Doing a systematic literature review in legal scholarship

1 Introduction 7
1.1 Focus of this book 7
1.2 Why this book? 8
1.3 How this book was compiled 9
1.4 How to use this book 10

2 What is a literature review and why do one? 13
2.1 Introduction 13
2.2 Interaction between topic choice and literature review 14
2.3 Helping you to really understand your topic 15
2.4 Narrowing down your research topic 16
2.5 Phrasing, embedding and justifying your research question 18
2.6 Assessing your project’s feasibility 21
2.7 So what is a systematic literature review and what is it not? 22
2.8 Characteristics at different quality levels 23
2.9 Summary and key points 24

3 Preparing for your literature review 27
3.1 Introduction 27
3.2 Primary versus secondary sources 28
3.3 Types of sources you are likely to encounter 29
3.4 Types of research you are likely to encounter 32
3.5 Delineating your topic before starting your literature review 37
3.6 How wide should you cast your net? 40
3.7 Summary and key points 42

4 The systematic search for relevant literature 43
4.1 Introduction 43
4.2 Collecting sources as a challenging research activity 44
4.3 Searching is selecting 46
4.4 Digital search through legal databases 47
4.5 Snowballing 52
4.6 Additional techniques 53
4.7 Keep track of your search and manage your references 56
4.8 Summary and key points 57


5 Critical appraisal of the literature 59
5.1 Introduction 59
5.2 Appraisal criteria 60
5.3 Refining the literature that will comprise the review 65
5.4 Reaching a quality judgment on your ‘key’ sources 66
5.5 Note-taking and the distillation of relevant information 68
5.6 Assign provisional codes to the information 72
5.7 Summary and key points 72

6 Synthesize, discuss and present your findings 75
6.1 Introduction 75
6.2 Identifying the state of the art 76
6.3 Identifying gaps in the body of knowledge 80
6.4 Developing your research question 82
6.5 Presenting your findings 83
6.6 Summary and key points 88

7 Summary 91

References 93