literature reviewing
Give yourself the tools to succeed!
Give yourself time to think.
A good literature review cannot be done in
6 weeks or 6 easy steps.
​Chris Hart
Nickable Stuff
The following materials have been provided for you to use as you wish. But please cite them according to fair use guidelines or the Creative Commons Licence.
I will add materials my students find useful. If you have suggestions then feel free to email me.
Who wants a handout?
Here is the stuff
Boote & Beile's Literature reviewing rubric. Based on some chap called Hart this is a set of criteria for assessing literature reviews. The rest of their article is very useful and should be read.
Brent & Stubbings' SCONUL report on information skills in higher education introducing the new model of information literacy to which a series of lenses for different learners can be applied. Relevant to understanding the Vitae's RDF.
A Guide to Information Retrieval for Campbell Systematic Review: by Hammerstrom, Wade & Jorgensen. Based on chp6 of the Cochrane Handbook (2008). A must read for interventionists.
The Magenta Books are guides to planning and executuing evaluation studies based on best evidence. The series and more is available from,
What do we already know?
What do the statistics tell me?
Notes for policy evaluation & analysis.
Here are some examples of rapid evidence assessment reports
Here is an example of a scheme for assessing qualitative studies.