Conducting a literature review

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Conducting a literature review

A literature review is the synthesis of the existing body of research relevant to a research topic. It allows researchers to identify the current state of the art of knowledge of a particular topic. When conducting research, it is the foundation that guides the researcher toward the knowledge gaps that need to be covered to best contribute to the scientific community.

Common methodologies include miniaturized or complete reviews, descriptive or integrated reviews, narrative reviews, theoretical reviews, methodological reviews and systematic reviews.

When navigating through the literature, researchers must try to answer their research question with the most current peer-reviewed research when finding relevant data for a research project. It is important to use the existing literature in at least two different databases and adapt the key concepts to amplify their search. Researchers also pay attention to the titles, summaries and references of each article. It is recommended to have a research diary for useful previous research as it could be the researcher´s go-to source when writing the final report.

Researchers must use the most current peer-reviewed research to answer the research question. Photo by Ryunosuke Kikuno.

Published by Henry