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Academic English & Research vocabulary · Literature Review

Literature review

Meaning in academic english & research, with examples

nounCore term

In academic english & research, literature review means: A critical summary of what has already been published on a topic, showing the main ideas, debates and gaps that a new study responds to.

In Turkish: literatür taraması, alanyazın taraması, literatür incelemesi

How it is used

Can be a chapter of a thesis, a section of an article or a stand-alone review article. Students write, conduct or update a literature review, and supervisors often ask for it to be more critical and less descriptive.

Example sentences

  1. In the literature review, I group previous studies by theme rather than by year.

  2. Your literature review summarizes the sources well, but it needs more critical evaluation.

Common collocations

  • conduct a literature review
  • systematic literature review
  • write the literature review
  • update the literature review
  • literatureThe body of published research and writing on a particular subject; in academic use it does not mean novels and poetry.
  • research gapA question, group, context or problem that existing studies have not yet addressed well, which a new study aims to fill.
  • synthesizeTo combine ideas and findings from several sources into a connected whole that shows patterns, agreements and differences, rather than summarizing each source separately.
  • theoretical frameworkThe theory or set of connected theories that a study uses to explain its problem, shape its questions and interpret its findings.

More terms: Literature Review

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