Now that you have defined your topic, the next step is to start a literature review. Literature reviews summarises, interprets and critically evaluates material that has already been published on a topic. The purpose is to establish current knowledge of a subject, identify gaps, inconsistencies and relations in the literature as well as outline areas for additional research and/or define a topic of inquiry.
If you are interested in further information about conducting literature reviews check out the Library Guide on Literature Reviews.
Adopted from Charles Sturt University Library. (2017). Literature review. Retrieved from http://libguides.csu.edu.au/review
There are many different types of resources which might offer information on the topic you are researching, but you need to consider whether the source is scholarly or authoritative enough for a literature review. Typically literature reviews are conducted by using journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, websites or standards. See the Sources of Information tab to get an overview of the different resources types and how to find them at CSU.
In addition, there is a range of new information sources that you may not have come across before, these are detailed in the sub tabs on:
To keep your information organised, you might like to consider using a reference manager. There are a number of different reference managers available to use, all have their own advantages and disadvantages. See the Write and Reference tab to find further information on CSU's bibliographic management software EndNote.
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