The aim of a literature review is to give an overview of what research has been done in a particular field. To do this, researchers gather and carefully study previous peer review articles using a specific method. This method helps in searching for, choosing, presenting, and analyzing research to answer a specific research question. Through a literature review researchers can see where there is consensus or disagreement among studies, and also pinpoint areas where more research is needed.
This guide will take you step by step through the process of gather relevant studies through systematic searching.
When performing systematic searches, it is important to search at least two different databases.
Libsearch, Google Scholar and Scopus are broad resources that covers many different subject areas. In addition to these, you may use a more subject specific or narrow database, browse the library's list of databases.