Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies

A guide to writing a literature review in GSFS

This guide aims to help students:

1. learn how to constitute a literature review
2. understand the importance of a literature review
3. constitute a literature review on their research topic
4. discover library resources such as subject specific databases that will aid in the constitution of a literature review

The literature review:

1. is a summary of research that has already been published on a topic and often follows the introduction
2. helps identify holes or gaps in the current literature while situating your research topic in the larger body of research.
3. points out the strengths and weaknesses researcher already published in a subject area 
4. indicates how your study is going to contribute to this greater body of research.

The literature review is often composed of scholarly publications such as:articles, books and book chapters, but can also be composed of government documents and reports published by associations and community organizations. 

A video introduction explaining what is a literature review.

A literature review includes:

1. a summary of the subject area being studied 
2. a clear categorization of selected sources supporting your position, those opposing your position and those with different arguments
3. a discussion of how your selected sources interact with each other, support each other and oppose one another
4. a clear indication of how your study contributes to this body of research

The curator (Michael David MILLER) of this guide would like to thank the following institutions and their literature review guides for helping make this guide possible:

• Le Guide sur la revue de littérature / recension des écrits des Bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal
• The Literature Review Guide from the Concordia University Library
• The Literature Review Guide from the University of Toronto
• The Literature Review Guide from the University of Waterloo Library
• The Health Sciences Research Basics Guide from the McGill University Library

Many components of this guide were inspired from the existing literature review guides from these four institutions. Special thanks to the Schulich Library's Liaison Librarians for the boolean operators page in their Health Sciences Research Basics Guide.