a structured, critical, and comprehensive analysis of the existing research and scholarly publications on a particular topic or research question. It involves systematically searching for, selecting, evaluating, and synthesizing prior studies to summarize current knowledge, identify patterns and inconsistencies, highlight gaps in evidence, and propose areas for further research.
Example
A graduate student writing a thesis on rheumatoid arthritis treatments conducts a literature review of peer-reviewed articles published in the last 10 years to summarize existing evidence, identify gaps in current knowledge, and propose new research questions.