A literature review summarizes the published work in a field of study. This can be a section of a larger paper or article or the focus of an entire paper. Unlike the annotated bibliography, a literature review is more than a list of sources. It should synthesize the published knowledge of a topic and demonstrate that you have searched the breadth of the literature.
Many scholars write literature reviews, AKA review articles, that synthesize the knowledge about a topic. Many article databases have features that focus your search to retrieve literature reviews. You can often find review articles by adding ‘literature review’ as a search keyword or by using filters to limit the type of article to this specific type.
Research is a process...
Diagram that shows the general flow of the research process.
