A literature review should be conducted systematically. Creswell (2005) identified five steps for performing a literature review. These steps include identifying key terms for your literature search, locating relevant literature by consulting various types of materials and databases, critically evaluating and selecting the literature for your review, organizing the selected literature, and writing the literature review.
Locate the Literature
Relevant research materials in libraries, online, or personal collections, including information about the study's topic and variables. Systematic skimming helps identify relevant literature. Key evaluation questions encompass core ideas and contributions, the importance of specific papers, the presence and resolution of controversies, shared assumptions, deficiencies or unresolved issues, connections to other topics, emphasis on empirical versus theoretical approaches, and reasons for such emphasis. Information retrieval, supported by internet searches (such as website articles, blogs, online journals) and library resources (including primary sources like journal articles and secondary sources like encyclopedias, books, and manuals), should prioritize credible sources such as peer-reviewed journal articles. A systematic method for recording information from journal articles is recommended.
Evaluate the Selected Literature and Actual Reading
Critically assessing the credibility of sources is essential. Your coding sheet helps evaluate the quality of journal articles. Additional evaluation strategies include: verifying the journal's reputation (the presence of an editorial board); thoroughly reading and summarizing articles, ensuring that standard sections (introduction, methods, discussion, conclusion) are included, with a conclusion that addresses the research questions; selecting relevant articles with similar focuses (topic, participants, research questions); prioritizing recent studies (typically those from the last 10 years, as well as milestone studies); and ranking sources by quality (peer-reviewed journals first, followed by non-refereed publications and conference papers, and then secondary sources such as books and encyclopedias).
Organize the Sources
After gathering and evaluating sources, organize the literature review to create a cohesive narrative. Avoid simply summarizing individual studies; instead, focus on how each article contributes to the problem statement. Organization strategies include grouping literature by independent and dependent variables, identifying common themes and patterns, noting supporting and contradictory evidence, and highlighting relevant author statements. Clarify the relationships between studies and their contributions to understanding, identify literature gaps, and show how the proposed research addresses them. Summarize sources using tables, matrices, or literature maps. Before writing, synthesize the literature and plan a structure that starts with variable definitions and progresses to a discussion of how the literature informs the study's direction, emphasizing each article's contribution while addressing identified gaps. Thorough reading and analytical and comparative approaches that include annotations and highlighting are essential for understanding the literature's role in the research topic and variables.
Write the Review
The final step is writing the Review of Related Literature and Studies (RRLS), which contextualizes the research within the existing body of knowledge and justifies its pursuit. The RRLS typically consists of three parts:
Introduction. It provides an overview, defines key terms, and outlines the review's limitations.
Body. This section presents background information, discusses the similarities and differences in findings from various articles, and connects them to the current study.
Conclusion. It summarizes the observed trends and themes, identifies gaps in the literature, and reiterates how the review provides context and rationale for the research problem while highlighting areas where the review does not sufficiently advance the study. This section emphasizes the unique contribution of the study.