LibGuides: Evaluating Scholarly and Peer Reviewed Sources: Putting scholarly writing into context

Literature reviews, meta-analyses, historiography and writing that summarizes research in a field

Literature Review	The literature review is used to convey to your audience the knowledge and ideas which have already been established on a topic. Literature reviews also describe the methodologies, participants, findings/conclusions, etc., of previous works. Writers of literature reviews often discuss the gaps in current knowledge or present information on emerging theoretical issues. (from Literature Review Tip Sheet)
Meta-Analysis	A review of primary literature in health and health policy that attempts to identify, appraise, and synthesize all the empirical evidence that meets specified eligibility criteria to answer a given research question. Its conduct uses explicit methods aimed at minimizing bias in order to produce more reliable findings regarding the effects of interventions for prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation that can be used to inform decision making. (from National Library of Medicine "Publication Types")
Historiography	The history of histories. You can think of this as a narrative description of the web of scholars writing on the same or similar topics. A historiography traces how scholars' understanding of historical events has evolved and how scholars are in conversation with each other, both building on and disputing previous works. The process is similar to that used for creating literature reviews in other disciplines. (from "Developing a Historiography: Evaluating Sources")