This video from San Jose State University will give you a brief introduction to writing a literature review .
A summary or synthesis that evaluates the scholarly published information on a particular topic or subject area, particularly in a defined period of time. A literature review is a summary of previous research on a topic.
Keep in mind that both the summary and the evaluative elements are important parts of the review. You cannot conduct a thorough literature review without both. If you just summarize or synthesize past research without evaluating it, you are only reviewing the information . If you just evaluate recent ideas or theories on a particular topic or subject area without summarizing the work conducted to validate those theories, then your evaluations lack not only context but also the evidence supporting those ideas .
Some questions to think about as you develop your literature review: