Writing a Literature Review

Writing a literature review can be daunting, but there are some guidelines that can be followed to make it easier. A literature review is different from a summary of articles. A summary will restate the information while a literature review seeks to make connections between articles to create a comprehensive overview of the current knowledge on a topic from multiple viewpoints.

To write a literature review, read the articles thoroughly and make note of similarities and differences between them. Find the main themes and how the research surrounding a particular topic is built by the authors.

The literature review should be approached as if you were describing the conversation that these authors are having with each other on a topic. A good rule to follow is: if you only see one author cited in a paragraph, then the writing will look more like summary. Try to weave in other authors’ viewpoints on the topic within each paragraph. This will show how the topic has developed, how the authors agree or disagree, and if there are any gaps in current research.

Here is an example of a paragraph in a literature review on dark personality traits:

  • McHoskey et al. (1998) concluded that some dark personality traits have notable similarities and overlap. This research helped Paulhus & Williams (2002) coin the term “Dark Triad” to refer to the three traits that had considerable overlap: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. In general, the Dark Triad all have characteristics of callousness, egocentrism, lack of honesty-humility, and interpersonal exploitation (Ziegler-Hill & Marcus, 2016, p. 5). Some researchers believe that the motivations behind all three traits are the same, leading some to posit that the Dark Triad can be investigated as a single concept rather than as individual personality traits (Jones & Paulhus, 2011, p. 251). According to Book et al. (2015) one of the shared characteristics of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism may even be the “core” of the Dark Triad.

Note that this paragraph cites 5 different authors/articles and shows how the topic has developed over time. This demonstrates the conversation these authors have on the same topic and how each contributed to the current state of knowledge in this area of research.

Overall, remember to read the articles carefully, note the themes, similarities, and differences, and strive to show an academic conversation in your literature review.