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Research Guides

Systematic and Scoping Reviews

This Research Guide is designed to help those new to evidence synthesis research to gain understanding of common methods such as systematic or scoping reviews. This guide also contains helpful resources for those getting started with an evidence synthesis

What Are Different Types of Literature Reviews?

There are many different types of literature reviews. It can be difficult to determine which type of review is right for your purpose. The most common type of literature review is a Narrative Review (also called a traditional literature review).  In contrast to Narrative Reviews, Systematic Reviews and Scoping Reviews use systematic approaches to searching and evaluating literature. 

Narrative Literature Review (Traditional Literature Review)

  • Broad scope
  • Non-standardized methodology
  • Goal of situating an empirical study in the literature
  • Literature is discussed thematically 
  • Time to complete: several weeks to a month

Systematic Literature Review 

  • Focuses on a specific research question with the goal of identifying best practice or intervention
  • Standardized methodology
  • Goals of mitigating bias, reproducibility, and comprehensiveness 
  • Literature is critically analyzed, studies are assessed for quality, and results are synthesized
  • Time to complete: 9 months to 2 years

Scoping Literature Reviews

  • Focuses on the scope of the literature available, with the goal of identifying gaps in the existing literature 
  • Standardized methodology
  • Goals of mitigating bias, reproducibility, and comprehensiveness
  • Literature is analyzed for gaps and may be critically analyzed, but results are not synthesized as they would be for a systematic review.
  • Time to complete: 9 months to 3 years (due to the broader scope of the research question, usually takes longer than a systematic review)

Review Types

Narrative (Traditional) Literature Review 

  • Broad or narrow scope
  • Non-standardized methodology
  • Goal of understanding scholarly conversations around a topic and situating an empirical study in the literature
  • Literature is discussed thematically 
  • Time to complete: several weeks to a month

Systematic Literature Review 

  • Focuses on a specific research question with the goal of identifying best practice or intervention
  • Standardized methodology
  • Goals of mitigating bias, reproducibility, and comprehensiveness 
  • Literature is critically analyzed, studies are assessed for quality, and results are synthesized
  • Time to complete: 9 months to 2 years

Methodological Guidance:

Scoping Literature Reviews

  • Focuses on the scope of the literature available, with the goal of identifying gaps in the existing literature 
  • Standardized methodology
  • Goals of mitigating bias, reproducibility, and comprehensiveness
  • Literature is analyzed for gaps and may be critically analyzed, but results are not synthesized as they would be for a systematic review.
  • Time to complete: 9 months to 3 years (due to the broader scope of the research question, usually takes longer than a systematic review)

Methodological Guidance:

What Type of Review is Right for You?

The files linked below explore different types of review methodologies. Some of the documents include flow charts to help determine which review might fit best for your research while other documents include descriptions of different types of reviews.