literature review example article

• UWF Libraries

Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

• Sample Literature Reviews
• Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
• Finding "The Literature"
• Organizing/Writing
• APA Style This link opens in a new window
• Chicago: Notes Bibliography This link opens in a new window
• MLA Style This link opens in a new window

Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts

Have an exemplary literature review.

• Literature Review Sample 1
• Literature Review Sample 2
• Literature Review Sample 3

Have you written a stellar literature review you care to share for teaching purposes?

Are you an instructor who has received an exemplary literature review and have permission from the student to post?

Please contact Britt McGowan at [email protected] for inclusion in this guide. All disciplines welcome and encouraged.

• << Previous: MLA Style
• Next: Get Help! >>
• Last Updated: Mar 22, 2024 9:37 AM
• URL: https://libguides.uwf.edu/litreview

Get science-backed answers as you write with Paperpal's Research feature

What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of literature review? 
• a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction: 
• b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes: 
• c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs: 
• d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts: 
• How to write a good literature review 
• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review?

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

What is the purpose of literature review?

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

• Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 
• Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field. 
• Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 
• Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 
• Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 
• Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

How to write a good literature review

Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. 

Frequently asked questions

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

Paperpal is an AI writing assistant that help academics write better, faster with real-time suggestions for in-depth language and grammar correction. Trained on millions of research manuscripts enhanced by professional academic editors, Paperpal delivers human precision at machine speed.  

Try it for free or upgrade to  Paperpal Prime , which unlocks unlimited access to premium features like academic translation, paraphrasing, contextual synonyms, consistency checks and more. It’s like always having a professional academic editor by your side! Go beyond limitations and experience the future of academic writing.  Get Paperpal Prime now at just US$19 a month!

Related Reads:

• Empirical Research: A Comprehensive Guide for Academics 
• How to Write a Scientific Paper in 10 Steps 
• Life Sciences Papers: 9 Tips for Authors Writing in Biological Sciences
• What is an Argumentative Essay? How to Write It (With Examples)

6 Tips for Post-Doc Researchers to Take Their Career to the Next Level

Self-plagiarism in research: what it is and how to avoid it, you may also like, what is academic writing: tips for students, why traditional editorial process needs an upgrade, paperpal’s new ai research finder empowers authors to..., what is hedging in academic writing  , how to use ai to enhance your college..., ai + human expertise – a paradigm shift..., how to use paperpal to generate emails &..., ai in education: it’s time to change the..., is it ethical to use ai-generated abstracts without..., do plagiarism checkers detect ai content.

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing a Literature Review

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• 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 sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

Literature Review Guide: Examples of Literature Reviews

• What is a Literature Review?
• How to start?
• Search strategies and Databases
• Examples of Literature Reviews
• How to organise the review
• Library summary
• Emerald Infographic

All good quality journal articles will include a small Literature Review after the Introduction paragraph.  It may not be called a Literature Review but gives you an idea of how one is created in miniature.

Sample Literature Reviews as part of a articles or Theses

• Sample Literature Review on Critical Thinking (Gwendolyn Reece, American University Library)
• Hackett, G and Melia, D . The hotel as the holiday/stay destination:trends and innovations. Presented at TRIC Conference, Belfast, Ireland- June 2012 and EuroCHRIE Conference

Links to sample Literature Reviews from other libraries

• Sample literature reviews from University of West Florida

Standalone Literature Reviews

• Attitudes towards the Disability in Ireland
• Martin, A., O'Connor-Fenelon, M. and Lyons, R. (2010). Non-verbal communication between nurses and people with an intellectual disability: A review of the literature. Journal of Intellectual Diabilities, 14(4), 303-314.

Irish Theses

• Phillips, Martin (2015) European airline performance: a data envelopment analysis with extrapolations based on model outputs. Master of Business Studies thesis, Dublin City University.
• The customers’ perception of servicescape’s influence on their behaviours, in the food retail industry : Dublin Business School 2015
• Coughlan, Ray (2015) What was the role of leadership in the transformation of a failing Irish Insurance business. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.
• << Previous: Search strategies and Databases
• Next: Tutorials >>
• Last Updated: Feb 27, 2024 4:07 PM
• URL: https://ait.libguides.com/literaturereview

How To Write An A-Grade Literature Review

3 straightforward steps (with examples) + free template.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewed By: Dr. Eunice Rautenbach | October 2019

Quality research is about building onto the existing work of others , “standing on the shoulders of giants”, as Newton put it. The literature review chapter of your dissertation, thesis or research project is where you synthesise this prior work and lay the theoretical foundation for your own research.

Long story short, this chapter is a pretty big deal, which is why you want to make sure you get it right . In this post, I’ll show you exactly how to write a literature review in three straightforward steps, so you can conquer this vital chapter (the smart way).

Overview: The Literature Review Process

• Understanding the “ why “
• Finding the relevant literature
• Cataloguing and synthesising the information
• Outlining & writing up your literature review
• Example of a literature review

But first, the “why”…

Before we unpack how to write the literature review chapter, we’ve got to look at the why . To put it bluntly, if you don’t understand the function and purpose of the literature review process, there’s no way you can pull it off well. So, what exactly is the purpose of the literature review?

Well, there are (at least) four core functions:

• For you to gain an understanding (and demonstrate this understanding) of where the research is at currently, what the key arguments and disagreements are.
• For you to identify the gap(s) in the literature and then use this as justification for your own research topic.
• To help you build a conceptual framework for empirical testing (if applicable to your research topic).
• To inform your methodological choices and help you source tried and tested questionnaires (for interviews ) and measurement instruments (for surveys ).

Most students understand the first point but don’t give any thought to the rest. To get the most from the literature review process, you must keep all four points front of mind as you review the literature (more on this shortly), or you’ll land up with a wonky foundation.

Okay – with the why out the way, let’s move on to the how . As mentioned above, writing your literature review is a process, which I’ll break down into three steps:

• Finding the most suitable literature
• Understanding , distilling and organising the literature
• Planning and writing up your literature review chapter

Importantly, you must complete steps one and two before you start writing up your chapter. I know it’s very tempting, but don’t try to kill two birds with one stone and write as you read. You’ll invariably end up wasting huge amounts of time re-writing and re-shaping, or you’ll just land up with a disjointed, hard-to-digest mess . Instead, you need to read first and distil the information, then plan and execute the writing.

Step 1: Find the relevant literature

Naturally, the first step in the literature review journey is to hunt down the existing research that’s relevant to your topic. While you probably already have a decent base of this from your research proposal , you need to expand on this substantially in the dissertation or thesis itself.

Essentially, you need to be looking for any existing literature that potentially helps you answer your research question (or develop it, if that’s not yet pinned down). There are numerous ways to find relevant literature, but I’ll cover my top four tactics here. I’d suggest combining all four methods to ensure that nothing slips past you:

Method 1 – Google Scholar Scrubbing

Google’s academic search engine, Google Scholar , is a great starting point as it provides a good high-level view of the relevant journal articles for whatever keyword you throw at it. Most valuably, it tells you how many times each article has been cited, which gives you an idea of how credible (or at least, popular) it is. Some articles will be free to access, while others will require an account, which brings us to the next method.

Method 2 – University Database Scrounging

Generally, universities provide students with access to an online library, which provides access to many (but not all) of the major journals.

So, if you find an article using Google Scholar that requires paid access (which is quite likely), search for that article in your university’s database – if it’s listed there, you’ll have access. Note that, generally, the search engine capabilities of these databases are poor, so make sure you search for the exact article name, or you might not find it.

Method 3 – Journal Article Snowballing

At the end of every academic journal article, you’ll find a list of references. As with any academic writing, these references are the building blocks of the article, so if the article is relevant to your topic, there’s a good chance a portion of the referenced works will be too. Do a quick scan of the titles and see what seems relevant, then search for the relevant ones in your university’s database.

Method 4 – Dissertation Scavenging

Similar to Method 3 above, you can leverage other students’ dissertations. All you have to do is skim through literature review chapters of existing dissertations related to your topic and you’ll find a gold mine of potential literature. Usually, your university will provide you with access to previous students’ dissertations, but you can also find a much larger selection in the following databases:

• Open Access Theses & Dissertations
• Stanford SearchWorks

Keep in mind that dissertations and theses are not as academically sound as published, peer-reviewed journal articles (because they’re written by students, not professionals), so be sure to check the credibility of any sources you find using this method. You can do this by assessing the citation count of any given article in Google Scholar. If you need help with assessing the credibility of any article, or with finding relevant research in general, you can chat with one of our Research Specialists .

Alright – with a good base of literature firmly under your belt, it’s time to move onto the next step.

Need a helping hand?

Step 2: Log, catalogue and synthesise

Once you’ve built a little treasure trove of articles, it’s time to get reading and start digesting the information – what does it all mean?

While I present steps one and two (hunting and digesting) as sequential, in reality, it’s more of a back-and-forth tango – you’ll read a little , then have an idea, spot a new citation, or a new potential variable, and then go back to searching for articles. This is perfectly natural – through the reading process, your thoughts will develop , new avenues might crop up, and directional adjustments might arise. This is, after all, one of the main purposes of the literature review process (i.e. to familiarise yourself with the current state of research in your field).

As you’re working through your treasure chest, it’s essential that you simultaneously start organising the information. There are three aspects to this:

• Logging reference information
• Building an organised catalogue
• Distilling and synthesising the information

I’ll discuss each of these below:

2.1 – Log the reference information

As you read each article, you should add it to your reference management software. I usually recommend Mendeley for this purpose (see the Mendeley 101 video below), but you can use whichever software you’re comfortable with. Most importantly, make sure you load EVERY article you read into your reference manager, even if it doesn’t seem very relevant at the time.

2.2 – Build an organised catalogue

In the beginning, you might feel confident that you can remember who said what, where, and what their main arguments were. Trust me, you won’t. If you do a thorough review of the relevant literature (as you must!), you’re going to read many, many articles, and it’s simply impossible to remember who said what, when, and in what context . Also, without the bird’s eye view that a catalogue provides, you’ll miss connections between various articles, and have no view of how the research developed over time. Simply put, it’s essential to build your own catalogue of the literature.

I would suggest using Excel to build your catalogue, as it allows you to run filters, colour code and sort – all very useful when your list grows large (which it will). How you lay your spreadsheet out is up to you, but I’d suggest you have the following columns (at minimum):

• Author, date, title – Start with three columns containing this core information. This will make it easy for you to search for titles with certain words, order research by date, or group by author.
• Categories or keywords – You can either create multiple columns, one for each category/theme and then tick the relevant categories, or you can have one column with keywords.
• Key arguments/points – Use this column to succinctly convey the essence of the article, the key arguments and implications thereof for your research.
• Context – Note the socioeconomic context in which the research was undertaken. For example, US-based, respondents aged 25-35, lower- income, etc. This will be useful for making an argument about gaps in the research.
• Methodology – Note which methodology was used and why. Also, note any issues you feel arise due to the methodology. Again, you can use this to make an argument about gaps in the research.
• Quotations – Note down any quoteworthy lines you feel might be useful later.
• Notes – Make notes about anything not already covered. For example, linkages to or disagreements with other theories, questions raised but unanswered, shortcomings or limitations, and so forth.

If you’d like, you can try out our free catalog template here (see screenshot below).

2.3 – Digest and synthesise

Most importantly, as you work through the literature and build your catalogue, you need to synthesise all the information in your own mind – how does it all fit together? Look for links between the various articles and try to develop a bigger picture view of the state of the research. Some important questions to ask yourself are:

• What answers does the existing research provide to my own research questions ?
• Which points do the researchers agree (and disagree) on?
• How has the research developed over time?
• Where do the gaps in the current research lie?

To help you develop a big-picture view and synthesise all the information, you might find mind mapping software such as Freemind useful. Alternatively, if you’re a fan of physical note-taking, investing in a large whiteboard might work for you.

Step 3: Outline and write it up!

Once you’re satisfied that you have digested and distilled all the relevant literature in your mind, it’s time to put pen to paper (or rather, fingers to keyboard). There are two steps here – outlining and writing:

3.1 – Draw up your outline

Having spent so much time reading, it might be tempting to just start writing up without a clear structure in mind. However, it’s critically important to decide on your structure and develop a detailed outline before you write anything. Your literature review chapter needs to present a clear, logical and an easy to follow narrative – and that requires some planning. Don’t try to wing it!

Naturally, you won’t always follow the plan to the letter, but without a detailed outline, you’re more than likely going to end up with a disjointed pile of waffle , and then you’re going to spend a far greater amount of time re-writing, hacking and patching. The adage, “measure twice, cut once” is very suitable here.

In terms of structure, the first decision you’ll have to make is whether you’ll lay out your review thematically (into themes) or chronologically (by date/period). The right choice depends on your topic, research objectives and research questions, which we discuss in this article .

Once that’s decided, you need to draw up an outline of your entire chapter in bullet point format. Try to get as detailed as possible, so that you know exactly what you’ll cover where, how each section will connect to the next, and how your entire argument will develop throughout the chapter. Also, at this stage, it’s a good idea to allocate rough word count limits for each section, so that you can identify word count problems before you’ve spent weeks or months writing!

PS – check out our free literature review chapter template…

3.2 – Get writing

With a detailed outline at your side, it’s time to start writing up (finally!). At this stage, it’s common to feel a bit of writer’s block and find yourself procrastinating under the pressure of finally having to put something on paper. To help with this, remember that the objective of the first draft is not perfection – it’s simply to get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper, after which you can refine them. The structure might change a little, the word count allocations might shift and shuffle, and you might add or remove a section – that’s all okay. Don’t worry about all this on your first draft – just get your thoughts down on paper.

Once you’ve got a full first draft (however rough it may be), step away from it for a day or two (longer if you can) and then come back at it with fresh eyes. Pay particular attention to the flow and narrative – does it fall fit together and flow from one section to another smoothly? Now’s the time to try to improve the linkage from each section to the next, tighten up the writing to be more concise, trim down word count and sand it down into a more digestible read.

Once you’ve done that, give your writing to a friend or colleague who is not a subject matter expert and ask them if they understand the overall discussion. The best way to assess this is to ask them to explain the chapter back to you. This technique will give you a strong indication of which points were clearly communicated and which weren’t. If you’re working with Grad Coach, this is a good time to have your Research Specialist review your chapter.

Finally, tighten it up and send it off to your supervisor for comment. Some might argue that you should be sending your work to your supervisor sooner than this (indeed your university might formally require this), but in my experience, supervisors are extremely short on time (and often patience), so, the more refined your chapter is, the less time they’ll waste on addressing basic issues (which you know about already) and the more time they’ll spend on valuable feedback that will increase your mark-earning potential.

Literature Review Example

In the video below, we unpack an actual literature review so that you can see how all the core components come together in reality.

Let’s Recap

In this post, we’ve covered how to research and write up a high-quality literature review chapter. Let’s do a quick recap of the key takeaways:

• It is essential to understand the WHY of the literature review before you read or write anything. Make sure you understand the 4 core functions of the process.
• The first step is to hunt down the relevant literature . You can do this using Google Scholar, your university database, the snowballing technique and by reviewing other dissertations and theses.
• Next, you need to log all the articles in your reference manager , build your own catalogue of literature and synthesise all the research.
• Following that, you need to develop a detailed outline of your entire chapter – the more detail the better. Don’t start writing without a clear outline (on paper, not in your head!)
• Write up your first draft in rough form – don’t aim for perfection. Remember, done beats perfect.
• Refine your second draft and get a layman’s perspective on it . Then tighten it up and submit it to your supervisor.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

You Might Also Like:

38 Comments

Thank you very much. This page is an eye opener and easy to comprehend.

This is awesome!

I wish I come across GradCoach earlier enough.

But all the same I’ll make use of this opportunity to the fullest.

Thank you for this good job.

Keep it up!

You’re welcome, Yinka. Thank you for the kind words. All the best writing your literature review.

Thank you for a very useful literature review session. Although I am doing most of the steps…it being my first masters an Mphil is a self study and one not sure you are on the right track. I have an amazing supervisor but one also knows they are super busy. So not wanting to bother on the minutae. Thank you.

You’re most welcome, Renee. Good luck with your literature review 🙂

This has been really helpful. Will make full use of it. 🙂

Thank you Gradcoach.

Really agreed. Admirable effort

thank you for this beautiful well explained recap.

Thank you so much for your guide of video and other instructions for the dissertation writing.

It is instrumental. It encouraged me to write a dissertation now.

Thank you the video was great – from someone that knows nothing thankyou

an amazing and very constructive way of presetting a topic, very useful, thanks for the effort,

It is timely

It is very good video of guidance for writing a research proposal and a dissertation. Since I have been watching and reading instructions, I have started my research proposal to write. I appreciate to Mr Jansen hugely.

I learn a lot from your videos. Very comprehensive and detailed.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. As a research student, you learn better with your learning tips in research

I was really stuck in reading and gathering information but after watching these things are cleared thanks, it is so helpful.

Really helpful, Thank you for the effort in showing such information

This is super helpful thank you very much.

Thank you for this whole literature writing review.You have simplified the process.

I’m so glad I found GradCoach. Excellent information, Clear explanation, and Easy to follow, Many thanks Derek!

You’re welcome, Maithe. Good luck writing your literature review 🙂

Thank you Coach, you have greatly enriched and improved my knowledge

Great piece, so enriching and it is going to help me a great lot in my project and thesis, thanks so much

This is THE BEST site for ANYONE doing a masters or doctorate! Thank you for the sound advice and templates. You rock!

Thanks, Stephanie 🙂

This is mind blowing, the detailed explanation and simplicity is perfect.

I am doing two papers on my final year thesis, and I must stay I feel very confident to face both headlong after reading this article.

thank you so much.

if anyone is to get a paper done on time and in the best way possible, GRADCOACH is certainly the go to area!

This is very good video which is well explained with detailed explanation

Thank you excellent piece of work and great mentoring

Thanks, it was useful

Thank you very much. the video and the information were very helpful.

Good morning scholar. I’m delighted coming to know you even before the commencement of my dissertation which hopefully is expected in not more than six months from now. I would love to engage my study under your guidance from the beginning to the end. I love to know how to do good job

Thank you so much Derek for such useful information on writing up a good literature review. I am at a stage where I need to start writing my one. My proposal was accepted late last year but I honestly did not know where to start

Like the name of your YouTube implies you are GRAD (great,resource person, about dissertation). In short you are smart enough in coaching research work.

This is a very well thought out webpage. Very informative and a great read.

Very timely.

I appreciate.

Very comprehensive and eye opener for me as beginner in postgraduate study. Well explained and easy to understand. Appreciate and good reference in guiding me in my research journey. Thank you

Thank you. I requested to download the free literature review template, however, your website wouldn’t allow me to complete the request or complete a download. May I request that you email me the free template? Thank you.

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Print Friendly

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, automatically generate references for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Dissertation
• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

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.

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 summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Be assured that you'll submit flawless writing. Upload your document to correct all your mistakes.

Table of contents

Why write 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, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will 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 scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Correct my document today

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 objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. 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 if 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 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 use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

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.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

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?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• 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 find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

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’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference 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.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to 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 organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

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 summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse 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 organise 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.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

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, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, 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 transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

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

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

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 dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

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

• To familiarise 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  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

McCombes, S. (2022, June 07). What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 22 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, how to write a dissertation proposal | a step-by-step guide, what is a theoretical framework | a step-by-step guide, what is a research methodology | steps & tips.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• CAREER FEATURE
• 04 December 2020
• Correction 09 December 2020

How to write a superb literature review

Andy Tay is a freelance writer based in Singapore.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Literature reviews are important resources for scientists. They provide historical context for a field while offering opinions on its future trajectory. Creating them can provide inspiration for one’s own research, as well as some practice in writing. But few scientists are trained in how to write a review — or in what constitutes an excellent one. Even picking the appropriate software to use can be an involved decision (see ‘Tools and techniques’). So Nature asked editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews for their tips.

Access options

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

24,99 € / 30 days

cancel any time

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

185,98 € per year

only 3,65 € per issue

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Updates & Corrections

Correction 09 December 2020 : An earlier version of the tables in this article included some incorrect details about the programs Zotero, Endnote and Manubot. These have now been corrected.

Hsing, I.-M., Xu, Y. & Zhao, W. Electroanalysis 19 , 755–768 (2007).

Article   Google Scholar  

Ledesma, H. A. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 14 , 645–657 (2019).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Brahlek, M., Koirala, N., Bansal, N. & Oh, S. Solid State Commun. 215–216 , 54–62 (2015).

Choi, Y. & Lee, S. Y. Nature Rev. Chem . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-020-00221-w (2020).

Download references

Related Articles

• Research management

Breaking ice, and helicopter drops: winning photos of working scientists

Career Feature 23 APR 24

Londoners see what a scientist looks like up close in 50 photographs

Career News 18 APR 24

Deadly diseases and inflatable suits: how I found my niche in virology research

Spotlight 17 APR 24

Algorithm ranks peer reviewers by reputation — but critics warn of bias

Nature Index 25 APR 24

Researchers want a ‘nutrition label’ for academic-paper facts

Nature Index 17 APR 24

How young people benefit from Swiss apprenticeships

Retractions are part of science, but misconduct isn’t — lessons from a superconductivity lab

Editorial 24 APR 24

Postdoctoral Associate- Computational Spatial Biology

Houston, Texas (US)

Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)

Staff Scientist - Genetics and Genomics

Technician - senior technician in cell and molecular biology.

APPLICATION CLOSING DATE: 24.05.2024 Human Technopole (HT) is a distinguished life science research institute founded and supported by the Italian ...

Human Technopole

Postdoctoral Fellow

The Dubal Laboratory of Neuroscience and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) seeks postdoctoral fellows to investigate the ...

San Francisco, California

University of California, San Francsico

Postdoctoral Associate

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

How to Write a Literature Review

What is a literature review.

• What Is the Literature
• Writing the Review

A literature review is much more than an annotated bibliography or a list of separate reviews of articles and books. It is a critical, analytical summary and synthesis of the current knowledge of a topic. Thus it should compare and relate different theories, findings, etc, rather than just summarize them individually. In addition, it should have a particular focus or theme to organize the review. It does not have to be an exhaustive account of everything published on the topic, but it should discuss all the significant academic literature and other relevant sources important for that focus.

This is meant to be a general guide to writing a literature review: ways to structure one, what to include, how it supplements other research. For more specific help on writing a review, and especially for help on finding the literature to review, sign up for a Personal Research Session .

The specific organization of a literature review depends on the type and purpose of the review, as well as on the specific field or topic being reviewed. But in general, it is a relatively brief but thorough exploration of past and current work on a topic. Rather than a chronological listing of previous work, though, literature reviews are usually organized thematically, such as different theoretical approaches, methodologies, or specific issues or concepts involved in the topic. A thematic organization makes it much easier to examine contrasting perspectives, theoretical approaches, methodologies, findings, etc, and to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of, and point out any gaps in, previous research. And this is the heart of what a literature review is about. A literature review may offer new interpretations, theoretical approaches, or other ideas; if it is part of a research proposal or report it should demonstrate the relationship of the proposed or reported research to others' work; but whatever else it does, it must provide a critical overview of the current state of research efforts. 

Literature reviews are common and very important in the sciences and social sciences. They are less common and have a less important role in the humanities, but they do have a place, especially stand-alone reviews.

Types of Literature Reviews

There are different types of literature reviews, and different purposes for writing a review, but the most common are:

• Stand-alone literature review articles . These provide an overview and analysis of the current state of research on a topic or question. The goal is to evaluate and compare previous research on a topic to provide an analysis of what is currently known, and also to reveal controversies, weaknesses, and gaps in current work, thus pointing to directions for future research. You can find examples published in any number of academic journals, but there is a series of Annual Reviews of *Subject* which are specifically devoted to literature review articles. Writing a stand-alone review is often an effective way to get a good handle on a topic and to develop ideas for your own research program. For example, contrasting theoretical approaches or conflicting interpretations of findings can be the basis of your research project: can you find evidence supporting one interpretation against another, or can you propose an alternative interpretation that overcomes their limitations?
• Part of a research proposal . This could be a proposal for a PhD dissertation, a senior thesis, or a class project. It could also be a submission for a grant. The literature review, by pointing out the current issues and questions concerning a topic, is a crucial part of demonstrating how your proposed research will contribute to the field, and thus of convincing your thesis committee to allow you to pursue the topic of your interest or a funding agency to pay for your research efforts.
• Part of a research report . When you finish your research and write your thesis or paper to present your findings, it should include a literature review to provide the context to which your work is a contribution. Your report, in addition to detailing the methods, results, etc. of your research, should show how your work relates to others' work.

A literature review for a research report is often a revision of the review for a research proposal, which can be a revision of a stand-alone review. Each revision should be a fairly extensive revision. With the increased knowledge of and experience in the topic as you proceed, your understanding of the topic will increase. Thus, you will be in a better position to analyze and critique the literature. In addition, your focus will change as you proceed in your research. Some areas of the literature you initially reviewed will be marginal or irrelevant for your eventual research, and you will need to explore other areas more thoroughly. 

Examples of Literature Reviews

See the series of Annual Reviews of *Subject* which are specifically devoted to literature review articles to find many examples of stand-alone literature reviews in the biomedical, physical, and social sciences. 

Research report articles vary in how they are organized, but a common general structure is to have sections such as:

• Abstract - Brief summary of the contents of the article
• Introduction - A explanation of the purpose of the study, a statement of the research question(s) the study intends to address
• Literature review - A critical assessment of the work done so far on this topic, to show how the current study relates to what has already been done
• Methods - How the study was carried out (e.g. instruments or equipment, procedures, methods to gather and analyze data)
• Results - What was found in the course of the study
• Discussion - What do the results mean
• Conclusion - State the conclusions and implications of the results, and discuss how it relates to the work reviewed in the literature review; also, point to directions for further work in the area

Here are some articles that illustrate variations on this theme. There is no need to read the entire articles (unless the contents interest you); just quickly browse through to see the sections, and see how each section is introduced and what is contained in them.

The Determinants of Undergraduate Grade Point Average: The Relative Importance of Family Background, High School Resources, and Peer Group Effects , in The Journal of Human Resources , v. 34 no. 2 (Spring 1999), p. 268-293.

This article has a standard breakdown of sections:

• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Some discussion sections

First Encounters of the Bureaucratic Kind: Early Freshman Experiences with a Campus Bureaucracy , in The Journal of Higher Education , v. 67 no. 6 (Nov-Dec 1996), p. 660-691.

This one does not have a section specifically labeled as a "literature review" or "review of the literature," but the first few sections cite a long list of other sources discussing previous research in the area before the authors present their own study they are reporting.

• Next: What Is the Literature >>
• Last Updated: Jan 11, 2024 9:48 AM
• URL: https://libguides.wesleyan.edu/litreview

• USC Libraries
• Research Guides

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• 5. The Literature Review
• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Applying Critical Thinking
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Research Process Video Series
• Executive Summary
• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Insiderness
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Writing Concisely
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Generative AI and Writing
• USC Libraries Tutorials and Other Guides
• Bibliography

A literature review surveys prior research published in books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE : Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

• An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
• Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
• An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

• Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
• Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
• Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
• Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

• Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
• Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
• History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
• Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
• Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

• Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
• You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
• Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
• Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
• Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
• Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
• Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

• How are they organizing their ideas?
• What methods have they used to study the problem?
• What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
• What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
• How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

• Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
• Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
• Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

• << Previous: Theoretical Framework
• Next: Citation Tracking >>
• Last Updated: Apr 24, 2024 10:51 AM
• URL: https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide

15 Literature Review Examples

Literature reviews are a necessary step in a research process and often required when writing your research proposal . They involve gathering, analyzing, and evaluating existing knowledge about a topic in order to find gaps in the literature where future studies will be needed.

Ideally, once you have completed your literature review, you will be able to identify how your research project can build upon and extend existing knowledge in your area of study.

Generally, for my undergraduate research students, I recommend a narrative review, where themes can be generated in order for the students to develop sufficient understanding of the topic so they can build upon the themes using unique methods or novel research questions.

If you’re in the process of writing a literature review, I have developed a literature review template for you to use – it’s a huge time-saver and walks you through how to write a literature review step-by-step:

Get your time-saving templates here to write your own literature review.

Literature Review Examples

For the following types of literature review, I present an explanation and overview of the type, followed by links to some real-life literature reviews on the topics.

1. Narrative Review Examples

Also known as a traditional literature review, the narrative review provides a broad overview of the studies done on a particular topic.

It often includes both qualitative and quantitative studies and may cover a wide range of years.

The narrative review’s purpose is to identify commonalities, gaps, and contradictions in the literature .

I recommend to my students that they should gather their studies together, take notes on each study, then try to group them by themes that form the basis for the review (see my step-by-step instructions at the end of the article).

Example Study

Title: Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations

Citation: Vermeir, P., Vandijck, D., Degroote, S., Peleman, R., Verhaeghe, R., Mortier, E., … & Vogelaers, D. (2015). Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations. International journal of clinical practice , 69 (11), 1257-1267.

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ijcp.12686  

Overview: This narrative review analyzed themes emerging from 69 articles about communication in healthcare contexts. Five key themes were found in the literature: poor communication can lead to various negative outcomes, discontinuity of care, compromise of patient safety, patient dissatisfaction, and inefficient use of resources. After presenting the key themes, the authors recommend that practitioners need to approach healthcare communication in a more structured way, such as by ensuring there is a clear understanding of who is in charge of ensuring effective communication in clinical settings.

Other Examples

• Burnout in United States Healthcare Professionals: A Narrative Review (Reith, 2018) – read here
• Examining the Presence, Consequences, and Reduction of Implicit Bias in Health Care: A Narrative Review (Zestcott, Blair & Stone, 2016) – read here
• A Narrative Review of School-Based Physical Activity for Enhancing Cognition and Learning (Mavilidi et al., 2018) – read here
• A narrative review on burnout experienced by medical students and residents (Dyrbye & Shanafelt, 2015) – read here

2. Systematic Review Examples

This type of literature review is more structured and rigorous than a narrative review. It involves a detailed and comprehensive plan and search strategy derived from a set of specified research questions.

The key way you’d know a systematic review compared to a narrative review is in the methodology: the systematic review will likely have a very clear criteria for how the studies were collected, and clear explanations of exclusion/inclusion criteria. 

The goal is to gather the maximum amount of valid literature on the topic, filter out invalid or low-quality reviews, and minimize bias. Ideally, this will provide more reliable findings, leading to higher-quality conclusions and recommendations for further research.

You may note from the examples below that the ‘method’ sections in systematic reviews tend to be much more explicit, often noting rigid inclusion/exclusion criteria and exact keywords used in searches.

Title: The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review  

Citation: Roman, S., Sánchez-Siles, L. M., & Siegrist, M. (2017). The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review. Trends in food science & technology , 67 , 44-57.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092422441730122X  

Overview: This systematic review included 72 studies of food naturalness to explore trends in the literature about its importance for consumers. Keywords used in the data search included: food, naturalness, natural content, and natural ingredients. Studies were included if they examined consumers’ preference for food naturalness and contained empirical data. The authors found that the literature lacks clarity about how naturalness is defined and measured, but also found that food consumption is significantly influenced by perceived naturalness of goods.

• A systematic review of research on online teaching and learning from 2009 to 2018 (Martin, Sun & Westine, 2020) – read here
• Where Is Current Research on Blockchain Technology? (Yli-Huumo et al., 2016) – read here
• Universities—industry collaboration: A systematic review (Ankrah & Al-Tabbaa, 2015) – read here
• Internet of Things Applications: A Systematic Review (Asghari, Rahmani & Javadi, 2019) – read here

3. Meta-analysis

This is a type of systematic review that uses statistical methods to combine and summarize the results of several studies.

Due to its robust methodology, a meta-analysis is often considered the ‘gold standard’ of secondary research , as it provides a more precise estimate of a treatment effect than any individual study contributing to the pooled analysis.

Furthermore, by aggregating data from a range of studies, a meta-analysis can identify patterns, disagreements, or other interesting relationships that may have been hidden in individual studies.

This helps to enhance the generalizability of findings, making the conclusions drawn from a meta-analysis particularly powerful and informative for policy and practice.

Title: Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s Disease Risk: A Meta-Meta-Analysis

Citation: Sáiz-Vazquez, O., Puente-Martínez, A., Ubillos-Landa, S., Pacheco-Bonrostro, J., & Santabárbara, J. (2020). Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease risk: a meta-meta-analysis. Brain sciences, 10(6), 386.

Source: https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10060386  

O verview: This study examines the relationship between cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Researchers conducted a systematic search of meta-analyses and reviewed several databases, collecting 100 primary studies and five meta-analyses to analyze the connection between cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease. They find that the literature compellingly demonstrates that low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels significantly influence the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

• The power of feedback revisited: A meta-analysis of educational feedback research (Wisniewski, Zierer & Hattie, 2020) – read here
• How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis (Ritchie & Tucker-Drob, 2018) – read here
• A meta-analysis of factors related to recycling (Geiger et al., 2019) – read here
• Stress management interventions for police officers and recruits (Patterson, Chung & Swan, 2014) – read here

Other Types of Reviews

• Scoping Review: This type of review is used to map the key concepts underpinning a research area and the main sources and types of evidence available. It can be undertaken as stand-alone projects in their own right, or as a precursor to a systematic review.
• Rapid Review: This type of review accelerates the systematic review process in order to produce information in a timely manner. This is achieved by simplifying or omitting stages of the systematic review process.
• Integrative Review: This review method is more inclusive than others, allowing for the simultaneous inclusion of experimental and non-experimental research. The goal is to more comprehensively understand a particular phenomenon.
• Critical Review: This is similar to a narrative review but requires a robust understanding of both the subject and the existing literature. In a critical review, the reviewer not only summarizes the existing literature, but also evaluates its strengths and weaknesses. This is common in the social sciences and humanities .
• State-of-the-Art Review: This considers the current level of advancement in a field or topic and makes recommendations for future research directions. This type of review is common in technological and scientific fields but can be applied to any discipline.

How to Write a Narrative Review (Tips for Undergrad Students)

Most undergraduate students conducting a capstone research project will be writing narrative reviews. Below is a five-step process for conducting a simple review of the literature for your project.

• Search for Relevant Literature: Use scholarly databases related to your field of study, provided by your university library, along with appropriate search terms to identify key scholarly articles that have been published on your topic.
• Evaluate and Select Sources: Filter the source list by selecting studies that are directly relevant and of sufficient quality, considering factors like credibility , objectivity, accuracy, and validity.
• Analyze and Synthesize: Review each source and summarize the main arguments  in one paragraph (or more, for postgrad). Keep these summaries in a table.
• Identify Themes: With all studies summarized, group studies that share common themes, such as studies that have similar findings or methodologies.
• Write the Review: Write your review based upon the themes or subtopics you have identified. Give a thorough overview of each theme, integrating source data, and conclude with a summary of the current state of knowledge then suggestions for future research based upon your evaluation of what is lacking in the literature.

Literature reviews don’t have to be as scary as they seem. Yes, they are difficult and require a strong degree of comprehension of academic studies. But it can be feasibly done through following a structured approach to data collection and analysis. With my undergraduate research students (who tend to conduct small-scale qualitative studies ), I encourage them to conduct a narrative literature review whereby they can identify key themes in the literature. Within each theme, students can critique key studies and their strengths and limitations , in order to get a lay of the land and come to a point where they can identify ways to contribute new insights to the existing academic conversation on their topic.

Ankrah, S., & Omar, A. T. (2015). Universities–industry collaboration: A systematic review. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 31(3), 387-408.

Asghari, P., Rahmani, A. M., & Javadi, H. H. S. (2019). Internet of Things applications: A systematic review. Computer Networks , 148 , 241-261.

Dyrbye, L., & Shanafelt, T. (2016). A narrative review on burnout experienced by medical students and residents. Medical education , 50 (1), 132-149.

Geiger, J. L., Steg, L., Van Der Werff, E., & Ünal, A. B. (2019). A meta-analysis of factors related to recycling. Journal of environmental psychology , 64 , 78-97.

Martin, F., Sun, T., & Westine, C. D. (2020). A systematic review of research on online teaching and learning from 2009 to 2018. Computers & education , 159 , 104009.

Mavilidi, M. F., Ruiter, M., Schmidt, M., Okely, A. D., Loyens, S., Chandler, P., & Paas, F. (2018). A narrative review of school-based physical activity for enhancing cognition and learning: The importance of relevancy and integration. Frontiers in psychology , 2079.

Patterson, G. T., Chung, I. W., & Swan, P. W. (2014). Stress management interventions for police officers and recruits: A meta-analysis. Journal of experimental criminology , 10 , 487-513.

Reith, T. P. (2018). Burnout in United States healthcare professionals: a narrative review. Cureus , 10 (12).

Ritchie, S. J., & Tucker-Drob, E. M. (2018). How much does education improve intelligence? A meta-analysis. Psychological science , 29 (8), 1358-1369.

Roman, S., Sánchez-Siles, L. M., & Siegrist, M. (2017). The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review. Trends in food science & technology , 67 , 44-57.

Sáiz-Vazquez, O., Puente-Martínez, A., Ubillos-Landa, S., Pacheco-Bonrostro, J., & Santabárbara, J. (2020). Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease risk: a meta-meta-analysis. Brain sciences, 10(6), 386.

Vermeir, P., Vandijck, D., Degroote, S., Peleman, R., Verhaeghe, R., Mortier, E., … & Vogelaers, D. (2015). Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations. International journal of clinical practice , 69 (11), 1257-1267.

Wisniewski, B., Zierer, K., & Hattie, J. (2020). The power of feedback revisited: A meta-analysis of educational feedback research. Frontiers in Psychology , 10 , 3087.

Yli-Huumo, J., Ko, D., Choi, S., Park, S., & Smolander, K. (2016). Where is current research on blockchain technology?—a systematic review. PloS one , 11 (10), e0163477.

Zestcott, C. A., Blair, I. V., & Stone, J. (2016). Examining the presence, consequences, and reduction of implicit bias in health care: a narrative review. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations , 19 (4), 528-542

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• PLoS Comput Biol
• v.9(7); 2013 Jul

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

2 Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

Literature Reviews

• General overview of Literature Reviews
• What should a Literature Review include?
• Examples of Literature Reviews
• Research - Getting Started

Online Resources

• CWU Learning Commons: Writing Resources
• Purdue OWL: Writing a Literature Review

Literature Reviews Examples

Social Sciences examples

• Psychology study In this example, the literature review can be found on pages 1086-1089, stopping at the section labeled "Aims and Hypotheses".
• Law and Justice study In this example, the literature review can be found on pages 431-449, stopping at the section labeled "Identifying and Evaluating the Impacts of the Prisoners' Rights Movement". This article uses a historical literature review approach.
• Anthropology study The literature review in this article runs from page 218 at the heading "Between Critique and Enchantment" and ends on page 221 before the heading "The Imagination as a Dimension of Reality".

Hard Science examples

• Physics article The literature review in this paper can be found in the Introduction section, ending at the section titled "Experimental procedure".
• Health Science article The literature review in this article is located at the beginning, before the Methods section.

Arts and Humanities examples

• Composition paper In this example, the literature review has its own dedicated section titled "Literature Review" on pages 2-3.
• Political geography paper The literature review in this paper is located in the introduction section.

Standalone Literature Review examples

• Project-based learning: A review of the literature
• Mental health and gender dysphoria: A review of the literature
• Academic engagement and commercialisation: A review of the literature on university–industry relations
• << Previous: What should a Literature Review include?
• Next: Research - Getting Started >>
• Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 11:44 AM
• URL: https://libguides.lib.cwu.edu/LiteratureReviews

• Search This Site All UCSD Sites Faculty/Staff Search Term
• Contact & Directions
• Climate Statement
• Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Adjunct Faculty
• Non-Senate Instructors
• Researchers
• Psychology Grads
• Affiliated Grads
• New and Prospective Students
• Honors Program
• Experiential Learning
• Programs & Events
• Psi Chi / Psychology Club
• Prospective PhD Students
• Current PhD Students
• Area Brown Bags
• Colloquium Series
• Anderson Distinguished Lecture Series
• Speaker Videos
• Undergraduate Program
• Academic and Writing Resources

Writing Research Papers

• Writing a Literature Review

When writing a research paper on a specific topic, you will often need to include an overview of any prior research that has been conducted on that topic.  For example, if your research paper is describing an experiment on fear conditioning, then you will probably need to provide an overview of prior research on fear conditioning.  That overview is typically known as a literature review.  

Please note that a full-length literature review article may be suitable for fulfilling the requirements for the Psychology B.S. Degree Research Paper .  For further details, please check with your faculty advisor.

Different Types of Literature Reviews

Literature reviews come in many forms.  They can be part of a research paper, for example as part of the Introduction section.  They can be one chapter of a doctoral dissertation.  Literature reviews can also “stand alone” as separate articles by themselves.  For instance, some journals such as Annual Review of Psychology , Psychological Bulletin , and others typically publish full-length review articles.  Similarly, in courses at UCSD, you may be asked to write a research paper that is itself a literature review (such as, with an instructor’s permission, in fulfillment of the B.S. Degree Research Paper requirement). Alternatively, you may be expected to include a literature review as part of a larger research paper (such as part of an Honors Thesis). 

Literature reviews can be written using a variety of different styles.  These may differ in the way prior research is reviewed as well as the way in which the literature review is organized.  Examples of stylistic variations in literature reviews include: 

• Summarization of prior work vs. critical evaluation. In some cases, prior research is simply described and summarized; in other cases, the writer compares, contrasts, and may even critique prior research (for example, discusses their strengths and weaknesses).
• Chronological vs. categorical and other types of organization. In some cases, the literature review begins with the oldest research and advances until it concludes with the latest research.  In other cases, research is discussed by category (such as in groupings of closely related studies) without regard for chronological order.  In yet other cases, research is discussed in terms of opposing views (such as when different research studies or researchers disagree with one another).

Overall, all literature reviews, whether they are written as a part of a larger work or as separate articles unto themselves, have a common feature: they do not present new research; rather, they provide an overview of prior research on a specific topic . 

How to Write a Literature Review

When writing a literature review, it can be helpful to rely on the following steps.  Please note that these procedures are not necessarily only for writing a literature review that becomes part of a larger article; they can also be used for writing a full-length article that is itself a literature review (although such reviews are typically more detailed and exhaustive; for more information please refer to the Further Resources section of this page).

Steps for Writing a Literature Review

1. Identify and define the topic that you will be reviewing.

The topic, which is commonly a research question (or problem) of some kind, needs to be identified and defined as clearly as possible.  You need to have an idea of what you will be reviewing in order to effectively search for references and to write a coherent summary of the research on it.  At this stage it can be helpful to write down a description of the research question, area, or topic that you will be reviewing, as well as to identify any keywords that you will be using to search for relevant research.

2. Conduct a literature search.

Use a range of keywords to search databases such as PsycINFO and any others that may contain relevant articles.  You should focus on peer-reviewed, scholarly articles.  Published books may also be helpful, but keep in mind that peer-reviewed articles are widely considered to be the “gold standard” of scientific research.  Read through titles and abstracts, select and obtain articles (that is, download, copy, or print them out), and save your searches as needed.  For more information about this step, please see the Using Databases and Finding Scholarly References section of this website.

3. Read through the research that you have found and take notes.

Absorb as much information as you can.  Read through the articles and books that you have found, and as you do, take notes.  The notes should include anything that will be helpful in advancing your own thinking about the topic and in helping you write the literature review (such as key points, ideas, or even page numbers that index key information).  Some references may turn out to be more helpful than others; you may notice patterns or striking contrasts between different sources ; and some sources may refer to yet other sources of potential interest.  This is often the most time-consuming part of the review process.  However, it is also where you get to learn about the topic in great detail.  For more details about taking notes, please see the “Reading Sources and Taking Notes” section of the Finding Scholarly References page of this website.

4. Organize your notes and thoughts; create an outline.

At this stage, you are close to writing the review itself.  However, it is often helpful to first reflect on all the reading that you have done.  What patterns stand out?  Do the different sources converge on a consensus?  Or not?  What unresolved questions still remain?  You should look over your notes (it may also be helpful to reorganize them), and as you do, to think about how you will present this research in your literature review.  Are you going to summarize or critically evaluate?  Are you going to use a chronological or other type of organizational structure?  It can also be helpful to create an outline of how your literature review will be structured.

5. Write the literature review itself and edit and revise as needed.

The final stage involves writing.  When writing, keep in mind that literature reviews are generally characterized by a summary style in which prior research is described sufficiently to explain critical findings but does not include a high level of detail (if readers want to learn about all the specific details of a study, then they can look up the references that you cite and read the original articles themselves).  However, the degree of emphasis that is given to individual studies may vary (more or less detail may be warranted depending on how critical or unique a given study was).   After you have written a first draft, you should read it carefully and then edit and revise as needed.  You may need to repeat this process more than once.  It may be helpful to have another person read through your draft(s) and provide feedback.

6. Incorporate the literature review into your research paper draft.

After the literature review is complete, you should incorporate it into your research paper (if you are writing the review as one component of a larger paper).  Depending on the stage at which your paper is at, this may involve merging your literature review into a partially complete Introduction section, writing the rest of the paper around the literature review, or other processes.

Further Tips for Writing a Literature Review

Full-length literature reviews

• Many full-length literature review articles use a three-part structure: Introduction (where the topic is identified and any trends or major problems in the literature are introduced), Body (where the studies that comprise the literature on that topic are discussed), and Discussion or Conclusion (where major patterns and points are discussed and the general state of what is known about the topic is summarized)

Literature reviews as part of a larger paper

• An “express method” of writing a literature review for a research paper is as follows: first, write a one paragraph description of each article that you read. Second, choose how you will order all the paragraphs and combine them in one document.  Third, add transitions between the paragraphs, as well as an introductory and concluding paragraph. 1
• A literature review that is part of a larger research paper typically does not have to be exhaustive. Rather, it should contain most or all of the significant studies about a research topic but not tangential or loosely related ones. 2   Generally, literature reviews should be sufficient for the reader to understand the major issues and key findings about a research topic.  You may however need to confer with your instructor or editor to determine how comprehensive you need to be.

Benefits of Literature Reviews

By summarizing prior research on a topic, literature reviews have multiple benefits.  These include:

• Literature reviews help readers understand what is known about a topic without having to find and read through multiple sources.
• Literature reviews help “set the stage” for later reading about new research on a given topic (such as if they are placed in the Introduction of a larger research paper). In other words, they provide helpful background and context.
• Literature reviews can also help the writer learn about a given topic while in the process of preparing the review itself. In the act of research and writing the literature review, the writer gains expertise on the topic .

Downloadable Resources

• How to Write APA Style Research Papers (a comprehensive guide) [ PDF ]
• Tips for Writing APA Style Research Papers (a brief summary) [ PDF ]
• Example APA Style Research Paper (for B.S. Degree – literature review) [ PDF ]

Further Resources

How-To Videos     

• Writing Research Paper Videos
• UCSD Library Psychology Research Guide: Literature Reviews

External Resources

• Developing and Writing a Literature Review from N Carolina A&T State University
• Example of a Short Literature Review from York College CUNY
• How to Write a Review of Literature from UW-Madison
• Writing a Literature Review from UC Santa Cruz  
• Pautasso, M. (2013). Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review. PLoS Computational Biology, 9 (7), e1003149. doi : 1371/journal.pcbi.1003149

1 Ashton, W. Writing a short literature review . [PDF]     

2 carver, l. (2014).  writing the research paper [workshop]. , prepared by s. c. pan for ucsd psychology.

Back to top

• Research Paper Structure
• Formatting Research Papers
• Using Databases and Finding References
• What Types of References Are Appropriate?
• Evaluating References and Taking Notes
• Citing References
• Writing Process and Revising
• Improving Scientific Writing
• Academic Integrity and Avoiding Plagiarism
• Writing Research Papers Videos

• Open access
• Published: 24 April 2024

Parenting style and child mental health at preschool age: evidence from rural China

• Lei Wang 1 ,
• Jing Tian 1 , 2 &
• Scott Rozelle 3  

BMC Psychiatry volume  24 , Article number:  314 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Mental health problems among children at preschool age are a common issue across the world. As shown in literature, a caregiver’s parenting style can play a critical role in child development. This study aims to examine the associations between a caregiver’s parenting style and the mental health problems (or not) of their child when he/she is at preschool age in rural China.

Participants were children, aged 49 to 65 months, and their primary caregivers. The primary caregivers of the sample children completed the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire, Short Version, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, and a questionnaire that elicited their socio-demographic characteristics. The level of cognitive development of each sample child was assessed using the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, Fourth Edition. Pearson correlation analysis, linear regression analysis, and multivariable regression analysis were used to analyze the data.

The prevalence of mental health problems among sample children at preschool age was high (31.6%). If a caregiver practices an authoritative parenting style, it was found to be negatively associated with the mental health problems of their child. In contrast, a caregiver’s authoritarian parenting style was positively associated with the mental health problems of their child. Compared to those in a subgroup of primary caregivers that used a combination of low authoritative and low authoritarian parenting style, primary caregivers that used a combination of high authoritarian and low authoritative or a combination of high authoritative and high authoritarian were found to have positive association with child health problems. A number of demographic characteristics were found to be associated with the adoption of different parenting styles.

Different parenting styles (including authoritative, authoritarian, and combination of authoritative and authoritarian) of the sample caregivers had different associations with the mental health problems of the sample children. Parenting programs that aim to improve the parenting styles (favoring authoritative parenting styles) should be promoted in an effort to improve the status of child mental health in rural China.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Mental health problems of young children have become a common public health issue worldwide in recent years [ 1 , 2 ]. In this paper, “mental health problems in early childhood” are those problems that involve normative issues of emotions, behavior and social interactions, which can be generally categorized into three broad categories: internalizing problems (e.g., depression, withdrawal, anxiety, somatization); externalizing problems (e.g., aggression, oppositional defiance, attention deficit, hyperactivity); and social problems (e.g., difficulties in socializing with others) [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. A growing literature has indicated that the incidence and prevalence of mental health problems among preschool children is relatively high across the world [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]. Data from developed countries estimate that approximately 4–19% of preschool-aged children are experiencing mental health problems such as attention disorders, hyperactivity and/or emotional or behavioral problems [ 9 , 10 , 11 ].

In developing countries, the prevalence of mental health problems among preschool-aged children is even higher [ 12 , 13 , 14 ]. A study conducted in Brazil showed that 24% preschool-aged children were found to have mental health problems [ 12 ]. In South Africa, the prevalence of mental health problems among young children is much higher: 36.7% children aged 4–6 were identified to be abnormal in the state of mental health [ 14 ]. In the recent literature in China, researchers have started to examine the mental health problems among young children. Evidence has shown that child mental health problems at preschool age are prevalent in China, especially in rural areas [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Studies conducted in urban China have revealed that, approximately, 5–20% of preschool children are suffering from some type of mental health problems [ 19 , 20 , 21 ]. The rate of mental health problems among preschool children in rural China is even higher, up to 39% [ 17 , 18 ]. In a study by Li et al. (2021), around 70% of rural preschoolers were identified with at least one kind of mental health problems. Specifically, the rates of emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactive/inattention problems, peer relationship problems, and prosocial behavioral problems were 39%, 27%, 23%, 12% and 26%, respectively [ 17 ].

In addition to the issues that the preschool children and their families experience during the preschool years, the literature also shows that mental health problems that occur when children are preschool age can have long-lasting negative effects on the children as they age, including problems such as poor levels of school readiness, psychological well-being and social relationships [ 22 , 23 , 24 ]. Untreated mental health problems at preschool age can lead to chronic mental disorders or more serious long-term behavioral problems, such as learning difficulties, school dropout, substance abuse, domestic violence, and even suicide [ 4 , 7 , 25 ]. Because of these longer-run possible consequences, it is thus critical to identify the mental health problems and conduct interventions that are able to solve mental health problems of children at preschool age [ 26 , 27 , 28 ].

Parenting style and child mental health

Since the strategies and approaches that caregivers use in their parenting activities when rearing their young children (e.g., 0 to 3 years old) have significant effects on child mental health outcomes, poor parenting styles have been identified as a primary risk factor of mental health problems among children [ 29 , 30 , 31 ]. As a central form of socialization that shapes the development of children, the family is a socio-cultural-economic arrangement that exerts significant influence on the behavior and character of children and thus parents play a considerable role in the development of children, especially during the early years of childhood [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. In this sense, parenting styles can have important and lasting impacts on child development. Any inappropriate parenting styles such as physical punishments may lead to unwanted damaging effects on the mental health of children [ 32 , 36 , 37 ].

According to Baumrind (1967), caregivers do have choices as parenting styles can be divided into three categories: authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive. Authoritative parenting is characterized by high levels of warmth, responsiveness, encouragement of the autonomy of children, and democratic disciplinary strategies. In contrast, authoritarian caregivers often parent their children through physical coercion, verbal hostility, and punishment without explanation. Permissive parenting involves a combination of high warmth and acceptance and low expectations of the child as he/she is maturing [ 38 ]. Based on these categories, a scale, the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ), was created to assess the style of parenting in the context of different cultural settings [ 39 ].

Research has found that different categories of parenting style measured by the PSDQ have shown different associations with the emergence of mental health problems of their children [ 31 , 40 , 41 ]. Specifically, an authoritative parenting style has been shown to have negative associations with the mental health problems of preschool children. In contrast, authoritarian and permissive parenting styles have been observed to be positively associated with mental health problem of children at preschool age. For example, a study of families in the United States demonstrated that, when compared to authoritarian and permissive parenting styles, adopting an authoritative parenting style was most predictive of fewer behavior problems of preschool children [ 31 ]. Another national cohort study conducted in the United Kingdom found that the attitudes of caregivers that adopted authoritarian style to discipline their children were associated with the occurrence of mental health problems of children at the age of 5 [ 41 ]. Research conducted by Hanafi & Thabet (2017) illustrated that, in the Gaza Strip, authoritative parenting style was negatively associated with mental health problems of preschool children. In contrast, children with authoritarian or permissive parenting style caregivers were more likely to have mental health problems [ 40 ].

Research also has investigated the reasons why different patterns of parenting styles have been shown to have different degrees of associations with the mental health problems of young children [ 31 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ]. Previous studies have shown that warm and responsive parenting behavior are consistently associated with developmental outcomes of early childhood, including mental health; in contrast, the children of parents that displayed low levels of warmth showed elevated levels of oppositional behavior [ 42 , 48 , 49 ]. Since authoritative parents care more about the feelings of their children, and give more encouragement to their children, this behavior not only provides psychological support but also autonomy in various activities; in short, children raised by authoritative parents can express their ideas freely and can create their own self-confidence and responsibility with less problematic behavior [ 36 , 46 , 47 , 49 ]. In contrast, authoritarian parents are not only often unresponsive to the needs of their children but also frequently are demanding. Parenting strategies, such as punishments, the use of forces and harshness are mostly used by authoritarian parents, and these actions often result in disobedient behavior, aggression, and restlessness of children, which can ultimately be detrimental to the mental health of children [ 43 , 45 , 48 , 49 ]. According to Baumrind (1967; 2013), permissive parents do not guide their children to regulate their behavior; instead, permissive parents tend to allow their children to make their decisions alone. Therefore, the children of parents that us a permissive style of parenting often become dependent and lack social responsibility, exhibiting either internalizing or externalizing behavior problems [ 32 , 38 , 40 , 49 ].

Previous studies have also revealed that certain demographic characteristics of children and households are associated with the adoption of different parenting styles [ 30 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 44 , 49 , 53 , 54 , 55 ]. When examining child characteristics, a strand of literature has explored the differences of parenting styles that are used with children of different gender [ 30 , 51 , 55 , 56 , 57 ]. The results of these studies show that parents tend to use authoritarian parenting style for boys more frequently and tend to use authoritative parenting style for girls. Other studies have also examined the associations between the number of children in a household and the parenting style that was adopted by the caregiver [ 44 , 54 ]. Comparing to families with only one child, parents are more likely to use authoritarian parenting styles than when they have more than one child. When examining household characteristics, previous studies have frequently focused on the association between parenting style and the socioeconomic status (SES) of the parents [ 50 , 52 , 53 ]. According to these studies, parents with higher levels of SES (e.g., higher levels of education and higher incomes) are more inclined to use authoritative parenting style. In contrast, parents with lower levels of SES are more likely to adopt authoritarian parenting style.

Parenting style and mental health of preschool children in China

Literature in China has also begun to investigate the sources of mental health problems among preschool children in China [ 15 , 58 , 59 ]. Similar to the findings of the literature on this topic outside of China, studies in China show that the type of parenting style used by the caregiver is one of the primary sources of the mental health problems of their children. For example, a study conducted in urban preschools of Guangzhou found that the adoption of authoritarian parenting style resulted in an increase in child mental health problems [ 15 ]. In contrast, the findings of another study conducted in a city located in the central region of China suggest that authoritative parenting style actually improved the mental health outcomes of preschool children [ 58 ].

The current study

Literature on parenting styles of parents in China have showed that more and more urban parents are adopting authoritative parenting style rather than relying on authoritarian parenting style as they are rearing their children—or at least are relying on more blended forms of authoritative/authoritarian parenting styles [ 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ]. Importantly, however, to our knowledge there has never been a study on the adoption of parenting styles of caregivers that are raising preschool-aged children in rural China.

In addition, even though there have been studies on the association between parenting styles and mental health problems of preschool children in China, most of studies have been conducted with urban children and their parents [ 15 , 58 , 59 ]. Considering the great difference in child-rearing practices and the nature of child development between urban and rural areas, it is of great significance to understand the associations between parenting styles and the levels of mental health of children at preschool age in rural China. Examining the context of rural China is important because in studies of preschool children in rural China it has been found that rural China has much higher levels of mental health problems compared to their urban peers. As discussed previously, since mental health problems during early childhood can have long-lasting negative effects on children in many aspects, it is important to address the issue of high prevalence of mental health problems among preschool children in rural China. Since improving caregiver-child interactions can mitigate the mental health problems of children, understanding the associations between parenting styles and child mental health might encourage caregivers in rural China to adopt parenting strategies that improve the outcomes of child mental health. To the best of our knowledge, however, no related work with children at preschool age has been conducted in rural areas of China. The current study aims to fill this gap to the literature.

Given the absence of literature on parenting style and mental health of preschoolers in rural China, the current study uses data drawn from a longitudinal study to examine the association between different parenting styles and the levels of mental health of children at preschool age in rural China. To achieve this goal, the current study has four specific objectives. First, the study examines the state of parenting styles and mental health outcomes of children at preschool age in rural China. Second, the study investigates the associations between different parenting styles and the levels of mental health of rural children at preschool age. Third, the study explores the associations between different subgroups of combined parenting styles and mental health of preschool aged children in rural China. Finally, the study identifies some of the correlates—both child characteristics and household characteristics—of the adoption of different parenting styles.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The next section describes the methods that we used. The third section presents the results of our analysis. The final two sections discuss the findings and conclude.

Participants

The data for the current study are drawn from a longitudinal study of children and households conducted in 11 nationally designated poverty counties in northwestern China. The selection of the sample for this longitudinal study was conducted in 2013 and followed a multistage clustering sampling design. First, all townships (n = 174) in the 11 study counties were included in the study. Next, we randomly selected two villages from each of the sample townships. In total, 351 villages were included. Finally, after excluding children with known diseases or disabilities, we selected all of the remaining children that were within the target age range (6–12 months) for inclusion in the longitudinal study. Overall, 1,802 children were enrolled into the study. After the sample selection, we conducted the baseline survey. In the following years, we followed up with the sample children and households several times after the initial baseline. In 2017, when the sample children were 49–65 months age, we conducted the most recent follow-up survey and tracked 1,459 children and their caregivers from 351 villages successfully. All the participants included in the current study completed a follow-up survey in 2017 (when the children were preschool age). Table  1 shows the demographic characteristics of children and households that were part of the 2017 survey.

Parenting styles and dimensions Questionnaire-Short Version (PSDQ-Short Version)

We used the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire-Short Version (PSDQ-Short Version) to measure the parenting styles of the primary caregivers of sample children [ 39 ]. The PSDQ-Short Version is a self-report questionnaire containing 36 items. The responses are given based on a 5-point Likert scale that ranges from never (1) to always (5). The PSDQ-Short Version includes three sub-scales of parenting style: authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive. Higher scores on each scale indicate that the respondent exhibits parenting behaviors that are more consistent with that particular parenting style. The translated Chinese version of the PSDQ-Short Version has been shown to have adequate internal consistency and reliability [ 64 , 66 , 67 , 68 ]. As several studies reported parents rarely use permissive parenting in China [ 62 , 64 ] and the permissive scale was not reliable among Chinese parents [ 60 , 65 , 69 ], our research team did not collect data on the items for a permissive parenting style. The present study, therefore, had two subscales—authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, with a total of 27 items. Examples of the items are as follows: “I am responsive to my child’s feelings or needs.” “I take my child’s desire into account before asking my child to do something.” “I punish by taking privileges away from my child with little if any explanations.” The items were rated on a 5-points scale (1 = Never, 2 = Once in a while, 3 = About half of the time, 4 = Very often, 5 = Always). The subscale of the authoritative parenting style contains three dimensions with 15 items: Connection (Warmth and Support), Regulation (Reasoning or Induction), and Autonomy Granting (Democratic Participation). The subscale of authoritarian parenting style is comprised of three dimensions with 12 items: Physical Coercion, Verbal Hostility, and Non-Reasoning or Punitive. In the current study, the scale of PSDQ demonstrated good internal consistency. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.77.

Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a 25-item carer-reported instrument to assess mental health of children aged 2 to 17 [ 70 ]. For the current study, we used the Chinese version of SDQ that has been validated for the Chinese context [ 71 ]. Examples of the questions are: “Your child is helpful if someone is hurt, upset or felling ill.” “Your child often has temper tantrums or hot tempers.” “Your child has at least one good friend.” All items are scored on a three-point Likert scale (0 = not true, 1 = somewhat true, and 2 = certainly true). There are five subscales within the SDQ regarding three domains of mental health problems: Internalizing problems (including subscales of emotional symptoms and peer relationship problems); Externalizing problems (including subscales of conduct problems and hyperactivity problems); and Prosocial behaviors. Each subscale is further divided into three categories, namely, “normal,” “borderline,” and “abnormal” [ 71 ]. The cutoffs of the three categories for each subscale can be found in Appendix Table A1 . In the current study, children with scores either in the abnormal or borderline range on the total difficulties scale and individual subscales were classified having mental health problems. The scale of the SDQ showed good reliability for our sample. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.68.

Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Fourth Edition (WPPSI-IV)

We used the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Fourth Edition to assess the levels of cognitive development of the sample children (WPPSI-IV; [ 72 ]). The WPPSI-IV is comprised of 13 subtests that are incorporated together to form one Full-Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ). The Chinese version of WPPSI-IV was adapted in 2010 and has subsequently been used in studies across China [ 73 , 74 ]. The WPPSI-IV is usually administered 1-on-1 by trained testers, using a standardized set of toys and detailed scoring sheets. In the current study, the Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was 0.91, indicating a high reliability. For the analysis of the current study, children with an FSIQ score below 85 (one standard deviation below the mean of 100) are considered to be developmentally delayed. According to the literature [ 75 , 76 , 77 ], in early childhood, the cognitive development of a child can promote the formation of his or her noncognitive development (including mental health). Because of this possibility of “skills begetting skills,” in the analyses of the current study, we controlled for the cognitive development of sample children (by including a measure of cognitive development as a control variable in the regression analysis).

Socio-demographic characteristics

A primary caregiver-reported questionnaire was used to collect data on child and household characteristics. The child characteristics that are in the survey include age in months, gender, whether the child had siblings, whether the child was left-behind (i.e., either parent migrated for work at the time of the survey), and whether the child attended preschool. Household characteristics included the identity of the primary caregiver (e.g., mother or grandmother), age of the primary caregiver (years), whether the primary caregiver had obtained at least a junior high school education, and a household assets index. The household assets index was constructed using polychoric principal component analysis based on the following information: whether a household had access to tap water, a toilet with running water, a water heater, a washing machine, a computer, the Internet, a refrigerator, air conditioning, a motorcycle or electronic bicycle, and/or an automobile.

The data collection was carried out by enumerators recruited from local universities in 2017. Prior to the field work, the enumerators underwent a formal, week-long training course, including 2.5 days of in-the-field training. During the data collection, enumerators visited each household of the sample children individually. Upon arriving at each household, the enumerators explained the goal and content of the survey and obtained consent from the primary caregivers for both their participation and that of the child of their family that was included in the current study. The enumerators then collected data on the PSDQ and the SDQ scales as well as the information on the socio-demographic characteristics by interviewing the primary caregivers. In addition, the WPPSI-IV was administered one-on-one to each child, using a standardized set of toys and a detailed scoring sheet.

Statistical analysis

All statistical analyses were conducted using STATA 16.0 Version. All statistical tests are two-sided. A P -value < 0.05 is considered statistically significant. Descriptive analyses are used to describe the sample characteristics. Continuous and categorical data are reported in the form of means (SD) and percentages. The frequencies and distributions of the status of the mental health of the sample children and parenting styles of primary caregivers are analyzed. Following two previous studies [ 78 , 79 ], we sorted the children in our sample into four groups with combinations of parenting styles using the medians of scores on the authoritative and authoritarian subscales. Bivariate correlation matrices using Pearson correlation analysis is performed to determine the simple correlation between child mental health, parenting styles and different socio-demographic characteristics. Linear regression analysis is used to examine the associations between parenting styles and mental health of children. Multivariable regression analyses are also used to investigate the determinants of different parenting styles.

Table  2 shows the prevalence of mental health problems of the sample children. In our sample, over 30.0% of children were found of being at risk of having mental health problems according to the total difficulties scale. In terms of the internalizing subscales, emotional problems were more prevalent among children (34.9%) than peer problems (6.8%). In contrast, in the subscales of externalizing problems, both conduct problems (40.1%) and hyperactivity problems had high levels of prevalence (24.5%). In addition, 20.8% of children had prosocial behavior problems.

The results in Table  3 indicate that the authoritative parenting style, both according to the total scores and the scores of each dimension, rated higher than those of the authoritarian parenting style among primary caregivers in our sample. The difference in the total scores of authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles was statistically significant ( p  <.001), indicating that primary caregivers were more likely to conduct strategies related to authoritative parenting style than authoritarian parenting style.

The analysis using the Pearson correlations indicates that different parenting styles have different associations with the nature of the mental health of the sample children (Appendix Table A2 ). Regression analysis also shows that an authoritative parenting style was negatively associated with child mental health problems in the measurements of total difficulties, internalizing problems, and externalizing problems. The results also illustrate that an authoritative parenting style was positively associated with the measurement of prosocial behaviors. In contrast, an authoritarian parenting style was positively associated with child mental health problems as measured according to the scales of total difficulties, internalizing and externalizing problems. An authoritarian parenting style was negatively associated with prosocial behaviors (Table  4 ). Similar associations were also found between the subscales of each parenting styles and child mental health problems (Appendix Table A3 ). Specifically, all three subscales of the authoritative parenting style (i.e. Connection, Regulation and Autonomy granting) were significantly and negatively associated with the variables that measure: Total difficulties, Internalizing problems and Externalizing problems. In addition, all three subscales were significantly and positively associated with the variable measuring the Prosocial behavior of sample children. There is only one exception: the results show that the association between the Autonomy granting and the Internalizing problems was negative but insignificant. In regards to the three subscales of the authoritarian parenting style (i.e. Physical coercion, Verbal hostility, and Non-reasoning), positive and significant associations were found with the variables measuring Total difficulties, Internalizing problems and Externalizing problems. In addition, significant and negative associations between Physical coercion and the Prosocial behavior of children was also observed. However, no significant associations were found between the other two subscales of the authoritarian parenting style and the Prosocial behavior of children.

When the analysis sorted children into four groups of different combinations of “high” versus “low” values of the two parenting styles (Group 1: high authoritative, low authoritarian; Group 2: high authoritarian, low authoritative; Group 3: high authoritative, high authoritarian; and Group 4: low authoritative, low authoritarian) using ratings of primary caregivers from the authoritative and authoritarian parenting style scales, the share of each of the four groups was similar (around 25% for each) (Appendix Table A4 ). In the association analysis, we use Group 4 (low authoritative, low authoritarian) as the reference group. Results of the association analyses of the four groups with child mental health show that when compared to children in Group 4 (low authoritative, low authoritarian), children in Group 1 (high authoritative, low authoritarian) had significantly lower scores in the externalizing problems domain and higher scores in the domain of the prosocial behaviors (Table  5 ). No significant associations were found between Group 1 other two measurements of child mental health problems. In contrast, children in Group 2 (high authoritarian, low authoritative) had significantly higher scores in the scales that measured total difficulties, internalizing problems, and externalizing problems. No significant associations were found in the measurement of prosocial behaviors. Finally, children in Group 3 (high authoritative, high authoritarian) were found to have significantly higher scores in the scales that measured total difficulties, internalizing problems, and prosocial behaviors. However, no significant association was found in the measurement of externalizing problems.

When investigating the correlates of the authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles respectively (Table  6 ), a number of demographic characteristics of the sample children and sample households were found to be significant. The demographic characteristics that had significant correlations with the authoritative parenting style include whether the child cognitively delayed, educational level of primary caregiver, and household economic status. In contrast, many more demographic characteristics, such as child age, child gender, left-behind child, whether the child cognitively delayed, whether the mother is the primary caregiver, and household economic status, were found to have significant associations with the adoption of the authoritarian parenting style.

Considering the importance of identifying mental health problems of young children at preschool age (or issues involving the development of their social emotional abilities), this study first investigated the prevalence of mental health problems among preschool-aged children in rural China. The results of the current study show that the prevalence of child mental health problems is high in rural China, no matter whether it was measured by the total difficulties score of the SDQ scale, or by scores on the three domains of the SDQ scale (i.e. Internalizing problems, Externalizing problems, and Prosocial behavior problems). When looking at the literature, the prevalence in rural China appears to be higher than what has been found among preschoolers in developed countries [ 9 , 10 , 11 ]. When comparing the results of the sample children in this study to peers in other developing countries (including comparisons to children in urban China), the sample children of the current study still show relatively higher prevalence of mental health problems [ 12 , 14 , 15 ]. Importantly, these results are consistent with previous studies conducted in other areas of rural China [ 17 , 18 ]. One possible reason for the high prevalence of child mental health problems in rural China might be that there are many rural children are left-behind due to parental migration. Nearly one quarter (25%) of the children in the sample were left-behind children. According to previous studies, the absence of parents may have a negative impact on the mental health of the child [ 17 , 18 ]. Another potential reason lies in the fact that public health services are poor in rural China which might delay the detection and timely treatment of children with mental health problems. In this sense, actions that improve both the interactions between migrant parents and left-behind children and the public health system in rural China are encouraged. Otherwise, the prevalence of child mental health in rural China likely would persistently be high or become even higher.

Previous studies have provided evidence that suggests that parenting style is a potential risk factor of child mental health problems [ 29 , 30 , 31 ]. The current study reveals that although the primary caregivers of the children in the sample are more likely to be using authoritative parenting style (rather than authoritarian parenting style), when compared to urban studies carried out in China, the results of this study show that the use of strategies regarding the authoritative parenting style in our sample is significantly lower than in urban China [ 62 , 69 ]. In contrast, studies also show that the adoption of authoritarian parenting styles in rural China (as shown in this study) is higher than in urban China [ 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ]. These findings indicate that rural caregivers appear to be increasingly influenced by their urban peers in the parenting styles due to the economic transition that China is undergoing, including trends in urbanization and rural-to-urban migration. However, continued disparities in many dimensions between rural and urban caregivers in China (e.g. economic status, educational levels, and values) are still barriers that are slowing down improvements in the adoption of parenting styles in rural families [ 17 , 18 , 69 ]. There is, thus, an urgent need to help rural families in China better understand the advantages of adopting an authoritative parenting style and the disadvantages of using an authoritarian parenting style. If this can be taught to rural caregivers, it is hoped that this will encourage those rural caregivers to interact with their young children more with authoritative parenting styles and less with authoritarian parenting styles.

Consistent with the literature, our study shows that the authoritative parenting style is negatively associated with the occurrence of mental health problems of children in terms of all dimensions of the SDQ scale, including Total difficulties; Internalizing problems; Externalizing problems; and Prosocial behavior problems [ 31 , 40 , 58 ]. As described by Baumrind (1966), children raised by authoritative caregivers grow up in an integrated environment of rules and freedom. Authoritative caregivers justify their actions and let the child take control of their own within fair boundaries. In such a democratic home environment, children are less likely to experience mental health problems [ 42 ]. Indeed, previous empirical studies also have provided evidence that authoritative parenting style can help prevent aggression and reduce peer problems among preschool children; in other words, an authoritative parenting style is negatively associated with internalizing, externalizing, and prosocial behavioral problems [ 40 , 43 , 46 , 47 ]. In search for reasons that might explain the associations between parenting style and the mental health of young children, according to Baumrind (1967), authoritative parenting style is more sensitive to the needs and skills of children since it is supposed to be based on warmth and support, induction and encouragement, reasoning or guiding, democratic participation, parental responsive attitudes, and proper control. The literature suggests that authoritative parenting style has been shown to be a protective factor for child mental health [ 31 , 58 ].

While the results in this study concur with the findings that show the negative association between authoritative parenting style and child mental health problems, the analysis also reveals the positive association between the authoritarian parenting style and child mental health problems. These findings regarding the mental health of children with caregivers that use authoritarian parenting styles also is in line with previous studies [ 15 , 31 , 41 , 58 ]. According to these studies, an authoritarian parenting style of caregiver, characterized by the lack of warmth and support, undermines the relationship of caregiver-child and causes the child either to exhibit overly submissive behavior that could lead to different types of internalizing problems, or to rebel against the caregiver in various forms of externalizing problems. In such scenarios, an authoritarian parenting style is often shown to be positively associated with child mental health problems. The literature demonstrates that the possible reasons for the effect of authoritarian parenting on child mental health involve the attempts of the caregiver to obtains control overall the child and this can lead to a rejection of the child’s activities, uses punishment and parental enforcement in parenting, and can ultimately leads to anxiety, fear, bewilderment, and dissatisfaction of children which in turn can induce internalizing problems and externalizing problems [ 38 , 41 , 57 ].

In rural China, primary caregivers (especially the grandparents of children), still influenced by Confucianism, tend to stick to traditional parenting strategies. They often place great stress on the parent-child hierarchy, demand respect and obedience from children, and impose more restrictions and disciplines rather than offering affective support [ 62 ]. All such interactive activities are more related to an authoritarian parenting style and less related to an authoritative parenting style, which in turn has often been associated with a negative impact on the mental health outcomes of rural children. To mitigate the severity of mental health problems among rural young children, the literature has begun to encourage caregivers to adopt strategies of authoritative parenting style in rural China.

In this period of transition of caregivers in rural China in their selection of parenting styles, more and more parents are beginning to use parenting strategies which combine elements of both authoritative and the authoritarian parenting styles [ 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ]. Because of this, our study examines the associations between different subgroups of combined parenting styles and child mental health. When doing so the paper finds that different combinations of parenting styles can have different associations with child mental health problems. Although no previous study of the associations between the combinations of different parenting styles and child mental health has been conducted either in China or outside of China, our findings are consistent with the literature that have shown that the more an authoritative parenting style is used, the lower is the likelihood that a caregiver’s child will have mental health problems [ 31 , 62 ]. For example, when comparing children of caregivers that use combined parenting styles with low levels of both authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles (Group 4 in our sample), the children of caregivers that use combined parenting styles with high authoritative and low authoritarian (Group 1) are less likely to have externalizing problems and more likely to exhibit prosocial behavior. According to the literature, one possible mechanism might be that the parenting style used by caregivers in Group 1 are dominantly an authoritative strategy, which gives children more warmth which then decreases the possibility of oppositional behavior [ 48 ]. In contrast, our study also demonstrates that when caregivers use parenting styles that are more related to authoritarian, their children are more likely to have mental health problems [ 30 , 41 , 57 ]. The underlying reason of these findings might be that parenting styles that involve high levels of warmth, encouragement, support, and lower levels of control, enforcement and punishment are able to improve the atmosphere of the environment in which the child is raised, which in turn affects the overall social development and well-being of the child and ultimately results in lower incidence of mental health problems. If we use an example from the results from our sample, children of caregivers in Group 2 (high authoritarian, low authoritative) are more likely to have high levels of mental health problems. The reason for this may lie in the fact that the dominant parenting strategies of this pattern of combined parenting styles are more likely to be harsh and demanding, which has been shown to increase the likelihood of caregiver-child conflicts that is detrimental to the well-being of children [ 41 , 57 ]. Even for children of caregivers in Group 3 [high authoritative, high authoritarian), the benefits of the authoritative parenting style could be offsetting the negative effect of the authoritarian parenting style on the outcome of child mental health. These findings might be due to the fact that there is uncertainty of the home environment and this could make children suffer frustrations and struggles (since they are receiving mixed signals).

When investigating the determinants of the adoption of parenting styles, our study identified a number of socio-demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, and the cognitive development of the child, migration status of the parents, and the SES of the family, that are associated with the authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles. The findings in our study are consistent with previous studies that have found that certain demographic characteristics are often correlated with different parenting styles [ 30 , 51 , 53 , 69 ]. In terms of child characteristics, parents are reported to show more authoritarian parenting toward boys than girls in our study as well as in the literature [ 30 , 51 ]. While it is not shown in the paper empirically having such parental expectations on the gender differences, when comparing boys to girls, parents may be more likely to discipline boys (who often are more aggressive) using authoritarian parenting style rather than the authoritative parenting style [ 56 ]. Regarding the age of the child, the literature also has shown (as does our study) that younger children are expected to obey rules and norms more often than do older children. Therefore, the literature shows that parents are more likely to adopt the authoritarian parenting style when they are rearing older children [ 49 ].

Our findings also show that primary caregivers with higher levels of SES are more likely to adopt the authoritative parenting style. In contrast, primary caregivers with lower levels of SES are more likely to use parenting styles that are relatively more authoritarian. These findings are similar to those in previous studies that were conducted both in urban China and outside of China [ 50 , 52 , 53 ]. The underlying reason of the differences in the adoption of different parenting styles may lie in that more-educated primary caregivers, compared with less-educated peers, are more likely to understand the importance of inductive and rational parenting for child development and value authoritative parenting styles instead of authoritarian parenting styles. In addition, primary caregivers with lower SES often suffer from economic stress that may impede their ability to rear children in ways that are beneficial to children’s well-being. In contrast, primary caregivers with higher levels of SES do not experience such stress and tend to rely on strategies that are more in line with authoritative parenting styles [ 50 ].

In light of these findings, it can be suggested that parenting training programs that aim to improve the understanding of primary caregivers regarding choices of different parenting styles can be implemented in rural China. Rural communities should be encouraged to train caregivers to adopt more authoritative parenting styles instead of relying on traditional authoritarian styles through one-on-one parenting guidance, home-visiting services, community-based parenting training, or media-based promotional campaigns. Central and local governments also need to pay attention to ways that can allow them to improve public health services in rural China that will strengthen the capability of the public health system in rural China that will help local doctors and physicians and other health care actors to identify and treat mental health problems of preschool-aged children in an effective and timely fashion.

To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first study conducted in rural China to analyze the associations between parenting styles and mental health of preschool-aged children. Findings of this study offer important insights into the role that parenting style can play in the well-being of young children in rural settings, where children at preschool age have been found to have high prevalence of mental health problems. The study also fills the gap in the literature of the associations between different combinations of parenting styles (i.e., blends of authoritative and the authoritarian parenting styles) and the mental health problems of children that are preschool age. With increasing rates of adoption of combined parenting styles in China, findings of the current study help shed light on a series of new potential research questions that could be explored in this new area.

This study has three limitations. First, since the data used in the current study contained data from only one time period of the study, we can only interpret the results as being “associations” between parenting styles and child mental health, and we are unable to make casual conclusions of the impact of the parenting styles on child mental health due to lack of data on some of the key variables in earlier waves of the survey. Second, the mental health of children and parenting styles of primary caregivers are assessed by care-reported questionnaires, which might lead to inaccuracies in the responses (for a number of reasons) and thus might cause measurement bias. Since the two measurements (i.e. PSDQ and SDQ) have been used widely, many previous studies have also faced this same limitation. There is, thus, a need in this area that observational measures of parenting styles and mental health of children should be included in the data collection procedure. Future research should consider investigating the causality of parenting styles and child mental health as wells as conduct child-based questionnaire on child mental health. Third, since the sample observations in this study were selected from nationally designated poverty counties in northwestern China, we do not consider our results to be statistically representative of the entire country or other rural regions of China. Future studies should continue to expand on the current study by sampling populations from other rural areas in China.

This study shows that the prevalence of mental health problems among preschool-aged children is high in rural China. The significant and positive association between the authoritative parenting style and the mental health of children is found. In contrast, the authoritarian parenting style is significantly and negatively associated with the mental health of children. Similarly, the more likely it is that authoritative strategies appear in the combined parenting styles, the less likely it is that the child will have mental health problems. In contrast, the more likely it is that authoritarian activities appear in the combined parenting styles, the more likely it will be that the child has the mental health problems. Child age and gender, the status of parental migration, and the SES levels of families are the main determinants of the adoption of different parenting styles. The findings in this paper suggest that it is important to encourage primary caregivers of preschool-aged children to adopt the authoritative parenting styles, or at least use parenting strategies that are related to the authoritative styles, in order to promote child mental health in rural China.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request (email: [email protected]).

Abbreviations

Socioeconomic status

Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire

Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, WPPSI-IV: Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Fourth Edition

Full-Scale Intelligence Quotient

Colizzi M, Lasalvia A, Ruggeri M. Prevention and early intervention in youth mental health: is it time for a multidisciplinary and trans-diagnostic model for care? Int J Ment Health Syst. 2020;14(1):23.

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Polanczyk GV, Salum GA, Sugaya LS, Caye A, Rohde LA. Annual Research Review: a meta-analysis of the worldwide prevalence of mental disorders in children and adolescents. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2015;56(3):345–65.

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Achenbach TM, Ivanova MY, Rescorla LA, Turner LV, Althoff RR. Internalizing/Externalizing problems: review and recommendations for clinical and Research Applications. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2016;55(8):647–56.

Bor W, Dean AJ, Najman J, Hayatbakhsh R. Are child and adolescent mental health problems increasing in the 21st century? A systematic review. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2014;48(7):606–16.

Sawyer MG, Arney FM, Baghurst PA, Clark JJ, Graetz BW, Kosky RJ, et al. The Mental Health of Young people in Australia: key findings from the child and adolescent component of the National Survey of Mental Health and Well-Being. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2001;35(6):806–14.

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Charach A, Mohammadzadeh F, Belanger SA, Ma AE, Lipman EL, McLennan JD, et al. Identification of Preschool Children with Mental Health. J Can Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2020;29(2):76–105.

PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Dougherty LR, Leppert KA, Merwin SM, Smith VC, Bufferd SJ, Kushner MR. Advances and directions in Preschool Mental Health Research. Child Dev Perspect. 2015;9(1):14–9.

Article   Google Scholar  

Vasileva M, Graf RK, Reinelt T, Petermann U, Petermann F. Research review: a meta-analysis of the international prevalence and comorbidity of mental disorders in children between 1 and 7 years. Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2021;62(4):372–81.

Elberling H, Linneberg A, Olsen EM, Goodman R, Skovgaard AM. The prevalence of SDQ-measured mental health problems at age 5–7 years and identification of predictors from birth to preschool age in a Danish birth cohort: the Copenhagen Child Cohort 2000. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2010;19(9):725–35.

Klein AM, Otto Y, Fuchs S, Reibiger I, von Klitzing K. A prospective study of behavioral and emotional symptoms in preschoolers. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2015;24(3):291–9.

Navarro JB, Fernández M, de la Osa N, Penelo E, Ezpeleta L. Warning signs of preschool victimization using the strengths and difficulties questionnaire: prevalence and individual and family risk factors. PLoS ONE. 2019;14(8):e0221580.

Article   CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Anselmi L, Piccinini CA, Barros FC, Lopes RS. Psychosocial determinants of behaviour problems in Brazilian preschool children. J Child Psychol Psychiat. 2004;45(4):779–88.

Ma Chuan, Jiang L, Chu Lting, Zhang C, cao, Tian Y, Chen Jjin, et al. Mental health problems of preschool children during the COVID-19 home quarantine: a cross-sectional study in Shanghai, China. Front Psychol. 2022;13:1032244.

Mellins CA, Xu Q, Nestadt DF, Knox J, Kauchali S, Arpadi S, et al. Screening for Mental Health among Young South African children: the Use of the strengths and difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Glob Soc Welf. 2018;5(1):29–38.

Bao P, Jing J, Jin Y, Hu X, Liu B, Hu M. Trajectories and the influencing factors of behavior problems in preschool children: a longitudinal study in Guangzhou, China. BMC Psychiatry. 2016;16(1):178.

Guo Y, Zhang YQ, Wu CA, Yin XN, Zhang JY, Wu JB, et al. Bidirectional associations between parenting styles and conduct problems in Chinese preschool children: the Shenzhen Longhua Child Cohort Study. Psychol Health Med. 2021;27(9):2007–20.

Li S, Chen K, Liu C, Bi J, He Z, Luo R, et al. Dietary diversity and mental health in preschoolers in rural China. Public Health Nutr. 2021;24(7):1869–76.

Luo J, Zou J, Ji M, Yuan T, Sun M, Lin Q. Emotional and behavioral problems among 3- to 5-Year-Olds Left-behind children in Poor Rural areas of Hunan Province: a cross-sectional study. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019;16(21):4188.

Jing J, Yang C, Wang Y, Su X, Du Y. Impact of COVID-19 on Emotional and Behavioral Problems among Preschool Children: A Meta-analysis [Internet]. In Review; 2023 Aug [cited 2024 Jan 16]. Available from: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3204765/v1 .

Ren Y, Yao X, Liu Y, Liu S, Li X, Huang Q, et al. Outdoor air pollution pregnancy exposures are associated with behavioral problems in China’s preschoolers. Environ Sci Pollut Res. 2019;26(3):2397–408.

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Zheng Y, Zheng X. Current state and recent developments of child psychiatry in China. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health. 2015;9(1):10.

Althoff RR, Verhulst FC, Rettew DC, Hudziak JJ, Van Der Ende J. Adult outcomes of Childhood Dysregulation: a 14-year follow-up study. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2010;49(11):1105–e11161.

Arslan İB, Lucassen N, van Lier PAC, de Haan AD, Prinzie P. Early childhood internalizing problems, externalizing problems and their co-occurrence and (mal)adaptive functioning in emerging adulthood: a 16-year follow-up study. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2021;56(2):193–206.

Narusyte J, Ropponen A, Alexanderson K, Svedberg P. Internalizing and externalizing problems in childhood and adolescence as predictors of work incapacity in young adulthood. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2017;52(9):1159–68.

Bornstein MH, Hahn CS, Haynes OM. Social competence, externalizing, and internalizing behavioral adjustment from early childhood through early adolescence: developmental cascades. Dev Psychopathol. 2010;22(4):717–35.

Conroy MA, Brown WH. Early identification, Prevention, and early intervention with Young children at risk for emotional or behavioral disorders: issues, trends, and a call for action. Behav Disorders. 2004;29(3):224–36.

Mesman J, Koot HM. Early Preschool predictors of Preadolescent Internalizing and Externalizing DSM-IV diagnoses. J AM Acad Child Psy. 2001;40(9):1029–36.

Njoroge WFM, Bernhart KP. Assessment of behavioral disorders in Preschool-aged children. Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2011;13(2):84–92.

Aunola K, Nurmi JE. The role of parenting styles in Children’s Problem Behavior: parenting styles in Children’s behavior. Child Dev. 2005;76(6):1144–59.

Braza P, Carreras R, Muñoz JM, Braza F, Azurmendi A, Pascual-Sagastizábal E, et al. Negative maternal and paternal parenting styles as predictors of children’s behavioral problems: moderating effects of the child’s sex. J Child Fam Stud. 2015;24(4):847–56.

Querido JG, Warner TD, Eyberg SM. Parenting styles and child behavior in African American families of Preschool Children. J Clin Child Adolesc. 2002;31(2):272–7.

Baumrind D. Effective parenting during the early adolescent transition. Family transitions. Routledge; 2013. pp. 111–63.

Clarke K, Cooper P, Creswell C. The parental overprotection scale: associations with child and parental anxiety. J Affect Disord. 2013;151(2):618–24.

Gar NS, Hudson JL, Rapee RM. Family factors and the development of anxiety disorders. Psychopathology and the family. Elsevier; 2005. pp. 125–45.

Kolip P, Lademann J. Family and health. Familie und Gesundheit In: Hurrelmann K, Razum O, editors[Handbook of health sciences] Handbuch Gesundheitswissenschaften Weinheim: Beltz Juventa. 2012;517–40.

Alizadeh S, Talib MBA, Abdullah R, Mansor M. Relationship between parenting style and children’s behavior problems. Asian Social Sci. 2011;7(12):195–200.

Azman Ö, Mauz E, Reitzle M, Geene R, Hölling H, Rattay P. Associations between parenting style and mental health in children and adolescents aged 11–17 years: results of the KiGGS cohort study (second follow-up). Children. 2021;8(8):672.

Baumrind D. Child care practices anteceding three patterns of preschool behavior. Genetic Psychol Monogr. 1967;37(4):887.

Google Scholar  

Robinson CC, Mandleco B, Olsen SF, Hart CH. The parenting styles and dimensions questionnaire (PSDQ). In: Handbook of family measurement techniques. 2001. p. 319–21.

Hanafi H, Thabet AAM. The relationship between parenting styles and Mental Health problems among Preschool Children living in Gaza Strip. EC Psychol Psychiatry. 2017;7(7):347–57.

Thompson A, Hollis C, Richards D. Authoritarian parenting attitudes as a risk for conduct problems. Eur Child Adoles Psy. 2003;12(2):84–91.

Baumrind D. Effects of authoritative parental control on child behavior. Child Dev. 1966;37(4):887.

Choe DE, Olson SL, Sameroff AJ. The interplay of externalizing problems and physical and inductive discipline during childhood. Dev Psychol. 2013;49(11):2029–39.

Lin X, Liao Y, Li H. Parenting styles and social competence in Chinese preschoolers: a Moderated Mediation Model of Singleton and Self-regulation. Early Educ Dev. 2021;33(3):437–51.

Sahithya BR, Manohari SM, Vijaya R. Parenting styles and its impact on children– a cross cultural review with a focus on India. Mental Health Relig Cult. 2019;22(4):357–83.

Singh S. Parenting style in relation to children’s mental health and self-esteem: a review of literature. Indian J Health Wellbeing. 2017;8(12).

Yamagata S, Takahashi Y, Ozaki K, Fujisawa KK, Nonaka K, Ando J. Bidirectional influences between maternal parenting and children’s peer problems: a longitudinal monozygotic twin difference study. Dev Sci. 2013;16(2):249–59.

Roskam I, Stievenart M, Meunier JC, Noël MP. The development of children’s inhibition: does parenting matter? J Exp Child Psychol. 2014;122:166–82.

Saltalı ND, İmir HM. Parenting styles as a predictor of the Preschool Children’s Social Behaviours. PER. 2018;5(2):18–37.

Cobb-Clark DA, Salamanca N, Zhu A. Parenting Style as an Investment in Human Development. IZA Discussion Paper. 2019; No 9686.

Conrade G, Ho R. Differential parenting styles for fathers and mothers: Differential treatment for sons and daughters. Aust J Psycholo. 2001;53(1):29–35.

Fauziyah R, Salimo H, Murti B. Influence of psycho-socio-economic factors, parenting style, and Sibling Rivalry, on Mental and Emotional Development of Preschool Children in Sidoarjo District. J Maternal Child Health. 2017;02(03):233–44.

September SJ, Rich EG, Roman NV. The role of parenting styles and socio-economic status in parents’ knowledge of child development. Early Child Dev Care. 2016;186(7):1060–78.

Someya T, Uehara T, Kadowaki M, Tang SW, Takahashi S. Effects of gender difference and birth order on perceived parenting styles, measured by the EMBU scale, in Japanese two-sibling subjects. Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2000;54(1):77–81.

Vyas K, Bano S, Islamia J. Child’s gender and parenting styles. Delhi Psychiatry Journal. 2016;2(19).

McKee L, Erin Roland N, Coffelt AL, Olson R, Forehand C, Massari et al. Harsh Discipline and Child Problem behaviors: the roles of positive parenting and gender. J Fam Viol. 2007;(22):187–96.

Hosokawa R, Katsura T. Role of parenting style in children’s behavioral problems through the transition from Preschool to Elementary School according to gender in Japan. IJERPH. 2018;16(1):21.

Hu Q, Feng Q. Parenting style and prosocial behaviour among Chinese preschool children: a moderation model. Early Child Dev Care. 2022;192(9):1444–61.

Jia S, Wang L, Shi Y. Relationship between parenting and proactive Versus reactive aggression among Chinese Preschool Children. Arch Psychiatr Nurs. 2014;28(2):152–7.

Chan SM, Bowes J, Wyver S. Parenting style as a context for emotion socialization. Early Educ Dev. 2009;20(4):631–56.

Hu Z, Wu L. The influence of parental styles on Children’s peer Interaction ability in senior class of Kindergarten—By taking research examples of some kindergartens in B City of Anhui Province (in Chinese). J Shaanxi Xueqian Normal Univ. 2019;35(8):7–12.

Li X, Xie J. Parenting styles of Chinese families and children’s social-emotional and cognitive developmental outcomes. Eur Early Child Educ. 2017;25(4):637–50.

Way N, Okazaki S, Zhao J, Kim JJ, Chen X, Yoshikawa H, et al. Social and emotional parenting: Mothering in a changing Chinese society. Asian AM J Psychol. 2013;4(1):61–70.

Wu P, Robinson CC, Yang C, Hart CH, Olsen SF, Porter CL, et al. Similarities and differences in mothers’ parenting of preschoolers in China and the United States. Int J Behav Dev. 2002;26(6):481–91.

Xu Y, Farver JA, Zhang Z, Zeng Q, Yu L, Cai B. Mainland Chinese parenting styles and parent-child interaction. Int J Behav Dev. 2005;29(6):524–31.

Fan J, Chen BB. Parenting styles and coparenting in China: the role of parents and children’s sibling status. Curr Psychol. 2020;39(5):1505–12.

Tan TX, Camras LA, Deng H, Zhang M, Lu Z. Family stress, parenting styles, and behavioral adjustment in preschool-age adopted Chinese girls. Early Child Res Q. 2012;27(1):128–36.

Xia X. Parenting style and Chinese children’s school readiness outcomes: the moderating role of socioeconomic status. Child Youth Serv Rev. 2020;118:105381.

Ren L, Pope Edwards C. Pathways of influence: Chinese parents’ expectations, parenting styles, and child social competence. Early Child Dev Care. 2015;185(4):614–30.

Goodman R. Psychometric properties of the strengths and difficulties Questionnaire. J AM Acad Child Psy. 2001;40(11):1337–45.

Du Y, Kou J, Coghill D. The validity, reliability and normative scores of the parent, teacher and self report versions of the strengths and difficulties Questionnaire in China. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health. 2008;2(1):8.

Wechsler D. Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence—fourth edition. The Psychological Corporation San Antonio, TX; 2012.

Chen HY, Chen YH, Liao YK, Chen HP, Lynn R. Dysgenic fertility for intelligence and education in Taiwan. Intelligence. 2017;63:29–32.

Wang L, Xian Y, Dill SE, Fang Z, Emmers D, Zhang S, et al. Parenting style and the cognitive development of preschool-aged children: evidence from rural China. J Exp Child Psychol. 2022;223:105490.

Attanasio O, Cattan S, Fitzsimons E, Meghir C, Rubio-Codina M. Estimating the production function for human capital: results from a randomized controlled trial in Colombia. Am Econ Rev. 2020;110(1):48–85.

Cunha F, Heckman J. The technology of skill formation. Am Econ Rev. 2007;97(2):31–47.

Cunha F, Heckman JJ. Formulating, identifying and estimating the technology of cognitive and noncognitive skill formation. J Hum Resour. 2008;43(4):738–82.

Zhang H, Qin X. The impact of the parenting style on the formation of adolescent human capital (in Chinese). J Finance Econ. 2019;45(02):46–58.

Winsler A, Madigan AL, Aquilino SA. Correspondence between maternal and paternal parenting styles in early childhood. Early Child Res Q. 2005;20(1):1–12.

Download references

This study is funded by the China Scholarship Council (No. 202306870036).

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

International Business School, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China

Lei Wang & Jing Tian

School of Economics and Management, Shaanxi Xueqian Normal University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China

Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, Stanford University, Stanford, USA

Scott Rozelle

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

LW participated in designing the data collection instruments, performed and supervised data collection and analyses, drafted and revised the manuscript. JT analyzed and drafted the manuscript. SR conceptualized and designed the study, designed the data collection instruments, critically reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript as submitted.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jing Tian .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate.

This study received ethical approval from the Stanford University Institutional Review Board (Protocol ID 50901) and from the Kunming Medical University Ethical Review Board.

All caregivers in the study gave written informed consent that allows themselves and their children to participate in the study.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Material 1: Additional file 1 of cutoofs of the three sub-categories for the SDQ subscales

Rights and permissions.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Wang, L., Tian, J. & Rozelle, S. Parenting style and child mental health at preschool age: evidence from rural China. BMC Psychiatry 24 , 314 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-024-05707-1

Download citation

Received : 25 January 2024

Accepted : 22 March 2024

Published : 24 April 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-024-05707-1

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Parenting styles
• Mental health problems
• Children at preschool age
• Rural China

BMC Psychiatry

ISSN: 1471-244X

• Submission enquiries: [email protected]
• General enquiries: [email protected]