So What is a Literature Review?

There are many different kinds of literature review, and interested readers can find a useful typology (and, for very, very interested readers, references to other typologies) in Booth et al.'s (2016) Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review. 

For the purposes of this blog, my main focus is what in student projects is typically called the dissertation literature review, and in published research articles simply the literature review. In both of these cases, the literature review is that component of the work that evaluates and synthesizes previous research on the topic to establish why its research question should be asked.  If you are writing a dissertation or a manuscript for a journal article, in each case you will have a research question you are seeking to answer.  But why does this question need to be asked in the first place?  What is it about the body of previous research -- its patterns, trends, strengths, weaknesses, and so on -- that necessitate the asking of your question? That is what you establish in your literature review. In a classically constructed dissertation, this is typically chapter two; in a journal article it can be the introduction (or in the introduction) or it can be a stand alone section.  Crucially, the literature review (in a dissertation or an article) is not a summary of what has been done before in your field; it is an argument in which you make the case that your research question is worth asking (if you want to know more about this see my post on it, The Literature Review is an Argument, April 2022). 

It is often assumed that there is only one literature review in a piece of research, and that is probably because we insist on talking about it in a definite noun phrase with a singular head noun: the literature review.  In truth, reviews of the literature occur throughout your work -- in your literature review chapter or section, yes, but also in your introduction; in the discussion of your results and why they matter; and in your methodology and methods chapter. In this latter case, you are again making an argument, only this time you are establishing why your chosen methodology and its associated methods are an appropriate way to answer your research question.  Your evidence for this argument comes from your assessment of the way previous research in your field has proceeded.  It is necessary, of course, to set out your methodology and methods but this is not sufficient. You must also defend these choices with your review of the relevant literature, and I will be blogging about this in these pages as well.