creating a literature review question

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How to Conduct a Literature Review: Research Question

• What is a Literature Review?
• Information Resources
• Search Strategy
• Cite Resources

• Read why it is important to develop a good research question.
• Watch a short video to see how concept mapping can help you to identify key concepts that you will use to search for information on your topic.
• Develop a concept map using the worksheet or one of the online mind mapping tools in the Activity  box.

Develop a Research Question

Before you can begin your literature review, you will need to select a topic. It is helpful to think about your research topic as a question. For example, instead of a topic like "diversity in the workplace," you could ask, "How does a diverse workplace impact job satisfaction?"

A good research question is manageable in scope - not too broad, but not too narrow. If your topic is too broad, you may become overwhelmed with the amount of information and find it difficult to organize your ideas. If your topic is too narrow, you may not be able to find enough information to include in your literature review.

It is often helpful to start with a broad idea, then narrow your focus by brainstorming related ideas. If you have a general area of interest, you can think about various issues in that general subject area. Do any of your ideas present a puzzle or problem that you are interested in investigating? Are there issues that make you wonder about causes or consequences?

As you brainstorm your topic, you may find it useful to document your ideas using a concept map (watch the videos to learn more about them). As you begin to investigate and evaluate scholarly literature on your topic, you may find it necessary to revise your original research question based on what you learn. Be sure to expand your literature search to include any new concepts you may identify along the way.

Your research question should be clear, focused, and complex enough to allow for adequate research and analysis. Most importantly, your research question should be interesting to you - you will be spending a great deal of time researching and writing so you should be eager to learn more about it.

Your problem statement or research question:

• Interests the reader.
• Describes exactly what you intend to show.
• Explains why your problem is worth addressing.

A good problem statement or research question:

• Comes from a broad subject area that interests you.
• Is narrow enough to allow you to become a local expert on it.
• Is related to ideas that interests other researchers.
• Has available information resources.

Use the concept map handout or one of the free, mind mapping applications to help you brainstorm and develop a research question.

• Concept Map Form and Sample

Concept Mapping

Learn how concept or mind maps can help your develop a research topic or question.

Ready to Brainstorm? Try this!

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Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

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Write a Literature Review

• Developing a Research Question
• Database Searching
• Documenting Your Search and Findings
• Discipline-Specific Literature Reviews

About Research Questions

A well-formulated research question:

• starts your entire search process
• provides focus for your searches
• guides the selection of literature sources

You may need to find answers to background questions (i.e. about general knowledge) before forming a research question.

Learn more about how to develop research topics into a researchable question .

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• Last Updated: Dec 2, 2024 7:15 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.vcu.edu/lit-review

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• Research Guides

How to Write a Literature Review

• 1. Identify the Question
• Literature Reviews: A Recap
• Reading Journal Articles
• Does it Describe a Literature Review?

Identify the question

Developing a research question.

• 2. Review Discipline Styles
• Searching Article Databases
• Finding Full-Text of an Article
• Citation Chaining
• When to Stop Searching
• 4. Manage Your References
• 5. Critically Analyze and Evaluate
• 6. Synthesize
• 7. Write a Literature Review

From Topic to Question (Infographic)

This graphic emphasizes how reading various sources can play a role in defining your research topic.

( Click to Enlarge Image )

Text description of "From Topic to Question" for web accessibility

In some cases, such as for a course assignment or a research project you're working on with a faculty mentor, your research question will be determined by your professor. If that's the case, you can move on to the next step .  Otherwise, you may need to explore questions on your own. 

A few suggestions

Photo Credit: UO Libraries

According to The Craft of Research (2003) , a research question is more than a practical problem or something with a yes/no answer. A research question helps you learn more about something you don't already know and it needs to be significant enough to interest your readers.

Your Curiosity + Significance to Others = Research Question

How to get started.

In a research paper, you develop a unique question and then synthesize scholarly and primary sources into a paper that supports your argument about the topic.

• Identify your Topic (This is the starting place from where you develop a research question.)
• Refine by Searching (find background information) (Before you can start to develop a research question, you may need to do some preliminary background research to see (1) what has already been done on the topic and (2) what are the issues surrounding the topic.) HINT: Find background information in Google and Books.
• Refine by Narrowing (Once you begin to understand the topic and the issues surrounding it, you can start to narrow your topic and develop a research question. Do this by asking the 6 journalistic question words.

Ask yourself these 6 questions 

These 6 journalistic question words can help you narrow your focus from a broad topic to a specific question.

Who : Are you interested in a specific group of people? Can your topic be narrowed by gender, sex, age, ethnicity, socio-economic status or something else? Are there any key figures related to your topic?

What : What are the issues surrounding your topic? Are there subtopics? In looking at background information, did you notice any gaps or questions that seemed unanswered?

Where : Can your topic be narrowed down to a geographic location? Warning: Don't get too narrow here. You might not be able to find enough information on a town or state.

When : Is your topic current or historical? Is it confined to a specific time period? Was there a causative event that led your topic to become an area of study?

Why : Why are you interested in this topic? Why should others be interested?

How : What kinds of information do you need? Primary sources, statistics? What is your methodology?

Detailed description of, "Developing a Research Question" for web accessibility

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• Literature Reviews

Developing a Research Question

Literature reviews: developing a research question, developing a research question.

Before searching for sources, you need to formulate a Research Question — this is what you are trying to answer using the existing academic literature. The Research Question pinpoints the focus of the review .

Your first step involves choosing, exploring, and focusing a topic. At this stage you might discover that you need to tweak your topic or the scope of your research as you learn more about the topic in the literature.

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND: 

• The question must be "researchable" — it can be answered with accessible facts and data
• Questions often start with How, Why, What, Which
• The question opens the door for other areas of inquiry — it identifies a gap in existing research
• Questions should be open-ended and focus on cause and effect

TRY TO AVOID: 

• Simple yes/no questions, or questions with an easy answer (what is the radius of the moon?)
• Questions that can only be answered by an opinion (does it smell nice when it rains?)
• Questions that involve secret information (what is the recipe for Coca-Cola?)
• Questions that are too broad or too narrow

REFINING YOUR RESEARCH QUESTION

Two examples of refining research questions that could be considered either too broad or too narrow.

Finding Example Literature Reviews

Using database filter tools.

It can be helpful to read existing literature reviews on your topic to get an idea of major themes, how authors structure their arguments, or what reviews look like in your discipline.

DOCUMENT TYPE FILTERS

Many library databases have the option to highlight just Review Articles after you perform a search. Filters above show what the Document Type filter looks like, with a "Review" option. These examples are from Scopus and ProQuest. The "Review" filter here refers to free-standing, comprehensive Review Articles on a topic, as opposed to a shorter literature review inside a scholarly article.

LIT REVIEWS INSIDE ARTICLES

It is also worth taking a look at the shorter literature reviews inside scholarly articles. These can sometimes be called "Background" or "Background Literature." Look for a section typically following the Introduction that covers the history or gives context on the paper's topic.

EXAMPLE REVIEW ARTICLES

Here are a few examples of Review Articles in different disciplines. Note sometimes an article can be a Review Article without the word "review" in the title.

• HUMANITIES — Art — "Art and Crime: Conceptualising Graffiti in the City" from the journal Geography Compass
• SCIENCES — Climate Change — "Mercury Isotopes in Earth and Environmental Sciences" from the journal Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences
• SOCIAL SCIENCES — Psychology — "Structural Competency and the Future of Firearm Research" from the journal Social Science & Medicine

Attribution

Thanks to Librarian Jamie Niehof at the University of Michigan for providing permission to reuse and remix this Literature Reviews guide.

Goldilocker Tool

UM Librarians have developed a quick tool called Goldilocker  to help beginners who are struggling to refine their Research Question. 

• Last Updated: Dec 12, 2024 8:55 AM
• URL: https://info.library.okstate.edu/literaturereviews

Literature Reviews

• Getting Started
• Choosing a Type of Review

Developing a Research Question

Finding example literature reviews.

• Searching the Literature
• Searching Tips
• ChatGPT [beta]
• Documenting your Search
• Using Citation Managers
• Concept Mapping
• Writing the Review
• Further Resources

Goldilocker Tool

UM Librarians have developed a quick tool called Goldilocker  to help beginners who are struggling to refine their Research Question. 

DEVELOPING A RESEARCH QUESTION

Before searching for sources, you need to formulate a Research Question — this is what you are trying to answer using the existing academic literature. The Research Question pinpoints the focus of the review .

Your first step involves choosing, exploring, and focusing a topic. At this stage you might discover that you need to tweak your topic or the scope of your research as you learn more about the topic in the literature.

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND: 

• The question must be "researchable" — it can be answered with accessible facts and data
• Questions often start with How, Why, What, Which
• The question opens the door for other areas of inquiry — it identifies a gap in existing research
• Questions should be open-ended and focus on cause and effect

TRY TO AVOID: 

• Simple yes/no questions, or questions with an easy answer (what is the radius of the moon?)
• Questions that can only be answered by an opinion (does it smell nice when it rains?)
• Questions that involve secret information (what is the recipe for Coca-Cola?)
• Questions that are too broad or too narrow

REFINING YOUR RESEARCH QUESTION

Two examples of refining research questions that could be considered either too broad or too narrow.

USING DATABASE FILTER TOOLS

It can be helpful to read existing literature reviews on your topic to get an idea of major themes, how authors structure their arguments, or what reviews look like in your discipline.

DOCUMENT TYPE FILTERS

Many library databases have the option to highlight just Review Articles after you perform a search. Filters above show what the Document Type filter looks like, with a "Review" option. These examples are from Scopus and ProQuest. The "Review" filter here refers to free-standing, comprehensive Review Articles on a topic, as opposed to a shorter literature review inside a scholarly article.

LIT REVIEWS INSIDE ARTICLES

It is also worth taking a look at the shorter literature reviews inside scholarly articles. These can sometimes be called "Background" or "Background Literature." Look for a section typically following the Introduction that covers the history or gives context on the paper's topic.

EXAMPLE REVIEW ARTICLES

Here are a few examples of Review Articles in different disciplines. Note sometimes an article can be a Review Article without the word "review" in the title.

HUMANITIES — Art — " Art and Crime: Conceptualising Graffiti in the City " from the journal Geography Compass

SCIENCES — Climate Change — " Mercury Isotopes in Earth and Environmental Sciences " from the journal  Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

SOCIAL SCIENCES — Psychology — " Structural Competency and the Future of Firearm Research " from the journal Social Science & Medicine

• << Previous: Choosing a Type of Review
• Next: Searching the Literature >>

University of Tasmania, Australia

Literature reviews.

• What is a literature review?
• What is a 'researchable' question?

Preliminary research

Generating ideas, refining your question, question frameworks.

• Further Resources for framing a question
• How to find the literature
• How to manage the reading and take notes that make sense
• How to bring it all together: examples, templates, links, guides

Questions vs Thesis statements

Questions and thesis statements both have the same purpose, which is to state what you are writing about and restrict your paper to a manageable topic.

• A question is phrased as a problem to solve
• A thesis statement is phrased as a  tentative answer , but both sides of the question must still be considered in your research

Badke, WB 2014,  Research strategies : finding your way through the information fog,  iUniverse, Bloomington IN.

Question - Does eating chocolate improve cognitive function?

Thesis statement - Eating chocolate may improve cognitive function.

You may find it helps to think in terms of answering a question at the beginning of your research to avoid unintentionally biasing yourself toward one answer.

Good research questions don't usually appear out of thin air.  You need to do some preliminary reading to understand the range of questions and answers relating to a topic before you can identify possible areas to focus on. 

You also need to consider the scope of your project, and make sure it is realistic given your timeframe and word count.

• Is there enough research to review? If there is not enough written on your topic to review, you will need to widen your scope, or change your question.  
• Is there too much? If there is too much literature on your topic to review, you will have to focus more tightly on one aspect.

These decisions cannot be made before you start.  Only reading about the issues that are being discussed in the existing academic literature will give you enough background knowledge to choose an achievable focus for your review.

Review articles

One way to get an overview of the body of research on your topic is to look for published review articles.

What's the difference between a primary research article and a review article?

• A primary research article is a description of a single study, investigation or experiment.
• A review article is a summary and analysis of several other studies, investigations, and experiments.

Review articles summarise the current state of understanding on a topic.

They can help you find:

• the main people working in an area of research
• recent advances and discoveries
• important primary research papers in the field
• significant gaps in the research
• current debates
• suggestions about where research might go next

IMPORTANT: please resist the temptation to use a published review article as a direct template for your own review, because this makes it very easy to unintentionally plagiarise!

Creating a mind map of topics from your preliminary reading can be a great way to generate ideas for possible research questions.  Mind mapping will allow you to:

• See an overview of your topic
• Identify connections between ideas and details
• Group emerging themes together (colour coding works well for this)

If you prefer to create a digital mind map, there are loads of software options to choose form (try Coggle , Xmind ,  Freeplane ,  MindMeister , Ayoa , or MindNode ), but I strongly urge you to consider using the traditional pen and paper method. 

Why go old-school?

Drawing your mind map by hand gives you complete freedom to concentrate on your ideas (and the relationships between them) without being distracted by trying to make software do what you want it to.

Your hand drawn mind map may not look pretty, but remember that this is a thinking tool .  It isn't supposed to be a work of art.

• Mind Mapping Worksheet (.docx)
• Mind Mapping Worksheet (.pdf)

When you have done some preliminary reading and brainstorming, you will probably find that you have several ideas that could be turned into focused research questions.  One way to do this is the tried-and-true 5W+H method:

• Refining Your Research Question Worksheet (.docx)
• Refining Your Research Question Worksheet (.pdf)

There are also several frameworks that have been developed to help researchers structure effective questions and clarify main concepts.  They are often used in Evidence Based Practice methodology for the health sciences, but some can also be useful in other disciplines.

Even when your question does not fit perfectly into any one framework, using part of one to clarify your thinking can help tremendously.

Here are some of the most common frameworks:

• PICO and variations

Useful for: clinical research

Richardson, WS, Wilson, MC, Nishikawa, J, & Hayward, RS 1995, 'The well-built clinical question: A key to evidence-based decisions',  ACP journal club, vol. 123, no. 3, pp. A12-A12.

Further resources for using PICO

Developing Your Search Question using PICO/PIO/PEO (Teeside University)

Seven steps to the perfect PICO search (EBSCO - CINAHL Complete)

Clinical examples using PICO (CIAP - Clinical Information Access Portal)

Useful for: qualitative research

Khan, KS, Kunz, R, Kleijnen, J, & Antes, G 2003,  Systematic reviews to support evidence-based medicine: How to review and apply findings of healthcare research , London: Royal Society of Medicine Press.

Useful for: qualitative / mixed methods research focused on samples

Cooke, A, Smith, D, & Booth, A 2012, 'Beyond PICO: The SPIDER tool for qualitative evidence synthesis',  Qualitative Health Research, vol. 22 no. 10, pp. 1435-1443.

Useful for: qualitative research examining a policy or service

Wildridge, V, & Bell, L 2002, 'How CLIP became ECLIPSE: A mnemonic to assist in searching for health policy/management information',  Health Information & Libraries Journal , vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 113–115.

More frameworks

A review of 38 question frameworks

Supplementary material from: Booth, A., Noyes, J., Flemming, K., Moore, G., Tunçalp, Ö., & Shakibazadeh, E. (2019). Formulating questions to explore complex interventions within qualitative evidence synthesis. BMJ global health, 4(Suppl 1), e001107. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001107

eBook : Read chapter 4, on how to frame a searchable/answerable/valid research question. 

This book can be downloaded and read offline: 

Seminal work from literary giant Umberto Eco brings commonsense to the production of knowledge and research outputs.

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How to perform literature review?

How to Perform a Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide

A literature review is a critical analysis of the current knowledge in a particular field or topic. It involves reading, analyzing, and synthesizing the existing research to identify patterns, themes, and gaps in the literature. Performing a literature review is a crucial component of academic research, as it helps to establish the foundation of a research study and provides a framework for developing hypotheses.

Step 1: Define the Research Question and Objective

Before starting a literature review, it is essential to clearly define the research question and objective. A well-crafted research question will guide the search for relevant literature and ensure that the review is focused and comprehensive. The research objective should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

• Example of a research question: What is the impact of social media on mental health in young adults?

Step 2: Identify Relevant Sources

The next step is to identify relevant sources of information. This includes articles, books, conference papers, and other scholarly resources. The search strategy should be comprehensive, using a combination of keywords, authors, and topics to ensure that all relevant sources are captured.

• Journal articles (academic journals, peer-reviewed)
• Book chapters (books, edited volumes)
• Conference papers (conference proceedings, working papers)
• Dissertations and theses
• Reports (government, non-profit, or corporate)

Step 3: Evaluate the Sources

Not all sources are created equal. It is essential to evaluate the quality and credibility of each source, considering factors such as:

• Citation and referencing: Check the citation and referencing style used in the paper. Is it properly cited, and are the sources accurate and reliable?
• Author credentials: What are the credentials and expertise of the authors? Are they recognized experts in the field?
• Methodology: What was the research methodology used, and was it sound?
• Date: How recent is the source? Is it relevant to the research question and objective?

Step 4: Organize and Synthesize the Information

Once the sources have been evaluated, it is time to organize and synthesize the information. This involves:

• Coding and categorizing: Use a coding system to identify and categorize the literature. This can be done using color-coding, Excel, or specialized software.
• Identifying patterns and themes: Look for patterns, relationships, and inconsistencies in the data.
• Storing and retrieving data: Use a database or spreadsheet to store and retrieve the data.

Step 5: Analyze and Interpret the Findings

The analysis and interpretation of the findings is the most critical stage of the literature review. This involves:

• Identifying gaps and areas for further research: What gaps exist in the literature, and how can they be addressed?
• Drawing conclusions: What are the implications of the findings, and what are the implications for future research?
• Summarizing the results: What are the key findings, and how do they contribute to the research question and objective?

Step 6: Present the Findings

The final step is to present the findings in a clear and concise manner. This can be done using:

• Written report: A written report summarizing the findings, including an introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
• Oral presentation: A presentation summarizing the findings, including visual aids and a clear narrative.
• Infographics: Visual representation of the data using infographics, diagrams, or charts.

Tips and Tricks for Conducting a Literature Review

• Keep track of sources: Use a citation management tool, such as Mendeley or Zotero, to keep track of sources.
• Annotate the literature: Analyze the sources as you go, using notes and highlights to identify key points.
• Synthesize the data: Look for patterns and relationships between the data.
• Get feedback: Share your draft with peers or mentors to get feedback and improve the quality of the literature review.

Conducting a literature review is a thorough and detailed process that requires careful planning, organization, and analysis. By following these steps and tips, you can produce a comprehensive and well-structured literature review that informs your research and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in your field.

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