The information on this page formatted as a handout that can be printed for convenient reference as you write.
accentuated | held the view that |
accepted | hypothesized |
accessed | identified |
acknowledged | illustrated |
added | implemented |
administered | implied |
advised | indicated |
affected | inferred |
agreed | interpreted |
analyzed | investigated |
appraised | justified |
approached | knew |
articulated | linked |
assessed | listed |
assumed | maintained |
assured | mentioned |
attributed | noted |
believed | observed |
categorized | outlined |
characterized | pointed out |
charted | posited |
claimed | presented |
clarified | professed |
classified | proposed |
concluded | realized |
concurred | reasoned that |
confirmed | recognized |
commented | refined |
compared | reflected |
considered | regarded |
contrasted | regulated |
created | relied on |
debated | reported |
declared | represented |
deduced | requested |
defined | responded |
demonstrated | revealed |
derived | questioned |
described | showed |
detected | sought to |
documented | specified |
differentiated | stated |
disagreed | studied |
discovered | submitted |
discussed | subscribed to |
encouraged | suggested |
estimated | surveyed |
evaluated | theorized |
examined | thought |
excluded | took into consideration |
explained | uncovered |
explored | understood |
expressed | used |
felt | utilized |
focused on | viewed |
found | wondered |
generated |
accused | guaranteed |
achieved | highlighted |
acknowledged | ignored |
advocated | inferred |
affirmed | insisted |
announced | intervened |
argued | justified |
asserted | maintained |
assumed | misinterpreted |
believed | monitored |
blamed | negated |
challenged | objected to |
claimed | opposed |
complained | persuaded |
conceded | presumed |
concluded | promised |
condoned | prioritized |
confirmed | proved |
contended | recognized |
contradicted | refuted |
criticized | reinforced |
declared | rejected |
denied | required |
determined | restricted |
deviated | revealed |
discounted | stressed |
dismissed | substantiated |
disputed | supported the view that |
disregarded | threatened |
doubted | underscored |
emphasized | upheld |
endorsed | urged |
established | validated |
exhorted | warned |
extolled | |
Adapted from American Psychological Association publication manual (7th ed.).
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Most common verb tenses in academic writing.
According to corpus research, in academic writing, the three tenses used the most often are the simple present , the simple past , and the present perfect (Biber et al., 1999; Caplan, 2012). The next most common tense for capstone writers is the future ; the doctoral study/dissertation proposal at Walden is written in this tense for a study that will be conducted in the future.
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of written and spoken English . Pearson. https://doi.org/10.1162/089120101300346831
Caplan, N. A. (2012). Grammar choices for graduate and professional writers . University of Michigan Press.
Simple present: Use the simple present to describe a general truth or a habitual action. This tense indicates that the statement is generally true in the past, present, and future.
Simple past : Use the simple past tense to describe a completed action that took place at a specific point in the past (e.g., last year, 1 hour ago, last Sunday). In the example below, the specific point of time in the past is 1998.
Present perfect: Use the present perfect to indicate an action that occurred at a nonspecific time in the past. This action has relevance in the present. The present perfect is also sometimes used to introduce background information in a paragraph. After the first sentence, the tense shifts to the simple past.
Future: Use the future to describe an action that will take place at a particular point in the future (at Walden, this is used especially when writing a proposal for a doctoral capstone study).
Keep in mind that verb tenses should be adjusted after the proposal after the research has been completed. See this blog post about Revising the Proposal for the Final Capstone Document for more information.
APA calls for consistency and accuracy in verb tense usage (see APA 7, Section 4.12 and Table 4.1). In other words, avoid unnecessary shifts in verb tense within a paragraph or in adjacent paragraphs to help ensure smooth expression.
When explaining what an author or researcher wrote or did, use the past tense.
However, there can be a shift to the present tense if the research findings still hold true:
To preview what is coming in the document or to explain what is happening at that moment in the document, use the present or future tense:
To refer back to information already covered, such as summaries of discussions that have already taken place or conclusions to chapters/sections, use the past tense:
Rules for the use of the present perfect differ slightly in British and American English. Researchers have also found that among American English writers, sometimes individual preferences dictate whether the simple past or the present perfect is used. In other words, one American English writer may choose the simple past in a place where another American English writer may choose the present perfect.
Keep in mind, however, that the simple past is used for a completed action. It often is used with signal words or phrases such as "yesterday," "last week," "1 year ago," or "in 2015" to indicate the specific time in the past when the action took place.
The present perfect focuses more on an action that occurred without focusing on the specific time it happened. Note that the specific time is not given, just that the action has occurred.
The present perfect focuses more on the result of the action.
The present perfect is often used with signal words such as "since," "already," "just," "until now," "(not) yet," "so far," "ever," "lately," or "recently."
The 12 main tenses:
Conditionals:
Zero conditional (general truths/general habits).
First conditional (possible or likely things in the future).
Second conditional (impossible things in the present/unlikely in the future).
Third conditional (things that did not happen in the past and their imaginary results)
Subjunctive : This form is sometimes used in that -clauses that are the object of certain verbs or follow certain adjectives. The form of the subjective is the simple form of the verb. It is the same for all persons and number.
Note that these videos were created while APA 6 was the style guide edition in use. There may be some examples of writing that have not been updated to APA 7 guidelines.
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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.
There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.
A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.
Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.
Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.
Introduction:
Conclusion:
Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:
Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .
As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.
Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:
The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.
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Methodology
Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.
What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .
There are five key steps to writing a literature review:
A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.
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What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.
When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:
Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.
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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.
You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.
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Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .
If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .
Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.
Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:
You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.
Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.
You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.
For each publication, ask yourself:
Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.
You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.
As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.
It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.
To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:
This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.
There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).
The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.
Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.
If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.
For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.
If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:
A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.
You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.
Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.
The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.
Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.
As you write, you can follow these tips:
In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.
When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !
This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.
Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.
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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.
Statistics
Research bias
A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .
It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.
There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:
Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.
The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .
A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .
An annotated bibliography is a list of source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a paper .
If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.
McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved September 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/
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The 7th edition style manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) provides suggestions on which verb tense is appropriate for various sections of a thesis, major project or journal article:
As much as possible, try to be consistent with your chosen verb tense within a section "to ensure smooth expression" (APA, 2020, p. 118). If the verb tenses suggested above don't make sense for the purposes of your document, please check with your instructor or academic supervisor to get their recommendation on the best approach for your document.
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
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How to write a lit review.
Examples of lit reviews, additional resources.
What is a literature review?
The organization of your lit review should be determined based on what you'd like to highlight from your research. Here are a few suggestions:
Your literature review should:
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Q: What tense should I use when writing a literature review?
Mastering Verb Tenses in Literature Reviews. Suzanne Hall Johnson, MN, RN,C, CNS. Deciding on which verb tense to use when writing the literature review sec tion ofa manuscript is challenging. Edi tors find that verb tense problems are common in literature report sections of manuscripts. Authors, reviewers, and ed itors need to be able to spot ...
Verb tense - APA Style - American Psychological Association
The present tense is generally used in statements to introduce the literature review, and the past tense is typically used when you are talking about specific papers. The following table summarizes different types of statements you might typically include in your literature review and the corresponding tenses you should use.
What is the correct tense to use in a literature review?
Abstract. Deciding on which verb tense to use when writing the literature review section of a manuscript is challenging. Editors find that verb tense problems are common in literature report sections of manuscripts. Authors, reviewers, and editors need to be able to spot incorrect verb tenses in literature reviews.
Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review - PMC
There are exceptions however, most notably in the literature review where you will use a mixture of past, present and present perfect tenses (don't worry, that is explained below), when discussing the implications of your findings when the present tense is appropriate and in the recommendations where you are likely to use the future tense.
Deciding on which verb tense to use when writing the literature review section of a manuscript is challenging. Editors find that verb tense problems are common in literature report sections of manuscripts. Authors, reviewers, and editors need to be able to spot incorrect verb tenses in literature reviews.
Editors find that verb tense problems are common in literature report sections of manuscripts. Authors, reviewers, and editors need to be able to spot incorrect verb tenses in literature reviews ...
Verb Tenses - Literature. This handout is available for download in DOCX format and PDF format. Use of the correct verb tense allows you to express clearly the time relationships among your ideas. When deciding which verb tense to use, aim for consistency, simplicity, and clarity. Whenever possible, keep verbs in the same tense (consistency ...
Use of verb tenses in APA, Chicago and MLA styles - OWLL
Verb Tense. The past tense or present perfect tense are appropriate when discussing a researcher's work. Use the past or present perfect tenses in your in-text citations. Past. Berry (2022) and Gimmel et al. (2020) discovered that young people in foster care are at high risk for psychiatric disorders and poor long-term functional outcomes.
How to Write a Stellar Literature Review
Verb Tenses - Grammar - Academic Guides - Walden University
Writing a Literature Review - Purdue OWL
How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & ...
According to the APA Style (7th ed.) rules, which verb tense ...
Answer: By 'literature write-up,' we understand you mean 'literature review.'. Now, do you mean an entire paper that is a literature review or only the literature review section of the paper that typically comes in the Introduction? Anyway, the answer is: it depends, and it's quite possible to have multiple tenses in the literature ...
tense, reporting verbs, literature review . The background . Reporting plays a pertinent and indispensable role in the buildup of any human language (Jacobson 1985: 96). Reporting verbs (refer to Appendix 1) in LRs represent a significant rhetorical choice, not only because of their high frequency (Chen 2008:126), but also because of
A recent flurry of tweets, seemingly initiated by @thesiswhisperer, discussed the use of tense in literature review.There doesn't seem to be a definitive rule to using either present or past tense (i.e. Smith (1989) argues… vs. Smith (1989) argued… etc.), though switching from one to the other can be problematic and should only be done within grammatical conventions.
Step 4: Write. Be selective. Highlight only the most important and relevant points from a source in your review. Use quotes sparingly. Short quotes can help to emphasize a point, but thorough analysis of language from each source is generally unnecessary in a literature review. Synthesize your sources.
Literature Review Guide: What tense should I use? How to create Literature reviews. What is a Literature Review? How to start? Picking your research question and searching; Search strategies and Databases; Tutorials; Videos; How to organise the review; Examples of Literature Reviews; Library summary;