how to make a literature review in 3 days

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• v.9(7); 2013 Jul

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

2 Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

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• CAREER FEATURE
• 04 December 2020
• Correction 09 December 2020

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).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

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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Literature review

How to write a literature review in 6 steps

How do you write a good literature review? This step-by-step guide on how to write an excellent literature review covers all aspects of planning and writing literature reviews for academic papers and theses.

How to write a systematic literature review [9 steps]

How do you write a systematic literature review? What types of systematic literature reviews exist and where do you use them? Learn everything you need to know about a systematic literature review in this guide

What is a literature review? [with examples]

Not sure what a literature review is? This guide covers the definition, purpose, and format of a literature review.

How To Structure Your Literature Review

3 options to help structure your chapter.

By: Amy Rommelspacher (PhD) | Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | November 2020 (Updated May 2023)

Writing the literature review chapter can seem pretty daunting when you’re piecing together your dissertation or thesis. As  we’ve discussed before , a good literature review needs to achieve a few very important objectives – it should:

• Demonstrate your knowledge of the research topic
• Identify the gaps in the literature and show how your research links to these
• Provide the foundation for your conceptual framework (if you have one)
• Inform your own  methodology and research design

To achieve this, your literature review needs a well-thought-out structure . Get the structure of your literature review chapter wrong and you’ll struggle to achieve these objectives. Don’t worry though – in this post, we’ll look at how to structure your literature review for maximum impact (and marks!).

But wait – is this the right time?

Deciding on the structure of your literature review should come towards the end of the literature review process – after you have collected and digested the literature, but before you start writing the chapter. 

In other words, you need to first develop a rich understanding of the literature before you even attempt to map out a structure. There’s no use trying to develop a structure before you’ve fully wrapped your head around the existing research.

Equally importantly, you need to have a structure in place before you start writing , or your literature review will most likely end up a rambling, disjointed mess. 

Importantly, don’t feel that once you’ve defined a structure you can’t iterate on it. It’s perfectly natural to adjust as you engage in the writing process. As we’ve discussed before , writing is a way of developing your thinking, so it’s quite common for your thinking to change – and therefore, for your chapter structure to change – as you write. 

Need a helping hand?

Like any other chapter in your thesis or dissertation, your literature review needs to have a clear, logical structure. At a minimum, it should have three essential components – an  introduction , a  body   and a  conclusion . 

Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

1: The Introduction Section

Just like any good introduction, the introduction section of your literature review should introduce the purpose and layout (organisation) of the chapter. In other words, your introduction needs to give the reader a taste of what’s to come, and how you’re going to lay that out. Essentially, you should provide the reader with a high-level roadmap of your chapter to give them a taste of the journey that lies ahead.

Here’s an example of the layout visualised in a literature review introduction:

Your introduction should also outline your topic (including any tricky terminology or jargon) and provide an explanation of the scope of your literature review – in other words, what you  will   and  won’t   be covering (the delimitations ). This helps ringfence your review and achieve a clear focus . The clearer and narrower your focus, the deeper you can dive into the topic (which is typically where the magic lies). 

Depending on the nature of your project, you could also present your stance or point of view at this stage. In other words, after grappling with the literature you’ll have an opinion about what the trends and concerns are in the field as well as what’s lacking. The introduction section can then present these ideas so that it is clear to examiners that you’re aware of how your research connects with existing knowledge .

2: The Body Section

The body of your literature review is the centre of your work. This is where you’ll present, analyse, evaluate and synthesise the existing research. In other words, this is where you’re going to earn (or lose) the most marks. Therefore, it’s important to carefully think about how you will organise your discussion to present it in a clear way. 

The body of your literature review should do just as the description of this chapter suggests. It should “review” the literature – in other words, identify, analyse, and synthesise it. So, when thinking about structuring your literature review, you need to think about which structural approach will provide the best “review” for your specific type of research and objectives (we’ll get to this shortly).

There are (broadly speaking)  three options  for organising your literature review.

Option 1: Chronological (according to date)

Organising the literature chronologically is one of the simplest ways to structure your literature review. You start with what was published first and work your way through the literature until you reach the work published most recently. Pretty straightforward.

The benefit of this option is that it makes it easy to discuss the developments and debates in the field as they emerged over time. Organising your literature chronologically also allows you to highlight how specific articles or pieces of work might have changed the course of the field – in other words, which research has had the most impact . Therefore, this approach is very useful when your research is aimed at understanding how the topic has unfolded over time and is often used by scholars in the field of history. That said, this approach can be utilised by anyone that wants to explore change over time .

For example , if a student of politics is investigating how the understanding of democracy has evolved over time, they could use the chronological approach to provide a narrative that demonstrates how this understanding has changed through the ages.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you structure your literature review chronologically.

• What is the earliest literature published relating to this topic?
• How has the field changed over time? Why?
• What are the most recent discoveries/theories?

In some ways, chronology plays a part whichever way you decide to structure your literature review, because you will always, to a certain extent, be analysing how the literature has developed. However, with the chronological approach, the emphasis is very firmly on how the discussion has evolved over time , as opposed to how all the literature links together (which we’ll discuss next ).

Option 2: Thematic (grouped by theme)

The thematic approach to structuring a literature review means organising your literature by theme or category – for example, by independent variables (i.e. factors that have an impact on a specific outcome).

As you’ve been collecting and synthesising literature , you’ll likely have started seeing some themes or patterns emerging. You can then use these themes or patterns as a structure for your body discussion. The thematic approach is the most common approach and is useful for structuring literature reviews in most fields.

For example, if you were researching which factors contributed towards people trusting an organisation, you might find themes such as consumers’ perceptions of an organisation’s competence, benevolence and integrity. Structuring your literature review thematically would mean structuring your literature review’s body section to discuss each of these themes, one section at a time.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when structuring your literature review by themes:

• Are there any patterns that have come to light in the literature?
• What are the central themes and categories used by the researchers?
• Do I have enough evidence of these themes?

PS – you can see an example of a thematically structured literature review in our literature review sample walkthrough video here.

Option 3: Methodological

The methodological option is a way of structuring your literature review by the research methodologies used . In other words, organising your discussion based on the angle from which each piece of research was approached – for example, qualitative , quantitative or mixed  methodologies.

Structuring your literature review by methodology can be useful if you are drawing research from a variety of disciplines and are critiquing different methodologies. The point of this approach is to question  how  existing research has been conducted, as opposed to  what  the conclusions and/or findings the research were.

For example, a sociologist might centre their research around critiquing specific fieldwork practices. Their literature review will then be a summary of the fieldwork methodologies used by different studies.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself when structuring your literature review according to methodology:

• Which methodologies have been utilised in this field?
• Which methodology is the most popular (and why)?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the various methodologies?
• How can the existing methodologies inform my own methodology?

3: The Conclusion Section

Once you’ve completed the body section of your literature review using one of the structural approaches we discussed above, you’ll need to “wrap up” your literature review and pull all the pieces together to set the direction for the rest of your dissertation or thesis.

The conclusion is where you’ll present the key findings of your literature review. In this section, you should emphasise the research that is especially important to your research questions and highlight the gaps that exist in the literature. Based on this, you need to make it clear what you will add to the literature – in other words, justify your own research by showing how it will help fill one or more of the gaps you just identified.

Last but not least, if it’s your intention to develop a conceptual framework for your dissertation or thesis, the conclusion section is a good place to present this.

Example: Thematically Structured Review

In the video below, we unpack a literature review chapter so that you can see an example of a thematically structure review in practice.

Let’s Recap

In this article, we’ve  discussed how to structure your literature review for maximum impact. Here’s a quick recap of what  you need to keep in mind when deciding on your literature review structure:

• Just like other chapters, your literature review needs a clear introduction , body and conclusion .
• The introduction section should provide an overview of what you will discuss in your literature review.
• The body section of your literature review can be organised by chronology , theme or methodology . The right structural approach depends on what you’re trying to achieve with your research.
• The conclusion section should draw together the key findings of your literature review and link them to your research questions.

If you’re ready to get started, be sure to download our free literature review template to fast-track your chapter outline.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

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27 Comments

Great work. This is exactly what I was looking for and helps a lot together with your previous post on literature review. One last thing is missing: a link to a great literature chapter of an journal article (maybe with comments of the different sections in this review chapter). Do you know any great literature review chapters?

I agree with you Marin… A great piece

I agree with Marin. This would be quite helpful if you annotate a nicely structured literature from previously published research articles.

Awesome article for my research.

I thank you immensely for this wonderful guide

It is indeed thought and supportive work for the futurist researcher and students

Very educative and good time to get guide. Thank you

Great work, very insightful. Thank you.

Thanks for this wonderful presentation. My question is that do I put all the variables into a single conceptual framework or each hypothesis will have it own conceptual framework?

Thank you very much, very helpful

This is very educative and precise . Thank you very much for dropping this kind of write up .

Pheeww, so damn helpful, thank you for this informative piece.

I’m doing a research project topic ; stool analysis for parasitic worm (enteric) worm, how do I structure it, thanks.

comprehensive explanation. Help us by pasting the URL of some good “literature review” for better understanding.

great piece. thanks for the awesome explanation. it is really worth sharing. I have a little question, if anyone can help me out, which of the options in the body of literature can be best fit if you are writing an architectural thesis that deals with design?

I am doing a research on nanofluids how can l structure it?

Beautifully clear.nThank you!

Lucid! Thankyou!

Brilliant work, well understood, many thanks

I like how this was so clear with simple language 😊😊 thank you so much 😊 for these information 😊

Insightful. I was struggling to come up with a sensible literature review but this has been really helpful. Thank you!

You have given thought-provoking information about the review of the literature.

Thank you. It has made my own research better and to impart your work to students I teach

I learnt a lot from this teaching. It’s a great piece.

I am doing research on EFL teacher motivation for his/her job. How Can I structure it? Is there any detailed template, additional to this?

You are so cool! I do not think I’ve read through something like this before. So nice to find somebody with some genuine thoughts on this issue. Seriously.. thank you for starting this up. This site is one thing that is required on the internet, someone with a little originality!

I’m asked to do conceptual, theoretical and empirical literature, and i just don’t know how to structure it

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• UConn Library
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
• Introduction

Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide — Introduction

• Getting Started
• How to Pick a Topic
• Strategies to Find Sources
• Evaluating Sources & Lit. Reviews
• Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
• Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
• Citation Resources
• Other Academic Writings

What are Literature Reviews?

So, what is a literature review? "A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries." Taylor, D.  The literature review: A few tips on conducting it . University of Toronto Health Sciences Writing Centre.

Goals of Literature Reviews

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?  A literature could be written to accomplish different aims:

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews .  Review of General Psychology , 1 (3), 311-320.

What kinds of sources require a Literature Review?

• A research paper assigned in a course
• A thesis or dissertation
• A grant proposal
• An article intended for publication in a journal

All these instances require you to collect what has been written about your research topic so that you can demonstrate how your own research sheds new light on the topic.

Types of Literature Reviews

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Narrative review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.

• Example : Predictors and Outcomes of U.S. Quality Maternity Leave: A Review and Conceptual Framework:  10.1177/08948453211037398  

Systematic review : "The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find." (p. 139). Nelson, L. K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders . Plural Publishing.

• Example : The effect of leave policies on increasing fertility: a systematic review:  10.1057/s41599-022-01270-w

Meta-analysis : "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing research findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occurred in different studies." (p. 197). Roberts, M. C., & Ilardi, S. S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology . Blackwell Publishing.

• Example : Employment Instability and Fertility in Europe: A Meta-Analysis:  10.1215/00703370-9164737

Meta-synthesis : "Qualitative meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic." (p.312). Zimmer, L. (2006). Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts .  Journal of Advanced Nursing , 53 (3), 311-318.

• Example : Women’s perspectives on career successes and barriers: A qualitative meta-synthesis:  10.1177/05390184221113735

Literature Reviews in the Health Sciences

• UConn Health subject guide on systematic reviews Explanation of the different review types used in health sciences literature as well as tools to help you find the right review type
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What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of literature review? 
• a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction: 
• b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes: 
• c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs: 
• d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts: 

How to write a good literature review 

• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal? 
• Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review?

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

What is the purpose of literature review?

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

1. Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 

2. Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field. 

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3. Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 

4. Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 

5. Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 

6. Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

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Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

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Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

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How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal?

Paperpal, an AI writing assistant, integrates powerful academic search capabilities within its writing platform. With the Research feature, you get 100% factual insights, with citations backed by 250M+ verified research articles, directly within your writing interface with the option to save relevant references in your Citation Library. By eliminating the need to switch tabs to find answers to all your research questions, Paperpal saves time and helps you stay focused on your writing.   

Here’s how to use the Research feature:  

• Ask a question: Get started with a new document on paperpal.com. Click on the “Research” feature and type your question in plain English. Paperpal will scour over 250 million research articles, including conference papers and preprints, to provide you with accurate insights and citations. 
• Review and Save: Paperpal summarizes the information, while citing sources and listing relevant reads. You can quickly scan the results to identify relevant references and save these directly to your built-in citations library for later access. 
• Cite with Confidence: Paperpal makes it easy to incorporate relevant citations and references into your writing, ensuring your arguments are well-supported by credible sources. This translates to a polished, well-researched literature review. 

The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a good literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. By combining effortless research with an easy citation process, Paperpal Research streamlines the literature review process and empowers you to write faster and with more confidence. Try Paperpal Research now and see for yourself.  

Frequently asked questions

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

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Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, 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 transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

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What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

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.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

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1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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How To Write a Literature Review for a Research Paper

Posted by Rene Tetzner | Jul 17, 2021 | Paper Writing Advice | 0 |

How To Write a Literature Review in 3 Steps The primary aims of a literature review for a scholarly paper are to provide an accurate description and evaluation of published scholarship relevant to the paper, and to demonstrate the importance and value of the new research presented in the paper. The publications chosen for review must be closely connected to the main research problem or question, regardless of whether they support or contradict the results of the research or the argument(s) presented in the paper. A literature review is a necessary aspect of most scholarly papers intended for publication or grading.

The literature review for a scholarly paper is usually brief. For a short paper of a few thousand words, for example, the literature review might be no more than a couple of paragraphs or a couple of pages long. In-depth or extended studies will often demand a longer literature review to cover the pertinent scholarship, and the same may be the case with topics that rely heavily on previous publications even when the scholarly paper as a whole is not particularly long. Every literature review is therefore unique and will require critical thinking and original writing on the part of its author. As much as individual literature reviews may differ, however, there are three primary steps for writing any scholarly literature review: 1) conducting thorough research, 2) engaging in critical reading and 3) producing scholarly writing. These steps are described in detail below.

A Three-Step Guide to Writing a Successful Literature Review for a Scholarly Paper

Step 1: The Thorough Research Conducting thorough research is a necessity for writing any serious scholarly paper and it is always the first step when preparing a literature review. The researcher’s goal should be to find previously published scholarship that is related in important or meaningful ways to his or her current topic, so a keyword search through reference lists, library catalogues, scholarly databases and other bibliographical resources is in order. This search usually begins when the research project itself does, so it is likely that the researcher will already be familiar with many of the key publications long before sitting down to write the literature review. It is always a good idea, however, to ensure that no significant studies have been missed, particularly new publications that are closely related to the current work but may not have been available when the research began. Focussing on peer-reviewed research written by experts in the field and published by reputable journals and presses is a sound strategy for discovering and selecting useful sources for a literature review.

Research for a literature review should also include learning about the requirements for the review. For general expectations in a discipline or area of expertise, most research articles, books and reports in the field will include literature reviews that demonstrate what a review should contain, how it should be organised and presented, and even the appropriate voice and style in which it should be written. For the specific requirements of particular publishers and instructors, the author guidelines provided by scholarly journals and presses often include guidance for writing literature reviews, so be sure to scan the instructions for authors as well as recent volumes and monographs for all the helpful information available. University instructors frequently have style sheets or assignment notes to let students know exactly what is expected of a literature review in a scholarly paper.

Step 2: The Critical Reading With the publications for the review selected and the guidelines in mind, critical reading – the second step in the process – can begin. Critical reading is so essential for producing an excellent literature review that it might be considered the most important step, and certainly it tends to be the most time consuming. Each source should first be read in whatever order seems productive to evaluate content, aims and methods, the nature and analysis of findings, and any other aspects of the study related to its quality, usefulness or importance in the larger body of knowledge. It is essential while reading to keep one eye firmly focussed on the new research and to record critical thoughts about how each publication affects that work, by supporting it perhaps, or by contradicting it, or by leaving an unexplained gap for the new research to fill. Take care to separate critical thoughts from any content-oriented notes to avoid confusion and do not neglect to record with the utmost accuracy the bibliographical information for each source. This will promote perfect citations and references and also make final proofreading, checking and correcting (in Step 3 below) a good deal easier.

Careful notes of all three kinds – bibliographical, content and critical – will serve as the perfect tool for the next level of reflective reading. This involves comparing and synthesising research sources, categorising them in relation to larger research patterns as well as the new work, and ultimately evaluating the body of relevant scholarship as a whole. It may prove useful to create specific groups or categories for organising and understanding publications based on significant themes or theories, similarities and differences in methodology or analysis, or arguments and conclusions that agree or disagree with those in the new paper. Such categories will help with organising the literature review, and in a long review they might even become subsections. They should also help the author maintain a focus on discovering both the need and the justification for the current research and serve to highlight the ways in which the valuable new study will clarify confusion, answer key questions or provide new directions for investigation and practice.

Step 3: The Scholarly Writing Necessary To Any Successful Literature Review As sources are compared and synthesised in preparation for writing a literature review, the appropriate logic and structure for that review will usually emerge, sometimes gradually and occasionally with striking immediacy. Knowing where the review will end is essential for effective writing, and ideally that ending will contain a strong statement about the inconsistency, confusion or lacuna in the existing scholarship that shows why the new research is needed. The literature review should be organised with the primary aim of developing a logical argument that concludes with that perfect ending. A chronological arrangement determined by the publication dates of the sources reviewed is often appropriate to show a direct line of development or progress, but a different and more complex order based on the nature of the new research may prove a better choice for a brief review that cannot hope to cover all the published scholarship in a field.

Remember while writing that a literature review for a scholarly paper is usually a particularly formal part of an already formal document. Great care must be taken to report and discuss the research and ideas of other authors with the utmost accuracy and professional respect, and any misrepresentation of the work of fellow researchers must be strictly avoided. Citations and references are required and must be thorough and precise; they must also conform to the documentation style of the relevant guidelines or instructions. A literature review should demonstrate its author’s sophisticated understanding of the sources discussed as well as the key issues associated with his or her research. It should also be written in formal language, using complete sentences and avoiding errors of grammar, punctuation, spelling and typing. Finally, revisions to refine content, editing to perfect language and proofreading to check and correct even the smallest mistakes are always necessary before a literature review is ready to submit for publication or grading.

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How To Write a Successful Literature Review in 3 Steps

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How to Write a Literature Review

An introduction to and a guide on how to write your next literature review

Become a Visual Thinker

Preparing for a Literature Review

Clearly define the topic of your research, this is the basis of picking what articles you'll be reading, analyzing and summarizing, and subsequently including in your research topic. Narrowing down the topic allows you to have a more specific base of literature to read, analyze, and review.

What is a Literature Review?

A literature review is a portion of a research paper that compiles, describes, and analyzes different sources of information relevant to a given research topic, and then draws connections between each source to one another and the research of the author writing the review. Rather than simply describing each of the sources, critical reviews of the sources should be made.

Literature Review Purpose

A literature review is important for a variety of reasons, beyond just providing a background for your research topic. The purpose of the literature review is to:

Discuss current questions and debates that exist in the research topic

Provide a summary of the relevant aspects of the sources reviewed

Show how your research paper is placed chronologically in the research topic

Provide an overall understanding and introduction to the topic, building credibility

Prevent the author from researching a topic or area that has already been done

How to Develop a Literature Review for Theses and Dissertations

The first step in developing the literature review for theses and dissertations is to collect information and sources that are related to the topic area you are researching.

1. Keyword search

There are a variety of different places to find relevant further research for your topic. University or public library catalogs are a good place to search, as well as online databases such as Google Scholar. When searching for relevant sources, try to use keywords that are related to your topic. When you find a few really good sources, look at their literature reviews and bibliographies to find other literature in the field.

2. Snowballing

Read as many sources in your field as possible to fully understand what work has been done in the past and where the current status of the topic lies. This could be journal articles, publications, books, and interviews, to name just a few.

Take notes as you are reading the different sources. I personally like to download my sources in my theses as pdfs and then highlight relevant information and annotate in the margins, using Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Once you have read and annotated bibliography of the relevant sources, then analyze the collected works and categorize them from most and least relevant to the subject you are discussing. One effective method for doing this is by utilizing a reading grid.

A reading grid can be broken down by source information individually for each source included in the theses or dissertation literature review, such as the research question, methodology, findings, limitations, and areas for future research. This allows you to easily see the most relevant information within each piece of literature. An example of this can be seen below, provided by OpenAcademics and adapted from Auckland University of Technology.

View this example in greater detail here .

3. Citations 

Citing a source means giving the credit for the source used in your research paper. This includes the information that you get from books or scholarly articles, and even pictures, charts or graphs. It is essential to give credit where it is due, so that you do not plagiarize another person's work.

You will need to include citations when you are using specific information from a single source, or when you are paraphrasing an idea from a single source. Citations can help avoid any confusion that would arise if someone else reads your work, and they can help direct readers to further resources on your topic.

When writing a literature review it is essential to keep track of all of the sources that you use. You should compile all of the sources into one document so that you can refer back to them easily and know what information came from which source. This will make it easier for you when you are ready to write your paper and insert citations.

There is a citation style that is specific to each discipline, and you should always follow the standards for your field. Check with your instructor or supervisor if you have any questions about the citation style you should use.

How to format citations

To make sure your paper is as perfect as it can be, let's take a look at how to format citations. If you're using Microsoft Word to write your literature review, you can use the "References" tab to organize your citations. If you want more control over the formatting, or if you're using another type of word processing program, you can do it manually.

Starting with a few basics

Double space everything, including block quotes and bibliography entries. If you're using a citation tool like Zotero or EndNote, make sure the formatting preferences are set for double spacing.For citations, you can use a standard font (like Times New Roman or Arial) in size 12. Using 1-inch margins all around for citations is common practice. To make sure your citations look good, indenting each new citation by half an inch is a good practice. (if you press Tab at the beginning of a paragraph, that should work).

Literature Review Length

The number of concepts explored and the number of sources incorporated into the literature review will determine its length. The number of sources included depend on how narrow or broad the topic is, the level of agreement among researchers in the topic, and the desired depth of analysis.

If the topic of your research is incredibly specific, there may only be a limited number of sources to choose from for your review, whereas if it is a really broad topic, you may need to include a variety of sources to paint a full picture of the topic background. Additionally, if there is a lot of disagreement within the research topic, you may need to include more sources to show the varying opinion that exists.

Introduction to the Literature Review

This section should describe how your research topic is placed in the context of the existing literature in the field, and provide a reasoning for reviewing the literature that has been selected. Additionally the methodology for finding these sources should be discussed, and the order of the selected literature should be explained — whether it is running chronologically, based on theme of sources, or some other methodological manner.

Body of the Literature Review

The best approach for the body of the literature review is to break it down into sections or paragraphs for each of the sources reviewed. Within each literature source discussion, there should be the following components:

Description of the context of the literature and a summary of the most important concepts and aspects

Explanations of theories, equations, and terminology, relevant to the topic

Discussion of aspects of the literature that connect to your research topic

Conclusion of the Literature Review

Within the conclusion of the literature review, the entire section should be summarized and connected together in a methodical manner. To achieve this, the conclusion should provide the following:

A summarized overview of the important concepts, flaws, and gaps in each of the reviewed sources.

A description of how the literature is tied together, and a discussion of how the topic being written about also contributes to the overall field of knowledge.

You should show that the sources provided in the literature review relate to the work that is to be discussed in your research topic. Directly discuss different aspects of the literature review that contributed to the concepts, ideas, methodology, results, and conclusions in your research. If your research addresses potential gaps in past literature, you can also highlight this here.

An effective method for meeting this conclusion is to first synthesize the works with a brief introduction, a comparison of agreeing and disagreeing points of view, and stating the research findings impact. Then finalize the conclusion by pointing out the limitations of the topic, its impact, and discussing the contribution of your own work to this field.

An example of this synthesis and contribution discussion can be seen below, provided by OpenAcademics and adapted from Auckland University of Technology.

You can view this example in greater detail here .

If you need additional insight into creating a literature review, I highly recommend checking out this video created by Wordvice Editing Service, which provides a detailed explanation of what to include, what not to include, how to structure, and how to compose a literature review from start to finish.

Thank you for reading!

If you’re looking for a tool to aid in your literature review, check out Scrintal — a web application designed to gather, organize & visually connect your thoughts, files & insights.

Write a Literature Review in a Day: Yes, It’s Possible, and It’s Actually Fun

Literature reviews: they are every writer’s least favorite part of writing.

Still, they are a fundamental aspect of scholarly work. They prove that a writer has scoured previous research on a topic, evaluated it, and demonstrated why their own research has merit.

After writing enough of these in grad school, I’ve decided to create a guide to help writers answer the question of “how to write a literature review in a day.”

I’ve also gathered helpful info from other academic and educational sources to further inspire.

After reading this article, you will know how to:

• Find the right, relevant literature.
• Properly organize and catalog works you gather.
• Develop a pattern out of and find gaps in accumulated research.
• Write a stellar review.

Now let’s get down to it.

First Things First: What Is a Literature Review?

A literature review proves that an individual is aware of what other researchers, or “giants” in their field have said on the subject.

As such, lit reviews will consist of literature from other researchers discussing a chosen topic. This literature can come from books, articles, reports, or websites.

As this YouTube video proclaims, academic writing involves “ standing on the shoulders of giants .”

But a lit review will not just be a list of academic references. That can fall into plagiarism territory, which you can learn about in this article .

Okay, but What Is Its Purpose?

Basically, they help you prove your point. That’s why I see them as jigsaw puzzles whose pieces are scattered across other scholarly work.

When you are scanning through other works, you are looking for those jigsaw pieces or patterns and gaps in prior research that you will address. When you finish writing, your puzzle will represent what other researchers have missed.

Structure of a Literature Review

Fortunately, they follow the typical format of intro-body-conclusion .

The intro of a lit review will introduce the paper’s topic and the key concepts the writer will explore.

The body is where all the jigsaw puzzles will be addressed, including:

• What have other researchers said about this topic?
• What is your interpretation of their findings?
• How does the prior research add to the topic’s significance?
• Is there a pattern? Or is there a gaping hole in the research?

And the conclusion will wrap up your arguments.

5 Steps to Write a Literature Review in a Day

1. Find the Relevant Literature

Estimated time: 1 hour

First up is finding a few relevant texts.

My favorite databases are Google Scholar, my library’s database, JSTOR, and Scorpus.

It’s important to distinguish formal vs. informal works, which you can read about here .

I consider effective keywords when searching for sources. These will be words similar to my topic.

2. Read SMARTLY

Estimated time: 1-2 hours

Yes, you’ll need to read, but the trick is to read smartly .

When you type in your keywords and are brought to an article, skim through the abstract and look for:

• The key concepts
• The overall findings
• The gap in the research (or the jigsaw pieces)

This will cut down your reading time tremendously!

In this video, the researcher shares a tough truth: “You HAVE to do reading.”

Some people are very restless and it can be difficult for them to focus. Reading smartly can reduce the time you spent studying.

3. Organize Your Findings

Estimated time: 1-2 hours (combined with step 2)

New Zealand ecologist and researcher Francis J. Burdon claims that a “ poorly executed ” lit review is one that has no “ adequate guidance .” Your material has no worth if not organized!

Often PhD candidates will begin their thesis with a literature review, but this can be poorly executed without adequate guidance. A new guide @MethodsEcolEvol looks to be a very useful resource providing a roadmap for scientists at all career stages https://t.co/k1yjQEF9td — Francis J. Burdon (@frank_burdon) July 1, 2021

While you’re going through articles, pull up either a Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets document to log all of your findings. Include the author and title for all works.

Another good tip is to add additional columns that categorize the findings by relevant keyword, methodology used, and key concept.

The last column for the organized sheet is the “main argument” of the article. Here, summarize the article’s findings in a few sentences.

4. Synthesize!

Estimated time: 2 hours

Now here comes the fun part (at least, to me!). It’s time to synthesize , a fancy word for putting those jigsaw pieces together.

Look over the main arguments and search for any common themes, patterns, contradictions, and weaknesses.

To help you settle on a structure from your findings, literature reviews are usually structured in the following ways:

Chronologically: These are written from when the research began to where it is now.

Thematic: These are organized by common sub themes found in research.

Methodological: These are structured by different academic frameworks used, including different styles of research (i.e., quantitative vs. qualitative).

In this YouTube video the online writing professor, David Taylor, makes a comforting point: “The answers are already out there.”

Everything you need is already written; your job is to put it all together.

5. Write It!

Estimated time: 3+ hours (depending on experience)

All you need to do now is write! I find that crafting a brief outline of which author I’ll mention first and then next helps me start.

In addition, Amina Yonis, a PhD graduate at University of College London, lays out a good format to remember when writing your lit review: background, narrower categories, focus and then hypothesis.

First release of the week! Here is a snippet of how to write a literature review from my new course lauching next week. I go through the precise lit review structure, a topic that students notoriously struggle with when writing. Watch – RT – Save https://t.co/GgdR3CODWm pic.twitter.com/UBl90GE9D2 — Amina Yonis (@DrAminaYonis) November 1, 2020

Useful Resources

• How to write a movie review
• Literature review vs. annotated bibliography vs. research paper… What’s the difference?
• American literature & culture: American literature
• List of academic databases and search engines

It’s not so bad, is it?

See? Writing a literature review doesn’t have to be a scary task!

The only other thing to keep in mind with lit reviews is plagiarism, as you will be referencing many other authors’ work.

Don’t worry, though — you can use this handy plagiarism tool here to make sure your content is 100% original.

Take these steps into account pre-writing and you’ll have a stellar review!

Literature Reviews

• 1. Define your research question
• Getting started
• Types of reviews

Define topic

Brainstorming, limit scope, how ai can help, helpful resources.

• 2. Plan your search
• 3. Search the literature
• 4. Organize your results
• 5. Synthesize your findings
• 6. Write the review
• Artificial intelligence (AI) tools
• Thompson Writing Studio This link opens in a new window
• Need to write a systematic review? This link opens in a new window

Contact a Librarian

Ask a Librarian

Mission animated icons created by Freepik - Flaticon

For example, the following research question is too broad.

Does social media affect mental health in college students?

A more focused research question could be:

Does social media play a role in the number of eating disorder diagnoses in college-aged women?

Need some guidance? Contact your subject librarian for a research consultation or reach out to [email protected] .

Start the brainstorming process:

• Begin by identifying a broad topic of research interest (the more you're personally interested in it, the better!). Write it down to clarify your focus.
• Narrow down your scope  by considering specific areas within this topic that you want to explore.
• Identify key themes and elements  related to these specific areas. These will be the building blocks of your investigation.
• Finally,  integrate these key areas and elements  into a well-crafted research question.

One way to brainstorm is to use a flowchart.

The scope of a topic  encompasses the boundaries and constraints you set for your research. The more precise your research question, the smoother the research process becomes.

Feeling stuck? Here are some ways you can narrow down your topic:

• geographic location
• time period
• discipline/field of study
• age group, etc.

You:  I need to conduct a literature review about social media, mental health, and college students. What are some example research questions within this topic?

ChatGPT: 

• How does the frequency and nature of social media use impact the mental health of college students?
• What role do specific social media platforms play in influencing the mental well-being of college students?
• How do online social interactions on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter relate to the mental health outcomes of college students?
• Are there differences in the association between social media use and mental health outcomes based on demographic factors such as gender, age, or academic major among college students?
• What strategies do college students employ to cope with negative mental health effects associated with social media use?
• How does the perception of social support through online platforms affect the mental health of college students?
• To what extent does the comparison of oneself to others on social media contribute to mental health challenges among college students?
• What interventions or educational programs are effective in promoting positive mental health behaviors in the context of social media use for college students?
• How do social media literacy and awareness programs impact the mental health attitudes and behaviors of college students?
• What is the relationship between the use of social media for academic and social purposes and the mental health outcomes of college students?

Generative AI tools : ChatGPT , Google Gemini (formerly Bard) , Claude , Microsoft Copilot

For more information on how to incorporate AI tools into your research, check out the section on AI Tools .

• Developing Your Research Question
• Developing a Researchable Question
• Brainstorming tips from UNC Writing Center
• << Previous: Types of reviews
• Next: 2. Plan your search >>
• Last Updated: May 17, 2024 8:42 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.duke.edu/litreviews

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How Much Should You Write Each Day; and When Should You Stop Writing?

Kirk McElhearn  /  15 MAY 2024

When you’re writing a novel or another long project, it’s a good idea to have a daily target. How many words should you write, and when should you finish your writing session?

When you’re writing a novel or another long work, it’s like running a marathon, not a sprint. You won’t finish it in a few days or a week, and you have to work at a rhythm that allows you to remain creative and achieve the appropriate word count over time. Slow and steady writing will eventually get you to your goal.

How much should you write each day?

If possible, it’s a good idea to write every day, even if you can’t write very much each day. You can set a target, which isn’t a hard goal, but which is something to aim for. Some writers are happy with 500 words a day, others with 1,000 words, and some, who write full time, may even strive to write 2,000 words a day. If you do the math, even if you only write five 500 words a day, that comes to 130,000 words in a year. That means you can write the first draft of a novel - with room to spare - in twelve months, if you remain consistent.

Many writers can’t write every day, so they set aside a couple of days a week to write. If you plan to write 1,000 words a day for two full days a week, that’s more than 100,000 words a year. The key is consistency and maintaining your momentum.

How do you decide how many words to write a day? A lot depends on how experienced you are, and what your writing rhythm is. In On Writing , Stephen King says, “As with physical exercise, it would be best to set this goal low at first, to avoid discouragement. I suggest a thousand words a day, and because I’m feeling magnanimous, I’ll also suggest that you can take one day a week off, at least to begin with. No more; you’ll lose the urgency and immediacy of your story if you do.“

Anthony Trollope had a day job at the General Post Office, but he would write before going to work . “It was my practice to be at my table every morning at 5.30; and it was also my practice to allow myself no mercy. [...] It had at this time become my custom, and it still is my custom, though of late I have become a little lenient to myself, to write with my watch before me, and to require from myself 250 words every quarter of an hour.“ This meant that he could write up to 3,000 words each morning, and this is how he wrote dozens of novels and other works.

Scrivener has useful tools to help you set and meet targets . You can view the word count of your current document in the app’s footer, and you can view the total word count of your project by hovering your cursor over the Quick Search box in the toolbar.

You can also get detailed statistics of your project by choosing Project > Statistics:

And you can set and view targets for each writing session, and for your overall project.

When should you end your writing sessions?

So when should you stop writing? Should you set an alarm, time yourself, or write precisely for one or two hours? If your target is a word count, should you stop once you hit that number, or keep going if you feel the juices flowing?

Some writers push on to reach their daily sessions, but this can be counterproductive. When you’ve lost your mojo, there’s no point trying to force it. Sometimes, you just can’t meet your target.

Other writers may choose to end their writing session when they finish the chapter or a scene. The fact of completing something, even if you haven’t hit your session target, can be very satisfying.

However, some other writers like to end their writing session in the middle of a scene, paragraph, or even a sentence. Ernest Hemingway said , “The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck.“

And consider Anthony Trollope, who, if he finished a novel by 8:30 would immediately start writing the next one. This is probably not practical for most writers who need to work on multiple drafts to finish a novel. Trollope was immensely prolific, and, in his time, novels were not revised extensively, so he could easily move on to the next one at will.

It’s up to each writer to determine how much they should write and when they should end. Many factors influence this decision: how much time you have to write, how many days you can write, and what your writing goals are. It's a good idea to develop a rhythm, and you can take advantage of Scrivener’s features to set session and project targets to help you meet your goals.

Kirk McElhearn is a writer , podcaster , and photographer . He is the author of Take Control of Scrivener , and host of the podcast Write Now with Scrivener .

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• Marouf Alhalabi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5027-2096 1 ,
• Duaa Nasri 1 &
• Widad Aji 1  

Journal of Medical Case Reports volume  18 , Article number:  246 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Introduction

Thrombotic events are more than twice as common in inflammatory bowel disease patients as in the general population. We report an interesting and rare case of portal vein thrombosis as a venous thromboembolic event in the context of extraintestinal manifestations of Crohn’s disease. We also conducted a literature review on portal vein thrombosis associated with inflammatory bowel disease, with the following concepts: inflammatory bowel diseases, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, portal vein, and thrombosis.

Case presentation

A 24-year-old Syrian female with active chronic Crohn’s disease was diagnosed 11 years ago and classified as A1L3B1P according to the Montreal classification. She had no prior surgical history. Her previous medications included azathioprine and prednisolone. Her Crohn’s disease activity index was 390 points. Gastroduodenoscopy revealed grade I esophageal varices, a complication of portal hypertension. Meanwhile, a colonoscopy revealed several deep ulcers in the sigmoid, rectum, and descending colon. An investigation of portal vein hypertension revealed portal vein thrombosis. We used corticosteroids to induce remission, followed by tapering; additionally she received ustekinumab to induce and maintain remission. She began on low-molecular-weight heparin for 1 week, warfarin for 3 months, and then apixaban, a novel oral anticoagulant, after excluding antiphospholipid syndrome. Primary prophylaxis for esophageal varices was not required. After 1 year, she achieved clinical, biochemical, and endoscopic remission. Despite 1 year of treatment, a computed tomography scan revealed no improvement in portal vein recanalization.

Portal vein thrombosis is a rare and poorly defined complication of inflammatory bowel disease. It is usually exacerbated by inflammatory bowel disease. The symptoms are nonspecific and may mimic a flare-up of inflammatory bowel disease, making the diagnosis difficult. Portal vein Doppler ultrasound for hospital-admitted inflammatory bowel disease patients may contribute to the diagnosis and management of this complication.

Peer Review reports

Extraintestinal manifestations can affect almost any organ system and have a negative impact on the patient’s functional status and quality of life. Extraintestinal manifestations are most commonly observed in the joints, skin, hepatobiliary tract, eyes, heart, pancreas, and vascular system. Portal vein thrombosis (PVT) is an obscure and poorly defined complication of many diseases, including cirrhosis, intraabdominal infection, intraabdominal surgery, pancreatitis, primary hematologic disorders, and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) [ 1 ]. The prevalence of PVT in patients with IBD ranges from 0.17% to 1.7% [ 1 ], and may be associated with inherited or acquired hypercoagulability risk factors and has a benign outcome [ 1 ]. It can be difficult to diagnose PVT in patients with IBD because its extremely generic symptoms, such as abdominal discomfort, can frequently originate from any of its triggering events. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the diagnosis is frequently made by accident when imaging is performed to check for one of these triggering processes, also the laboratory results are nonspecific [ 1 ]. We report an interesting and uncommon case of PVT associated with Crohn’s disease that was discovered when investigating the cause of esophageal varices related to portal vein hypertension. We also conducted a literature review on portal vein thrombosis associated with inflammatory bowel disease using the following concepts: inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, portal vein, and thrombosis.

We evaluated a 24-year-old Syrian female with active chronic Crohn’s disease, diagnosed 11 years ago. She was classified as A1L3B1P according to the Montreal classification [ 2 ]. She had no prior surgical history; her past medications included azathioprine 2.5 mg/kg/day since diagnosis until now and prednisolone 1 mg/kg up to 40 mg during flares, then tapering [ 3 ]. Furthermore, she did not use oral contraceptive pills. Her weight was 50 kg, her height was 161 cm, and she had a body mass index of 19.29 kg/m 2 . She complained of watery, bloody diarrhea up to eight times a day, accompanied by abdominal pain in the prior month. Her Crohn’s disease activity index (CDAI) was 390 points. Initial blood tests confirmed leukocytosis, anemia, elevated fecal calprotectin (FC), and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. Stool cultures, Clostridium difficile toxin, Escherichia coli , and Cryptosporidium , as well as microscopy for ova and parasites, all returned negative. The hypercoagulability work-up revealed negative results for anti-Beta-2 Glycoprotein-1 IgM antibodies, antinuclear antibodies (ANA), fibrinogen, protein S (activity), antithrombin III, and homocysteine, whereas lupus anticoagulant (LA1, LA2) was positive. Factor II mutation and factor V Leiden mutation were normal, whereas the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase mutation was a homozygous mutant gene. The portal system and suprahepatic vein ultrasound revealed a thrombus that covered nearly half of the lumen of the portal vein and splenomegaly. Gogastroduodenoscopy showed grade I esophageal varices (less than 5 mm, without bleeding risk signs), which indicate portal vein hypertension owing to splenomegaly and esophageal varices. In light of the patient’s recent onset of abdominal pain and the absence of portosystemic collaterals on Doppler ultrasound, a recent PVT is a strong possibility [ 4 ]. The colonoscopy revealed several deep ulcers in the sigmoid, rectum, and descending colon Fig.  1 . The biopsies were negative for Clostridium difficile , and immunohistochemical staining was negative for cytomegalovirus (CMV) [ 3 , 5 ]. The median liver stiffness measured by FibroScan was 2.4 kPa, which suggests the absence of fibrosis. Protein electrophoresis was normal. The abdomen and pelvis contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) scan confirmed the PVT and displayed thickening in the descending colon (Fig.  2 ). Antiphospholipid syndrome was initially diagnosed on the basis of an antiphospholipid profile, a history of PVT (thrombotic event), and an association with Crohn’s disease [ 6 ]. She initially received corticosteroids to achieve disease remission, followed by ustekinumab to induce and maintain therapy (390 mg intravenous induction followed by 90 mg subcutaneous every 8 weeks) owing to moderate-to-severe Crohn’s disease unresponsive to azathioprine [ 7 , 8 ]. She began on low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) for 1 week, and warfarin for 3 months with an international normalized ratio (INR) target of 2–3. The lupus anticoagulant (LA1, LA2) was retested after 12 weeks and returned to negative [ 6 ], so we switched to apixaban, a novel oral anticoagulant (NOAC) [ 4 ]. The 1-year reevaluation indicated clinical, biochemical, and endoscopic remission with CDAI of 150 points, normal lab test, and normal endoscopy. The patient’s tests are presented in Table  1 . Despite 1 year of treatment, a CT scan revealed no improvement in portal vein recanalization. We continued 90 mg of subcutaneous (SC) ustekinumab every 8 weeks, while we stopped apixaban [ 3 , 4 ].

Colonoscopy revealed several ulcerations in the sigmoid, rectum, and descending colon

The contrast-enhanced computed tomography scan of the abdomen, which shows portal vein thrombosis

Review of literature

To facilitate this literature review, we used a combination of keywords and database subject headings to search the MEDLINE (through PubMed) database on 1 July 2023 for the following concepts: Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, IBD, portal vein, PVT, and thrombosis. We also manually searched the reference lists of the included papers. We returned the research on 7 April 2024, and no new findings were obtained.

Eligibility criteria

We searched for any case reports, case series, observational, or interventional studies that addressed portal vein thrombosis associated with inflammatory bowel disease. Table 2 summarizes the basic features and treatment outcomes of the reported cases.

Crohn’s disease is linked to a variety of extraintestinal complications. Oral aphthous ulcers, peripheral arthritis, erythema nodosum, and episcleritis are frequently associated with active intestinal disease. Whereas uveitis and ankylosing spondylitis are usually unrelated to disease activity, pyoderma gangrenosum and primary sclerosing cholangitis have a questionable relationship to disease activity [ 9 ]. Venous thromboembolic events are fearsome manifestations that are related to disease activity and associated with significant morbidity and mortality [ 9 ]. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is the most prevalent thrombotic event, followed by pulmonary embolism (PE). The relative risk of thrombotic events in patients with inflammatory bowel disease was 2.03 [ 10 ]. Although inflammatory bowel disease treatment options have improved over the last three decades [ 11 ], thrombotic events among hospitalized individuals with inflammatory bowel disease continued to rise [ 12 ]. The overall thrombotic risk did not differ between sexes or between individuals who have ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease [ 13 ]. There have been very few reports of portal vein thrombosis in the context of inflammatory bowel disease. The presenting indications, symptoms, and laboratory data are all extremely nonspecific, and a PVT diagnosis is nearly always made by chance. It is important to note that PVT is related to disease activity, particularly IBD flare. We found that portal vein thrombosis affects both men and women, with a small male predominance. It is also more frequent in individuals with ulcerative colitis than in those with Crohn’s disease. It is a rare complication in Crohn’s disease, identified in only 14 cases. Hypercoagulability testing in a subset of patients (around half) revealed inherited or acquired hypercoagulability factors in some, with antiphospholipid antibodies and factor V Leiden mutation being the most common. Treatment for thrombosis in Crohn’s disease involves tailored anticoagulation (heparin, warfarin, DOACs) or even surgery, with outcomes ranging from successful resolution to bleeding or death. However, limitations include the use of case reports and retrospective studies, and the small number of CD cases, which hinder definitive conclusions. There are no recommendations for thrombophilia screening in cases of portal vein thrombosis; many reports, including ours, have included thrombophilia testing. Naymagon et al . suggested that thrombophilia testing is not required in cases of clearly triggered PVT, such as after recent surgery or in the setting of a recent or active intraabdominal infection or IBD-flare [ 1 ]; moreover, he suggested that thrombophilia testing should be undertaken if PVT is not induced, such as spontaneous PVT in an otherwise stable and inactive IBD patient, or patients with a history of previous venous thromboembolism or unexplained blood count abnormalities [ 1 ]. Furthermore, testing for antiphospholipid syndrome and paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria may affect management and should be considered in certain conditions, such as a history of autoimmune disease or arterial thrombosis for antiphospholipid syndrome and unexplained cytopenia or evidence of intravascular hemolysis for paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria. Other thrombophilia testing are often unnecessary because the results have little impact on therapy [ 1 ]. A mutation of JAK2 could be detected in splanchnic vein thrombosis and thus provide a marker of latent myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), which are a major primary cause of abdominal vein thrombosis [ 14 ]. MPNs are made up of three key rare diseases: (1) polycythemia vera, which leads to an elevation in all blood cells, especially red blood cells; (2) essential thrombocythemia, which leads to an increase in platelets; and (3) primary myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disorder that leads to defects in blood cell production [ 14 , 15 ]. MPNs were diagnosed through a variety of criteria, including the typical alterations in peripheral blood cells [ 4 ], as she had chronic active CD with possible previous CD-flare and a normal blood profile which excludes MPNs [ 1 , 14 , 15 ]. We screened for antiphospholipid syndrome antibodies because the patient was a young female with a significant thrombotic event without a clear relationship with a Crohn’s disease flare. Although the lupus anticoagulant (LA1, LA2) was initially positive, it was found to be negative 12 weeks later. The explanations for the false positive in our instance were anticoagulant treatment, including therapy with LWMH, which is indicated to every patient admitted to the hospital with inflammatory bowel disease, and later warfarin for the management of portal vein thrombosis [ 3 , 6 , 13 ]. For PVT management, literature was unclear concerning the selection of anticoagulants. Most patients who require anticoagulation are started on LMWH, or unfractionated heparin, and then switched to vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) to maintain a goal international normalization rate of 2–3. While VKAs can be substituted orally with direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) or novel oral anticoagulants (NOACs). These medications do not require monitoring of the INR because of their speedier onset of action and lesser risk of bleeding. DOACs are just as effective as VKAs for treating deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, and stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation, and may be considered owing to potentially less frequent monitoring needs and a fixed dosing regimen, which could enhance medication adherence. However, owing to unbalanced hemostasis, patients with cirrhosis have been excluded from most trials. Our case was portal hypertension without cirrhosis; therefore, DOACs or NOACs are not contraindicated after excluding antiphospholipid syndrome. For Crohn’s disease treatment, ustekinumab was more suitable than tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (anti-TNFα), as ustekinumab had low immunogenicity (generating antidrug antibodies), so it is feasible to avoid a combination of azathioprine and ustekinumab, in contrast to anti-TNF treatment, which necessitates such a combination [ 3 , 6 , 7 , 9 ]. Ustekinumab helped to eliminate the drug interactions of azathioprine and warfarin, note that warfarin was the only therapeutic option owing to the initial diagnosis of antiphospholipid syndrome. In addition, ustekinumab had the lowest rate of serious infections among the biological treatments [ 7 ]. Esophageal varices primary prophylaxis is not required, as primary prophylaxis must be initiated upon the detection of high-risk varices, such as small varices with red signs, medium or large varices regardless of Child–Pugh classification, or small varices in patients classified as Child–Pugh C [ 16 ]. It is possible to discontinue anticoagulant treatment after a year, whether or not portal vein recanalization occurs, because a longer period of anticoagulant treatment is unlikely to enhance the probability of recanalization if it does not occur after a year [ 4 ].

PVT symptoms are similar to the symptoms of an inflammatory bowel disease flare. Initial tests for antiphospholipid syndrome were falsely positive [ 17 ]. The wise choice of ustekinumab as the first-line biological treatment, which aided in weaning off azathioprine, led to avoiding azathioprine–warfarin interactions. Using DOACs or NOACs for the management of portal vein thrombosis in case of portal vein hypertension. Finally, the management of esophageal varices in the context of anticoagulant treatment. The use of portal vein Doppler ultrasound, particularly during flare-ups of inflammatory bowel disease, may contribute to the diagnosis and management of this uncommon complication.

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Abbreviations

• Portal vein thrombosis
• Inflammatory bowel disease
• Crohn’s disease

C-reactive protein

International normalized ratio

K antagonists

Computed tomography

Subcutaneous

Antiphospholipid syndrome

Direct oral anticoagulants

Novel oral anticoagulants

Low molecular weight heparin

Hepatitis B surface antigen

Hepatitis B surface antibody

Hepatitis B core antibody

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Marouf Alhalabi, Duaa Nasri & Widad Aji

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Alhalabi, M., Nasri, D. & Aji, W. Portal vein thrombosis as extraintestinal complications of Crohn’s disease: a case report and review of literature. J Med Case Reports 18 , 246 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13256-024-04560-w

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Received : 10 October 2023

Accepted : 17 April 2024

Published : 14 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13256-024-04560-w

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Recap: Scott McLaughlin leads Team Penske front row sweep for 2024 Indianapolis 500

Pole position for the  2024 Indianapolis 500  will be determined Sunday, May 19. The best qualifier gets to lead the field at the start of the May 26 race. Rows 1-4 and 11 will be determined today. Rows 5-10 are set.

Team Penske's drivers – Will Power, Scott McLaughlin and defending race winner Josef Newgarden – had the best qualifying runs Saturday. Kyle Larson , who is trying to complete the Indy 500-NASCAR Cup double, also has a shot at pole position.

Alex Palou 's pole-winning 4-lap average of 234.217 mph from 2023 is the pole position run in Speedway history. Arie Luyendyk set the qualifying record of 236.986 in 1996, but qualifying rules at the time dictated he start further back.

Please follow  Nathan Brown  all season for IndyCar news and analysis. We'll have every qualifying run here.

First day recap:  Team Penske, Kyle Larson headline Indy 500 qualifying, will go for pole position

What is a plenum event? Inside the glitch that hampered Chevy drivers in Day 1 of Indy 500 qualifying

5:50 p.m.: Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske dominate Indy 500 qualifying

Scott McLaughlin has the fastest pole-winning run in race history at 234.220 mph as Team Penske sweeps the front row for the first time since 1988.

Will Power and Josef Newgarden will join McLaughlin on the front row next Sunday.

The second row includes Alexander Rossi, NASCAR star Kyle Larson and Santino Ferrucci.

Penske drivers Rick Mears, Al Unser and Danny Sullivan swept the front row for Penske in 1988, and Mears won.

This is Penske's 19th pole position here, and the first since Simon Pagenaud in 2019. Pagenaud is the last pole-sitter to also win the race.

INDY 500 LINEUP: A complete guide to the 33-car starting field

5:20 p.m.: Indy 500 Fast 6 qualifying

With car number, driver, engine, team, 4-lap speed average in mph

(3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, Penske, 234.220

(12) Will Power, Chevrolet, Penske, 233.917

(2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, Penske, 233.808

(7) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, Arrow McLaren, 233.090 ("I'm annoyed, but I'm motivated," he says of Team Penske)

(17) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, Arrow McLaren, 232.846; he thanks his team and is off to North Wilkesboro, N.C., for Sunday night's NASCAR All-Star Race.

(14) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, Foyt, 232.692

Track conditions : 90 degrees, sunny; track temperature 126.7

4:05 p.m.: Indy 500 last chance qualifying

Nolan Siegel, after being released from the infield medical center: "I'm going home because I did everything I possibly could. ... It led me into the wall."

Row 11 qualifiers : Katherine Legge, Marcus Ericsson, Graham Rahal.

With car number, driver, engine, team, 4-lap speed average in mph; drivers can make multiple attempts

Nolan Siegel crashes between Turns 1 and 2 on the 2nd lap of his final qualifying attempt and will miss the Indy 500. He gets out of the car under his own power. Along pit road, Graham Rahal, who qualifies 33rd, empathizes with Siegel. Rahal failed to qualify in 2023, but got into the race field after a post-qualifying crash involving Stefan Wilson.

(28) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, Andretti, 230.027; bumps Nolan Siegel

(15) Graham Rahal, Honda, RLL, 229.974; Marcus Ericsson is out the outside of the field at the moment.

(51) Katherine Legge, Honda, Coyne, 230.092 (She has a wiggle on the warm-up lap, and almost loses control on Lap 4; post-race comment: "Terrifying," adding she's a big bad car racer who also wants to cry.)

(28) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, Andretti, 220.702 (last lap is at 195.411; he decelerates heading into Turn 1 on Lap 4, believing his run is complete, and loses momentum); race officials disallow the run.

(18) Nolan Siegel, Honda, Coyne, 229.566

Track conditions : 88 degrees, partly cloudy; track temperatures 124

3:05 p.m.: Fast 12 Indy 500 qualifying

With car number, driver, engine, team, 4-lap speed average in mph; *-advances to Fast 6

Fast 6 : Team Penske's Scott McLaughlin, Will Power and Josef Newgarden, as well as Alexander Rossi, Kyle Larson and Santino Ferrucci. All are Chevrolets.

Row 3 : Rinus VeeKay, Pato O'Ward, Felix Rosenqvist; Row 4 : Takuma Sato, Kyle Kirkwood, Ryan Hunter-Reay.

(12) Will Power, Chevrolet, Penske, 233.483*

(3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, Penske, 233.492*

(2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, Penske, 233.286*

(7) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, Arrow McLaren, 233.071*

(27) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, Andretti, 230.993 ("I know we've got a good race car and good starting position.")

(17) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, Arrow McLaren, 232.788* ("Happy with how the day's going." He plans to compete in the NASCAR Cup All-Star race at North Wilkesboro, N.C., later Sunday, but first he will be in the Fast 6.)

(60) Felix Rosenqvist, Honda, Meyer Shank, 232.305

(14) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, Foyt, 232.723*

(75) Takuma Sato, Honda, RLL, 232.171

(5) Pato O'Ward, Chevrolet, Arrow McLaren, 232.584 ("The happiest balance in qualifying" set up.)

(21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, Carpenter, 232.610 ("This feels like a bonus lap," in the wake of Saturday's early crash and recovery to reach the top 12.)

(23) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Chevrolet, D&R-Cusick, 230.567 (Post-run comment: "That was pretty terrible.")

Track conditions : 87 degrees, partly cloudy; track temperature 124.5

1:45 p.m.: Last row qualifiers practice

Qualifying simulations : Katherine Legge (231.011); Marcus Ericsson (230.532); Graham Rahal (229.073); Nolan Siegel (228.955).

1 p.m.: Indy 500 Top 12 practice is complete

Here are the best 4-lap qualifying simulation runs, in average mph

• (3) Josef Newgarden, 233.707
• (60) Felix Rosenqvist, 232.848
• (3) Scott McLaughlin, 232.655
• (5) Pato O'Ward, 232.637
• (7) Alexander Rossi, 232.495
• (27) Kyle Kirkwood, 232.335
• (17) Kyle Larson, 232.091
• (12) Will Power, 231.688
• (75) Takuma Sato, 228.852
• (23) Ryan Hunter-Reay, 225.365

Kyle Larson acknowledges the constant tweaking in search of qualifying speed is frustrating, considering the qualifying process in NASCAR is much simpler.

12:30 p.m.: Josef Newgarden has top qualifying practice run

Qualifying simulations : Josef Newgarden (233.707) and Felix Rosenqvist (232.848) have topped O'Ward's previous run.

NASCAR star Kyle Larson started a simulated qualifying run, but backed out after briefly sliding.

12:15 p.m.: Indy 500 Top 12 practice

Qualifying simulations : Pato O'Ward (232.637); Alexander Rossi (232.495); Kyle Kirkwood (232.335); Will Power (231.688)

Track conditions : 84 degrees, sunny; track temperature 114.4

Fast 12 Indianapolis 500 qualifiers

With car number, driver, engine, team and 4-lap speed average; all cars use Dallara chassis and Firestone tires (W-race winner; R-race rookie)

One round of qualifying will cut this group to the Fast Six, and a second round will determine the top six starters

• (12) Will Power (W), Chevrolet, Penske, 233.758 mph
• (3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, Penske, 233.332
• (2) Josef Newgarden (W), Chevrolet, Penske, 233.293
• (7) Alexander Rossi (W), Chevrolet, Arrow McLaren, 233.069
• (27) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, Andretti Global, 232.764
• (17) Kyle Larson (R), Chevrolet, Arrow McLaren 232.563
• (60) Felix Rosenqvist, Honda, Meyer Shank, 232.547
• (14) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, AJ Foyt, 232.496
• (75) Takuma Sato (W), Honda, Rahal Letterman Lanigan, 232.473
• (6) Pato O'Ward, Chevrolet, Arrow McLaren, 232.434
• (21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, Ed Carpenter, 232.419
• (23) Ryan Hunter-Reay (W), Chevrolet, Dreyer & Reinbold-Cusick, 232.385

2024 Indy 500 last chance qualifying

Three of these drivers will comprise Row 11, and one will not make the race

'It’s gonna be high pressure': Ericsson, Rahal, Coyne compete for final spots in Indy 500

(28) Marcus Ericsson (W), Honda, Andretti Global, 230.603

(51) Katherine Legge, Honda, Dale Coyne, 230.830

(15) Graham Rahal, Honda, Rahal Letterman Lanigan, 230.685

(18) Nolan Siegel (R), Honda, Dale Coyne, 228.276

2024 Indy 500 Row 5

13. (26) Colton Herta, Honda, Andretti Global, 232.316

14. (10) Alex Palou, Honda, Chip Ganassi Racing, 232.306

15. (6) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, Arrow McLaren, 232.230

2024 Indy 500 Row 6

16. (11) Marcus Armstrong (R), Honda, Chip Ganassi Racing, 232.183

17. (20) Ed Carpenter, Chevrolet, Ed Carpenter Racing, 232.017

18. (4) Kyffin Simpson (R), Honda, Chip Ganassi Racing, 231.948

2024 Indy 500 Row 7

19. (98) Marco Andretti, Honda, Andretti Global, 231.890

20. (06) Helio Castroneves (W), Honda, Meyer Shank, 231.871

21. (9) Scott Dixon (W), Honda, Chip Ganassi Racing, 231.851

2024 Indy 500 Row 8

22. (78) Agustin Canapino, Chevrolet, Juncos Hollinger Racing, 231.847

23. (41) Sting Ray Robb, Chevrolet, AJ Foyt Racing, 231.826

24. (33) Christian Rasmussen (R), Chevrolet, Ed Carpenter Racing, 231.851

2024 Indy 500 Row 9

25. (66) Tom Blomqvist (R), Honda, Meyer Shank, 231.578

26. (77) Romain Grosjean, Chevrolet, Juncos Hollinger Racing, 231.514

27. (8) Linus Lundqvist (R), Honda, Chip Ganassi Racing, 231.506

2024 Indy 500 Row 10

28. (45) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, Rahal Letterman Lanigan, 231.465

29. (24) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, Dreyer & Reinbold-Cusick, 231.243

30. (30) Pietro Fittipaldi, Honda, Rahal Letterman Lanigan, 231.100

Indy 500 qualifying schedule, procedure

Listen to the action on IndyCar Radio or SiriusXM Channel 218

Sunday, May 19

(Practices will be on Peacock)

Noon-1 p.m. : Top 12 practice

1-2 p.m. : Last chance qualifiers practice

(Qualifying on NBC)

3:05-4:05 p.m. : The fastest 12 cars from Saturday will get one attempt each to post an additional time. The slowest of those 12 goes first, then the 11th, etc. Positions 7-12 during this sessions establish their starting positions for the race. The six fastest will have one more chance to earn the pole position.

4:15-5:15 p.m. : Last chance qualifying will determine the 11th row (positions 31-33). Each of the four slowest qualifiers from Saturday will be guaranteed at least one four-lap run. Any can make multiple attempts as needed before the clock expires. The slowest car in this session does not make the Indy 500.

5:25-5:55 p.m. : The Fast Six determines the first two rows. Each car gets one four-lap attempt, starting with the 6th-fastest from the 3:05 p.m. session, then the 5th, etc. Fastest in this session starts the race from the pole position, and the rest fill Rows 1 and 2 based their attempts in this session.

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2024 NBA Draft Combine: Reed Sheppard, Zach Edey among biggest stock-risers

The 2024 nba draft combine has wrapped up its competitive portion of the week, which saw several household names make themselves a lot of money.

CHICAGO -- After the combine measurements and testing on Monday and two days of scrimmages on Tuesday and Wednesday , the competitive portion of the 2024 NBA Draft Combine has wrapped up at Wintrust Arena in Chicago. 

That doesn't mean the combine is over quite yet. Various agencies will hold their pro days over the next two days and player interviews with NBA teams will continue to take place through the rest of the week. 

For the most part though, we now have a good idea of who helped themselves the most between the various on-court activities.  Here are the players whose stock moved up from the combine. 

Reed Sheppard, Kentucky

He was arguably the most pleasant surprise in all of college basketball this year, and certainly in the national freshman class. This weekend, Sheppard surprised us yet again when he recorded the highest vertical leap in the entire NBA Combine. Given the shooting splits and defensive metrics he showed for Kentucky this year, and the undeniable intangibles, this most recent data point is just the latest in a suddenly long line of evidence that Sheppard is continuing to trend up boards.

Devin Carter, Providence

Carter is known as one of the most competitive players in this draft and a high-upside defensive prospect. This week he utilized the athletic testing to add more credence to those descriptives. 

Carter recorded a 42-inch max vertical (tying Sheppard for best in the field), a 35-inch standing vertical, and then reportedly tied the combine record for the three-quarter sprint at 2.87 seconds. The only negative was that he measured in at 6-foot-2.25 without shoes, but his massive +6.5-inch wingspan more than helps compensate. In short, the vast majority of the data only helps a prospect who is hoping to keep pushing towards the lottery.

Zach Edey, Purdue

Much of the conversation in the NCAA Tournament was about Edey vs. Donovan Clingan. The narrative was that Clingan was more mobile and thus a better defender. Even if I still personally subscribe to that theory, the numbers didn't necessarily back it up here in Chicago. In fact, Edey ranked ahead of him in lane agility time, three-quarter sprint, max vertical leap, and standing vertical leap while measuring an absolutely massive 7-foot-3.75 without shoes with a 7-foot-10.75 wingspan and a 9-foot-7 standing reach. 

Last but not least, Edey showed some real touch here this week which left scouts wondering if he had more long-term shooting potential than we saw at Purdue. Before the week began, I had Edey going No. 25 overall in my mock draft . 

KJ Simpson, Colorado

When the games began and most of the projected first-rounders opted out, Simpson was the first player to really separate himself from the field. He went for 16 points on Day 1, showing the same aggressive attack we saw this year at Colorado, and followed that up with 11 points, seven rebounds, and four assists on Wednesday. Simpson is also drawing rave reviews in the interview process. Overall, his size is a concern and scouts are also intrigued to see if the massive shooting gains he showed this year are sustainable, but his pace, aggression, and ability to assert himself were all talking points.

Jamal Shead, Houston

Shead is viewed as in a similar player archetype to Simpson. He's undersized, and the shooting is even more of a question mark, but Shead is a warrior who set the tone with his approach, defense, and leadership. All of that came through in the NBA Draft Combine setting. Shead went for 14 points and four assists in the first game and 13 points and six assists in the second, albeit on only 3-for-11 shooting from the floor. 

Right now, Shead is viewed as a probable second-round pick, but if he can convince teams in private workouts that he is going to be able to make spot-up shots, he could knock on the doorstep of the first round.

Baylor Scheierman, Creighton

Scheierman was not going to win the day on Monday when it was about athletic testing and measurements. But when the actual basketball play started on Tuesday, that was his time. Scheierman went for 17 points and showed both the spot-up shooting and decision-making that could make him ideally suited to be a complementary court-spacer and smart force against a scrambling defense. Scheierman could thrive if he is asked to not be the primary domino. 

The biggest questions are on the defensive end, and he looked determined to address those. Scheierman was active, went to the glass, and consistently was around the ball. 

Jonathan Mogbo, San Francisco

Mogbo was one of the most physically dominant big men in mid-major basketball this year, but questions about his ability to translate his style to the NBA level only intensified when he measured in at 6-foot-6.25 to start the week. But things have only gotten better from there. He has a massive +6.5 wingspan and an even more glaring 9-foot-0.5 standing reach. While he was a monster in the paint during the college season, he showed some intriguing skill in this setting, taking the ball off the glass to start the break and even putting it on the floor effectively in the half-court at times.

Adem Bona, UCLA

Bona may be undersized for a center (6-foot-8.25 without shoes), but he showed deceptive functional size thanks to his massive 7-foot-3.75 wingspan and 9-foot-0 standing reach. On top of that, he was measured as one of the most complete and impressive athletes in the entire field. When the five-on-five began, while many players gravitated toward the style the played in college, Bona showed an awareness of what his translatable role would be in the NBA. He sprinted the floor, rebounded out of his area with two hands, contested plays at the rim defensively, and put a ton of pressure on the rim as a finisher. 

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