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Counseling (CHD)

What is a Literature Review?

The Purpose of the Literature Review is to:

  • Set the background on what has been researched on a topic.
  • Show why a topic is significant to a subject area.
  • Discover relationships between ideas.
  • Identify major themes & concepts.
  • Identify critical gaps & points of disagreement.
  • Help the researcher turn a network of articles into a coherent view of the literature.


Your professor will establish guidelines for writing a literature review. The following video, Literature Review: An Overview for Graduate Students, by North Carolina State University Libraries is an excellent starting point.  It discusses what literature reviewis, how to review the literature and steps in writing a literature review. (10 minutes)

Web Resources for Writing Literature Reviews

Here are some web resources to help you with the process of identifying resources, summarizing your findings and writing a literature review. 

Find Resources Using Online Databases

Selecting Articles For Your Review

  • Combine your topic with such terms as “literature review” OR “empirical study”.  (In some databases you can narrow your search to literature reviews, qualitative studies, empirical studies, etc.)
     
  • Are there key authors or studies that have been cited numerous times related to your topic?
     
  • A resource to use while you are selecting materials is The Literature Review:  A Few Tips on Conducting It by the University of Toronto Libraries:
  1. What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my literature review helps todefine?
  2. What type of literature review am I conducting? Am I looking at issues of theory? methodology? policy? quantitative research (e.g. on the effectiveness of a new procedure)? qualitative research (e.g., studies )?
  3.  What is the scope of my literature review? What types of publications am I using (e.g., journals, books, government documents, popular media)? What discipline am I working in (e.g., nursing psychology, sociology, medicine)?
  4. How good was my information seeking? Has my search been wide enough to ensure I've found all the relevant material? Has it been narrow enough to exclude irrelevant material? Is the number of sources I've used appropriate for the length of my paper?
  5. Have I critically analysed the literature I use? Do I follow through a set of concepts and questions, comparing items to each other in the ways they deal with them? Instead of just listing and summarizing items, do I assess them, discussing strengths and weaknesses?
  6. Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my perspective?
  7. Will the reader find my literature review relevant, appropriate, and useful?

From  The University of Toronto, Canada  Writing Center <http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/litrev.html>  

 

NOTE:  Use the best articles regardless of whether they are full text. Articles may be available in print at the Library or you may get them from other libraries by requesting them via We Deliver

APA Style

APA -The information found at the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University includes citation formats, reference lists, footnotes, end notes, statistics and even a sample paper that shows the difference between Level 1, 2 and 3 headings.