Chapter 4: Conducting a Literature Review

Whether you plan to engage in clinical, community, or organizational practice, being able to look at the available literature on a topic and synthesize the relevant facts into a coherent review is a fundamental skill. Literature reviews can have a powerful effect, for example by providing the factual basis for a new program or policy in an agency or government. In your own research proposal, conducting a thorough literature review will help you build strong arguments for why your topic is important and why your research question must be answered.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  • Be able to describe a literature review and explain its purpose
  • Become familiar with the notion of synthesizing literature and means to accomplish this
  • Be aware of the beneficial practices and common pitfalls while writing the literature review

 

Chapter 4: Conducting a Literature Review is adapted from Matthew DeCarlo (2018) Scientific Inquiry in Social Work and is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA Licence.

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