Writing & Citing

There is one major difference between the term papers you've written before and the literature review you're writing now: Goal of the final product.

Term papers are written to research a specific topic that you have an opinion on and, in a way, provide informaiton to prove that your opinion is the most accurate according to the supporting research. You'll often find that term papers include things like counterarguments and emotion-weighted words. These aren't bad things! They're very important to term papers! However, literature reviews have a different end-goal.

Literature reviews are written to do one thing and one thing only: Review the literature. If you have an opinion on your topic (which, hopefully, you do!), the literature review is not the time to talk about it. For a literature review, you're going over the research that has already been done to establish a baseline of knowledge between you and your reader. You're looking to figure out what the experts already know and what they haven't figured out yet (also referred to as "gaps in the literature"). You're summarizing articles and drawing connections between them; not much more and not much less.

If your professor has already given you an outline, ignore this box completely, and follow your professor's provided outline!

If you're writing your literature review from a blank slate, you can choose what kind of structure you want your literature review to have:

• Chronological = If you're writing about the history of a topic for your literature review, you can structure your review in such a way that indicates theory origins, early research, and more recent research and applications. For example, if you're researching applications for a theory like "Color Theory," then you may benefit most from a historical look from past to present.
• Topical = If your topic doesn't necessarily have a clear historical timeline or you're looking at a specific application of a theory, you'll likely need an outline that allows you to review topics of interest to your research. For example, if your topic is "Experiences of Hope in Religious Students," then you don't need to give a history; you only need to review current research that covers the topic you're looking for. Your topical outline may include headings like "Christianity and Experiences of Hope," "Buddhism and Experiences of Hope," etc. or "Elementary Students' Experiences of Hope," "Middle School Students' Experiences of Hope," etc.
• Synthetic = Honestly, don't pick this one unless you have to; this is the hardest kind of literature review to write, but is best if only a little bit of research has been done on your topic of interest. For example, if your topic is "Information seeking habits of squirrels on a college campus," not much research exists on this topic. Instead, you'll need to search for something like "how squirrels learn," "habits of squirrels on a college campus," and then combine (AKA synthesize) the information you found to draw conclusions where necessary. This is the most difficult structure because it requires advanced writing skills; this outline might be the right one if you're having trouble finding relevant resources to your topic, but talk to a librarian first, and see if we aren't able to help you find sources!

The structure you choose will determine how your outline is best set up; however, every outline should include both an introduction and a conclusion. Everything that's mentioned above is to help you figure out all the stuff in the middle.

Writing Your Conclusion & Introduction

Every term paper you've written up until now should have included an introduction and a conclusion, and your literature review is no different in that regard! Your conclusion will be the same as it has always been: A paragraph-ish summary of your paper, tying up all of your loose ends, and drawing any final conclusions for your reader. In literature reviews, your conclusion can (and should!) also include information on gaps in the literature; these are those areas or facets that very few people (or no one at all!) have researched yet. This is a great place to talk about where future research can go, including your current research that you're doing.

While your conclusion is still just a conclusion but with an extra flair, your introduction is likely to look a bit different than the ones you've written for past term papers. It's going to be much longer than 4-5 sentences, and it will include a great deal more in it. Here's something of an outline that you can consider for your introduction:

1. Introduction
   1. Hook (an attention-catching statement that gets your reader to actually read your paper)
   2. Statistics (include any relevant statistics to your topic; consider things like how many people are affected by your topic)
   3. Definitions (define any terms/phrases/keywords you'll be using throughout your paper; even if you already think your reader knows the definition of an academic term, define it anyway to make sure you and your reader are on the same page)
      [Note: Figuring out what terms to define might be a bit tricky at first. Start with any term that could have multiple interpretations. For example, if your paper is about "Experiences of Hope in Religious Students," you may find it best to define the terms "Hope" and "Religious/Religion" so your readers don't misunderstand.]
   4. History (this is especially useful if you're doing a topical or synthetic outline, but it also applies to chronological; provide short biographical information, timelines, or key historical events to your topic.)
   5. Theories/Approached (this may not apply to every literature review or every topic, but, in general, think about whether or not there is already a baseline idea that your topic is based off of and discuss the main tenants of that theory/approach [e.g. "Cognitive Behavioral Theory" or "Catholocism"].)
   6. Thesis statement (avoid "I" and "You" statements like "In this paper, I am going to teach you about..." These statements aren't academic; if you need help formatting a thesis statement, you can visit the learning center on campus or reach out to writing center if you're online.)

Keep in mind that this is a generic/general outline. Your paper's introduction may include more (or even a little bit less!) than what's been listed here. It may be in a different order (maybe you define your terms and then give statistics). Not every introduction is going to look exactly the same, nor should they! As long as they give your reader the most basic understanding of what your paper discusses, you're well on your way to a passing literature review!

So we know now that a literature review, however it's structured, doesn't involve your own opinion. That leaves one major question: What does go in a literature review? What does "review the literature" actually mean? At the foundational level, what goes into a literature review are summaries of the peer-reviewed/scholarly/academic journal articles you find while researching. These summaries will help your readers understand what research already exists and how it applies to your theory or research topic. All you need to do after writing a summary is make the information connect by drawing bridges between articles, using transition statements (you can visit the Learning Center on campus or reach out to the Writing Center online if you need help with your writing and transitions), and pointing out agreements (or disagreements where appropriate!) in the research you're summarizing.

(Pro tip! Ever heard of an article abstract being referred to as that article's summary? The summaries you'll be writing and the article's abstract are pretty different. This means you can't just copy and paste an article's abstract into your paper. Not only is this not the right kind of summary your professor is looking for, this is also considered plagiarism. You can read an article abstract to help you figure out what might be important to your paper, but do not copy the abstract and paste it into your paper.)

Sounds simple enough, right? But if you've never summarized an article, how do you know what information to include? Our best recommendation is to use the following resource that was created and refined through a collaborative process between librarians and professors. This Journal Article Review Worksheet gives you step-by-step guidance on summarizing an article effectively and includes websites to help you determine key pieces of information like what kind of research you're looking at and how it can be used. After you've gotten all of your information into the worksheet, you can combine the aspects most important to your research/topic/theory into a 1-paragraph (sometimes 2-paragraph) summary that you'll be able to copy and paste into your literature review paper (don't forget to make your summary flow!).

Finding your resources should be a breeze with Nelson Memorial Library's variety of databases and FAQs on how to search them! We recommend starting at the guide that's been created and curated with your subject in mind. Remember to choose the subject guide that matches the topic you're researching most closely (i.e. don't use the psychology subject guide for theological research or vis versa).

If you're having trouble figuring out how to use the databases you've found, check out our Library FAQs to see if we don't already have an answer for you!

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If all else fails and you're still having trouble doing your research, never fear: That's exactly why your librarians are here to help you! You can schedule an appointment with any librarian by using our online scheduling service.