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• 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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See an example

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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McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved August 12, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

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• Knowledge Base
• Dissertation
• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

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.

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 summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

Why write 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, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will 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 scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

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 objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. 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 if 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 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 use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

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.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

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?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• 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 find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

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’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference 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.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to 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 organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

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 summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse 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 organise 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.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

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, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, 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 transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

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

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

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 dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

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

• To familiarise 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  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

McCombes, S. (2022, June 07). What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 12 August 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/literature-review/

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Shona McCombes

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How to write a literature review in 6 steps

What is a literature review?

How to write a literature review, 1. determine the purpose of your literature review, 2. do an extensive search, 3. evaluate and select literature, 4. analyze the literature, 5. plan the structure of your literature review, 6. write your literature review, other resources to help you write a successful literature review, frequently asked questions about writing a literature review, related articles.

A literature review is an assessment of the sources in a chosen topic of research.

A good literature review does not just summarize sources. It analyzes the state of the field on a given topic and creates a scholarly foundation for you to make your own intervention. It demonstrates to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of study.

In a thesis, a literature review is part of the introduction, but it can also be a separate section. In research papers, a literature review may have its own section or it may be integrated into the introduction, depending on the field.

➡️ Our guide on what is a literature review covers additional basics about literature reviews.

• Identify the main purpose of the literature review.
• Do extensive research.
• Evaluate and select relevant sources.
• Analyze the sources.
• Plan a structure.
• Write the review.

In this section, we review each step of the process of creating a literature review.

In the first step, make sure you know specifically what the assignment is and what form your literature review should take. Read your assignment carefully and seek clarification from your professor or instructor if needed. You should be able to answer the following questions:

• How many sources do I need to include?
• What types of sources should I review?
• Should I evaluate the sources?
• Should I summarize, synthesize or critique sources?
• Do I need to provide any definitions or background information?

In addition to that, be aware that the narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to get a good overview of the topic.

Now you need to find out what has been written on the topic and search for literature related to your research topic. Make sure to select appropriate source material, which means using academic or scholarly sources , including books, reports, journal articles , government documents and web resources.

➡️ If you’re unsure about how to tell if a source is scholarly, take a look at our guide on how to identify a scholarly source .

Come up with a list of relevant keywords and then start your search with your institution's library catalog, and extend it to other useful databases and academic search engines like:

• Google Scholar
• Science.gov

➡️ Our guide on how to collect data for your thesis might be helpful at this stage of your research as well as the top list of academic search engines .

Once you find a useful article, check out the reference list. It should provide you with even more relevant sources. Also, keep a note of the:

• authors' names
• page numbers

Keeping track of the bibliographic information for each source will save you time when you’re ready to create citations. You could also use a reference manager like Paperpile to automatically save, manage, and cite your references.

Read the literature. You will most likely not be able to read absolutely everything that is out there on the topic. Therefore, read the abstract first to determine whether the rest of the source is worth your time. If the source is relevant for your topic:

• Read it critically.
• Look for the main arguments.
• Take notes as you read.
• Organize your notes using a table, mind map, or other technique.

Now you are ready to analyze the literature you have gathered. While your are working on your analysis, you should ask the following questions:

• What are the key terms, concepts and problems addressed by the author?
• How is this source relevant for my specific topic?
• How is the article structured? What are the major trends and findings?
• What are the conclusions of the study?
• How are the results presented? Is the source credible?
• When comparing different sources, how do they relate to each other? What are the similarities, what are the differences?
• Does the study help me understand the topic better?
• Are there any gaps in the research that need to be filled? How can I further my research as a result of the review?

Tip: Decide on the structure of your literature review before you start writing.

There are various ways to organize your literature review:

• Chronological method : Writing in the chronological method means you are presenting the materials according to when they were published. Follow this approach only if a clear path of research can be identified.
• Thematic review : A thematic review of literature is organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time.
• Publication-based : You can order your sources by publication, if the way you present the order of your sources demonstrates a more important trend. This is the case when a progression revealed from study to study and the practices of researchers have changed and adapted due to the new revelations.
• Methodological approach : A methodological approach focuses on the methods used by the researcher. If you have used sources from different disciplines that use a variety of research methods, you might want to compare the results in light of the different methods and discuss how the topic has been approached from different sides.

Regardless of the structure you chose, a review should always include the following three sections:

• An introduction, which should give the reader an outline of why you are writing the review and explain the relevance of the topic.
• A body, which divides your literature review into different sections. Write in well-structured paragraphs, use transitions and topic sentences and critically analyze each source for how it contributes to the themes you are researching.
• A conclusion , which summarizes the key findings, the main agreements and disagreements in the literature, your overall perspective, and any gaps or areas for further research.

➡️ If your literature review is part of a longer paper, visit our guide on what is a research paper for additional tips.

➡️ UNC writing center: Literature reviews

➡️ How to write a literature review in 3 steps

➡️ How to write a literature review in 30 minutes or less

The goal of a literature review is to asses the state of the field on a given topic in preparation for making an intervention.

A literature review should have its own independent section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where it can be found, and address this section as “Literature Review.”

There is no set amount of words for a literature review; the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, then it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, then it will be short.

Most research papers include a literature review. By assessing the available sources in your field of research, you will be able to make a more confident argument about the topic.

Literature reviews are most commonly found in theses and dissertations. However, you find them in research papers as well.

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• 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 sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

How to Conduct a Literature Review: A Guide for Graduate Students

• Let's Get Started!
• Traditional or Narrative Reviews
• Systematic Reviews
• Typology of Reviews
• Literature Review Resources
• Developing a Search Strategy
• What Literature to Search
• Where to Search: Indexes and Databases
• Finding articles: Libkey Nomad
• Finding Dissertations and Theses
• Extending Your Searching with Citation Chains
• Forward Citation Chains - Cited Reference Searching
• Keeping up with the Literature
• Managing Your References
• Need More Information?

Bookmark This Guide!

https://instr.iastate.libguides.com/gradlitrev

Where to Get Help

Librarians at ISU are subject experts who can help with your research and course needs. There are experts available for every discipline at ISU who are ready to assist you with your information needs!

What we do:

• Answer questions via phone, chat and in-person
• Consult with student and faculty researchers on request
• Purchase materials for the collection
• Teach instruction session for ISU courses
• Support faculty getting ready for promotion & tenure reviews
• Help with data management plans

Find Your Librarian

   “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.” - Neil Gaiman

The literature review is an important part of your thesis or dissertation. It is a survey of existing literature that provides context for your research contribution, and demonstrates your subject knowledge. It is also the way to tell the story of how your research extends knowledge in your field.

The first step to writing a successful literature review is knowing how to find and evaluate literature in your field. This guide is designed to introduce you to tools and give you skills you can use to effectively find the resources needed for your literature review.

Before getting started, familiarize yourself with some essential resources provided by the Graduate College:

• Dissertation and Thesis Information
• Center for Communication Excellence
• Graduate College Handbook

Below are some questions that you can discuss with your advisor as you begin your research:

Questions to ask as you think about your literature review:

What is my research question.

Choosing a valid research question is something you will need to discuss with your academic advisor and/or POS committee. Ideas for your topic may come from your coursework, lab rotations, or work as a research assistant. Having a specific research topic allows you to focus your research on a project that is manageable. Beginning work on your literature review can help narrow your topic.

What kind of literature review is appropriate for my research question?

Depending on your area of research, the type of literature review you do for your thesis will vary. Consult with your advisor about the requirements for your discipline. You can view theses and dissertations from your field in the library's Digital Repository can give you ideas about how your literature review should be structured.

What kind of literature should I use?

The kind of literature you use for your thesis will depend on your discipline. The Library has developed a list of Guides by Subject with discipline-specific resources. For a given subject area, look for the guide titles "[Discipline] Research Guide." You may also consult our liaison librarians for information about the literature available your research area.

How will I make sure that I find all the appropriate information that informs my research?

Consulting multiple sources of information is the best way to insure that you have done a comprehensive search of the literature in your area. The What Literature to Search tab has information about the types of resources you may need to search. You may also consult our liaison librarians for assistance with identifying resources..

How will I evaluate the literature to include trustworthy information and eliminate unnecessary or untrustworthy information?

While you are searching for relevant information about your topic you will need to think about the accuracy of the information, whether the information is from a reputable source, whether it is objective and current. Our guides about Evaluating Scholarly Books and Articles and Evaluating Websites will give you criteria to use when evaluating resources.

How should I organize my literature? What citation management program is best for me?

Citation management software can help you organize your references in folders and/or with tags. You can also annotate and highlight the PDFs within the software and usually the notes are searchable. To choose a good citation management software, you need to consider which one can be streamlined with your literature search and writing process. Here is a guide page comparing EndNote, Mendeley & Zotero. The Library also has guides for three of the major citation management tools:

• EndNote & EndNote Web Guide
• Mendeley Guide
• Getting Started with Zotero

What steps should I take to ensure academic integrity?

The best way to ensure academic integrity is to familiarize yourself with different types of intentional and unintentional plagiarism and learn about the University's standards for academic integrity. Start with this guide . The Library also has a guide about your rights and responsibilities regarding copyrighted images and figures that you include in your thesis.

Where can I find writing and editing help?

Writing and editing help is available at the Graduate College's Center for Communication Excellence . The CCE offers individual consultations, peer writing groups, workshops and seminars to help you improve your writing.

Where can I find I find formatting standards? Technical support?

The Graduate College has a Dissertation/ Thesis website with extensive examples and videos about formatting theses and dissertations. The site also has templates and formatting instructions for Word and LaTex .

What citation style should I use?

The Graduate College thesis guidelines require that you "use a consistent, current academic style for your discipline." The Library has a Citation Style Guides resource you can use for guidance on specific citation styles. If you are not sure, please consult your advisor or liaison librarians for help.

Adapted from The Literature Review: For Dissertations, by the University of Michigan Library. Available: https://guides.lib.umich.edu/dissertationlitreview

Center for Communication Excellence/ Library Workshop Slides

Slides from the CCE/ Library Workshop "A Citation Here...A Citation There...Pretty Soon You'll Have a Lit Review" held on February 21, 2024 are below:

• CCE Workshop February 21, 2024
• Next: Types of Literature Reviews >>

The library's collections and services are available to all ISU students, faculty, and staff and Parks Library is open to the public .

• Last Updated: Aug 12, 2024 4:07 PM
• URL: https://instr.iastate.libguides.com/gradlitrev

The Literature Review: A Guide for Postgraduate Students

This guide provides postgraduate students with an overview of the literature review required for most research degrees. It will advise you on the common types of literature reviews across disciplines and will outline how the purpose and structure of each may differ slightly. Various approaches to effective content organisation and writing style are offered, along with some common strategies for effective writing and avoiding some common mistakes. This guide focuses mainly on the required elements of a standalone literature review, but the suggestions and advice apply to literature reviews incorporated into other chapters.

Please see the companion article ‘ The Literature Review: A Guide for Undergraduate Students ’ for an introduction to the basic elements of a literature review. This article focuses on aspects that are particular to postgraduate literature reviews, containing detailed advice and effective strategies for writing a successful literature review. It will address the following topics:

• The purpose of a literature review
• The structure of your literature review
• Strategies for writing an effective literature review
• Mistakes to avoid

The Purpose of a Literature Review

After developing your research proposal and writing a research statement, your literature review is one of the most important early tasks you will undertake for your postgraduate research degree. Many faculties and departments require postgraduate research students to write an initial literature review as part of their research proposal, which forms part of the candidature confirmation process that occurs six months into the research degree for full-time students (12 months for part-time students).

For example, a postgraduate student in history would normally write a 10,000-word research proposal—including a literature review—in the first six months of their PhD. This would be assessed in order to confirm the ongoing candidature of the student.

The literature review is your opportunity you show your supervisor (and ultimately, your examiners) that you understand the most important debates in your field, can identify the texts and authors most relevant to your particular topic, and can examine and evaluate these debates and texts both critically and in depth. You will be expected to provide a comprehensive, detailed and relevant range of scholarly works in your literature review.

In general, a literature review has a specific and directed purpose: to focus the reader’s attention on the significance and necessity of your research. By identifying a ‘gap’ in the current scholarship, you convince your readers that your own research is vital.

As the author, you will achieve these objectives by displaying your in-depth knowledge and understanding of the relevant scholarship in your field, situating your own research within this wider body of work , while critically analysing the scholarship and highlighting your own arguments in relation to that scholarship.

A well-focused, well-developed and well-researched literature review operates as a linchpin for your thesis, provides the background to your research and demonstrates your proficiency in some requisite academic skills.

The Structure of Your Literature Review

Postgraduate degrees can be made up of a long thesis (Master’s and PhD by research) or a shorter thesis and coursework (Master’s by coursework; although some Australian universities now require PhD students to undertake coursework in the first year of their degree). Some disciplines involve creative work (such as a novel or artwork) and an exegesis (such as a creative writing research or fine arts degree). Others can comprise a series of published works in the form of a ‘thesis by publication’ (most common in the science and medical fields).

The structure of a literature review will thus vary according to the discipline and the type of thesis. Some of the most common discipline-based variations are outlined in the following paragraphs.

Humanities and Social Science Degrees

Many humanities and social science theses will include a standalone literature review chapter after the introduction and before any methodology (or theoretical approaches) chapters. In these theses, the literature review might make up around 15 to 30 per cent of the total thesis length, reflecting its purpose as a supporting chapter.

Here, the literature review chapter will have an introduction, an appropriate number of discussion paragraphs and a conclusion. As with a research essay, the introduction operates as a ‘road map’ to the chapter. The introduction should outline and clarify the argument you are making in your thesis (Australian National University 2017), as readers will then have a context for the discussion and critical analysis paragraphs that follow.

The main discussion section can be divided further with subheadings, and the material organised in several possible ways: chronologically, thematically or from the better- to the lesser-known issues and arguments. The conclusion should provide a summary of the chapter overall, and should re-state your thesis statement, linking this to the gap you have identified in the literature that confirms the necessity of your research.

For some humanities’ disciplines, such as literature or history (Premaratne 2013, 236–54), where primary sources are central, the literature review may be conducted chapter-by-chapter, with each chapter focusing on one theme and set of scholarly secondary sources relevant to the primary source material.

Science and Mathematics Degrees

For some science or mathematics research degrees, the literature review may be part of the introduction. The relevant literature here may be limited in number and scope, and if the research project is experiment-based, rather than theoretically based, a lengthy critical analysis of past research may be unnecessary (beyond establishing its weaknesses or failings and thus the necessity for the current research). The literature review section will normally appear after the paragraphs that outline the study’s research question, main findings and theoretical framework. Other science-based degrees may follow the standalone literature review chapter more common in the social sciences.

Strategies for Writing an Effective Literature Review

A research thesis—whether for a Master’s degree or Doctor of Philosophy—is a long project, and the literature review, usually written early on, will most likely be reviewed and refined over the life of the thesis. This section will detail some useful strategies to ensure you write a successful literature review that meets the expectations of your supervisor and examiners.

Using a Mind Map

Before planning or writing, it can be beneficial to undertake a brainstorm exercise to initiate ideas, especially in relation to the organisation of your literature review. A mind map is a very effective technique that can get your ideas flowing prior to a more formal planning process.

A mind map is best created in landscape orientation. Begin by writing a very brief version of your research topic in the middle of the page and then expanding this with themes and sub-themes, identified by keywords or phrases and linked by associations or oppositions. The University of Adelaide provides an excellent introduction to mind mapping.

Planning is as essential at the chapter level as it is for your thesis overall. If you have begun work on your literature review with a mind map or similar process, you can use the themes or organisational categories that emerged to begin organising your content. Plan your literature review as if it were a research essay with an introduction, main body and conclusion.

Create a detailed outline for each main paragraph or section and list the works you will discuss and analyse, along with keywords to identify important themes, arguments and relevant data. By creating a ‘planning document’ in this way, you can keep track of your ideas and refine the plan as you go.

Maintaining a Current Reference List or Annotated Bibliography

It is vital that you maintain detailed and up-to-date records of all scholarly works that you read in relation to your thesis. You will need to ensure that you remain aware of current and developing research, theoretical debates and data as your degree progresses; and review and update the literature review as you work through your own research and writing.

To do this most effectively and efficiently, you will need to record precisely the bibliographic details of each source you use. Decide on the referencing style you will be using at an early stage (this is often dictated by your department or discipline, or suggested by your supervisor). If you begin to construct your reference list as you write your thesis, ensure that you follow any formatting and stylistic requirements for your chosen referencing style from the start (nothing is more onerous than undertaking this task as you are finishing your research degree).

Insert references (also known as ‘citations’) into the text or footnote section as you write your literature review, and be aware of all instances where you need to use a reference . The literature review chapter or section may appear to be overwhelmed with references, but this is just a reflection of the source-based content and purpose.

The Drawbacks of Referencing Software

We don’t recommend the use of referencing software to help you with your references because using this software almost always leads to errors and inconsistencies. They simply can’t be trusted to produce references that will be complete and accurate, properly following your particular referencing style to the letter.

Further, relying on software to create your references for you usually means that you won’t learn how to reference correctly yourself, which is an absolutely vital skill, especially if you are hoping to continue in academia.

Writing Style

Similar to structural matters, your writing style will depend to some extent on your discipline and the expectations and advice of your supervisors. Humanities- and creative arts–based disciplines may be more open to a wider variety of authorial voices. Even if this is so, it remains preferable to establish an academic voice that is credible, engaging and clear.

Simple stylistic strategies such as using the active—instead of the passive—voice, providing variety in sentence structure and length and preferring (where appropriate) simple language over convoluted or overly obscure words can help to ensure your academic writing is both formal and highly readable.

Reviewing, Rewriting and Editing

Although an initial draft is essential (and in some departments it is a formal requirement) to establish the ground for your own research and its place within the wider body of scholarship, the literature review will evolve, develop and be modified as you continue to research, write, review and rewrite your thesis. It is likely that your literature review will not be completed until you have almost finished the thesis itself, and a final assessment and edit of this section is essential to ensure you have included the most important scholarship that is relevant and necessary to your research.

It has happened to many students that a crucial piece of literature is published just as they are about to finalise their thesis, and they must revise their literature review in light of it. Unfortunately, this cannot be avoided, lest your examiners think that you are not aware of this key piece of scholarship. You need to ensure your final literature review reflects how your research now fits into the new landscape in your field after any recent developments.

Mistakes to Avoid

Some common mistakes can result in an ineffective literature review that could then flow on to the rest of your thesis. These mistakes include:

• Trying to read and include everything you find on your topic. The literature review should be selective as well as comprehensive, examining only those sources relevant to your research topic.
• Listing the scholarship as if you are writing an annotated bibliography or a series of summaries. Your discussion of the literature should be synthesised and holistic, and should have a logical progression that is appropriate to the organisation of your content.
• Failing to integrate your examination of the literature with your own thesis topic. You need to develop your discussion of each piece of scholarship in relation to other pieces of research, contextualising your analyses and conclusions in relation to your thesis statement or research topic and focusing on how your own research relates to, complements and extends the existing scholarship.

Writing the literature review is often the first task of your research degree. It is a focused reading and research activity that situates your own research in the wider scholarship, establishing yourself as an active member of the academic community through dialogue and debate. By reading, analysing and synthesising the existing scholarship on your topic, you gain a comprehensive and in-depth understanding, ensuring a solid basis for your own arguments and contributions. If you need advice on referencing , academic writing , time management or other aspects of your degree, you may find Capstone Editing’s other resources and blog articles useful.

Australian National University. 2017. ‘Literature Reviews’. Last accessed 28 March. http://www.anu.edu.au/students/learning-development/research-writing/literature-reviews.

Premaratne, Dhilara Darshana. 2013. ‘Discipline Based Variations in the Literature Review in the PhD Thesis: A Perspective from the Discipline of History’. Education and Research Perspectives 40: 236–54.

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A roadmap for writing a literature review in a master’s thesis: Examples and guidelines

• backlinkworks
• Writing Articles & Reviews
• December 27, 2023

writing a literature review is an essential part of any master’s thesis. IT involves critically evaluating and synthesizing existing research to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-written literature review demonstrates your understanding of the scholarly conversation surrounding your research topic and helps to contextualize your own work within the broader academic landscape.

1. Understand the purpose of a literature review

Before you begin writing your literature review, IT ‘s important to understand its purpose. A literature review serves several key functions, including:

• Providing a comprehensive overview of existing research in your field.
• Critically evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of previous studies.
• Identifying gaps in the literature and highlighting areas for future research.
• Contextualizing your own research within the broader academic discourse.

By clearly understanding the purpose of your literature review, you can ensure that your writing is focused and relevant to your thesis.

2. Conduct a comprehensive literature search

Once you have a clear understanding of the purpose of your literature review, the next step is to conduct a comprehensive search for relevant academic sources. This involves searching for peer-reviewed journal articles, books, conference proceedings, and other scholarly publications related to your research topic.

IT ‘s important to use a variety of search strategies, including keyword searches, citation tracking, and database searches, to ensure that you are capturing all relevant literature. Additionally, consider using citation management software to organize and manage your references.

For example, if your master’s thesis is about the impact of social media on mental health, you would want to search for literature that examines the relationship between social media use and psychological well-being. This might include studies on social media usage patterns, the prevalence of mental health issues among social media users, and the potential benefits and drawbacks of social media use.

3. Analyze and synthesize the literature

Once you have gathered a comprehensive collection of literature related to your research topic, the next step is to analyze and synthesize the information. This involves critically evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each study, identifying key themes and patterns across the literature, and synthesizing the findings into a coherent narrative.

When analyzing and synthesizing the literature, consider the following questions:

• What are the main findings and arguments of each source?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of each study?
• What key themes and patterns emerge across the literature?

Using the example of the impact of social media on mental health, you might identify several key themes that emerge across the literature, such as the relationship between social media use and depression, the role of cyberbullying in affecting mental well-being, and the potential benefits of online peer support networks.

4. Write the literature review

With a clear understanding of the purpose of your literature review, a comprehensive collection of relevant literature, and a synthesized analysis of the existing research, you are now ready to write your literature review. When writing your literature review, consider the following guidelines:

• Provide a clear and comprehensive overview of the existing literature in your field.
• Critically evaluate and synthesize the key findings and arguments of each source.
• Organize the literature thematically or chronologically to highlight key patterns and developments in the research.
• Keep the focus on how each source relates to your research topic and thesis.

Continuing with the example of the impact of social media on mental health, your literature review might be organized into sections that correspond to the key themes you identified during your analysis. Each section could summarize and evaluate the existing literature on a specific aspect of the relationship between social media use and mental well-being, providing a clear overview of the current state of knowledge in the field.

5. Conclusion

Overall, writing a literature review for your master’s thesis involves understanding the purpose of the literature review, conducting a comprehensive literature search, analyzing and synthesizing the literature, and writing a well-organized and critical review of the existing research. By following these guidelines and examples, you can ensure that your literature review effectively contextualizes your own research within the broader academic discourse.

Q: How long should a literature review be?

A: The length of a literature review can vary depending on the requirements of your master’s thesis and the depth and breadth of the existing literature. In general, a literature review for a master’s thesis is typically around 3000-5000 words, but this can vary based on the specific expectations of your program or advisor.

Q: How many sources should I include in my literature review?

A: The number of sources you include in your literature review will depend on the scope of your research topic and the expectations of your program or advisor. In general, a literature review for a master’s thesis should include a comprehensive collection of relevant sources, typically ranging from 20-50 academic articles, books, and other scholarly publications.

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How to write a literature review introduction (+ examples)

The introduction to a literature review serves as your reader’s guide through your academic work and thought process. Explore the significance of literature review introductions in review papers, academic papers, essays, theses, and dissertations. We delve into the purpose and necessity of these introductions, explore the essential components of literature review introductions, and provide step-by-step guidance on how to craft your own, along with examples.

Why you need an introduction for a literature review

In academic writing , the introduction for a literature review is an indispensable component. Effective academic writing requires proper paragraph structuring to guide your reader through your argumentation. This includes providing an introduction to your literature review.

It is imperative to remember that you should never start sharing your findings abruptly. Even if there isn’t a dedicated introduction section .

When you need an introduction for a literature review

There are three main scenarios in which you need an introduction for a literature review:

What to include in a literature review introduction

It is crucial to customize the content and depth of your literature review introduction according to the specific format of your academic work.

Academic literature review paper

The introduction of an academic literature review paper, which does not rely on empirical data, often necessitates a more extensive introduction than the brief literature review introductions typically found in empirical papers. It should encompass:

Regular literature review section in an academic article or essay

In a standard 8000-word journal article, the literature review section typically spans between 750 and 1250 words. The first few sentences or the first paragraph within this section often serve as an introduction. It should encompass:

Introduction to a literature review chapter in thesis or dissertation

Some students choose to incorporate a brief introductory section at the beginning of each chapter, including the literature review chapter. Alternatively, others opt to seamlessly integrate the introduction into the initial sentences of the literature review itself. Both approaches are acceptable, provided that you incorporate the following elements:

Examples of literature review introductions

Example 1: an effective introduction for an academic literature review paper.

To begin, let’s delve into the introduction of an academic literature review paper. We will examine the paper “How does culture influence innovation? A systematic literature review”, which was published in 2018 in the journal Management Decision.

Example 2: An effective introduction to a literature review section in an academic paper

The second example represents a typical academic paper, encompassing not only a literature review section but also empirical data, a case study, and other elements. We will closely examine the introduction to the literature review section in the paper “The environmentalism of the subalterns: a case study of environmental activism in Eastern Kurdistan/Rojhelat”, which was published in 2021 in the journal Local Environment.

Thus, the author successfully introduces the literature review, from which point onward it dives into the main concept (‘subalternity’) of the research, and reviews the literature on socio-economic justice and environmental degradation.

Examples 3-5: Effective introductions to literature review chapters

Numerous universities offer online repositories where you can access theses and dissertations from previous years, serving as valuable sources of reference. Many of these repositories, however, may require you to log in through your university account. Nevertheless, a few open-access repositories are accessible to anyone, such as the one by the University of Manchester . It’s important to note though that copyright restrictions apply to these resources, just as they would with published papers.

Master’s thesis literature review introduction

Phd thesis literature review chapter introduction.

The second example is Deep Learning on Semi-Structured Data and its Applications to Video-Game AI, Woof, W. (Author). 31 Dec 2020, a PhD thesis completed at the University of Manchester . In Chapter 2, the author offers a comprehensive introduction to the topic in four paragraphs, with the final paragraph serving as an overview of the chapter’s structure:

PhD thesis literature review introduction

The last example is the doctoral thesis Metacognitive strategies and beliefs: Child correlates and early experiences Chan, K. Y. M. (Author). 31 Dec 2020 . The author clearly conducted a systematic literature review, commencing the review section with a discussion of the methodology and approach employed in locating and analyzing the selected records.

Steps to write your own literature review introduction

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What Is A Literature Review?

A plain-language explainer (with examples).

By:  Derek Jansen (MBA) & Kerryn Warren (PhD) | June 2020 (Updated May 2023)

If you’re faced with writing a dissertation or thesis, chances are you’ve encountered the term “literature review” . If you’re on this page, you’re probably not 100% what the literature review is all about. The good news is that you’ve come to the right place.

Literature Review 101

• What (exactly) is a literature review
• What’s the purpose of the literature review chapter
• How to find high-quality resources
• How to structure your literature review chapter
• Example of an actual literature review

What is a literature review?

The word “literature review” can refer to two related things that are part of the broader literature review process. The first is the task of  reviewing the literature  – i.e. sourcing and reading through the existing research relating to your research topic. The second is the  actual chapter  that you write up in your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s look at each of them:

Reviewing the literature

The first step of any literature review is to hunt down and  read through the existing research  that’s relevant to your research topic. To do this, you’ll use a combination of tools (we’ll discuss some of these later) to find journal articles, books, ebooks, research reports, dissertations, theses and any other credible sources of information that relate to your topic. You’ll then  summarise and catalogue these  for easy reference when you write up your literature review chapter. 

The literature review chapter

The second step of the literature review is to write the actual literature review chapter (this is usually the second chapter in a typical dissertation or thesis structure ). At the simplest level, the literature review chapter is an  overview of the key literature  that’s relevant to your research topic. This chapter should provide a smooth-flowing discussion of what research has already been done, what is known, what is unknown and what is contested in relation to your research topic. So, you can think of it as an  integrated review of the state of knowledge  around your research topic. 

What’s the purpose of a literature review?

The literature review chapter has a few important functions within your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s take a look at these:

Purpose #1 – Demonstrate your topic knowledge

The first function of the literature review chapter is, quite simply, to show the reader (or marker) that you  know what you’re talking about . In other words, a good literature review chapter demonstrates that you’ve read the relevant existing research and understand what’s going on – who’s said what, what’s agreed upon, disagreed upon and so on. This needs to be  more than just a summary  of who said what – it needs to integrate the existing research to  show how it all fits together  and what’s missing (which leads us to purpose #2, next). 

Purpose #2 – Reveal the research gap that you’ll fill

The second function of the literature review chapter is to  show what’s currently missing  from the existing research, to lay the foundation for your own research topic. In other words, your literature review chapter needs to show that there are currently “missing pieces” in terms of the bigger puzzle, and that  your study will fill one of those research gaps . By doing this, you are showing that your research topic is original and will help contribute to the body of knowledge. In other words, the literature review helps justify your research topic.  

Purpose #3 – Lay the foundation for your conceptual framework

The third function of the literature review is to form the  basis for a conceptual framework . Not every research topic will necessarily have a conceptual framework, but if your topic does require one, it needs to be rooted in your literature review. 

For example, let’s say your research aims to identify the drivers of a certain outcome – the factors which contribute to burnout in office workers. In this case, you’d likely develop a conceptual framework which details the potential factors (e.g. long hours, excessive stress, etc), as well as the outcome (burnout). Those factors would need to emerge from the literature review chapter – they can’t just come from your gut! 

So, in this case, the literature review chapter would uncover each of the potential factors (based on previous studies about burnout), which would then be modelled into a framework. 

Purpose #4 – To inform your methodology

The fourth function of the literature review is to  inform the choice of methodology  for your own research. As we’ve  discussed on the Grad Coach blog , your choice of methodology will be heavily influenced by your research aims, objectives and questions . Given that you’ll be reviewing studies covering a topic close to yours, it makes sense that you could learn a lot from their (well-considered) methodologies.

So, when you’re reviewing the literature, you’ll need to  pay close attention to the research design , methodology and methods used in similar studies, and use these to inform your methodology. Quite often, you’ll be able to  “borrow” from previous studies . This is especially true for quantitative studies , as you can use previously tried and tested measures and scales. 

How do I find articles for my literature review?

Finding quality journal articles is essential to crafting a rock-solid literature review. As you probably already know, not all research is created equally, and so you need to make sure that your literature review is  built on credible research . 

We could write an entire post on how to find quality literature (actually, we have ), but a good starting point is Google Scholar . Google Scholar is essentially the academic equivalent of Google, using Google’s powerful search capabilities to find relevant journal articles and reports. It certainly doesn’t cover every possible resource, but it’s a very useful way to get started on your literature review journey, as it will very quickly give you a good indication of what the  most popular pieces of research  are in your field.

One downside of Google Scholar is that it’s merely a search engine – that is, it lists the articles, but oftentimes  it doesn’t host the articles . So you’ll often hit a paywall when clicking through to journal websites. 

Thankfully, your university should provide you with access to their library, so you can find the article titles using Google Scholar and then search for them by name in your university’s online library. Your university may also provide you with access to  ResearchGate , which is another great source for existing research. 

Remember, the correct search keywords will be super important to get the right information from the start. So, pay close attention to the keywords used in the journal articles you read and use those keywords to search for more articles. If you can’t find a spoon in the kitchen, you haven’t looked in the right drawer. 

Need a helping hand?

How should I structure my literature review?

Unfortunately, there’s no generic universal answer for this one. The structure of your literature review will depend largely on your topic area and your research aims and objectives.

You could potentially structure your literature review chapter according to theme, group, variables , chronologically or per concepts in your field of research. We explain the main approaches to structuring your literature review here . You can also download a copy of our free literature review template to help you establish an initial structure.

In general, it’s also a good idea to start wide (i.e. the big-picture-level) and then narrow down, ending your literature review close to your research questions . However, there’s no universal one “right way” to structure your literature review. The most important thing is not to discuss your sources one after the other like a list – as we touched on earlier, your literature review needs to synthesise the research , not summarise it .

Ultimately, you need to craft your literature review so that it conveys the most important information effectively – it needs to tell a logical story in a digestible way. It’s no use starting off with highly technical terms and then only explaining what these terms mean later. Always assume your reader is not a subject matter expert and hold their hand through a journe y of the literature while keeping the functions of the literature review chapter (which we discussed earlier) front of mind.

Example of a literature review

In the video below, we walk you through a high-quality literature review from a dissertation that earned full distinction. This will give you a clearer view of what a strong literature review looks like in practice and hopefully provide some inspiration for your own. 

Wrapping Up

In this post, we’ve (hopefully) answered the question, “ what is a literature review? “. We’ve also considered the purpose and functions of the literature review, as well as how to find literature and how to structure the literature review chapter. If you’re keen to learn more, check out the literature review section of the Grad Coach blog , as well as our detailed video post covering how to write a literature review . 

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

16 Comments

Thanks for this review. It narrates what’s not been taught as tutors are always in a early to finish their classes.

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Well-presented overview of the literature!

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How to write a dissertation literature review

(Last updated: 11 November 2021)

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Are you tired of hearing the phrase 'literature review' every five minutes at university and having no idea what it means, let alone where to start? Not to worry - we've got you covered with this step-by-step guide to creating a great dissertation literature review.

What is a literature review?

In short, a dissertation literature review provides a critical assessment of the sources (literature) you have gathered and read surrounding your subject area, and then identifies a “gap” in that literature that your research will attempt to address.

There are a lot of misunderstandings about what exactly a dissertation literature review entails, as it can vary. Whilst in some cases a dissertation literature review can be a simple summary of important sources, most often it requires you to critically engage with the text to convey your positive or negative opinions of it. What is your interpretation of a particular source? Does this interpretation differ considerably from other viewpoints in the literature? This is the sort of critical engagement expected from you in a literature review.

Whereas a summary will most likely provide a simple recap of the general arguments of the source(s), the expectations concerning a literature review extend beyond this. A literature review may provide a new perspective on a classic research paper or it may combine both new and old interpretations (this is the “gap” – more on this later). A literature review may also provide a thorough and critical outline of the intellectual developments in a field with a focus on major, and often polemical, debates. In other scenarios, a literature review may also provide an assessment of a source and inform a reader about its validity, pertinence and relevance to the research subject.

"In a literature review, you're aiming to summarise and provide a critical analysis of the research arguments you have found in your readings, without making new contributions to the literature. Hence the term: “literature review ”."

There tends to be confusion between literature reviews and academic papers in general, but they are not one and the same. Generally, academic papers aim to provide new research material about a particular subject, and a literature review features as part of this objective. In a research paper, the literature review forms the basis of the research – it helps to highlight any research gaps as support for a new argument or insights you intend to provide. In a literature review, you're aiming to summarise and provide a critical analysis of the research arguments you have found in your readings, without making new contributions to the literature. Hence the term: “literature review ”.

Is a literature review really necessary?

Now that we know what a literature review is, the next step is to understand the point of writing one in the first place. Like it or not, a literature review is an essential part of any academic piece of writing, as it demonstrates to your tutor or reader that you have a nuanced understanding of the sources concerning your research area or question.

Although it may seem arbitrary, the literature review helps to persuade the person reading and marking your assignment that what you have written about is relevant and your arguments are justified and worthwhile. So, in short, a literature review is essential, and you need to put the necessary time into getting it right.

How do you write a dissertation literature review?

As the next section of this blog is quite lengthy, we've broken it down into several key steps which should make it easier to follow when writing your own dissertation literature review. You start by identifying your sources, then you read and re-read them. Next, you think about any gaps in the research or literature you have used, and finally, you write your review using all the preparation and information gathered in the steps prior.

Identify sources

To write a good dissertation literature review, you need to have a fair idea of what sources you would like to review. If you haven’t been given a formal reference list by your tutor, refer back to the techniques we recommended earlier.

Make sure that your sources are balanced; include enough books and academic journals and any useful published work from reputable scholars. To help you choose your sources appropriately, you might want to think about the parameters and objectives of your research. What are you hoping to find out? In your literature review , what theoretical issues or perspectives do you aim to tackle? How about your methodology? Will you focus on mainly qualitative or quantitative studies, or a mixture of both? These general questions should help guide you in selecting your sources and again, remember that the abstract of a source is a very useful tool. Having a quick scan of the abstract and its ‘keywords’ will often give you an indication of the whether the source will be useful for your research or not.

As you’re identifying your sources, ensure you a keep a list as it’s very easy to lose focus given the wide scope of the Internet. Reference tools such as Mendeley allow you to store your sources online and via a desktop app, and are a great way to keep your bibliography organised. The citation tools attached to these programmes will also allow you to simply export citations in a format of your choice when required later. They will save you countless hours trying to figure out how to use Harvard or APA referencing correctly.

Read your sources

Now that you have organised your sources efficiently, it’s time to read through them. As unnatural as it may feel, it’s most effective to read in a few stages, as detailed below:

First, go through all the texts to get a sense of their general content and arguments. This will also help you judge which sources you mainly want to focus on in your review. During the second stage of your reading, you can then take a more critical, in-depth look at your sources. Make a lot of notes, be critical, ask questions. What is your academic opinion on the text? Do you have any comments on the methodological approach, the theoretical argument or the general hypothesis? Note these down. It will ensure that your literature review is not merely a summary of your readings, and will encourage a clear line of argument so that your work is logical and coherent.

Consider gaps in the research

When writing a dissertation literature review, an essential thing to consider is identifying the research gap. Identifying the gap is particularly important if your review forms part of a research proposal, as it will highlight the pertinence of your research – assuming that your research has been designed to fill this gap. In other instances, identifying the gap is an indication of good critical analysis and can score you extra points.

To identify the “gap” it is important that we know what this “gap” is. A research gap is essentially the existence of a research question, perspective or problem that has not been answered in the existing literature on any field of study. Identifying the research gap is important for highlighting the originality of your research; it proves you’re not simply recounting or regurgitating existing research. It also shows that you are very much aware of the status of the literature in your chosen field of study, which in turn, demonstrates the amount of research and effort you have put into your review.

Many students, especially at post-graduate level, find it extremely difficult to identify research gaps in their subject area. For post-graduate research papers, identifying research gaps and formulating research questions that can address these gaps form the very essence of a research paper. Identifying research gaps does not have to be a difficult endeavour and there are several ways to overcome this difficulty:

Start by reading A simple approach will be to read important parts of key articles in your research area. First, note that you’ll have to sift through many articles to identify the ones that are most suitable for your research. A quick search using keywords on Google Scholar will often give you a quick overview of the available literature. Other useful sources include databases such as JSTOR or Wiley Online Library . You can then snowball additional articles by clicking on ‘related articles’ or checking out which other papers have cited your source.

Abstracts and recommendations Whichever avenue you choose, reading the abstract is often a good starting point to get a sense of what the articles entails. You should also do a quick examination of the introductory and concluding paragraphs of the paper as these sections always provide some information on the aims and outcomes of the research, as well as ‘recommendations for future studies.’ These recommendations typically provide some insight on the research gaps in the literature. Another route would be to simply read as much as you can on your research subject while considering which research areas still need addressing in the literature – this is usually an indication of research gaps.

Write your review

Now you’re well prepared to start putting fingers to keyboard. Consider the following pointers:

1. Use sample literature reviews Have a look at sample dissertation literature reviews in your subject area and read them thoroughly to familiarise yourself with existing key debates and themes. This can be a good starting point for framing and structuring your own review. If you are not familiar with academic writing, going through samples will help you to get a sense of what is expected in this regard. Pay attention to the academic language and formal style used. Also, remember that the bibliography or reference section of your selected texts will help you to snowball further references if you need any.

2. Keep it simple Keep your topic as narrowed down as possible. Remember that there are hundreds – or in some instances, thousands – of sources or perspectives concerning any subject area or topic. Researchers investigate research problems in many divergent ways and the literature available on any given subject is extremely broad. In your literature review, you won’t be expected to address every argument or perspective concerning your topic – this might actually undermine your ability to write a coherent and focused piece. You’ll make your work easier if you limit the scope of your work. In your review, ensure that you clearly state what the focus of your work will be.

3. Make sure your sources are as current as possible If you are reviewing scientific work, it’s essential your sources are as current as possible given the advancements in the field over the years. In the medical field particularly, research is constantly evolving and a source that’s only three years old may be even out-dated. In the social sciences this rule may not apply, as many theoretical works are classics and you will be expected to be familiar with these perspectives. You might have to the review the work of Marx, or Hobbes, or any other classic scholar. You still need to balance theory with current approaches, as you will need to demonstrate the ways in which perspectives in the literature have changed over the years, or you may even want to demonstrate how scholars have used classic theories to inform their work.

4. Consider the organisation of your work In a dissertation literature review, organising your work goes beyond having an introduction, body and conclusion. You’ll be reviewing a number of texts, so you’ll also have to think clearly about how to organise themes, topics and your argument in general. Below is a detailed guide on how to do this:

Like any other academic paper, a dissertation literature review will comprise a basic introduction, body, and conclusion.

The introduction of a literature review should be clear, short and focused. It should outline the focus of the review – in other words, it should clearly state the main topics to be covered. A good literature review will also state the arguments to be made, as well as underlying rationale that underpins these arguments.

The body of your literature review will include an in-depth discussion of the academic sources you have chosen to review. You may choose to organise your sources according to themes, methodology or even based on a chronological order. In the body of your review, ensure that your arguments are presented clearly and that you link these arguments with the literature. Is there a scholar that agrees with your view? Say so, in a way that the reader will understand easily. This demonstrates that you are very familiar with the academic research in your field. Remember to also make note of any views that do not agree with your position; excluding these arguments will reduce the methodological robustness of your piece. You can use direct quotations in your literature review, however do so sparingly so you don’t appear lazy. Most tutors will not approach it kindly; the purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate your ability to critically engage with a piece of text, and littering your review with direct quotes isn’t a good indication of this. Instead, try to paraphrase quotations and only use direct quotes if it really helps to illustrate your argument.

In the summary of your dissertation literature review, it’s important to give a summary of the conclusions you’ve drawn from your readings. If your literature review forms part of a broader research proposal, reiterate the gaps in the literature here, and clearly state how your proposed research will fill these gaps. Make recommendations for future research in this section too, which demonstrates your analytical skills and will score you some extra points.

You now have the basic structure of your research in place, however it’s worth dedicating some time to what the body of your work should entail. The body is the main core of your work, so it’s important to consider how you will frame and organise it. You have options here – you can choose to organise the content of your work based on a chronological method, based on themes, trends or methodology, or based on arguments.

To structure the body of work chronologically, you will have to organise your sources based on when they were published. A limitation of this approach is that it inhibits continuity in your arguments and in some instances, can undermine the coherence of your work. Use with caution.

A more coherent way of organising your work is to group your sources based on the arguments they make in a ‘for versus against’ manner. This enables you to present your work in a more dynamic way and what’s more, makes the key debates in the literature more obvious. Say you were trying to convey the debates on European migration policy, you might want to start by writing something along these lines:

"While scholars such as X argue that migration policies must be made more stringent to counteract the increased flow of Syrian refugees to Europe, other scholars such as Y offer a divergent perspective. They specifically espouse a perspective based on a human rights approach…"

This approach also leaves room for you to insert your voice into the literature. Consider this statement:

"While X argues for the enactment of more stringent migration policies, this paper argues along the lines of Y that migration policies should be based on human rights considerations."

Using this technique also allows you to introduce additional literature that supports your position.

Another way of organising your content is according to theme; or sub-themes, if your review focuses on one overarching topic. This method of organisation still allows you to present an overview of any polemical debates within these sub-themes. A thematic review can easily shift between chronological periods within each sub-section too.

Structuring work using a methodological approach is quite a common approach, however it’s often used in tandem with other ways of organising sources. This method is particularly evident in introductory sections whereby researchers may simply want to state that a particular subject has been mostly studied from a qualitative or quantitative perspective (they will often then cite a number of scholars or studies to support this claim). In scientific reviews however, a methodological approach may form the basis of the discussions in the body. If this is the case for you, focus on the methods used by various researchers. How did they go about answering a particular research question? Were there any limitations to this method? If so, what method(s) would have been better?

You’ll soon realise that organising the body of your literature review is an iterative process and you’ll more often than not use all of these approaches in your write-up. The body of your research may also include additional sections that do not necessarily form a part of its organisational structure. For instance, you might want to include a ‘context section’ that provides some insight on any background detail required for understanding the focus of the literature review. It may also focus on historical considerations. You could include a short methodology section that details the approach you used in selecting and analysing your sources.

5. Write the paragraphs of the body Once you have settled on the approach to writing your body, you must now write each of its paragraphs in a way that is in keeping with academic conventions. Consider this paragraph from a literature review about stakeholder participation for environmental management, to clarify the discussion that follows:

As the example above suggests, a dissertation literature review must be written using a formal and academic style . Also, note how sources have been grouped according to both arguments and themes. Remember we noted that the process of grouping sources in the body of your literature review is never a linear one? You will often use a combination of the approaches that we have discussed. Ensure that your writing is concise, coherent and devoid of any personal or strong language. Avoid any phrases like, “I hate X’s work”; a more academic way of stating your disagreement would be to simply state: “I would argue against X’s position that…”, or “X’s argument is inconsistent with the evidence because...”, or “X’s arguments are based on false assumptions because...”.

In the sample paragraph above, notice the use of words like “argue” – this is a good academic alternative to more commonplace words such as “says”. Other good alternatives include “states”, “asserts”, “proposes” or “claims”. More academic options include “opine”, “posit”, “postulate”, or “promulgate”, however some tutors and readers find these words to be too ‘heavy’ and archaic, so ensure that you are familiar with the writing standards in your institution.

If your writing is tailored to a peer-reviewed journal, it’s worth having a look at articles within that journal to get a sense of the writing style. Most tutors will provide a guideline on writing styles, and it’s important you adhere to this brief. You will often be required to also use the third person when writing a literature review, thus phrases such as “this paper argues” or “this paper is of the view that…” are appropriate.

There are exceptions at post-graduate level or generally – like when you have conducted your own primary research or published your work widely – which give you the academic authority to boldly make claims. In cases like these, the use of first person is suitable and you may use phrases such as “I argue” or “I propose”.

Remember also to generally use present tense when referring to opinions and theories (although in the context of specific research experiments, the use of the past tense is better).

Beyond the use of the academic terms suggested above, ‘linking’ words are also particularly important when writing a literature review, since you’ll be grouping a lot of writers together with either similar or divergent opinions. Useful linking words and phrases include: similarly, there are parallels, in convergence with…

When there is disagreement, you may want to use any of the following: However, conversely, on the other hand, diverges from, antithetical to, differential from…

6. Write the conclusion The conclusion of a dissertation literature review should always include a summary of the implications of the literature, which you should then link to your argument or general research question.

Some final notes

The overall structure of your literature review will be largely based on your research area and the academic conventions that are in line with it. Nevertheless, there are some essential steps that apply across all disciplines and that you should ensure you follow:

Do not simply describe the opinions of writers Analyse, analyse, analyse, and ensure that your analysis is critical (what have the writers missed; where does your opinion sit with theirs, etc.).

Structure the body of your argument using various techniques Your structure should be organised based on thematic areas, key debates or controversial issues, and according to methodological approaches. Keep your review dynamic, but coherent. Remember to identify literature gaps and link this to your own research.

Use ample evidence This is extremely important and forms the very essence of a dissertation literature review. You must refer to various sources when making a point; see the sample paragraph above for an example of this. Your arguments and interpretation of a research topic must be backed by evidence. Do not make baseless claims, as a literature review is an academic piece of writing and not an opinion piece.

Be very selective Not every piece of research has to be reviewed. If you are determined to show that you aware of the available literature out there, try writing techniques such as: There is robust literature available concerning the migration patterns of Syrian refugees. Notable works include: X(2015), y (2013), Z (2014). Once you have acknowledged these works, you do not have to review them in detail. Be selective about the sources that you will discuss in detail in your review.

Do not rely too much on direct quotes Only use them to emphasise a point. Similarly, don’t rely too heavily on the work of a single author. Instead, highlight the importance of that author in your research and move on. If you need to keep going back to the work of that author, then you need to link those discussions with your work. Do not simply provide a summary of the author’s work. In what ways does your work agree or disagree with his/hers? Be critical.

Make your voice heard Yes, the whole point of the literature review is to provide a critical analysis and summary of the viewpoints out there, but a critical analysis does include the fact that you need to make your opinion known in the context of the literature. Note how skilfully, in the earlier sample paragraph by Reed (2008), he weaves his opinions with references. Read back over the sample and try to perfect this skill.

Ensure that you reference your work correctly And make sure you use the appropriate referencing style. For more help on this, click here .

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Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Thesis Literature Review

A thesis literature review is one of the most important steps in writing a thesis. It is a complete survey of all scholarly articles and resources available for a particular topic. Now, let us take a closer look at the peculiarities of writing a thesis literature review.

How To Write Literature Review For Thesis

A literature review helps you evaluate and assess the current knowledge available on a topic. It also helps you identify theories, methods and gaps that exist. In order to understand how to write a literature review here are five steps that you need to follow:

Look for Relevant Literature

To begin your search for relevant literature, you need to have at least your working title in place. The search for any literature must be related to the research questions and problems.

When a literature review or thesis itself is your assignment, choose a focus subject and create a central question that will guide your search. These questions should be answerable only with a review of the publications that already exist.

One example of a literature review questions is:

Does social media lead to body image issues in Generation Z?

Once this question is set, make a list of keywords to help your search. In case of the above question, some examples of keywords are Facebook, Social Media, Body Image, Mental Health, Self-Esteem. Adolescents, Generation Z, Youth etc.

Then start collecting various sources. Some recommended databases are:

University Library JSTOR Google Scholar Medline Project Muse EBSCO EconLit Inspec

Use multiple keywords separated by Boolean operators like and, not and or to get more results.

Evaluate the Available Sources

Reading the abstract will help you understand whether a particular source must be included in your literature review thesis. If any citations are recurring, then they are most likely relevant and important for your topic.

When evaluating the sources, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Question addressed by the author
• Key concepts and their definition
• Key theories and methods
• The author’s approach
• Results of the study
• Comparison of the source with other literature related to the subject
• The contribution of the publication to your topic
• Strengths and weaknesses of the publication

The sources that you list must be credible. For instance, high citation count on Google Scholar indicates the relevance of the paper. As you review each publication take notes for the ones that you wish to list in your literature review. Correct citation is a must to avoid issues like plagiarism.

Identify Various Debates, Themes and Gaps

Your master thesis literature review will help you understand the existing literature better. You will be able to see the connection between different sources and the gaps that exist in them.

As you prepare your literature review, pay attention to:

• Various patterns and trends: Do certain ideas repeat in different citations? Does a similar methodology recur?
• Different themes: What are the concepts and questions that different sources address?
• Debates, contradictions and conflicts: Where do you notice opposing ideas in the literature?
• Important publications: Are there any publications that introduced novel ideas or influential theories that gave the field a new direction?
• Gaps: What do you think is missing in the literature?

With this step, you can figure out the structure of your literature review. With the above example on social media and its impact on body image, for instance, you will see the following trends and gaps:

The research is mostly targeted towards young women. The interest in the visual elements of social media steadily increases There is no research available on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram that are primarily visual media.

Prepare an Outline for Your Literature Review

You need to have a rough idea of how you plan to approach the literature review before you start writing. This will create a working thesis literature review example that you can build on. There are different options available for you to arrange the literature available:

• Chronological : Understand how a particular topic has developed over time. When you choose this strategy, make sure that you don’t merely list the literature but also follow the order. This will also help you understand why some developments occurred in important literature.
• Thematic : If you have noticed that certain themes are recurring, it is a good idea to organize the sources into various subsections. These subsections will include all the sources that address a particular aspect of the given topic.
• Compare the results of quantitative and qualitative research
• List the differences between theoretical and empirical approaches towards a particular subject.
• Theoretical : The literature review helps understand the different models, theories and key concepts related to a particular subject. In this step, you can focus on one theoretical approach or can compare different theories.

Writing the Literature Review

Now that you have all the sources and information available, you can prepare the actual thesis literature review. It should include the following elements:

• The introduction: Use the introduction to state the purpose and focus of your literature review. If you are writing the literature review for thesis, make sure that you talk about the central issue that your research will address and provide a summary of existing literature. For stand-alone reviews, provide a background about the subject, the relevance and the scope of existing literature.
• Provide an overview of the main topics covered in each source and then combine them.
• Add your own views and interpretations when possible.
• Write about the strengths and weaknesses of the chosen sources
• Use paragraphs that are well-structured.
• Conclusion: This is just as important as your introduction. Summarize the key results of the literature available and their importance. In case of a literature review for a dissertation or a thesis, make sure you mention how your research will address the existing gaps and include novel information. In case of a stand-alone literature review, provide a summary of the implications of different resources available. You can also provide suggestions for research in the future.

If you are having trouble writing literature review for thesis, our experts can help you . Our writers have years of experience creating the perfectly structured literature review for students from various fields of study. You can also access various literature review samples to get a head start on yours.

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Literature Review

• Starting the literature review
• Sources and strategy
• Writing the review
• Examples of dissertations
• Helpful guides

Dissertation examples

Undergraduate dissertations are not available in the library. We are currently working on selecting and digitising a selection of USW undergraduate dissertations.

You will find our postgraduate dissertations in our research repository USW Pure.

Ask your supervisor if they have any good examples of past dissertations that you can have a look at.

• Bristol University
• Leeds University  
• Nottingham University  
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Literature Reviews

• What's a literature review?

Literature Review Examples

Articles (free for csuc users), additional how-to guides and help.

• Resources for Educators
• Evaluating Info
• Empirical Research This link opens in a new window
• Annotated Bibliography This link opens in a new window

Books On Literature Reviews in the Meriam Library

• Conducting Research Literature Reviews : From the Internet to Paper Call Number: Main Collection - Q180.55.M4 F56 2014
• Literature Reviews Made Easy: A Quick Guide to Success Call Number: Main Collection - PN98.B7 D37 2010
• Preparing Literature Reviews: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches Call Number: Main Collection - Q180.55.E9 P36 2008
• Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review Call Number: Main Collection - LB1047.3 .B66 2012
• The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success Call Number: Main Collection - LB1047.3 .M33 2009
• Writing Literature Reviews: A Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Call Number: Reference H61.8 .G34 2013

Books on Research Methodology in the Meriam Library

• Doing Case Study Research : A Practical Guide for Beginning Researchers Call Number: Main Collection - LB1028 .H313 2006
• Evaluating Research Articles from Start to Finish Call Number: Main Collection - Q180.55.E9 G57 2011
• How to do a Research Report: A Guide for Undergraduate Students Call Number: Main Collection - LB2369 .R575 2007
• How to Write a Master's Thesis Call Number: Main Collection - LB2369 .B75 2014
• Understanding Research Methods: An Overview of the Essentials Call Number: Main Collection - Q180.55.M4 P38 2018
• Master's Theses Database of master's theses written by CSU, Chico students, from 2009 on. Many of these will contain published examples of literature reviews.
• Proquest Dissertations and Theses: The Humanities and Social Sciences Collection Containes over 2 million dissertations and theses with abstracts, 24 page free previews, and full-text PDF, if available, for dissertations and theses dating back to 1637.
• Sample APA Paper (lit. review begins page 3) Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
• A Commentary on Literature Reviews Rhodes, E.A. (2011). A commentary on literature reviews. Volta Reviews, 111(3), 353-368.
• A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review Randolph, J.J. (2009). A guide to writing the dissertation literature review. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 14(13), 1-13.
• The Value and Purpose of the Traditional Qualitative Literature Review Rozas, L.W. & Klein, W.C. (2010). The value and purpose of the traditional qualitative literature review. Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work, 7(5), 382-399.
• Undertaking a Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Approach Cronin, P., Ryan, F., & Coughlan, M. (2008). Undertaking a literature review: a step-by-step approach. British Journal of Nursing, 17(1), 38-43.
• Undertaking a Structured Literature Review or Structuring a Literature Review: Tales from the Field Armitage, A. & Keeble-Allen, D. (2008). Undertaking a structured literature review or structuring a literature review: tales from the field. Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 6(2), 103-114.
• CSU, Chico Office of Graduate Studies - Thesis Assistance Instructions, policies, and guidelines for graduate studies theses/projects.
• CSU, Chico Writing Center Make a one-on-one appointment with a writing tutor to help with your writing assignments.
• Learn How to Write a Review of the Literature University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Literature Review: An Overview for Graduate Students Video overview by North Carolina State University Libraries
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide University of Connecticut University Libraries
• Social Work Literature Review Guidelines Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
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The CSUSB Library is home to millions of print and digital materials, including print books, eBooks, print journals, eJournals, DVDs, streaming video, audio, archival primary sources, and much more. More information about our collections . 

Use CSUSB OneSearch to find books, articles, journals, media, maps, music, and more. For more search options, use Advanced Search.    [TIP: When using  OneSearch, it also a good idea to sign in to your library account so you can request materials, see full text results, and create favorite lists.]

Research Guides by Subjects : librarian-curated lists of databases and resources. 

Journals : Search the catalog for electronic and print journal titles.

Databases : Browse or search the A-Z list of library databases. You can filter by subject. 

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Have questions?  Ask us for assistance.  

Find Thesis and Dissertations Written at CSUSB

• CSUSB Theses on ScholarWorks From 2014 onward, CSUSB theses were produced solely as PDF files. Check availability here.
• Thesis Digitization Project The library is gradually converting the older hard -copy theses to PDF format; they are posted here as soon as they become available.

What is CSUSB ScholarWorks?

CSUSB ScholarWorks is an open access institutional repository showcasing and preserving the research, scholarship, and publications of California State University, San Bernardino faculty, staff, and students. The repository is a service of the John M. Pfau Library.

Graduate students completing a master's thesis/project or a doctoral dissertation at CSUSB upload their work to CSUSB ScholarWorks as part of the process of finishing their degree. We hope you will you want to make your work Open Access, but if you prefer not to, there are options for restricting access to it.

• Open Access : Once published, your manuscript is available freely on the Web, and others can easily discover it via Google Scholar.
• Restricted Access : Your manuscript can only be accessed by CSUSB students, staff and faculty on campus or via off-campus login; only the citation and abstract are available on the Web.

Preparing to Write the Literature Review

A literature review surveys scholarly articles, books, dissertations, and conference proceedings relevant to your research problem, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work.  Preparing to Write the Literature Review Guide

Purpose of the literature review:

• Provides a historical background for your research problem
• Describes its current status
• Supports the purpose of the study
• Identifies gaps in the literature
• Become aware of variables relevant to the problem
• Understand the seminal studies widely cited
• Identifies the leading scholars relevant to the problem 

(Lunenburg, 2008)

Learn more about Copyright and using other's work in your own work using our Copyright and Fair Use Research Guide.

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Can a literature review be a "master's thesis"?

I have selected a single question for my master's thesis, within my field of Foreign Language Teaching. Most papers I have read contain just short literature reviews providing some background for a research study that occupied most of the writer's time. I think I could understand my question better if I focusing all of my effort on creating a 100-200 page literature review, examining and critiquing all existing literature on the subject, rather than on trying to come up with some new results.

Can a master's thesis be comprised of just a literature review? Do journals publish literature reviews on their own?

• literature-review

• What is your area of study? –  earthling Commented Jan 28, 2014 at 13:01

3 Answers 3

At least in my Faculty (of Computer Science), a master thesis can be "just" a literature review. A literature review can be an important contribution, and is part of what is usually called secondary research .

However, you should consider performing a systematic literature review , which is a literature review comprising several analytic and precise steps to enhance the reliability of the study. A systematic literature review is a time consuming research activity but a very useful one. Please verify that such a review has not already been conducted recently, before starting it by your own.

Systematic reviews are publishable research and often get many citations. As for thesis, I think that any publishable research activity can be a student's master thesis. However, ask your (potential) advisor .

• (+1) Yes, I strongly appreciate literature reviews. It is not a trivial contribution to accurately summarize the history, state of the art, and current challenges of a discipline. Doing a systematic literature helps with the quality and feasibility of producing the literature review. –  Galen Commented Jan 17, 2022 at 19:15

You're asking two different questions here.

Yes, you can publish a high-quality literature review in some, but not all, journals. However, many journals also solicit such reviews rather than take them automatically, and many will have length restrictions associated with them. So check with the journal before you start working!

As for a master's thesis, that depends a lot on the requirements of your field. In the humanities, you would probably have to do some searches for primary references, but a large-scale literature review is an important part of such a work. In the sciences and engineering, however, you are much less likely to be able to submit such a thesis. The usual standards there require more original work than can typically be accomplished with a literature review.

A literature review with well-defined research questions that provides a synthesis of high-quality literature is considered very useful research. Generally, such reviews present a taxonomy of the domain, summarize the contributions and furnish them in an abstract manner from different aspects involved. A good quality review gets many citations, and it provides a very useful stepping stone for new researchers in a given area. Thus, it can certainly be considered as an MS thesis.

• 4 But it depends, of course, on what an advisor or a university will permit. –  Buffy Commented Jan 17, 2022 at 18:43
• 1 Though there are different contexts and meanings of the word, often when people say "research" they mean "original research". Reviews are certainly useful to the research process, but may not be considered themselves research . –  Bryan Krause ♦ Commented Jan 17, 2022 at 19:06

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Informing Educator Preparation Programs_Daniela Vilarinho Rezende Pereira

until file(s) become available

Informing Educator Preparation Programs: Insights into Technology Integration

The overarching purpose of this three-paper dissertation was to investigate the affordances of technology in educational settings and gain insight into how preservice and inservice teachers integrate technology as they design, develop, implement, and manage learning experiences. To meet this goal, three studies were conducted. In study 1 the purpose was to describe how preservice teachers identify educational problems and suggest solutions in which educational technology can be meaningfully implemented by using a problem-solving lens. Participated in this study 100 preservice teachers enrolled in an introductory educational technology course. Students’ technology integration activity was analyzed for this study. This activity, divided into three parts, required that students (1) shared and reflected on their best academic learning experience, (2) described how they could integrate technology into that learning experience, and (3) revisited their suggestions for technology integration, evaluated their ideas, and suggested revisions. Data were analyzed using an ill-structured problem-solving model synthesized from previous literature: identifying problems, generating solutions, making justifications, and monitoring. Results of this study indicated that preservice teachers had a simplistic understanding of technology integration, likely resulting from underdeveloped problem-solving skills. In study 2 the purpose was to identify the instructional strategies and technology affordances used while integrating technology that facilitated the development of student creativity by completing a systematic literature review about how technology (i.e., social media) is being used by educators to foster creativity. After the process of identification and screening, a total of 27 articles met the inclusion criteria and were selected for further analysis. The results indicated that, in most studies in which the use of technology was associated with promoting student creativity, a student-centered approach was used. Students had autonomy and flexibility to produce content, express their opinions, and share their experiences using social media. Also, participants used social media to create their own products, communicate with others, and collaborate virtually. In the studies, we identified that the social media affordances of ownership, association, and visibility lead to fostering student creativity. In conclusion, social media, when integrated with appropriate instructional strategies, can be successfully used as an educational tool to build an environment that promotes student creativity. In study 3 the purpose was to analyze the forms in which special education teachers design learning experiences that provide an environment for creativity development for students from special education and how their proposed technology integration plays a role in it across different settings (i.e., face-to-face, blended, and online learning). Three practicing teachers enrolled in an online graduate program in special education participated in this study. For the purpose of this study, the primary data source consisted of assignments (i.e., artifacts and reflections) submitted by students to the Technology Integration - Blended and Online Teaching (Ti-BOT) program, a licensure required as part of their Special Education program. Artifacts were analyzed through the lens of the existing literature on learning environments for creativity. Reflections were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach, applying a combination of inductive and deductive coding. The artifacts presented by the participants included elements of a creative environment and technology often facilitated the development of such an environment. However, the participants did not appear to explicitly and intentionally design activities to foster creativity, but to make modifications to learning activities and assessments that reflected the level of individualization and adaptations that are typically expected from special education teachers, described in individualized education plans (IEPs), and guided by Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. With the findings from this three-paper dissertation, the goal is to provide recommendations for how educator preparation programs can improve how they are approaching technology integration, gain deeper understanding of technology integration across diverse contexts and tools, and offer strategies for supporting the deeper consideration of how technologies can be meaningfully used.

Degree Type

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Curriculum and Instruction

Campus location

• West Lafayette

Advisor/Supervisor/Committee Chair

Additional committee member 2, additional committee member 3, additional committee member 4, additional committee member 5, usage metrics.

• Curriculum and pedagogy not elsewhere classified

• Systematic Review
• Open access
• Published: 09 August 2024

A scoping review of policies to encourage breastfeeding, healthy eating, and physical activity among rural people and places in the United States

• M. Renée Umstattd Meyer 1 ,
• Bailey Houghtaling 2 ,
• Marilyn E. Wende 3 ,
• Khawlah H. Kheshaifaty 4 ,
• Haley Delgado 1 ,
• Stephanie A. Eze 1 ,
• Cassady Mecate 1 ,
• Rebekah Summerall Woodward 1 ,
• Randa Lopez Morgan 5 &
• Kathy J. Krey 6  

BMC Public Health volume  24 , Article number:  2160 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

251 Accesses

Metrics details

Rural U.S. residents experience a disproportionate burden of diet and physical activity (PA) related chronic disease compared to urban residents, due to resource and economic challenges. Diverse policy approaches for chronic disease prevention have been implemented to address barriers to breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to describe policy supports for breastfeeding, healthy eating, and/or PA occurring in rural U.S. areas.

A scoping review was conducted March-June 2020 to identify policy, systems, and environment change approaches occurring in the rural U.S. for breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA. Search procedures were guided by the PRISMA-ScR, Arksey and O’Malley’s work (2007), and a science librarian. Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, and Agricola were used to identify peer-reviewed research. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses A&I were used to identify dissertation research. Grey literature searches included Google, Google Scholar, government pages, and public health, federal nutrition assistance program, Cooperative Extension Services, and related webpages. Policy results are reported and inclusion criteria were: (1) breastfeeding, healthy eating, and/or PA focus; (2) about policy factors; (3) specific to U.S. rural populations/places; and (4) English language. Outcomes (study/source design, objective(s), methods/measurement, setting, population characteristics, behavioral focus, policy-specific results) were extracted into a standardized Excel document.

Results include 122 total sources: original research, with some sources referencing multiple behaviors, ( n  = 74 sources: 8 breastfeeding, 41 healthy eating, 42 PA), grey literature ( n  = 45 sources: 16 breastfeeding, 15 healthy eating, 27 PA), and graduate research (n  = 3 sources: 1 breastfeeding, 2 healthy eating, 1 PA). Breastfeeding policy initiatives included policies or programs at hospitals, increasing access to resources, and improving culture or norms at workplaces. Healthy eating policy initiatives included increasing access to healthy foods, reducing financial burden, implementing programs, food assistance programs, and healthy food prescriptions at healthcare facilities. PA policy initiatives focused on Complete Streets, joint or shared use efforts, Safe Routes to Schools, master plans for greenways, trails, and/or transportation, school health plans, and childcare/school standards.

Conclusions

Results from this scoping review compile and offer commentary on existing policy solutions to improve breastfeeding, healthy eating, and/or PA in the rural U.S.

Peer Review reports

Rates of chronic disease among Americans are high [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] and projected to increase over time [ 4 ]. This is important, since living with multiple chronic diseases is associated with greater health care use and cost (e.g., doctor office visits, prescriptions) [ 1 ]. For example, 90% of health care spending is accounted for by the 60% of Americans with at least one chronic disease and 41% accounted for by the 12% of Americans with five or more chronic diseases [ 1 ]. Additionally, experiencing multiple chronic conditions leads to increased risk of mortality [ 5 ]. Disparities also exist with respect to chronic disease morality. Rural compared to urban residents in the United States (U.S.) have higher mortality rates from all five leading causes of death, including cancer, heart disease, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease, and stroke [ 6 , 7 ].

To address high rates of chronic disease and related disparities, chronic disease prevention must address behavioral risk factors on multiple levels of influence and across the entire lifespan [ 8 ]. National guidelines for the promotion of breastfeeding [ 9 ], healthy eating [ 10 , 11 ], and physical activity (PA) [ 10 , 12 ] indicate areas for improvement regarding U.S. population health behaviors for chronic disease prevention. However, education approaches alone are unlikely to favorably impact rural Americans’ health practices [ 13 ]. As such, concerted policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) changes to improve breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA practices in alignment with guidelines in settings where Americans “live, learn work, shop, and play” are needed [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ].

PSE changes may be especially impactful for rural U.S. populations who experience a higher burden of diet and PA related chronic disease, due to infrastructure, resource, and economic challenges [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. For example, rural Americans are less likely than urban counterparts to initiate and sustain breastfeeding [ 29 ], to choose foods and beverages aligned with 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans [ 11 ], or to meet PA guidelines [ 19 , 20 , 30 , 31 ]. To mitigate rural health disparities, an understanding of PSE factors related to promoting breastfeeding, healthy eating, and/or PA in rural communities is needed. Further, understanding opportunities to track such factors over time can help move public health surveillance beyond individual-level behaviors to monitor PSE factors more likely to influence populations’ health-related choices [ 15 ].

Researchers applying PSE approaches have called for additional investigation and analysis of policy approaches surrounding the allocation of resources and funding to high-risk populations [ 14 , 15 ]. Indeed, policy approaches to improve health behaviors among rural populations are studied as a means to implement empirically supported strategies on the national, state, county, or organizational levels [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. While many systematic reviews have compiled evidence-based environmental approaches to health promotion [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ], fewer recent reviews have compiled evidence-based policy approaches to address low rates of breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA that may have profound implications for population health outcomes [ 38 ]. Lastly, to our knowledge, no scoping reviews have been published on rural behavior change policy approaches that may be included within less formal channels, such as grey literature reports and theses.

There is a need to comprehensively review and compile existing policy approaches to address low rates of breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA in rural areas. Scoping reviews can provide information for effective implementation and evidence-based policy strategies as chronic disease prevention strategies [ 39 ], and be important tools for compiling academic and non-academic sources to understand the breadth of policies that have been implemented in rural areas [ 39 ]. Given the above considerations, the purpose of this scoping review was to identify policy supports that encourage breastfeeding, healthy eating, and/or PA practices among rural American communities. A secondary aim was to assess policy measurement approaches used to collect data in rural communities.

A broad scoping review was conducted in 2020 as part of a large project to inform PSE surveillance indicators for breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA promotion among U.S. rural people and places. This project was contracted by the Division of Nutrition, PA, and Obesity Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC partners aided in developing the review focus and provided feedback, although were not responsible for synthesizing results or drawing conclusions. Notably, the below methods section details the approach used for the entire review, although only the results pertaining to policy are presented here. Carrying out the scoping review procedures, as detailed below, resulted in the inclusion of over 300 sources that were described in an internal-facing report to CDC. To facilitate the reporting of results to a wider audience and improve the ability to offer specific recommendations, authors split results for breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA by policy, systems, or environmental strategies.

Both the 2018 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) [ 40 ] and guidance published by Arksey and O’Malley [ 41 ] were used to inform the review strategy and reporting.

The review team included scholars with expertise in rural health and PSE change strategies to improve breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA patterns/practices. A library partner, a team of graduate research assistants, and an expert advisory board were also involved. Advisory board members ( n  = 6) included well-established researchers in the areas of PSE and breastfeeding ( n  = 2), healthy eating ( n  = 2), or PA ( n  = 2), with experience working with rural communities when possible. Training was arranged for graduate research assistants at the start of the review process, covering topics including literature review methods, PSE examples, and data extraction. Findings related to policies to encourage/support rural breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA patterns/practices are reported here and other results (i.e., systems, environments, and qualitative case studies) are reported separately (forthcoming). A review protocol was pre-registered using Open Science Framework (OSF; https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/VXMDC  [ 42 ].

Search strategy

A science librarian tested and selected the search strategy used to identify sources, designed to broadly capture policy, systems, and environmental strategies for breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA promotion occurring in rural settings. Grey literature, graduate research (including thesis and dissertation work), and peer-reviewed scientific literature were all of interest. Searches occurred over a 5-month period between February and July 2020. The procedures for searches are described below by source type.

Peer-reviewed scientific articles and graduate research

Four academic databases – Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, and Agricola – were selected to identify peer-reviewed research across the three discipline areas and ProQuest was used to identify graduate research. Given the broad focus of the scoping review, key terms were tested to select words that most accurately captured relevant sources without overly restricting search databases. Key terms were applied to databases between March and June of 2020 by one researcher with terms focused on topic area (e.g., breastfeed*, diet*, “physical activity*”), geography (e.g., rural*, “United States”), and setting (e.g., policy, environment*) (see https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/VXMDC  for the full search strategy) [ 42 ].

The year 2000 was used as a search restriction for peer-reviewed research given PSE strategies for breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA were less of a focus among the scientific community prior to this year [ 43 ]. ProQuest searchers were limited by topic area. For example, search restrictions for healthy eating and PA included only dissertation research and the year 2018 and, for breastfeeding, only the year 2015 was used due to fewer retrieved results compared to the other topic areas. Graduate research prior to these years were assumed to be published and thus would have been identified through the peer-reviewed literature searches. The complete search strategy is available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/VXMDC  [ 42 ].

All search results were downloaded to an EndNote X9 file for title and abstract review. Due to the large scope of the review, full text reviewing occurred independently among project team members. Figure  1 provides a PRISMA diagram of included and excluded studies related to all three PSE approaches, with reasons for exclusion. This process was iterative. Trained research team members (HD, SE, CM, RSW) completed abstract review, full text review, and extraction, with liberal inclusion of source materials, and then three project leads (BH, KJK, and MRUM) and trained research team members (KHK, MEW) checked eligibility of all extracted full text articles. The flow diagram regarding academic and ProQuest sources reviewed and included in our synthesis among all behaviors and PSE areas is shown in Fig.  1 .

PRISMA diagram of included and excluded studies related to policy, systems, and environmental change approaches for breastfeeding, healthy eating, and physical activity promotion

To supplement the systematic search, literature recommendations were solicited from the advisory group, including both original research and related systematic/scoping reviews. Research team members reviewed and determined if advisory group recommendations met inclusion criteria.

Grey literature

Grey literature searches spanned Google, Google Scholar, Google government pages (inurl:gov) and public health, federal nutrition assistance program, Cooperative Extension Services (Extension – a nationwide educational network that addresses public needs by providing non-formal higher education and learning activities to farmers, ranchers, communities, youth, and families) [ 44 ], and other webpages (see https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/VXMDC ) [ 42 ]. Search lists were generated for breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA topic areas with some overlap as appropriate.

Graduate research assistants visited webpages, identified grey literature documents, and reviewed sources for relevant information. Using an iterative process, trained research team members (HD, SE, CM, RSW) completed a review of all grey literature sources (with liberal inclusion of source materials) and then three project leads (BH, KJK, and MRUM) and trained research team members (KHK, MEW) checked these standardized Excel spreadsheets for clarity/completeness and inclusion eligibility.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

All sources were required to meet five criteria for inclusion. Specifically: (1) a focus on at least one of three topic areas (breastfeeding, healthy eating, and/or PA); (2) about PSE factors (rather than individual behavioral or interpersonal-level approaches); (3) results specific to rural U.S. populations or places; and (4) English language publication. There were no restrictions on research design which resulted in the inclusion of both objective and subjective data. Given the number of sources identified, social environment factors were excluded after the search to narrow the review focus, as social factors (e.g., peer support, social marketing) were considered less consistent indicators for potential public health surveillance [ 45 ].

Rural definition

Several definitions of “rural” are used in the literature and across organizations. For this review, rural settings were determined using the source description. For grey literature sources, the “Am I Rural” search tool was used to determine source inclusion if there was no clear description/classification of rural and a location (town, county) was reported. The “Am I Rural” search tool, which uses common rural definitions to provide rural classifications for certain locations, including Census definition (designating Urbanized areas and Urban Clusters), Core Based Statistical Areas, Federal Office of Rural Health Policy defined rural areas, Frontier and Remote Area (FAR) codes by census tract defined rural areas, Rural Urban Commuting Areas (RUCA) codes by census tract, Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (RUCC), and Urban Influence Codes (UIC) [ 46 ]. To reflect the heterogeneity of rural people and places and to address the inadequacy of standard rural definitions in capturing sociodemographic and cultural variations, study sites were characterized, when possible (county or town information listed), using a rural–urban typology for rural spaces, including: African American South; Aging Farmlands; Evangelical Hubs; Graying America; Hispanic Centers; Latter Day Saints Enclaves; Native American Lands; Rural Middle America; and Working Class Country [ 47 , 48 ].

Scoping review outcomes and results synthesis

Outcomes were extracted to standardized Excel sheets designed by study leads and reviewed by CDC partners and advisors, including the study or source design and objective, setting or sector, population characteristics, behavioral focus, and results specific to rural PSE factors. PSE change definitions were sourced from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed, a federally-funded grant program that supports evidence-based nutrition and obesity prevention interventions and projects for those eligible for SNAP) [ 49 ] guidance due to the large organizational emphasis on using these types of strategies to improve community health outcomes. Thus, a “policy” was considered a “ written statement of an organizational position, decision, or course of action” . All outcomes were extracted by multiple researchers using an iterative process.

Results from this scoping review include 122 total sources focused on policy, which are compiled in Table 1 . Table 2  presents detailed information about original research ( n  = 73 sources: 8 breastfeeding, 41 healthy eating, and 41 PA, where n  = 17 included 2 behaviors). Table 3  presents results specific to grey literature ( n  = 45 sources: 15 breastfeeding, 16 healthy eating, and 28 PA, where n  = 12 included 2 behaviors and n  = 1 included all 3). Table 4  presents results specific to graduate research ( n  = 3 sources: 1 breastfeeding, 2 healthy eating, and 1 PA, where n  = 1 included 2 behaviors).

Breastfeeding

Rural settings which cited breastfeeding policy in grey literature, graduate research, and peer-reviewed sources focused on initiatives in hospital/healthcare settings [ 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 ], workplaces [ 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ], schools [ 68 ], food assistance programs [ 29 , 74 ], libraries [ 72 ], and/or local business settings [ 72 ].

Breastfeeding policies in rural hospital and healthcare settings mainly focused on the implementation of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, CDC’s Ten Steps to Successful breastfeeding, High 5 for Mom & Baby, or similar practices to create healthcare norms and environments supportive of breastfeeding initiation after birth [ 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 57 , 59 , 61 , 62 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ]. A specific policy to encourage maternal-infant skin-on-skin contact immediately postpartum was found promising for encouraging rural breastfeeding initiation and duration. [ 60 , 61 , 63 ] Another study found rural hospitals could improve the implementation of policies to support breastfeeding compared to more urban settings, and higher breastfeeding rates were found among hospitals implementing several steps of Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative Ten Steps in both urban and rural settings [ 62 ].

Policy initiatives were similar among rural workplaces, schools, libraries, and local business setting, and included leadership decisions that increase support and resources [ 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ], and provide protocols for breastfeeding [ 69 ]. Examples of food assistance program policy changes included addressing inconsistency of breastfeeding promotion and practices [ 29 ]. and included benefits for breastfeeding women using food assistance (e.g., Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) [ 29 , 74 ].

Methods and tools used to assess rural breastfeeding policies included data from Baby Friendly USA [ 61 , 64 ], surveys or questionnaires (e.g., Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition and Care survey) [ 60 , 62 , 63 , 70 ], and interviews (Table 5 ) [ 29 , 71 ].

Healthy eating

Rural settings focused on healthy eating policy involved initiatives in schools [ 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 , 94 , 95 , 96 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 , 103 , 104 , 105 , 106 ], food assistance programs [ 97 , 101 , 102 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 113 , 114 ], food retail [ 98 , 99 , 101 , 102 , 103 , 107 , 109 , 113 , 115 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 , 121 ], childcare settings [ 122 , 123 , 124 , 125 ], healthcare settings [ 119 , 121 , 126 , 127 ], local food producers [ 83 , 109 , 118 , 121 , 128 ], churches [ 91 , 129 ], community gardens [ 130 ], neighborhoods [ 110 , 131 ], health departments [ 132 ], local government [ 133 ], and workplaces [ 73 , 95 , 130 , 133 ].

Policy initiatives in rural schools and childcare settings included promoting healthy food (e.g., advertisement, cafeteria monitors encouraging healthy choices) [ 82 , 86 , 88 , 95 , 103 ], adopting federal or state level child nutrition programs (e.g., farm to school programs, U.S. Department of Agriculture school meal programs) [ 78 , 79 , 83 , 90 , 93 ], prohibiting or limiting access to unhealthy foods at schools [ 76 , 80 , 87 , 89 , 95 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 115 ], allowing students to bring water bottles to school [ 91 ], enacting school breakfast programs [ 75 , 81 , 84 , 86 , 90 , 100 ], increasing healthy food availability [ 75 , 82 , 85 , 91 , 94 , 95 , 100 , 123 ], reversing lunch and recess [ 104 , 105 , 106 ], requiring health education (e.g. education in diabetes best practices) [ 76 , 80 ], and adopting school nutrition standards [ 75 , 76 , 85 , 92 , 93 , 125 ]. Barriers cited in school and childcare settings include lack of capacity or training to implement food programming [ 88 , 105 , 124 ], federally mandated academic testing requirements [ 80 ], lack of nutrition standards or ability to influence cafeteria foods [ 80 ], lack of access to healthy food outlets [ 94 ], cost of healthy foods or funding for healthy eating policy [ 87 , 94 , 98 , 124 ], use of unhealthy foods as rewards [ 91 ], and inability of food service directors to implement healthy food policy [ 87 ].

Food assistance programs, such as the Federal Distribution Program for Indian Reservations, SNAP, and Women Infants and Children (WIC), promote health eating by addressing food insecurity, financial stress, and healthy food access in rural and urban communities. Food assistance programs were highlighted as vital for rural communities given higher rates of food insecurity and financial stress, and low access to healthy food among rural populations [ 97 , 101 , 102 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 113 , 114 ]. Food assistance program policies that restrict the amount of and access to benefits [ 110 ], or those that do not improve access to healthy foods [ 111 ], were identified as potential barriers.

Rural food retail policy initiatives included promoting local produce using vouchers [ 119 ], food prescriptions [ 119 ], or advertisements [ 115 , 116 , 118 , 120 ], reducing costs at healthy food stores [ 116 ], providing incentives for small, healthful food stores [ 117 ], creating co-operative services [ 107 , 120 ], and changing healthful food store zoning [ 99 ]. Barriers to promoting healthy eating using food retail policy included food systems issues [ 98 , 118 ], low access to healthy food stores [ 116 ], and low enforcement and implementation [ 99 ].

Healthcare setting policy initiatives in rural areas included sodium reduction policies (e.g., lower sodium options, fast food free zones) [ 127 ] and farmers market prescriptions/vouchers from physicians [ 119 , 126 , 127 ]. Barriers in healthcare settings included low implementation of or adherence to new policies among physicians [ 119 ], and lack of funding for new policy initiatives [ 127 ].

Additionally, policy initiatives for rural food producers, churches, community gardens, neighborhoods, health departments, local governments, and workplaces similarly focused on increasing access to healthy foods, increasing access to food preparation equipment, developing nutrition standards, garnering political support, implementing shared use agreements, and disseminating health promotion materials [ 73 , 83 , 91 , 95 , 109 , 110 , 118 , 128 , 129 , 130 , 131 , 132 , 133 ].

Methods and tools used to assess rural healthy eating policies included interviews and/or focus groups [ 80 , 87 , 88 , 98 , 105 , 109 , 112 , 119 , 128 , 129 , 130 , 132 ], surveys [ 83 , 89 , 91 , 105 , 106 , 109 , 113 , 118 , 127 , 133 , 134 ], assessment tools [ 82 , 96 , 98 , 122 , 123 , 124 , 131 ], administrative data [ 79 , 84 , 90 , 116 ], policy coding forms [ 99 ], workshops [ 110 ], observational tools [ 92 ], photovoice [ 94 ], and process evaluation measures [ 86 ] (Table 5 ).

Physical activity

Rural settings for identified policy results for PA included schools [ 75 , 76 , 77 , 80 , 82 , 87 , 88 , 91 , 93 , 94 , 95 , 98 , 100 , 101 , 102 , 103 , 104 , 106 , 107 , 120 , 125 , 135 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 , 146 , 147 , 148 , 149 , 150 , 151 , 152 , 153 , 154 , 155 , 156 ], trails/sidewalks/paths [ 115 , 130 , 138 , 149 , 154 , 155 , 157 , 158 , 159 , 160 , 161 , 162 , 163 ], streets [ 100 , 102 , 103 , 113 , 125 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 , 155 , 156 , 157 , 158 , 159 , 161 , 162 , 164 , 165 , 166 , 167 , 168 , 169 ], childcare [ 122 , 123 , 124 , 125 , 162 ], recreation facilities [ 98 , 101 , 107 , 113 , 114 , 134 , 138 , 140 , 141 , 144 , 170 , 171 ], churches [ 91 , 129 , 172 ], parks/playgrounds [ 75 , 95 , 98 , 102 , 103 , 113 , 114 , 134 , 141 , 161 ], healthcare settings [ 126 ], county fairgrounds [ 95 ], workplaces [ 73 , 95 , 149 , 161 , 162 ], neighborhoods [ 110 , 131 , 163 ], commercial/retail outlets [ 141 ], and community gardens [ 130 ]. In addition, many studies noted PA policies that were not setting specific [ 94 , 115 , 131 ]. Policy initiatives for PA focused on Complete Streets efforts (i.e., an approach to planning, designing and building streets that enables safe access for all users) [ 103 , 125 , 164 , 165 , 167 , 168 ], joint or shared use efforts with schools [ 75 , 101 , 120 , 146 ] or churches [ 172 ], Safe Routes to Schools efforts [ 100 , 125 , 136 , 137 ], and coordinated plans or master plans for the community or county (greenway, trail, town, pedestrian, bicycle, transportation) [ 100 , 136 , 141 , 157 , 160 ], a coordinated school health plan [ 100 ] or childcare PA standards [ 125 ].

In rural schools or childcare settings, policy supports for PA included joint/shared use efforts [ 75 , 101 , 120 , 138 , 139 , 146 , 147 , 148 , 152 ], designated walk/bike to school days or programs [ 100 , 103 , 125 , 136 , 137 , 143 , 144 , 154 ], PA breaks during the school day (e.g., brain breaks, mini field trips, outside time) [ 123 , 147 , 150 ], after-school PA programming [ 107 , 155 ], making changes to the recess period [ 104 ], integrating PA into classroom activities [ 80 ], PA curriculum [ 104 ], PA standards [ 125 ], supporting or requiring physical education (PE) in schools [ 76 , 80 , 98 , 100 , 150 ], and increasing PE time [ 104 ]. Policy barriers at schools included insufficient time for recess or PA [ 87 , 88 ], teachers withholding PA as punishment [ 88 ], federally mandated academic testing requirements [ 80 , 135 ], low population sizes in rural areas, distance to schools [ 153 , 155 ], community perceptions that schools are “off limits” during after hours [ 148 ], limited recreational facilities [ 94 , 153 ], lack of trained personnel/staff for implementation [ 124 , 153 ], limited funding [ 87 , 124 , 135 ], absence of political support (from administrators or policymakers) [ 150 ], conflicts with other school activities [ 153 ], and limited formal PE requirements [ 87 ].

Policy supports for PA focused on rural streets, trails, sidewalks, and paths included bicycle and pedestrian plans [ 113 , 125 , 136 , 138 , 139 , 141 , 144 , 145 , 156 , 159 , 163 , 164 , 165 , 167 , 168 , 169 ], ensuring compliance with the American Disabilities Act [ 161 ], enhancing or adding PA infrastructure [ 158 , 163 ], which included ecotourism (e.g., facilitating connections with historical resources), pedestrian centered street improvements [ 113 ], maintenance of PA infrastructure [ 158 ], and addressed parks, schools, farmlands, and commercial/retail areas as part of the plan [ 100 , 103 , 113 , 130 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 , 157 , 158 , 159 , 162 , 164 , 165 , 166 , 167 , 168 , 169 ]. In addition, one study specifically noted policies to address the needs of rural, diverse populations, such as minority groups, low-income groups, elderly, and people with disabilities [ 141 ]. Barriers to policy changes in streets include lack of or inadequately maintained sidewalks [ 140 , 145 , 162 ], lack of awareness of existing policies [ 169 ], conflicting evidence informing policy, absence of political support [ 130 , 140 ], limited funding [ 115 , 130 ], safety concerns (e.g., stray animals, lack of safety features, traffic) [ 115 , 155 , 162 ], and graffiti [ 100 , 103 , 113 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 , 157 , 158 , 159 , 162 , 164 , 165 , 166 , 167 , 168 , 169 ].

Policies in rural parks or recreational facilities included improving or maintaining PA environments [ 103 ], ensuring PA programming is available year-round [ 107 ], addressing the needs of diverse populations (e.g., minority groups, lower income groups, the elderly, and persons with disabilities) [ 141 , 161 ], implementing shared use agreements [ 113 , 170 , 171 ], developing land use plans, and allowing public use of PA resources [ 114 ]. Potential barriers to PA policies included lack of funding, lack of availability of coalition members and zoning, more mixed-use zoning needed [ 140 ], tending to public and outdoor spaces (e.g., litter, issues with grass) [ 170 ], and differences in political agendas as a possible reason for varying priorities in PA-supportive environmental change (e.g., recreational facilities, sidewalks, mixed-use school athletic spaces) [ 113 , 140 , 141 , 149 , 170 ]. Park-specific barriers include distance to parks and inadequately maintained park amenities [ 113 , 134 , 140 , 141 , 161 ].

Finally, policy changes across rural faith-based organizations (churches), healthcare settings, county fairgrounds, workplaces, neighborhoods, commercial/retail outlets, and community gardens included requirement of social events to include youth PA opportunities, subsidizing gym memberships, and joint use agreements [ 73 , 91 , 95 , 110 , 126 , 129 , 130 , 131 , 162 , 163 , 172 ]. Barriers across other settings included lack of access to or absence of PA resources, funding instability, safety concerns, existing organizational practices, and distance to PA opportunities [ 91 , 95 , 126 , 129 , 130 , 131 , 172 ].

Methods and tools used to assess rural PA policies included interviews and/or focus groups [ 80 , 87 , 88 , 104 , 115 , 129 , 130 , 135 , 147 , 150 , 151 , 155 , 162 , 171 ], surveys [ 104 , 106 , 113 , 117 , 131 , 135 , 149 , 152 , 153 , 158 , 159 , 169 , 170 ], assessment tools [ 122 , 123 , 124 , 138 , 139 , 142 , 144 , 145 , 155 , 161 ], administrative data [ 93 , 141 ], workshops [ 110 ], and photovoice [ 94 ] (see Table 5 ).

Summary of findings

This scoping review identified policy supports for breastfeeding, healthy eating, and/or PA in rural areas of the U.S., as part of a larger project to compile information on existing PSE change approaches encompassing these behaviors. Results show that policy initiatives for breastfeeding included changes to implement certain standards or practices, increase access to resources, and improve culture or norms mainly in hospitals and workplaces. Policy initiatives for healthy eating included increasing access to healthy foods, reducing the financial burden of purchasing healthier foods, requiring programs or initiatives to promote healthy eating, and improving food assistance programs. Policy initiatives for PA focused on joint or shared use agreements, Safe Routes to Schools efforts, coordinated plans or master plans for the community or county to implement or improve greenways, trails, and transportation options, coordinated school health plans, and childcare or school PA standards. Methods and tools to assess policy changes related to breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA mostly included interviews or focus groups, surveys, assessment tools, or administrative data. Findings from this scoping review can be used to develop policy and surveillance recommendations to promote breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA in rural communities that have been historically under-resourced.

Contributions to current literature

This scoping review adds to existing research which compiles and reviews policy approaches to improve rates of breastfeeding [ 34 , 173 , 174 , 175 , 176 , 177 ], healthy eating [ 24 , 178 , 179 , 180 , 181 , 182 , 183 , 184 , 185 ], and PA [ 21 , 186 , 187 , 188 , 189 , 190 , 191 , 192 , 193 , 194 ]. For breastfeeding promotion policies, our findings align with existing reviews that demonstrate the need for tracking policies to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding in hospital, workplace, and community settings [ 34 , 173 , 174 , 175 , 176 ]. For healthy eating promotion policies, our results confirmed findings from past reviews showing that policies addressing transportation and access barriers and bridging partnerships between retail outlets or schools and local food producers may be effective for improving healthy eating among rural residents [ 24 , 178 , 179 , 180 , 181 , 182 , 183 , 184 , 185 ]. Schools were also identified as important settings for healthy eating promotion, and many sources cited policies to increase access to federal or state level child nutrition programs [ 78 , 79 , 83 , 90 , 93 ], or to include nutrition standards on the school level that increase availability of healthy foods [ 75 , 76 , 85 , 92 , 93 ]. Despite these findings, existing literature points to a lack of policy examples and related literature in small or isolated rural areas experiencing the greatest healthy eating disparities [ 178 , 183 ]. For PA promotion policies, our results aligned with findings from past reviews showing that existing policy approaches to improve PA are being implemented in rural areas but additional research is needed to demonstrate their effectiveness, especially when considering the lag that often exists between implementation and research and the impracticality of randomized control trials in these settings [ 21 , 186 , 187 , 188 , 189 , 190 , 191 , 192 , 193 , 194 ]. Nonetheless, existing research supports the implementation of PA policy in school/childcare, workplace, and community (e.g., parks, recreational facilities, streets) settings to address barriers related to PA resource access and safety within PA environments [ 21 , 186 , 187 , 188 , 189 , 190 , 191 , 192 , 193 , 194 ]. This often included policies to ensure pedestrian and bike infrastructure plans were developed and implemented [ 113 , 136 , 138 , 139 , 141 , 144 , 145 , 156 , 159 , 163 , 164 , 165 , 167 , 168 , 169 ], and that policies existed to ensure active transportation to school was possible [ 100 , 103 , 136 , 137 , 143 , 144 , 154 ]. Despite alignment with past reviews focused explicitly on policy approaches for breastfeeding, healthy eating, or PA promotion, existing reviews do not specifically focus on rural environments, explore multiple behavioral settings, or include grey literature sources. Therefore, our results fill an important gap in the literature by compiling policy-focused health promotion strategies in under-resourced, rural areas [ 195 ].

Implications for policy, practice, and research

Results from this scoping review have several implications for policy, practice, and research. To start, healthy eating [ 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 , 94 , 95 , 96 , 97 , 98 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 122 , 123 , 124 ], and PA [ 75 , 82 , 87 , 88 , 91 , 93 , 98 , 100 , 101 , 104 , 106 , 113 , 120 , 122 , 123 , 124 , 135 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 , 146 , 147 , 148 , 149 , 150 , 151 , 152 , 153 , 155 , 162 ] policies were often implemented in schools and childcare settings. Given schools and childcare centers are critical resources for rural communities and the number of healthy eating and PA policies in these settings, researchers and practitioners should explore potential policy surveillance mechanisms on the district/administrative level and track their effectiveness [ 196 ]. Rural schools and childcare settings may also benefit from partnerships with local health departments, Extension offices, and research institutions due to reduced capacity for dissemination, implementation, and evaluation of policy approaches.

For breastfeeding, results show that policies in hospitals and workplace settings are most common to encourage rural breastfeeding rates [ 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 ]. Hospital adoption and implementation of breastfeeding-supportive policies was the most common factor related to breastfeeding [ 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 57 , 59 , 61 , 62 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 ], although declines in the number of rural hospitals and healthcare workers may pose a unique challenge for rural hospital maintenance of these policy strategies. [ 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ] Annual assessments in rural areas may be beneficial, and it is recommended that terminology captures the variety in strategy names identified in this review in addition to “Baby-Friendly” (e.g., “The Gift”,“High 5 for Mom & Baby”) and the level of progress in adopting full policy strategies (e.g., 8 out of 10 steps) [ 53 , 55 , 59 , 61 , 62 , 64 ]. Policies to support breastfeeding in workplace settings could be a focus of surveillance efforts, since barriers exist for breastfeeding among lower income and impoverished workers [ 197 , 198 ]. Moreover, existing information in support of this recommendation is primarily qualitative so additional quantitative assessments are needed [ 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 ].

For healthy eating, food assistance programs and food retail settings were identified as important for policy implementation [ 97 , 98 , 99 , 102 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 113 , 115 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 ]. In response to these findings, we recommend that rural policy data collected by food assistance programs (e.g., SNAP-Ed, WIC) be leveraged for surveillance purposes. One potential solution is to use existing evaluation and data systems within state and local-level SNAP-Ed and Extension offices to monitor healthy eating promotion policy efforts that are not consistently published in peer-reviewed sources [ 199 , 200 ]. Given the presence of both SNAP-Ed and Extension across rural America, tracking combined efforts is important and should be explored as a surveillance data source.

For PA, public settings like trails/paths [ 130 , 149 , 157 , 158 , 159 , 160 ], streets [ 100 , 103 , 113 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 , 157 , 158 , 159 , 162 , 164 , 165 , 166 , 167 , 169 ], recreational facilities [ 140 , 141 , 149 , 170 ], neighborhoods [ 131 ], and parks [ 113 , 141 ] were found to be particularly important for policy efforts in rural areas. We recommend increased monitoring of policy implementation efforts and related adaptations in rural towns, including Safe Routes Partnerships, Complete Streets, shared or joint use, and town-level or school plans (e.g., trails, bike, pedestrian, transportation, master, coordinated school health plans) [ 137 , 164 , 167 , 168 , 169 ]. Additional school-based policy recommendations include tailoring policy work to each school, gaining support from policy makers and school administrators, and recognizing that schools located closer to the downtown areas have increased access to after school programming and activities [ 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 , 94 , 95 , 96 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 , 103 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 135 , 156 ]. In order to gain support of school administrators, it is evident that we need to do a better job sharing evidence with them on the academic benefits of PA, as is demonstrated through one quote by a superintendent, “What we continue to hear is ‘No Child Left Behind.’ I haven’t heard ‘Don’t leave fat kids behind.’ It’s about keeping kids academically fit.” (pg. S155) [ 135 ].

Overall, for policy initiatives across all three targeted behaviors of this review, there is a need to create infrastructure for data sharing across rural communities that includes open-source access, easy-to-use visualizations, and raw data. Rural organizations and stakeholders often lack capacity to access and analyze existing data to inform their work regarding breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA. Providing easily accessible, publicly available data can enable local rural organizations to access relevant and actionable information to support and implement policy efforts [ 201 , 202 , 203 , 204 ]. Next, an open-source platform would allow stakeholders to easily share data and results given the difficulty in capturing this data independent of a system [ 205 , 206 ]. This would in turn allow for improved surveillance of policy efforts in settings that are often overlooked in existing publications and reports, such as libraries, community gardens, health departments, local government, and faith-based organizations. Finally, many classification systems and definitions of “rural” are used in the sources identified for this scoping review. This ranged from standardized rural classification systems (e.g., RUCA, RUCC) to somewhat arbitrary descriptions (e.g., smaller population sizes, authors describing the study site as “rural”). Moreover, some sources met criteria for “rural” using the “Am I Rural?” tool, and did not meet criteria for rural a using a rural–urban typology (e.g., big cities; college towns; exurbs; middle suburbs; military posts; urban suburbs) [ 48 ]. Future research should employ more standardized rural definitions, and report the rural definition used.

Strengths and limitations

This scoping review presents rural policy strategies used to encourage breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA over a twenty-year period to inform public health approaches and has several strengths. First, this scoping review employed a scientific librarian to ensure our search terms were comprehensive, included training for those carrying out our screening efforts using strict protocols, and engaged multiple reviewers to identify review articles. Adding to this, we made sure to conduct our review using a pre-existing theoretical framework that allowed the research team to accurately review the body of literature and compile information on each article that related to PSE change approaches [ 207 , 208 ]. The PSE change framework is increasingly used to address health behavior and outcome disparities and this review synthesizes the growing body of literature on this topic [ 207 , 208 ]. Next, this scoping review provides a holistic understanding of rural-specific policy change approaches for improving breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA from academic and non-academic sources. While some past research has conducted systematic reviews of peer-reviewed original research on rural policy regarding breastfeeding [ 34 , 173 , 174 , 175 , 176 ], healthy eating [ 24 , 178 , 179 , 180 , 181 , 182 , 183 , 184 , 185 ], and PA [ 21 , 186 , 187 , 188 , 189 , 190 , 191 , 192 , 193 , 194 ], promotion, it is important to incorporate distinct findings from grey literature and dissertation research about rural health promotion policies.

This study also has limitations. First, the scoping review search is a bit dated, being carried out in 2020. However, as the data for this review were pulled from a comprehensive review (resulting from a comprehensive search strategy) that encompassed PSE approaches (rather than only policy), carrying out an updated search requires substantial resources for which the study team no longer has funding. Additionally, there were likely changes to the nature of the literature published post-2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and numerous federal approaches to improve food and nutrition outcomes, in particular. Updated reviews can be carried out for strategic purposes (e.g., to compare pre- and post-pandemic policy for breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA promotion in rural areas); however, authors do not consider this limitation to threaten the value of the 122 studies synthesized here. Second, it should be acknowledged that PSE approaches were often overlapping and not necessarily distinct. As an example, many policy changes are related to the environment (e.g., establishing pedestrian master plans), required the implementation of the policy on a systems or organizational level (e.g., tracking of Complete Streets implementation), and then resulted in increased environmental supports (e.g., number of greenways/trails in the community) [ 209 ]. Despite this limitation, publishing separate scoping review papers that describe PSEs independently across the target behaviors (in preparation) is important for compiling PSE change approaches to promote health in rural America without overwhelming readers with the breadth of existing knowledge. Third, we did not integrate formal reliability checking during article selection or results synthesis phases or provide ratings of bias for selected articles. The scope and size of the project, combined with an expedited timeline during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, limited our ability to report these types of metrics; however, we adhered to a rigorous protocol for scoping reviews and held regular search and extraction meetings to ensure consistent adherence to the inclusion/exclusion criteria and results synthesis process across all team members [ 39 ]. Fourth, many articles did not list a clear rural definition or failed to designate study settings as rural, which may have limited our ability to include all existing research relevant to this scoping review. Despite this, we employed methods (e.g., using the “Am I Rural” tool for grey literature sources) to ensure as much existing knowledge on policy approaches relevant in rural areas were captured.

This scoping review identified policy supports that encourage breastfeeding, healthy eating, and/or PA practices in rural American communities. Results from this comprehensive review of effective and empirically supported policy strategies can be used to inform future efforts to address low rates of breastfeeding, healthy eating, and PA in rural areas to address chronic disease disparities [ 39 ]. Given the identified policy strategies are already occurring in under-resourced rural settings, we recommend opportunities for novel surveillance of these indicators that move beyond individual behavior statistics to identify structural changes to make healthier choices the easier choices in the rural U.S.

Availability of data and materials

The complete search strategy and all data generated or analyzed from articles meeting inclusion criteria for this study as it pertains to this manuscript are included in this published article.

Abbreviations

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Frontier and Remote Area

Healthy Eating

Physical Activity

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews

Rural Urban Commuting Area

Rural-Urban Continuum Codes

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - Education

United States

Urban Influence Codes

Women, Infants, and Children

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Acknowledgements

As with all research, the success of this project would not have been possible without the dedication and efforts of many team members serving in different capacities. We thank each of our team members who made this project possible, our CDC Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity partners, and our Chickasaw Nation Industries, Inc. (CNI) Project Manager. We would also like to thank and acknowledge the Expert Advisors who provided us guidance and feedback throughout this project.

This project was supported through Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Nutrition, PA, and Obesity, dispersed through Chickasaw Nation Industries (2020; Prime Contract #: 75D30119C06517, Subaward Contract #: 782–01528-000–02).

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MRUM contributed to the conceptualization and design of the study methodology, interpreted study findings, drafted results, and edited, finalized, and approved the submitted manuscript. BH contributed to the conceptualization and design of the study methodology, interpreted study findings, drafted results, and edited, finalized, and approved the submitted manuscript. MEW synthesized review articles, drafted results, and edited, finalized, and approved the submitted manuscript. KHK synthesized review articles and reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript. HD assisted with the acquisition and interpretation of data, and reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript. SAE assisted with the acquisition and interpretation of data, and reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript. CM assisted with the acquisition and interpretation of data, and reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript. RSW assisted with the acquisition and interpretation of data, and reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript. RLM contributed to the design of the study methodology, acquisition of data, and reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript. KJK contributed to the conceptualization and design of the study methodology, interpreted study findings, drafted results, and reviewed and approved the submitted manuscript.

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Umstattd Meyer, M.R., Houghtaling, B., Wende, M.E. et al. A scoping review of policies to encourage breastfeeding, healthy eating, and physical activity among rural people and places in the United States. BMC Public Health 24 , 2160 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19173-7

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Received : 29 December 2023

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Published : 09 August 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19173-7

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