Counseling Resources: The Literature Review

Steps for beginning a literature review using catalogs and databases:

1. Write down your topic and select important keywords to search for. Include synonyms for each keyword.

2. Select the best database to begin your search in. If your topic deals primarily with the classroom or school environment, start with ERIC and Education FullText; if it entails a behavioral or clinical concept (e.g., high school students with ADHD), try PsycINFO, the research database in psychology.

3. Use the 'advanced search' interface wherever possible. It will give you more intuitive ways to combine concepts and more inclusive ways to find research studies than just using the word 'research' as a search term.

4. Use subject term searching. Both ERIC and PsycINFO have a thesaurus that lists subject terms and the relationships between terms. Subject headings, or descriptors, that describe a useful study will give you good terms to use to redefine or expand a search.

5. Use advanced search techniques. Generally speaking, the more terms you combine in a database search, the more precise -- and narrow -- your results will be. If you retrieve too few items, try dropping some combinations from your search strategy.

6. Scan the first 10-20 records of the results. Be sure the read the abstract of the article you are considering using for your research, if available. The abstract will succinctly describe the article and will help you to determine if it will be worth reading the whole article.

7. Look at the reference lists of the sources you're using. If the same studies are cited over and over, no matter how old they are, be sure to look up those studies too, whether they appear in your list of database results or not.

8. Make note of the author's sources when you find an article, research study, book, or other source that fits well with your topic, as these may also be good leads for you to follow in your own review. This is particularly important when you are reviewing a topic which has not had a lot of research or publication devoted to it. 

This video, "Literature Review: An Overview of Graduate Students," by the North Carolina State University Libraries, goes through the steps of developing a literature review.