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Northern Illinois University

Office of Research, Evaluation and Policy Studies

Literature Review

Literature review is a research process to reconcile theory with practices through the understanding of what other researchers have investigated. The literature review provides information to bridge gaps in knowledge.

There are several sources for building a literature review, such as articles, papers, theses or dissertations, books, and the Internet.

Quantitative literature review

Quantitative research emphasizes:

  1. Explicitly stated hypotheses, which will be evaluated only after the data has been analyzed
  2. Population
  3. Selection of instruments
  4. Presenting results

Qualitative literature review

Qualitative research emphasizes narratives to describe themes and trends, often accompanied by quotations from the participants.

Criteria for quality literature review

There are four ways of conducting quality literature reviews, which are:

  1. Identify a broad problem area.
  2. Present research findings and other sources.
  3. If the results of previous studies are inconsistent or widely varying, cite them separately.
  4. Present and discuss themes and trends.

References:

Galvan, J. L. (2006). Writing literature reviews. Glendale, CA.: Pyrczak.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (College of Education). (2001). Retrieved November 28, 2006, from http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/tse-portal/literaturereview/junghyun-an-literature-review/literature-review.html