A literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic.
For an example, look at The role of justice and social exchange relationships in workplace deviance: Test of a mediated model from Human Relations.
- p. 1687-1688 contain the abstract, and the introductory literature review.
- p. 1689-1695 continues the literature review, tying previous research to the author's studeny design, theory and hypotheses.
- note that the last 7 pages of the article contain the full reference list.
A good literature review will be well focused on the specific research question. The sources used will be currrent, relevant, authoratative, accurate, and from an unbiased perspective.
For Further Information, see UCSC's guide on writing a literature review.