A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. It is often a part of the introduction to an essay, research report, or thesis. 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. Writing a literature review lets you gain and demonstrate skills in two areas:
A literature review must do these things
Written by Dena Taylor, Health Sciences Writing Centre, University of Toronto
The Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors (Thesaurus) is a thesaurus of controlled vocabulary, a carefully selected list of education-related words and phrases assigned to ERIC records to organize them by subject and make them easier to retrieve through a search.
Searching by Descriptors involves selecting relevant terms from this controlled vocabulary to locate information on your topic.