literature survey tools for research

7 open source tools to make literature reviews easy

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A good literature review is critical for academic research in any field, whether it is for a research article, a critical review for coursework, or a dissertation. In a recent article, I presented detailed steps for doing  a literature review using open source software .

The following is a brief summary of seven free and open source software tools described in that article that will make your next literature review much easier.

1. GNU Linux

Most literature reviews are accomplished by graduate students working in research labs in universities. For absurd reasons, graduate students often have the worst computers on campus. They are often old, slow, and clunky Windows machines that have been discarded and recycled from the undergraduate computer labs. Installing a flavor of GNU Linux will breathe new life into these outdated PCs. There are more than 100 distributions , all of which can be downloaded and installed for free on computers. Most popular Linux distributions come with a "try-before-you-buy" feature. For example, with Ubuntu you can make a bootable USB stick that allows you to test-run the Ubuntu desktop experience without interfering in any way with your PC configuration. If you like the experience, you can use the stick to install Ubuntu on your machine permanently.

Linux distributions generally come with a free web browser, and the most popular is Firefox . Two Firefox plugins that are particularly useful for literature reviews are Unpaywall and Zotero. Keep reading to learn why.

3. Unpaywall

Often one of the hardest parts of a literature review is gaining access to the papers you want to read for your review. The unintended consequence of copyright restrictions and paywalls is it has narrowed access to the peer-reviewed literature to the point that even Harvard University is challenged to pay for it. Fortunately, there are a lot of open access articles—about a third of the literature is free (and the percentage is growing). Unpaywall is a Firefox plugin that enables researchers to click a green tab on the side of the browser and skip the paywall on millions of peer-reviewed journal articles. This makes finding accessible copies of articles much faster that searching each database individually. Unpaywall is fast, free, and legal, as it accesses many of the open access sites that I covered in my paper on using open source in lit reviews .

Formatting references is the most tedious of academic tasks. Zotero can save you from ever doing it again. It operates as an Android app, desktop program, and a Firefox plugin (which I recommend). It is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research. It replaces the functionality of proprietary packages such as RefWorks, Endnote, and Papers for zero cost. Zotero can auto-add bibliographic information directly from websites. In addition, it can scrape bibliographic data from PDF files. Notes can be easily added on each reference. Finally, and most importantly, it can import and export the bibliography databases in all publishers' various formats. With this feature, you can export bibliographic information to paste into a document editor for a paper or thesis—or even to a wiki for dynamic collaborative literature reviews (see tool #7 for more on the value of wikis in lit reviews).

5. LibreOffice

Your thesis or academic article can be written conventionally with the free office suite LibreOffice , which operates similarly to Microsoft's Office products but respects your freedom. Zotero has a word processor plugin to integrate directly with LibreOffice. LibreOffice is more than adequate for the vast majority of academic paper writing.

If LibreOffice is not enough for your layout needs, you can take your paper writing one step further with LaTeX , a high-quality typesetting system specifically designed for producing technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is particularly useful if your writing has a lot of equations in it. Also, Zotero libraries can be directly exported to BibTeX files for use with LaTeX.

7. MediaWiki

If you want to leverage the open source way to get help with your literature review, you can facilitate a dynamic collaborative literature review . A wiki is a website that allows anyone to add, delete, or revise content directly using a web browser. MediaWiki is free software that enables you to set up your own wikis.

Researchers can (in decreasing order of complexity): 1) set up their own research group wiki with MediaWiki, 2) utilize wikis already established at their universities (e.g., Aalto University ), or 3) use wikis dedicated to areas that they research. For example, several university research groups that focus on sustainability (including mine ) use Appropedia , which is set up for collaborative solutions on sustainability, appropriate technology, poverty reduction, and permaculture.

Using a wiki makes it easy for anyone in the group to keep track of the status of and update literature reviews (both current and older or from other researchers). It also enables multiple members of the group to easily collaborate on a literature review asynchronously. Most importantly, it enables people outside the research group to help make a literature review more complete, accurate, and up-to-date.

Wrapping up

Free and open source software can cover the entire lit review toolchain, meaning there's no need for anyone to use proprietary solutions. Do you use other libre tools for making literature reviews or other academic work easier? Please let us know your favorites in the comments.

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All-in-one Literature Review Software

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MAXQDA The All-in-one Literature Review Software

MAXQDA is the best choice for a comprehensive literature review. It works with a wide range of data types and offers powerful tools for literature review, such as reference management, qualitative, vocabulary, text analysis tools, and more.

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Your analysis.

As your all-in-one literature review software, MAXQDA can be used to manage your entire research project. Easily import data from texts, interviews, focus groups, PDFs, web pages, spreadsheets, articles, e-books, and even social media data. Connect the reference management system of your choice with MAXQDA to easily import bibliographic data. Organize your data in groups, link relevant quotes to each other, keep track of your literature summaries, and share and compare work with your team members. Your project file stays flexible and you can expand and refine your category system as you go to suit your research.

Developed by and for researchers – since 1989

Having used several qualitative data analysis software programs, there is no doubt in my mind that MAXQDA has advantages over all the others. In addition to its remarkable analytical features for harnessing data, MAXQDA’s stellar customer service, online tutorials, and global learning community make it a user friendly and top-notch product.

Sally S. Cohen – NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing

Literature Review is Faster and Smarter with MAXQDA

Easily import your literature review data

With a literature review software like MAXQDA, you can easily import bibliographic data from reference management programs for your literature review. MAXQDA can work with all reference management programs that can export their databases in RIS-format which is a standard format for bibliographic information. Like MAXQDA, these reference managers use project files, containing all collected bibliographic information, such as author, title, links to websites, keywords, abstracts, and other information. In addition, you can easily import the corresponding full texts. Upon import, all documents will be automatically pre-coded to facilitate your literature review at a later stage.

Capture your ideas while analyzing your literature

Great ideas will often occur to you while you’re doing your literature review. Using MAXQDA as your literature review software, you can create memos to store your ideas, such as research questions and objectives, or you can use memos for paraphrasing passages into your own words. By attaching memos like post-it notes to text passages, texts, document groups, images, audio/video clips, and of course codes, you can easily retrieve them at a later stage. Particularly useful for literature reviews are free memos written during the course of work from which passages can be copied and inserted into the final text.

Find concepts important to your generated literature review

When generating a literature review you might need to analyze a large amount of text. Luckily MAXQDA as the #1 literature review software offers Text Search tools that allow you to explore your documents without reading or coding them first. Automatically search for keywords (or dictionaries of keywords), such as important concepts for your literature review, and automatically code them with just a few clicks. Document variables that were automatically created during the import of your bibliographic information can be used for searching and retrieving certain text segments. MAXQDA’s powerful Coding Query allows you to analyze the combination of activated codes in different ways.

Aggregate your literature review

When conducting a literature review you can easily get lost. But with MAXQDA as your literature review software, you will never lose track of the bigger picture. Among other tools, MAXQDA’s overview and summary tables are especially useful for aggregating your literature review results. MAXQDA offers overview tables for almost everything, codes, memos, coded segments, links, and so on. With MAXQDA literature review tools you can create compressed summaries of sources that can be effectively compared and represented, and with just one click you can easily export your overview and summary tables and integrate them into your literature review report.

Powerful and easy-to-use literature review tools

Quantitative aspects can also be relevant when conducting a literature review analysis. Using MAXQDA as your literature review software enables you to employ a vast range of procedures for the quantitative evaluation of your material. You can sort sources according to document variables, compare amounts with frequency tables and charts, and much more. Make sure you don’t miss the word frequency tools of MAXQDA’s add-on module for quantitative content analysis. Included are tools for visual text exploration, content analysis, vocabulary analysis, dictionary-based analysis, and more that facilitate the quantitative analysis of terms and their semantic contexts.

Visualize your literature review

As an all-in-one literature review software, MAXQDA offers a variety of visual tools that are tailor-made for qualitative research and literature reviews. Create stunning visualizations to analyze your material. Of course, you can export your visualizations in various formats to enrich your literature review analysis report. Work with word clouds to explore the central themes of a text and key terms that are used, create charts to easily compare the occurrences of concepts and important keywords, or make use of the graphical representation possibilities of MAXMaps, which in particular permit the creation of concept maps. Thanks to the interactive connection between your visualizations with your MAXQDA data, you’ll never lose sight of the big picture.

AI Assist: literature review software meets AI

AI Assist – your virtual research assistant – supports your literature review with various tools. AI Assist simplifies your work by automatically analyzing and summarizing elements of your research project and by generating suggestions for subcodes. No matter which AI tool you use – you can customize your results to suit your needs.

Free tutorials and guides on literature review

MAXQDA offers a variety of free learning resources for literature review, making it easy for both beginners and advanced users to learn how to use the software. From free video tutorials and webinars to step-by-step guides and sample projects, these resources provide a wealth of information to help you understand the features and functionality of MAXQDA for literature review. For beginners, the software’s user-friendly interface and comprehensive help center make it easy to get started with your data analysis, while advanced users will appreciate the detailed guides and tutorials that cover more complex features and techniques. Whether you’re just starting out or are an experienced researcher, MAXQDA’s free learning resources will help you get the most out of your literature review.

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Get your maxqda license, compare the features of maxqda and maxqda analytics pro, faq: literature review software.

Literature review software is a tool designed to help researchers efficiently manage and analyze the existing body of literature relevant to their research topic. MAXQDA, a versatile qualitative data analysis tool, can be instrumental in this process.

Literature review software, like MAXQDA, typically includes features such as data import and organization, coding and categorization, advanced search capabilities, data visualization tools, and collaboration features. These features facilitate the systematic review and analysis of relevant literature.

Literature review software, including MAXQDA, can assist in qualitative data interpretation by enabling researchers to organize, code, and categorize relevant literature. This organized data can then be analyzed to identify trends, patterns, and themes, helping researchers draw meaningful insights from the literature they’ve reviewed.

Yes, literature review software like MAXQDA is suitable for researchers of all levels of experience. It offers user-friendly interfaces and extensive support resources, making it accessible to beginners while providing advanced features that cater to the needs of experienced researchers.

Getting started with literature review software, such as MAXQDA, typically involves downloading and installing the software, importing your relevant literature, and exploring the available features. Many software providers offer tutorials and documentation to help users get started quickly.

For students, MAXQDA can be an excellent literature review software choice. Its user-friendly interface, comprehensive feature set, and educational discounts make it a valuable tool for students conducting literature reviews as part of their academic research.

MAXQDA is available for both Windows and Mac users, making it a suitable choice for Mac users looking for literature review software. It offers a consistent and feature-rich experience on Mac operating systems.

When it comes to literature review software, MAXQDA is widely regarded as one of the best choices. Its robust feature set, user-friendly interface, and versatility make it a top pick for researchers conducting literature reviews.

Yes, literature reviews can be conducted without software. However, using literature review software like MAXQDA can significantly streamline and enhance the process by providing tools for efficient data management, analysis, and visualization.

• Research toolkit

12 PhD tools to supercharge your literature review

Professor dawid hanak.

• May 24, 2022
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A literature review is an inherent part of each research project. This is because it helps you to understand the relevant background of the broader research area and the associated political, environmental, societal, technological and economic contexts.

Why is literature review important? Do I have to include a literature review in my research proposal? Do I have to do it at the very beginning of the project?

These were the main questions that revolved around my head when I was at the very beginning of my academic career. And it seems that it was not just me asking such questions. I often hear them in discussions with current PhDs and others doing research. 

It may seem that the literature review is a daunting challenge. I have seen recommendations to outsource your literature review or leave it until the very of your research project. It is sometimes regarded as an unnecessary activity that “prevents” you from doing the actual research, which may be draining your motivation. Read how to stay motivated here!

If you think in this way, I want you to ask yourself the following question and answer it honestly:

“Do I want to contribute towards the scientific discovery, or do I just want to get a PhD title?”

Believe me, there is a massive difference in the attitude between these goals.

A comprehensive literature review is THE FOUNDATION of your research project because it enables you to:

• understand the context and fundamental knowledge associated with your research;
• understand what work has already been done in the area of your project;
• notice any trends and correlations in the past work;
• determine research gaps and underlying challenges that need to be solved;
• identify the best (or worst) approach to tackle particular challenge; and finally,
• scope your project, clearly define your aim and objectives that when completed, will push the boundary of knowledge!

I trust you now agree with me that the literature review is essential! When executed competently, it will set a clear direction for your project and enable you to complete it on time and to a high quality.

Now, to reduce the burden associated with searching for the literature and organising your references, there are several tools that will improve your productivity when writing a literature review for your project.

Below I present the tools that I currently use (or used to use) when writing a literature review. I hope you will find it useful.

If there are any tools that you use to do a literature review, please share them in the comment!

Table of Contents

Where to start the literature review?

As already indicated in its name, a literature review aims to survey or overview the published literature in your chosen area of research.

When performing one, you will also efficiently synthesise the information in that literature in an organised manner and critically analyse the published information and data. Such a critical analysis will help you identify and gaps, limitations and contrasting points of views.

I want to emphasise here that in academic writing, the peer-reviewed information carries the most value and should be a primary source of your information. But there are also other sources that you may, and sometimes should consider.

Therefore, understanding where to look for the literature is crucial to performing the literature review efficiently.

Scopus (owned by Elsevier) is the largest database of peer-reviewed literature that includes titles, abstracts and citation information. It is a comprehensive source of the literature in science, engineering, technology, medical sciences, social sciences, and art and humanities.

It includes approximately 38,060 journals and allows you to understand the journal standing by presenting a total number of citations, cite score, and journal ranking in a specific research area.

Below you can see how you can assess the quality of the source on an example of Applied Energy, one of the prestigious journals that are highly regarded in my field of study.

An exciting feature of Scopus is that you can set up regular alerts for specific search strings. These will get delivered directly to your mailbox!

Web of Science

Web of Science is an independent platform run by Clarivate Analytics (Thomson Reuters) that gives you access to multiple databases with comprehensive citation data for 12,000 high impact journals and 160,000 conference proceedings .

Similarly to Scopus, it covers a broad range of research areas, from social science, arts and humanities, through science to engineering.

A useful feature is that in addition to information on what scholarly papers cited your work, it gives you an indication on where your research was shared or used (i.e. as a reference on Wikipedia!).

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is very similar to the conventional Google search engine, but its primary aim is to provide a search for academic literature.

In addition to peer-reviewed literature, you may find there doctoral theses and master dissertations, white papers, technical reports, preprints, books and other documents from scholarly websites.

I want you to be aware that there is a risk that some of the documents in the Google Scholar search results may not be peer reviewed or accurate. Therefore, as always, be critical in your assessment of the literature.

An interesting feature of Google Scholar is the option to follow the academics whose work is relevant to your project.

Most of us use Google on a daily basis. I believe you have already tried to use it for searching scholarly sources for your literature review. You can use it in a similar way to Google Scholar.

However, you may be directed to other depositories, publisher websites and grey literature. In my research, I tend to use it when I want to explore a particular topic, without going into many details.

ResearchGate

ResearchGate is a professional network for scientists and researchers, with over 17 million members worldwide. It aims to support knowledge sharing, networking, and collaboration.

It can be seen as an extensive database of papers, presentations and information on projects in your research area. It also stimulates academic discussion via the option to ask questions and help others to solve their problems. 

An interesting feature of ResearchGate is the fact that you can simply request a copy of the academic paper or a conference paper directly from the author if it is not available elsewhere.

Moreover, you may also find job opportunities that fit your profile!

Academia is a professional network for academics to share research papers. At the time of writing this blog, over 123 million academics already signed up to this platform.

Similarly to ResearchGate, Academia enables you to download papers that are not available elsewhere and see who is reading your articles.

ArXiv is a popular preprint service in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering, systems science and economics.

It currently comprises about 1.7m of scholarly articles. Although you may access these manuscripts for free, it is essential to highlight that, most likely, these have not been peer-reviewed or are currently being peer reviewed.

Preprints is a multidisciplinary platform for sharing preprints in vast areas of science, technology, engineering, art and humanities.

By sharing the early version of research outputs, you may stay more up to date with your research area. As in the case of ArXiV, when writing your literature review bear in mind that these sources are not peer-reviewed.

How to write the literature review efficiently?

As you start exploring the literature in your research area, you should ensure that you can keep track of what you have read and organise the research data. This will help you to increase the efficiency of writing the literature review!

There are lots of tools available that can help you to become more productive when writing your literature review and your papers overall.

Here are the tools that I use to manage my literature sources when I write the literature review for my research.

Mendeley is a free reference management tool that can help you to capture the bibliographic information of the articles you read, keep their copies in PDFs, highlight and comment on the most relevant information.

It is easy to integrate with browsers for data capture and MS Word for adding the references into your text as you go along writing the literature review. You can say goodbye to juggling the references manually and wasting hours of your valuable time just to re-number all references. And it will generate bibliography for your literature review automatically!

It is also a professional network that will support your networking and collaboration activities and will enable you to discover the latest research. Importantly, you can directly import that research to your reference list! 

Endnote is a commercial reference management tool which enables you to capture, manage and organise your references when writing your literature review.

It does pretty much similar work as Mendeley, but its free version is somewhat limited.

MS Excel is a tool within MS Office where you can use a spreadsheet for calculations, data analysis, visualisation, and programming.

As it lets you create tables, it is a perfect tool for collecting, organising and analysing data for your literature review.

If you keep your spreadsheet updated throughout your literature review, you may even include it in your final review as a summary table. These are very handy for the readers!

Google Sheets

Google Sheets is a similar tool to MS Excel but is available free of charge with your Google account. It will be equally useful for your literature review, as it lets you prepare summary tables and analyse your data. The only difference is that it runs only in Cloud.  

Key takeways…

I want you to remember that the literature review does not need to be a tedious exercise that you “have to do” in your project. This part of your research project will help you to scope and drive your project forward.

The research tools I included here are the ones I use in my work. I trust you found the list useful and will use some of them to improve your productivity!

If you are using research tools that are not listed here, I would be more than happy to hear about them. Make sure you share them in the comment!

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• Knowledge Base
• Dissertation
• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

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.

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

Why write 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, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. 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.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

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 objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. 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 if you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

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.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models and methods? Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

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 find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

Take notes and cite your sources

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’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference 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.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

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.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly-visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat – this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

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).

Chronological

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 summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse 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 organise 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.

Methodological

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:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

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.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

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, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole.
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources.
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

In the conclusion, you should summarise the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasise their significance.

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

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 dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarise yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

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  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

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How to write a superb literature review

Andy Tay is a freelance writer based in Singapore.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Literature reviews are important resources for scientists. They provide historical context for a field while offering opinions on its future trajectory. Creating them can provide inspiration for one’s own research, as well as some practice in writing. But few scientists are trained in how to write a review — or in what constitutes an excellent one. Even picking the appropriate software to use can be an involved decision (see ‘Tools and techniques’). So Nature asked editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews for their tips.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Updates & Corrections

Correction 09 December 2020 : An earlier version of the tables in this article included some incorrect details about the programs Zotero, Endnote and Manubot. These have now been corrected.

Hsing, I.-M., Xu, Y. & Zhao, W. Electroanalysis 19 , 755–768 (2007).

Article   Google Scholar  

Ledesma, H. A. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 14 , 645–657 (2019).

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Brahlek, M., Koirala, N., Bansal, N. & Oh, S. Solid State Commun. 215–216 , 54–62 (2015).

Choi, Y. & Lee, S. Y. Nature Rev. Chem . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-020-00221-w (2020).

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A literature review surveys prior research published in books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE : Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

• An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
• Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
• An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

• Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
• Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
• Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
• Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

• Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
• Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
• History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
• Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
• Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

• Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
• You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
• Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
• Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
• Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
• Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
• Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

• How are they organizing their ideas?
• What methods have they used to study the problem?
• What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
• What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
• How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

• Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
• Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
• Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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10 Best Literature Review Tools for Researchers

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Boost your research game with these Best Literature Review Tools for Researchers! Uncover hidden gems, organize your findings, and ace your next research paper!

Conducting literature reviews poses challenges for researchers due to the overwhelming volume of information available and the lack of efficient methods to manage and analyze it.

Researchers struggle to identify key sources, extract relevant information, and maintain accuracy while manually conducting literature reviews. This leads to inefficiency, errors, and difficulty in identifying gaps or trends in existing literature.

Advancements in technology have resulted in a variety of literature review tools. These tools streamline the process, offering features like automated searching, filtering, citation management, and research data extraction. They save time, improve accuracy, and provide valuable insights for researchers. 

In this article, we present a curated list of the 10 best literature review tools, empowering researchers to make informed choices and revolutionize their systematic literature review process.

Table of Contents

Top 10 Literature Review Tools for Researchers: In A Nutshell (2023)

#1. semantic scholar – a free, ai-powered research tool for scientific literature.

Semantic Scholar is a cutting-edge literature review tool that researchers rely on for its comprehensive access to academic publications. With its advanced AI algorithms and extensive database, it simplifies the discovery of relevant research papers. 

By employing semantic analysis, users can explore scholarly articles based on context and meaning, making it a go-to resource for scholars across disciplines. 

Additionally, Semantic Scholar offers personalized recommendations and alerts, ensuring researchers stay updated with the latest developments. However, users should be cautious of potential limitations. 

Not all scholarly content may be indexed, and occasional false positives or inaccurate associations can occur. Furthermore, the tool primarily focuses on computer science and related fields, potentially limiting coverage in other disciplines. 

Researchers should be mindful of these considerations and supplement Semantic Scholar with other reputable resources for a comprehensive literature review. Despite these caveats, Semantic Scholar remains a valuable tool for streamlining research and staying informed.

#2. Elicit – Research assistant using language models like GPT-3

Elicit is a game-changing literature review tool that has gained popularity among researchers worldwide. With its user-friendly interface and extensive database of scholarly articles, it streamlines the research process, saving time and effort. 

The tool employs advanced algorithms to provide personalized recommendations, ensuring researchers discover the most relevant studies for their field. Elicit also promotes collaboration by enabling users to create shared folders and annotate articles.

However, users should be cautious when using Elicit. It is important to verify the credibility and accuracy of the sources found through the tool, as the database encompasses a wide range of publications. 

Additionally, occasional glitches in the search function have been reported, leading to incomplete or inaccurate results. While Elicit offers tremendous benefits, researchers should remain vigilant and cross-reference information to ensure a comprehensive literature review.

#3. Scite.Ai – Your personal research assistant

Scite.Ai is a popular literature review tool that revolutionizes the research process for scholars. With its innovative citation analysis feature, researchers can evaluate the credibility and impact of scientific articles, making informed decisions about their inclusion in their own work. 

By assessing the context in which citations are used, Scite.Ai ensures that the sources selected are reliable and of high quality, enabling researchers to establish a strong foundation for their research.

However, while Scite.Ai offers numerous advantages, there are a few aspects to be cautious about. As with any data-driven tool, occasional errors or inaccuracies may arise, necessitating researchers to cross-reference and verify results with other reputable sources. 

Moreover, Scite.Ai’s coverage may be limited in certain subject areas and languages, with a possibility of missing relevant studies, especially in niche fields or non-English publications. 

Therefore, researchers should supplement the use of Scite.Ai with additional resources to ensure comprehensive literature coverage and avoid any potential gaps in their research.

Rayyan offers the following paid plans:

• Monthly Plan: $20
• Yearly Plan: $12

#4. DistillerSR – Literature Review Software

DistillerSR is a powerful literature review tool trusted by researchers for its user-friendly interface and robust features. With its advanced search capabilities, researchers can quickly find relevant studies from multiple databases, saving time and effort. 

The tool offers comprehensive screening and data extraction functionalities, streamlining the review process and improving the reliability of findings. Real-time collaboration features also facilitate seamless teamwork among researchers.

While DistillerSR offers numerous advantages, there are a few considerations. Users should invest time in understanding the tool’s features and functionalities to maximize its potential. Additionally, the pricing structure may be a factor for individual researchers or small teams with limited budgets.

Despite occasional technical glitches reported by some users, the developers actively address these issues through updates and improvements, ensuring a better user experience. 

Overall, DistillerSR empowers researchers to navigate the vast sea of information, enhancing the quality and efficiency of literature reviews while fostering collaboration among research teams .

#5. Rayyan – AI Powered Tool for Systematic Literature Reviews

Rayyan is a powerful literature review tool that simplifies the research process for scholars and academics. With its user-friendly interface and efficient management features, Rayyan is highly regarded by researchers worldwide. 

It allows users to import and organize large volumes of scholarly articles, making it easier to identify relevant studies for their research projects. The tool also facilitates seamless collaboration among team members, enhancing productivity and streamlining the research workflow. 

However, it’s important to be aware of a few aspects. The free version of Rayyan has limitations, and upgrading to a premium subscription may be necessary for additional functionalities. 

Users should also be mindful of occasional technical glitches and compatibility issues, promptly reporting any problems. Despite these considerations, Rayyan remains a valuable asset for researchers, providing an effective solution for literature review tasks.

Rayyan offers both free and paid plans:

• Professional: $8.25/month
• Student: $4/month
• Pro Team: $8.25/month
• Team+: $24.99/month

#6. Consensus – Use AI to find you answers in scientific research

Consensus is a cutting-edge literature review tool that has become a go-to choice for researchers worldwide. Its intuitive interface and powerful capabilities make it a preferred tool for navigating and analyzing scholarly articles. 

With Consensus, researchers can save significant time by efficiently organizing and accessing relevant research material.People consider Consensus for several reasons. 

Its advanced search algorithms and filters help researchers sift through vast amounts of information, ensuring they focus on the most relevant articles. By streamlining the literature review process, Consensus allows researchers to extract valuable insights and accelerate their research progress.

However, there are a few factors to watch out for when using Consensus. As with any automated tool, researchers should exercise caution and independently verify the accuracy and relevance of the generated results. Complex or niche topics may present challenges, resulting in limited search results. Researchers should also supplement Consensus with manual searches to ensure comprehensive coverage of the literature.

Overall, Consensus is a valuable resource for researchers seeking to optimize their literature review process. By leveraging its features alongside critical thinking and manual searches, researchers can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their work, advancing their research endeavors to new heights.

Consensus offers both free and paid plans:

• Premium: $9.99/month
• Enterprise: Custom

#7. RAx – AI-powered reading assistant

Consensus is a revolutionary literature review tool that has transformed the research process for scholars worldwide. With its user-friendly interface and advanced features, it offers a vast database of academic publications across various disciplines, providing access to relevant and up-to-date literature. 

Using advanced algorithms and machine learning, Consensus delivers personalized recommendations, saving researchers time and effort in their literature search. 

However, researchers should be cautious of potential biases in the recommendation system and supplement their search with manual verification to ensure a comprehensive review. 

Additionally, occasional inaccuracies in metadata have been reported, making it essential for users to cross-reference information with reliable sources. Despite these considerations, Consensus remains an invaluable tool for enhancing the efficiency and quality of literature reviews.

RAx offers both free and paid plans. Currently offering 50% discounts as of July 2023:

• Premium: $6/month $3/month
• Premium with Copilot: $8/month $4/month

#8. Lateral – Advance your research with AI

“Lateral” is a revolutionary literature review tool trusted by researchers worldwide. With its user-friendly interface and powerful search capabilities, it simplifies the process of gathering and analyzing scholarly articles. 

By leveraging advanced algorithms and machine learning, Lateral saves researchers precious time by retrieving relevant articles and uncovering new connections between them, fostering interdisciplinary exploration.

While Lateral provides numerous benefits, users should exercise caution. It is advisable to cross-reference its findings with other sources to ensure a comprehensive review. 

Additionally, researchers must be mindful of potential biases introduced by the tool’s algorithms and should critically evaluate and interpret the results. 

Despite these considerations, Lateral remains an indispensable resource, empowering researchers to delve deeper into their fields of study and make valuable contributions to the academic community.

RAx offers both free and paid plans:

• Premium: $10.98
• Pro: $27.46

#9. Iris AI – Introducing the researcher workspace

Iris AI is an innovative literature review tool that has transformed the research process for academics and scholars. With its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities, Iris AI offers a seamless and efficient way to navigate through a vast array of academic papers and publications. 

Researchers are drawn to this tool because it saves valuable time by automating the tedious task of literature review and provides comprehensive coverage across multiple disciplines. 

Its intelligent recommendation system suggests related articles, enabling researchers to discover hidden connections and broaden their knowledge base. However, caution should be exercised while using Iris AI. 

While the tool excels at surfacing relevant papers, researchers should independently evaluate the quality and validity of the sources to ensure the reliability of their work. 

It’s important to note that Iris AI may occasionally miss niche or lesser-known publications, necessitating a supplementary search using traditional methods. 

Additionally, being an algorithm-based tool, there is a possibility of false positives or missed relevant articles due to the inherent limitations of automated text analysis. Nevertheless, Iris AI remains an invaluable asset for researchers, enhancing the quality and efficiency of their research endeavors.

Iris AI offers different pricing plans to cater to various user needs:

• Basic: Free
• Premium: Monthly ($82.41), Quarterly ($222.49), and Annual ($791.07)

#10. Scholarcy – Summarize your literature through AI

Scholarcy is a powerful literature review tool that helps researchers streamline their work. By employing advanced algorithms and natural language processing, it efficiently analyzes and summarizes academic papers, saving researchers valuable time. 

Scholarcy’s ability to extract key information and generate concise summaries makes it an attractive option for scholars looking to quickly grasp the main concepts and findings of multiple papers.

However, it is important to exercise caution when relying solely on Scholarcy. While it provides a useful starting point, engaging with the original research papers is crucial to ensure a comprehensive understanding. 

Scholarcy’s automated summarization may not capture the nuanced interpretations or contextual information presented in the full text. 

Researchers should also be aware that certain types of documents, particularly those with heavy mathematical or technical content, may pose challenges for the tool. 

Despite these considerations, Scholarcy remains a valuable resource for researchers seeking to enhance their literature review process and improve overall efficiency.

Scholarcy offer the following pricing plans:

• Browser Extension and Flashcards: Free 
• Personal Library: $9.99
• Academic Institution License: $8K+

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, conducting a comprehensive literature review is a crucial aspect of any research project, and the availability of reliable and efficient tools can greatly facilitate this process for researchers. This article has explored the top 10 literature review tools that have gained popularity among researchers.

Moreover, the rise of AI-powered tools like Iris.ai and Sci.ai promises to revolutionize the literature review process by automating various tasks and enhancing research efficiency. 

Ultimately, the choice of literature review tool depends on individual preferences and research needs, but the tools presented in this article serve as valuable resources to enhance the quality and productivity of research endeavors. 

Researchers are encouraged to explore and utilize these tools to stay at the forefront of knowledge in their respective fields and contribute to the advancement of science and academia.

Q1. What are literature review tools for researchers?

Literature review tools for researchers are software or online platforms designed to assist researchers in efficiently conducting literature reviews. These tools help researchers find, organize, analyze, and synthesize relevant academic papers and other sources of information.

Q2. What criteria should researchers consider when choosing literature review tools?

When choosing literature review tools, researchers should consider factors such as the tool’s search capabilities, database coverage, user interface, collaboration features, citation management, annotation and highlighting options, integration with reference management software, and data extraction capabilities. 

It’s also essential to consider the tool’s accessibility, cost, and technical support.

Q3. Are there any literature review tools specifically designed for systematic reviews or meta-analyses?

Yes, there are literature review tools that cater specifically to systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which involve a rigorous and structured approach to reviewing existing literature. These tools often provide features tailored to the specific needs of these methodologies, such as:

Screening and eligibility assessment: Systematic review tools typically offer functionalities for screening and assessing the eligibility of studies based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. This streamlines the process of selecting relevant studies for analysis.

Data extraction and quality assessment: These tools often include templates and forms to facilitate data extraction from selected studies. Additionally, they may provide features for assessing the quality and risk of bias in individual studies.

Meta-analysis support: Some literature review tools include statistical analysis features that assist in conducting meta-analyses. These features can help calculate effect sizes, perform statistical tests, and generate forest plots or other visual representations of the meta-analytic results.

Reporting assistance: Many tools provide templates or frameworks for generating systematic review reports, ensuring compliance with established guidelines such as PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses).

Q4. Can literature review tools help with organizing and annotating collected references?

Yes, literature review tools often come equipped with features to help researchers organize and annotate collected references. Some common functionalities include:

Reference management: These tools enable researchers to import references from various sources, such as databases or PDF files, and store them in a central library. They typically allow you to create folders or tags to organize references based on themes or categories.

Annotation capabilities: Many tools provide options for adding annotations, comments, or tags to individual references or specific sections of research articles. This helps researchers keep track of important information, highlight key findings, or note potential connections between different sources.

Full-text search: Literature review tools often offer full-text search functionality, allowing you to search within the content of imported articles or documents. This can be particularly useful when you need to locate specific information or keywords across multiple references.

Integration with citation managers: Some literature review tools integrate with popular citation managers like Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote, allowing seamless transfer of references and annotations between platforms.

By leveraging these features, researchers can streamline the organization and annotation of their collected references, making it easier to retrieve relevant information during the literature review process.

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Research Methods

• Getting Started
• Literature Review Research
• Research Design
• Research Design By Discipline
• SAGE Research Methods
• Teaching with SAGE Research Methods

Literature Review

• What is a Literature Review?
• What is NOT a Literature Review?
• Purposes of a Literature Review
• Types of Literature Reviews
• Literature Reviews vs. Systematic Reviews
• Systematic vs. Meta-Analysis

Literature Review  is a comprehensive survey of the works published in a particular field of study or line of research, usually over a specific period of time, in the form of an in-depth, critical bibliographic essay or annotated list in which attention is drawn to the most significant works.

Also, we can define a literature review as the collected body of scholarly works related to a topic:

• Summarizes and analyzes previous research relevant to a topic
• Includes scholarly books and articles published in academic journals
• Can be an specific scholarly paper or a section in a research paper

The objective of a Literature Review is to find previous published scholarly works relevant to an specific topic

• Help gather ideas or information
• Keep up to date in current trends and findings
• Help develop new questions

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Helps focus your own research questions or problems
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Suggests unexplored ideas or populations
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Tests assumptions; may help counter preconceived ideas and remove unconscious bias.
• Identifies critical gaps, points of disagreement, or potentially flawed methodology or theoretical approaches.
• Indicates potential directions for future research.

All content in this section is from Literature Review Research from Old Dominion University 

Keep in mind the following, a literature review is NOT:

Not an essay 

Not an annotated bibliography  in which you summarize each article that you have reviewed.  A literature review goes beyond basic summarizing to focus on the critical analysis of the reviewed works and their relationship to your research question.

Not a research paper   where you select resources to support one side of an issue versus another.  A lit review should explain and consider all sides of an argument in order to avoid bias, and areas of agreement and disagreement should be highlighted.

A literature review serves several purposes. For example, it

• provides thorough knowledge of previous studies; introduces seminal works.
• helps focus one’s own research topic.
• identifies a conceptual framework for one’s own research questions or problems; indicates potential directions for future research.
• suggests previously unused or underused methodologies, designs, quantitative and qualitative strategies.
• identifies gaps in previous studies; identifies flawed methodologies and/or theoretical approaches; avoids replication of mistakes.
• helps the researcher avoid repetition of earlier research.
• suggests unexplored populations.
• determines whether past studies agree or disagree; identifies controversy in the literature.
• tests assumptions; may help counter preconceived ideas and remove unconscious bias.

As Kennedy (2007) notes*, it is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the original studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally that become part of the lore of field. In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews.

Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are several approaches to how they can be done, depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study. Listed below are definitions of types of literature reviews:

Argumentative Review      This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply imbedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews.

Integrative Review      Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication.

Historical Review      Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical reviews are focused on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review      A review does not always focus on what someone said [content], but how they said it [method of analysis]. This approach provides a framework of understanding at different levels (i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches and data collection and analysis techniques), enables researchers to draw on a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection and data analysis, and helps highlight many ethical issues which we should be aware of and consider as we go through our study.

Systematic Review      This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review. Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?"

Theoretical Review      The purpose of this form is to concretely examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review help establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

* Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature."  Educational Researcher  36 (April 2007): 139-147.

All content in this section is from The Literature Review created by Dr. Robert Larabee USC

Robinson, P. and Lowe, J. (2015),  Literature reviews vs systematic reviews.  Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 39: 103-103. doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.12393

What's in the name? The difference between a Systematic Review and a Literature Review, and why it matters . By Lynn Kysh from University of Southern California

Systematic review or meta-analysis?

A  systematic review  answers a defined research question by collecting and summarizing all empirical evidence that fits pre-specified eligibility criteria.

A  meta-analysis  is the use of statistical methods to summarize the results of these studies.

Systematic reviews, just like other research articles, can be of varying quality. They are a significant piece of work (the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at York estimates that a team will take 9-24 months), and to be useful to other researchers and practitioners they should have:

• clearly stated objectives with pre-defined eligibility criteria for studies
• explicit, reproducible methodology
• a systematic search that attempts to identify all studies
• assessment of the validity of the findings of the included studies (e.g. risk of bias)
• systematic presentation, and synthesis, of the characteristics and findings of the included studies

Not all systematic reviews contain meta-analysis. 

Meta-analysis is the use of statistical methods to summarize the results of independent studies. By combining information from all relevant studies, meta-analysis can provide more precise estimates of the effects of health care than those derived from the individual studies included within a review.  More information on meta-analyses can be found in  Cochrane Handbook, Chapter 9 .

A meta-analysis goes beyond critique and integration and conducts secondary statistical analysis on the outcomes of similar studies.  It is a systematic review that uses quantitative methods to synthesize and summarize the results.

An advantage of a meta-analysis is the ability to be completely objective in evaluating research findings.  Not all topics, however, have sufficient research evidence to allow a meta-analysis to be conducted.  In that case, an integrative review is an appropriate strategy. 

Some of the content in this section is from Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: step by step guide created by Kate McAllister.

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• Next: Research Design >>
• Last Updated: Aug 21, 2023 4:07 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.udel.edu/researchmethods

Doing a literature review using digital tools (with Notion template)

I’ve recently revamped my literature review workflow since discovering Notion . Notion is an organization application that allows you to make various pages and databases. It’s kind of like your own personal wiki- you can link your pages and embed databases into another page, adding filters and sorting them using user-set properties. The databases are what I use the most. I’ve essentially transferred all of my excel sheets into Notion databases and find it much easier to filter and sort things now. In this post, I’ll go through how I do my literature review and share a Notion template that you can use.

I like to organize my literature review using various literature review tools along with two relational Notion databases: a ‘literature tracker’ and a ‘literature notes’ matrix. You can see a flow chart of my literature review process below (it’s inspired by this post by Jenn’s Studious Life and the three pass method for reading papers which I wrote about last week in this post ):

As you can see, this process involves a couple of decision points which helps me focus on the most important papers. This is an iterative process that keeps me up to date on relevant research in my field as I am getting new paper alerts in my inbox most days. I used this method quite successfully to write the literature review for my confirmation report and regularly add to it for the expanded version that will become part of my PhD thesis. In this post, I’ll break down how this works for me and how I implement my Notion databases to synthesise the literature I read into a coherent argument.

You can click on the links below to navigate to a particular section of this article:

The literature search

The literature tracker, the literature synthesis matrix, writing your literature review, iterating your literature review, my literature review notion template, some useful resources.

This is always the first step in building your literature review. There are plenty of resources online all about how to start with your search- I find a mixture of database search tools works for me.

The first thing to do when starting your literature review is to identify some keywords to use in your initial searches. It might be worth chatting to your supervisor to make a list of these and then add or remove terms to it as you go down different research routes. You can use keyword searches relevant to your research questions as well tools that find ‘similar’ papers and look at citation links. I also find that just looking through the bibliographies of literature in your field and seeing which papers are regularly cited gives you a good idea of the core papers in your area (you’ll start recognising the key ones after a while). Another method for finding literature is the snowballing method which is particularly useful for conducting a systematic review.

Here are some digital tools I use to help me find literature relevant to my research questions:

Library building and suggestions

Mendeley was my research management tool of choice prior to when I started using Notion to organize all of my literature and create my synthesis matrix. I still use Mendeley as a library just in case anything happens to my Notion. It’s easy to add new papers to your library using the browser extension with just one click. I like that Mendeley allows you to share your folders with colleagues and that I can export bib.tex files straight from my library into overleaf documents where I’m writing up papers and my thesis. You do need to make sure that all of the details are correct before you export the bib.tex files though as this is taken straight from the information plane. I also like to use the tag function in Mendeley to add more specific identifiers than my folders.

Mendeley is also useful for finding literature related to those in your library- I’ve found quite a few interesting papers through the email updates they send out each week with ‘suggested papers’. You can also browse these suggestions from within Mendeley and use its interface to do initial keyword searches. The key is to just scan the titles and then decide whether it’s worth your time reading the abstract and then the rest of it. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of papers being published every day so being picky in what you read is important (and something I need to work on more!).

Some similar tools that allow you to build a library and get literature recommendations include Zotero , Researcher , Academia , and ResearchGate . It’s up to you which one you use for your own purposes. One big factor for me when choosing Mendeley was that my supervisor and colleagues use it so it makes it much easier to share libraries with them, so maybe ask your colleagues what they use before settling on one.

Literature databases and keyword alerts

There are a variety of databases out there for finding literature. My go-to is Web of Science as it shows you citation data and has a nice interface. I used this to begin my initial literature search using my keywords.

The other thing you can do with these kinds of tools is set up email alerts to get a list of recent work that has just been published with any keywords you set. These alerts are usually where I find papers to read during journal club with my supervisor. You can customize these emails to what suits you- mine are set to the top 10 most relevant new papers for each keyword weekly and I track around 5 words/phrases. This allows me to stay on top of the most recent literature in my field- I have alerts set up on a variety of services to ensure that I don’t miss anything crucial (and alerts from the ArXiv mean I see preprints too). Again, you need to be picky about what you read from these to ensure that they are very relevant to your research. At this stage, it’s important to spend as little time as possible scanning titles as this can easily become a time suck.

Some of the other tools I have keyword (and author) email alerts set up on are: Scopus , Google Scholar , Dimensions , and ArXiv alerts . I set 10 minutes maximum aside per day to scan through any new email alerts and save anything relevant to me into my literature tracker (which I’ll come to more later).

Literature mapping tools

There are loads of these kinds of tools out there. Literature mapping can be helpful for finding what the seminal papers are in your field and seeing how literature connects. It’s like a huge web and I find these visual interfaces make it much easier to get my head around the relationships between papers. I use two of these tools during the literature search phase of the flowchart: Citation Gecko and Connected Papers .

Citation Gecko builds you a citation tree using ‘seed papers’. You can import these from various reference management software (like Mendeley), bib.tex files or manually search for papers. This is particularly useful if your supervisor has provided you with some core papers to start off with, or you can use the key papers you identified through scanning the bibliographies of literature you read. My project is split into fairly clear ‘subprojects’ so these tools help me see connections between the various things I’m working on (or a lack of them which is good in some ways as it shows I’ve found a clear research gap!).

You can switch between different views and add connecting papers as new seed papers to expand your network. I use this tool from time to time with various different papers associated with my subprojects. It’s helped me make sure I haven’t missed any key papers when doing my literature review and I’ve found it to be fairly accurate, although sometimes more recent papers don’t have any citation data on it so that’s something to bear in mind.

Connected Papers uses a ‘similarity’ algorithm to show paper relationships. This isn’t a citation tree like Citation Gecko but it does also give you prior and derivative works if you want to look at them. All you do is put one of your key papers into the search box and ‘build a graph’. It will then show you related papers, including those which don’t have direct citation links to the key paper. I think this is great for ensuring that you’re not staying inside an insular bubble of the people who all cite each other. It also allows me to see some of the research which is perhaps a bit more tangential to my project and get an overview of where my work sits within the field more broadly.

I like Connected Paper’s key for the generated tree and that it shows where related papers connect between themselves. Again, it’s helpful for ensuring that you haven’t missed a really important work when compiling your literature review and doesn’t just rely on citation links between papers.

This is where I record the details of any paper I come across that I think might be relevant to my PhD. In some ways, it’s very similar to Mendeley but it’s a version that sits within Notion so I have some more customised filtering categories set up, like my ‘status’ field where I track which pass I am on.

Here’s what my literature tracker looks like:

The beauty of Notion is that you can decide which properties you want to record in your database and customize it to your needs. You can sort and filter using these properties including making nested filters and using multiple filters at once. This makes it really easy to find what you’re looking for. For example, say I’m doing my literature review for my ‘FIB etching’ subproject and want to see all of the papers that I marked as relevant to my PhD but haven’t started reading yet. All I need to do is add a couple of filters:

And it filters everything so that I’m just looking at the papers I want to check out. It’s this flexibility that I think really gives Notion the edge when it comes to my literature review process.

The other thing I really like about using Notion rather than excel is that I can add different database views. I especially like using the kanban board view to see where I’m at with my reading workflow:

When I add something to the literature tracker database, I scan the abstract for keywords to add and categorize it in terms of relevant topics. It’s essentially the first pass of the paper, so that involves reading the title, abstract, introduction, section headings, conclusions, and checking the references for anything you recognise. After this is done, I decide whether it’s relevant enough to my PhD to proceed to do a second pass of the paper, at which point I will progress to populating my literature notes database.

Once I’ve decided that I want to do a second pass on a paper, I then add it to the ‘literature notes’ database. This is part of the beauty of Notion: relational databases. I have ‘rollup’ properties set in the literature notes database which shows all of the things I added during my first pass and allows me to filter the matrix using them. You can watch the video below to see exactly how to add a new paper to the ‘notes’ database from the ‘tracker’ database:

During the second pass, I populate the new fields in the ‘notes’ database. These are:

Summary | Objective of study | Key Results | Theory | Materials | Methods | Conclusions | Future work suggested | Critiques | Key connected papers.

I also have various themes/questions/ideas as properties which I add a few notes on for each relevant paper. I then complete my ‘questions for critical engagement’ which are on the entry’s ‘Notes’ page and are stored in the ‘Article Template’. If you want to read more about this process, check out my ‘how to read a scientific paper’ post .

By, doing this I create a synthesis matrix where I can see a breakdown of the key aspects of each paper and can scan down a column to get an overview of all of the papers I have read. For example, if I wanted to see all of the papers about Quantum Point Contacts to get an idea of what previous work has been done so that I can identify my research gap, I can filter using the tag property and can then see the notes I wrote for each entry, broken down by section. I also have tags for my research questions or themes, materials used, experimental techniques, fabrication techniques, and anything else that comes to mind really! The more tags I have for a paper, the easier it is to filter when I want to find a specific thing.

The other property I have included in the literature notes database is ‘Key connected papers’. This is a relation but is within the database itself. So it means that I can link to the page of other papers in the literature matrix. I’ve found this to be useful for connecting to what I call ‘core’ papers. I can also filter using this property, allowing me to see my notes on all of the papers I’ve read that are related to a certain ‘core’ paper. This helps with synthesising all of the information and forming my argument.

For those papers most relevant to my research (the ‘core’ papers) I’ll also do a third pass which involves reimplementing the paper in my own words. This is quite a time-consuming task so not many papers reach this stage, but those which I have done a third pass on are the ones I know really well. My hope is that this will stand me in good stead for my viva. This process also helps me refine my research questions further as I gain a deeper understanding of the field.

I find that writing up a review is extremely intimidating, but having the literature matrix makes this process that bit easier. I won’t go into too many details as there are already loads of resources out there going into the details of writing up a review, but here’s a brief overview of my own process:

Identify your research themes

Using your literature matrix, review each research theme or question and decide which ones you are going to focus on. These will form the different sections of your literature review and help you write your thesis statement(s). You can also think about how your questions link to ensure that you’re telling a coherent story with your review.

Choose and summarize literature related to each theme

For each section, gather up the most important related literature and summarize the key points of each source. A good literature review doesn’t need to cover all the literature out there, just the most significant sources. I try to stick to around 10 or fewer key sources per section.

Critical evaluation of sources

This is where you utilize the ‘questions for critical engagement’. Make sure you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the studies you’re writing about. By doing this, you can establish where our knowledge is lacking which will come in helpful later when establishing a research gap.

Analyse each source in relation to other literature

Try to make sure that you are telling a coherent story by linking between your sources. You can go back to the literature matrix here and use it to group similar studies to compare and contrast them. You should also discuss the relevance of the source’s findings in relation to the broader field and core papers.

Situate your research in a research gap

This is where you justify your own research. Using what you have laid out in the rest of the review, show that there is a research gap that you plan to fill and explain how you are going to do that. This should mean that your thesis flows nicely into the next section where you’ll cover the materials and methods you used in your research project.

In some ways, a literature review never really ends. As you can see in the flowchart at the beginning of this post, I regularly update and revise my literature review as well as refining my research questions. At this point in my PhD, I think that most of my research questions are quite well defined, so I’m mostly just adding any newly published work into my review. I don’t spend much time reading literature at the moment but I’m sure I’ll return to it more regularly when I’m in the write-up phase of my PhD. There is a balance to be had between reading and writing for your literature review and actually getting on with your own research!

Here’s the link to my Notion Literature Review Template . You can duplicate it and adapt it however you want, but this should save you some time setting up the initial databases if you’d like to use my method for organizing your own literature review.

Here are some resources on how to do a literature review that I’ve found useful during my PhD:

• The Literature Review: Step-by-Step Guide for Students
• 3 Steps to Save You From Drowning in Your Literature Review
• How to write a literature review
• How to become a literature searching ninja
• Mind the gap
• 7 Secrets to Write a PhD Literature Review The Right Way

If you like my work, I’d love your support!

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11 thoughts on “Doing a literature review using digital tools (with Notion template)”

Thank you so much for your insight and structured process. This will help me a lot kicking off my Master Thesis.

The perfect method to organize the literature that I have read and will read in the future. I am so glad to have found your website, this will save me from thrashing around in the swamp of literature. I was already feeling the limits of my memory when I was doing my master thesis and this will be so helpful during my PhD.

Thank you so much for this detailed post! Lily 🙂

Thank you very much for this. I’m doing my undergrad atm and reading a lot of papers. This seems like an excellent way of tracking everything.

Thank you, you made my beginning less stressful. I like your system and i helped me a lot. I have one question (more might come later), What do you mean by " journal club with my supervisor."

This piece is really really helpful! I started from this one and went through the rest blog writings. I agree on many points with Daisy. I had an unhappy experience of PhD two years ago and now just started a new one in another country. I will take it as an adventure and enjoy it.

This is an AMAZING template. I've found this so helpful for my own workflow. Thank you so much!

I found this post really helpful. Thank you.

thank you very much!

Hi! Thank you very much for posting this guide and sharing your notion template! I do have a question—do you manually enter the references into Notion, or is there any way to speed up the process? Ta x

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Long-Term Quality of Life for Patients with Spina Bifida

• Open access
• Published: 07 May 2024

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Madeleine A. Z. Ball   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4491-8548 1 &
• Douglass B. Clayton 2  

Purpose of Review

This review explores the literature that currently exists regarding quality of life for patients with spina bifida and assesses screening tools available for practitioners to assess these outcomes. Domains addressed include health related quality of life, relationships, bowel and bladder dysfunction, sexuality, pain, and mood.

Recent Findings

Several recent papers have assessed available questionnaires and reviewed findings of key quality of life domains, with varying results.

Historically, the literature has focused on surgical outcomes for patients with spina bifida. Though some authors have begun to explore quality of life for this patient population, particularly in the short-term, a paucity of quality, long-term studies exist that describe quality of life domains or offer potential targets for improvements in outcomes.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Spina bifida (SB) is a group of congenital disorders caused by the incomplete closure of the developing neural tube. Myelomeningocele (MMC), the most common type of SB lesion, is defined by extrusion of the spinal cord outside of the canal. Compared to the closed type (non-myelomeningocele), MMC is associated with more severe neurologic consequences. All types of SB have the potential to lead to a wide variety of clinical manifestations including lower extremity weakness, decreased sensation, bladder and bowel dysfunction, bone and joint abnormalities, and sexual dysfunction [ 1 •].

Globally, SB impacts approximately 40 per 100,000 live births per year [ 2 ]. Early emphasis in SB care was primarily focused on surgical and medical efforts to extend life expectancy and reduce morbidity. Due to rapid and continuous improvements in surgical and medical management, the life expectancy for these patients has increased dramatically in the past several decades, increasing from about 15 years in 1956 to nearly as high as that of the general population today [ 3 ]. In the United States, it is conservatively estimated that 166,000 or more individuals are currently living with SB and the majority are adults [ 4 , 5 , 6 ].

With more patients surviving into adulthood, it is important to expand academic focus to include long-term quality of life (QOL) considerations. While efforts have begun to investigate QOL outcomes, minimal research exists examining long-term patient outcomes, nor addressing potential solutions to improve QOL. The limited studies available focus more on function, rather than perception and lived experience of SB patients [ 7 , 8 ••]. A shift away from immediate short-term surgical successes to long-term QOL metrics will be vital. Accurate assessment and use of these metrics have been shown to aid clinical decision making, improve outcomes, and patient satisfaction [ 9 ]. Additionally, a focus on QOL is particularly important for urologists, given many symptoms treated by the specialty are chronic and can impact patient psychosocial condition (i.e. bladder, self-esteem, and sexuality). As such, many in the field have called for QOL measures to better individualize and tailor patient care [ 10 ].

This review outlines the literature describing QOL survey instruments and current long-term studies assessing QOL across multiple domains.

Quality of Life Survey Instruments

In 1995, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a definition of QOL as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease,” noting that QOL is inherently subjective [ 11 ]. To our knowledge, the first study about QOL metrics in patients with SB was published in 1997 and, since then, only a handful of studies have become available [ 12 ].

In the 2020s, a strong shift towards focusing on patient experience developed, which led to a 2021 review by Raveendran et al. evaluating the available literature on available QOL survey instruments in pediatric urology [ 8 ••].

Survey instruments can be broken down into those that assess function (i.e. both physical and social activities), quality of life (i.e. subjective perception of a respondent’s life and goals), or a combination of both. Raveendran identified 9 instruments (38 studies) assessing function, 4 instruments (9 studies) assessing QOL, and 9 instruments (17 studies) assessing a combination of function and QOL [ 8 ••]. The authors go on to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each survey instrument and provide a summary of all available surveys.

Overall, Raveendran et al. found that 88.4% of studies used an instrument assessing function while only 9% of studies used an instrument exclusively designed to measure QOL, highlighting the continued need to improve strategies for measuring and studying QOL [ 8 ••]. The most used survey in pediatric urology was the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL), a survey designed to measure function. Quality of Life Assessment in Spina Bifida (QUALAS), KINDL, KIDSCREEN, and DISABKIDS are surveys that are designed to measure quality and should be considered over more traditional questionnaires when selecting an instrument [ 8 ••].

In response to Raveendran et al., Tasian and Ellison (2021) published a commentary in which they emphasize the importance of intentionality in instrument selection. They propose that it is not only vital to consider patient experience, but to select instruments that focus on “clinically relevant and actionable aspects of physical, social, and emotional health [ 13 ].” In addition, the continuous inclusion of patients and caregivers is particularly important when considering lived experiences, given goals and expectations readily change throughout life. Finally, most studies use instruments that rely on typically developing individuals or measures designed for a different age group or disability [ 14 ]. Szymanski et al. emphasize that questionnaires must be validated not only using statistical analyses, but also with qualitative analyses of face validity to ensure they measure what they purport to measure. They write, “QOL is a subjective experience… Therefore, QOL questionnaires should answer if what is happening matters to the child." [ 15 ••].

In addition to selecting a survey that focuses on QOL, it is vital to use one that is validated and specific to the age and condition of the patient in question. QUALAS as well as PROMIS, a group of NIH-sponsored assessment tools developed specifically for patient populations in question [ 16 ], may be two such measures.

Self-Report v. Proxy

One additional important consideration in selecting a survey instrument is the concept of self- versus proxy report. In this population, particularly when patients are still children, it is common for caregivers or family members to represent the patient. Though some surveys have been validated specifically for use by a caregiver, self-report is the superior choice [ 15 ••]. Historically, the literature has demonstrated that patients are not as bothered by symptoms as parents and providers may perceive [ 17 ]. With some variation [ 18 ], this trend has largely remained true in the last several decades [ 19 , 20 ]. These findings provide support for the “disability paradox,” a concept in which observers (aka “proxies”), such as family members, caregivers or healthcare professionals, underestimate the QOL of people under their care.

Furthermore, many QOL surveys equate function with high quality, which inherently discriminates against individuals with disabilities as it assumes people with disabilities automatically cannot have as high of quality of life. Sawin et al. write “this conceptual equation devalues the lives of people with disabilities by automatically declaring that a person with a disability cannot have as good a quality of life as someone without disabilities.” [ 20 ].

To limit this bias and appropriately prioritize and remedy treatable symptoms, it is vital to ask patients directly about their quality of life and to select a survey instrument designed to assess quality and not function.

Quality of Life Domains

Domains of QOL measured in surveys are varied, reflecting broad areas of concern for these patients. Starowicz et al. (2021) report the most common chief complaints in this patient population are care coordination, neurogenic bladder, medications, assistive devices, and neurogenic bowel. Additional concerns include pain, sexuality, and mental health [ 21 ].

As such, we will review available literature across the domains of health-related quality of life, relationships, bowel and bladder dysfunction, sexuality, pain, and mood.

Health Related Quality of Life

Health related quality of life (HRQOL) refers to the patient’s subjective opinion of the impact of a condition or health-status on their day-to-day life [ 22 ].

Several studies directly examine this sub-domain for patients with SB. The PROMIS Global Health questionnaire (PGH-7) is a questionnaire that asks individuals to rate their overall health, quality of life, and their physical, mental, and social health. The median PGH-7 score in the U.S. population is 50 (± 10) [ 23 ]. A 2022 study used the PGH-7 to examine the association between health literacy and self-reported quality of life in adolescents and adults with SB aged 12–31 years. The authors found that mean PGH-7 score was 47 (± 8) with a positive association between health literacy and patient reported outcomes [ 24 •]. These data suggest a limited reduction in HRQOL for patients with SB exists when compared to the general population.

Conversely, Rocque et al. reported that patients with MMC had significantly lower QOL overall than other forms of SB. The authors evaluated children and adolescents with SB aged 5–20 using the Health Utilities Index-3 (HUI3) [ 25 ]. The HUI3 is not specific to SB and overrepresents ambulation, which could explain this finding and not necessarily be a true representation of HRQOL.

Though additional long-term studies for this domain are needed, available data of HRQOL in SB patients does not show strong evidence of differences compared to healthy controls.

Importance of Relationships

As for any person, close interpersonal relationships are vital for patients with spina bifida and are an important consideration in assessment of quality of life. Thus, several studies have examined the role of relationships and their impact on QOL. In 2019, Ridosh et al. asked the question “what makes a good quality of life?” to 209 families and patients with SB. The most frequently cited response was an engaged family [ 14 ]. Further, in a 2021 retrospective review evaluating health concerns amongst 94 adults with SB, Starowicz et al. reported social and multidisciplinary care as common concerns [ 21 ].

Fremion (2021) used QUALAS, a survey tool validated specifically for patients with SB, to examine a wide variety of domains including family/independence. They found that in a group of 88 young adults with SB, they had a score of 73.8 ( \(\pm\) 19.9) [ 26 ••]. This value is lower than the mean for adolescents without SB of 86.1 ( \(\pm\) 18.8) [ 27 ].

In general, though representing an important contributor to overall QOL, relationships and familial support are understudied in this patient population. The few studies that exist suggest that this population has lower QOL in this domain, pointing to relationships as a key target for intervention and creative problem solving.

Impact of Bladder and Bowel Dysfunction

Bladder and bowel incontinence have a strong impact on QOL, a finding that has been well supported in recent years. In 2015, Wagner et al. surveyed 72 adults with SB aged 18–68 using the validated Spina Bifida Secondary Conditions (SBSC) tool and found that 54% experienced stool incontinence and 36% experienced bladder incontinence. 90% of those with bowel incontinence and 81% of those with bladder incontinence felt this symptom impacted their daily life [ 28 ]. Likewise, achieving continence has been demonstrated to improve outcomes. One study found that a bowel management strategy improved QOL across all domains for SB patients [ 18 ]. Another identified a positive association between continence and employment [ 29 ], further bolstering continence as a modifiable target to improve long-term QOL.

Data suggests that the impact of bladder and bowel continence is age dependent. Szymanski et al. examined the impact of bladder and bowel incontinence on QOL in a population of children and adolescents with SB. The authors found an inverse relationship between urinary incontinence and QOL, with an increasing impact as patients age [ 30 ]. In other words, social continence becomes increasingly important as this population grows into adolescence and adulthood, expanding on a previous study by the same research group that focused on incontinence in adults [ 31 ]. The findings by Szymanski et al. are supported by a recent study from Gilbertson et al. that retrospectively reviewed continence and outcomes in 7,669 patients with SB using data gathered from the National Spina Bifida Patient Registry (NSBPR) [ 1 •]. The authors reported higher continence for patients with non-myelomeningocele lesions (bowel: 72.5%, bladder: 63.2%) when compared to patients with MMC (bowel: 53.1%, bladder: 40.4%). Additionally, the authors concluded that continence is inversely associated with age [ 1 •]. As children grow, continence improves, but incontinence becomes more detrimental to patient QOL.

The impact of bladder and bowel interventions on QOL has also been studied in recent years. Bladder augmentation in neurogenic bladder is performed for renal protection and improvement in continence, often with both indications being present. The presumption is that such surgical interventions also improve QOL, and several studies have examined this question. Romero-Maroto et al. performed a study with a 20 year follow up demonstrating that bladder augmentation both improved kidney function and improved QOL, with 94% experiencing diurnal continence post-operativley [ 32 ]. Coco et al. examined a similar question in a group of 54 patients with a median age of 30 years. The authors found that patients with a history of bladder augmentation had lower independence than those without (49 v. 68) [ 33 ]. This finding, however, did not control for lesion-level or pre-operative QOL. Fremion et al. examined whether creation of a continent catheterizable channel for clean intermittent catheterization (CIC) impacted independence using the Adolescent/Young Adult Self-management and Independence Scale II Self-Report/SB (AMIS II-SR/SB) and QUALAS-T questionnaires. The study showed that that urethral CIC, but not abdominal CIC, was associated with a higher independence score [ 26 ••]. In evaluating the impact of a bladder training video on QOL in a randomized controlled trial, Brownrigg et al. found that self-confidence related to bladder and bowel was poor both pre and post intervention [ 34 ]. Finally, using a modified Peristeen® Neurogenic Bladder Dysfunction NBD questionnaire and the PROMIS-PGH scale, Halstead et al. demonstrated that, though no association exists between bowel program and QOL, more severe bowel symptoms are associated with a reduced QOL [ 35 ]. In summary, these studies indicate that regardless of intervention strategy, bladder and bowel continue to be key considerations for QOL and merit special attention by both providers and researchers, alike.

When examining these studies critically, several limitations emerged. Many studies were limited to children. Of the studies with long-term follow-up, most had a small sample size. Furthermore, the distinction between function and QOL is often less clear. As an example, though they included a large sample size, Gilbertson et al. did not report on the impact, or lack thereof, of continence on lived experience or QOL. Additional investigation is merited into how continence plays or does not play a role for these patients.

Sexual Function and Sexuality

As patients with SB begin to live longer lives, it is incumbent on urologists to have a better understanding sexuality and sexual function. In recent studies, data indicate that many patients with SB are sexually active or interested in sexual activity, with over 50% of patients reporting that they engage in sexual activity [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ]. Through a series of structured interviews, Rague et al. found that most young adults with SB are interested in talking about sex and sexuality. Though conversations with providers are commonly viewed as uncomfortable by patients, suggestions for overcoming barriers to discussions include notifying patients in advance of the topic, creating a safe space where patients can drive the conversation, and addressing their unique physiologic situation as it relates to sexual function [ 39 ].

Sexual satisfaction in patients with SB demonstrates significant variability. Romero-Maroto et al. reported 43% of those surveyed using a non-validated quality of life questionnaire were satisfied with their sexual relations, a proportion supported by a review paper by De Win et al. in 2020 who reported 50% sexual satisfaction [ 32 , 40 ]. After surveying 47 men with SB using the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF), Choi et al. found that though 67% had normal erectile function and 50% had normal orgasmic function, 87% reported dysfunction or dissatisfaction [ 38 ]. In 2015, Akre et al. asked patients aged 13–28 to self-record thoughts or experiences with sexual knowledge and sexuality. Common concerns, questions, and challenges were elicited including romantic relationships, fertility, and lack of communication regarding sex and sexuality [ 41 ]. Though the literature reports varying levels of sexual satisfaction, patients with SB appear to be negatively impacted.

Two recent review papers by Hughes et al. and Streur et al. both emphasize that while some work has begun to analyze and understand sexual function and satisfaction for these patients, high quality data is significantly lacking [ 42 •, 43 •]. For example, though the IIEF has been used to assess sexual function in patients with SB, it is a survey that was validated in a group of typically developing men. In a qualitative study of 20 men with SB, Rague et al. found serious limitations of the IIEF in assessing this population, including lack of recognition of poor sensation, incontinence, SB-specific mobility limitations, and more [ 44 ]. SB-specific sexual function questionnaires are not commonly used to capture the true patient experience in the limited studies that exist examining sexuality in this patient population.

In summary, multi-institutional studies using surveys and questionnaires validated for this specific patient population will be vital to understand, tailor treatment plans, and improve sexual health for patients with spina bifida.

The unique nature of spina bifida means patients are more likely to experience pain than the general population [ 45 ]. The impact of this pain continues to be evaluated.

Pain is a significant factor to patient well-being, especially as these patients age. Lidal et al. found that for older adults with SB (mean age 58), pain was their most notable health concern [ 46 •]. Wagner et al. noted that 90% of patients with SB experience pain, with impact on daily life ranging from 52 to 94% depending on the location of the pain [ 28 ]. More conservative estimates of impact are available as well, with rates as low as 20–40% [ 21 , 47 ]. A very recent prospective study of 51 adults using PROMIS, a survey tool validated in this patient population, found that more women than men reported pain (69% v. 38%, p = 0.003), but there was no difference in the impact of pain on QOL by gender (p = 0.138). Higher pain interference was associated with lower QOL (p = 0.042), but not mood or sleep [ 48 ].

The varying reported values of pain underscore the importance of continuing to quantify the extent to which pain plays a role in the day-to-day life of this population and to tailor treatment to the individual patient.

Limited literature exists regarding spina bifida and mood. Wagner et al. found that 53% of patients with SB experience depression, with 87% reporting these symptoms somewhat impact or greatly impact daily life [ 28 ]. Similarly, Dicianno et al. demonstrated that depressive symptoms are common in this population and undertreated, with 25.8% experiencing depressive symptoms and, of those, only 63% on antidepressants [ 49 ]. Screening for mood is vital at patient visits and represents a key consideration in the study of QOL.

Wiener and Chaudry (2023) and Sawin et al. (2020) provide guidelines for management of patients with spina bifida and include references to key quality of life targets (psychosocial well-being, continence, pain, sexuality, and independence) [ 20 , 50 ]. That said, while these newer guidelines often include QOL targets, few studies have described the results of surveys across a large population. Any literature examining QOL is limited, and even more so if exclusively looking at adult populations. Furthermore, the existing literature often uses questionnaires that fail to accurately measure QOL despite attempts or intentions to do so [ 15 ••]. In other words, though validated screening tools are now at our disposal, we still do not understand how patients view their QOL. A significant need remains for large-scale studies with long-term follow-up to better understand the perception of SB patient QOL.

The current literature suggests that while health related QOL is equivalent to the general population, the domains of relationships, continence, sexuality, pain, and mood all remain key targets for intervention. In measuring QOL, it is vital to be intentional in survey selection by using questionnaires validated for measuring QOL in patients with spina bifida. It is also important to rely on self-report when possible. Considering QOL in care plans and clinic visits will bolster patient satisfaction and long-term outcomes and continue to be key as this population grows into adulthood.

Conclusions

Interest in studying quality of life for patients with spina bifida has begun, but there continues to be a strong need for long-term studies using validated questionnaires that focus on quality of life, rather than function. Future studies should aim to address this gap and continue to include quality of life in care plans and treatment considerations.

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Ball, M.A.Z., Clayton, D.B. Long-Term Quality of Life for Patients with Spina Bifida. Curr Bladder Dysfunct Rep (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11884-024-00755-5

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