How to Write a Literature Review in 2025? Complete Guide for Beginners

A Literature Review is a complete study of existing data on any topic.  It uses past research, Scholarly articles, publications , books and other resources to provide a summarized overview of the particular topic. It is of the important essentials in academic research which helps:

• highlights key topics and issues in the existing research.
• find out the research gaps.
• Provides the reasons to study the topic further.

A well-structured review not only highlight the sources but engages critically with the topic and pass reports, providing authentic facts and figures about the past research and future scope.

Purpose of Writing a Literature Review in 2025

The main theme of literature review is as follows:

• Research Contextualization: focusing on the study within the broader framework of current and past data.
• identifying Trends: Highlighting the emerging topic and developments in your desired area.
• Finding Gaps: finding the area in the particular research topic that needs further investigation and study.
• Avoiding Duplication: it is important to come out with some thing unique and novel with the area of your research field.
• Supporting Arguments: Cite and give credits to the sources to support your arguments and study.

Types of Literature Review

There are several types of Literature review.  It depends on what type of Literature review you are going to write: Following are the types of literature review:

1- Systematic Review: systematic review follows a rigorous process to identify gaps, collect data and evaluate all the required data.

2- Narrative Review: it does not use any strict methods to summarize the literature. It uses the data broadly and present it.

3- Theoretical Review: It mainly focuses on the models and theories rather than the experimental approach.

4- Scoping Review: it focuses on the scope of literature without worrying about the quality.

5- Meta Analysis:  It uses multiple statistical data to get desired results.

6- Critical review: It summarizes the existing literature by critically discussing previous data pros and cons.

Step by Step Procedure on writing an Effective Literature Review

1- First Select your topic of interest: Select your idea and then write it down as a topic . That will be your area of research . A well-selected and defined topic will help you to collect further data. also make sure that the topic you select is related to your field of interest, specific and researchable.

2- Conduct a thorough Research : Try to use digital libraries and academic data bases such as research gate, Science direct, Scopus, PubMed, JSTOR and Google Scholar. Use Keywords to find the desired topic that will help you to get what exactly you want to do.  use endnote, Mendeley and Zotero to keep references.

3-  Find out the Resources that are Relevant: Not every data you find will be useful so try to be concise and precise.

4-  Evaluate and Read the literature: While reading take detailed notes on your key findings, the methodologies, Gaps in research, theoretical frameworks and strength and limitation’s.

Also find out what questions do the authors address? is there any conflicts on results and databases? Use synthesis table to organize the data and information.

5- identify the concepts and patterns : try to note down your data in separate headings such as materials, methods, and thematic order.

6-   Be critical or develop an argument: The literature review that you are writing should not be just a peace of writing. it should include the real discussions, all the pros and cons pf previous data and also include future perspectives.

7- Parts of Literature Review: A whole body of literature review includes Title, Introduction, results and discussions and conclusion.

Tips for Writing a Strong Literature review

• Better to avoid your personal opinions . Stick to the scientific discussion.
• Do not copy paste: Avoid plagiarism and avoid your own wording while writing literature review
• Professional Language: use professional and relevant wording. avoid slang words and informal sentences.
• Give Credit: Always give credit to the original source.
• Proofread and revise: Before submission of your literature review . revise it several times and get a proof read from an expert.

Conclusion

Literature review writing is not that straightforward. Its a foundational step in a research process. It will help you to read literature of past research in the area of your interest. That will allow you to understand your research topic, gaps in the research and will you give idea about what can be next in the future research.

You can find an example of Literature review here.

You can also read about How to Write a Winning Cover Letter?