thesis rrl sites

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The top list of academic search engines

1. Google Scholar

4. science.gov, 5. semantic scholar, 6. baidu scholar, get the most out of academic search engines, frequently asked questions about academic search engines, related articles.

Academic search engines have become the number one resource to turn to in order to find research papers and other scholarly sources. While classic academic databases like Web of Science and Scopus are locked behind paywalls, Google Scholar and others can be accessed free of charge. In order to help you get your research done fast, we have compiled the top list of free academic search engines.

Google Scholar is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only lets you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free but also often provides links to full-text PDF files.

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles
• Abstracts: only a snippet of the abstract is available
• Related articles: ✔
• References: ✔
• Cited by: ✔
• Links to full text: ✔
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, RIS, BibTeX

BASE is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany. That is also where its name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles (contains duplicates)
• Abstracts: ✔
• Related articles: ✘
• References: ✘
• Cited by: ✘
• Export formats: RIS, BibTeX

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open-access research papers. For each search result, a link to the full-text PDF or full-text web page is provided.

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles
• Links to full text: ✔ (all articles in CORE are open access)
• Export formats: BibTeX

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need anymore to query all those resources separately!

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles and reports
• Links to full text: ✔ (available for some databases)
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX (available for some databases)

Semantic Scholar is the new kid on the block. Its mission is to provide more relevant and impactful search results using AI-powered algorithms that find hidden connections and links between research topics.

• Coverage: approx. 40 million articles
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX

Although Baidu Scholar's interface is in Chinese, its index contains research papers in English as well as Chinese.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 100 million articles
• Abstracts: only snippets of the abstract are available
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX

RefSeek searches more than one billion documents from academic and organizational websites. Its clean interface makes it especially easy to use for students and new researchers.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 1 billion documents
• Abstracts: only snippets of the article are available
• Export formats: not available

Consider using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with Google Scholar and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Google Scholar is an academic search engine, and it is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only let's you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free, but also often provides links to full text PDF file.

Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature developed at the Allen Institute for AI. Sematic Scholar was publicly released in 2015 and uses advances in natural language processing to provide summaries for scholarly papers.

BASE , as its name suggest is an academic search engine. It is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany and that's where it name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers. For each search result a link to the full text PDF or full text web page is provided.

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need any more to query all those resources separately!

13 Websites That Will Help You With Your Thesis

Make the thesis process as painless as possible by trying out these websites to help you with everything from your RRL to deck design and organized collaboration!

Related: Visit These Public Libraries In Manila For That Next Study Session

One of the most excruciating things about doing your thesis is looking for related literature. It has to not just be related, but also relevant, accurate, and properly-sourced. One of the most exciting things about doing your thesis is finding those perfect references to use in your paper. Thankfully, there is a wide variety of websites and databases available to students and scholars alike so you can be more excited than excruciated when embarking on your thesis journey.

Besides libraries and databases, this list also includes tools and platforms that will help you in being organized, creative, and streamlined in your research process. From JSTOR to Canva, Google Scholar to Miro, there’s a little bit of everything for everyone.

Zotero is a free tool that can help you collect, annotate, and cite all your references quickly and efficiently. Tired of having to cite manually or having to input each reference into a citation machine individually? Zotero’s got your back. You can upload links, PDFs, books, and other references and sort them as you wish, and Zotero will automatically grab the metadata for easy citation. You can make minor edits to the data, then just pick which citation style to use, and Zotero will generate your entire bibliography just like that.

PHILIPPINE E-JOURNALS

Philippine E-Journals or PEJ collects and stores articles, publications, and journals from schools and universities across the country. While a lot of material are only available in print, you can find older, less well-known, and very specific localized references written by Filipino scholars in this database.

GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Google’s search engine for scholarly literature is incredibly helpful, especially when you’re just beginning your research. It scans across a broad range of sites, databases, and libraries to give you leads to articles and books relevant to your thesis. Its tagline “ stand on the shoulders of giants ” is accurate representation of what it offers to the world, and is actually quite inspiring.

TAYLOR & FRANCIS

Taylor & Francis publishes renowned, peer-reviewed journals and makes them available on the website. Spanning a wide range of fields, Taylor & Francis is trusted and closely monitored, so you’re sure to get quality references—but often, for a price. Many articles are open-access, but to gain access to more, you have to subscribe, or your institution may be able to help you. Regardless, you’ll for sure find something that helps.

This digital library stores and publishes millions of journals, books, media, and other sources across a wide range of fields. While most resources are unfortunately hidden behind paywalls, JSTOR’s Open Access Collection does have accessible publications and references for your perusal. Also, check with your university as they may be able to give you access to those journals and papers.

YOUR UNIVERSITY DATABASE

Don’t sleep on your school’s library and database. After all, there’s a reason why your tuition costs as much as it does. They most likely will not just allow you access to paywalled websites like Taylor & Francis or JSTOR, but they also have publications and archives that much more relevant to your studies because they’re most likely localized and from similar contexts. You might even be able to contact some scholars directly for more help!

RESEARCHGATE

ResearchGate is more of a social networking site for scholars, but it’s great because most of the time, authors and scholars whose articles are hidden behind paywalls upload their papers to the site. If not, they may have contact information you can use to reach out. Last year, when I was doing my thesis, I used ResearchGate to contact a Hong Kong-based scholar whose conference paper was unavailable online, and she replied with a copy of the paper and even a PDF of her presentation deck!

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The United States Library of Congress, the largest library in the world, hosts millions of source material in its digital database. Books, films, newspapers, photographs, audio recordings, maps, and manuscripts are all there for your perusal. If you’re doing any sort of historical research, this library will provide you with countless resources. And even though it is owned by the United States, there is so much material about the Philippines, especially during the American occupation.

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF THE PHILIPPINES

With newspapers, exhibits, books, pictures, and publications, the National Library holds a pretty sizeable collection of documents. While its interface leaves much to be desired, the website is another nook and cranny you should check out to find the best resources for your study.

SCIENCEDIRECT

ScienceDirect makes papers and publications all about the sciences available to users. People can use it for scholarly, government, or industry work involving topics from the physical, life, and health sciences to the social sciences. Millions of its reference material are open-access as well.

LUCIDSPARK OR MIRO

Lucidspark and Miro are both collaborative platforms where you can make digital “whiteboards” to organize your thoughts, references, and data, as well as create diagrams, flow charts, and visualizations of said data. They’re great for brainstorming and taking note of ideas, tasks, and plans. Choose whichever platform works for you and get to collaborate with your thesis-mates in an organized and engaging manner.

For studies dealing with interviews or focus group discussions, Otter can help you transcribe your audio files so you don’t have to deal with the excruciating, long-winded pain of transcribing manually. However, be warned, though, that you will still have to double-check the transcripts because it will not be 100% accurate, especially if the language spoken isn’t English or if there’s too much noise in the background. The service is also free-to-use for a limited number of minutes and transcriptions per month.

Move over, PowerPoint and Google Slides. Canva has taken over the scene as the premier design platform to use for everything from presentation slides to birthday cards. You can use Canva to design your thesis materials—your deck, your thesis poster, pamphlets, graphs, and more! With their templates and easily-available graphics, your materials will never look better.

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Why search this literature?

It is crucial for graduate students to search the thesis and dissertation literature to make sure that an idea or hypothesis has not already been tested, explored, and published.  An additional reason to search this literature is that it is rich with ideas and information not found elsewhere.  If graduate students do not continue on as academics or if students that came after them in their programs did not continue their research, this literature may be the end of the line for scholarship on a topic.

ProQuest has published dissertation e-learning modules covering the usefulness of using dissertations as a research source.  See link below:

• Dissertation eLearning resources from ProQuest Uncover the value of dissertations.

Library Databases

All graduate students should, at minimum, search the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global database (PQDT) to see if the research they are proposing to do has already been done by a student at another institution/university.  RIT dissertations and theses have been included in PQDT since approximately 2006.

• Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window Identifies Ph.D. dissertations from U.S. & Canadian universities since 1861. Abstracts from 1980. Master's theses from 1988. Many with full-text.

RIT Digital Institutional Repository

• Digital Institutional Repository The digital institutional repository for the Rochester Institute of Technology, managed by RIT Libraries.
• ProQuest - Most Accessed Dissertations/Theses

Each month ProQuest updates this list of the top 25 Most-Accessed Dissertations and Theses across all subjects, based upon total PDF downloads. Find out what is trending.

The web sites below should also be consulted as appropriate to perform a full and thorough review of the dissertation and thesis literature beyond your introductory search of ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.  Consider whether a particular country or part of the world would have an interest in your potential research topic.

Only large-scale repositories of dissertations and theses are included here. You may also need to search individual university repositories directly.

• Ebsco Open Dissertations Search thousands of open dissertations and theses from over 50 participating libraries.
• EThOS (from the British Library) EThOS offers a 'single point of access' where researchers the world over can access ALL theses produced by UK Higher Education.
• Indian Institute of Science Dissertations and theses from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
• Indian Theses and Dissertations (Shodhganga) Over 130 participating Indian universities and over 8800 ETD documents.
• National ETD Portal (South Africa) South African theses and dissertations.
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). The NDLTD Union Catalog contains more than one million records of electronic theses and dissertations. Search the Union Catalog from here: http://thumper.vtls.com:6090/?theme=NDLTD
• OhioLINK ETD Center Electronic theses and dissertations from colleges and universities in the state of Ohio.
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations OATD aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 600 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes over 1.5 million theses and dissertations. RIT is included.
• Theses Canada Canadian universities voluntarily participate by submitting approved theses and dissertation to Theses Canada. Click on "Search Theses Canada" under the Introduction on the left hand side of the page to begin your search.
• TROVE From the National Library of Australia - Search Trove to explore amazing collections from Australian libraries, universities, museums, galleries and archives.
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Researching for a literature review: Websites

• What is a literature review?
• Dissertations
• Test Instruments

Appropriate websites will vary based on the topic, scope, and purpose of a project. Some recommended sites:

Scholarly Organizations - identify the premier organizations associated with the field being researched. Explore their websites for current information and learn about conferences and key scholars in the field to add to your search.

Intute - page of research websites collected and maintained by a consortium of university libraries in the U.K.

Example: Intute listing of Rhetoric websites

Although the Intute site stopped being updated in July 2011, it remains an excellent organized source to find valuable free collections and sources

Government Websites

The U.S. government may fund research in your field!

The government funds research in many areas such as education, health, and medicine. Find additional researchers or sources for information that may not be found in a traditional library catalog or database by searching for your topic and adding "site:.gov" to your search string in a search engine.

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How to Make a Literature Review in Research (RRL Example)

What is an RRL in a research paper?

A relevant review of the literature (RRL) is an objective, concise, critical summary of published research literature relevant to a topic being researched in an article. In an RRL, you discuss knowledge and findings from existing literature relevant to your study topic. If there are conflicts or gaps in existing literature, you can also discuss these in your review, as well as how you will confront these missing elements or resolve these issues in your study.

To complete an RRL, you first need to collect relevant literature; this can include online and offline sources. Save all of your applicable resources as you will need to include them in your paper. When looking through these sources, take notes and identify concepts of each source to describe in the review of the literature.

A good RRL does NOT:

A literature review does not simply reference and list all of the material you have cited in your paper.

• Presenting material that is not directly relevant to your study will distract and frustrate the reader and make them lose sight of the purpose of your study.
• Starting a literature review with “A number of scholars have studied the relationship between X and Y” and simply listing who has studied the topic and what each scholar concluded is not going to strengthen your paper.

A good RRL DOES:

• Present a brief typology that orders articles and books into groups to help readers focus on unresolved debates, inconsistencies, tensions, and new questions about a research topic.
• Summarize the most relevant and important aspects of the scientific literature related to your area of research
• Synthesize what has been done in this area of research and by whom, highlight what previous research indicates about a topic, and identify potential gaps and areas of disagreement in the field
• Give the reader an understanding of the background of the field and show which studies are important—and highlight errors in previous studies

How long is a review of the literature for a research paper?

The length of a review of the literature depends on its purpose and target readership and can vary significantly in scope and depth. In a dissertation, thesis, or standalone review of literature, it is usually a full chapter of the text (at least 20 pages). Whereas, a standard research article or school assignment literature review section could only be a few paragraphs in the Introduction section .

Building Your Literature Review Bookshelf

One way to conceive of a literature review is to think about writing it as you would build a bookshelf. You don’t need to cut each piece by yourself from scratch. Rather, you can take the pieces that other researchers have cut out and put them together to build a framework on which to hang your own “books”—that is, your own study methods, results, and conclusions.

What Makes a Good Literature Review?

The contents of a literature review (RRL) are determined by many factors, including its precise purpose in the article, the degree of consensus with a given theory or tension between competing theories, the length of the article, the number of previous studies existing in the given field, etc. The following are some of the most important elements that a literature review provides.

Historical background for your research

Analyze what has been written about your field of research to highlight what is new and significant in your study—or how the analysis itself contributes to the understanding of this field, even in a small way. Providing a historical background also demonstrates to other researchers and journal editors your competency in discussing theoretical concepts. You should also make sure to understand how to paraphrase scientific literature to avoid plagiarism in your work.

The current context of your research

Discuss central (or peripheral) questions, issues, and debates in the field. Because a field is constantly being updated by new work, you can show where your research fits into this context and explain developments and trends in research.

A discussion of relevant theories and concepts

Theories and concepts should provide the foundation for your research. For example, if you are researching the relationship between ecological environments and human populations, provide models and theories that focus on specific aspects of this connection to contextualize your study. If your study asks a question concerning sustainability, mention a theory or model that underpins this concept. If it concerns invasive species, choose material that is focused in this direction.

Definitions of relevant terminology

In the natural sciences, the meaning of terms is relatively straightforward and consistent. But if you present a term that is obscure or context-specific, you should define the meaning of the term in the Introduction section (if you are introducing a study) or in the summary of the literature being reviewed.

Description of related relevant research

Include a description of related research that shows how your work expands or challenges earlier studies or fills in gaps in previous work. You can use your literature review as evidence of what works, what doesn’t, and what is missing in the field.

Supporting evidence for a practical problem or issue your research is addressing that demonstrates its importance: Referencing related research establishes your area of research as reputable and shows you are building upon previous work that other researchers have deemed significant.

Types of Literature Reviews

Literature reviews can differ in structure, length, amount, and breadth of content included. They can range from selective (a very narrow area of research or only a single work) to comprehensive (a larger amount or range of works). They can also be part of a larger work or stand on their own.

• A course assignment is an example of a selective, stand-alone work. It focuses on a small segment of the literature on a topic and makes up an entire work on its own.
• The literature review in a dissertation or thesis is both comprehensive and helps make up a larger work.
• A majority of journal articles start with a selective literature review to provide context for the research reported in the study; such a literature review is usually included in the Introduction section (but it can also follow the presentation of the results in the Discussion section ).
• Some literature reviews are both comprehensive and stand as a separate work—in this case, the entire article analyzes the literature on a given topic.

Literature Reviews Found in Academic Journals

The two types of literature reviews commonly found in journals are those introducing research articles (studies and surveys) and stand-alone literature analyses. They can differ in their scope, length, and specific purpose.

Literature reviews introducing research articles

The literature review found at the beginning of a journal article is used to introduce research related to the specific study and is found in the Introduction section, usually near the end. It is shorter than a stand-alone review because it must be limited to very specific studies and theories that are directly relevant to the current study. Its purpose is to set research precedence and provide support for the study’s theory, methods, results, and/or conclusions. Not all research articles contain an explicit review of the literature, but most do, whether it is a discrete section or indistinguishable from the rest of the Introduction.

How to structure a literature review for an article

When writing a literature review as part of an introduction to a study, simply follow the structure of the Introduction and move from the general to the specific—presenting the broadest background information about a topic first and then moving to specific studies that support your rationale , finally leading to your hypothesis statement. Such a literature review is often indistinguishable from the Introduction itself—the literature is INTRODUCING the background and defining the gaps your study aims to fill.

The stand-alone literature review

The literature review published as a stand-alone article presents and analyzes as many of the important publications in an area of study as possible to provide background information and context for a current area of research or a study. Stand-alone reviews are an excellent resource for researchers when they are first searching for the most relevant information on an area of study.

Such literature reviews are generally a bit broader in scope and can extend further back in time. This means that sometimes a scientific literature review can be highly theoretical, in addition to focusing on specific methods and outcomes of previous studies. In addition, all sections of such a “review article” refer to existing literature rather than describing the results of the authors’ own study.

In addition, this type of literature review is usually much longer than the literature review introducing a study. At the end of the review follows a conclusion that once again explicitly ties all of the cited works together to show how this analysis is itself a contribution to the literature. While not absolutely necessary, such articles often include the terms “Literature Review” or “Review of the Literature” in the title. Whether or not that is necessary or appropriate can also depend on the specific author instructions of the target journal. Have a look at this article for more input on how to compile a stand-alone review article that is insightful and helpful for other researchers in your field.

How to Write a Literature Review in 6 Steps

So how do authors turn a network of articles into a coherent review of relevant literature?

Writing a literature review is not usually a linear process—authors often go back and check the literature while reformulating their ideas or making adjustments to their study. Sometimes new findings are published before a study is completed and need to be incorporated into the current work. This also means you will not be writing the literature review at any one time, but constantly working on it before, during, and after your study is complete.

Here are some steps that will help you begin and follow through on your literature review.

Step 1: Choose a topic to write about—focus on and explore this topic.

Choose a topic that you are familiar with and highly interested in analyzing; a topic your intended readers and researchers will find interesting and useful; and a topic that is current, well-established in the field, and about which there has been sufficient research conducted for a review. This will help you find the “sweet spot” for what to focus on.

Step 2: Research and collect all the scholarly information on the topic that might be pertinent to your study.

This includes scholarly articles, books, conventions, conferences, dissertations, and theses—these and any other academic work related to your area of study is called “the literature.”

Step 3: Analyze the network of information that extends or responds to the major works in your area; select the material that is most useful.

Use thought maps and charts to identify intersections in the research and to outline important categories; select the material that will be most useful to your review.

Step 4: Describe and summarize each article—provide the essential information of the article that pertains to your study.

Determine 2-3 important concepts (depending on the length of your article) that are discussed in the literature; take notes about all of the important aspects of this study relevant to the topic being reviewed.

For example, in a given study, perhaps some of the main concepts are X, Y, and Z. Note these concepts and then write a brief summary about how the article incorporates them. In reviews that introduce a study, these can be relatively short. In stand-alone reviews, there may be significantly more texts and more concepts.

Step 5: Demonstrate how these concepts in the literature relate to what you discovered in your study or how the literature connects the concepts or topics being discussed.

In a literature review intro for an article, this information might include a summary of the results or methods of previous studies that correspond to and/or confirm those sections in your own study. For a stand-alone literature review, this may mean highlighting the concepts in each article and showing how they strengthen a hypothesis or show a pattern.

Discuss unaddressed issues in previous studies. These studies that are missing something you address are important to include in your literature review. In addition, those works whose theories and conclusions directly support your findings will be valuable to review here.

Step 6: Identify relationships in the literature and develop and connect your own ideas to them.

This is essentially the same as step 5 but focused on the connections between the literature and the current study or guiding concepts or arguments of the paper, not only on the connections between the works themselves.

Your hypothesis, argument, or guiding concept is the “golden thread” that will ultimately tie the works together and provide readers with specific insights they didn’t have before reading your literature review. Make sure you know where to put the research question , hypothesis, or statement of the problem in your research paper so that you guide your readers logically and naturally from your introduction of earlier work and evidence to the conclusions you want them to draw from the bigger picture.

Your literature review will not only cover publications on your topics but will include your own ideas and contributions. By following these steps you will be telling the specific story that sets the background and shows the significance of your research and you can turn a network of related works into a focused review of the literature.

Literature Review (RRL) Examples

Because creating sample literature reviews would take too long and not properly capture the nuances and detailed information needed for a good review, we have included some links to different types of literature reviews below. You can find links to more literature reviews in these categories by visiting the TUS Library’s website . Sample literature reviews as part of an article, dissertation, or thesis:

• Critical Thinking and Transferability: A Review of the Literature (Gwendolyn Reece)
• Building Customer Loyalty: A Customer Experience Based Approach in a Tourism Context (Martina Donnelly)

Sample stand-alone literature reviews

• Literature Review on Attitudes towards Disability (National Disability Authority)
• The Effects of Communication Styles on Marital Satisfaction (Hannah Yager)

Additional Literature Review Format Guidelines

In addition to the content guidelines above, authors also need to check which style guidelines to use ( APA , Chicago, MLA, etc.) and what specific rules the target journal might have for how to structure such articles or how many studies to include—such information can usually be found on the journals’ “Guide for Authors” pages. Additionally, use one of the four Wordvice citation generators below, choosing the citation style needed for your paper:

Wordvice Writing and Academic Editing Resources

Finally, after you have finished drafting your literature review, be sure to receive professional proofreading services , including paper editing for your academic work. A competent proofreader who understands academic writing conventions and the specific style guides used by academic journals will ensure that your paper is ready for publication in your target journal.

See our academic resources for further advice on references in your paper , how to write an abstract , how to write a research paper title, how to impress the editor of your target journal with a perfect cover letter , and dozens of other research writing and publication topics.

Discovering Connections, Connecting Discoveries at The University Library Diliman

The University Library, University of the Philippines Diliman

Filipiniana Theses and Dissertations from ProQuest

Planning for your thesis or wanting to have some more studies for your RRL? You can check Filipiniana theses and dissertations from leading institutions abroad by accessing our ProQuest Dissertations and Theses terminal.

To see the list of theses, check out  http://bit.ly/updpqdt  by clicking the image below. Visit the computer kiosk at the General Reference Section to have a full-text dose of this valuable multi-disciplinary collection. You may also access online by searching for the thesis on iLib to get the Google Drive download (UP Mail login required), or sending an email to the Reference Librarians at  [email protected]  for the full text.

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• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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12 Websites That Can Aid Architectural Thesis Research

Writing the perfect thesis can be a daunting experience. While also juggling other deadlines, internships, projects and tests, final year architecture students are faced with the various challenges that thesis research brings in. Right from finalizing a suitable topic to identifying and analysing verified research data, the entire process is quite taxing on the mind and time-consuming. 

To make your journey a little simpler, here’s a compilation of ten websites that can aid your architectural thesis research:

1. Library Genesis

The holy grail of research papers, dissertations, scholarly articles, scientific projects, journals, books, paintings and magazines, Library Genesis is a must-visit website for thesis research. It provides access to documents that are otherwise paywalled or not digitized and enables users to download and/or upload data. The website provides a searchable database from publicly available resources and currently holds over three million files!

The website can be accessed at: http://libgen.li/

2. The Pudding

Students engaged in thesis research often face difficulties while attempting to obtain reliable data when it comes to area-wise population density. Especially in areas where documented information in the field is sparse, this website can be of great help. The Pudding is a project that utilizes satellite imagery, census data and volunteered geographic information to create near-accurate population density maps. The website not only lets the user explore current population trends but also lets one compare data collected over the years.

The website can be accessed at: https://pudding.cool/2018/10/city_3d/

3. Ventusky

Ventusky is a Czech based website that presents real-time meteorological data. It simplifies one’s research by offering various parameters of climatic information on a single platform, thereby cutting down multiple website visits and analysis time. It offers a range of forecast models including the ICON, GFS, GEM, HRRR and NBM and covers thirteen meteorological factors (Temperature, Precipitation, Radar, Satellite, Clouds, Wind Speed, Wind Gust, Air Pressure, Thunderstorms, Humidity, Waves, Snow Cover and Air Quality). It also lets the user access each of the parameters on eighteen different altitude levels.

The website can be accessed at: https://www.ventusky.com/

Another online library, JSTOR has an extensive collection of academic journals, articles, scientific publications, photographs and research papers. With a user-friendly interface and millions of rights-cleared sources, this website is a great companion for architecture students pursuing a thesis. This website also offers an advanced image searching option that can aid research.

The website can be accessed at: https://www.jstor.org/

5. The Courtauld Institute’s Conway Library

This website is a digital collection of architectural drawings, publications, photographs and cuttings from the Courtauld Institute of Art, based in London , United Kingdom. It offers thousands of digitized files from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and is a great resource for thesis research work.

The website can be accessed at: http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/

6. ArchDaily

ArchDaily is a household name for architecture students. Aside from news, competitions and reviews, the blog offers millions of detailed case studies on projects. Highlighting relevant specifications of architectural design with technical drawings and pictures, Archdaily can cover a major chunk of your preliminary studies! Additionally, it is one of the most visited architecture websites in the world and attracts over 160 million monthly users.

The website can be accessed at: https://www.archdaily.com/

7. Architect Magazine

This website rolls out hundreds of articles every day, describing the latest projects, technologies, products, events and building resources in the architecture industry. It covers multiple facets of the architectural community through insightful reviews by architects and journalists from across the world. Architect Magazine is a great tool to enhance thesis research by learning and discovering practices around the world. 

The website can be accessed at: https://www.architectmagazine.com/

8. Andrew Marsh: 3D Sun Path

Acquiring and plotting accurate sun paths can be a cumbersome process. Andrew Marsh’s Sun Path website simplifies this task by providing solar information according to the location’s geographic coordinates. The site not only maps the sun’s annual path in three dimensions , but it also lets the user observe the behaviour of light during different times of the day. The website also projects shadows of 3d buildings that can be modified by the user.

The website can be accessed at: http://andrewmarsh.com/apps/staging/sunpath3d.html

9. Harvard Digital Collection Library

Opening doors to an Ivy League library, Harvard’s Digital Collection Website is another online database with millions of digitized files. Users can search for information within a range of years with an advanced search option. Adding to the vast collection of text files, the digital library also provides maps, 3d material, audio and videos.

The website can be accessed at:  https://digitalcollections.library.harvard.edu/

10. Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD)

The Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD) website is a thesis exclusive online database. It offers a range of filters including university, country, language, department and degree that can be instrumental in simplifying thesis research. Indexing nearly 60 lakh publications from over 1100 universities, this non-profit website is one of the best open access dissertation databases on the internet. 

The website can be accessed at:  https://oatd.org/

11. Rethinking The Future

Rethinking The Future (RTF) is a digital platform that aims to inspire individuals to think, create and criticize. The team at RTF rolls out hosts of digital content that is instrumental in thesis research including design journals, courses, collated articles and projects.The website extends its presence on social media as well, with thought provoking articles and designs posted on a regular basis. 

The website can be accessed at:  https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/  

A Danish startup based in California , ISSUU is every creator’s go-to publishing platform. This website allows designers and enthusiasts to create and share their work with the world. Users can distribute, measure and monetize their content while also exploring other work in their niche.

The website can be accessed at:  https://issuu.com/

A third year undergrad, Srilalitha believes that the literary universe is a gateway to exploring art and architecture. She has a strong affinity towards music, athletics and photography and enjoys unraveling the similarities between her worlds over a cup of tea.

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