What is the difference between a literature search and a literature review?
A literature search is a systematic search of the available literature on a given research topic, which helps to identify what has already been written on that research topic and what the gaps in the research might be. Literature searching is a process you will become increasingly familiar with throughout your studies; it's a foundation for learning and writing assessments.
A literature review is a written survey of the available literature on a given research topic, which provides an overview and critical analysis of the existing research that can be applied to your research project.
Video tutorials
Watch this in-depth video tutorial by Arts and Humanities Librarian Farzana Qureshi: Looking beyond your reading lists: effective literature searching
How to carry out a literature search
Here is a 4 step guide to carrying out a literature search. You may start by performing the steps in order and then find that the order changes as you delve more deeply into a research topic - and that's perfectly fine! Remember that literature searching often involves trial and error, and you're unlikely to find everything you need in your first search.
- What do you want to investigate? Identify the key concepts for your search
- Determine useful databases
- Write your search query
- Run the search, edit the search if necessary, and run the search again
Top tips:
- Keep track of your searches, the number of results they produce, and the most useful results they produce, for example in a document or spreadsheet. Keeping a record of your searches will help you to repeat the same search in different databases and to avoid duplicating your efforts.
- AI tools like Microsoft Copilot can be helpful for creating more complex search strings.
- Explore a range of sources, not only books and journal articles: databases, news resources, podcasts, documentaries, films, book reviews, conference proceedings, and more.
Step 1: What do you want to investigate? Identify the key concepts for your search
- It may seem obvious, but you need to know what you want to investigate before you can start researching.
- Ask yourself what you want to find out and then craft a research question. For example, if you know you want to investigate the recent development of family law in Japan, your research question might be 'how has family law in Japan changed in the 21st century?'
- Systematically create a list of the key ideas and terms relevant to your literature search.
- How to create this list?
- Brainstorm - use your own knowledge of the subject
- synonyms
- also consider how certain terminology might have developed if you want to capture research from historic periods
- dictionaries and encyclopaedias
- subject headings in SOAS catalogue records
- Example: If your essay is titled 'Changes to family law in 21st century Japan', some keywords might include: family law, women, children, marriage, divorce, law, legal, court, 21st century, twenty first, modern, contemporary, current, Japan, Japanese, East Asia etc.
Step 2: Determine useful databases
- Not sure where to begin? Start with the SOAS catalogue!
- SOAS Library has access to over 100 databases, which can all be accessed via the A-Z database list.
- The SOAS Library catalogue searches multiple databases. However, to search Westlaw, Lexis+ and HeinOnline you should go to the databases directly.
- It is useful to repeat the same searches in different databases because it's unlikely you’ll find everything you need in one single database. This is particularly true for postgraduate students, and it's very important for literature reviews which try to capture the most relevant research for a topic.
- If SOAS does not have access to a database you need, Senate House Library (SHL) or another library that is part of University of London might.
Step 3: Write your search query
- Databases are different from internet search engines like Google. To search databases most effectively, clearly express your search terms and how they relate to each other.
- Less is more. Avoid articles like 'the', 'a', 'an', and conjunctions like 'but', 'if', 'when'.
- Try searching for 3 keywords to start with.
- Databases recognise connectors to tell them how search terms connect to each other, which enables you to refine the parameters of your search. It's useful to use connectors in database searches because if there are no connectors between terms in a search, some databases will interpret how the words in the search relate to each other, which can lead to a narrower or broader search than intended. Examples of connectors, also known as Boolean Operators:
- AND
- The search will only produce results which include the terms stated, i.e. if you connect 3 terms with AND, the search will only produce results that include all 3 terms. Example: library AND law AND case
- Produces a smaller set of results
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- OR
- Good for synonyms. Example: library OR law
- Produces a larger set of results
- NOT
- Produces results that contain the first keyword but not the second, so ensure you type them in the correct order. Example: library NOT law
- Produces a smaller set of results
- Other advanced search techniques:
- Wilcards and truncation, also known as stemming, are the use of symbols to replace characters in a search string (note each database will have wildcard preferences, so check first before using them):
- *: Use the start of a word followed by a symbol (! or * depending on the database) to produce search results containing variations of a root word. Example: uni* will produces results containing the words 'university', 'universal', 'united' etc.
- $ usually replaces any one character. Example: b$t will produce results including 'bat', 'bit', 'but'
- ? usually replaces one or no characters. Example: flavo?r will produces results including 'flavor' and 'flavour'
- Phrase searching
- To search for exact phrases, use inverted commas (' ') or double quotations marks (" "). Example: "law library"
- Proximity operators:
- Produces results based on the proximity of one keyword to another.
- W/n or /n produces results where n is the number of words that can appear between two or more search terms. Example: ‘court w/10 liab!’ means the term 'court' appears within 10 words of some form of the word 'liability'
- 'SENTENCE' between two words produces results in which two or more keywords occur in the same sentence. Example: 'court SENTENCE library'.
Step 4: Run the search, edit the search if necessary, and run the search again
- Evaluate the results produced by your search.
- Too many results? Try using advanced search functions, filters within the search results, and some databases have subject filters.
- Too few results? Try adding extra synonyms to your search terms, removing terms, using an advanced search feature to also search by date or title, proximity connectors, phrase searching.
