Literature Review

builds on the Annotated Bibliography and requires each student to conduct, organize, and write a comprehensive review of existing literature around the topic. The literature review will help the student refine and develop research questions by considering and connecting existing literature. This will involve extensive reading of scholarly and industry publications, assessing the hypotheses and insights from these articles, defining constructs and terminology, comparing various research approaches and methods, and identifying gaps in studies on the selected topic.

The literature review should include information about the following areas:

Major studies – What are the major studies in the subject area? Which ones provide a general background and which ones are focused more specifically on the problem statement?

Patterns – What common threads could be found in the existing literature? Where do studies contradict each other?

Gaps – What are the gaps in the literature? What is missing — either from content, process, or methodology?

Sampling – What populations have been sampled? What generalizations have been drawn? What other populations should be investigated?

“Kitchen Sink” research – What other research has been done in related areas? How might it affect the problem statement?

Methodologies – What are the popular or prevalent ways in which research has been done in this area?

Bibliography/References – What sources have been consulted?

The Literature Review paper should begin with an introductory section that communicates the topic and structure of the paper. Next, the literature review itself should contain clear sections and transitions between sections. Lastly, there should be a conclusion that summarizes the key insights.