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Litmus What We Do Who We Are What We've Done What We've Said Who We Work With Who We Support
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Litmus' philosophy for a successful research relationship is simple - an equal partnership based on mutual respect and trust.

Literature review

Litmus is well known for high-quality and comprehensive literature reviews. Our literature reviews are used:

  • as an evidence-base for policy development
  • to scope evaluation and/or research projects
  • to inform social marketing programmes
  • to help develop an organisation’s workplan

We use the funnel approach to literature reviews.

funnel approach

1. Definition of literature review search criteria
This stage involves developing criteria for the review. Criteria include:

  • timeframes for published literature, eg research, studies, published and unpublished literature
    undertaken in the last 10 years
  • keywords for the search (keywords are developed in collaboration with our clients)
  • specific inclusion and exclusion criteria.

2. Broad scope of literature
This stage involves accessing a broad spectrum of literature, including:

  • national and international literature relating to the topic: data sources include Ebscohost, Psych Info and ERIC databases
  • practitioner-based literature. Data sources include (but are not limited to) researchers based in tertiary institutions, research houses and government departments as well as the websites and research papers of national and international non-government organisations working in the field and the many international centres that conduct research and evaluation.

3. Bibliographic search of key articles
The third phase involves a bibliographic search of key articles identified through the broad scoping of literature. Any articles, programmes or campaigns that are commonly cited are identified and included in the literature review material to ensure the most comprehensive picture of previous national and international literature.

4. Critical evaluation of the literature
The fourth stage involves a critical evaluation of the literature.

5. Gap analysis
Gaps are then identified in the literature. This part of the literature review is completed through telephone contact with key researchers, organisations and stakeholders, and includes canvassing information on unpublished, ‘grey’ and current work being undertaken.

6. Preparation of the report
The final stage in the literature review process is the development and writing of the report to include an executive summary, the methodology employed, the research sources, the completed literature review and finding

Projects