Literature Review Toolkit for Environmental Sciences: Home

            A literature review is an overview of the scholarly literature available on a specific topic.

• The purpose of a literature review is to:
  • Help define the focus of your research topic.
  • Identify research already conducted in your field of interest, find gaps in existing scholarship, and avoid repetition of previous research.
  • Become familiar with significant earlier research and with current progress and/or controversies in your field of interest.
  • Assess methodologies, results, conclusions, and possible opportunities for future research.

Figure shows the iterative process of writing a literature review. Source: Monash University.