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Engineering Literature Review

This guide provides an overview of the engineering literature review and its place in a research project, thesis, or dissertation.

Engineering Librarian

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Daniela Solomon
Contact:
Kelvin Smith Library Room 201-L
Email: dxs594@case.edu
Phone: 216-368-8790


Research Services Librarian

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6200-5216

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What is Literature Review?

Literature review is a "systematic, explicit, and reproducible method for identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing the existing body of completed and recorded work produced by researchers, scholars, and practitioners."

From:

Why is it important?

  • provides a context for the research topic
  • identifies major themes and concepts of the research topic
  • outlines gaps and flaws in previous research
  • enables the researcher to learn from previous theory on the subject
  • identifies what has been already covered to prevent duplication
  • position the work within the existing literature
  • discusses further research questions

Literature review ca be a short introduction to an article, an article by itself, or the first chapter of a thesis or dissertation.

Adapted from:

Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students

Revision Date

Revised and updated on 10/26/2021.