How to do a Literature Review

Formulate a research question​ 

Find 2-3 articles on your topic​

• This allows you to see if your topic has been studied

• This will help you identify terms for your search

Identify terms for your search​

• think of terms broadly (example- if you want information about librarians - you may need to search "information specialist", "information scientist", informationist, etc.

Identify databases​

• This will depend on your question - ask your librarian for recommendations.

Do search of a library database​

• not familiar with how to search?  Let your librarian help you.

• use AND for different concepts- will narrow your search

• use OR for similar concepts - will broaden your search

Use inclusion/exclusion criteria to the articles you found​

• examples of exclusion could be:  non-English, wrong population, wrong type of study, etc.

Use Citation Harvesting for other articles​

• also called citation searching - use Web of Science or SCOPUS for this- this will identify both the references and any work that has cited the paper of interest.  Often when a paper has been cited it is related.  

Use a citation manager

• SLU provides EndNote (see https://libguides.slu.edu/EndNote) 

• citation managers will let you organize the papers you find

• citation managers will also help you format citations in several styles

Synthesize your findings