Physical Therapy Capstone

For your assignment, you will have to write a literature review. Use the information on this page to learn about it. 

Watch the video: Literature review (3:48) This video from the Netter Library provides an overview of literature reviews. 

Literature reviews are both a process and a product. As a process, it involves searching for information on your topic to familiarize yourself with the relevant research and identify issues and gaps in the research. It will not present new research; rather, it will provide an overview of prior research on a specific topic. Mostly, you are looking to identify key authors, arguments that are on your topic.

It is part of what's called the "scholarly conversation," the network of research studies that tell the story of relationships and connections in a discipline. Your research will become part of this conversation.

Literature reviews serve multiple purposes. They should:

• Review current knowledge in the field. 
• Describe previous studies in the field - who conducted them, where they were conducted, why they were conducted, when they were conducted and what they findings were. 
• Compare and contrast the findings from relevant studies.
• Comment on the strengths and weaknesses of relevant studies. 
• Identify any gaps in the literature that will be addressed in your thesis. 

A stand alone literature review can be a single work. Examples are a class assignment or a review article.

Also, a literature review can be a part of a larger work usually after the introduction and before the research method section. Examples are a thesis/dissertation and study (such as a randomized controlled trial, case study or qualitative study).

Many stand alone literature reviews use a three-part structure:

• Introduction (where the topic is identified and any trends or major problems in the literature are introduced),
• Body (where the studies that comprise the literature on that topic are discussed), 
• Discussion or Conclusion (where major patterns and points are discussed and the general state of what is known about the topic is summarized).

Case reports are a collections of reports on the treatment of individual patients or a report on a single patient.

Use the following links to learn more.