Literature reviews are a vital part of a research project or paper, and they are particularly important during graduate school.  They are often called Lit Reviews for short. The curated resources on this page focus on defining what a literature review is, how to organize and synthesize information, and what the different parts of a literature review are. 

A literature review is a review or discussion of the current, published material available on a particular topic. It attempts to synthesize and evaluate the material and information according to the research question(s), thesis, and central theme(s). In other words, instead of supporting an argument, or simply making a list of summarized research, a literature review synthesizes and evaluates the ideas of others on your given topic. This allows your readers to know what is being said about your given topic, how these sources compare with one another, and what gaps there are in the research.

Refer to our Writing Center handout about writing abstracts for more detail. Download the full handout here.