Organizing a Literature Review

A traditional review article is a secondary (not primary) report of research. Its goal is to synthesize the research of others into a summary of:

• what is confirmed or still unknown
• areas of controversy, where results differ in their conclusions
• identified areas for further research

Review articles may serve as:

• An overview of research in a field in one article
• A guide to the best and highest impact articles on a topic
• An identification of current research in a field

A systematic literature review is a type of evidence-based synthesis research. The goal of this type of literature review is to aggregate and evaluate all published literature that addresses a very defined research question in order to recommend a treatment or management decision. Systematic reviews are considered original research; they require a research team and transparent methodology to minimize bias and enable reproducibility. Evidence-based syntheses require significant time to conduct, frequently 6 mos to 2 yrs.

For more information, visit Systematic & Evidence Synthesis Reviews or contact sciref@uflib.ufl.edu.

Many academic search engines and databases provide an option to refine results of a search to just the review articles.

Here are a few examples (Connect through VPN if off campus to read full text):