A literature review: 

• Summarizes published information on a particular topic
• Synthesizes, or re-organizes, of the information to trace the intellectual progression of the topic
• Is usually constrained by a certain time period, subject area, or aspect of the topic

A critical literature review does all of the above, and is: 

• An evaluation of the book or article (not whether you agree with it, but if it is a good argument, indicates bias, and uses quality resources).

Trace the scholarly conversation

• Select a single book or article to trace. An article is often easier to track, as it would have a shorter bibliography.
• Use the bibliography to locate the published research the author used to develop their ideas. Sometimes, you can trace an idea back through several authors over many years to see how the topic developed from early researchers to the original article you located.
• Has anyone cited this article since it was published? Use a cited reference search to find who has cited the article after it was published. 
  • Go to scholar.google.com, and enter the title of the article in quote marks. When you locate it in the search results, click on the Cited By link under the article, and it will bring up several articles that cited this article. You can then search the great big search box on the libraries homepage to see if we own any sort of access to it.

You can do this tracing with every item in a bibliography, and with each new article you identify in the chain. This will help you follow the scholarly conversation as every new author addresses the research of those who had published before them.

• Chronologically: trace the scholarly conversation as it occurred through time, from the earliest publications to the newest.
• Methodologically: connect the scholarly books and articles by the methods the researchers used to produce their conclusions.
• By Publication: if the scholarly conversation takes place across disciplines, you can group those publications together for a coherent presentation.
• By Trends/Themes: group the books and articles by the trends they cover, regardless of when they were published