The Thematic Method of Organizing a Literature Review

Mike Perkins

Columbia College Human Services Program

After you find your articles you need to read them and discover what themes the articles contain.  It is absolutely essential that you understand your article.  If you do not understand the article do not use it.  Also, do not depend on the abstract or the conclusion for a full understanding of what the article says. You can often be misled.   Professional journal articles require a high level of comprehension.  If you are having trouble understanding an article a concept map is an outstanding method for diagramming an article – a process that will facilitate a better understanding of what the article has to say.  You can find some links to pages about concept maps here: 

http://www.ccis.edu/faculty/mrperkins/concept_maps.html

Also, my example APA paper has a concept map at the end of it. 

There is no way to predict what themes you will find.  The themes could include definitions, topics, theories, agreements, and even disagreements in the literature.  For example, if you reviewed the literature on child abuse you would probably find the theme of poverty being a major cause of child abuse. 

Design a descriptive codeword or phrases to define each theme.  Some people even use different colored highlighters.  With ten articles you will probably have anywhere between 3 – 6 major themes for your final literature review.   It is highly unlikely that every article will continue all the themes you have identified.  Below is an example of ten hypothetical articles with 4 hypothetical themes.  You could place them in a chart:

Article	Theme
1	A
2	A, B
3	D
4	B
5	A, D
6	A, C
7	B, C
8	A, B, C
9	A, B, C, D
10	B, C

However, that chart is not very helpful except as a prelude to further organization. Your literature review will be written thematically.  That is, you will not be reviewing one article after another, but rather the themes which happen to be contained in those articles.  Therefore, your article could be organized this way:

Theme	Articles Cited
A	1, 2, 5, 8, 9
B	2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10
C	6, 7, 8, 9, 10
D	3, 5, 9

Which theme goes first?  The order of the themes is up to you, but does need to be logical.  Let’s take my example of a literature review on child abuse, and imagine that we found the following themes:

Theme	Articles Cited
A– Extent and seriousness of the problem.	1, 2, 5, 8, 9
B -  Current law, and policies	2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10
C -  Poverty as a cause of child abuse.	6, 7, 8, 9, 10
D - Treatment and prevention of child abuse	3, 5, 9

The themes could be divided into the subheadings for your paper.  This is an efficient way to organize and write your paper.  My paper might then use the following subheadings:

Extent and Seriousness of Child Abuse

Current Law and Policies

Poverty as a Cause of Child Abuse

Treatment and Prevention

Conclusion