A literature review is not a summary of everything you’ve read. It’s a critical synthesis of what’s already known about a research question, organised thematically, that justifies why your own work is needed. Markers look for two things: have you read the right sources, and can you say something meaningful about how they fit together?
The most common reason students lose marks on a literature review is the “descriptive trap” — paragraph after paragraph of “Smith (2021) found X. Jones (2022) found Y. Patel (2023) found Z.” This is what your tutor calls a “list”, not a review. A review groups Smith, Jones and Patel together because they’re all addressing the same sub-question, then compares HOW they differ — methods, samples, conclusions.
Before you read anything, write your research question in one sentence. If you can’t, the question is too vague to review. “The impact of social media on adolescents” is too broad. “How does Instagram use affect body image satisfaction in UK adolescents aged 14–18?” is reviewable.
List your core concepts (e.g. Instagram, body image, adolescents) and synonyms. Search databases relevant to your discipline:
Record your search strings, databases, date range and inclusion/exclusion criteria — this becomes your methodology section if you’re writing a systematic review.
As you read each paper, take notes against a small set of themes (5–7 max). Don’t summarise the whole paper — capture what it says about each theme. Spreadsheets work well: rows are papers, columns are themes. By the time you’ve read 20 papers, you can see which themes are well-covered and which have gaps.
A thematic structure groups sources by what they say. A chronological one groups by when they were written. Thematic is almost always stronger because it shows YOU thinking, not just summarising the field’s history.
A typical thematic structure for an empirical lit review:
Counterintuitive, but it works. Start each theme’s section by writing the synthesis paragraph — “The literature on X falls into three camps…” — then go back and add the specific citations. Writing the synthesis first prevents the descriptive trap.
Here’s what a strong synthesis paragraph looks like, with the moves labelled:
[Synthesis claim] Research on Instagram use and adolescent body image has produced consistent but methodologically narrow findings. [Grouped evidence] Smith (2021), Jones (2022) and Patel (2023) all report negative associations between time on Instagram and body satisfaction, with effect sizes in the range r = .22–.34. [Critical evaluation] However, all three studies relied on self-reported screen time and cross-sectional designs, leaving causality unresolved. [Identification of gap] No published UK study has used objective screen-time measures from device APIs, despite this data becoming available since iOS 12.
Notice: each move (synthesis claim, grouped evidence, critical evaluation, gap) carries the paragraph forward. The reader sees you thinking, not just listing.
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