Literature Review: Understanding a Literature Review

The literature review is a survey of information found in scholarly articles, books, and other sources directly related to a field of study. The goal of a literature review is to find, describe, summarize, evaluate and clarify prior research already published about your topic. A good literature review goes beyond summing up the research of others: it explores the literature for key concepts and determines what has already been investigated. In essence, a literature review identifies, defines and measures key concepts related to research already completed in the field of study.

A literature review:

• explains background of research on a topic
• demonstrates why a topic is significant
• describes, summarizes, evaluates, clarifies and integrates information on your project 
• places your project into the context of established work 
• identifies critical gaps, points of disagreement, or potentially flawed methodology
• provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of significant works 
• indicates potential directions for future research