What is a Literature Review?

​A literature review is both a summary and an explanation of the complete and current state of knowledge on a narrowed topic as found in academic books and journal articles.

What are the Purposes of a Literature Review?

• situate your work in its discipline/area/subfield 
• develop an understanding of how knowledge in your discipline/field/area has changed over time
• develop mastery of what's known in your area, and part of the larger discipline that contains it
• compare different conceptual or sub-disciplinary approaches to your topic
• compare and contrast different theoretical schools or leading researchers in your area
• identify methodologies that you might use in your work

Types of Literature Reviews

• Conducting a Literature Review > Types of Literature Reviews
• Systematic and Scoping Reviews (UBC)

Keep Track of your searches

• Literature Reviews: Keep Track (UBC)

Search for pre-existing literature reviews

Some databases include "literature review" as one of the limit options you can set before or after doing your search: your search will retrieve only literature reviews. PsycInfo allows for this under Advanced Search.

However in most databases, you will have to add a term for "literature review" to your search. Other search terms that may be helpful:

• review article
• systematic review
• critical review
• literature
• bibliography
• meta-analysis, meta analysis 
• re-analysis of data

Guides to literature reviews

• 7 steps to a comprehensive literature review : a multimodal & cultural approach​ 
• Systematic approaches to a successful literature review
• The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting It - University of Toronto
• Conducting a Literature Review - Georgetown University Medical Centre
• Literature Review - Deakin University Library
• Learn to Write a Review of Literature - University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Guidelines for Writing a Literature Review - University of Minnesota, Duluth

Videos

• Get Lit: The Literature Review - Texas A&M University Writing Center
• Literature Reviews: Common Errors Made When Conducting a Literature Review - Walden's Center for Research Quality

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries & Handbooks

• Bilingual vocabulary for governance, public policy & administration
• Encyclopedia of Globalization
• International dictionary of public management and governance (online)
• International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (online)
• Language of Canadian politics
• The Oxford handbook of Canadian politics
• The handbook of Canadian public administration
• Handbook of globalization, governance, and public administration
• Routledge handbook of political management
• The SAGE handbook of governance

Find missing citations, track references and find related articles

• Excellent step-by-step guide for tracking citations

Why is this important?

• Cited Reference Searching guide
• keeping track of how many times and where a publication is being cited can help you gauge the impact that article has in your discipline
• if the article has been cited, you may find a link to the citing article/author
• to locate current research based on earlier research
• to find out how a particular research topic is being used to support other research
• to track the history of a research idea
• to track the research history of a researcher
• to determine how well your own published research is cited for promotion/tenure considerations

• don't forget to keep track of your searches! Literature Reviews: Keep Track (UBC)

Examples

Web of Science    
       Select Cited Reference Search from top tool bar.
You have the article
          Burstein, P.  2003   "The impact of public opinion on public policy: A review and an agenda."  Political Research Quarterly  Volume: 56   Issue: 1   Pages: 29-40

       Enter the  author in cited author box
               Burstein P*  (use surname, first initial and truncation symbol)          
       Retrieve abbreviation of journal name from list provided, and enter year of publication.  POLIT RES QUART
       Enter cited year: 2003
   
From the list, select the ariticle and click on Finish Search at the top of the list.
Results show the article has been cited 410 times - the most recent in  2019.
      
Note the option Create Alert to be notified of any future citing of this article.

Scopus
       Choose Author Search from top tool bar.
       Enter author's name and affiliation if known
               Onwuegbuzie, Anthony John
       Select displayed result.  All published articles by the author will be listed.  Click on article for citing references.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony John and Nancy L. Leech,  "Validity and qualitative research: An oxymoron?"  Quality and Quantity  Volume 41, Issue 2, April 2007, Pages 233-249.  This article, published in 2007, has been cited 228 times, the most recent in 2019.

Tips for effective searching

If you find one relevant article for your research it can lead to other relevant papers by the following:

• using the databases, including Omni, look to find all papers & books published by the author or co-authors
• explore the bibliography in the paper for sources
• using Web of Science or Scopus, look for articles that cite the article you found. Remember, some databases will also list citing articles but those lists are limited to the current database. The Web of Science and Scopus are more comprehensive, with coverage from multiple databases. 
• Remember to see if an citing article has itself been cited.

Journal Ranking   

Journal Citation Reports - Provides citation-based metrics to rank journal within a given discipline.  Choose Select Categories and limit by subject areas such as:

• Public Administration 
• Economics
• Political Science