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Sheridan Grant

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Sheridan is a writer from Hamilton, Ontario. She has a passion for writing about what she loves and learning new things along the way. Her topics of expertise include skincare and beauty, home decor, and DIYing.

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About Thesis Nootropics

Hands up if you guzzle five coffees a day to stay awake, have tried all the supplements in the book desperate to improve your headspace, and aren’t interested in prescribed medications. Designed to increase focus , Thesis nootropics might be for you. 

Thesis offers a customized blend of ingredients designed to optimize your cognitive function , with personalized details that tackle your specific needs. Nootropics boost brain performance in the same way a stimulant would, without the common negative effects. 

A study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease found that nootropics may help improve cognitive function in people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Interested in finding out more about the brand and how it works? Leaf through our Thesis Nootropics review. We’ll be your guide through the company and the process, as well as details on the treatments, highlights from customer reviews, answers to important FAQs, and more, to help you decide if it’s worth the try.

Pros and Cons

• Multiple cognitive benefits: Thesis Nootropics offers a variety of blends that cater to multiple aspects of cognitive function.
• Long-term effects: On top of short term benefits for daily life, Thesis nootropics ingredients are designed to impact the brain in the long-term.
• Personalized recommendations: Thesis Nootropics makes personalized recommendations based on your goals and unique brain chemistry.
• Potential side effects: The most common side effects to watch out for when you start taking Thesis Nootropics include heartburn, headaches, confusion, dizziness, loss of appetite, and digestive issues.
• Need to stop taking if issues arise: If you experience a headache or an upset stomach that won’t go away while taking their nootropics, Thesis recommends that you stop taking them.

What is Thesis Nootropics?

Nootropics are nutrient compounds and substances that are known to improve brain performance , such as caffeine and creatine. They help with issues that affect motivation, creativity, mood, memory, focus, and cognitive processing.

Nootropics are the ideal addition to an already healthy lifestyle that consists of exercise, proper nutrition, and enjoyable activities.  Thesis nootropics are carefully formulated to target specific needs, ranging from energy to creativity. The brand focuses on safety, ensuring that all supplements adhere to FDA guidelines and go through multiple clinical trials. 

How Thesis Nootropics Works

With all that being said, you may be wondering how Thesis provides users with an option that is specific to their needs. Fortunately, the process is simple and hassle free. Here’s how it works:

• Take the Thesis nootropics quiz
• Answer questions about your basic information
• Receive personalized recommendations 
• Get your starter kit for $120 , or $79 monthly when you subscribe 

After that, you’ll select one formula to take each week, taking one day off in between each different option. You’ll also track your results in the daily journal over the month to see how they affect your daily life. 

From there, it operates as a subscription service. Users will be able to optimize their next shipment by telling the brand which formulas worked best.

If you don’t like any of the blends in your box, let the company know and they’ll switch it for something that’s a better fit for your lifestyle, genetics, and goals.

Thesis Nootropics Ingredients

Thesis Nootropics is a brand that offers personalized nootropics designed to enhance cognitive function and overall brain health. Their blends contain a variety of ingredients that are carefully chosen for their cognitive-boosting properties. Here are some of the key ingredients in Thesis Nootropics:

• Cognizin (Citicoline) : Cognizin is a type of choline that is known for its ability to enhance cognitive function, including memory and focus.
• L-Theanine : L-Theanine is an amino acid that is found in green tea, and is known for its ability to promote relaxation and reduce stress and anxiety.
• Lion’s Mane Mushroom : Lion’s Mane Mushroom is a type of medicinal mushroom that is believed to have cognitive-boosting properties, including improved memory and focus.
• Rhodiola Rosea : Rhodiola Rosea is an adaptogenic herb that is known for its ability to reduce stress and fatigue, and improve mental clarity and cognitive function.
• Ashwagandha : Ashwagandha is an adaptogenic herb that is known for its ability to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve memory and cognitive function.
• Phosphatidylserine : Phosphatidylserine is a type of phospholipid that is found in high concentrations in the brain, and is believed to support cognitive function, including memory and focus³
• Alpha-GPC : Alpha-GPC is a type of choline that is known for its ability to enhance cognitive function, including memory and focus.
• TAU (uridine): TAU is a blend of uridine, choline, and DHA, which is believed to support brain health and cognitive function.
• Artichoke extract : Artichoke extract is believed to enhance cognitive function by increasing levels of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is important for memory and learning.
• Dynamine : Dynamine is a type of alkaloid that is believed to enhance cognitive function by increasing levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is important for mood and motivation.

Overall, the ingredients in Thesis Nootropics are carefully chosen for their cognitive-boosting properties, and are designed to work together to enhance overall brain health and cognitive function.

Thesis Nootropics Health Benefits

Thesis Nootropics is a brand that offers personalized nootropics designed to enhance cognitive function and overall brain health. Their blends contain a variety of ingredients that are carefully chosen for their cognitive-boosting properties, and offer numerous health benefits. Here are some of the health benefits of Thesis Nootropics:

• Increased cognitive energy : One of the key benefits of Thesis Nootropics is increased cognitive energy, which can help improve productivity, mental alertness, and motivation, as it contains cognizin .
• Enhanced mental clarity : Another benefit of Thesis Nootropics is enhanced mental clarity,given from Lion’s Mane Mushroom which can help reduce brain fog and improve focus.
• Improved memory and learning abilities : Thesis Nootropics contains ingredients that are believed to improve memory and learning abilities, like Phosphatidylserine , which can help users retain information more effectively.
• Elevated mood : Thesis Nootropics may help elevate mood and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, thanks to ingredients like L-Theanine and Ashwagandha .
• Lowered stress levels : The adaptogenic herbs in Thesis Nootropics, such as Rhodiola Rosea and Ashwagandha , are known for their ability to lower stress levels and promote relaxation.
• Boosted focus : Thesis Nootropics contains ingredients like Alpha-GPC and Artichoke extract , which are believed to boost focus and concentration.

While Thesis Nootropics offers numerous health benefits, it’s important to note that the long-term effects of nootropics are not yet fully understood and more research is needed.

3 Thesis Nootropics Bestsellers

Thesis energy review.

If you’re constantly struggling to keep up with the demands of your busy life, it might be time to try a natural energy booster like Thesis Energy. This powerful nootropic blend is specifically designed to increase energy, overcome fatigue, and build mental stamina.

Thesis Energy is caffeine-free, making it a great option for those who are sensitive to caffeine or looking for a natural alternative to traditional energy drinks. The Energy formulation is designed to help improve focus and mental clarity, increase cognitive energy, and reduce fatigue. Whether you’re facing a busy day at work, recovering after a night of poor sleep, or gearing up for an intense workout, Thesis Energy can help you power through.

Each ingredient in Thesis Energy is carefully chosen for its energy-boosting properties. The specific ingredients can vary depending on your needs, but they work together to help increase energy, improve mental clarity, and reduce fatigue.

To get the most out of Thesis Energy, take it every morning on an empty stomach. You can also take it again after lunch if you need an extra boost. It’s designed to help you tackle busy, hectic days, recover from poor sleep, and power through intense workouts.

If you’re tired of relying on coffee and energy drinks to get through the day, it might be time to give Thesis Energy a try. Check availability and start boosting your energy naturally today!

Thesis Creativity

If you’re someone who struggles with creativity or finds yourself feeling stuck in your creative endeavors, Thesis Creativity may be worth considering. This nootropic supplement is designed to help spark inspiration, enhance verbal fluency, and boost confidence in your own great ideas.

So what’s in Thesis Creativity? The ingredients may vary depending on your specific needs, but these ingredients work together to support stress management, memory function, mood regulation, and energy production.

By supporting stress management, memory function, and mood regulation, Thesis Creativity can help free up mental space for more creative thinking. Additionally, the caffeine and L-theanine combo can provide a boost of energy and focus without the jitters and crash that can come with caffeine alone.

To get the most out of Thesis Creativity, it is recommended to take it every morning on an empty stomach and again after lunch if you need an extra boost. This nootropic blend is particularly helpful for brainstorming and creative thinking, writing and creative projects, and public speaking and social situations.

As with any nootropic supplement, it’s important to note that the long-term effects of Thesis Creativity are not yet fully understood and more research is needed. It’s always a good idea to speak with a healthcare professional before adding any new supplements to your routine.

In summary, if you’re looking for a little extra help in the creativity department, Thesis Creativity may be a valuable addition to your nootropic lineup. Its unique blend of ingredients can help support mental clarity, mood regulation, and energy production, making it a valuable tool for any creative individual.

Thesis Logic

If you’ve been having trouble with your memory lately, such as forgetting what you had for lunch yesterday or struggling to recall common words, then Thesis Logic may be just what you need. This formula is designed to help enhance your processing speed, boost your memory, and deepen your thinking.

Thesis Logic is caffeine-free, making it a great option for those who are sensitive to caffeine. The formula is ideal for use during deep, focused work, complex problem-solving, research projects, and completing tedious tasks.

Taking Thesis Logic is easy – simply take it every morning on an empty stomach, and take it again after lunch if you need an extra boost. By incorporating Thesis Logic into your daily routine, you may notice improvements in your cognitive function and overall mental performance.

Who Is Thesis Nootropics For? 

Thesis nootropics are designed for a number of different specific needs, including anyone who wants to focus better, have more energy, and maintain mental clarity. All in all, the products are specifically formulated to improve day to day life and target your specific needs .

Thesis Nootropics Side Effects

While Thesis nootropics are designed to enhance cognitive performance and provide a range of benefits, it’s important to be aware of the potential side effects that can occur. As with any supplement, individual reactions can vary, and some people may experience side effects while others may not.

Some of the potential side effects of Thesis nootropics include:

• Insomnia : Some nootropics contain caffeine or other stimulants that can disrupt sleep patterns and lead to difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep.
• Blurry vision : Certain nootropics, such as those containing alpha GPC, have been linked to temporary blurry vision.
• High blood pressure : Stimulant-based nootropics can increase blood pressure, which can be dangerous for people with hypertension or other heart conditions.
• Fast heart rate : Similarly, stimulants can also increase heart rate, leading to palpitations or a rapid pulse.
• Circulation problem s: Certain nootropics, such as vinpocetine, can affect blood flow and circulation, leading to issues like dizziness, nausea, or headaches.
• Addiction : Some nootropics, such as those containing racetams, have been associated with the potential for addiction or dependence if used long-term.

It’s important to remember that not all nootropics will produce these side effects, and the severity of any reactions will depend on individual factors such as dosage, duration of use, and underlying health conditions. However, it’s always wise to discuss any potential risks with a healthcare professional before starting any new supplement regimen.

Additionally, it’s important to follow dosage instructions carefully and not to exceed recommended amounts, as this can increase the risk of side effects. By being mindful of potential risks and using nootropics responsibly, users can reap the benefits of these supplements without experiencing adverse effects.

Thesis Nootropics Reviews: What Do Customers Think?

At this point in our Thesis nootropics review, it’s time to turn to what customers are saying. So, we sourced testimonials from the brand’s website, Reddit, and ZenMasterWellness. And spoiler alert, the Thesis nootropics reviews we came across have nothing but good things to say.

On takethesis.com , the brand earns 4.4/5 stars out of 7,956 reviews. One patron describes their particular blend as the perfect alternative to prescription meds :

“ I have been off stimulants for months now and these formulas are far superior. My husband and daughter both noticed the change and said I have been more productive, focused, less anxious, and more “thinking outside the box”. I have tried for years to get off stims and nothing would work .”

On Reddit, many reviewers share similar sentiments about how effective the products are. One buyer shares that they tried tons of different nootropics on the market, and Thesis stands out amongst the crowd . 

On ZenMasterWellness, one reviewer states that their blend provided the exact results they were looking for :

“ They offer notable improvements to how well I’m able to focus, stay on task, and grind when it’s time to grind. In practice, this usually looks like a clearer mind and an improved ability to just… chill. With the Clarity and Creativity blends, in particular, I just feel leveled out .”

Backed by clinical trials and real customer experiences, Thesis stands out in the world of nootropics and supplements. The personalized selections prove effective, while the quality ingredients live up to expectations. 

Is Thesis Nootropics Legit?

If you’re wondering if this brand offers products that are too good to be true, this Thesis nootropics review is here to say that it is the real deal .

The brand is backed by numerous clinical trials, which highlight how 86% of customers reported improvements in a wide range of cognitive challenges, while 89% noticed an improvement in their ability to reduce stress and maintain energy.

Is Thesis Nootropics Worth It?

Thesis is an appealing choice in the world of nootropics because it provides a completely customized selection based on your needs and goals. Plus, the ingredients are potent and ensure the best effects—and you only end up paying for the benefits you actually need.

With that in mind, this Thesis nootropics review deems the brand worth the try.

Alternatives

Here are some alternatives to Thesis Nootropics that you might find interesting:

• Mind Lab Pro – This nootropic supplement is designed to improve cognitive function and mental performance. It contains 11 ingredients that work together to enhance memory, focus, and overall brain health.
• Thorne Supplements : If you’re looking for high-quality, science-based supplements, Thorne is a great choice. Their products are designed with the latest research in mind and are rigorously tested for quality and purity. Some of their popular offerings include multivitamins, protein powders, and omega-3 supplements.
• WeAreFeel Supplements : WeAreFeel is a supplement brand that offers a variety of products designed to support different aspects of your health. Their supplements are vegan-friendly and free from artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. Some of their popular offerings include multivitamins, probiotics, and omega-3 supplements.
• Neuro Gum : If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to boost your focus and energy levels, Neuro Gum is a great option. This gum is infused with caffeine and other natural ingredients that can help improve mental clarity and alertness. Plus, it’s sugar-free and comes in a variety of delicious flavors.
• Neuriva Plus : Neuriva Plus is a brain supplement that’s designed to improve memory, focus, and cognitive performance. It contains a blend of natural ingredients, including coffee fruit extract and phosphatidylserine, that have been shown to support brain health. If you’re looking for a natural way to boost your cognitive function, Neuriva Plus is worth considering.

Thesis Nootropics Promotions & Discounts 

There aren’t currently any Thesis promos or discounts available. That being said, if you subscribe for recurring shipments of your recommended products, you’ll save $40 monthly .

Where to Buy Thesis Nootropics

At the time of this Thesis nootropics review, the products are exclusively available on the brand’s website, takethesis.com .

Is Thesis Nootropics vegan?  

Thesis nootropics are made with only vegan ingredients . That being said, while the brand has taken precautions to protect against cross contamination, the products are not certified vegan.

Is Thesis Nootropics gluten-free? 

On top of being vegan, Thesis products are made without gluten, eggs, or nuts . Again, while the brand strives to protect users against cross contamination, the products are not certified gluten free. 

What is Thesis Nootropics’ Shipping Policy?

If you’re anxiously awaiting your order from this Thesis nootropics review, you’ll be happy to hear that the company offers speedy shipping, sending orders out within 1 business day. After that, packages should arrive within only 1-3 business days . Costs are calculated at checkout.

At this time, Thesis is not able to offer international shipping. This Thesis nootropics review recommends following the brand on social media and signing up for the newsletter to stay up to date with shipping policies. 

What is Thesis Nootropics’ Return Policy?

If you find that your Thesis formula isn’t working out, the company requests that you contact them to make changes and adjustments to ensure you are able to receive the proper help.

If you would still like to make a return, follow these simple steps for a refund:

• Submit your refund request
• Ship the items back within 30 days of the original delivery
• Send an email with your tracking number to the brand
• Return any remaining product in their original packaging to: 

Thesis Returns 902 Broadway

6th Floor New York, NY 

Once your return has been received, a refund will be processed and email confirmation will be sent. It’s also important to note that the brand can only refund one month’s supply per customer and return shipping is the customer’s responsibility. 

How to Contact Thesis Nootropics

We hope you enjoyed this Thesis nootropics review! If you have any further questions about the brand or its products, you can contact them using the following methods:

• Call 1 (646) 647-3599
• Email [email protected]

902 Broadway Floor 6 New York, NY 10010

If you’re looking for other ways to boost your productivity via supplements, check out these other brands we’ve reviewed:

Thorne Supplements Review

WeAreFeel Supplements Review

Neuro Gum Review

Neuriva Plus Review

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• Dissertation
• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

Why write a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1: search for relevant literature, step 2: evaluate and select sources, step 3: identify themes, debates and gaps, step 4: outline your literature review’s structure, step 5: write your literature review, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list if you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models and methods? Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible, and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly-visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat – this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organise your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole.
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources.
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

In the conclusion, you should summarise the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasise their significance.

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarise yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

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How to write a literature review in 6 steps

What is a literature review?

How to write a literature review, 1. determine the purpose of your literature review, 2. do an extensive search, 3. evaluate and select literature, 4. analyze the literature, 5. plan the structure of your literature review, 6. write your literature review, other resources to help you write a successful literature review, frequently asked questions about writing a literature review, related articles.

A literature review is an assessment of the sources in a chosen topic of research.

A good literature review does not just summarize sources. It analyzes the state of the field on a given topic and creates a scholarly foundation for you to make your own intervention. It demonstrates to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of study.

In a thesis, a literature review is part of the introduction, but it can also be a separate section. In research papers, a literature review may have its own section or it may be integrated into the introduction, depending on the field.

➡️ Our guide on what is a literature review covers additional basics about literature reviews.

• Identify the main purpose of the literature review.
• Do extensive research.
• Evaluate and select relevant sources.
• Analyze the sources.
• Plan a structure.
• Write the review.

In this section, we review each step of the process of creating a literature review.

In the first step, make sure you know specifically what the assignment is and what form your literature review should take. Read your assignment carefully and seek clarification from your professor or instructor if needed. You should be able to answer the following questions:

• How many sources do I need to include?
• What types of sources should I review?
• Should I evaluate the sources?
• Should I summarize, synthesize or critique sources?
• Do I need to provide any definitions or background information?

In addition to that, be aware that the narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to get a good overview of the topic.

Now you need to find out what has been written on the topic and search for literature related to your research topic. Make sure to select appropriate source material, which means using academic or scholarly sources , including books, reports, journal articles , government documents and web resources.

➡️ If you’re unsure about how to tell if a source is scholarly, take a look at our guide on how to identify a scholarly source .

Come up with a list of relevant keywords and then start your search with your institution's library catalog, and extend it to other useful databases and academic search engines like:

• Google Scholar
• Science.gov

➡️ Our guide on how to collect data for your thesis might be helpful at this stage of your research as well as the top list of academic search engines .

Once you find a useful article, check out the reference list. It should provide you with even more relevant sources. Also, keep a note of the:

• authors' names
• page numbers

Keeping track of the bibliographic information for each source will save you time when you’re ready to create citations. You could also use a reference manager like Paperpile to automatically save, manage, and cite your references.

Read the literature. You will most likely not be able to read absolutely everything that is out there on the topic. Therefore, read the abstract first to determine whether the rest of the source is worth your time. If the source is relevant for your topic:

• Read it critically.
• Look for the main arguments.
• Take notes as you read.
• Organize your notes using a table, mind map, or other technique.

Now you are ready to analyze the literature you have gathered. While your are working on your analysis, you should ask the following questions:

• What are the key terms, concepts and problems addressed by the author?
• How is this source relevant for my specific topic?
• How is the article structured? What are the major trends and findings?
• What are the conclusions of the study?
• How are the results presented? Is the source credible?
• When comparing different sources, how do they relate to each other? What are the similarities, what are the differences?
• Does the study help me understand the topic better?
• Are there any gaps in the research that need to be filled? How can I further my research as a result of the review?

Tip: Decide on the structure of your literature review before you start writing.

There are various ways to organize your literature review:

• Chronological method : Writing in the chronological method means you are presenting the materials according to when they were published. Follow this approach only if a clear path of research can be identified.
• Thematic review : A thematic review of literature is organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time.
• Publication-based : You can order your sources by publication, if the way you present the order of your sources demonstrates a more important trend. This is the case when a progression revealed from study to study and the practices of researchers have changed and adapted due to the new revelations.
• Methodological approach : A methodological approach focuses on the methods used by the researcher. If you have used sources from different disciplines that use a variety of research methods, you might want to compare the results in light of the different methods and discuss how the topic has been approached from different sides.

Regardless of the structure you chose, a review should always include the following three sections:

• An introduction, which should give the reader an outline of why you are writing the review and explain the relevance of the topic.
• A body, which divides your literature review into different sections. Write in well-structured paragraphs, use transitions and topic sentences and critically analyze each source for how it contributes to the themes you are researching.
• A conclusion , which summarizes the key findings, the main agreements and disagreements in the literature, your overall perspective, and any gaps or areas for further research.

➡️ If your literature review is part of a longer paper, visit our guide on what is a research paper for additional tips.

➡️ UNC writing center: Literature reviews

➡️ How to write a literature review in 3 steps

➡️ How to write a literature review in 30 minutes or less

The goal of a literature review is to asses the state of the field on a given topic in preparation for making an intervention.

A literature review should have its own independent section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where it can be found, and address this section as “Literature Review.”

There is no set amount of words for a literature review; the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, then it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, then it will be short.

Most research papers include a literature review. By assessing the available sources in your field of research, you will be able to make a more confident argument about the topic.

Literature reviews are most commonly found in theses and dissertations. However, you find them in research papers as well.

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

• UConn Library
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
• Introduction

Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide — Introduction

• Getting Started
• How to Pick a Topic
• Strategies to Find Sources
• Evaluating Sources & Lit. Reviews
• Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
• Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
• Citation Resources
• Other Academic Writings

What are Literature Reviews?

So, what is a literature review? "A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries." Taylor, D.  The literature review: A few tips on conducting it . University of Toronto Health Sciences Writing Centre.

Goals of Literature Reviews

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?  A literature could be written to accomplish different aims:

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews .  Review of General Psychology , 1 (3), 311-320.

What kinds of sources require a Literature Review?

• A research paper assigned in a course
• A thesis or dissertation
• A grant proposal
• An article intended for publication in a journal

All these instances require you to collect what has been written about your research topic so that you can demonstrate how your own research sheds new light on the topic.

Types of Literature Reviews

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Narrative review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.

• Example : Predictors and Outcomes of U.S. Quality Maternity Leave: A Review and Conceptual Framework:  10.1177/08948453211037398  

Systematic review : "The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find." (p. 139). Nelson, L. K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders . Plural Publishing.

• Example : The effect of leave policies on increasing fertility: a systematic review:  10.1057/s41599-022-01270-w

Meta-analysis : "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing research findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occurred in different studies." (p. 197). Roberts, M. C., & Ilardi, S. S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology . Blackwell Publishing.

• Example : Employment Instability and Fertility in Europe: A Meta-Analysis:  10.1215/00703370-9164737

Meta-synthesis : "Qualitative meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic." (p.312). Zimmer, L. (2006). Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts .  Journal of Advanced Nursing , 53 (3), 311-318.

• Example : Women’s perspectives on career successes and barriers: A qualitative meta-synthesis:  10.1177/05390184221113735

Literature Reviews in the Health Sciences

• UConn Health subject guide on systematic reviews Explanation of the different review types used in health sciences literature as well as tools to help you find the right review type
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• Last Updated: Sep 21, 2022 2:16 PM
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What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

APA7 Style resources

APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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Engineering: The Literature Review Process

• How to Use This Guide

What is a literature review and why is it important?

Further reading ....

• 2. Precision vs Retrieval
• 3. Equip Your Tool Box
• 4. What to look for
• 5. Where to Look for it
• 6. How to Look for it
• 7. Keeping Current
• 8. Reading Tips
• 9. Writing Tips
• 10. Checklist

A literature review not only summarizes the knowledge of a particular area or field of study, it also evaluates what has been done, what still needs to be done and why all of this is important to the subject.  

• The Stand-Alone Literature Review A literature review may stand alone as an individual document in which the history of the topic is reported and then analyzed for trends, controversial issues, and what still needs to be studied.  The review could just be a few pages for narrow topics or quite extensive with long bibliographies for in-depth reviews.   In-depth review articles are valuable time-savers for professionals and researchers who need a quick introduction or analysis of a topic but they can be very time-consuming for authors to produce. Examples of review articles:   Walker, Sara Louise (2011)   Building mounted wind turbines and their suitability for the urban scale - a review of methods of estimating urban wind resource .   Energy and Buildings  43(8):1852-1862. For this review, the author focused on the different methodologies used to estimate wind speed in urban settings.  After introducing the theory, she explained the difficulty for in-situ measuring, and then followed up by describing each of the different estimation techniques that have been used instead.  Strengths and weaknesses of each method are discussed and suggestions are given on where more study is needed.   Length: 11 pages. References: 59. Calm, J.M. (2008)   The next generation of refrigerants - historical review, considerations, and outlook.   International Journal of Refrigeration  31(7):1123-1133. This review focuses on the evolution of refrigerants and divides the evolution into 4 generations.  In each generation the author describes which type of refrigerants were most popular and discusses how political, environmental, and economic issues as well as chemical properties effected choices.  Length: 11 pages.  References: 51.  
• The Literature Review as a Section Within a Document Literature reviews are also part of dissertations, theses, research reports and scholarly journal articles; these types of documents include the review in a section or chapter that discusses what has gone before, how the research being presented in this document fills a gap in the field's knowledge and why that is important.   Examples of literature reviews within a journal article:  Jobert, Arthur, et al. (2007) Local acceptance of wind energy: factors of success identified in French and German case studies.  Energy Policy  35(5):2751-2760.  In this case, the literature review is a separate, labeled section appearing between the introduction and methodology sections.  Peel, Deborah and Lloyd, Michael Gregory (2007)   Positive planning for wind-turbines in an urban context.   Local Environment  12(4):343-354. In this case the literature review is incorporated into the article's introduction rather than have its own section.   Which version you choose (separate section or within the introduction) depends on format requirements of the publisher (for journal articles), the ASU Graduate College and your academic unit (for ASU dissertations and theses) and application instructions for grants.   If no format is specified choose the method in which you can best explain your research topic, what has come before and the importance of the knowledge you are adding to the field.    Examples of literature reviews within a dissertation or thesis :  Porter, Wayne Eliot (2011)   Renewable Energy in Rural Southeastern Arizona: Decision Factors: A Comparison of the Consumer Profiles of Homeowners Who Purchased Renewable Energy Systems With Those Who Performed Other Home Upgrades or Remodeling Projects .    Arizona State University, M.S. Thesis.  This author effectively uses a separate chapter for the literature review for his detailed analysis.  Magerman, Beth (2014)   Short-Term Wind Power Forecasts using Doppler Lidar.   Arizona State University, M.S. Thesis. The author puts the literature review within Chapter Two presenting it as part of the background information of her topic.   Note that the literature review within a thesis or dissertation more closely resembles the scope and depth of a stand- alone literature review as opposed to the briefer reviews appearing within journal articles.  Within a thesis or dissertation, the review not only presents the status of research in the specific area it also establishes the author's expertise and justifies his/her own research.   

Online tutorials:

• Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students Created by the North Caroline State University Libraries

Other ASU Library Guides: 

• Literature Reviews and Annotated Bibliographies More general information about the format and content of literature reviews; created by Ed Oetting, History and Political Science Librarian, Hayden Library. ​

Readings: 

• The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting It Written by Dena Taylor, Health Sciences Writing Centre, University of Toronto
• Literature Reviews Created by The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 
• << Previous: How to Use This Guide
• Next: 2. Precision vs Retrieval >>
• Last updated: Jan 2, 2024 8:27 AM
• URL: https://libguides.asu.edu/engineeringlitreview

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What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of literature review? 
• a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction: 
• b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes: 
• c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs: 
• d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts: 
• How to write a good literature review 
• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review?

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

What is the purpose of literature review?

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

• Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 
• Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field. 
• Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 
• Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 
• Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 
• Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

How to write a good literature review

Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. 

Frequently asked questions

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• 5. The Literature Review
• Purpose of Guide
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• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
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A literature review surveys prior research published in books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE : Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

• An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
• Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
• An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

• Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
• Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
• Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
• Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

• Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
• Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
• History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
• Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
• Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

• Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
• You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
• Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
• Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
• Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
• Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
• Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

• How are they organizing their ideas?
• What methods have they used to study the problem?
• What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
• What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
• How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

• Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
• Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
• Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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How To Write Literature Review For Thesis? Read On To Find Out!

Table of Contents

• 1. What is a literature review?
• 2. Thesis literature review example
• 3. Importance of the thesis literature review
• 4. Literature review structure
• 4.1. Step 1: Look for the Relevant Scholarly Resources
• 4.2. Step 2: Evaluate the Resources
• 4.3. Step 3: Identify Gaps in Current Resources
• 4.4. Step 4: Develop the Outline of the Master Thesis Literature Review

Types Of Literature Review

• 4.5. Write Your Literature Review
• 4.6. Step 7: Write Your Bibliography

What Is A Literature Review

A thesis literature review is a complete analysis of scholarly sources on a selected topic of study. It is crafted to give an overview of the current knowledge, to help the researcher know the methods, theories, and gaps that exist in research.

Thesis Literature Review Example

Why is Literature Review for Thesis Important?

When you are working on your graduate thesis, one of the core components needed to make it complete is a literature review. Here is a demonstration of the main benefits of carrying a literature review for your thesis.

• Allows you to show how familiar you are with the topic of study.
• Offers you an opportunity to develop a comprehensive methodology.
• Demonstrate how your research will address the existing gap in your topic of study.
• Make your contribution to your area of the study felt.

Doing a literature review requires you to collect and analyze scholarly resources that are related to your topic. When conducting a literature review, the process can be broken down into five key stages.

Literature Review Structure

• Look for relevant scholarly resources . This is checking for different resources, such as journals and books, which are related to your study.
• Evaluate the resources. This is careful sorting of the different resources to identify the most relevant ones.
• Identify debates and gaps in these resources . This is further analysis of the scholarly resources to establish the main arguments and possible gaps in research.
• Develop your outline. This is the format of the literature review that tells you what you are supposed to discuss at different points.
• Write the literature review . This is the final step that involves putting down the findings that you found after analyzing different resources.

To help you craft a good literature review for thesis, here are the main steps that you should follow.

Step 1: Look for the Relevant Scholarly Resources

By the time you get to writing the thesis for your literature, you will have worked on chapter one (introduction) that clearly defines the topic. But you can still relook at it before setting off to look for the relevant resources. By defining the problem, you will be able to look at the resources that are closely related to the study questions and problems.

Another method of looking for relevant studies is searching using the keyword. Consider using the main databases for the latest journals, books and articles. Some of these databases include:

• Project Muse .
• Google Scholar .
• Your university library.

After pulling out different resources, check whether it is relevant by going through the abstract. If the resource is relevant, peruse to the last section, the bibliography, for additional resources. When you find a specific resource recurring in the resources, it means it is very relevant.

Step 2: Evaluate the Resources

Once you have gathered an assortment of resources, the chances are that not all of them will be used during the study. So you will need to evaluate them further to determine which ones to use in the study. So here is how to evaluate every resource:

• What problem is addressed in the resource?
• How has the author defined the main concepts?
• What theories and methods are used in the resource?
• What is the conclusion of the resource?
• What is the relationship between the resource and other resources?
• How does the resource contribute to knowledge about the topic?

You should only pick the most relevant resources. Also, it is important to appreciate that if you are in the sciences, the review has to be focused on the latest resources. But if your thesis is in humanities, it might be necessary to check older resources to bring out the historical perspectives. As you read through, keep track of the resources by taking notes, capturing the pages, and citing them properly.

Step 3: Identify Gaps in Current Resources

Before you can organize the arguments in the literature, it is prudent to comprehend how the resources are related. So what should you look for?

• Patterns and trends, especially in theories, methods, and results.
• Debates, major conflicts, and contradictions.
• Gaps on what is missing in the literature.
• Pivotal publications.

Step 4: Develop the Outline of the Master Thesis Literature Review

The outline of your literature provides you with a breakdown of what you should discuss at what different stages. There are a number of strategies that you can use to prepare your literature review.

• Chronological . This approach involves tracing the development based on the topic occurrence over time. It is the simplest strategy.
• Thematic . This strategy involves presenting the review based on different themes.
• Methodological . If the resources you use for the review have varying methods, a methodological presentation can helps you to compare the results as well as conclusions.
• Theoretical . This approach involves exploring the theories, definitions, concepts, and models used in the resources. You might also want to focus on particular theories depending on the topic of study.

Note that you can opt to use one or combine several of them to make your literature review more articulate.

Step 5: Write Your Literature Review

Like other forms of academic writing, your literature review should take this format: introduction, body, and conclusion. Here is what to include in every section:

• Introduction: This should be used to give the focus of the literature review.
• Body: In the body of the literature review, you get into the finer details of the review. Here you should do the following:
• Summarize, analyze, and interpret.
• Evaluate comprehensively.
• Write carefully in properly structured and easy to read paragraphs.

Literature Review Example

To help you craft a great literature review thesis, it is important to also have the entire project in mind. This means that although you are reviewing literature, the methods you will use should be clear the back of your mind. Here is a thesis literature review example paragraph. The paragraph is borrowed from literature review of a thesis on the effects of cyberbullying.

“ Cyberbullying gives the bully a much larger spectrum to choose from when it comes to how exactly they want to intimidate their victims, which may be why it is often easier for them to carry out the act. Of all the different ways to cyberbully Faucher et al. (2014) found the most common platforms for cyberbullying to be social media, text messaging, and email, which were used to bully students about half of the time followed up by blogs forums and chat rooms which were 25 percent. This is no surprise that social media is the most common platform for cyberbullying because it can allow for the bully to remain completely anonymous to your average victim. This allows people who may not fit the mold of your average bully to create a fake account and build their own persona in order to bully others.”

• Conclusion.

Once you have written the body of the literature review, you still need to conclude it. This is a summary of the literature review that captures the main points that you have discussed.

Step 6: Write Your Bibliography

This guide on how to write literature review for thesis cannot be complete without including a bibliography. This is a complete list of all the resources that you have used during the review. It is important to ensure that you follow the method that your supervisor recommends for formatting and referencing. See two reference examples presented below.

Abeele, M., & Cock, R. (2013). Cyberbullying by mobile phone among adolescents: The role of gender and peer group status. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 38(1), 107-118. Doi:10.1515/commun-2013-0006

Arntfield, M. (2015). Toward a Cybervictimology: Cyberbullying, Routine Activities Theory, and the Anti-Sociality of Social Media. Canadian Journal Of Communication, 40(3), 371-388

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• Library Guides
• Literature Reviews
• Getting Started

Literature Reviews: Getting Started

What is a literature review.

A literature review is an overview of the available research for a specific scientific topic. Literature reviews summarize existing research to answer a review question, provide context for new research, or identify important gaps in the existing body of literature.

An incredible amount of academic literature is published each year, by estimates over two million articles .

Sorting through and reviewing that literature can be complicated, so this Research Guide provides a structured approach to make the process more manageable.

THIS GUIDE IS AN OVERVIEW OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW PROCESS:

• Getting Started (asking a research question | defining scope)
• Choosing a Type of Review
• Searching the Literature
• Organizing the Literature
• Writing the Literature Review (analyzing | synthesizing)

A  literature search  is a systematic search of the scholarly sources in a particular discipline. A  literature review   is the analysis, critical evaluation and synthesis of the results of that search. During this process you will move from a review  of  the literature to a review  for   your research.   Your synthesis of the literature is your unique contribution to research.

WHO IS THIS RESEARCH GUIDE FOR?

— those new to reviewing the literature

— those that need a refresher or a deeper understanding of writing literature reviews

You may need to do a literature review as a part of a course assignment, a capstone project, a master's thesis, a dissertation, or as part of a journal article. No matter the context, a literature review is an essential part of the research process. 

Literature Review Process

Purpose of a Literature Review

What is the purpose of a literature review.

A literature review is typically performed for a specific reason. Even when assigned as an assignment, the goal of the literature review will be one or more of the following:

• To communicate a project's novelty by identifying a research gap

• An overview of research issues , methodologies or results relevant to field
• To explore the  volume and types of available studies
• To establish familiarity with current research before carrying out a new project
• To resolve conflicts amongst contradictory previous studies

Reviewing the literature helps you understand a research topic and develop your own perspective.

A LITERATURE REVIEW IS NOT :

• An annotated bibliography – which is a list of annotated citations to books, articles and documents that includes a brief description and evaluation for each entry
• A literary review – which is a critical discussion of the merits and weaknesses of a literary work
• A book review – which is a critical discussion of the merits and weaknesses of a particular book

Attribution

Thanks to Librarian Jamie Niehof at the University of Michigan for providing permission to reuse and remix this Literature Reviews guide.

The Library's Subject Specialists are happy to help with your literature reviews!  Find your Subject Specialist here . 

If you have questions about this guide, contact Librarians Matt Upson ([email protected]), Dr. Frances Alvarado-Albertorio ([email protected]), or Clarke Iakovakis ([email protected])

• Last Updated: Apr 4, 2024 4:51 PM
• URL: https://info.library.okstate.edu/literaturereviews

Literature Review Example/Sample

Detailed Walkthrough + Free Literature Review Template

If you’re working on a dissertation or thesis and are looking for an example of a strong literature review chapter , you’ve come to the right place.

In this video, we walk you through an A-grade literature review from a dissertation that earned full distinction . We start off by discussing the five core sections of a literature review chapter by unpacking our free literature review template . This includes:

• The literature review opening/ introduction section
• The theoretical framework (or foundation of theory)
• The empirical research
• The research gap
• The closing section

We then progress to the sample literature review (from an A-grade Master’s-level dissertation) to show how these concepts are applied in the literature review chapter. You can access the free resources mentioned in this video below.

FAQ: Literature Review Example

Literature review example: frequently asked questions, is the sample literature review real.

Yes. The literature review example is an extract from a Master’s-level dissertation for an MBA program. It has not been edited in any way.

Can I replicate this literature review for my dissertation?

As we discuss in the video, every literature review will be slightly different, depending on the university’s unique requirements, as well as the nature of the research itself. Therefore, you’ll need to tailor your literature review to suit your specific context.

You can learn more about the basics of writing a literature review here .

Where can I find more examples of literature reviews?

The best place to find more examples of literature review chapters would be within dissertation/thesis databases. These databases include dissertations, theses and research projects that have successfully passed the assessment criteria for the respective university, meaning that you have at least some sort of quality assurance. 

The Open Access Thesis Database (OATD) is a good starting point. 

How do I get the literature review template?

You can access our free literature review chapter template here .

Is the template really free?

Yes. There is no cost for the template and you are free to use it as you wish. 

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling Udemy Course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

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• Knowledge Base
• How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

• Start with a question
• Write your initial answer
• Develop your answer
• Refine your thesis statement

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Table of contents

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

• Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
• Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
• Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

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The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .

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Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

• Why you hold this position
• What they’ll learn from your essay
• The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

• In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
• In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

• Ask a question about your topic .
• Write your initial answer.
• Develop your answer by including reasons.
• Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

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Book Reviews

What this handout is about.

This handout will help you write a book review, a report or essay that offers a critical perspective on a text. It offers a process and suggests some strategies for writing book reviews.

What is a review?

A review is a critical evaluation of a text, event, object, or phenomenon. Reviews can consider books, articles, entire genres or fields of literature, architecture, art, fashion, restaurants, policies, exhibitions, performances, and many other forms. This handout will focus on book reviews. For a similar assignment, see our handout on literature reviews .

Above all, a review makes an argument. The most important element of a review is that it is a commentary, not merely a summary. It allows you to enter into dialogue and discussion with the work’s creator and with other audiences. You can offer agreement or disagreement and identify where you find the work exemplary or deficient in its knowledge, judgments, or organization. You should clearly state your opinion of the work in question, and that statement will probably resemble other types of academic writing, with a thesis statement, supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Typically, reviews are brief. In newspapers and academic journals, they rarely exceed 1000 words, although you may encounter lengthier assignments and extended commentaries. In either case, reviews need to be succinct. While they vary in tone, subject, and style, they share some common features:

• First, a review gives the reader a concise summary of the content. This includes a relevant description of the topic as well as its overall perspective, argument, or purpose.
• Second, and more importantly, a review offers a critical assessment of the content. This involves your reactions to the work under review: what strikes you as noteworthy, whether or not it was effective or persuasive, and how it enhanced your understanding of the issues at hand.
• Finally, in addition to analyzing the work, a review often suggests whether or not the audience would appreciate it.

Becoming an expert reviewer: three short examples

Reviewing can be a daunting task. Someone has asked for your opinion about something that you may feel unqualified to evaluate. Who are you to criticize Toni Morrison’s new book if you’ve never written a novel yourself, much less won a Nobel Prize? The point is that someone—a professor, a journal editor, peers in a study group—wants to know what you think about a particular work. You may not be (or feel like) an expert, but you need to pretend to be one for your particular audience. Nobody expects you to be the intellectual equal of the work’s creator, but your careful observations can provide you with the raw material to make reasoned judgments. Tactfully voicing agreement and disagreement, praise and criticism, is a valuable, challenging skill, and like many forms of writing, reviews require you to provide concrete evidence for your assertions.

Consider the following brief book review written for a history course on medieval Europe by a student who is fascinated with beer:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600, investigates how women used to brew and sell the majority of ale drunk in England. Historically, ale and beer (not milk, wine, or water) were important elements of the English diet. Ale brewing was low-skill and low status labor that was complimentary to women’s domestic responsibilities. In the early fifteenth century, brewers began to make ale with hops, and they called this new drink “beer.” This technique allowed brewers to produce their beverages at a lower cost and to sell it more easily, although women generally stopped brewing once the business became more profitable.

The student describes the subject of the book and provides an accurate summary of its contents. But the reader does not learn some key information expected from a review: the author’s argument, the student’s appraisal of the book and its argument, and whether or not the student would recommend the book. As a critical assessment, a book review should focus on opinions, not facts and details. Summary should be kept to a minimum, and specific details should serve to illustrate arguments.

Now consider a review of the same book written by a slightly more opinionated student:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 was a colossal disappointment. I wanted to know about the rituals surrounding drinking in medieval England: the songs, the games, the parties. Bennett provided none of that information. I liked how the book showed ale and beer brewing as an economic activity, but the reader gets lost in the details of prices and wages. I was more interested in the private lives of the women brewsters. The book was divided into eight long chapters, and I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to read it.

There’s no shortage of judgments in this review! But the student does not display a working knowledge of the book’s argument. The reader has a sense of what the student expected of the book, but no sense of what the author herself set out to prove. Although the student gives several reasons for the negative review, those examples do not clearly relate to each other as part of an overall evaluation—in other words, in support of a specific thesis. This review is indeed an assessment, but not a critical one.

Here is one final review of the same book:

One of feminism’s paradoxes—one that challenges many of its optimistic histories—is how patriarchy remains persistent over time. While Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 recognizes medieval women as historical actors through their ale brewing, it also shows that female agency had its limits with the advent of beer. I had assumed that those limits were religious and political, but Bennett shows how a “patriarchal equilibrium” shut women out of economic life as well. Her analysis of women’s wages in ale and beer production proves that a change in women’s work does not equate to a change in working women’s status. Contemporary feminists and historians alike should read Bennett’s book and think twice when they crack open their next brewsky.

This student’s review avoids the problems of the previous two examples. It combines balanced opinion and concrete example, a critical assessment based on an explicitly stated rationale, and a recommendation to a potential audience. The reader gets a sense of what the book’s author intended to demonstrate. Moreover, the student refers to an argument about feminist history in general that places the book in a specific genre and that reaches out to a general audience. The example of analyzing wages illustrates an argument, the analysis engages significant intellectual debates, and the reasons for the overall positive review are plainly visible. The review offers criteria, opinions, and support with which the reader can agree or disagree.

Developing an assessment: before you write

There is no definitive method to writing a review, although some critical thinking about the work at hand is necessary before you actually begin writing. Thus, writing a review is a two-step process: developing an argument about the work under consideration, and making that argument as you write an organized and well-supported draft. See our handout on argument .

What follows is a series of questions to focus your thinking as you dig into the work at hand. While the questions specifically consider book reviews, you can easily transpose them to an analysis of performances, exhibitions, and other review subjects. Don’t feel obligated to address each of the questions; some will be more relevant than others to the book in question.

• What is the thesis—or main argument—of the book? If the author wanted you to get one idea from the book, what would it be? How does it compare or contrast to the world you know? What has the book accomplished?
• What exactly is the subject or topic of the book? Does the author cover the subject adequately? Does the author cover all aspects of the subject in a balanced fashion? What is the approach to the subject (topical, analytical, chronological, descriptive)?
• How does the author support their argument? What evidence do they use to prove their point? Do you find that evidence convincing? Why or why not? Does any of the author’s information (or conclusions) conflict with other books you’ve read, courses you’ve taken or just previous assumptions you had of the subject?
• How does the author structure their argument? What are the parts that make up the whole? Does the argument make sense? Does it persuade you? Why or why not?
• How has this book helped you understand the subject? Would you recommend the book to your reader?

Beyond the internal workings of the book, you may also consider some information about the author and the circumstances of the text’s production:

• Who is the author? Nationality, political persuasion, training, intellectual interests, personal history, and historical context may provide crucial details about how a work takes shape. Does it matter, for example, that the biographer was the subject’s best friend? What difference would it make if the author participated in the events they write about?
• What is the book’s genre? Out of what field does it emerge? Does it conform to or depart from the conventions of its genre? These questions can provide a historical or literary standard on which to base your evaluations. If you are reviewing the first book ever written on the subject, it will be important for your readers to know. Keep in mind, though, that naming “firsts”—alongside naming “bests” and “onlys”—can be a risky business unless you’re absolutely certain.

Writing the review

Once you have made your observations and assessments of the work under review, carefully survey your notes and attempt to unify your impressions into a statement that will describe the purpose or thesis of your review. Check out our handout on thesis statements . Then, outline the arguments that support your thesis.

Your arguments should develop the thesis in a logical manner. That logic, unlike more standard academic writing, may initially emphasize the author’s argument while you develop your own in the course of the review. The relative emphasis depends on the nature of the review: if readers may be more interested in the work itself, you may want to make the work and the author more prominent; if you want the review to be about your perspective and opinions, then you may structure the review to privilege your observations over (but never separate from) those of the work under review. What follows is just one of many ways to organize a review.

Introduction

Since most reviews are brief, many writers begin with a catchy quip or anecdote that succinctly delivers their argument. But you can introduce your review differently depending on the argument and audience. The Writing Center’s handout on introductions can help you find an approach that works. In general, you should include:

• The name of the author and the book title and the main theme.
• Relevant details about who the author is and where they stand in the genre or field of inquiry. You could also link the title to the subject to show how the title explains the subject matter.
• The context of the book and/or your review. Placing your review in a framework that makes sense to your audience alerts readers to your “take” on the book. Perhaps you want to situate a book about the Cuban revolution in the context of Cold War rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union. Another reviewer might want to consider the book in the framework of Latin American social movements. Your choice of context informs your argument.
• The thesis of the book. If you are reviewing fiction, this may be difficult since novels, plays, and short stories rarely have explicit arguments. But identifying the book’s particular novelty, angle, or originality allows you to show what specific contribution the piece is trying to make.
• Your thesis about the book.

Summary of content

This should be brief, as analysis takes priority. In the course of making your assessment, you’ll hopefully be backing up your assertions with concrete evidence from the book, so some summary will be dispersed throughout other parts of the review.

The necessary amount of summary also depends on your audience. Graduate students, beware! If you are writing book reviews for colleagues—to prepare for comprehensive exams, for example—you may want to devote more attention to summarizing the book’s contents. If, on the other hand, your audience has already read the book—such as a class assignment on the same work—you may have more liberty to explore more subtle points and to emphasize your own argument. See our handout on summary for more tips.

Analysis and evaluation of the book

Your analysis and evaluation should be organized into paragraphs that deal with single aspects of your argument. This arrangement can be challenging when your purpose is to consider the book as a whole, but it can help you differentiate elements of your criticism and pair assertions with evidence more clearly. You do not necessarily need to work chronologically through the book as you discuss it. Given the argument you want to make, you can organize your paragraphs more usefully by themes, methods, or other elements of the book. If you find it useful to include comparisons to other books, keep them brief so that the book under review remains in the spotlight. Avoid excessive quotation and give a specific page reference in parentheses when you do quote. Remember that you can state many of the author’s points in your own words.

Sum up or restate your thesis or make the final judgment regarding the book. You should not introduce new evidence for your argument in the conclusion. You can, however, introduce new ideas that go beyond the book if they extend the logic of your own thesis. This paragraph needs to balance the book’s strengths and weaknesses in order to unify your evaluation. Did the body of your review have three negative paragraphs and one favorable one? What do they all add up to? The Writing Center’s handout on conclusions can help you make a final assessment.

Finally, a few general considerations:

• Review the book in front of you, not the book you wish the author had written. You can and should point out shortcomings or failures, but don’t criticize the book for not being something it was never intended to be.
• With any luck, the author of the book worked hard to find the right words to express her ideas. You should attempt to do the same. Precise language allows you to control the tone of your review.
• Never hesitate to challenge an assumption, approach, or argument. Be sure, however, to cite specific examples to back up your assertions carefully.
• Try to present a balanced argument about the value of the book for its audience. You’re entitled—and sometimes obligated—to voice strong agreement or disagreement. But keep in mind that a bad book takes as long to write as a good one, and every author deserves fair treatment. Harsh judgments are difficult to prove and can give readers the sense that you were unfair in your assessment.
• A great place to learn about book reviews is to look at examples. The New York Times Sunday Book Review and The New York Review of Books can show you how professional writers review books.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Drewry, John. 1974. Writing Book Reviews. Boston: Greenwood Press.

Hoge, James. 1987. Literary Reviewing. Charlottesville: University Virginia of Press.

Sova, Dawn, and Harry Teitelbaum. 2002. How to Write Book Reports , 4th ed. Lawrenceville, NY: Thomson/Arco.

Walford, A.J. 1986. Reviews and Reviewing: A Guide. Phoenix: Oryx Press.

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The Two Men Who Wanted to Categorize ‘Every Living Thing’ on Earth

Jason Roberts tells the story of the scholars who tried to taxonomize the world.

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By Deborah Blum

Deborah Blum, the director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at M.I.T., is the author of “The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.”

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EVERY LIVING THING: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life , by Jason Roberts

A professor asks a student to go on a plant-collecting trip, a perilous journey from Sweden to Suriname in 1754. The devoted student agrees, which means months tossed about on a wooden ship while chased by a simmering fever. When the student returns, he still shows hints of delirium, declaring that one of his specimens can produce a harvest of pearls, refusing to turn over any of his treasures to his mentor. What’s a plant-obsessed professor to do?

For Carl Linnaeus, this was easily answered. He went to Daniel Rolander’s home and, finding him away, smashed a window and broke in. Sadly, he found no pearl-bearing oyster plant or any other notable vegetation; merely one small herb which people in Suriname used to treat diarrhea. Linnaeus took it anyway. He then dismissed the young collector entirely, denying him compensation and pointedly naming a minuscule beetle “Aphanus rolandi.” (“Aphanus” means obscure, by the way.)

If this sketch of Linnaeus causes you to view the man as ruthless, a little unhinged and a lot meanspirited, well, that’s the point here. Jason Roberts, the author of “Every Living Thing,” is not a fan of the founding father of taxonomy, whom he rather hilariously describes as “a Swedish doctor with a diploma-mill medical degree and a flair for self-promotion.” But the snark is not merely entertainment — the portrait is central to the main thesis of Roberts’s engaging and thought-provoking book, one focused on the theatrical politics and often deeply troubling science that shape our definitions of life on Earth.

Roberts’s exploration centers on the competing work of Linnaeus and another scientific pioneer, the French mathematician and naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. Of the two, Linnaeus is far better known today. Of course, Roberts notes, the Frenchman did not pursue fame as ardently as did his Swedish rival. Linnaeus cultivated admiration to a near-religious degree; he liked to describe even obscure students like Rolander as “apostles.” Buffon, in his time even more famous as a brilliant mathematician, scholar and theorist, preferred debate over adulation, dismissing public praise as “a vain and deceitful phantom.”

Their different approaches to stardom may partly explain why we remember one better than we do the other. But perhaps their most important difference — one that forms the central question of Roberts’s book — can be found in their sharply opposing ideas on how to best impose order on the planet’s tangle of species.

Linnaeus is justly given credit for applying logic and order to science, standardizing the names, definitions and classifications of research. But his directives were based on an often uncharitable and deeply biased worldview. He saw species, including humans, as needing to be ranked according to European values. Thus, Linnaeus is also credited with establishing racial categories for people.

He placed white Europeans firmly at the top. Homo sapiens Europaeus, as he called it, was blond, blue-eyed, “gentle, acute, inventive.” By contrast, Homo sapiens Afer was dark and, in Linnaeus’s definition, “slow, sly and careless”; Homo sapiens Americanus was red-skinned and short-tempered.

Buffon, far more generous by nature, rejected this racial hierarchy. “The dissimilarities are merely external,” he wrote in 1758, “the alterations of nature but superficial.” Living things were adaptable, he insisted, shaped by the environment. Charles Darwin, who pioneered the theory of evolution, would later call Buffon’s ideas, posed more than a century before the 1859 publication of “On the Origin of Species,” “laughably like my own.”

Roberts stands openly on the side of Buffon, rather than his “profoundly prejudiced” rival. He’s frustrated that human society and its scientific enterprise ignored the better ideas — and the better man. And he’s equally frustrated that after all this time we’ve yet to fully acknowledge Buffon’s contributions to our understanding. As time has proved him right, certainly on issues of race and evolution, Roberts asks, why are Linnaeus and his worldviews still so much better known — and better accepted by far too many?

The book traces some reasons — the anti-aristocratic fervor of the French Revolution in suppressing Buffon’s scholarship; the European colonialists who firmly elevated Linnaeus’s more convenient worldview. It wasn’t until the 20th century that scientists and historians began rediscovering the importance of the French scientist’s ideas. And that, Roberts believes, has been our loss in countless ways.

More than 250 years ago, Buffon proposed that we exist in a world full of ever-changing possibility, a place where our similarities matter as much as our differences. Perhaps it’s not too late, this book suggests, to be our better selves and yet hear him out.

EVERY LIVING THING : The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life | By Jason Roberts | Random House | 422 pp. | $35

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Synthesis and clinical application of new drugs approved by FDA in 2022

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• Published: 04 September 2023
• Volume 4 , article number  26 , ( 2023 )

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• Jing-Yi Zhang 1 ,
• Ya-Tao Wang 2 , 3 ,
• Lu Sun 3 , 4 ,
• Sai-Qi Wang 3 &
• Zhe-Sheng Chen 5  

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The pharmaceutical industry had a glorious year in 2022, with a total of 37 new drugs including 20 new chemical entities (NCEs) and 17 new biological entities (NBEs) approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These drugs are mainly concentrated in oncology, central nervous system, antiinfection, hematology, cardiomyopathy, dermatology, digestive system, ophthalmology, MRI enhancer and other therapeutic fields. Of the 37 drugs, 25 (68%) were approved through an expedited review pathway, and 19 (51%) were approved to treat rare diseases. These newly listed drugs have unique structures and new mechanisms of action, which can serve as lead compounds for designing new drugs with similar biological targets and enhancing therapeutic efficacy. This review aims to outline the clinical applications and synthetic methods of 19 NCEs newly approved by the FDA in 2022, but excludes contrast agent (Xenon Xe-129). We believe that an in-depth understanding of the synthetic methods of drug molecules will provide innovative and practical inspiration for the development of new, more effective, and practical synthetic techniques. According to the therapeutic areas of these 2022 FDA-approved drugs, we have classified these 19 NCEs into seven categories and will introduce them in the order of their approval for marketing.

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Introduction

The pharmaceutical industry is constantly evolving, with new drugs being developed and approved by the FDA every year. These new drugs offer hope for patients suffering from various diseases and conditions, and they represent a significant advancement in medical science. In 2022, the FDA approved 37 new drugs that have the potential to revolutionize the treatment of various diseases. Of the 37 new drugs, 20 (54%) new drugs belong to new chemical entity (NCE), and 17 (46%) new drugs belong to new biological entity (NBE) [ 1 ]. As shown in Table S 1 , we summarized the drug names, research & development companies, active ingredients, approval dates, indications, and other information of the 37 new drugs [ 2 ]. By analyzing the approved drugs and their indications [ 3 ], it can be found that the main therapeutic field is still oncology, and 10 new oncologic drugs were approved (accounting for 27% of all approved drugs). Seven drugs were approved in the field of the central nervous system (accounting for 19% of the total), five drugs were approved in the field of dermatology (14%), four drugs were approved in the field of anti-infective (accounting for 11% of the total), and three drugs were approved in the fields of hematology (accounting for 8% of the total). Two drugs (5%) were approved in ophthalmology and metabolism respectively, and one drug (3% of the total) was approved in the digestive system and cardiomyopathy respectively. Of these 37 new drugs, up to 25 (68%), new drugs were reviewed and approved through the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) accelerated approval process. These accelerated approvals are divided into the following categories: fast track, accelerated approval, priority review, and breakthrough therapy. Among them, 18 new drugs received priority review, 9 new drugs obtained fast track, 4 new Drugs received accelerated approval and 13 new drugs obtained breakthrough therapy, including 6 NCEs and 7 NBEs. It is worth noting that 19 (51%) new drugs were approved to treat rare diseases: For example, Enjaymo is used for the treatment of cold agglutinin disease (CAD), a rare, chronic, serious, autoimmune hemolytic anemia disease [ 4 , 5 ]; Myelofibrosis (MF) is an uncommon condition characterized by abnormalities in the production of blood cells and the presence of fibrosis in the bone marrow [ 6 ], and Vonjo received approval to treat primary and secondary MF in adult patients who have experienced a substantial decrease in their platelet levels [ 7 ]; Amvuttra was approved by FDA to treat polyneuropathy of hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (ATTR), a genetic condition resulting from mutations in the TTR gene [ 8 , 9 ]. Compared with the 50 drugs approved by the FDA in 2021 (36 NCEs and 14 NBEs), although the number of drugs approved in 2022 is relatively small, there are still some remarkable achievements. For example, Tirzepatide is the first-in-class glucose-lowering drug approved in recent years with a new mechanism of action. In addition to type 2 diabetes, it has shown good potential for treating obesity. The HIV-1 capsid inhibitor lenacapavir can be taken once every six months. Deucravacitinib, a tyrosine kinase 2 inhibitor used to treat psoriasis, the dual-specificity antibody faricimab-svoa for the treatment of macular degeneration, and the antibody–drug conjugate mirvetuximab soravtansine-gynx targeting folate receptor alpha to treat platinum-resistant ovarian cancer have shown good market value.

As far as we know, the study of the synthetic methods of new chemical molecules and their mechanisms of action in clinical applications will greatly promote the development of new drugs, and the summary of newly introduced drugs will provide innovative and practical inspiration for new drug discovery [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to provide an overview of 19 NCEs approved by the FDA in 2022 (Fig.  1 ), with a focus on the synthesis of these drugs, their mechanism of action, and their potential benefits and risks. The logical sequence of this review will be to first provide an overview of the new drugs approved by the FDA in 2022 (Table S 1 ), followed by a detailed analysis of the 19 NCEs. Finally, the review will conclude with a summary of the key findings and their implications for healthcare professionals. The review will be of great value to physicians, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals who are involved in the treatment of patients with the diseases and conditions targeted by these drugs.

Chemical structures of FDA-approved drugs in 2022

Anti-infective drugs

Oteseconazole (vivjoa).

Oteseconazole, developed by Mycovia, was given priority review and approved by the FDA on April 26, 2022, which was sold under the brand name Vivjoa, to prevent recurrent vulvovaginal candidiasis (RVVC) in women with no reproductive potential [ 21 , 22 ]. As an orally active anti-fungal agent, oteseconazole is a highly potent and selective inhibitor of Candida albicans CYP51 with a Ki value of below 39 nM, showing no significant effect on human CYP51 [ 23 , 24 , 25 ]. Thanks to the tetrazole moiety, oteseconazole features high selectivity for fungal CYP51 over human P450s, effectively decreasing off-target interactions, which is obviously distinct from previously discovered azole antifungals [ 26 ]. Compared with oteseconazole, triazole or imidazole-containing fluconazole or ketoconazole causes significant drug-drug interactions due to their effect on human CYPs [ 27 , 28 , 29 ]. By targeting CYP5, oteseconazole blocks the transformation of lanosterol to ergosterol, a sterol necessary for the formation and maintenance of fungal cell membrane integrity, thus exerting antifungal activity toward RVVC-related microorganisms, including Candida dubliniensis, krusei, lusitaniae, albicans, tropicalis, glabrata and parapsilosis [ 30 ]. Oteseconazole carries a risk of embryo-fetal toxicity and is therefore not permitted for use in women with reproductive potential [ 31 , 32 ].

The synthetic method of oteseconazole was reported by Hoekstra, William J. and co-workers (Fig.  2 ) [ 33 ]. The cross-coupling reaction of ethyl bromodifluoroacetate (OTES-002) and 2, 5-dibromopyridine (OTES-001) in the presence of Cu powder in DMSO gives OTES-003. OTES-003 reacts with l-bromo-2,4-difluorobenzene (OTES-004) in methyl tert -butyl ether (MTBE), affording OTES-005, which is then subjected to epoxidation reaction in the presence of trimethyl sulfoxonium iodide (TMSOI) and potassium tert -butoxide to afford epoxide OTES-006. Subsequent addition reaction affords racemic OTES-007. Compound OTES-007 undergoes chiral resolution with di- p -toluoyl-L-tartaric acid (L-DPTTA) in the mix solvents of isopropanol and acetonitrile, followed by the treatment of trimethylsilyl azide, giving tetrazole OTES-009. Finally, OTES-009 undergoes Suzuki–Miyaura reaction with aryl boronic acid OTES-010 to provide coupling compound oteseconazole.

Synthesis of oteseconazole, vonoprazan and lenacapavir

Vonoprazan, amoxicillin, and clarithromycin (Voquezna)

Vonoprazan was first launched in Japan in February 2015 to treat acid-related diseases and as an adjunct to the eradication of Helicobacter pylori [ 34 , 35 , 36 ]. As a potassium-competitive acid blocker (PCAB), vonoprazan blocks the secretion of gastric acid mediated by H + , K + -ATPase, which can be regarded as an alternative to proton-pump inhibitors to treat acid-associated disorders. CYP2C19 genetic polymorphisms show little effect on PCABs, which is obviously different from proton-pump inhibitors [ 37 ]. In addition, vonoprazan exhibits 350 times more active than lansoprazole, a proton pump inhibitor, which is attributed to its ability to accumulation in the gastric corpus mucosa, especially in parietal cells [ 38 ]. In May 2022, Vonoprazan, in combination with clarithromycin and amoxicillin was approved to treat Helicobacter pylori infection [ 39 ]. These approvals are based on the safety and effectiveness data of phalcon-hp phase 3 trial, which is the largest registered trial ever conducted in the United States in Helicobacter pylori , and 1046 patients were randomly assigned [ 40 ]. In the improved intention to treat population, the two vonoprazan treatment regimens showed no worse than lansoprazole triple therapy in patients without clarithromycin or amoxicillin resistant Helicobacter pylori strains at baseline [ 41 ]. The combination of amoxicillin, vonoprazan and clarithromycin has been reported to result in an eradication rate of Helicobacter pylori of about 90% [ 42 , 43 ].

Among the synthetic methods of vonoprazan [ 44 , 45 , 46 ], a relatively simple method starting from pyridine-3-sulfonyl chloride (VONO-001) is exhibited in Fig.  2 [ 47 ]. Nucleophilic substitution of VONO-001 with 5-(2-fluorophenyl)-1 H -pyrrole-3-carbonitrile (VONO-002) gives VONO-003, which then undergoes Raney-Ni promoted reduction reaction to give amine VONO-004. The resulting product VONO-004 is treated with paraformaldehyde and NaBH 4 generating the desired vonoprazan.

Lenacapavir (Sunlenca)

Lenacapavir, a first-in-class picomolar inhibitor of HIV-1 capsid protein, is used as a monotherapy, featuring little cross-resistance with clinically used antiretroviral agents and extended pharmacokinetics [ 48 , 49 ]. The European Commission granted the first worldwide approval of Lenacapavir to treat adults with multidrug-resistant HIV infection on 22 August 2022. On December 22, 2022, it also received FDA approval to treat HIV patients [ 50 , 51 ]. Lenacapavir exhibits its anti-HIV-1 activity through blocking the viral replication of HIV-1 virus, which is closely related to many processes of viral lifecycle: uptake, assembly, and release [ 52 ]. The lenacapavir's difluorobenzyl ring and CPSF6/Nup153 share the same binding pocket, with the benzyl groups of F1417 and F321 overlapping [ 53 ]. The crystal structure reveals that six lenacapavir molecules establishes a wide range of interactions with the protein, including cation-π interactions, hydrophobic interactions, and hydrogen bonds, thereby interrupting capsid interactions with CPSF6 and Nup153. In multiple cell lines, in vitro HIV-1 replication inhibition assays show EC 50 values of ~ 12–314 pM. Lenacapavir exhibits different inhibitory effect at low and high concentrations: it blocks viral nuclear entry at 0.5 nM, while inhibits the reverse transcription and DNA synthesis at 5–50 nM [ 54 ].

The process route of lenacapavir is described below in Fig.  2 [ 55 ]. The sequence begins with acetylation of commercial 2,5-dibromopyridine (LENA-001) with DMF. This is followed by the condensation with diphenylmethanamine (LENA-004) to access the imine LENA-005. Next, LENA-005 is reacted with 1-(bromomethyl)-3,5-difluorobenzene (LENA-006) affording LENA-007, which is converted to the amine LENA-008 through N -deprotection. Racemic LENA-008 undergoes chemical resolution upon treatment with ( R )-2-hydroxy-2-phenylacetic acid (LENA-009) to obtain single enantiomer salt LENA-010. Subjection of LENA-010 and 3-methyl-3-(methylsulfonyl)but-1-yne (LENA-011) to Sonogashira coupling conditions generates the alkyne LENA-012, and this is followed by condensation with the carboxylic acid LENA-013 in base to provide the amide LENA-014. Suzuki reaction of LENA-014 with the borate ester LENA-015 produces the coupling compound LENA-016. This salt is then removed crystalline alcohol through NaOH followed by nucleophilic substitution with methanesulfonyl chloride yielding LENA-018 with two methanesulfonyl groups. Sequential removal of one of methanesulfonyl group and acidification produce lenacapavir.

Central nervous system drugs

Daridorexant (quviviq).

Daridorexant, the second orexin receptor antagonist after suvorexant, was approved by the FDA on January 10, 2022, for clinical use to treat adult insomnia patients with difficulties of sleep maintenance and/or sleep onset [ 56 , 57 ]. It was then approved by the European Commission on 3 May 2022, making it the first dual orexin receptor antagonist to be approved for marketing [ 58 ]. Daridorexant potently inhibits orexins by working on OX1R and OX2R (Ki = 0.47 and 0.93 nM, respectively), which are wake-promoting endogenous ligands and neuropeptides [ 59 ]. Daridorexant is found to decrease overactive wakefulness. Daridorexant has been reported to improve daytime functioning and sleep in insomnia patients [ 60 ]. Before the approval of daridorexant, two orexin receptor antagonists have been marketed, including Mercer's suvorexant (approved in 2014) and Eisai's lemborexant (approved in 2019) [ 61 ]. But neither has fared well in the market so far.

The synthesis of daridorexant is outlined in Fig.  3 [ 62 ]. 2-Methyl-L-proline hydrochloride (DARI-001) is treated with di- tert -butyl pyrocarbonate (Boc 2 O) in 1/1 mixture solvents of MeCN and water, giving N -Boc protection product DARI-002. Treatment of DARI-002 with 6-chloro-2,3-diaminotoluene (DARI-003) under condensation reaction conditions furnishes amide DARI-004. Next, intramolecular condensation of DARI-004 under 100 °C provides DARI-005, which then undergoes N -Boc deprotection and condensation with 5-methoxy-2-(2 H -1,2,3-triazol-2-yl)benzoic acid (DARI-007) to provide daridorexant.

Synthesis of daridorexant, ganaxolone, and taurursodiol

Ganaxolone (Ztalmy)

Developed by Marinus, Ganaxolone was granted FDA approval as the inaugural treatment specifically indicated for seizures in cyclin-dependent kinase-like 5 deficiency disorder (CDD) [ 63 , 64 ]. Ganaxolone is one of the metabolites of progesterone from 3β-methylation of allopregnanolone [ 63 ]. Ganaxolone, a new class of neuroactive steroids, is effective positive allosteric modulators of γ-aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) receptors [ 65 ], which has specific and potent efficacy, like its endogenous counterparts [ 66 ]. Ganaxolone exerts its effect by binding to one specific allosteric binding site of GABAA, which is different from that of benzodiazepine [ 67 ]. It is characterized by analgesic, sedative, anxiolytic, hypnotic, anticonvulsant, and anesthetic properties [ 68 ]. It is important to note that antiepileptic medications may increase the risk of suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior, and caution should be taken when considering treatment with ganaxolone [ 69 , 70 , 71 ].

To this day, several synthetic methods of ganaxolone have been reported [ 72 , 73 , 74 ], one representative approach is depicted in Fig.  3 [ 72 ]. Starting with pregnenolone (GANA-001), reduction of double bond with hydrogen catalyzed by Pd/C affords compound GANA-002. The subsequent oxidation reaction of GANA-002 with NaOCl and NaBr gives diketone GANA-003, followed by epoxidation reaction to provide epoxide GANA-004. Finally, GANA-004 undergoes NaI promoted ring-opening producing ganaxolone.

Sodium phenylbutyrate/taurursodiol (Relyvrio)

Phenylbutyric acid, a fatty acid derivative of butyric acid produced by natural fermentation of colon bacteria, has many cellular and biological effects, such as easing inflammation, which is used to treat neurological or urea cycle disorders and inherited metabolic syndrome [ 75 ]. Sodium phenylbutyrate is a prodrug of phenylacetic acid that quickly metabolizes to its original style [ 76 ]. Then, phenylacetate binds to phenylacetyl-CoA, which is subjected to acetylation to give phenylacetylglutamine, which is ultimately excreted by the kidneys [ 77 ]. In Europe, taurursodiol, a taurine conjugate of ursodeoxycholic acid, is utilized for the prevention and treatment of gallstones due to its antiapoptotic and inhibitory effects on ER stress response [ 78 ]. Furthermore, taurursodiol has been also investigated in neurodegenerative and inflammatory metabolic diseases due to its array of molecular properties, such as anti-apoptotic effects [ 79 , 80 ]. Taurursodiol effectively decreases the body cholesterol content and intake of dietary cholesterol by reducing intestinal absorption of cholesterol [ 81 ]. Relyvrio, an FDA-approved treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is a blend of sodium phenylbutyrate and taurursodiol [ 82 , 83 ]. ALS is so deadly that most patients have a life expectancy of only 3 to 5 years after onset of symptoms, and they typically die from respiratory failure, a progressive atrophy of the muscles used for respiration [ 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 ]. Relyvrio received early FDA approval due to the highly progressive nature and serious threat of ALS. However, Relyvrio prolong patients’ survival by slowing progression but not cure disease [ 88 , 89 ].

The synthesis of taurursodiol was disclosed by Sandhill One, LLC in 2022 (Fig.  3 ) [ 90 ]. Condensations of 3-ketochol-4-enoic acid (TAUR-001) with 2,2-dimethyl-1,3-propanediol (TAUR-002) and MeOH in the presence of p -toluenesulfonic acid (TsOH), giving TAUR-003. Subsequent hydroxylation and oxidation with NHPI ( N -hydroxyphthalimide) and pyridinium dichromate (PDC) form TAUR-004. Next, TAUR-004 is reduced with H 2 , followed by oxidation with pyridinium chlorochromate (PCC) to provide TAUR-005 over two steps. Treatment of compound TAUR-005 with HCOOH provides TAUR-006, in which the carbonyl is deprotected. One of the carbonyls of TAUR-006 then undergoes reduction, and the ester group is hydrolyzed at the same time, giving TAUR-007. After reduction of the other carbonyl, compound TAUR-008 reacts with taurine sodium salt (TAUR-009), giving taurursodiol.

Dermatologic drugs

Abrocitinib (cibinqo).

On December 10, 2021, abrocitinib was initially approved by the European Commission to treat adult patients with atopic dermatitis (AD) [ 91 , 92 ]. On January 14, 2022, abrocitinib received the FDA approval to treat patients with refractory moderate-to-severe AD who have limited or little response to other systemic drugs [ 93 ]. Abrocitinib potently and selectively inhibits JAK1 with an IC 50 value of 29 nM, which is better than that of JAK2 (IC 50  = 803 nM). Abrocitinib exerts anti-inflammatory effects by blocking pro-inflammatory cytokine signaling associated with atopic dermatitis [ 94 ]. It effectively decreases serum markers of atopic dermatitis inflammation in a dose-dependent manner, including interleukin-31 (IL-31), thymus and activation-regulated chemokine (TARC), and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) [ 95 ]. Mean absolute lymphocyte counts increased during two weeks of treatment and returned to baseline after 9 months of treatment [ 93 , 96 , 97 ]. According to the Phase 3 results, the experimental group showed significant improvement in disease extent, severity, and skin clarity compared to the placebo group, and patients were able to rapidly relieve itching symptoms after two weeks treatment [ 94 ]. It is one of the first oral JAK inhibitors for AD in the United States, and previously received FDA breakthrough treatment and priority review qualifications [ 98 ].

Several synthetic methods of abrocitinib have been reported [ 95 , 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 , 103 ], one representative synthetic route is described in Fig.  4 [ 104 ]. Curtius rearrangement and addition of 3-oxocyclobutane-1-carboxylic acid (ABRO-001) with phenylmethanol (ABRO-002) give ABRO-003 [ 105 ]. Next, treatment of compound ABRO-003 with monomethylamine in acetic acid, which then undergoes NaBH 4 -catalyzed reduction reaction to provide chiral compound ABRO-004. Treatment of ABRO-004 with pyrimidine ABRO-005 in the presence of K 2 CO 3 provides the corresponding substitution product ABRO-006, followed by dechlorination and hydrolysis, giving salt ABRO-007. Finally, treatment of ABRO-007 with propane-1-sulfonyl chloride (ABRO-008) provides nucleophilic substitution product abrocitinib.

Synthesis of abrocitinib, tapinarof and deucravacitinib

Tapinarof (Vtama)

Tapinarof was approved by FDA on May 23, 2022, to treat plaque psoriasis [ 106 , 107 ]. Tapiranof was originally identified as a metabolite (3, 5-dihydroxy-4-isopropyl styrenes) generated by Photorhabdus luminescens, a species of gram-negative bacilli living together with allogenic nematodes [ 108 ]. As a first-in-class agonist of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), Tapinarof exhibits excellent potency toward AhR (EC 50  = 13 nM), which effectively regulates antioxidant activity and skin barrier protein expression, and inhibits inflammatory cytokines [ 109 ]. Tapinarof directly binds to AhR, thereby activating the AhR pathway. Tapinarof induces AhR nuclear translocation in immortalized keratinocytes (HaCaT) in a dose-dependent manner (EC 50  = 0.16 nM). The anti-inflammatory effect of tapinarof may be due to Nrf2, a downstream effector of AhR, but not all AhR agonists can activate the pathway [ 110 ]. Therefore, the dual AhR/Nrf2 action of tapinarof may be responsible for psoriasis therapy [ 111 ].

The total synthesis of tapinarof is depicted in Fig.  4 [ 112 ]. Methylation of commercially available dimethyl sulfate with 3,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (TAPI-001), followed by reaction with isopropyl alcohol in the presence of 60% ~ 80% concentrated sulfuric acid, giving TAPI-003. Subsequently reduction of carboxyl forms alcohol TAPI-004. Next, chlorination of TAPI-004 with hydrochloric acid provides TAPI-005, which then undergoes Wittig-Horner condensation to generate compound TAPI-006. TAPI-006 reacts with benzaldehyde in the presence of NaH and THF under nitrogen atmosphere, affording TAPI-007, which is subjected to demethylation catalyzed by pyridine hydrochloride to afford the target compound tapinarof.

Deucravacitinib (Sotyktu)

On September 9, 2022, Deucravacitinib was approved by the FDA to treat moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis [ 113 ]. Deucravacitinib, a member of the Janus kinase (JAK) family, is a highly potent allosteric inhibitor of tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) with an IC 50 value of 1.0 nM [ 114 ]. It stabilizes an inhibitory interaction between catalytic and regulatory domains of the enzyme, which blocks the activation of Signal Transducers and Activators of Transcription (STATs) and TYK2in cell-based assays [ 115 , 116 , 117 ]. The precise mechanism by which inhibiting the TYK2 enzyme leads to effective treatment in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis is still not fully understood. However, its mechanism is different from other Janus kinase inhibitors targeting the conserved active domain, thereby exerting its high selectivity toward TYK2 [ 118 ], which is expected to avoid various adverse effects caused by non-selective JAK inhibitors, such as kidney and liver dysfunction, and altered triglyceride and cholesterol level.

Preparation of deucravacitinib is outlined in Fig.  4 [ 119 ]. Chlorodehydration of 4,6-dihydroxypyridazine-3-carboxylate (DEUC-001) with phosphorus oxychloride affords the corresponding dichloride DEUC-002, which undergoes hydrolysis in the presence of lithium bromide and Hunig’s base in aqueous acetonitrile to yield the lithium carboxylate DEUC-003. Nucleophilic aromatic substitution with DEUC-004 takes place at C4 position of DEUC-003, in the presence of zinc acetate, leading to the formation of DEUC-005 as a zinc salt. Subsequent coupling with cyclopropanecarboxamide (DEUC-006) is catalyzed by palladium acetate and a Josiphos ligand to generate compound DEUC-007. Finally, DEUC-007 undergoes an amidation with methan-d 3 -amine hydrochloride in the presence of 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC), 1-hydroxybenzotriazole (HOBt) and N -methylimidazole (NMI), affording deucravacitinib.

Hematologic drugs

Mitapivat (pyrukynd).

Mitapivat is the first orally active pyruvate kinase allosteric activator, which was approved by FDA on February 17, 2022, to manage hemolytic anemia in individuals with pyruvate kinase (PK) deficiency [ 120 , 121 , 122 ]. Mitapivat activates PK through allosteric regulation, binding to a distinct allosteric site on the PKR tetramer separate from fructose bisphosphate FBP [ 123 ]. The red blood cell (RBC) form of PK is mutated in PK deficiency, resulting in shortened RBC lifespan, reduced adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and chronic hemolysis [ 124 ]. Mitapivat increases its affinity for its substrate and stabilizes phosphoenolpyruvate by binding to pyruvate kinase [ 120 ]. Mitapivat increases ATP production and erythrocyte pyruvate kinase activity (wild-type and mutant forms) but reduces levels of 2,3-DPG [ 123 ]. Mitapivat has also been investigated in other genetic disorders affecting red blood cells and causing hemolytic anemia, such as α-/β-thalassemia and sickle cell disease [ 123 ].

The preparation of mitapivat developed by Agios is shown in Fig.  5 [ 125 , 126 ]. Starting with ethyl 4-aminobenzoate (MITA-001), a nucleophilic substitution reaction with quinoline-8-sulfonyl chloride (MITA-002), followed by NaOH promoted hydrolysis, giving MITA-004. Finally, the condensation of MITA-004 with 1-(cyclopropylmethyl)piperazine (MITA-005) in the presence of 1,1'-carbonyldiimidazole (CDI) gives the desired mitapivat.

Synthesis of mitapivat and pacritinib

Pacritinib (Vonjo)

On February 28, 2022, the FDA granted accelerated approval to Pacritinib, a highly effective inhibitor of JAK2 and FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3), which was used to treat adult patients with low platelets who suffer from intermediate or high-risk primary or secondary myelofibrosis (MF) [ 127 , 128 ]. Pacritinib potently inhibits wild-type JAK2 (IC 50  = 23 nM), JAK2 V617F (IC 50  = 19 nM), FLT3 (IC 50  = 22 nM), and FLT3 D835Y (IC 50  = 6 nM) [ 129 ], which benefits the signaling of many growth factors and cytokines associated with immune and hematopoiesis function. MF is closely related to dysregulated JAK2 signaling. Pacritinib carries significant selectivity for JAK2 over JAK3 and TYK2, and does not inhibit JAK1 at clinically relevant concentrations [ 130 ].

Pacritinib demonstrates a dose-dependent suppression of signal transducer and activator of transcription 5 (STAT5) phosphorylation in expanded erythroid progenitor cells obtained from healthy individuals [ 131 ]. A single 400 mg dose of pacritinib moderately inhibits STAT3 phosphorylation induced by interleukin 6 in the whole blood of healthy subjects [ 132 , 133 ]. Pacritinib is administered orally twice daily and is contraindicated in patients with renal insufficiency and hepatic insufficiency. It offers an alternative for MF patients with severe thrombocytopenia, commonly carrying a pretty poor prognosis [ 134 ].

Although several synthetic routes to pacritinib have been reported [ 135 , 136 ], an efficient approach has been disclosed in Fig.  5 [ 137 ]. Substitution of 3-(2-chloropyrimidin-4-yl)benzaldehyde (PACR-001) with 5-amino-2-(2-chloroethoxy)benzaldehyde (PACR-002), followed by N -Boc protection of compound PACR-003 with di- tert -butyl pyrocarbonate, generating the key intermediate PACR-004. Further NaBH 4 promoted reduction of PACR-004 furnishes PACR-005. Treatment of PACR-005 with ( E )-1,4-dibromobut-2-ene (PACR-006) in basic solution gives the ring-closing product PACR-007, which undergoes nucleophilic substitution reaction with pyrrolidine (PACR-008) to provide the desired pacritinib.

Oncologic drugs

Lutetium ( 177 lu) vipivotide tetraxetan (pluvicto).

As a radioligand therapeutic agent, lutetium ( 177 Lu) vipivotide tetraxetan consists of a radionuclide, lutetium Lu-177, conjugated to a prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-binding moiety, exercising cytotoxic effect on cancer cells [ 138 , 139 ]. The β-negative emission of lutetium Lu-177 irradiates PSMA-expressing cells and surrounding cells, thereby inducing DNA damage and cell death. In a clinical trial, it was discovered that Lutetium ( 177 Lu) vipivotide tetraxetan exhibited a significant correlation with an 80.4% decrease in serum PSA levels. Additionally, the median progression-free survival for these patients was determined to be 13.7 months [ 140 ]. Following other therapies, it was granted FDA approval on March 23, 2022, to treat metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer with prostate-specific membrane antigen positivity [ 141 ]. This approval is based on the positive results of phase 3 clinical trial, which showed that the addition of Pluvicto reduced the risk of patient death by 38% compared to standard therapy and that Pluvicto also significantly reduced the risk of patients developing radiographic disease progression or death [ 142 ]. Furthermore, in patients with evaluable disease at baseline, the overall remission rate was 30% in the Pluvicto group, compared to 2% in the standard treatment control group [ 143 ]. In October 2022, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) issued a recommendation for the authorization of marketing for a therapeutic intervention targeting prostate cancer [ 144 ].

Preparation of lutetium ( 177 Lu) vipivotide tetraxetan is depicted in Fig.  6 [ 145 , 146 ]. Starting from 2-chlotrotrityl chloride (2-CT) resin, installation of LUTE-001 is accomplished in the presence of DCM to furnish LUTE-002. From LUTE-002, condensation with isocyanic acid LUTE-003 provides the intermediate LUTE-004. Treatment of LUTE-004 with Pd[P(C 6 H 5 ) 3 ] 4 and morpholine, followed by condensation with Fmoc-L-2-NaI-OH, forming LUTE-006. Following the same procedure, LUTE-007 is synthesized. Further condensation and radiolabelling with 177 Lu give Lutetium ( 177 Lu) vipivotide tetraxetan.

Synthesis of lutetium ( 177 Lu) vipivotide tetraxetan, futibatinib and olutasidenib

Futibatinib (Lytgobi)

On September 30, 2022, the FDA granted approval to Futibatinib, a permanent inhibitor of Fibroblast Growth Factor receptor (FGFR), for the treatment of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma that contains FGFR2 gene fusions or other genetic rearrangements [ 147 ]. Futibatinib effectively inhibits FGFR 1–4 (IC 50  = 3.9, 1.3, 1.6, and 8.3 nM), respectively, by forming a covalent bond with cysteine in the ATP-binding pocket of FGFR kinase domain [ 148 , 149 , 150 ]. In addition, Futibatinib exhibits similar inhibitory potency toward wild-type (WT) and mutant FGFR2 with IC 50 values of 0.9 nM, 1–3 nM, 3.6 nM, and 2.4 nM against WT FGFR2, V5651, N550H, and E566G, respectively [ 148 , 149 , 150 ]. FGFR plays a crucial role in cell differentiation, survival, proliferation, and migration, and aberrant signaling pathways and genomic aberrations commonly occur in a variety of cancers since the survival and proliferation of malignant cells can be supported by FGFR signaling [ 148 , 151 ]. Futibatinib efficiently inhibits the phosphorylation of FGFR and subsequent signaling pathways. This inhibition leads to a decrease in the survival of cancer cells harboring FGFR rearrangements, fusions, mutations, and amplifications in xenograft models derived from mice and rats [ 152 ]. In the end, futibatinib effectively decreases the survival of cancer cells with FGFR alterations, such as FGFR fusions or rearrangements, amplifications, and mutations [ 153 ].

Futibatinib is prepared as described in Fig.  6 [ 154 ]. Sonogashira coupling between FUTI-001 and l-ethynyl-3,5-dimethoxybenzene (FUTI-002) gives compound FUTI-003, followed by the treatment of FUTI-003 with 3-chloropropionyl chloride (FUTI-004), affording the product futibatinib.

Olutasidenib (Rezlidhia)

On December 1, 2022, the FDA granted approval to olutasidenib, a highly effective inhibitor of isocitrate dehydrogenase-1 (IDH1), to treat relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in adults who possess a susceptible IDH1 mutation [ 155 , 156 ]. Normally, IDH1 catalyzes mediated the conversion of isocitrate to α-ketoglutarate (α-KG) through oxidative decarboxylation reaction [ 157 ]. However, IDH1 mutations are commonly observed in the catalytic sites of arginine in various cancers, such as AML, and stimulate the transfer of α-KG to 2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG) [ 158 ]. This leads to 2-HG increase, which is closely related to the inhibition of α-KG-dependent mechanisms, such as collagen synthesis, epigenetic regulation, and cell signaling. Olutasidenib effectively decreases 2-HG levels by selectively targeting mutant IDH1, leading to the restoration of normal cell differentiation and offering therapeutic advantages in IDH1 mutant strains. Additionally, olutasidenib is currently investigated to treat myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), as well as solid tumors and gliomas (NCT03684811) [ 159 , 160 , 161 ].

The synthetic route of olutasidenib as described in the publication is shown in Fig.  6 [ 162 ]. N -oxidation of commercially available 5-fluoropicolinonitrile (OLUT-001) followed by reflux of the N -oxide (OLUT-002) in acetic anhydride give the acetate OLUT-003. Base-mediated hydrolyzation and tautomerism of OLUT-003, followed by N -methylation with methyl iodide provide N -methylated compound OLUT-005. Finally, the condensation of OLUT-005 with the amine OLUT-006 affords olutasidenib.

Of note, the preparation of the amine OLUT-006 arises from commercially available quinoline aldehyde OLUT-007, which is first condensed with ( R )- tert -butanesulfinamide (OLUT-008) to obtain the chiral ( R )- N - tert -butanesulfinimine (OLUT-009) in 81% yield (Fig.  7 ). Next, an addition reaction of OLUT-009 and methylmagnesium bromide in dichloromethane is employed to yield the intermediate OLUT-010 as the major diastereoisomer (98:2 dr). Removal of the sulfonyl group using hydrochloric acid provides the intermediate OLUT-006 in quantitative yield.

Synthesis of adagrasib, mavacamten and terlipressin

Adagrasib (Krazati)

Adagrasib, an orally bioavailable inhibitor of KRAS, was developed by Mirati. On December 12, 2022, Therapeutics obtained accelerated FDA approval to treat KRAS G12C-mutated locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer in adults who have undergone at least one prior systemic therapy [ 163 , 164 , 165 ]. Normally, activation of KRAS through binding to guanosine triphosphate (GTP) stimulates the activation of intracellular signal transduction and MAP kinase pathway. Hydrolyzation of GTP gives guanosine diphosphate (GDP) and KRAS restores the inactive state [ 166 ]. Cysteine substitution of Gly12 in KRAS (KRASG12C) damages GTP hydrolysis and keeps KRAS in active form, which results in uncontrolled cell growth and proliferation as well as malignant transformation [ 167 ]. Adagrasib covalently and selectively binds to KRASG12C and locks it in the inactive state, thus exerting anti-tumor activity by inhibiting tumor cell viability and growth [ 168 ].

The synthesis of adagrasib begins by condensing ethyl 1-benzyl-3-oxopiperidine-4-carboxylate (ADAG-001) with urea. This reaction forms ADAG-002, which is a bicyclic diol. ADAG-002 is then chlorinated using POCl 3 to produce pyrimidine (ADAG-003) (Fig.  7 ) [ 169 ]. Next, treatment of intermediate ADAG-003 with sodium methoxide in methanol, followed by Buchwald coupling with ( S )-(1-methylpyrrolidin-2-yl)methanol (ADAG-005), gives compound ADAG-006. N -debenzylation of ADAG-006 in the presence of hydrogen catalyzed by Pd(OH)/C affords the amine ADAG-007, which is treated with 1-bromo-8-chloronaphthalene (ADAG-008) under Buchwald-Hartwig amination conditions to give the N -arylated product ADAG-009. Demethylation and subsequent triflate formation provide ADAG-011, which reacts with ( S )-2-(piperazin-2-yl)acetonitrile (ADAG-012) affording the advanced intermediate ADAG-013. It then undergoes ammonolysis with 2-fluoroacrylic acid using T3P as the coupling reagent to obtain adagrasib [ 170 ].

Other drugs

Mavacamten (camzyos).

Mavacamten was approved by US FDA in 2022, which is used to treat adult patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (oHCM) who are experiencing symptoms and fall into New York Heart Association (NYHA) class II-III [ 171 , 172 ]. Mavacamten is a medication that can be taken by mouth. It acts as an inhibitor of cardiac myosin, which is a protein involved in muscle contraction in the heart. This medication works by regulating the number of myosin heads that can enter the "on actin" states, effectively reducing the likelihood of generating force during systole (contraction) and residual force during diastole (relaxation) across the bridge. Additionally, its inhibitory effects are reversible, meaning that its action can be reversed if necessary [ 173 ]. HCM is characterized by the presence of excessive formation of myosin actin bridges and dysregulation of the hyperrelaxation state [ 174 ]. Mavacamten transforms the total amount of myosin into an energy-saving, absorbable, ultra-relaxed state [ 175 ]. Inhibition of myosin with Mavacamten reduced dynamic left vein obstruction and improved cardiac filling pressure in patients with HCM. It has been reported that the IC 50 values of Mavacamten in the bovine, human, and rabbit system are 490 nM, 711 nM, and 2140 nM, respectively, indicating a 4-fold selectivity for myocardial myosin [ 176 , 177 , 178 ]. Mavakamten is found to reduce contractility through decreasing the activity of adenosine triphosphatase in the heavy chain of myocardial myosin [ 179 ]. Long-term administration results in the inhibition of the development of myocardial cell disorders, myocardial hypertrophy, and myocardial fibrosis, and attenuates the gene expression of profibrotic and hypertrophic in mice featuring heterozygous human mutations in the chain of myosin heavy [ 176 ].

A convenient synthetic method of mavacamten was disclosed in 2014 (Fig.  7 ) [ 180 ]. Addition of commercially available isopropylamine (MAVA-001) with trimethylsilyl isocyanate (MAVA-002), followed by the annulation reaction with dimethyl malonate in the presence of sodium methoxide and methanol, giving MAVA-003. Subsequently, chlorination forms compound MAVA-005. Finally, the coupling of MAVA-005 with ( S )-α-methylbenzylamine (MAVA-006) in dioxane under 90 °C provides desired mavacamten.

Terlipressin (Terlivaz)

Terlipressin, a medication aimed at enhancing kidney function in adult patients with hepatorenal syndrome experiencing a rapid decline in kidney function, obtained FDA approval on September 14, 2022 [ 181 , 182 ]. Terlipressin, an analog of vasopressin, is an endogenous neurohormone that acts as a vasoconstrictor [ 183 , 184 , 185 , 186 , 187 , 188 ]. As a prodrug of lysine-vasopressin, terlipressin itself is pharmacologically active, characterized by a longer half-life and higher selectivity for V1 receptor than vasopressin, which controls acute variceal bleeding, and reduces the splanchnic blood flow and portal pressure [ 189 ]. These favorable pharmacokinetic and molecular properties of terlipressin confer several advantages, such as convenience in patients with limited intravenous access and prevention of rebound hypotension upon discontinuation [ 188 , 190 ].

Preparation of terlipressin is described in Fig.  7 [ 191 ]. Condensation of thioester TERL-001 and N -terminal cysteine TERL-002 furnishes TERL-003 in the presence of 3-( N -morpholino)propanesulfonic (MOPS) and catalytic guanidine. Subsequent condensation of TERL-003 with Boc-Cys(trt)-OH TERL-004 and N -Boc deprotection furnish TERL-005, further guanidine-catalyzed condensation with TERL-006 gives TERL-007. Oxidation of TERL-007 in MeCN/H 2 O gives terlipressin.

Gadopiclenol (Elucirem)

Gadopiclenol, a gadolinium-based contrast agent (GBCA), was developed by Guerbet. On September 21, 2022, after undergoing a priority review, the FDA granted its approval to the product. Its primary objective is to identify and display abnormal vascularity lesions in the body and the central nervous system, in combination with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In 2006, linear GBCA use was linked to nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) [ 192 , 193 , 194 ], a rare disease characterized by hardening and thickening of the subcutaneous and skin tissue, which has not been detected in macrocyclic GBCAs, such as gadopiclenol [ 195 ]. It should be noted that in NSF patients with impaired drug clearance, a black box warning was given to gadopiclenol to remind an increased risk. Gadopiclenol carries two water molecule exchange sites for increased relaxation and contrast [ 195 ]. Compared with other non-specific GBCAs, gadopiclenol dose is only half of the conventional gadolinium dose, alleviating practitioners' concerns about radiation exposure [ 196 ]. Variations in radiofrequency signal strength allow visualization of normal and pathological tissue during MRI, which is characterized by the differences in longitudinal relaxation times (T1) or spin–lattice, proton density, or in transverse relaxation times or spin–spin (T2). The T1 and T2 relaxation times can be shortened by Gadopiclenol, resulting in the visualization of target tissues during MRI [ 197 ]. The extent of a contrast agent affecting the tissue water relaxation rate (1/T1 or 1/T2) is expressed in terms of the relaxation rate (r1 or r2). The high r1 relaxation rate and kinetic stability of gadopiclenol allow it to be used at lower doses than traditional extracellular GBCAs. What deserves special vigilance is that acute kidney injury and hypersensitivity reactions may also occur with gadopiclenol [ 198 ].

The reported synthesis of gadopiclenol was reported by Marc, in 2007 (Fig.  8 ) [ 199 ]. Treatment of compound GADO-001 with 3-aminopropyl-1,2-diol (GADO-002) in the presence of HOBt and EDC gives gadopiclenol.

Synthesis of gadopiclenol and omidenepag isopropyl

Omidenepag isopropyl (Omlonti)

Omidenepag isopropyl, approved in Japan in 2018 as a potent agonist of EP2 receptor to treat ocular hypertension and glaucoma [ 200 ], was then approved by FDA on September 22, 2022, to lower high intraocular pressure in individuals diagnosed with ocular hypertension or open-angle glaucoma. Omidenepag isopropyl is rapidly metabolized to its active metabolite omidenepag, which binds strongly to prostaglandin E2 (EP2) receptor (Ki = 3.6 nM) [ 201 ]. Furthermore, Omidenepag is highly agonistic at the EP2 receptor (EC 50  = 8.3 nM) but has little effect on other receptors such as prostaglandin E1 (EP1) or F receptors (FP) [ 200 , 202 , 203 ]. Unlike omidenepag, omidenepag isopropyl has little or no affinity for prostaglandin receptors [ 200 , 203 ]. EP2 receptor exists in different kinds of ocular tissues related to aqueous humor dynamics, such as ciliary muscle (CM) and trabecular meshwork (TM) [ 204 ]. Stimulation of EP2 receptors may result in increased intracellular cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), leading to relaxation of CM and TM tissues [ 205 ]. Omidenepag has shown comparable efficacy in lowering IOP to latanoprost, a prostaglandin FP receptor agonist, which is a first-line treatment for primary ocular hypertension and open-angle glaucoma [ 206 ].

Preparation of omidenepag isopropyl is depicted in Fig.  8 [ 202 ]. Treatment of OMID-001 with 1-(4-(bromomethyl)phenyl)-1 H -pyrazole (OMID-002) provides the corresponding coupling product OMID-003, followed by HCl-promoted hydrolysis and N -Boc deprotection, producing omidenepag. Esterification of omidenepag with isopropyl alcohol in dioxane yields omidenepag isopropyl.

Conclusion and prospect

In conclusion, in 2022, FDA approved 37 new drugs, including 20 NCEs, 7 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), 3 bispecific antibodies (BsAbs), 2 enzymes, 1 fusion protein, 1 synthetic polypeptide, 1 small interfering RNA (siRNA), 1 toxin, 1contrast agent and a colony stimulating factor (CSF). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, FDA is still committed to supporting the development of rare disease drugs. The field of anti-tumor is still a hot area for innovative drug development. These approved new drugs will benefit patients suffering from orphans, cancer, nervous system diseases, infectious diseases, and many other diseases.

In this review, we summarized the clinic application and synthetic routes of the 19 NCEs of new drugs approved by the FDA. The pharmacophore library will be enriched and new drug discovery will be benefited by the presence of privileged scaffolds in these drug molecules. For example, me-better drug omidenepag isopropyl is developed based on the molecular structure of CP-533,536, which was reported by previous researchers and optimized through the structural modification of PGE2 [ 202 ]. The AIDS prevention drug lenacapavir is developed based on the structure of PF-3450074. In order to block the unstable metabolic site, researchers focused on introducing electron-withdrawing groups (halogens and sulfonyl groups) and metabolically stable rigid ring systems (cyclopropane and pyrazole) through optimization [ 207 ]. Both deucravacitinib and olutasidenib were first screened through high-throughput screening to obtain lead compounds, and their solubility was improved through SBDD. Adagrasib has increased its in vitro stability in whole blood (WB) by introducing a fluorine atom at the 2-position of acrylamide [ 208 ].

In addition, we discovered that metal-catalyzed coupling reactions were utilized in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals (such as omidenepag, futibatinib, oteseconazole, etc.). Chiral resolution and asymmetric synthesis were employed for obtaining the single enantiomer of the chiral drugs (such as taurursodiol, ganaxolone, and oteseconazole, etc.). Other traditional organic synthetic strategies, such as substitution reaction, hydrolysis reaction, Curtius rearrangement, and addition reaction were still used for the synthesis of these new drug molecules approved by the FDA. The special skeletons in the drug molecules enrich the effective pharmacophores, which will help to design new drugs.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

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We extend our sincere appreciation for the generous financial support received from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82103560).

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Henan Engineering Research Center of Precision Therapy of Gastrointestinal Cancer, Zhengzhou Key Laboratory for Precision Therapy of Gastrointestinal Cancer, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University & Henan Cancer Hospital, Zhengzhou, 450008, China

Ya-Tao Wang, Lu Sun & Sai-Qi Wang

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The conceptualization of the project was initiated by Zhe-Sheng Chen, Jing-Yi Zhang, and Sai-Qi Wang, who also assumed the responsibility of curating and categorizing relevant scholarly resources. Furthermore, Jing-Yi Zhang, Ya-Tao Wang and Lu Sun made significant contributions to the generation of graphical illustrations and actively collaborated in the construction of an all-encompassing tabular framework. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Zhang, JY., Wang, YT., Sun, L. et al. Synthesis and clinical application of new drugs approved by FDA in 2022. Mol Biomed 4 , 26 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43556-023-00138-y

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Vampire Weekend Reinvent Their Sound (Again) With ‘Only God Was Above Us': Album Review

A major problem with early success is getting past it - case in point, the cheerful bop of Vampire Weekend's first two albums and their image as peppy college boys who'd studied Paul Simon's "Graceland" like a James Joyce masters' thesis, playing their jaunty global pop to deliriously skanking millennials at seemingly every music festival of the latter aughts. And although that take was understandable - if unfairly reductive - at the time, VW is now a very different band. "Only God Was Above Us" - their first album in nearly five years and just their second in the last decade - finds them bringing their vast musical pedigree to create a sound that they've touched on in the past but never previously explored so thoroughly.

That sound is an unusual fusion of baroque-esque grandeur - first aired on their 2013 song "Step" - and punky energy that's in full display on this album's first song, "Ice Cream Piano." On it, a string quartet jars against a comically distorted, shrieking guitar - and throughout the album, such disparate elements are often playing at the same time. It still sounds unmistakably like Vampire Weekend - the band has become increasingly singer-songwriter-guitarist Ezra Koenig's vehicle (especially since cofounder Rostam Batmanglij left in 2016), and the songs all are built around his effortlessly memorable melodies and deceptively plaintive voice. But the context for them is what's different.

Where 2018's "Father of the Bride" sprawled 18 tracks across an hour, this one is shorter and tighter: just 10 songs, all fully realized and intensely arranged and, as usual, filled with New York-centric lyrics (although the group has been based in Los Angeles for years). The collaboration of Koenig and his primarily musical foil, co-producer Ariel Rechtshaid (Haim, Adele, Solange, Madonna, Charli XCX), which has developed over the band's last three albums, is at a new peak, with sophisticated, scale-vaulting hooks and constantly shifting arrangements; the perky bounce of their early material, which made a couple of cameos on "Father of the Bride," is nowhere to be found. Yet where that album's songs were largely guitar-based, it seems that Koenig spent much of the pandemic honing his piano playing: It's at the forefront of many of the tracks here, which are filled with wildly cascading arpeggios and mellifluous melodies; he's either gotten a lot better or some very skillful editing took place.

Of course, it's Vampire Weekend, so the album is academic and heady. Koenig recently told the New York Times about the "patron saints" of the group's albums (not surprisingly, Paul Simon was the first) and spoke of how this one's songs conceptually detail "a journey from questioning to acceptance, maybe to surrender. From a kind of negative worldview to something a little deeper" (OK, dude). But what is actually more engaging is the way that same headiness manifests itself musically: There's tons of ear candy for music geeks here. "Prep School Gangsters" opens with the riff from the Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl"; there's a hilarious "Goldfinger"-esque brass section on "The Surfer," wild vocal effects on "Pravda" and a creepy kids' choir on "Mary Boone" that's followed immediately by a driving beatbox accompanied by a string quartet. And on the closing "Hope," the signature hook is played twice on a piano's high notes, then by a troupe of oboes on the third time round. These are things that only occur to obsessives who've spent hours debating, say, exactly how much reverb should be on the drums in that four-second passage on the second chorus.

But it would all be beautiful window dressing without Koenig's assured sense of melody and distinctive but deceptively versatile voice (check the octave vault on "Prep School Gangsters"). He knows his art and craft - when to let a line just hang, and when to embellish with a harmony or a playful countermelody. And if it all sometimes seems a bit too clever, he'll show that he's in on the joke or is at least aware of it - a prominent, repeated line on "Gen X Cops" is "Each generation makes its own apology." No apology necessary: "Only God Was Above Us" is an essential chapter in the band's still-evolving sound and career.

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