'The literature' generally means the known research and writing on a subject; and a 'literature review' - or 'lit review' for short - is a comprehensive survey and synthesis of that existing scholarly work.
What a literature review is:
A literature review is a critical and thoughtful overview of existing knowledge and thinking on a topic you're researching, which addresses these kinds of questions:
- What's already been said or found on the subject?
- Which studies/ theories/ scholars agree or disagree?
- What's missing, under-researched, or could be looked at another way?
- How does this all connect to what you want to explore?
A literature review is NOT:
- Just a summary of other people's work.
- A review of individual texts in sequence.
- Everything that has ever been written or researched on the topic.
Either a standalone paper that provides a critical overview of research and knowledge on a topic; or a section of a larger work that sets the stage for new research (e.g. a part of a dissertation or research report), a literature review can be:
- An informed presentation of the current knowledge in a particular area.
- A conceptual or theoretical framework builder that can be used to show how existing literature relates to the research of a larger work.
- A critical synthesis of what has been written on a topic by scholars and researchers, that evaluates, compares and contrasts different sources in order to identify trends and patterns in the literature; any conflicting ideas or debates; and/or any gaps or under-researched areas.
