Clinical Education
Welcome to the Clinical Education subject guide - your guide to using the library resources, services and facilities for your subject.
Resources on doing a literature review
- Am I The Only One Struggling To Write A Literature Review?
Dr. Zina O'Leary explains the misconceptions and struggles students often have with writing a literature review. She also provides step-by-step guidance on writing a persuasive literature review.
Doing a Literature Review in Health & Social Care: a practical guide by ISBN: 0335233848Publication Date: 2007Ebook
- How to Conduct an Effective Literature Review (video)How to conduct an effective literature review using a literature review sketch (17min). This video is divided into segments on the Purpose of Conducting a Literature Review and Creating a Literature Review Sketch.
- Reviewing the LiteratureThis section takes you through the literature review process, explaining the reasons for reviewing the literature and differentiation between the types of literature available.
- Study Hub > Literature review
A general guide to how to conduct and write a literature review from the Institute for Academic Development Study Hub. - Why Are Medical Education Literature Reviews So Hard to Do?This editorial contains useful strategies for first-time authors of review papers, and summarises different review types (narrative, systematic, realist, and scoping).
Types of literature review
There are different types of literature review. The most common that students are asked to do is a review of the research literature as part of your dissertation project. However, some students carry out a structured literature review as their project.
Some common types of review and their features
Narrative review
- The literature search may or may not be comprehensive
- Narrative synthesis of the literature
- Analysis can be in many formats, i.e. chronological, conceptual, thematic, etc.
Rapid review
- Uses systematic review methods to search and critically appraise existing research, but completeness of search is determined by time constraints
Scoping review
- Aims to identify potential size and scope of available research literature.
- No formal quality assessment.
- Often used to identify viability of a full systematic review.
Systematic review
- Seeks to systematically search for, appraise and synthesise research evidence
- Reviewers often adhere to guidelines on the conduct of a review
- Aims for exhaustive, comprehensive literature searching
From Grant, M., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: An analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26(2), 91-108. See: Table 1
More resources for literature reviews
- Resource list for literature reviews
Resources that can help students undertake a structured literature review or systematic review, compiled by Academic Support Librarians.
