What is a Literature Review?

A literature review is a critical summary of the academic material published in and significant to your subject area. It will often form the introduction to your dissertation or thesis.

A literature review will

  1. provide justification for why you are researching your topic,
  2. demonstrate that you have investigated what is already written in your subject area,
  3. show that you have read and understood the information that you have found,
  4. provide a critical review of the literature surrounding a subject (it should not be simply a summary of findings)
A literature review should enable anyone reading it to gain an overview of the main issues surrounding the subject.