Veterinary Science  Tags: veterinary_science animal_health  

A literature review surveys scholarly material (books, journals, dissertations, conference proceedings etc.) on a particular topic or subject area and provides an overview and analysis of the literature available. It provides an overview of the significant papers published on the topic and identifies areas for further research.

A literature review should;

• Summarise the current understanding of the topic.
• Identify key issues in the field of study (themes).
• Examine each work in the context of its contribution to our understanding of the topic.
• Identify biases, conflicts, or gaps in the research.
• Synthesis previous research into a coherent summary of your key themes.

The literature in your review should be discussed as a whole, not just as individual articles. It is best to construct the discussion of these articles around themes, not in chronological order or by source (unless this is a key theme). You may discuss individual articles, but not in isolation. They should be critiqued in the context of the other material on that theme or issue.

In the introduction you should identify previous reviews or works on your topic, and establish the purpose of your review:

...Wine spoilage by AAB has been discussed in various general reviews on wine microbiology and specific reviews on acetic acid bacteria (Vaughn, 1955 R.H. Vaughn, Bacterial spoilage of wines with special reference to Californian conditions, Advances in Food Research 6 (1955), pp. 67–108. Abstract Vaughn, 1955, Rao, 1957, Amerine and Kunkee, 1968, Drysdale and Fleet, 1988, Sponholz, 1993 and Du Toit and Pretorius, 2002).

Next, you may find it helpful to identify the themes you have used for focus and the basis of your collection of material:

...This review will concentrate on the spoilage of bottled wine by AAB, focussing on wine associated species, wine composition and the factors that can contribute to spoilage of bottled red wine.

In the body, group and discuss your collected literature in the context of your identified themes and identify biases, conflicts, or gaps in the research:

...The oxygen content of this entrapped gas, which is finite, and minimised by the modern bottling equipment used, does not explain the often random nature of the AAB spoilage (Caloghiris et al., 1997). However, various studies with natural cork implicate variation in their oxygen permeation characteristics as measured by the rate of oxidation of wine constituents, such as ascorbic acid, sulphur dioxide and phenolics (Waters et al., 1996, Caloghiris et al., 1997 M. Caloghiris, E.J. Waters and P.J. Williams, An industry trial provides further evidence for the role of corks in oxidative spoilage of bottled wines, Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research 3 (1997), pp. 9–17. Full Text via CrossRef | View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (10)Caloghiris et al., 1997, Godden et al., 2001 and Jung and Zürn, 2001), and it has been estimated that over a year, several millilitres of oxygen could enter a bottle via this route (Ribéreau-Gayon et al., 1976 and Casey, 1992).

You should conclude with an evaluation or identification of further areas for research, or where your research lies within this field of study.

Examples taken from: Bartowsky, E.J. & Henschke, P.A. 2008, "Acetic acid bacteria spoilage of bottled red wine-A review", International Journal of Food Microbiology, vol. 125, no. 1

• A good place to start is to find other literature reviews or review articles on your topic. It will give you an overview of what has been researched before.
• When searching a database, try limiting results to 'review articles', or if this option is not available, add the keyword 'review' to your search.
• Use a citation database to find the most influential articles or authors on a topic. These databases will allow you to create a report on a results set that list the most heavily cited (and therefore influential) articles. You can also track backwards and forwards through time from a journal article to find out who influenced their research, and who in turn their research has influenced. 
• If you need help finding material, or want to know more about using citation databases, please contact Matthew Davis or Karen Black.

The Library has two citation databases available;