According to the Publication Manual of the APA, 7th ed. (2019), literature reviews "provide narrative summaries and evaluations of the findings or theories within a literature base," in which the author does the following:
- "define and clarify the problem;
- summarize previous investigations to inform the readers of the state of the research;
- identify relations, contradictions, gaps, and inconsistences in the literature; and
- suggest the next step or steps in solving the problem" (p. 8).
Put very simply, a literature review builds a story about a specific topic in an advanced discipline.
