Research Guides: Literature Review Basics: Additional Resources

Writing Help

Tutoring and Writing Assistance at USI

Your first stop for help with your writing here at USI should be the Tutoring programs in the Academic Skills department . You can schedule an appointment with a tutor or send your work to the Online Writing Lab for feedback from a writing consultant.

Your Liaison Librarian can also help you get started on the literature review process, as well as offering some assistance for correctly formatting your work and including correct citations.

Helpful Links

Purdue OWL: Synthesizing Sources
The Purdue OWL site's general description of how to synthesize source material. Includes examples illustrating the difference between summary and synthesis.
Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students (NCSU)
North Carolina State University Library's helpful lit review video, good for providing a broad understanding of what lit reviews are and how they should be written.
Literature Reviews for Education and Nursing Graduate Students (Frederiksen and Phelps, 2018)
An open textbook designed for students in graduate-level nursing and education programs. From developing a research question to locating and evaluating sources to writing a sample literature review using appropriate publication guidelines, readers will be guided through the process.
Literature Reviews: Getting Started (University of Pittsburgh)
UPL's very general guide for creating literature reviews, applicable across disciplines.
Literature Review: Conducting & Writing (University of West Florida)
A slightly more comprehensive guide to constructing a literature review from the University Libraries at UWF. Includes the use of a Synthesis Matrix table.
Writing A Literature Review (Boston College Libraries)
A guide from the Boston College Libraries that nicely illustrates the actual process of writing a literature review
A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review (Randolph, 2009)
Article originally published in Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation (vol.14 , Article 13, 2009). Helpfully lays out process and content guidance for writing an effective literature review. While the article's primary audience is graduate students writing doctoral dissertations, most of the advice given is good for lit reviews in other contexts as well.
JAMA Network Open: Instructions for Authors (Systematic Review without Meta-Analysis)
JAMA's instructions for authors, showing how JAMA Network journals want Systematic Reviews to be organized and formatted. While journals do often have their own preferred styles and other publications may have rules that differ from the instructions offered here, the JAMA model is a good example of what kinds of information systematic reviews of the literature typically include and how that information is usually organized.
EQUATOR Network
"The EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) Network is an international initiative that seeks to improve the reliability and value of published health research literature by promoting transparent and accurate reporting and wider use of robust reporting guidelines." The site hosts a library of resources and standards for writing and formatting a wide variety of health research material, including different kinds of literature reviews.

Formulating PICOT Questions

Levels of Evidence

The figure below is an adaptation of the levels of evidence as presented by Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt (2015, p.11). According to the authors, these levels should be viewed hierarchically in terms of objective reliability and generalizability; with Level I representing the most generalizable and objective evidence, and Level VII representing the least generalizable evidence with a greater risk of bias (p.92).

Levels of Evidence Flowchart (U. of Michigan Libraries)

Sources Cited

Levels of Evidence and PICOT charts adapted from:

Melnyk, B. Mazurek, & Fineout-Overholt, E. (2015). Evidence-based practice in nursing and healthcare: a guide to best practice. Third edition. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health

Levels of Evidence Flowchart courtesy of the University of Michigan libraries (2018), made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0).

Literature Review Basics

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