What is Literature Review?

A literature review is an
academic text that provides an
overview of a particular topic.

 It
helps identify what is known
and not known about a certain
subject of study.
 Itinvolves the use of higher-
order thinking skills, such as the
review, evaluation, and
synthesis of several scholarly
works.
 These scholarly works include
journal articles, professional
books, online sources, and
specialized references.
Aliterature review is an integral
part of any research paper and
several functions.

 First, it establishes the

relevance of the study.

 Second, it further helps in

establishing the research gap
 Third,a literature review provides
important information about your
topic and concepts related to it.

 Fourth, it presents the

contradictions between and
among previous literature
 Fifth, it justifies your research
methodology, as its effectiveness
may be determined by a survey of
previous studies relevant to your
research.

 Finally, it presents and discusses

your theoretical and conceptual
frameworks which are the
backbone of your study.
 Three stages in writing the
literature review:

1. Searching for works

relevant to the study

2. Analyzing theses scholarly

works
3. Drafting the literature
review
Search
 Literature Search is the stage in
which the researcher
systematically looks for and
selects reference materials
relevant to the study.

 It is necessary to survey all

possible sources or references,
especially those that were written
by the leading scholars in your
field of study.
 The quality of your paper is
influenced by the quality of
references you use.
 Points to remember in
conducting literature
search:

1. Identify the topics and

concepts that you need too
incorporate into your paper.
2. Specify the type of sources
that you will use. Will they be
mainly articles or a combination
of articles, books, and other
periodicals.
3. Search for scholarly works by
visiting your school library or
popular databases. These include
the following:
 Proquest  Springer

 Science Direct  Wiley

 JSTOR  Taylor and

Francis
 EBSCO
 Sage Publications

 Google Scholar
As much as possible, include only
references in reputable journals
and publishers and those written
by experts who specialize in your
topic.

Include also the landmark

studies, articles, reports, or books
related to your topic.
4. Use relevant key words to find
your desired sources.

Example topic: Effects of Online

Games on the Digital Literacy of
Teenagers

Key words: online games, digital

literacy
5. When conducting literature
search online, use links that are
considered reliable.

These are the sites that end in

.gov, .mil, and .edu
 Sites that end in .com and .org
are also acceptable as long as
they are associated with
recognized companies and
organizations.
Some of these sites are
www.un.org (United Nations),
www.unesco.org (UNESCO),
www.edition.cc.com (Cable News
Network), and www.rd.com
(Reader’s Digest)
6. You may also utilize Boolean
searching strategies in conducting
your literature review.

Boolean searching strategies

use certain keywords to limit and
focus one’s online search of a
certain topic.
The following are some of the
Boolean searching strategies that
you can use:

a. Use AND if you want to search for

profiles or texts that contain either
the terms connected by AND (e.g.,
university AND colleges
b. Use OR if you want to search for
profiles or texts that contain either
the terms connected by OR (e.g.
university OR colleges

c. Use NOT if you want to exclude a

particular term in your search (e.g.,
university NOT colleges)
d. Use quotation marks if you want
to search for a specific phrase (e.g.,
“Top Philippine universities”)
Evaluation and
Analysis of the
Selected Works
This stage is performed once you
have selected all your potential
references.
In this stage, your further screen
the selected preferences for
reliability and usefulness.
This stage also further ensures
that the materials you will use in
your paper are only those that are
closely related to your research
topic.
 Strategies you can use in
evaluating and analyzing your
selected references:

1. Obtain an overview of the

reference you selected. This will
help you determine the relevance
of its content to your research.
 2. When evaluating research
articles, find out if they published
by a reputable publisher/journal
and written by legitimate scholars
in your field of study.
You may refer to the Thomson
Reuters Master Journal list (http://ip-
science.thomsonreuters.com/mjl/) or
(https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/
scopus/content) for the list of
reputable research journals.
3. As much as possible, refrain
from using references published
by predatory journals or publishers
as they do not guarantee quality.
Predatory publishers and journals
are those that publish research
papers for financial gain and do
not follow the ethics in producing
an academic work.
4. Refrain from using materials
that do not directly explain the
concepts related to your study.

5. As much as possible, use

references that have been
published within the last five
years, unless you are writing a
historical paper, which may entail
the use of sources from earlier
periods of time.
6. Group the references according
to the categories you used during
the literature search. You may use
online tools (e.g. zotero) in
tagging (or labeling) and
classifying these references.
7. If a material appears to be
relevant to your topic, current
(i.e., published in the last five
years) reliable, continue reading
its content. However, if the
material does not meet these
standards, exclude it from your
literature review.
8. Carefully read each of the
materials you will incorporate into
your literature review. Note down
the key information in these
materials. Determine which
information you can include in
your literature review.
9. Use a concept map if you want
to see the relationship, similarities,
and differences among the
materials you have read.
Drafting the
Literature
It is in this stage where you
actually write your literature
review.

In drafting your review , you

need to consider how you are
going to arrange the works
you will cite.
You also need to consider how
these works will be linked to
one another, to better provide
an overview of the topic you
are studying in your research.
1. Divide the literature review
into two subsections: (a) the
conceptual literature section
which explains concepts
relevant to the study, and (b)
the related studies section
which presents studies similar
to your own.
2. When writing the conceptual
literature, you may use
concepts from the title of the
reference or the specific
questions and objectives of
your research.
For the related studies, you
may arrange them in three
ways:

1. By theme (i.e., similar

studies are grouped together)

2. By chronology (i.e., from

the earliest to the latest)
3. By type (foreign or local
studies)

These three ways of writing

the related studies section
depend on the objectives and
features of your review.
 a. Thematic arrangement- if
your intention is to make the
readers focus on how your
study is similar to or different
from the previous one
b. Chronological arrangement-
if you want to emphasize the
development and progress in a
specific field of study
c. Typological arrangement-
if there are sufficient studies
conducted locally about the
topic of your research
4. At the end of the related
studies section, write a
synthesis that shows the
research gap.
5. If you cannot explain some
concepts in detail due to space
constraints, you my direct the
readers to a particular
scholarly work that discusses
the topic more extensively.
This is done by using the
citation format: (author, year)
6. Use cohesive devices
throughout the literature
review to link one idea to
another.
7. Be sure to apply the
principle of cohesiveness when
writing your literature review.
This means that each
paragraph should focus only on
one main idea, and these ideas
should be linked to one
another.
8. Use direct quotation sparingly.
Direct quotation is typically
used when stating laws and
principles and when explicitly
showing an author’s intention.
Also, if you think that it is best to
present the ideas of certain
historical figures and experts in
your field.
9. Write a brief synthesis at
the end of the literature
review to show how these
scholarly works shape your
paper, and to further
reinforce the research gap
that these studies have yet to
fill.
10. Survey all possible
sources before claiming that
no studies have been
conducted on a particular
topic or saying that your topic
is underexplored.
11. Cite your sources. Use
the appropriate
documentation and citation
style in your literature
search.