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In most undergraduate and postgraduate papers I have reviewed, one problem stands above all, almost consistently: a poorly written literature review. In some of the worst cases, I have seen ‘literature reviews’ made up of several paragraphs, with each paragraph dedicated to one study’s aim, methodology, and findings. There are several reasons why that approach is less than ideal and conveys immaturity in knowledge compilation. In this issue, I explain with examples the basic Do’s and Don'ts of literature review.
Literature review summarises studies in a particular area. There is therefore no need to be dedicating an entire paragraph to provide details on a single study. Rather, multiple studies need to be put together to support/conclude something. Organize findings of studies by themes or debates (compare and contrast), not by authors. This also helps avoid plagiarism and conveys way more information about the state of research/gap.
Least effective: Smith (2019) examined how social identity influences participation in online gaming communities by exploring how players understand their relationship with the groups to which they belong. The study used a qualitative interview methodology with 16 participants aged 18-27 years from the UK. The findings suggested that players who developed a stronger sense of identification with their gaming community were more likely to participate actively and maintain their engagement over time.
More effective: Studies consistently link social identity and belonging with participation in online gaming communities, but they emphasize different explanations for this relationship. Qualitative research highlights acceptance, shared interests, and communication as foundations of belonging (Jones, 2020; Smith, 2019), while quantitative research focuses more on the association between identification, time spent gaming, and participation (Chen, 2022; Patel, 2021). Together, these findings suggest that participation depends both on players’ identification with a community and on the opportunities that community provides for meaningful interaction.
The methodology of a study should not be your focus unless that is your objective. You should not provide details on how many people were part of a survey unless it is exceptional or note-worthy information which shows how strong the results are (like some country-wide or international survey with thousands of findings).
Least effective: Chen (2022) conducted a quantitative study involving 327 participants recruited through an online survey. The participants were aged between 18 and 35 years and were active members of online gaming communities. The researchers used a five-point Likert scale to measure perceived acceptance, community membership, and participation. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, and multiple regression. The study found that…
More effective: Drawing on an international survey of more than 10,000 young adult players, Chen (2023) found that perceived acceptance was consistently associated with stronger community membership and more frequent participation across different gaming communities.
OR The 2011 Census of India, covering over 1.21 billion, showed that…
Don’t try to cover everything. If your research focuses on falling in love with AI chatbots, don’t start with the invention of computers and its slow development towards modern technology and the AI today- that is a waste of word count and leads your readers astray. The more you focus on covering everything, the more unfocused/overwhelming the review. For example, background, history of concept, several definitions given by several researchers, correlates of one variable, cultural differences in that variable etc. are not relevant to cover unless they are part of the gap or rationale.
How many studies should you include to support a point to be made? Suppose you want to state the following: lower vaccine hesitancy is linked to higher score on cognitive abilities (IQ). Usually, one is enough. However, if it being put across as a general finding, with the qualifier “several studies have found that…”, then at most three studies should be enough. To make sure that word-count or reference-count limits are not crossed, many journals encourage no more than three references to support a point. Also in relation to use of references, avoid long strings of citations where it’s unclear which source supports which claim.
Least effective: Lower vaccine hesitancy is associated with higher cognitive ability or IQ (Sharma, 2017; Smith, 2018; Patel, 2018; Jones, 2019)
OR Qualitative research highlights acceptance, shared interests, and communication as foundations of belonging, while quantitative research focuses more on the association between identification, time spent gaming, and participation (Smith, 2019; Jones, 2020; Patel, 2021; Chen, 2022, Kumar et al., 2024).
More effective: In a country-wide study with over 15,000 participants, Sharma (2017) found that lower vaccine hesitancy was associated with higher scores on measures of cognitive ability. This finding suggests that...
OR Several studies have found that lower vaccine hesitancy is associated with higher cognitive-ability scores (Patel, 2019; Sharma, 2017; Singh, 2021). Taken together, these findings suggest that…
How should you go about writing your literature review?
Given the vast amount of studies available on any topic, it is easy to get derailed. One of the better approaches therefore is using a guiding framework or central argument that keeps the literature review focused. A literature review should be organized directly around its research question; therefore, start out with an outline of what your review will include- read (multiple) papers related to your topic and take inspiration from their introduction sections while making this outline.
When publishing papers, literature review fits best inside/merged with the Introduction section and is used to introduce the variables of interest (definition/theory), how they are related to each other, the gap in research, leading up to the rationale and the objectives of the study. In doing so, it moves from general to specific. For example, consider the flow of information in the following study by Sachan et al., 2025, titled “Social Capital in Online Gaming Communities: A Systematic Review Examining the Role of Virtual Identities“:
Here the flow of information moves as: Rise in video game players → role of games and communities in social outcomes → what reviews show → specific variable of online social capital → implications of online social capital.
Organize findings by themes, not by authors. Thematic organization makes it easier to compare studies and show how they contribute to the same issue.
Pay special attention to how you put references and whether or not they are recent (most journal prefer that studies are not more than two decades old, especially when it comes to fast-paced area like cyber-psychology and technology). Also keep in mind that in any area, some authors have done pioneering work. As you study your variable of interest, you will keep coming across their names again and again. Make sure to include these studies/authors so that you don’t let the peer-reviewer feel that you are new to the area and haven’t done your due diligence in background research.
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