Researching for your literature review: Home

About researching for your literature review 

A literature review shows your awareness of existing research in your field.

Reviewing the literature helps you:

• Find out what is already known about a topic to locate gaps and justify the research being undertaken
• Locate the work of important theorists whose ideas will inform the research
• Identify useful methodologies, methods and documentary sources

Using this guide

Our guide is a learning module designed to help you:

• Understand the elements of the literature review process with regard to selecting appropriate resources and searching
• Apply advanced searching strategies as part of conducting your own literature review
• Document and manage the results of your searches

To make the guide broadly useful across disciplines we have included two search strategy sections: health/medical and education/social science.

Get help 

Get help from a librarian when you need support beyond what you can find in this guide. 15-minute bookings are available for students, educators, and researchers.

1 hour consultations are available to HDR students and Researchers only. For medical/biomedical systematic-style reviews, see Request a consultation in the Systematic Review guide for details on review support.