1) Understand what types of "literature" you need for your review
- Academic books, scholarly journal articles, conference papers, theses or dissertations
- Depending on the nature and focus of your research topic, you might also include:
- Historical documents, policy documents, government publications, newspapers, professional (practitioner-oriented) books or magazine articles
2) Search most relevant databases in the topic field
- Use keyword searching and other advanced techniques to retrieve relevant materials
- Check Research Guides to the topic
3) Use citation databases (i.e., Web of Science) or Google Scholar for cited reference search
- Know how to chain citations
- Identify key authors and search for their publications
4) Create a log that documents how the literature search was conducted and what materials were read/scanned
Click here for step-by-step instructions (w/screen shots) on how to find: