PSY 3030: Research Methods for Psychology

Literature reviews identify and summarize research that's already been published on a topic, and also identify aspects of a topic that are still unknown and need further research. When reading scholarly articles, you'll often see a brief literature review at the beginning of the article. This helps catch the reader up to speed with prior research, before reading about the current study described in the article. In this class, you will similarly complete a literature review as part of your research proposal.

While reviewing published literature on your topic, you may discover a "gap" in the research, such as little or no research focusing on a specific demographic or no research on a potential intervention for a problem. Finding a "gap" can help guide the direction of your research. It’s OK if you can’t find an article that exactly aligns with your proposal—that's actually a good thing, because it demonstrates a need for your own research and how you can contribute to the scholarly conversation surrounding your topic!

A good literature review in a research proposal will:

• Inform readers of the existing research surrounding your topic, including major concepts and trends they need to know to understand your work.
• Demonstrate why your own proposed research is needed.

Your literature review will primarily include scholarly articles published in peer-reviewed journals. Keep reading this guide to learn how to locate your articles, find tips for reading articles effectively, and find tools for formatting your citations. Literature review requirements can vary significantly, so be sure to review the guidelines for your assignment for length requirements and number of sources you need to include.

Literature reviews are often included in the intro of research articles, but they are also published as full-length, stand-alone articles. Systematic reviews are another type of full-length article that compiles published literature on a topic and compare and analyze the results from the included studies. Looking at published literature reviews or systematic reviews can help you learn how to organize this type of work, and they can also be a gold mine of potential articles you could include in your own paper!

The following are examples of full-length article literature reviews. You can look for more in the library databases by adding and "literature review" or and "systematic review" after your search terms related to your topic. For example:

• anxiety and mindfulness and "literature review"
• "bipolar disorder" and treatment and "systematic review"

Because literature reviews can require many sources, you might get a little overwhelmed by all the research you find. As you research, it's important to keep track of the citation information (authors, titles, journal titles, etc.) so that you can easily build your reference list later and to save copies of sources as you go—finding some sources a second time can be tricky.

Here are some ways to keep your sources organized:

• Keep good notes for each source, along with the source's citation information.
• Use folders to sort sources by sub-topic.
• Use online resources like the Citation Management tools on the Citations page of this guide.

• When reading your articles, it's OK to skim rather than reading each article from beginning to end! Skimming is encouraged and a useful skill when choosing articles to include.
  • Scan the Abstracts, Introductions, Discussions, and Conclusions. Highlight and make note of important findings, main ideas and arguments, and references to previous studies and theories.
  • Keep track of research methods used in the Methods section—these may come in useful when designing your own research study!
  • See the Identifying & Using Scholarly Articles page in this guide for more information on this step.
• Create an outline that organizes your sources into an order (topical, chronological, etc.) for you to follow in your review.
• Write a short introduction to your summary that lets your reader know what to expect.
• Write paragraphs that summarize the findings found in the literature. Each paragraph should address one major idea. Similar sources can be summarized together in statements like, "Most researchers agree that..." or "Current trends in the literature are..."
• Use transitions to show how different sources interact with each other. For example, you might write, "While earlier researchers thought X, new discoveries have led researchers to think Y." Or "Researcher applied W in new circumstances and found Z."
• Use direct quotations sparingly in your review—you should be summarizing and paraphrasing as much as possible. Remember to cite your sources using in-text citations when you refer to an idea from a specific source, whether you're paraphrasing or using a direct quotation. See the Citations page in this guide for help with this step.
• Write a short conclusion that sums up the major points from the literature. If you've noticed there are subjects that the literature hasn't tackled yet, you can point out that further research is needed.
• Only include sources in your references that you quoted, paraphrased, or mentioned in your paper. 

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