What is a Literature Review?
Answer
A Literature Review looks at the published information on a given topic. Unlike a research paper, a literature review simply summarizes other sources' research without adding personal contributions.
Literature reviews can take several forms. They can be part of a longer work like a research paper or they can stand alone.
They can also be selective or comprehensive. A selective review will only use a certain number of sources while a comprehensive review will attempt to discuss as many published sources on the topic as possible.
Literature Reviews are often done by upper level undergraduate and graduate students.