UWM Libraries Research and Course Guides: Urban Studies 921: Research Methods in Urban Studies: Conducting Literature Reviews

Writing Your Literature Review

Guiding Questions

Before you begin this module, reflect on these three questions:

What is the purpose of my literature review?
How will this literature review help me accomplish my goals?
What are the steps in writing a literature review?

Subject of Inquiry Concept Map - text only
Access the text-only version of the concept map displayed below.

Databases use controlled vocabularies to describe articles. Controlled vocabularies prioritize certain ways of describing information, making it easier to organize and find that information. However, the subject terms used by databases may not be the first terms that come to mind when you brainstorm on your subject of inquiry. Use your search results to learn how a database describes your topic.

Literature Review Handouts

Literature Review Activity
Use this handout and the resources on this page to guide you through the process of gathering resources for a literature review.
Research Log
Use this research log to keep track of the sources you find for your literature review.

Licensing

The contents of the Library Advanced Research Competencies tutorial may be reused with attribution. Please copy the following into new works based on the Library Advanced Research Competencies:
Library Advanced Research Competencies by Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at guides.library.uwm.edu.