Literature Review - what is a Literature Review, why it is important and how it is done

The majority of these sites focus on literature reviews in the social sciences unless otherwise noted. For systematic literature reviews, we recommend you to contact directly your subject librarian for help.

• How to Write a Literature Review
  Nice and concise handout on how to write a literature review
• Six Steps to Writing a Literature Review
  This blog, written by Tanya Golash-Boza, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Merced, a successful PhD, offers a very nice and simple advice on how to write a literature review from the point of view of an experience professional. Tanya's current research is on racial identities and immigration policies. She is currently writing a book on deportees.
• Literature Review and Synthesis (University Writing Center, Indiana University)
  Excellent handout to teach you how to synthesize (make connections between) multiple sources in your literature review
• How to Write a Historiography (Literature Review for History)
  This is an excellent site to learn how to write this particular literature review in History.

• Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students. (NCSU Libraries)
  What is a literature review? What purpose does it serve in research? What should you expect when writing one? 

A selection of sites that offer tutorials and handouts to learn how to write literature reviews and how to use specific writing skills such as paraphrasing and synthesis.

• Literature Review Online Tutorial (North Carolina State University Libraries)
• Literature Review Tutorial (CQ University-Australia)
• Paraphrase: Write it in Your Own Words (OWL Purdue Writing Lab)
• Acknowledging, Paraphrasing and Quoting Sources (UW-Madison's Writing Center) This is an open PDF document with the whole guide on Acknowledging, Paraphrasing and Quoting Sources.
• Synthesize - The Literature Review: A Research Journey Nice explanation by Harvard's Graduate School of Education on what is synthesis. Also, check out the rest of the guide for definitions and videos of faculty and students about the literature review process.
• Introduction to Syntheses Excellent presentation of what is syntheses, different types of it, etc...