Finding Types of Research

A literature review is a section of a paper or an entire article where a researcher picks a topic, sees what is written about it, and analyzes and synthesizes the findings. They are somewhat similar to systematic reviews in that they are reviewing literature, but they lack the strict inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Many articles only have a literature review section, which is separate from the introduction to the research study. However, you can occasionally find an article where the entirety of the article is a literature review. The best way to find a literature review is by adding a search term of literature review to your search statement. Example: sleep AND intervention AND "literature review".