attitudes and intentions toward behaviors favored by science. Also consistent with previous research, they found that the first correction of the false claim improved attitudes and intentions toward masking. The authors suggested that this effect is partially explained by a decrease in the perceived strength of the argument underlying the false claim. However, this initial improvement diminished on further exposure to false claims and refutation attempts. This finding confirmed their hypothesis that extended exposure to false claims and refutation attempts appears to weaken belief in the possibility of objective knowledge, leading to less positive reactions toward masking as a science-based behavior. They concluded that the level of exposure to contradictory information needs to reach a certain threshold before it affects perceived truth objectivity. However, although people are more likely to share misinformation when its content is consistent with their existing beliefs or when its message is simple, direct, or sensational, correcting misinformation does reduce its likelihood of being shared on social media, an effect that persists even after multiple exposures.

Mourali and Drake [ 38 ] noted that each social media platform exhibits particular interaction norms, which may impact how users interpret the conversation. As their study was limited to a single platform, Reddit, and the debate was restricted to 4 exchanges between only 2 protagonists, the researchers acknowledged that these aspects limit the generalizability of the results. They suggested that future research could attempt to replicate their findings on different social media platforms, and to include more than 2 protagonists and more than 4 exchanges. They noted further that although extended debates are common on social media, it is not known how frequently they occur, echoing the comments by Suarez-Lledo and Alvarez-Galvez [ 16 ] that the extent of misinformation is not clear.

In contrast to the fairly sanguine view of Tully et al [ 2 ] about the potential of users to spread corrective information, Mourali and Drake [ 38 ] problematized the position, pointing to the potential for more complex and uncertain outcomes, whereas Larson and Broniatowski [ 19 ] argued that although the importance of correcting misinformation, item by item, should not be diminished, only if underlying issues driving misinformation are addressed can, for example, long-term vaccine confidence in populations be sustained. They argue that simply responding to misinformation with factual corrections is not likely to reverse the dissent that has been evident among antivaxxers or to necessarily persuade the more ambivalent vaccine-hesitant individuals. They identified deeper social and cultural issues at play, which have been discussed in this paper in the previous sections.

Research Into Effective Models to Accomplish the Automatic Detection of Health Misinformation in Online Health Communities

Here, we consider examples of research into the automatic detection of health misinformation in online health communities. Zhao et al [ 3 ] began from the premise that there is a vast amount of health misinformation, creating a challenge for health communities in identifying misinformation. Rather than relying on users’ ability to correct misinformation, they proposed that there is a need for an effective model to achieve automatic detection of health misinformation in online health communities. This view was also put forward by Weinzierl and Harabagiu [ 39 ]. Focusing specifically on COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, they argued that automatic detection of misinformation on social media is an essential first step in delivering interventions designed to address vaccine hesitancy.

Zhao et al [ 3 ] identified much of the existing analysis as concentrating on the linguistic features of communications only. They wanted to examine the underresearched area of whether integrating user behavioral features with linguistic features, sentiment features, and topic features could effectively distinguish misinformation from accurate information in online health communities. Their study combined the aforementioned features to build a detection model targeting misinformation in online health communities’ contexts. The behavioral features targeted were discussion initiation, interaction engagement, influential scope, relational mediation, and informational independence. Descriptions of these behavioral features are reproduced in Table 1 .

The authors tested their detection model on a data set collected from a real online health community, selecting as their data source Zibizheng Ba, an autism forum on the Baidu Tieba online health community site hosted by the Chinese web service Baidu. Baidu Tieba claims to be one of the largest interest-based discussion platforms in China. Users can generate topic-based discussion forums on the platform, share information, and make friends with other users. Posts on Baidu Tieba are indexed by Baidu, China’s most popular search engine, so users can readily find misinformation when searching for health-related information through the search engine. The authors developed a python-based web crawler to collect data from the forum. To train the health misinformation detection model, 5000 records were sampled from the whole data set by stratification according to 3 types of records (ie, thread, reply, and reply to reply) using stratified sampling methods. Therefore, the constituent types of the records (ie, thread, reply, and reply to reply) in the sample data set were consistent with the composition of the whole data set.

The researchers applied the elaboration likelihood model (ELM). The model, originally developed by Petty and Cacioppo [ 40 ] to explain attitude change, has been used extensively in advertising to try to influence consumers.

Overall, 4 types of misinformation were identified through their coding analysis, and the model correctly detected about 85% of the health misinformation. Their results also indicated that behavioral features were more informative than linguistic features in detecting misinformation. The authors concluded that their results not only demonstrated the efficacy of behavioral features in health misinformation detection but also offered both methodological and theoretical contributions to misinformation detection by integrating the features of messages as well as the features of message creators. Others have also highlighted the problems posed by misleading visual information [ 41 ].

It is worth noting that during the pandemic, the UK National Health Service (NHS) began using Twitter to promote provaccine messaging, which closely follows a combination of the features suggested by Zhao et al [ 3 ]. When users searched for the term “vaccine” or related terms, the top post was a message prominently displaying the NHS logo, identifying it as reputable and trustworthy. The tweets contained links to NHS websites providing information about vaccines and COVID-19. The posts differed in linguistic content and visual design. For example, one featured only written text on a white background and stated in bold, “Know the facts.” Another featured a large image of a happy minority ethnic family, washing dishes together, with the message that the COVID-19 vaccine decreases household transmission by up to half. The contrasting designs suggest that the message was targeted specifically to users’ timelines. It was also apparent that elements of ELM were being applied, combining the features identified by Zhao et al [ 3 ] in different ways.

Weinzierl and Harabagiu [ 39 ] adopted a different method than Zhao et al [ 3 ], reversing the more commonly used classification approach. The authors of each study claimed strong results in identifying health misinformation on social media platforms. However, Nabożny et al [ 42 ] argued that the current automatic systems for assessing the credibility of health information are not sufficiently precise to be used without supervision by human medical expert annotators.

Barve and Saini [ 43 ] have reported on their use of automated fact-checking using a coded content similarity measure (CSM). In this approach, the CSM showed improved accuracy (91.06%) compared to the accuracy of the Jaccard similarity measure (74.26%). Further, the algorithmic approach outperformed the feature-based method.

Neither Zhao et al [ 3 ] nor Weinzierl and Harabagiu [ 39 ] recorded what happens when misinformation is detected. Research from Broniatowksi et al [ 44 ] suggested that once detected, steps taken by social media platforms such as content removal or deplatforming may not be effective in stemming the spread of misinformation and may even be counterproductive. Social media platforms use a combination of “hard” and “soft” content remedies to reduce the spread of health misinformation. Soft remedies include warning labels attached to content and downranking of some content in web searches, whereas hard remedies include content removal and deplatforming of accounts. Hard remedies are controversial and have given rise to accusations of censorship. For the authors, short-term evidence for the effectiveness of hard remedies is in any case mixed, and long-term evidence is yet to be examined. Their study focused on Facebook and found that while hard remedies did reduce the number of antivaccine posts, they also produced unintended consequences. Provaccine content was removed, and engagement with the remaining antivaccine content repeatedly recovered to prepolicy levels. Worryingly, this content became more misinformative, more politically polarized, and more likely to be seen in users’ news feeds. The authors explain these results as a product of Facebook’s architecture, which is designed to promote community formation. Members of communities dedicated to vaccine refusal seek out misinformation. To meet this demand, and to circumvent content moderation efforts, antivaccine content producers post links to external sources of misinformative content, such as Bitchute, Rumble, Gab, and Telegram, in lieu of more mainstream platforms that had implemented similar content removal policies (eg, YouTube and Twitter). Broniatowski et al [ 44 ] argued that Facebook’s policy reduced the number of posts in antivaccine venues but was not successful in inducing a sustained reduction in engagement with antivaccine content, including misinformation. The authors noted that alternative platforms often host politically extreme right-wing content. Therefore, they argued that Facebook’s content removal policies may have the unintended consequence of radicalizing their audiences, and their findings suggested the need to address how social media platform architecture enables community formation and mobilization around misinformative topics when managing the spread of online content.

These studies advocate for the automatic detection of health misinformation. However, work that calls into question the ability of automatic detection to operate without human intervention has also been discussed. In addition, there are questions raised in the literature about what should be done when misinformation is detected and concerns about whether content removal or deplatforming of accounts are the most effective ways to reduce the spread of health misinformation or may even be counterproductive.

The Roles of Health Practitioners

The discussion so far has highlighted the complex and multifaceted dimensions of the context of online health misinformation in which health practitioners must operate. As noted in our introduction, a study of health practitioners in North Carolina found that nearly 95% had encountered patient health misinformation within the previous year [ 10 ]. There is very little research on the amount or effectiveness of training received by health professionals to prepare them for engaging with patients about health misinformation. Wood et al [ 10 ] found that most respondents had not received relevant training despite overwhelmingly reporting encountering health misinformation.

Nevertheless, within the literature, there is no shortage of advice from researchers and health professionals addressed to health practitioners on how to approach and correct health misinformation. This advice stems from both original research studies and reviews of best practices featured in peer-reviewed medical and health journals. Such advice centers on the need for health practitioners to understand misinformation and how to address it. Health practitioners are advised of the need to be aware of health myths and urged to dismantle them in providing accurate health guidance [ 45 , 46 ]. Practitioners are further advised that misinformation and pseudoscience are appealing to those seeking certainty because they present information in absolutes, whereas medical science is often ambiguous and contingent. Health practitioners are also encouraged to learn how to message more clearly and to mimic the strategies of misinformation [ 45 ]. One study recommends that “practitioners familiarize themselves with the tools of scientific enquiry and consider the pros and cons of various conspiracy evaluation guidelines” [ 47 ]. Thompson [ 48 ] reports on the activity of health professional influencers and pedagogues in combating misinformation. However, the effectiveness of such social media influencers who are also health professionals remains unclear. At the same time, there is some acknowledgment in this body of literature that misinformation cannot simply be offset with facts, confirming the challenges, discussed earlier, of simply engaging in online refutation. Addressing misinformation also depends on meeting patients’ emotional needs [ 45 , 49 ].

In this context, the one-to-one patient-provider relationship in the practice setting is perceived as paramount [ 45 ]. As suggested by much of the research, source credibility, or trust, is understood to be the strongest driver of effective correction strategies [ 50 ]. It is argued that health care practitioners have the unique opportunity to guide patients toward high-quality, evidence-based medical information [ 10 ]. However, it is also noted that practitioners will need patience in their efforts to persuade patients to abandon strongly held self-beliefs, however harmful. Doing so may mean patients relinquishing membership of online communities that have become integral in their lives and even their identities. As noted earlier, belief in misinformation is often persistent in the face of evidence. Success is more likely when individuals are encouraged to reexamine their information sources, alongside new information providing additional context, rather than simply characterizing the individual’s beliefs as wrong [ 51 ]. Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ] commented that good health communication needs to be tailored to the underlying cause of the misinformation problem, and efforts should be made to take on board inequalities within populations to create accurate, low-barrier, targeted health risk messaging. Skafle et al [ 24 ] contended that to challenge misconceptions, false claims need to be openly addressed and discussed with both cultural and religious awareness in mind. Guidance for practitioners noted that while responding to patient questions about alternative or unproven therapies may become laborious, a strong bond of trust between health practitioner and patient gives a patient a feeling of being supported and increases their adherence to treatment [ 52 ]. Rather than waiting for patients to raise misinformation issues, health care practitioners are advised to anticipate and proactively address potential misinformation and myths with patients. For example, the mortality rate for pediatric cancer has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic because of delayed access to medical care, but misinformation related to COVID-19 may also be a contributing factor [ 53 ]. The literature highlights the challenge of navigating the information and misinformation and the need for health practitioners to communicate with their patients more effectively. However, such efforts are not always successful. Some of the factors that may prevent effective communication of good health information have already been raised in this paper. They are revisited and discussed in the next section, along with other stressors for health practitioners.

Stressors for Health Practitioners

Challenges for health practitioners include time pressures and the additional burdens placed on them during the COVID-19 pandemic. These additional pressures add to the issues health practitioners face in trying to mitigate the impact of misinformation. The following is a brief overview of these issues.

On the one hand, administrative burdens placed on practitioners frequently deny them time for dialogue with their patients [ 52 ]. On the other, in different contexts, practitioners may be coping with a lack of proper facilities; poor infrastructure for patient care; insufficient or ineffective personal protective equipment; lack of awareness among the general population; poor compliance with preventive methods; and the fear of being infected with the virus, as they too are exposed to misinformation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, health practitioners were considered more vulnerable than other workers to developing psychological problems and other stress-related disorders, as they treated patients confirmed with COVID-19 while also dealing with misinformation [ 54 ].

As noted above, practitioners are recommended to invest in developing high levels of patient trust and to proactively correct health misinformation. However, recommendations presuppose that health practitioners necessarily have the resources to do these things well. Some of the materials produced to educate patients are not always reliable or evidence based, resulting ultimately in a loss of trust on the part of patients [ 52 ]. In addition, as noted previously, health practitioners themselves are not necessarily immune from accepting health misinformation as credible. Evidence about the level of knowledge and understanding of COVID-19 among practitioners reveals its unevenness. A study of dentists and oral health practitioners’ knowledge about COVID-19 suggested that their knowledge was at a relatively high level [ 55 ]. By contrast, a study of 310 eye care professionals in Nepal revealed some knowledge but also some acceptance of misinformation. Symptoms of COVID-19 were known to 94% of participants, but only 49% of participants were aware of how the disease is transmitted. More significantly, 41% of participants believed that the consumption of hot drinks helps to destroy the virus, in contradiction to World Health Organization information. The mean overall “knowledge” performance score, as measured by the benchmarks set by the researchers, was 69.65% [ 56 ].

A qualitative study to investigate primary health care practitioners’ perceptions and understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic was conducted in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The study collected data from 15 participants at 2 different clinics situated in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Participants comprised nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists, community caregivers, social workers, and clinical associates. Data were collected through individual, in-depth face-to-face interviews using a semistructured interview guide. The participants reported prepandemic and pandemic experiences of fear or denial. There was a perception of poor preparation for the COVID-19 outbreak. The findings also revealed participants’ misperceptions regarding the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers concluded that respondents’ misunderstandings regarding the pandemic were primarily a result of misinformation found on social media [ 57 ].

The discussion in this section so far has highlighted the significant potential of health practitioners in mitigating the impact of online health misinformation. However, it has also underlined factors that may militate against health practitioners’ ability to do so effectively. Not least of these is the issue of health practitioners’ own knowledge, which coexists with other stressors for health practitioners in combating misinformation. The discussion will now consider health information management (HIM) as a tool for supporting health practitioners’ knowledge base as one element in a multifaceted strategy for combating misinformation on the web.

HIM as a Mitigation Strategy

We have seen there is a need for health practitioners to be supported with evidence-based knowledge that they can share with patients. Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ] argued that the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that in an infectious health crisis, the gathering of accurate and reliable data to assist with the public health response is essential. They highlighted the importance of HIM professionals in supporting contact tracing and syndromic surveillance, as well as in mapping and forecasting health data. They noted that the generation of health information supports the continuum of care and the setting of targets and indicators and aids the planning, monitoring, and evaluation of health programs locally and globally. The health information produced also underpins the development of equitable, efficient, and accessible health care systems, contributing to improving public health initiatives and outcomes. Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ] emphasized the importance of an area of HIM, currently in its early stages, that deals with gathering and identifying evidence about the structural inequalities that underlie the disparities in vulnerability to health misinformation discussed in this paper. The collection of rich, high-quality information, including patient-reported experience, outcome measures, and culturally appropriate identity data, can enable health practitioners and public health advisers serving the most disadvantaged and underrepresented communities to use more tools of advocacy for patients.

The authors noted that advances in technology, including artificial intelligence, have the potential to relieve some of the pressures and constraints on health practitioners working on the front line during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing more time for one-to-one engagement with patients. Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ] advocated for the content expertise of health information managers to serve health practitioners by delivering patient-facing information triaging services; constructing user-friendly knowledge representations, such as data visualizations; and developing information interpretation tools, such as decision aids, plain language summaries, and supplementary explanatory information and metadata. Kyabaggu et al [ 5 ] identified the interdisciplinary underpinnings of HIM as essential in contributing to the educational, informational, and decision-making support for addressing current and future infodemic management crises.

Summary of Results

Within the literature, there is a consensus that there exists a significant problem of online health misinformation disseminated via the internet on social network platforms, often by online health communities. It is apparent that while users seek trustworthy sources of health information, they are unequally equipped to assess its credibility. This is partly because some groups lack sufficient levels of health and digital literacies, which may be exacerbated by concomitant social and economic inequalities. Reception of, and response to, online health misinformation is also shaped by users’ cultural contexts, values, and experiences, which may hinder trust in scientific institutions and governments. Evidence suggests that some demographics are more vulnerable to accepting health misinformation as credible and that health practitioners are unevenly prepared in the context of new global health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the evidence of disparities in positive and negative attitudes toward vaccination highlights a need to pay specific attention to regional and national settings, even in the current global context. Preexisting levels of local trust in vaccine providers may be a significant factor to consider. While the validity and reliability of YouGov polls are limited, nevertheless, the data from an admittedly narrow range of sources suggests that vaccine confidence may have become more fluctuating and potentially vulnerable to destabilization in the digital era.

While online mitigation strategies such as user correction and automatic detection may have their uses, their effectiveness is contested, and some studies suggest they may even be counterproductive. Our analysis of the available literature indicates that the effectiveness of these strategies varies and needs further evaluation [ 42 , 58 ]. The issue of online health misinformation is further complicated by the operation of malicious actors and politicization of the issue, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, militating against the equitable and trusted dissemination of evidence-based knowledge. The role of health practitioners in this context is a challenging one. Research suggests that on the one hand, they are still best placed, at the front line of care, to combat health misinformation with science-based knowledge and advice. On the other hand, the stressors identified in this review create barriers to their abilities to do this well. Constraints of time and lack of supporting infrastructure add to the knowledge deficit noted earlier. Our review underlines the complexity of the environment in which health practitioners operate and calls for greater support and resources to enable effective mitigation of health misinformation [ 59 ]. Investment in HIM at local and global levels could address all 3 deficits, creating the potential for health practitioners to enhance their capacity to build trust via knowledgeable one-to-one communication with patients.

Limitations

The limitations of this study are the following: First, the constraints of time and space have necessarily limited the scale and scope of the survey. Second, the study of online health misinformation is a growing field, and inevitably, the nature of the issue means that new evidence is emerging at a rapid rate. In particular, new knowledge and further reflection in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to shed new light on the subject. Our study acknowledges these limitations and emphasizes the dynamic nature of the field.

Conclusions

Our survey of the literature on online health misinformation has revealed a complex and multifaceted context in which health practitioners must operate. As the world renormalizes following the pandemic, a collaborative global interdisciplinary effort to provide equitable access to timely, accurate, and complete health information will be needed to support health practitioners in combating the impact of online health misinformation. Academic research will need to be disseminated into the public domain in a way that is accessible to the public to counter misinformation and educate populations concerning how science is carried out. Our conclusions drawn from this review stress the urgency of effective strategies and collaborative efforts to mitigate the prevalence and impact of health misinformation on a global scale. Without strategies for equipping populations with the health and digital literacies required to interpret and use information appropriately, the prevalence of online health misinformation will continue to pose a threat to global public health efforts, disproportionately affecting vulnerable and resource-limited populations. Although social media platforms have a responsibility to correct misinformation, governments will need to engage in evidence-informed decision-making and invest in HIM to support frontline health practitioners in their work, enhance population health literacy, and strengthen evidence-informed decision-making at all levels.

Several issues for further investigation arise from the findings of this review. These include the following:

• The long-term impact of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy
• Whether the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified or diminished information literacy, and the related question of whether the pandemic will incentivize health information literacy
• The effects of social and cultural differences on the long-term traction of future health misinformation
• Whether social and economic inequalities will become less or more pronounced in the face of a global pandemic
• The comparative effectiveness of strategies to enhance populations’ media and digital literacies to facilitate the mitigation of health misinformation and its effects
• The influence of state actors on the propagation of health misinformation on the web
• The extent to which academic research has been disseminated into the public domain in a way that is accessible to the public, and the effectiveness of strategies to do so to counter misinformation and educate populations concerning how science is carried out

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the School of Computing and Communications at the Open University. It allowed researchers across several faculties to collaborate and build a research team that focused on the experience of health practitioners with misinformation and its impact on their job practice. The authors would also like to thank Tracie Farrell and Nashwa Ismail for their invaluable suggestions and recommendations, as well as their assistance in the article screening process.

Data Availability

The data analyzed in this study are derived from published articles available on Google Scholar. All articles included in the review are cited in the reference list. No additional data or code were collected or generated as part of this study.

Authors' Contributions

The study was conceptualized by DK; funding acquisition was managed by DK; data were curated by DK, AK, MM, and IK; formal analysis was conducted by DK and MM; the investigation was carried out by AK and MM; the methodology was designed by DK and MM; project administration was overseen by DK; resources were provided by DK; supervision was carried out by DK; validation was conducted by DK, AK, MM, and IK; visualization was handled by DK and MM; writing (original draft preparation) was done by DK; and writing (review and editing) was carried out by DK, AK, and MM. All authors reviewed and approved the final version.

Conflicts of Interest

None declared.

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Abbreviations

Edited by G Eysenbach, T Leung; submitted 15.04.22; peer-reviewed by G Nneji, S-F Tsao; comments to author 07.06.22; revised version received 29.09.22; accepted 12.07.24; published 19.08.24.

©Dhouha Kbaier, Annemarie Kane, Mark McJury, Ian Kenny. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 19.08.2024.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (ISSN 1438-8871), is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

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Older Adults Do Not Benefit From Moderate Drinking, Large Study Finds

Virtually any amount increased the risk for cancer, and there were no heart benefits, the researchers reported.

By Roni Caryn Rabin

Even light drinking was associated with an increase in cancer deaths among older adults in Britain, researchers reported on Monday in a large study. But the risk was accentuated primarily in those who had existing health problems or who lived in low-income areas.

The study, which tracked 135,103 adults aged 60 and older for 12 years, also punctures the long-held belief that light or moderate alcohol consumption is good for the heart.

The researchers found no reduction in heart disease deaths among light or moderate drinkers, regardless of this health or socioeconomic status, when compared with occasional drinkers.

The study defined light drinking as a mean alcohol intake of up to 20 grams a day for men and up to 10 grams daily for women. (In the United States, a standard drink is 14 grams of alcohol .)

“We did not find evidence of a beneficial association between low drinking and mortality,” said Dr. Rosario Ortolá, an assistant professor of preventive medicine and public health at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the lead author of the paper, which was published in JAMA Network Open.

On the other hand, she added, alcohol probably raises the risk of cancer “from the first drop.”

The findings add to a mounting body of evidence that is shifting the paradigm in alcohol research. Scientists are turning to new methodologies to analyze the risks and benefits of alcohol consumption in an attempt to correct what some believe were serious flaws in earlier research, which appeared to show that there were benefits to drinking.

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