文献综述是对某一方面的专题搜集大量情报资料后经综合分析而写成的一种学术论文， 它是科学文献的一种。
文献综述是反映当前某一领域中某分支学科或重要专题的最新进展、学术见解和建议的它往往能反映出有关问题的新动态、新趋势、新水平、新原理和新技术等等。
要求同学们学写综述，至少有以下好处：①通过搜集文献资料过程，可进一步熟悉医学文献的查找方法和资料的积累方法；在查找的过程中同时也扩大了知识面；②查找文献资料、写文献综述是临床科研选题及进行临床科研的第一步，因此学习文献综述的撰写也是为今后科研活动打基础的过程；③通过综述的写作过程，能提高归纳、分析、综合能力，有利于独立工作能力和科研能力的提高；④文献综述选题范围广，题目可大可小，可难可易，可根据自己的能力和兴趣自由选题。
文献综述与"读书报告"、"文献复习"、"研究进展"等有相似的地方，它们都是从某一方面的专题研究论文或报告中归纳出来的。但是，文献综述既不象"读书报告"、"文献复习"那样，单纯把一级文献客观地归纳报告，也不象"研究进
展"那样只讲科学进程，其特点是"综"，"综"是要求对文献资料进行综合分析、归纳整理，使材料更精练明确、更有逻辑层次；"述"就是要求对综合整理后的文献进行比较专门的、全面的、深入的、系统的论述。总之，文献综述是作者对某一方面问题的历史背景、前人工作、争论焦点、研究现状和发展前景等内容进行评论的科学性论文。
写文献综述一般经过以下几个阶段：即选题，搜集阅读文献资料、拟定提纲（包括归纳、整理、分析）和成文。
一、选题和搜集阅读文献
撰写文献综述通常出于某种需要，如为某学术会议的专题、从事某项科研、为某方面积累文献资料等等，所以，文献综述的选题，作者一般是明确的，不象科研课题选题那么困难。文献综述选题范围广，题目可大可小，大到一个领域、一个学科，小到一种疾病、一个方法、一个理论，可根据自己的需要而定，初次撰写文献综述，特别是实习同学所选题目宜小些，这样查阅文献的数量相对较小，撰写时易于归纳整理，否则，题目选得过大，查阅文献花费的时间太多，影响实习，而且归纳整理困难，最后写出的综述大题小作或是文不对题。
选定题目后，则要围绕题目进行搜集与文题有关的文献。关于搜集文献的有关方法，前面的有关章节已经介绍，如看专著、年鉴法、浏览法、滚雪球法、检索法等等，在此不再重复。搜集文献要求越全越好，因而最常用的方法是用检索法。搜集好与文题有关的参考文献后，就要对这些参考文献进行阅读、归纳、整理，如何从这些文献中选出具有代表性、科学性和可靠性大的单篇研究文献十分重要，从某种意义上讲，所阅读和选择的文献的质量高低，直接影响文献综述的水平。因此在阅读文献时，要写好"读书笔记"、"读书心得"和做好"文献摘录
卡片"。有自己的语言写下阅读时得到的启示、体会和想法，将文献的精髓摘录下来，不仅为撰写综述时提供有用的资料，而且对于训练自己的表达能力，阅读水平都有好处，特别是将文献整理成文献摘录卡片，对撰写综述极为有利。
二、格式与写法
文献综述的格式与一般研究性论文的格式有所不同。这是因为研究性的论文注重研究的方法和结果，特别是阳性结果，而文献综述要求向读者介绍与主题有关的详细资料、动态、进展、展望以及对以上方面的评述。因此文献综述的格式相对多样，但总的来说，一般都包含以下四部分：即前言、主题、总结和参考文献。撰写文献综述时可按这四部分拟写提纲，在根据提纲进行撰写工。
前言部分，主要是说明写作的目的，介绍有关的概念及定义以及综述的范围，扼要说明有关主题的现状或争论焦点，使读者对全文要叙述的问题有一个初步的轮廓。
主题部分，是综述的主体，其写法多样，没有固定的格式。可按年代顺序综述，也可按不同的问题进行综述，还可按不同的观点进行比较综述，不管用那一种格式综述，都要将所搜集到的文献资料归纳、整理及分析比较，阐明有关主题的历史背景、现状和发展方向，以及对这些问题的评述，主题部分应特别注意代表性强、具有科学性和创造
性的文献引用和评述。
总结部分，与研究性论文的小结有些类似，将全文主题进行扼要总结，对所综述的主题有研究的作者，最好能提出自己的见解。
参考文献虽然放在文末，但却是文献综述的重要组成部分。因为它不仅表示对被引用文献作者的尊重及引用文献的依据，而且为读者深入探讨有关问题提供了文献查找线索。因此，应认真对待。参考文献的编排应条目清楚，查找方便，内容准确无误。关于参考文献的使用方法，录著项目及格式与研究论文相同，不再重复。
三、注意事项
由于文献综述的特点，致使它的写作既不同于"读书笔记""读书报告"，也不同于一般的科研论文。因此，在撰写文献综述时应注意以下几个问题：
⒈搜集文献应尽量全。掌握全面、大量的文献资料是写好综述的前提，否则，随便搜集一点资料就动手撰写是不可能写出好多综述的，甚至写出的文章根本不成为综述。
⒉注意引用文献的代表性、可靠性和科学性。在搜集到的文献中可能
出现观点雷同，有的文献在可靠性及科学性方面存在着差异，因此在引用文献时应注意选用代表性、可靠性和科学性较好的文献。
⒊引用文献要忠实文献内容。由于文献综述有作者自己的评论分析，因此在撰写时应分清作者的观点和文献的内容，不能篡改文献的内容。
⒋参考文献不能省略。有的科研论文可以将参考文献省略，但文献综述绝对不能省略，而且应是文中引用过的，能反映主题全貌的并且是作者直接阅读过的文献资料。
总之，一篇好的文献综述，应有较完整的文献资料，有评论分析，并能准确地反映主题内容。
How to write a literature review:
The purpose of a literature review
Your job when writing a literature review is to add value to all those papers you have read, where you explain how the many salient ideas of others (often gathered from many disparate sources) have led up to and have contributed to your research problem. Let me say that again: a good literature review adds value. It is not just a catalog of papers you have
read.
Here are some other things that literature reviews do.
Show you know the literature
there is far too much literature for you to be exhaustive, so you must be selective
Gives your readers background to understand your work
this includes both readers who are specialists in your area, and readers who know nothing about it (e.g., external examiners). Its a delicate balancing act
Gives a historical perspective
shows how ideas arose and evolved over time
Leads into the problem you wish to tackle in your thesis
what others have done before within this context, what is being done now, what problems have been identified, what has not been worked on, how your own work builds / adds onto this
Describes related work
illustrates other ideas related to your research idea i.e., how they are in common and how they are different
explains why your idea or perspective is new
Gives a new view of the problem / solution space
Synthesis: combines together the literature in a way that adds something new i.e., the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
birds eye view: as a reader of the literature, you now have a better perspective than any individual author may have had (particularly earlier authors who have not seen later work). You can now 'step back' and give a coherent overview of all that has happened
framework: fits all the pieces together into an organization that relates all the parts
How to start
Identify a few key papers (e.g., 7-10). You can do this by asking your supervisor, by sending email to knowledgeable people in the area
If you cannot do the above, try again. Surely there are some people who can point you to a few good places!
If you are really stuck and cannot find any primary sources, start doing on-line searches, go to the library, browse the abstracts of relevant proceedings and journals, etc. This is HARD. The problem is that you may find many fairly weak papers and waste time on them instead of the strong ones. One way around this problem is to look at each paper's references; if you see ones that seem to recur, these are probably key papers in the area. Get those, and pay attention to what they cite.
When you have found the key papers, read them carefully. Then read them again. Then look at the references within those as ways to find the good prior art.
Then go on line (e.g., to the ACM Digital Library) and see what authors cite those key papers. The papers now become a 'forward citation' into the ideas that have built on them. Again, there may only be a few gems in the midst of many weak papers.
Print out those papers and keep them in a binder. Mark them up, use postits, highlighting pens, etc. You may see a great idea as you read a paper, and you should mark it. You really don't want to have to read that 30 page paper all over again 4 months later just because you cannot remember which page it is on!
Some people prefer to have their papers on line i.e., by copying from digital libraries or by scanning them. This is up to you --- I prefer pencil and postits myself as its really easy to do. Of course, the best solution is to have both, but that is a lot of work.
Whenever you go to a conference or meet a visitor who knows the area, ask them what papers they think are the most relevant to your idea.
Don't try to read everything. When you reach the point of diminishing returns i.e., you have to do a huge amount of reading to do anything new, its probably time to get going with your own work.
Read many literature reviews in other theses. Ask your supervisor for good examples. Don't be afraid to copy someone's literature style if its well done!
Types of Literature reviews
Annotated Bibliographies An annotated bibliography is typically a list of papers ordered by some means (perhaps alphabetically or by topic), where each paper is represented as a reference plus a summary paragraph. Benefits:
very useful way for you to track your own readings as you read them... it becomes an annotated index to your thoughts and ideas collected as you read papers
for others, ideally, an annotated bibliography brings together papers from different fields or publications;
this is especially valuable in new areas where the literature is scattered, or in areas that synthesis research from several other disciplines
they are also very valuable for others seeking papers who wish to scan a relevant list of papers and summaries on a topic
they are best when you sift out the chaff from the wheat i.e., if you include good papers and filter out the weaker ones.
Limitations:
Annotated bibliographies do not add value to the individual work i.e., they do not try to assimilate the material or generalize from it
Current electronic bibliographies with good search capabilities can automatically produce something akin to an annotated bibliography, especially if they include abstracts
Because they are just a 'list', they require constant updating as new relevant papers come out
Bottom line:
Great way to annotate the papers you read while gaining background in the area, but a poor way to do a literature review for a thesis
Organizing a literature review by project summaries One common way to do a literature review (especially in systems-oriented research) is by project. For example, each sub-section may describe / summarize a particular project in detail and give the most signicant references to it. Benefits:
lets you summarize / describe the most salient details about a project. you can collapse several papers into a single project summary you can describe the evolution of a project over time
you can omit repetitive / early papers that are covered by later more mature ones
Limitations:
its easy to get bogged down on project descriptions/details that have little to do with your main thesis interests; i.e., you may end up having to add much detail to set the context instead of concentrating on that part of the
project/system that is of fundamental interest to you.
some ideas are common across many projects, and consequently you are forced to either repeat yourself, or introduce the idea in one project will only briefly mentioning it (or omitting it) in others
if there are many projects/systems related to your work, you may end up writing a very long exhaustive chapter to get complete coverage; this may actually take away from the impact of your review
Finally, there will always be a system you missed, or another one just being built around the corner. Does this mean you have to keep adding descriptions? If you omit one, does this leave you open to the challenge in your defense about "how come you ommitted System X" when (perhaps) you never heard of it or neglected to include it.
Bottom line:
A reasonable way to describe the current state of the art if its fairly new, but can quickly become overwhelming
Organizing a literature review by ideas A very good way to do a literature review is by reviewing ideas, and then bringing in various projects and citations relevant to that idea. Ideas are typically abstractions that you may have made after reading many papers / project descriptions, and so on. That is, they are the essence / core of what makes something work.
Ideas may be presented either as a set of subsections of related ideas (where one will flow from the next), or even better as a framework that shows the inter-relations between ideas as well as their structure. Benefits:
you can concentrate on only the ideas salient to your research
you can bring in other works / projects by showing how they relate to that idea i.e., so you do not have to go into depth on less relevant parts of those other projects. That is, you can emphasize key points of other systems rather than unnecessary detail.
when you come across new projects / papers, you can examine how they relate to those ideas, and only include them if they add value
if you are asked in a defense about a particular system/project that you had not mentioned, you can relate it back to your idea i.e., to say that you have in fact reviewed the idea covered by the system, and then show how that fits into it.
Limitations:
requires thinking! Unlike project summaries and annotated bibliographies, its up to you to distill the essence of what is important in your readings.
Bottom line:
This is what you should strive for, as you are adding value by abstracting
key concepts from the literature. But it does require some thinking! If you only bring out shallow ideas, your literature review will feel shallow as well.
Organizing a literature review by history
Another nice way to do a literature review is as a historical perspective. This is useful if you wish to show the evolution of ideas over time. However, this only works if this evolution really does lead into your research problem. Thus you may have to consider carefully if this is the approach you should take as your main organizing principle. literature review
重点在于大量阅读，而且要讲你所阅读过的所有作者的观点在文中加以汇总和总结。文章可以参考如下的结构：
1.intro--开头陈述你这篇文章所要研究的课题与目的；
2.body--分3～4段：多数人的观点；某些少数具有争议的观点；你自己的观点和总结。
3.conclusion--结尾总结。
我们是这样要求的，不过每个学校的要求会不一样，但是我想老师应该会发资料做讲解啊，这个不是很难的，我写过2次了～～主要是大量查阅资料，总结别人的观点，特别是做reference，直接引用间接引用，用着用着一篇文章就对付完了～