Literature reviews are scans of previous research. They make connections between multiple sources of research; they also note shortcomings of the research and recommend further areas of study. Literature reviews pull research from many articles and provide a high-level overview to familiarize the reader with relevant research. Lit reviews don't touch on every article published on your topic, they just highlight key research. 

Literature reviews can take the following forms:

• A section of academic research papers (and in these cases can be just a few paragraphs long)
• A stand-alone paper that is published in academic journals

For more information on Literature Reviews with examples, we recommend visit the Learning Portal's Literature Reviews Activity.

You can find further recommended resources on our Citation Guide.