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How to Conduct a Literature Review (Health Sciences and Beyond)

• What is a Literature Review?
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Review Matrix

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Using a spreadsheet or table to organize the key elements (e.g. subjects, methodologies, results) of articles/books you plan to use in your literature review can be helpful. This is called a review matrix.

When you create a review matrix, the first few columns should include (1) the authors, title, journal, (2) publication year, and (3) purpose of the paper. The remaining columns should identify important aspects of each study such as methodology and findings.

Click on the image below to view a sample review matrix.

You can also download this template as a Microsoft Excel file .

The information on this page is from the book below. The 5th edition is available online through VCU Libraries.

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• Last Updated: Mar 15, 2024 12:22 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.vcu.edu/health-sciences-lit-review

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Writing Resources

The matrix method for literature reviews.

This handout is available for download in DOCX format and PDF format .

What is the Matrix Method, and why should I use it?

Using a review matrix enables you to quickly compare and contrast articles in order to determine the scope of research across time. A review matrix can help you more easily spot differences and similarities between journal articles about a research topic. While they may be helpful in any discipline, review matrices are especially helpful for health sciences literature reviews covering the complete scope of a research topic over time. This guide focuses on the review matrix step in the literature review process and offers tips on how to use it effectively.

Organize your sources

Once you complete your research, organize your source by date in order to make it easier to see changes in research over time.

Begin by creating the blank matrix. The matrices can be easily constructed using table-making software such as Microsoft Excel, Word or OneNote, Google Sheets, or Numbers. Every review matrix should have the same first three column headings: (1) authors, title, and journal, (2) publication year, and (3) purpose.

Be aware that it may be difficult to determine purpose from just a cursory review of the article. In some cases, it may be necessary to first read the paper fully to identify its purpose.

Choose your remaining column topics

Next, carefully read all your articles. Note any important issues you identify. The following broad categories provide some suggestions for determining your own subject headings:

Methodological

Methodology is often an important question. For example, if you are looking at tests of an Ebola vaccine beyond human subjects, it will be important to note what type of animal the test was carried out on, i.e. macaques or mice.

Content-specific

Consider noting what was actually studied. For example, when looking at the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of illnesses, it would be important to note what illness was being studied.

Geographical

It may be important to note where the research was completed. For example, if you want to compare the effects of the AIDS epidemic in different countries, you would use country as a column heading.

There are many ways to choose your column headings, and these are just a few suggestions. As you create your own matrix, choose column headings that support your research question and goals.

• Do not include column headings that are explicit in your research question. For example, if you are looking at drug use in adolescents, do not include a column heading for age of study participants. If the answer will be the same for every study, it's generally a bad choice for a column heading.
• Do not try to fully complete a review matrix before reading the articles. Reading the articles is an important way to discern the nuances between studies.

Credit: Adapted from David Nolfi, “Matrix Method for Literature Review: The Review Matrix,” Duquesne University, https://guides.library.duq.edu/matrix , 2020.

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Module 4: Strategic Reading

Organize your Readings with a Literature Review Matrix

The next step after reading and evaluating your sources is to organize them in a way that will help you start the writing process.

Review Matrix

One way to organize your literature is with a review matrix. The review matrix is a chart that sorts and categorizes the different arguments presented per topic or issue. Using a matrix enables you to quickly compare and contrast your sources in order to determine the scope of research across time. This will allow you  to spot similarities and differences between sources. It is particularly useful in the synthesis and analysis stages of a review (See Module 1 Conducting a Literature Review with the SALSA Framework ).

Example of a Review Matrix

My research question:

How can we use machine learning to analyze social media data related to HIV?

Writing a Literature Review Modified from The WI+RE Team,  UCLA. Creative Commons CC-BY-NA-SA

Create a Review Matrix

Start with a charting tool you are most familiar with (for example MS Word, MS Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers etc).

• Organize your sources from oldest to most recent. This way you can see how the research on your topic has changed over time.
• First Column: citation (i.e., author, title, source, publication year)
• Second Column: purpose or summary (1-2 sentences)
• methodology
• intervention

Key Takeaways

Here are some examples of different review matrices and templates:

• Evidence Synthesis Matrix Template, Jane Schmidt, Toronto Metropolitan University (Google Sheets)
• The Matrix Method for Literature Reviews, Brandeis University, Writing Resources.
• Literature Review Synthesis Matrix , Concordia University (MS Word)
• Write a Literature Review: Synthesize . Johns Hopkins University, Sheridan Libraries

Advanced Research Skills: Conducting Literature and Systematic Reviews (2nd Edition) Copyright © 2021 by Kelly Dermody; Cecile Farnum; Daniel Jakubek; Jo-Anne Petropoulos; Jane Schmidt; and Reece Steinberg is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Doing a literature review using digital tools (with Notion template)

I’ve recently revamped my literature review workflow since discovering Notion . Notion is an organization application that allows you to make various pages and databases. It’s kind of like your own personal wiki- you can link your pages and embed databases into another page, adding filters and sorting them using user-set properties. The databases are what I use the most. I’ve essentially transferred all of my excel sheets into Notion databases and find it much easier to filter and sort things now. In this post, I’ll go through how I do my literature review and share a Notion template that you can use.

I like to organize my literature review using various literature review tools along with two relational Notion databases: a ‘literature tracker’ and a ‘literature notes’ matrix. You can see a flow chart of my literature review process below (it’s inspired by this post by Jenn’s Studious Life and the three pass method for reading papers which I wrote about last week in this post ):

As you can see, this process involves a couple of decision points which helps me focus on the most important papers. This is an iterative process that keeps me up to date on relevant research in my field as I am getting new paper alerts in my inbox most days. I used this method quite successfully to write the literature review for my confirmation report and regularly add to it for the expanded version that will become part of my PhD thesis. In this post, I’ll break down how this works for me and how I implement my Notion databases to synthesise the literature I read into a coherent argument.

You can click on the links below to navigate to a particular section of this article:

The literature search

The literature tracker, the literature synthesis matrix, writing your literature review, iterating your literature review, my literature review notion template, some useful resources.

This is always the first step in building your literature review. There are plenty of resources online all about how to start with your search- I find a mixture of database search tools works for me.

The first thing to do when starting your literature review is to identify some keywords to use in your initial searches. It might be worth chatting to your supervisor to make a list of these and then add or remove terms to it as you go down different research routes. You can use keyword searches relevant to your research questions as well tools that find ‘similar’ papers and look at citation links. I also find that just looking through the bibliographies of literature in your field and seeing which papers are regularly cited gives you a good idea of the core papers in your area (you’ll start recognising the key ones after a while). Another method for finding literature is the snowballing method which is particularly useful for conducting a systematic review.

Here are some digital tools I use to help me find literature relevant to my research questions:

Library building and suggestions

Mendeley was my research management tool of choice prior to when I started using Notion to organize all of my literature and create my synthesis matrix. I still use Mendeley as a library just in case anything happens to my Notion. It’s easy to add new papers to your library using the browser extension with just one click. I like that Mendeley allows you to share your folders with colleagues and that I can export bib.tex files straight from my library into overleaf documents where I’m writing up papers and my thesis. You do need to make sure that all of the details are correct before you export the bib.tex files though as this is taken straight from the information plane. I also like to use the tag function in Mendeley to add more specific identifiers than my folders.

Mendeley is also useful for finding literature related to those in your library- I’ve found quite a few interesting papers through the email updates they send out each week with ‘suggested papers’. You can also browse these suggestions from within Mendeley and use its interface to do initial keyword searches. The key is to just scan the titles and then decide whether it’s worth your time reading the abstract and then the rest of it. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of papers being published every day so being picky in what you read is important (and something I need to work on more!).

Some similar tools that allow you to build a library and get literature recommendations include Zotero , Researcher , Academia , and ResearchGate . It’s up to you which one you use for your own purposes. One big factor for me when choosing Mendeley was that my supervisor and colleagues use it so it makes it much easier to share libraries with them, so maybe ask your colleagues what they use before settling on one.

Literature databases and keyword alerts

There are a variety of databases out there for finding literature. My go-to is Web of Science as it shows you citation data and has a nice interface. I used this to begin my initial literature search using my keywords.

The other thing you can do with these kinds of tools is set up email alerts to get a list of recent work that has just been published with any keywords you set. These alerts are usually where I find papers to read during journal club with my supervisor. You can customize these emails to what suits you- mine are set to the top 10 most relevant new papers for each keyword weekly and I track around 5 words/phrases. This allows me to stay on top of the most recent literature in my field- I have alerts set up on a variety of services to ensure that I don’t miss anything crucial (and alerts from the ArXiv mean I see preprints too). Again, you need to be picky about what you read from these to ensure that they are very relevant to your research. At this stage, it’s important to spend as little time as possible scanning titles as this can easily become a time suck.

Some of the other tools I have keyword (and author) email alerts set up on are: Scopus , Google Scholar , Dimensions , and ArXiv alerts . I set 10 minutes maximum aside per day to scan through any new email alerts and save anything relevant to me into my literature tracker (which I’ll come to more later).

Literature mapping tools

There are loads of these kinds of tools out there. Literature mapping can be helpful for finding what the seminal papers are in your field and seeing how literature connects. It’s like a huge web and I find these visual interfaces make it much easier to get my head around the relationships between papers. I use two of these tools during the literature search phase of the flowchart: Citation Gecko and Connected Papers .

Citation Gecko builds you a citation tree using ‘seed papers’. You can import these from various reference management software (like Mendeley), bib.tex files or manually search for papers. This is particularly useful if your supervisor has provided you with some core papers to start off with, or you can use the key papers you identified through scanning the bibliographies of literature you read. My project is split into fairly clear ‘subprojects’ so these tools help me see connections between the various things I’m working on (or a lack of them which is good in some ways as it shows I’ve found a clear research gap!).

You can switch between different views and add connecting papers as new seed papers to expand your network. I use this tool from time to time with various different papers associated with my subprojects. It’s helped me make sure I haven’t missed any key papers when doing my literature review and I’ve found it to be fairly accurate, although sometimes more recent papers don’t have any citation data on it so that’s something to bear in mind.

Connected Papers uses a ‘similarity’ algorithm to show paper relationships. This isn’t a citation tree like Citation Gecko but it does also give you prior and derivative works if you want to look at them. All you do is put one of your key papers into the search box and ‘build a graph’. It will then show you related papers, including those which don’t have direct citation links to the key paper. I think this is great for ensuring that you’re not staying inside an insular bubble of the people who all cite each other. It also allows me to see some of the research which is perhaps a bit more tangential to my project and get an overview of where my work sits within the field more broadly.

I like Connected Paper’s key for the generated tree and that it shows where related papers connect between themselves. Again, it’s helpful for ensuring that you haven’t missed a really important work when compiling your literature review and doesn’t just rely on citation links between papers.

This is where I record the details of any paper I come across that I think might be relevant to my PhD. In some ways, it’s very similar to Mendeley but it’s a version that sits within Notion so I have some more customised filtering categories set up, like my ‘status’ field where I track which pass I am on.

Here’s what my literature tracker looks like:

The beauty of Notion is that you can decide which properties you want to record in your database and customize it to your needs. You can sort and filter using these properties including making nested filters and using multiple filters at once. This makes it really easy to find what you’re looking for. For example, say I’m doing my literature review for my ‘FIB etching’ subproject and want to see all of the papers that I marked as relevant to my PhD but haven’t started reading yet. All I need to do is add a couple of filters:

And it filters everything so that I’m just looking at the papers I want to check out. It’s this flexibility that I think really gives Notion the edge when it comes to my literature review process.

The other thing I really like about using Notion rather than excel is that I can add different database views. I especially like using the kanban board view to see where I’m at with my reading workflow:

When I add something to the literature tracker database, I scan the abstract for keywords to add and categorize it in terms of relevant topics. It’s essentially the first pass of the paper, so that involves reading the title, abstract, introduction, section headings, conclusions, and checking the references for anything you recognise. After this is done, I decide whether it’s relevant enough to my PhD to proceed to do a second pass of the paper, at which point I will progress to populating my literature notes database.

Once I’ve decided that I want to do a second pass on a paper, I then add it to the ‘literature notes’ database. This is part of the beauty of Notion: relational databases. I have ‘rollup’ properties set in the literature notes database which shows all of the things I added during my first pass and allows me to filter the matrix using them. You can watch the video below to see exactly how to add a new paper to the ‘notes’ database from the ‘tracker’ database:

During the second pass, I populate the new fields in the ‘notes’ database. These are:

Summary | Objective of study | Key Results | Theory | Materials | Methods | Conclusions | Future work suggested | Critiques | Key connected papers.

I also have various themes/questions/ideas as properties which I add a few notes on for each relevant paper. I then complete my ‘questions for critical engagement’ which are on the entry’s ‘Notes’ page and are stored in the ‘Article Template’. If you want to read more about this process, check out my ‘how to read a scientific paper’ post .

By, doing this I create a synthesis matrix where I can see a breakdown of the key aspects of each paper and can scan down a column to get an overview of all of the papers I have read. For example, if I wanted to see all of the papers about Quantum Point Contacts to get an idea of what previous work has been done so that I can identify my research gap, I can filter using the tag property and can then see the notes I wrote for each entry, broken down by section. I also have tags for my research questions or themes, materials used, experimental techniques, fabrication techniques, and anything else that comes to mind really! The more tags I have for a paper, the easier it is to filter when I want to find a specific thing.

The other property I have included in the literature notes database is ‘Key connected papers’. This is a relation but is within the database itself. So it means that I can link to the page of other papers in the literature matrix. I’ve found this to be useful for connecting to what I call ‘core’ papers. I can also filter using this property, allowing me to see my notes on all of the papers I’ve read that are related to a certain ‘core’ paper. This helps with synthesising all of the information and forming my argument.

For those papers most relevant to my research (the ‘core’ papers) I’ll also do a third pass which involves reimplementing the paper in my own words. This is quite a time-consuming task so not many papers reach this stage, but those which I have done a third pass on are the ones I know really well. My hope is that this will stand me in good stead for my viva. This process also helps me refine my research questions further as I gain a deeper understanding of the field.

I find that writing up a review is extremely intimidating, but having the literature matrix makes this process that bit easier. I won’t go into too many details as there are already loads of resources out there going into the details of writing up a review, but here’s a brief overview of my own process:

Identify your research themes

Using your literature matrix, review each research theme or question and decide which ones you are going to focus on. These will form the different sections of your literature review and help you write your thesis statement(s). You can also think about how your questions link to ensure that you’re telling a coherent story with your review.

Choose and summarize literature related to each theme

For each section, gather up the most important related literature and summarize the key points of each source. A good literature review doesn’t need to cover all the literature out there, just the most significant sources. I try to stick to around 10 or fewer key sources per section.

Critical evaluation of sources

This is where you utilize the ‘questions for critical engagement’. Make sure you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the studies you’re writing about. By doing this, you can establish where our knowledge is lacking which will come in helpful later when establishing a research gap.

Analyse each source in relation to other literature

Try to make sure that you are telling a coherent story by linking between your sources. You can go back to the literature matrix here and use it to group similar studies to compare and contrast them. You should also discuss the relevance of the source’s findings in relation to the broader field and core papers.

Situate your research in a research gap

This is where you justify your own research. Using what you have laid out in the rest of the review, show that there is a research gap that you plan to fill and explain how you are going to do that. This should mean that your thesis flows nicely into the next section where you’ll cover the materials and methods you used in your research project.

In some ways, a literature review never really ends. As you can see in the flowchart at the beginning of this post, I regularly update and revise my literature review as well as refining my research questions. At this point in my PhD, I think that most of my research questions are quite well defined, so I’m mostly just adding any newly published work into my review. I don’t spend much time reading literature at the moment but I’m sure I’ll return to it more regularly when I’m in the write-up phase of my PhD. There is a balance to be had between reading and writing for your literature review and actually getting on with your own research!

Here’s the link to my Notion Literature Review Template . You can duplicate it and adapt it however you want, but this should save you some time setting up the initial databases if you’d like to use my method for organizing your own literature review.

Here are some resources on how to do a literature review that I’ve found useful during my PhD:

• The Literature Review: Step-by-Step Guide for Students
• 3 Steps to Save You From Drowning in Your Literature Review
• How to write a literature review
• How to become a literature searching ninja
• Mind the gap
• 7 Secrets to Write a PhD Literature Review The Right Way

If you like my work, I’d love your support!

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11 thoughts on “Doing a literature review using digital tools (with Notion template)”

Thank you so much for your insight and structured process. This will help me a lot kicking off my Master Thesis.

The perfect method to organize the literature that I have read and will read in the future. I am so glad to have found your website, this will save me from thrashing around in the swamp of literature. I was already feeling the limits of my memory when I was doing my master thesis and this will be so helpful during my PhD.

Thank you so much for this detailed post! Lily 🙂

Thank you very much for this. I’m doing my undergrad atm and reading a lot of papers. This seems like an excellent way of tracking everything.

Thank you, you made my beginning less stressful. I like your system and i helped me a lot. I have one question (more might come later), What do you mean by " journal club with my supervisor."

This piece is really really helpful! I started from this one and went through the rest blog writings. I agree on many points with Daisy. I had an unhappy experience of PhD two years ago and now just started a new one in another country. I will take it as an adventure and enjoy it.

This is an AMAZING template. I've found this so helpful for my own workflow. Thank you so much!

I found this post really helpful. Thank you.

thank you very much!

Hi! Thank you very much for posting this guide and sharing your notion template! I do have a question—do you manually enter the references into Notion, or is there any way to speed up the process? Ta x

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• Walden University

WriteCast Episode 38: The Literature Review Matrix: What It Is, How to Use It, and How to Make It Work For You

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Answered By: Paul Lai Last Updated: Aug 15, 2024     Views: 563

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• The Literature Review Matrix (PDF and Word versions)

[Introduction music]

[TEASER] BETH: If you are working with a lot of research and you find it a little bit overwhelming, this just might be the tool for you.

BRITTANY: Welcome to WriteCast: A Casual Conversation for Serious Writers. I’m Brittany Kallman Arneson,

BETH: and I’m Beth Nastachowski.

BRITTANY: In today’s episode, we are talking about one of the Writing Center’s resources for literature review research and writing: The literature review matrix.

Today, we are talking about the literature review matrix, and I should probably start by defining what this tool is. It sounds like something where we should all be dressed, I think, in long black leather coats and running around trying to escape creepy robot guys, but it is not that exciting, I'm afraid. However, it is a very exciting tool in terms of organizing your research, and we hope that we can make this discussion almost as exciting as watching The Matrix —almost. So, what the literature review matrix is—is basically just a spreadsheet. It's available in two forms on our website. You can download it in Microsoft Word form with a table built into a Word document, or you can download it in Microsoft Excel format, which is obviously already a table or spreadsheet, and it's basically just a way for anybody working on a research project to organize the things that they are reading and studying.

So, that's sort of a broad description of what the lit review matrix is, but I also want to sort of paint a little picture of what it actually looks like for our listeners, because this is an audio podcast. As we start to talk in more detail about it, I do want our listeners to be able to have a little bit of a picture in their minds of what this really looks like. If you're listening and you're at your computer or even if you have your phone on you and you have a second, to kind of follow my instructions here and go ahead and download one of the sample matrices for yourself to follow along. Now I know a lot of people like to listen in the car at the gym or whatever and you might not be able to download it right now and that's fine. That's why I'll do a little visual description, as well, but you are welcome to download it and follow along as you listen to our kind of an analysis of what the literature review matrix is and how it can be used. So, I am going to get to the lit review matrix from the Writing Center homepage and under Scholarly Writing on the drop-down menus across the top I'm going to choose the first option on the drop-down Common Course Assignments. And if I click there I can see a bunch of different common course assignments listed along the left in the brown boxes, and I am going to scroll down to where literature review is listed. And if I click there, I'll eventually get to the lit review matrix but I can also go down a little bit under the literature reviews and choose organizational tools . And you will be taken to page that features two sample literature review matrices in PDF format. So these are ones that you can't go in and edit yourself but you can see how two different researchers might use a lit review matrix to organize their research. And they look very different very. Very, very different. They have different categories, different information is being recorded, and I think this helps illustrate the fact that the literature review Matrix is going to look really different depending on what research project you're working on and what your topic is. So you can take a look at those, but then the bottom two links are to sample templates that you can fill in yourself and it just in changes you need to. So one is in Microsoft Word and one is in Excel. I’m going to just open the one in Excel, and when I open it, I get an Excel document that has all these categories across the top, in the columns. So the first few are author's last name and first initial, publication date, title of article or chapter, and then it has all kind of the other categories for a reference entry. And as you scroll across to the right you get categories like theorists, method, design, population, research questions, summary, analysis. So more detailed information about the research process and the themes that are going to be drawn out of that particular source.

So that's what it looks like, and anytime that you're engaging in a big research project you are going to be swimming in research and oftentimes it can be really challenging to keep track of all the different articles and books and web pages that you're looking at, that are related to your topic. And a literature review matrix is just a simple tool that allows you to keep track of the information that you're reading and also sort of start to process that information in different ways depending on how you set it up, and we'll get into that in a little bit more detail in a moment.  

BETH: Yeah, and to build on that too, Brittany; I wanted to emphasize here that the literature review matrix is something for anyone doing research, really.

BRITTANY: Yes.

BETH: And it probably isn’t the most appropriate if you are just working on a discussion post or reading a couple of articles for a course paper or something. But it’s probably most useful when you are working with a lot of research at any one time. So if you are working on maybe a master’s thesis or a paper that’s a final paper that you are building up to across a course, maybe you are working on a KAM, or maybe you are working on your doctoral capstone—any of those cases might be a time when the literature review matrix would be useful. And probably in other times, too, in ways we are not even thinking of. It’s really a tool that’s meant for you if it's helpful. It’s often most helpful in those cases but really it could be useful to you at any point when you are working with a lot of research. So we want to make sure to clarify that from the outset. If you are working with a lot of research and you find it a little overwhelming, this tool might just be the thing for you.

BRITTANY: So I was excited to talk about this topic for this episode because the literature review matrix is something I have always enjoyed using, first of all, for my own research and also teaching about. I get kind of excited about it because—well, first of all, because I like categorizing things and I am kind of nerdy that way--you know, closets and drawers but also research in spreadsheets. And so there's that, but also I think I get excited because, to me, the lit review matrix kind of allows the student or the writer to start to model synthesis thinking even at the research stage. And I think synthesis in writing is one of the most challenging things to both do and to teach how to do, and I like that the literature review matrix is kind of an in to talking about how to actually synthesize sources together and put them in conversation in writing. So I don't know, I'm, I'm pretty excited to talk about this topic this morning but I don't know, do you feel the same way Beth?

BETH: Yeah, you know, when I was thinking about this topic, Brittany, I was a little apprehensive about it at first. I have talked about the literature review matrix in different contexts with students, but it was something that when I first came to Walden and started working in the Writing Center, I didn’t really get the matrix at first.

BRITTANY: MmHmm

BETH: It wasn’t something that was really just was natural for me. It wasn’t a natural way of thinking about the literature or thinking about writing a literature review. And so for me, it was more of a struggle before, to kind of get used to it. And it’s still not my natural inclination to use a tool like this. And so at first, I was a little apprehensive, but I think this will be great because I think we'll be able to think about the best way to use the tool, and I will probably get some pointers from you, so I’m looking forward to that.

BRITTANY: While I do not know about that. But I think that's really interesting, that sounds like it didn't necessarily match with the way that your brain works when you're working on a project like this, and you're totally capable of synthesizing research. So I think--I think actually it could be interesting to explore a little bit more what it is about it that doesn't work for you, 'cause I bet we have students who also feel that way or who kind of see this tool introduced and are like, this isn't seem like it be helpful to me at all. So I'm sort of curious to hear more about that from your perspective—what is it about it that is, just like doesn't seem helpful to you?

BETH: Yeah, I mean I think first off, just looking at downloading the template for the matrix that’s in Excel--

BRITTANY: Mmhmm.

BETH: For me, one thing I do like is it starts out with those columns that talk about the information for that particular source. You as the writer would note the author, the date—you know—all the information that you would need to keep track of that source and create a reference entry for it. That seems really helpful to me, as well as like the key word search information and things like that.

BETH: But what I struggle with is I think when I reading something I really like to identify key ideas and quotes and things like that. And then take notes on those rather than overall ideas, and right now when you look at the template it has sort of like columns of that are really general and broad, like theorist and method and design. So initially for me, when thinking about that—it’s kind of hard to think how that would be useful. So if a student had a similar question, like that, about the matrix and how to use it, how do you explain how best to use it, Brittany?

BRITTANY: Yeah, oh, I'm so glad that you said that because I get this question from students a lot. And you probably do too—where they're like, well, great, but these categories don't match what I'm researching or these categories aren't you know I don't want to record the information that's pre-populated into the sample Matrix; that's not helpful information for me to keep track of. And this is what I mean when I say the Matrix can help with synthesis thinking or sort of jump-start that. The writer has control over those categories from the very beginning and that's what's great about working on like in notebook where you might run out of space to run out of, you know, lines or something like that. In an Excel spreadsheet, for instance, you can always, always add more columns, more rows, you know, more fields where you can record different information. And so I like to think about the Matrix as being really agile and nimble and sort of malleable for the reader to—

BETH: It's like a living document.

BRITTANY: Yeah, exactly. So it's not that you have to have pre-populate categories and then read the literature looking for those categories, necessarily. You can do that, but you can also do it the opposite way where you learn reading and you pull out a theme. You say, oh boy--it seems like this is really an important thread that's running through this article and also this other book that I read. I'm going to create a category in my matrix to record that theme so that I can tag both of those resources with that theme and then remember that both those authors talked about that. And that's like that first step in your literature review of organizing your information by theme rather than by author, which is a big point that we make when we teach about writing a literature review, right, is that you aren't writing one paragraph on what one author said and another paragraph on what another author said but you really are working hard to create a conversation between all the people talking about your topic and categorizing those paragraphs and sections by theme and by topic.

BETH: So, in a way, really, when I initially learned about the matrix and started looking at it, I think I was thinking about the matrix as what you are reading and what you are taking notes on as responding to the matrix. But really, what you want the matrix to be is to be responsive to what you are reading.

BRITTANY: Right.

BETH: --where what you are reading sort of informs what the matrix looks like rather than the other way around.  

BRITTANY: Yeah, exactly right. So, the matrix is a snapshot of your research rather than your research being driven by what is in the matrix already. And I think again that's something that can be a little bit daunting for students at first. And so it may be that you as a writer start with the pre-populated categories, because I like to kind of think about the research process in two stages.

First we just have the categorization stage and the matrix can help with that. That's you just kind of getting the lay of the land of your research and starting to remember what you read, who the authors are, what year they published their research--you know--what their methodology was, just the nuts and bolts, the basics. And for that stage, the matrix pointing you to the research can be useful, because it helps you understand what happened to be reading for, when you're just trying to kind of get a sense of what's out there, and keep track of the basic information about the sources.

But as we know, that is not enough to get you to a solid lit review where you are categorizing your research by them and by topic. And so there's sort of a second piece to that where you can--you might go through and try and categorize your research first using the pre-populated fields in the matrix. But then I think you can come back and do that organization piece which is sort of not so much just thinking about what is the research that's out there and what are the basic facts about that research or even what are the basic things that that research has said, but you're thinking carefully about how to describe the pattern of that conversation over time to your reader and how to present it. And that's where I think it's the other way around—you start to notice those patterns and then you start to create fields in the matrix that reflect those patterns so that you can better put those sources in conversation with one another.

BETH: Yeah, so I mean really, along with the matrix sort of being really responsive to what you are reading—it evolves with your research process. It sort of functions differently as you go through the research process and evolves with that.

BRITTANY: Yeah, mmhmm. I think so.

BETH: That’s a great way to talk about it, I think. And I love the idea of thinking about the matrix as sort of this living document. I think initially when I looked at it, it felt very static, and I think that felt limiting to me. And so thinking as an evolving document—it really helps with that, I think. And I hope that will sort of resonant with our students, too.  

BRITTANY: Yeah, me too. This is a really hard thing to talk about in the abstract, I think. And so I do encourage any listener who is feeling like, a little confused by all of this, to dive in and start and sort of--I mean, I guess the basic take away that we want to send to our listeners is that you're in the driver's seat when it comes to these documents and the matrices, and so if you really want to record certain information and it's not part of the matrix that you download from our website, add it. Add it in. And that gives you a sense of agency to, I think, as a writer because that is what you get to make those choices about how to prevent the information to your reader which is really the kind of mindset that you want to have as you craft your literature review. And think about the order of information that you want to present to your reader.

BETH: And I would give two other tips, I think, too. As we are talking about this, you know we talked about the students that this is useful for, the wide range of students. But you know one thing I would say is if you are imagining, wow, this will be really useful for me, when in the future, I write this paper, this master’s thesis, this doctoral capstone, whatever it is. Also, consider using the matrix on an earlier paper, even if it’s not absolutely necessary. Because practicing using the literature review matrix will help you figure out how it works and how you can use it to evolve with your research process. So even if the matrix isn’t absolutely necessary to complete that particular project—using it can help you get use to that process. Just like anything else we talk about, we talk about all the time—practicing your paraphrasing and your citing skills so when you get to the sort of high stakes end capstone research that you have to do, then you are ready it. I think the same applies here, too.

BRITTANY: Right, mmhmm, absolutely.

BETH: And then…I swear I had one other thing I was going to say. Oh, I remember now. I think students sometime have trouble sort of translating, taking notes, reading, and highlighting important points or underlining important points as they are reading. And then taking that into their writing. There is sort of, like, a big jump they have to make—right—between those two things?

BETH: And the matrix acts as a nice in-between because you don’t necessarily include everything you highlight in the matrix, but you can kind of go back to your research and say, okay from what I highlighted while I was reading, to ensure I was an active reader: What is actually useful to be putting in this matrix? And then you can kind of practice paraphrasing and summarizing what you actually read into the matrix, too. So it kind of helps as in between step—between your note taking and your active reading and your actual writing that you are doing.

BRITTANY: I love that. I love thinking about it as kind of a go-between, between your research and your writing process. I think that’s exactly right.

BETH: So just a reminder—if you would like to download the lit review matrix and start using it, Brittany gave a really great explanation on how to find it through our website, at the start of the podcast, but you can also go to the top right hand corner of page on our website and search "literature review matrix" and it will be the first hit there. And just a note, too, if you are a doctoral student working on your final capstone, if you are at the proposal stage, make sure to also e-mail any questions that you have to the editors, at [email protected] as well as visit the form and style website.

BRITTANY: Finally, we love to hear your feedback and your ideas for future episodes. And we are grateful for those of you who have sent feedback and ideas to us so far. And we want to remind you that you can find us on Facebook at our Walden University Writing Center page, on Twitter @ WUWritingCenter, and at our blog which is waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.com.

BRITTANY: WriteCast is a production of the Walden University Writing Center. This episode was produced by me, Brittany Kallman Arneson; my co-host, Beth Nastachowski; and our colleague, Anne Shiell.

Visit the Writing Center's website to learn more about the WriteCast podcast , including how to subscribe.

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Matrix Method for Literature Review

Introduction.

Using a review matrix enables you to quickly compare and contrast articles in order to determine the scope of research across time. A review matrix can help you more easily spot differences and similarities between journal articles about a given research topic. Review matrices are especially helpful for health sciences literature reviews covering the complete scope of a research topic over time.

Organizing your Sources

Once you complete your research, organize your source by date in order to make it easier to see changes in research over time.

Every review matrix should have the same first three column headings: (1) authors, title, and journal; (2) publication year; (3) purpose.

It may be difficult to determine purpose from just a cursory review of the article. In some cases, it may be necessary to first read the paper fully to identify its purpose.

Choose your Remaining Column Topics

Next, carefully read all your articles. Note any important issues you identify. The following broad categories provide some suggestions for determining your own subject headings:

• Methodological - Methodology is often an important question. For example, if you are looking at tests of an Ebola vaccine beyond human subjects, it will be important to note what type of animal the test was carried out on, i.e. macaques or mice.
• Content-specific - Consider noting what was actually studied. For example, when looking at the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of illnesses, it would be important to note what illness was being studied.
• Geographical - It may be important to note where the research was completed. For example, if you want to compare the effects of the AIDS epidemic in different countries, you would use country as a column heading.

There are many ways to choose your column headings, and these are just a few suggestions. As you create your own matrix, choose column headings that support your research question and goals.

• Do not include column headings that are explicit in your research question. For example, if you are looking at drug use in adolescents, do not include a column heading for age of study participants. If the answer will be the same for every study, it's generally a bad choice for a column heading.
• Do not try to fully complete a review matrix before reading the articles. Reading the articles is an important way to discern the nuances between studies. 

Sample Review Matrix and Templates

• Review Matrix Example: Ebola Vaccine Clinical Studies This document includes a review matrix of two Ebola vaccine clinical reviews done on humans published by the National Institute of Health.
• Review Matrix Word Template A review matrix template in Microsoft Word.
• Review Matrix Excel Template A review matrix template for Microsoft Excel

More Information

Information found in this guide was adapted from the following book. 

Guide Credit

Information on this guide has been borrowed with permission from David Nolfi at Duquesne University . 

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Common Assignments: Literature Review Matrix

Literature review matrix.

As you read and evaluate your literature there are several different ways to organize your research. Courtesy of Dr. Gary Burkholder in the School of Psychology, these sample matrices are one option to help organize your articles. These documents allow you to compile details about your sources, such as the foundational theories, methodologies, and conclusions; begin to note similarities among the authors; and retrieve citation information for easy insertion within a document.

You can review the sample matrixes to see a completed form or download the blank matrix for your own use.

• Literature Review Matrix 1 This PDF file provides a sample literature review matrix.
• Literature Review Matrix 2 This PDF file provides a sample literature review matrix.
• Literature Review Matrix Template (Word)
• Literature Review Matrix Template (Excel)

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Get Organized

• Lit Review Prep Use this template to help you evaluate your sources, create article summaries for an annotated bibliography, and a synthesis matrix for your lit review outline.

Synthesize your Information

Synthesize: combine separate elements to form a whole.

Synthesis Matrix

A synthesis matrix helps you record the main points of each source and document how sources relate to each other.

After summarizing and evaluating your sources, arrange them in a matrix or use a citation manager to help you see how they relate to each other and apply to each of your themes or variables.  

By arranging your sources by theme or variable, you can see how your sources relate to each other, and can start thinking about how you weave them together to create a narrative.

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Using a synthesis matrix.

• Literature Reviews: A Recap
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A synthesis matrix visually represents your research by organizing your sources by themes:

• Sample Synthesis Matrix Example provided by Ashford University Writing Center .
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What is a literature matrix?

As defined by Judith Garrard in her handbook entitled  Health Sciences Literature Reviews Made Easy: The Matrix Method , a “Review of the literature consists of reading, analyzing, and writing a synthesis of scholarly materials about a specific topic. When reviewing scientific literature, the focus is on the hypotheses, the scientific methods, the strengths and weaknesses of the study, the results, and the authors’ interpretations and conclusions.” When reading materials for a literature review, you should critically evaluate the study’s major aims and results. 

The purpose of completing a literature matrix is to help you identify important aspects of the study. Literature matrixes contain a variety of headings, but frequent headings include: author surname and date, theoretical/ conceptual framework, research question(s)/ hypothesis, methodology, analysis & results, conclusions, implications for future research, and implications for practice. You can add additional columns as needed, and you might consider adding a “notes column” to proactively have important quotations and your thoughts already collected.  As you read journal articles, have your literature matrix ready. It is best to fill in the matrix directly after reading a work, rather than returning to the matrix later.  

Literature Matrix Files

You should use a literature matrix that best helps you to organize your reading and research. Excel workbooks can help to organize your research. Sample basic and complex literature matrixes are provided below: 

• Literature Matrix Basic BLANK
• Literature Matrix Basic SAMPLE
• Literature Matrix Complex BLANK

Synthesize vs. Summarize

When writing your literature review, you will not simply summarize the materials that you found related to your topic. A summary is a recap of the information provided in research articles. Summaries provide basic information about the study, but the details provided in a summary are not enumerative or systematic. 

Synthesizing goes beyond summarizing to explore specific aspects of the research study. When synthesizing the literature, rely on your completed literature matrix to inform your writing. Do you see any tends across publications? Was one type of methodology used repeatedly, why or why not? Did separate teams of researchers come to the same conclusion, differing conclusions, or is the literature inconclusive? Synthesizing requires that you look at the current state of the research overall. 

When preparing to write a synthesis, you will read the literature available, tease apart individual findings and supporting evidence across different articles, and then reorganize this information in a way that presents your understanding of the current state of research in this field.  

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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See an example

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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Doctor of Nursing Practice: Lit Review

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"What is a literature review used for?" .cls-1{fill:#fff;stroke:#79a13f;stroke-miterlimit:10;stroke-width:5px;}.cls-2{fill:#79a13f;} Literature reviews can communicate what the current state of a problem or question is. You might find a literature review in a journal article. An original experiment, in theory, would be based on where previous research had led in order to progress past stopping points.

• Literature Reviews
• Review Articles
• Search Strategy For Your Lit Review

What is a Literature Review?

“A review of the literature consists of reading, analyzing, and writing a synthesis of scholarly materials about a specific topic. When the review is of scientific literature, the focus is on the hypotheses, the scientific methods, the strengths and weaknesses of the study, the results, and the authors’ interpretations and conclusions. A review of the scientific literature is fundamental to understanding the accumulated knowledge about the topic being reviewed" (Gerard, 2017).

• Literature Reviews from the Writing Center at UNC Chapel Hill This handout will explain what literature reviews are and offer insights into the form and construction of literature reviews in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
• Health sciences literature review made easy: The matrix method by Judith Garrard The Matrix Method is an organizational system that guides you through the literature review process from start to finish, outlined in the book Health Sciences Literature Review Made Easy by Judith Garrard. It is “intended to teach you how to read a paper, organize the review using the Matrix Method, analyze it, and create a narrative synthesis” (2017, p. 31).
• Demystifying literature reviews by Brian T. Conner This brief, easy-to-read article describes different types of literature reviews.
• Matrix Method Handout This handout provides a general introduction to the Matrix Method. Please refer to Garrard’s book for further instructions on using the Matrix Method.

Structure of a Literature Review

When you're writing a literature review, you won't just summarize all of the articles that you've found on your topic. Instead, you'll synthesize the evidence. This means that you'll look at the state of the evidence as a whole, telling your reader what it means when you put it all together. Rather than reviewing your sources one at a time, you'll organize your lit review by concept, chronology, methodology, etc. -- whatever makes the most sense for your topic.

Watch Video

This video from the North Carolina State Libraries offers a thorough 10-minute introduction to literature reviews. It's a great resource if you still aren't sure how to approach your lit review.

Garrard, J. (2017). Health sciences literature review made easy: The matrix method . Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning.

Libncsu [Username]. (July 30, 2009). Literature reviews: An overview for graduate students [Video]. Youtube. Retrieved April 29, 2020 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2d7y_r65HU&feature=youtu.be

University of North Carolina Writing Center. (n.d.). Literature reviews . Retrieved April 29, 2020 from https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/literature-reviews

Comparing Different Types of Reviews

Here you will find descriptions of narrative, integrative, and systematic reviews. You will also find additional information about finding and understanding systematic reviews. Once you understand what a systematic review is and where to search for them, see the Search Tips page in this guide for help with finding the articles you need.

From the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education

Literature Review (Narrative Review)

"Literature reviews in the introduction to a report provide readers with an overview of existing evidence, and contribute to the argument for the new study. These reviews are usually only 2 to 4 double spaced pages, and so, only key studies can be cited. The emphasis is on summarizing and evaluating an overall body of evidence" (Polit & Beck, 2012).

Integrative Reviews

"An integrative review is a specific review method that summarizes past empirical or theoretical literature to provide a more comprehensive understanding of a particular phenomenon or healthcare problem...Well-done integrative reviews present the state of the science, contribute to theory development, and have direct applicability to practice and policy" (Whittemore & Knafl, 2005).

If you're conducing an integrative review, read Whittemore and Knafl because they clearly explain what an integrative review is and how to design and implement one.

Systematic Reviews

A systematic review attempts to identify, appraise and synthesize all the empirical evidence that meets pre-specified eligibility criteria to answer a specific research question. Researchers conducting systematic reviews use explicit, systematic methods that are selected with a view aimed at minimizing bias, to produce more reliable findings to inform decision making. See the Cochrane Library

"A systematic review involves the identification, selection, appraisal, and synthesis of the best available evidence for clinical decision making. A properly conducted systematic review uses reproducible, preplanned strategies to reduce bias and instill rigor and pools information from both published and unpublished sources... Systematic reviews are conducted to answer specific, often narrow, clinical questions. These questions are formulated according to the mnemonic PICO addressing: a specific population (P) (such as people traveling long distance), the intervention of interest (I) (e.g., preventive measures for deep vein thrombosis), an optional comparison (C) (such as the standard of care, which may be no intervention), and one or more specific outcomes (such as prevention of deep vein thrombosis)" (Kazer & Fitzpatrick, 2012).

Meta-Analyses

Meta-analysis is a quantitative approach that permits the synthesis and integration of results from multiple individual studies focused on a specific research question. A meta-analysis is a rigorous alternative to the traditional narrative review of the literature. It involves the application of the research process to a collection of studies in a specific area. The individual studies are considered the sample.

A systematic review may include meta-analysis if it is able to combine the results of comparable randomized controlled trials. See Systematic Review in the Encyclopedia of Nursing Research .

Kazer, M. W., & Fitzpatrick, J. J. (2012). Systematic Reviews. In The Encyclopedia of Nursing Research , Third Edition. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company. https://ezproxy.simmons.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=387241&site=ehost-live&scope=site&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_500

Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2012). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice . Lippincott Williams & Williams.

Whittemore R, & Knafl K. (2005). The integrative review: Updated methodology. Journal of Advanced Nursing . 52 (5), 546–553. https://doi-org.ezproxy.simmons.edu/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2005.03621.x

Search Strategy For Your Lit Review (See also NURS 507/508 Search Basics )

For a narrative review as part of a research report, you want to conduct a comprehensive search to identify as many sources as possible on your topic. You'll then choose the key studies to include in your report.

Database Searching

Search health sciences databases (i.e. Cinahl, Medline) for keywords related to your topic. (See the Search Basics page of this guide for tips and resources). Having trouble? Meet with a librarian with a librarian to discuss databases, keywords, and search strategies.

Citation Searching

When you find a relevant article, use it to identify other potentially relevant articles: Look at its references to identify other relevant articles that you haven't found. Use Google Scholar or Scopus to identify more recent articles that have cited that one. Reviews that are part of a research report don't usually share their search strategy, but it's still a good idea to take notes to make the process as organized and efficient as possible.

Document Your Sources

• List the databases you search and the keywords you used
• Explain how you used citation searching to identify additional articles
• Discuss the exclusion criteria you used

Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria

• Relevance to your topic (i.e. different meaning of a term, different aspect of your topic, etc.)
• Publication type (journals, grey literature, etc.)
• Language of publication
• Time period
• Geographic considerations

The Matrix Method

A synthesis matrix helps you compare research articles side-by-side so you can identify common themes and visualize the bigger picture.

• Using a Synthesis Matrix to Plan a Literature Review by Kevin Clark and Mary Buckley This very brief article explains what a synthesis matrix is and how to use one for your literature review.
• Health sciences literature review made easy: The matrix method by Judith Garrard This book goes into detail about the matrix method, which is a system of organizing the literature review process. Chapters 5 and 6 explain how to set up a synthesis matrix, with an example on pages 157-158.

Garrard, J. (2017). Health sciences literature review made easy: The matrix method . Fifth edition. Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://ezproxy.simmons.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1229455&site=ehost-live&scope=site

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Matrix Method for Literature Review

• The Review Matrix
• Organize Your Sources
• Choose Your Remaining Column Topics
• More Information

Sample Matrix and Templates

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• Review Matrix Example-Ebola Vaccine Clinical Studies This document includes a review matrix of two Ebola vaccine clinical reviews done on humans published by the National Institute of Health.
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