312 BAUMEISTER AND LEARY
literature review journals, who find themselves
giving the same feedback and advice over and
over. We hope this article can help future writers
benefit from the lessons we have learned.
We should note that this article does not deal
with meta-analysis papers, which constitute an
important and valuable form of literature
review. Descriptions of how to do meta-analytic
reviews are available elsewhere, however (Ea-
gly, 1987; Rosenthal, 1995). We do not see
meta-analysis and narrative literature reviewing
as in direct competition. Where meta-analysis is
usable (that is, when there are many studies
available testing the same hypothesis), it is
generally the preferred method. A narrative
literature review is valuable, however, when one
is attempting to link together many studies on
different topics, either for purposes of reinterpre-
tation or interconnection. As such, narrative
literature reviewing is a valuable theory-
building technique, and it may also serve
hypothesis-generating functions. Meta-analysis
is, in contrast, a hypothesis-testing technique.
Narrative literature reviews also may be useful
for testing hypotheses when meta-analysis will
not work, such as when the studies are so
methodologically diverse as to make meta-
analytic aggregation impractical.
Goals of Literature Reviews
There are several different goals that literature
reviewers may try to accomplish, and it is
helpful to have one's goal clearly in mind while
writing the manuscript. Five main goals can be
distinguished, and these have implications for
the structuring of the article and its place--or
lack thereof in the literature.
The most ambitious goal of literature review
papers involves theory development. In such a
paper, the author's primary objective is to
propose a novel conceptualization or theory
regarding some psychological phenomenon.
The manuscript reviews the literature to provide
a context for describing, elaborating, and
evaluating the new theory, or indeed the theory
may be found in the integration of the material
reviewed. A slightly less ambitious but more
common type of literature focuses on theory
evaluation. In this type of review, the author
does not offer a new theoretical perspective but
rather reviews the literature relevant to the
validity of an existing theory (or often two or
more competing theories). In essence, the
published literature provides a database from
which the author draws conclusions about the
merits of existing conceptualizations.
The leading review journals most commonly
publish articles that are aimed at theory
construction or theory evaluation. Authors
aspiring to write such reviews must therefore
recognize that their task is not simply assem-
bling and describing past work but rather is one
of building or testing theory. In important
respects, such an article resembles a report of a
laboratory experiment: It describes empirical
evidence that evaluates a theoretical hypothesis.
Each piece of evidence covered in the manu-
script draws its value from how it helps build or
evaluate the overarching theory.
A third type of literature review surveys the
state of knowledge on a particular topic. Such
reviews may provide useful overviews and
integrations of an area, but they are not intended
to offer novel ideas, new interpretations, or
sweeping conclusions. These reviews can be
valuable as a means of pulling together what is
known about a particular phenomenon, such as
for a grant proposal, or as a resource to teachers.
Because the theoretical contribution is minimal,
however, the leading journals are generally
reluctant to publish manuscripts of this kind.
A fourth category of literature review has
problem identification as its goal. The purpose is
to reveal problems, weaknesses, contradictions,
or controversies in a particular area of investiga-
tion. The author may venture some tentative
solutions to the problems he or she identifies but
is more concerned with simply informing the
field that some difficulty exists. Thus, such
articles typically raise more questions than they
answer, leaving it to future researchers to
straighten out the mess. These would appear in
journals probably more as brief articles or
critiques than as full-length articles. Still,
identifying problems in the empirical literature
can serve a valuable scientific function.
A final, less common goal of a review article
is to provide a historical account of the
development of theory and research on a
particular topic. Such papers are typically
organized chronologically and, although their
goal is primarily to trace the history of an idea,
they typically provide an ongoing commentary
regarding the impact and shortcomings of
various contributions to the field.