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.
A literature review must do these things:
1. Be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question you are developing
2. Synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
3. Identify areas of controversy in the literature
4. Formulate questions that need further research
