How to Write a Literature Review

Strategy:  Keep a running list of your sources.  Include a short summary of the article in your own words.

• The summary should contain the main points of why it relates to your question
  • key findings
  • any direct quotations you might use
  • main point relevant to your topic
• Skim.  You don't have to read every word.
• Yes, you are essentially creating a short, informal abstract or annotation!

Tools: Word or Google Docs -- good for shorter papers
Zotero -- Free citation manager. Highly recommended for any size paper and especially for dissertations Guide to Zotero Sign up for Zotero workshops
Spreadsheet Let's you sort and arrange sources Customize by adding your own columns Download sample spreadsheet to get started. How I use Excel to manage my literature review blog post by Dr Elaine Gregersen

Lit. reviews are not simply a list.  They are a narrative organized by some method.  The most common way to organize a lit. review is by sub-topics.  For example, a literature review on telecommuting might be divided into sources that talk about 1) company solutions, 2) social separation, 3) work-life balance, and 4) autonomy.

Read the summaries you wrote of your articles. Find a subject category that they might go in, and tag each source with that category.  This helps you group like sources together.

1. Tag each source.	2. Group all the sources by tag.