Literature Review

While you should always refer to your instructor's specific assignment guidelines when doing a literature review, you are safe to assume the following are true. A literature review ...

• Summarizes of the major literature on a specific topic showing relationships between theories, studies
• Produces unique observations and flows like any other original academic paper
• Contains central ideas and presents themes with supportive evidence
• It is NOT just a list of articles with summaries, that is an annotated bibliography

The following are some sites that will be useful to you if you are preparing your first literature review. These are just guidelines so be sure to consult your instructor's directions for completing the literature review because each professor requires something a little different.