Guide to Finding and Writing
Psychology Literature Reviews

Return to Psychology: Guides

"A review of the literature can have numerous different focuses, goals, perspectives, coverage strategies, organizations, and audiences. For instance, literature reveiws can focus on research outcomes, research methods, theories, applications, or all these. Literature reviews can attempt to integrate what others have done and said, to criticize previous scholarly works, to build bridges between related topic areas, to identify the central issues in a field, or all these." --Excerpt from Synthesizing Research, 3rd Edition.

If you have any questions about using this guide or would like assistance in searching for literature reviews, please see a reference librarian at the Reference Help Desk in Olin or contact the Psychology Subject Librarian, Melissa Vetter.

To find review articles in the database, PsycINFO, use the Methodology index dropdown box to choose "Literature Review" and combine that with the topic in which you are interested.

Example of Methodology index box:

• Writing a Psychology Literature Review
  This guide from the Psychology Writing Center at the University of Washington details how to write a psychology literature review.
• The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It
  Tips from the University of Toronto including the reminder that the literature review is "not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries," but a "piece of discursive prose."

Further information on the literature review may be found in:

• Boote, D.N. & Beile, P. (2005). Scholars before researchers: on the centrality of the dissertation literature review in research preparation. Educational Researcher, 34(6), 3-15.


• Cooper, H. (1998). Synthesizing Research: A Guide for Literature Reviews. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  (Olin Level 2 Stacks - H62 .C5859 1998)


• Galvan, J. (2006). Writing Literature Reviews: A Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Glendale, CA: Pyrczak.
  (Olin Level 1 Reference - H61.8 .G34 2006)