The Literature Review

A literature review is an essay which recounts, categorizes, evaluates and cites scholarly work which is relevant to your topic.  It answers the question: "What has been done?"  "Who are the basic authorities?"  "What are the basic schools of thought on this issue?"  It sets your work into that context.

It also recounts historiographical debates, creates a necessary context of scholarship and ideas for the reader, and does so with some principle of ordering the ideas.  A literature review may not be necessary if you are writing a term paper (based on secondary sources).  Check with your professor for guidelines on the matter.  For a research paper (based on primary sources), however, a literature review is sometimes necessary.

What is "historiography"?

It is the study of changes in the interpretations, methods, and conclusions of historians over time. 1

How do I determine which printed sources to use?

Not all historians' interpretations are equal.  How can you go about discovering who are the recognized authorities on your topic?  As you're reading, look at your author's sources.  Most authors will include a bibliography, historiographical essay or recommended reading list somewhere in the book.  Compare the lists with each other.  After awhile, you should start to see some of the major names and titles appear more than once.  Also, research a certain book by looking in the Book Review Index.  Look it up by the year it was published, and by author or title.  The Index will show you the journals wherein you can find a review of your book.

It is also good to include journal articles in your literature review.  You can search for these by clicking on the America History and Life database or the Humanities Abstract database (if you are searching from a computer on Westminster's campus).  Also check the Reader's Guide (in hard-copy, tried-and-true book form) to see what has been published in scholarly journals on your topic.

Here are some major components to include as you write your literature review

1.    What is the line of inquiry you are investigating? (A paragraph)

        *    Present the thesis.
        *    Summarize the main issues from your topic.

2.    In essence, isolate the particular interpretation of each secondary source in relation to your line of inquiry.

        *    Significant issues, arguments, disputes, or presuppositions that scholars have introduced into the field.
        *    This debate-focus-interpretation is useful to my work...
                a.  In this way or that...
                b.  Can be resolved (or understood) by this or that...

3.    In particular: What has been done?  The Three Ways: Spectrum-Mode Arrangement; Categorized, Labeled groups; Chronological Development of Ideas--Three Ways or Principles of ordering your literature review to explain the secondary sources; there are more...Specifics include:

        *    The following specific secondary sources...
                a.  Present the critical interpretations in the field, then explain the nature of any differences with some attempt at
                    explaining the reasons for the differences.
                b.  Note extremes and points between (The Three Ways)
                c.  Reveal disagreements, perhaps also explained by you.
                d.  Are (more or less) scholarly works because...
                e.  Label the debates and scholars linked to each.
                f.   Show the problems of interpretation or gaps existing in the field (which presumably you will address in your
                    inquiry); otherwise, omit them.
                g.  Rely mainly on this and/or that historical method or set of primary sources, or approaches to history, etc.

        *    Your ordering and evaluation of these will tell your story.
                a.  This is the time to be open, black-and-white, maybe even crude.
                b.  Add refinements into the paper later: clarity now overrules gentle subtleties.

4.    If you cannot find scholarly secondary sources, then either:

        A.  They don't exist, which means either you have stumbled upon a new, viable field of inquiry, or more likely, your inquiry is not one accepted by the scholarly community.  If the first, you will have the problems of the explorer: Do you want that? If the second, find a new topic/thesis.  Forcing the issue will not help, and time is ticking...

        B.  You have not looked carefully enough.

Literature reviews establish your credibility as a historian because they show that you are familiar with the work of other historians on your topic.  They can be kind of tricky, however, because it's easy to list in encyclopedic fashion the gist of what each historian says on the topic.  Throughout your literature review, cite how each source relates to your thesis.  A great tip that really works: make a header of your tightly structured one-sentence thesis.  This way your thesis is right in front of you, on every page.  As you go through each paragraph of your literature review (and the rest of your paper), refer to the header and make sure that paragraph refers to your thesis.
 
 

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1.  Jules R. Benjamin, A Student's Guide to History, 7th ed. (Boston: Bedford Books, 1998), 198.