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Course & Subject Guides

Literature Reviews

This guide is designed to offer guidance for completing a literature review, and will link you to resources, techniques, and advanced approaches to conducting and writing a literature review.

Keeping Track of Your Sources

You're going to be looking through a lot of materials for your review, and it's easy to loose track of a particular citation or how you got to a source.  Keep a search log -- a notebook, note cards, an online document, a Word document, a citation manager, whatever format you prefer -- to track:

  • Where you searched (name of database, catalog, etc.)
  • When you searched
  • Search terms and combinations of terms that were successful
  • Search terms and combinations of terms that were not successful
  • Searches or leads you want to pursue next

Citing Sources Using a Citation Manager

Keep track of all of your reference lists and bibliographies. Pitt's library resources work with citation management tools and allow you to import citations from sources like PittCat and article databases.