spreadsheet literature review matrix excel template

Matrix Method for Literature Review

• The Review Matrix
• Organize Your Sources
• Choose Your Remaining Column Topics
• More Information

Sample Matrix and Templates

• Related Library Guides
• Getting Help
• Review Matrix Example-Ebola Vaccine Clinical Studies This document includes a review matrix of two Ebola vaccine clinical reviews done on humans published by the National Institute of Health.
• Review Matrix Word Template A review matrix template in Microsoft Word.
• Review Matrix Excel Template A review matrix template for Microsoft Excel
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• Next: Related Library Guides >>
• Last Updated: Feb 20, 2024 10:26 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.duq.edu/matrix

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How to Conduct a Literature Review (Health Sciences and Beyond)

• What is a Literature Review?
• Developing a Research Question
• Selection Criteria
• Database Search
• Documenting Your Search

Review Matrix

• Reference Management

Using a spreadsheet or table to organize the key elements (e.g. subjects, methodologies, results) of articles/books you plan to use in your literature review can be helpful. This is called a review matrix.

When you create a review matrix, the first few columns should include (1) the authors, title, journal, (2) publication year, and (3) purpose of the paper. The remaining columns should identify important aspects of each study such as methodology and findings.

Click on the image below to view a sample review matrix.

You can also download this template as a Microsoft Excel file .

The information on this page is from the book below. The 5th edition is available online through VCU Libraries.

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• Last Updated: Mar 15, 2024 12:22 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.vcu.edu/health-sciences-lit-review

NH-720 Research for Clinical Practice

• Research Fundamentals
• Searching With Keywords
• Evaluating Research Articles

Writing a Literature Review

• Writing Tutor
• APA Style and Reference Managers

Unless you have a reason to present the literature chronologically (to show development over time, perhaps), the preferred method for organizing your literature is thematically. 

Step 1 : Identify your themes.

Step 2 : Identify the articles that address those themes

Step 3 : Identify the similarities and differences among the articles within the themes

A Literature Synthesis Matrix will be especially helpful in this process.

In essence a synthesis matrix is a way to organize your literature by theme, which is generally the way writers organize their whole literature reviews.

North Carolina State has a very nice description and example of the process. 

This YouTube video also explains the process.

Get started with a synthesis matrix template below. You can choose a template in Word or Excel format.

• Lit Matrix Spreadsheet A Literature Synthesis Matrix in spreadsheet form. Can be used in applications like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
• Lit Matrix Doc A Literature Synthesis Matrix in document form. Can be used in applications like Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

This video gives examples of how to write an evidence synthesis.

Want help with your writing?

The IHP Writing Tutor can help you write your literature review. Help is provided via e-mail. Contact the writing tutor at [email protected] .

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• Last Updated: Mar 26, 2024 6:20 PM
• URL: https://libguides.massgeneral.org/NH720

Literature Review: A Self-Guided Tutorial for NUR 288

• Literature Reviews: A Recap
• Peer-Review
• Reading the Literature
• Developing Research Questions
• 2. Review discipline styles
• Super Searching
• Finding the Full Text
• Citation Searching
• Evaluating online information
• When to stop searching
• How to cite your sources following APA
• In-Text Citations
• Keeping track of your references
• Annotating Articles Tip
• 5. Critically analyze and evaluate
• How to review the literature

Using a synthesis matrix

• 7. Write literature review

Synthesize : combine separate elements to form a whole.

Why use a synthesis matrix? 

• A synthesis matrix helps you record the main points of each source and document how sources relate to each other.
• After summarizing and evaluating your sources, arrange them in a matrix or use a citation manager to help you see how they relate to each other and apply to each of your themes or variables.  
• By arranging your sources by theme or variable, you can see how your sources relate to each other, and can start thinking about how you weave them together to create a narrative.

A synthesis matrix visually represents your research by organizing your sources by themes:

Add each article citation to the Source column and begin to identify the theme(s) from the article. 

Use the Excel template below to help you evaluate your sources, create article summaries for an annotated bibliography, and a synthesis matrix for your lit review outline. From John Hopkins Sheridan Libraries.  

NOTE : There are several tabs at the bottom of the Excel spreadsheet to help guide you with this method.

• Literature Review Prep - with Synthesis Matrix
• << Previous: How to review the literature
• Next: 7. Write literature review >>
• Last Updated: Feb 20, 2024 3:50 PM
• URL: https://libguides.wccnet.edu/literature_review

Writing the Literature Review

• Getting Started
• Step 1: Choose A Topic
• Step 2: Find Information
• Step 3: Evaluate
• Step 4: Take Notes
• Step 5: Synthesize
• Step 6: Stay Organized
• Write the Review

Tools to Help you Get and Stay Organized

• Using a Synthesis Matrix to Plan a Literature Review Introduction to synthesis matrices, and explanation of the difference between synthesis and analysis. (Geared towards Health Science/ Nursing but applicable for other literature reviews) ***Includes a synthesis matrix example***
• Empirical Literature Review Matrix Excel spreadsheet template for organizing sources for your literature review
• Literature Review Matrix Literature review matrix, PDF
• Literature Review Matrix (Version 2) Microsoft Word Alternate template for literature review organization and synthesis
• Literature Review Matrix- Word Microsoft Word template: Lit Review matrix
• Literature Review Matrix Excel Excel Spreadsheet template

Citation Managers

• Mendeley a free reference manager, has a Microsoft Word extension.
• Using Mendeley
• Zotero A free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources.
• Using Zotero

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• Next: Write the Review >>
• Last Updated: Sep 27, 2023 11:22 AM
• URL: https://guides.mga.edu/TheLiteratureReviewANDYou

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Matrix Method for Literature Review

Introduction.

Using a review matrix enables you to quickly compare and contrast articles in order to determine the scope of research across time. A review matrix can help you more easily spot differences and similarities between journal articles about a given research topic. Review matrices are especially helpful for health sciences literature reviews covering the complete scope of a research topic over time.

Organizing your Sources

Once you complete your research, organize your source by date in order to make it easier to see changes in research over time.

Every review matrix should have the same first three column headings: (1) authors, title, and journal; (2) publication year; (3) purpose.

It may be difficult to determine purpose from just a cursory review of the article. In some cases, it may be necessary to first read the paper fully to identify its purpose.

Choose your Remaining Column Topics

Next, carefully read all your articles. Note any important issues you identify. The following broad categories provide some suggestions for determining your own subject headings:

• Methodological - Methodology is often an important question. For example, if you are looking at tests of an Ebola vaccine beyond human subjects, it will be important to note what type of animal the test was carried out on, i.e. macaques or mice.
• Content-specific - Consider noting what was actually studied. For example, when looking at the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of illnesses, it would be important to note what illness was being studied.
• Geographical - It may be important to note where the research was completed. For example, if you want to compare the effects of the AIDS epidemic in different countries, you would use country as a column heading.

There are many ways to choose your column headings, and these are just a few suggestions. As you create your own matrix, choose column headings that support your research question and goals.

• Do not include column headings that are explicit in your research question. For example, if you are looking at drug use in adolescents, do not include a column heading for age of study participants. If the answer will be the same for every study, it's generally a bad choice for a column heading.
• Do not try to fully complete a review matrix before reading the articles. Reading the articles is an important way to discern the nuances between studies. 

Sample Review Matrix and Templates

• Review Matrix Example: Ebola Vaccine Clinical Studies This document includes a review matrix of two Ebola vaccine clinical reviews done on humans published by the National Institute of Health.
• Review Matrix Word Template A review matrix template in Microsoft Word.
• Review Matrix Excel Template A review matrix template for Microsoft Excel

More Information

Information found in this guide was adapted from the following book. 

Guide Credit

Information on this guide has been borrowed with permission from David Nolfi at Duquesne University . 

Writing a Literature Review

• Getting Started
• Defining the Scope
• Finding the Literature

Citation Management Tools

Using excel to manage your research.

• Writing the Review
• Assignment Planner: Literature Review Tips and strategies for conducting a literature review, plus a timeline to help you meet your deadline.
• Ask a Librarian In the library or by email, phone, or chat.
• Academic Success Centre Get help with writing and organizing your review, in person or online.

It is good to keep a record of the databases you have visited and the search terms you have used while looking for articles. This will prevent you from wasting time with duplicate searches. Pen and paper are good for recording information, but there are also free online tools that can help you manage your citations and keep notes. You can easily incorporate information from the library's databases using these tools. The UFV library also has a guide for the citation management tool EndNote Online, as provided by the Web of Science. 

• Citation Management Tools Comparison Chart
• Using EndNote

Aside from pen and paper, many researchers and scholars use spreadsheets to manage their literature reviews. Two of these researchers have described their methods:

• Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump Raul Pacheco-Vega (Public Administration Division of the Centre for Economic Research and Teaching, CIDE in Aguascalientes, Mexico)

“I call it "dump" because I basically throw into the Excel file everything that is already in my research and conceptual/reflective memoranda. Doing the conceptual synthesis Excel dump as you do your reading allows you to create a nice map of the literature. It also helps reach conceptual saturation during the literature review.”

Pacheco-Vega’s blog post includes screen captures and shows how columns in the spreadsheet are organized.

• How I Use Excel To Manage My Literature Review Dr. Elaine Gregersen (Northumbria Law School)

“I wanted to create a table that I could manage effectively. Where I could move the data with ease. And, because seeing how far I’ve come helps to keep me feeling positive, where I could easily find out how many articles I’d read!

My spreadsheet is basic. It is not all singing and dancing, and I’m sure there are lots of clever things I’m missing out on. But its simplicity works for me.”

Her blog post also includes screen captures, and explains how she is able to  organize her thoughts on different writers’ points of view and other pertinent information such as ethical concerns.

• << Previous: Finding the Literature
• Next: Writing the Review >>
• Last Updated: Dec 12, 2023 5:36 PM
• URL: https://libguides.ufv.ca/LitReviews

What’s Included: Literature Review Template

This template is structure is based on the tried and trusted best-practice format for formal academic research projects such as dissertations and theses. The literature review template includes the following sections:

• Before you start – essential groundwork to ensure you’re ready
• The introduction section
• The core/body section
• The conclusion /summary
• Extra free resources

Each section is explained in plain, straightforward language , followed by an overview of the key elements that you need to cover. We’ve also included practical examples and links to more free videos and guides to help you understand exactly what’s required in each section.

The cleanly-formatted Google Doc can be downloaded as a fully editable MS Word Document (DOCX format), so you can use it as-is or convert it to LaTeX.

PS – if you’d like a high-level template for the entire thesis, you can we’ve got that too .

FAQs: Literature Review Template

What format is the template (doc, pdf, ppt, etc.).

The literature review chapter template is provided as a Google Doc. You can download it in MS Word format or make a copy to your Google Drive. You’re also welcome to convert it to whatever format works best for you, such as LaTeX or PDF.

What types of literature reviews can this template be used for?

The template follows the standard format for academic literature reviews, which means it will be suitable for the vast majority of academic research projects (especially those within the sciences), whether they are qualitative or quantitative in terms of design.

Keep in mind that the exact requirements for the literature review chapter will vary between universities and degree programs. These are typically minor, but it’s always a good idea to double-check your university’s requirements before you finalize your structure.

Is this template for an undergrad, Master or PhD-level thesis?

This template can be used for a literature review at any level of study. Doctoral-level projects typically require the literature review to be more extensive/comprehensive, but the structure will typically remain the same.

Can I modify the template to suit my topic/area?

Absolutely. While the template provides a general structure, you should adapt it to fit the specific requirements and focus of your literature review.

What structural style does this literature review template use?

The template assumes a thematic structure (as opposed to a chronological or methodological structure), as this is the most common approach. However, this is only one dimension of the template, so it will still be useful if you are adopting a different structure.

Does this template include the Excel literature catalog?

No, that is a separate template, which you can download for free here . This template is for the write-up of the actual literature review chapter, whereas the catalog is for use during the literature sourcing and sorting phase.

How long should the literature review chapter be?

This depends on your university’s specific requirements, so it’s best to check with them. As a general ballpark, literature reviews for Masters-level projects are usually 2,000 – 3,000 words in length, while Doctoral-level projects can reach multiples of this.

Can I include literature that contradicts my hypothesis?

Yes, it’s important to acknowledge and discuss literature that presents different viewpoints or contradicts your hypothesis. So, don’t shy away from existing research that takes an opposing view to yours.

How do I avoid plagiarism in my literature review?

Always cite your sources correctly and paraphrase ideas in your own words while maintaining the original meaning. You can always check our plagiarism score before submitting your work to help ease your mind. 

Do you have an example of a populated template?

We provide a walkthrough of the template and review an example of a high-quality literature research chapter here .

Can I share this literature review template with my friends/colleagues?

Yes, you’re welcome to share this template in its original format (no editing allowed). If you want to post about it on your blog or social media, all we ask is that you reference this page as your source.

Do you have templates for the other dissertation/thesis chapters?

Yes, we do. You can find our full collection of templates here .

Can Grad Coach help me with my literature review?

Yes, you’re welcome to get in touch with us to discuss our private coaching services , where we can help you work through the literature review chapter (and any other chapters).

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Should you use Excel, Google Sheets, or Citavi for Your Literature Review?

If you’re wondering ‘what is a literature review’ or trying to figure out how to write a literature review, you’ve come to the right place. While a literature review can be a summary of sources, it can also discuss published information in a variety of formats on a specific subject area and tends to have an organizational pattern that combines both a summary (a recap of the information) and a synthesis (a re-organization or the information).

The literature review for your article, thesis, or dissertation requires keeping track of sources, their important points, and their links to each other – for hundreds of journal articles, books, research papers, videos, scholarly articles, and other references. So, it’s no surprise grad students and researchers frequently struggle with how to write a literature review.

Many university guides on the subject recommend creating a synthesis matrix for keeping track of sources, ideas, and quotations. Traditionally, this matrix was often created as a Word document, and you’ll still find many templates available online. However, more and more academics now seem to be using spreadsheets instead.

This blog post will look into the advantages and disadvantages of using Excel and Word, explore the reasons for why researchers use spreadsheets, and discuss the benefits of using a specialized writing and reference management program like Citavi.

Pros and Cons of Using a Spreadsheet as a Literature Tracker

Advantages of using excel.

Proponents of the Excel approach are quick to tout the many benefits. First, there’s no need to pay for a new piece of software, since if you already have Microsoft Office installed on your computer, you also already have Excel. Otherwise, you can also use Google Sheets which has all the options you might need.

Then, there’s the simplicity and flexibility of using a spreadsheet. Set up time is pretty low. You simply create a few columns and can get started using your literature tracking system in a matter of minutes.

Another benefit is how easily customizable the solution is – you can make the categories be exactly what you want. Need a column to track the location of a study or a specific intervention? You just need to add it. Even though Excel can get complicated if you set up formulas or other customizations, for a literature review spreadsheet you usually can just use it as a simple table.

So far, the advantages listed apply to Word as well, but Excel and Citavi have one crucial advantage over Word: it lets you search, sort, and filter. Have a vague recollection of a note you wrote but only remember one term you used in it? Use Excel’s “Find” feature. Want to sort all your notes by year of publication of your source? Nothing could be easier than sorting your “year” column in ascending order. Want to find clinical trials with female participants with a statistically significant intervention? If you set up your Excel sheet as described below under “Version 2” such combinations of queries are possible, and in Citavi, setup is even easier as it lets you save sources directly into the program and organize your literature review outline in the knowledge organizer.

Citavi interface showing outline, sources, reference meta data, and an article PDF.

So, with all these advantages, how does the Excel method work in practice?

Version 1: Simple but Effective

When you search for “Excel literature review”, Dr. Elaine Gregersen’s 2016 blog post “How I use Excel to manage my Literature Review” about her personal literature tracking system is one of the first results to pop up. It’s an approach that’s still often praised in discussion threads about Excel literature tracking methods. In her own words, it’s a simple approach, but that’s what makes it work. Her approach uses a literature review spreadsheet in addition to a reference manager. She uses one sheet only and includes columns for basic citation information, keywords, objectives, methods, and conclusions. In addition, she adds in four personalized categories: happy thoughts, unhappy thoughts, her own ethical concerns, and the author’s ethical concerns. These last two columns perfectly align with her field of Autoethnography. The happy thoughts column is for notes, such as how findings relate to her own work, while the unhappy thoughts column is for times when she disagrees with an author, among other uses.

Dr. Raul Pacheco uses a similar one-sheet method, which he calls the Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump (CSED) technique since he tosses in any literature he might be using for analysis. His setup overlaps in some ways with Gregersen’s but has a few differences; he has columns for the concept (i.e. theme), citation, main idea, three columns for notes (which function similarly to Gregersen’s happy and unhappy thoughts), cross-references, quotes, and page numbers.

A useful tip is to create a dedicated column for quotations to help separate out the authors’ exact words from one’s analysis of them or the article as a whole. This can help you inadvertently misrepresent an author’s ideas as your own when you’re later writing your literature review.

Taking the models laid out by Gregersen and Pacheco as a jumping off point, it’s easy to make some tweaks for even better usability for your own projects. Obviously, you’ll want to create columns that fit your needs. Instead of a column “main theme” you might have several “key takeaways” columns. Or a highly-personal column for how each article relates to your own work. For example, you might include only the author names and year of publication for an article rather than the full citation (in which case we’d highly recommend saving the full details in a reference management program!). Some people might want to copy the abstract the authors provide, while some will choose to write their own summaries. You can add “notes” columns or distinguish between paraphrases, comments, and direct quotations. Beyond that there are a lot of other small things you can do to make your spreadsheet work better for you, such as linking from a citation to the actual PDF, adding comments to cells, or adding drop-down lists to make data entry easier.

If you struggle with organizing your notes and memos, you could benefit from a reference management software like Citavi. Citavi lets you make notes within the program and easily connects your notes, memos, and quotes to your sources – helping you keep track of all your thoughts and research.

In Citavi, see all your notes and comments about a source in one place.

Version 2: Advanced, but Complex, Set-Up Option

If you want to take your basic Excel spreadsheet up a notch, you can do so in several ways. For one, you can make use of multiple sheets in the same workbook. Dr. Kathleen Clarke describes her method which involves a major spreadsheet for tracking all the high-level information about a source along with minor spreadsheets which are more granular. She describes her method as a mix between Gregersen’s and Pacheco’s, but she also includes additional sheets on different but related topics and for studies she wants to read later on. One other notable addition is the use of a numbering system for her sources which corresponds to the article file names on her computer.

Some General Tips

While there’s a lot of freedom in how you set up your Excel files, there are still some best practices you’ll likely want to follow. First, you should set up your table so that headers are marked as such. This way they won’t be sorted along with the other cells if you sort the column by A-Z, for example. Also, you’ll want to apply word wrap formatting to cells to keep content from spilling over into neighboring empty cells. This just keeps everything looking a lot tidier and makes it easier to skim through. Another handy option recommended by McQuilliam is to set up endless scrolling which keeps your column headers visible, even when you’re adding entries at the bottom of your list.

The columns you include are more or less up to you, but you’ll need a column for source information for sure to avoid inadvertent plagiarism or having to hunt down sources later on. In addition, a year column is invaluable for sorting your literature chronologically in preparation for writing your lit review. To keep track of how authors build upon and discuss each other’s work, a cross-references column can also be helpful. It’s important to make it very clear which analysis and thoughts are your own and which are those of your author.

If you’re planning on using filter features later on to search by study type, keyword, or some other criteria you’ll need to use controlled vocabulary, i.e. each concept should be referred to by a single term rather than using a bunch of different synonyms. You can define this at the start in a key on a separate sheet of your Excel workbook so that you can easily refer to it as needed. Each time you decide to add new terms, just add them to your key.

To save time, a streamlined option for organizing and categorizing your source information, notes, and quotes is Citavi, and we’ll look further into the benefits of using Citavi at the end of this post.

Disadvantages of the Excel Approach and Why It’s Not Sufficient for a Quality Lit Review

It’s hard to argue with the advantages of ease, simplicity, and flexibility that the Excel method gives you. But, there are still some big downsides to consider.

First, you have to set everything up yourself – it’s not already set up for you in a way that should fit most workflows. If you try something and later decide to take a different approach, you may need to go back and add in additional information for many sources you already examined.

Although search, filtering, and sorting options in Excel are much better than they would be in a Word table, the program is still a spreadsheet at heart which means that it’s “flatter” than a database. In other words, it’s less relational which makes it difficult to create complex search strings to get a subset of items that fit multiple criteria or that use more complicated search techniques such as Boolean logic or wildcards.

Another drawback is that the Excel approach involves a lot of manual entry. While some amount of manual work will always be necessary, for example, when you type up your comments or key takeaways, you won’t be able to directly extract information from PDFs (such as direct quotes or images) without using an additional PDF reader. Moreover, there are no time-saving automation options for adding source information that you might be accustomed to from your reference manager.

Speaking of reference managers, in many of the Twitter discussions around the Excel note-taking approach, there will always be a few comments asking why the person didn’t consider using their referencing software for their notes. Many proponents of the Excel approach stress that they do indeed use a reference management program to keep track of their source information but that they prefer to keep their notes and analysis in a separate Excel file. One of the reasons is that even though many reference management programs let you group references into folders and tag them with specific terms, they don’t let you easily keep track of and categorize notes on a particular source. You basically get a single notes field and that’s it. No way to categorize, group, or tag the note itself, just the source as a whole.

While this is true for many reference manager programs, there’s one that goes above and beyond its competitors – Citavi! While we’ve explored how it’s possible to create a literature review with Excel and Word, it is not the most efficient way available. With Citavi, you can easily keep track of, categorize, and connect your sources – all in one place.

Advantages of Using Citavi for Your Literature Review

Citavi is a reference management program that has been designed with extensive knowledge organization for any number of sources in mind and may, in many cases, be a better alternative to the Excel method.

Citavi lets you automatically add source information for most journal articles. Then, you can read PDFs and save notes and memos directly in the program. Annotating in Citavi is as simple as how you would on paper as you can highlight sections of text in colors that indicate whether it’s an important section, a section you might want to cite, or a passage that you’d like to analyze more closely. The only difference from annotating on paper is that these notes – which can be summaries, indirect quotations, direct quotations and comments – are always linked directly to their location in the PDF, so if you ever have to look up the context for one of your own comments or a direct quotation again, one click takes you directly to where you need to go and makes it easy to create your annotated bibliography.

Page numbers are saved automatically, as long as the PDF metadata includes that information. Otherwise, you just need to enter a page number for an article with the first “knowledge item” you save for it. Citavi will then add all the rest automatically.

Citavi keeps track of your meta data so it’s easy to follow one of the hundreds of citation styles available in the program.

Although the knowledge item types are pre-defined, the many options will fit most needs, and you can also always use either the keywords, categories, or the core statement field to designate the type of note you are adding if you want more customization. Any terms you use can later be searched or used as filters (more on that below). In addition, for the reference as a whole you also have pre-defined fields for keywords, groups, evaluations, abstracts, notes, and cross-references. This lets you classify at both the reference and note level, so, if you want, you can assign different categories or keywords for a source as a whole and for a statement you find in it. If you need additional source fields, there are nine custom fields which you can rename and format with drop-down options.

Where Citavi really shines against Excel is in its search features and integration with Word and NVivo 14. You can create and save complex searches that combine or exclude certain terms, keywords, categories, note type, year, etc. You can make use of advanced search syntax, such as boolean operators, wildcards, and regular expressions. You can rate sources and filter by rating. And, you have full-text search across all of your PDFs.

You can also view project statistics at a glance or use an add-on to do an analysis by author or another criteria. With Citavi and NVivo 14 integration, you can go beyond reference management by creating a springboard to collect references and thoughts, analyze literature, and connect empirical data with NVivo’s analysis tools – helping you dig deeper into your research and speed up your publishing time.

But the best part is that all of this information can be taken directly over to Word. You have all the analysis and quotes you’ve saved in a panel at the left and can just click to insert what you need. Citavi will insert the correct citation formatting and add an entry to your bibliography at the end. If you added your notes to an outline in Citavi, you can use the “Chapter” view to focus on what you need for a particular section. And, if you ever need to double-check the context for a direct quotation or your own paraphrase, you can click a link symbol to jump back to the exact spot in the PDF that you referred to.

If you do need to at some point export your reference information in table format for an appendix in your dissertation (for example, as documentation of the exclusion process for a systematic review), doing so just requires a few clicks. If you’ve previously worked with Excel and want to try out Citavi, importing is just as easy, and you can of course import all of your existing notes as knowledge items.

Last but certainly not least, if you use Citavi, you have the benefit of working with one tool instead of needing to juggle an Excel spreadsheet, a reference management program, and a PDF annotation tool or PDF reader.

Tour Citavi

We think it’s a no-brainer to use Citavi instead of Excel or Google Sheets to keep track of your reading for a literature review – but then again, we might be ever so slightly biased. What do you think?

Learn more about Citavi or request a free 30-day trial today!

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Podcast Transcripts: WriteCast Episode 38: The Literature Review Matrix: What It Is, How to Use It, and How to Make It Work For You

Writecast episode 38: the literature review matrix: what it is, how to use it, and how to make it work for you.

Listen to the podcast episode.

© Walden University Writing Center 2017

[Introduction music]

[TEASER] BETH: If you are working with a lot of research and you find it a little bit overwhelming, this just might be the tool for you.

BRITTANY: Welcome to WriteCast: A Casual Conversation for Serious Writers. I’m Brittany Kallman Arneson,

BETH: and I’m Beth Nastachowski.

BRITTANY: In today’s episode, we are talking about one of the Writing Center’s resources for literature review research and writing: The literature review matrix.

Today, we are talking about the literature review matrix, and I should probably start by defining what this tool is. It sounds like something where we should all be dressed, I think, in long black leather coats and running around trying to escape creepy robot guys, but it is not that exciting, I'm afraid. However, it is a very exciting tool in terms of organizing your research, and we hope that we can make this discussion almost as exciting as watching The Matrix —almost. So, what the literature review matrix is—is basically just a spreadsheet. It's available in two forms on our website. You can download it in Microsoft Word form with a table built into a Word document, or you can download it in Microsoft Excel format, which is obviously already a table or spreadsheet, and it's basically just a way for anybody working on a research project to organize the things that they are reading and studying.

So, that's sort of a broad description of what the lit review matrix is, but I also want to sort of paint a little picture of what it actually looks like for our listeners, because this is an audio podcast. As we start to talk in more detail about it, I do want our listeners to be able to have a little bit of a picture in their minds of what this really looks like. If you're listening and you're at your computer or even if you have your phone on you and you have a second, to kind of follow my instructions here and go ahead and download one of the sample matrices for yourself to follow along. Now I know a lot of people like to listen in the car at the gym or whatever and you might not be able to download it right now and that's fine. That's why I'll do a little visual description, as well, but you are welcome to download it and follow along as you listen to our kind of an analysis of what the literature review matrix is and how it can be used. So, I am going to get to the lit review matrix from the Writing Center homepage and under Scholarly Writing on the drop-down menus across the top I'm going to choose the first option on the drop-down Common Course Assignments. And if I click there I can see a bunch of different common course assignments listed along the left in the brown boxes, and I am going to scroll down to where literature review is listed. And if I click there, I'll eventually get to the lit review matrix but I can also go down a little bit under the literature reviews and choose organizational tools . And you will be taken to page that features two sample literature review matrices in PDF format. So these are ones that you can't go in and edit yourself but you can see how two different researchers might use a lit review matrix to organize their research. And they look very different very. Very, very different. They have different categories, different information is being recorded, and I think this helps illustrate the fact that the literature review Matrix is going to look really different depending on what research project you're working on and what your topic is. So you can take a look at those, but then the bottom two links are to sample templates that you can fill in yourself and it just in changes you need to. So one is in Microsoft Word and one is in Excel. I’m going to just open the one in Excel, and when I open it, I get an Excel document that has all these categories across the top, in the columns. So the first few are author's last name and first initial, publication date, title of article or chapter, and then it has all kind of the other categories for a reference entry. And as you scroll across to the right you get categories like theorists, method, design, population, research questions, summary, analysis. So more detailed information about the research process and the themes that are going to be drawn out of that particular source.

So that's what it looks like, and anytime that you're engaging in a big research project you are going to be swimming in research and oftentimes it can be really challenging to keep track of all the different articles and books and web pages that you're looking at, that are related to your topic. And a literature review matrix is just a simple tool that allows you to keep track of the information that you're reading and also sort of start to process that information in different ways depending on how you set it up, and we'll get into that in a little bit more detail in a moment.  

BETH: Yeah, and to build on that too, Brittany; I wanted to emphasize here that the literature review matrix is something for anyone doing research, really.

BRITTANY: Yes.

BETH: And it probably isn’t the most appropriate if you are just working on a discussion post or reading a couple of articles for a course paper or something. But it’s probably most useful when you are working with a lot of research at any one time. So if you are working on maybe a master’s thesis or a paper that’s a final paper that you are building up to across a course, maybe you are working on a KAM, or maybe you are working on your doctoral capstone—any of those cases might be a time when the literature review matrix would be useful. And probably in other times, too, in ways we are not even thinking of. It’s really a tool that’s meant for you if it's helpful. It’s often most helpful in those cases but really it could be useful to you at any point when you are working with a lot of research. So we want to make sure to clarify that from the outset. If you are working with a lot of research and you find it a little overwhelming, this tool might just be the thing for you.

BRITTANY: So I was excited to talk about this topic for this episode because the literature review matrix is something I have always enjoyed using, first of all, for my own research and also teaching about. I get kind of excited about it because—well, first of all, because I like categorizing things and I am kind of nerdy that way--you know, closets and drawers but also research in spreadsheets. And so there's that, but also I think I get excited because, to me, the lit review matrix kind of allows the student or the writer to start to model synthesis thinking even at the research stage. And I think synthesis in writing is one of the most challenging things to both do and to teach how to do, and I like that the literature review matrix is kind of an in to talking about how to actually synthesize sources together and put them in conversation in writing. So I don't know, I'm, I'm pretty excited to talk about this topic this morning but I don't know, do you feel the same way Beth?

BETH: Yeah, you know, when I was thinking about this topic, Brittany, I was a little apprehensive about it at first. I have talked about the literature review matrix in different contexts with students, but it was something that when I first came to Walden and started working in the Writing Center, I didn’t really get the matrix at first.

BRITTANY: MmHmm

BETH: It wasn’t something that was really just was natural for me. It wasn’t a natural way of thinking about the literature or thinking about writing a literature review. And so for me, it was more of a struggle before, to kind of get used to it. And it’s still not my natural inclination to use a tool like this. And so at first, I was a little apprehensive, but I think this will be great because I think we'll be able to think about the best way to use the tool, and I will probably get some pointers from you, so I’m looking forward to that.

BRITTANY: While I do not know about that. But I think that's really interesting, that sounds like it didn't necessarily match with the way that your brain works when you're working on a project like this, and you're totally capable of synthesizing research. So I think--I think actually it could be interesting to explore a little bit more what it is about it that doesn't work for you, 'cause I bet we have students who also feel that way or who kind of see this tool introduced and are like, this isn't seem like it be helpful to me at all. So I'm sort of curious to hear more about that from your perspective—what is it about it that is, just like doesn't seem helpful to you?

BETH: Yeah, I mean I think first off, just looking at downloading the template for the matrix that’s in Excel--

BRITTANY: Mmhmm.

BETH: For me, one thing I do like is it starts out with those columns that talk about the information for that particular source. You as the writer would note the author, the date—you know—all the information that you would need to keep track of that source and create a reference entry for it. That seems really helpful to me, as well as like the key word search information and things like that.

BETH: But what I struggle with is I think when I reading something I really like to identify key ideas and quotes and things like that. And then take notes on those rather than overall ideas, and right now when you look at the template it has sort of like columns of that are really general and broad, like theorist and method and design. So initially for me, when thinking about that—it’s kind of hard to think how that would be useful. So if a student had a similar question, like that, about the matrix and how to use it, how do you explain how best to use it, Brittany?

BRITTANY: Yeah, oh, I'm so glad that you said that because I get this question from students a lot. And you probably do too—where they're like, well, great, but these categories don't match what I'm researching or these categories aren't you know I don't want to record the information that's pre-populated into the sample Matrix; that's not helpful information for me to keep track of. And this is what I mean when I say the Matrix can help with synthesis thinking or sort of jump-start that. The writer has control over those categories from the very beginning and that's what's great about working on like in notebook where you might run out of space to run out of, you know, lines or something like that. In an Excel spreadsheet, for instance, you can always, always add more columns, more rows, you know, more fields where you can record different information. And so I like to think about the Matrix as being really agile and nimble and sort of malleable for the reader to—

BETH: It's like a living document.

BRITTANY: Yeah, exactly. So it's not that you have to have pre-populate categories and then read the literature looking for those categories, necessarily. You can do that, but you can also do it the opposite way where you learn reading and you pull out a theme. You say, oh boy--it seems like this is really an important thread that's running through this article and also this other book that I read. I'm going to create a category in my matrix to record that theme so that I can tag both of those resources with that theme and then remember that both those authors talked about that. And that's like that first step in your literature review of organizing your information by theme rather than by author, which is a big point that we make when we teach about writing a literature review, right, is that you aren't writing one paragraph on what one author said and another paragraph on what another author said but you really are working hard to create a conversation between all the people talking about your topic and categorizing those paragraphs and sections by theme and by topic.

BETH: So, in a way, really, when I initially learned about the matrix and started looking at it, I think I was thinking about the matrix as what you are reading and what you are taking notes on as responding to the matrix. But really, what you want the matrix to be is to be responsive to what you are reading.

BRITTANY: Right.

BETH: --where what you are reading sort of informs what the matrix looks like rather than the other way around.  

BRITTANY: Yeah, exactly right. So, the matrix is a snapshot of your research rather than your research being driven by what is in the matrix already. And I think again that's something that can be a little bit daunting for students at first. And so it may be that you as a writer start with the pre-populated categories, because I like to kind of think about the research process in two stages.

First we just have the categorization stage and the matrix can help with that. That's you just kind of getting the lay of the land of your research and starting to remember what you read, who the authors are, what year they published their research--you know--what their methodology was, just the nuts and bolts, the basics. And for that stage, the matrix pointing you to the research can be useful, because it helps you understand what happened to be reading for, when you're just trying to kind of get a sense of what's out there, and keep track of the basic information about the sources.

But as we know, that is not enough to get you to a solid lit review where you are categorizing your research by them and by topic. And so there's sort of a second piece to that where you can--you might go through and try and categorize your research first using the pre-populated fields in the matrix. But then I think you can come back and do that organization piece which is sort of not so much just thinking about what is the research that's out there and what are the basic facts about that research or even what are the basic things that that research has said, but you're thinking carefully about how to describe the pattern of that conversation over time to your reader and how to present it. And that's where I think it's the other way around—you start to notice those patterns and then you start to create fields in the matrix that reflect those patterns so that you can better put those sources in conversation with one another.

BETH: Yeah, so I mean really, along with the matrix sort of being really responsive to what you are reading—it evolves with your research process. It sort of functions differently as you go through the research process and evolves with that.

BRITTANY: Yeah, mmhmm. I think so.

BETH: That’s a great way to talk about it, I think. And I love the idea of thinking about the matrix as sort of this living document. I think initially when I looked at it, it felt very static, and I think that felt limiting to me. And so thinking as an evolving document—it really helps with that, I think. And I hope that will sort of resonant with our students, too.  

BRITTANY: Yeah, me too. This is a really hard thing to talk about in the abstract, I think. And so I do encourage any listener who is feeling like, a little confused by all of this, to dive in and start and sort of--I mean, I guess the basic take away that we want to send to our listeners is that you're in the driver's seat when it comes to these documents and the matrices, and so if you really want to record certain information and it's not part of the matrix that you download from our website, add it. Add it in. And that gives you a sense of agency to, I think, as a writer because that is what you get to make those choices about how to prevent the information to your reader which is really the kind of mindset that you want to have as you craft your literature review. And think about the order of information that you want to present to your reader.

BETH: And I would give two other tips, I think, too. As we are talking about this, you know we talked about the students that this is useful for, the wide range of students. But you know one thing I would say is if you are imagining, wow, this will be really useful for me, when in the future, I write this paper, this master’s thesis, this doctoral capstone, whatever it is. Also, consider using the matrix on an earlier paper, even if it’s not absolutely necessary. Because practicing using the literature review matrix will help you figure out how it works and how you can use it to evolve with your research process. So even if the matrix isn’t absolutely necessary to complete that particular project—using it can help you get use to that process. Just like anything else we talk about, we talk about all the time—practicing your paraphrasing and your citing skills so when you get to the sort of high stakes end capstone research that you have to do, then you are ready it. I think the same applies here, too.

BRITTANY: Right, mmhmm, absolutely.

BETH: And then…I swear I had one other thing I was going to say. Oh, I remember now. I think students sometime have trouble sort of translating, taking notes, reading, and highlighting important points or underlining important points as they are reading. And then taking that into their writing. There is sort of, like, a big jump they have to make—right—between those two things?

BETH: And the matrix acts as a nice in-between because you don’t necessarily include everything you highlight in the matrix, but you can kind of go back to your research and say, okay from what I highlighted while I was reading, to ensure I was an active reader: What is actually useful to be putting in this matrix? And then you can kind of practice paraphrasing and summarizing what you actually read into the matrix, too. So it kind of helps as in between step—between your note taking and your active reading and your actual writing that you are doing.

BRITTANY: I love that. I love thinking about it as kind of a go-between, between your research and your writing process. I think that’s exactly right.

BETH: So just a reminder—if you would like to download the lit review matrix and start using it, Brittany gave a really great explanation on how to find it through our website, at the start of the podcast, but you can also go to the top right hand corner of page on our website and search "literature review matrix" and it will be the first hit there. And just a note, too, if you are a doctoral student working on your final capstone, if you are at the proposal stage, make sure to also e-mail any questions that you have to the editors, at [email protected] as well as visit the form and style website.

BRITTANY: Finally, we love to hear your feedback and your ideas for future episodes. And we are grateful for those of you who have sent feedback and ideas to us so far. And we want to remind you that you can find us on Facebook at our Walden University Writing Center page, on Twitter @ WUWritingCenter, and at our blog which is waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.com.

BRITTANY: WriteCast is a production of the Walden University Writing Center. This episode was produced by me, Brittany Kallman Arneson; my co-host, Beth Nastachowski; and our colleague, Anne Shiell.

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Identify themes and ideas

Organising themes and ideas from the literature helps you:

• make connections
• discern patterns
• highlight emerging themes and how they have evolved
• extend your knowledge
• identify gaps in the literature
• identify key researchers
• understand how your research relates to that of others
• contextualise a topic within a research area
• prepare and structure your writing.

Literature grids

Literature grids, tables or review matrices, contain structured information extracted from your literature resources and can encourage critical thinking and analysis.

When creating your literature grid:

• make it relevant to your research question and objectives
• remember there is no standard design
• type of article (for example, review or case study)
• methodology or study design
• claims, conclusions, and key findings
• geographic or demographic details of the study
• strengths and weaknesses
• practice implications
• themes and categories.

Use a spreadsheet program (for example, Excel) to help you work more efficiently.

Spreadsheets help you to sort, filter and validate input using features such as drop-down lists .

Example Microsoft Excel literature grid (XLSX, 34.5 KB)

Learn to use Microsoft Excel

Try these techniques when designing your literature grid.

LATCH, developed by Richard Wurman , provides a structured way to think about and organise your information. You may incorporate some or all of the elements of LATCH in your literature grid.

Organise your information by location, this could include where:

• the study originated, or researcher is based
• it sits within the discipline - central or on 'the fringe'
• it fits at a macro or micro level (e.g. cell or body).

Further, studies may be located on different sides of a debate.

Reference lists and bibliographies are often organised alphabetically by author, allowing the reader to easily find a specific reference of interest.

Organise your information alphabetically to make it easier to find known items.

Arrange alphabetically by:

• journal name.

Organise your information chronologically to highlight and understand the changes to a research field over time.

Additionally, it may show trends in the popularity of certain methodologies, theories or foundational concepts.

Grieger, R, Capon, SJ, Hadwen, WL et al. (2020) 'Between a bog and a hard place: a global review of climate change effects on coastal freshwater wetlands', Climatic Change, doi:10.1007/s10584-020-02815-1

Organise your information by grouping into categories based on your research question and objectives.

• choose as many categories as needed
• information can belong to more than one category
• add or remove categories as you work through your information

Use a spider map or concept map to help organise your information into categories.

Organise your information by assigning a value, or rank.

Assess or critically judge your information, this could be based on:

• how closely related it is to your research topic
• the relative strength of the study design or evidence type
• the overall usefulness or relevance to your research.

Explore how hierarchy is used to classify information in evidence-based medicine .

Get inspiration on how to apply LATCH to organise your information, read 5 ways to tame the literature dragon .

Concept maps

Concept maps, originally developed by Joseph D Novak , allow you to represent ideas on a topic and how they relate to one another.

Create a concept map to help:

• organise your thinking around your research topic
• define the context and scope of a research question or topic
• identify gaps in your information gathering or knowledge of certain aspects of the topic
• provide a structure for your literature review to support your writing process
• clarify a complex topic.

Start your concept map:

• Place ideas in labelled boxes
• Use lines to connect ideas
• Add text to the lines to express the relationship between ideas.

You can use pen and paper or concept mapping software, such as CmapTools .

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Synthesizing different bodies of work in your literature review: The Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump (CSED) technique

Since I’m writing a series of posts on literature reviews (and undertaking a few of my own), I figured I could expand on how you can combine citation tracing, concept saturation, results’ mind-mapping with a method that Professor Elaine Campbell showcases in her excellent post “ How I use Excel to manage my literature review “.

I call this technique the “ Conceptual Synthesis Excel dump ” – I call it “dump” because I basically throw into the Excel file everything that is already in my research and conceptual/reflective memoranda. Doing the conceptual synthesis Excel dump as you do your reading allows you to create a nice map of the literature. It also helps reach conceptual saturation during the literature review .

What I am showing here is my Excel dump on bottled water. There are a number of themes (if you’re doing coding in qualitative methods, you’ll understand what I mean) that interest me:

• Fear of the tap water.
• Decisions on whether to consume tap water vs. bottled water.
• Branding water and bottled water and the use of branding techniques in promoting bottled water.
• Ethical bottled water.

I am showing three screen captures of the Excel file I created. Note that the columns I use are the following:

• Concept – here I list the main idea or major theme of the specific literature review.
• Citation – here I include the full citation (article, book, book chapter).
• Main idea – here I summarize the full article in a sentence or two.
• Notes 1 – here I make notes about specific ideas or whether I agree or disagree
• Notes 2 – same as the above
• Notes 3 – same as the above
• Cross-reference – which references and citations are linked to one another.
• Quote/quotation – specific quotes, as per my memorandum technique, that could be useful
• Page – the page from where I drew the quote. Note that I can draw several quotes from same article

My Conceptual Synthesis’ Excel dump technique is quite handy in the process of creating a literature review (both to reach concept saturation and to create the mind map). Hopefully it will be helpful to you too! I wrote this post partly as a response to the tweet below 🙂

Love this – kind of like @raulpacheco 's memo-ing, only in spreadsheet form 🙂 https://t.co/yT9pjaVChx — Rebecca Linnett (@rebeccalinnett) June 15, 2016

IMPORTANT EDIT – After many requests, I finally got around creating a Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump template that you can download and edit for your own purposes. I use a framing theory paper but you can adapt to your needs.

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Posted in academia , research .

Tagged with literature review , research , writing .

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – June 17, 2016

6 Responses

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In Excel, I actually am going to attempt to color code all of this so my neurodivergent brain can make sense of it instead of just seeing words and boxes! That way I can read across better. This helps me a great deal as an assistant.

Thanks a lot !

Continuing the Discussion

[…] Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump (CSED) – gives you an overview of the material you have read for your literature […]

[…] a Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump […]

[…] idea with that of other scholars you need to know what they said and where. This is why the Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump (CSED) is important: you can search the Excel file for a particular idea or concept that may seem relevant […]

[…] may need in my class. I show them how to write synthetic notes, how to write memorandums, how to synthesize their research in an Excel dump and a whole lot of reading strategies, literature review writing processes and note-taking […]

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About Raul Pacheco-Vega, PhD

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Recent Posts

• “State-Sponsored Activism: Bureaucrats and Social Movements in Brazil” – Jessica Rich – my reading notes
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• On framing, the value of narrative and storytelling in scholarly research, and the importance of asking the “what is this a story of” question
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Literature reviews.

• What is a literature review?
• How to develop a researchable question
• How to find the literature
• Taking notes
• How to bring it all together: examples, templates, links, guides

Preview the text to check for relevance. 

• the abstract
• introduction
• look at any charts, tables, graphs, diagrams

Check the number of times the article has been cited by others. The more times cited, the more important it might be. 

Read more deeply and let this guide the development of your question.

You may find that the more you read, your question changes or you discover a bigger topic or subtopics. 

Do not waste your time using a highlighter. Annotate the page and take notes. 

There are no shortcuts in this part of the process. 

For more information on managing your reading, go to the Study Toolkit in MyLO and check out the Academic Reading  and Writing module. 

Taking Notes

Use a synthesis matrix for note taking. This table c an be as simple or as complicated as you need

Advantages of using a synthesis matrix:

• allows you to  sort the ideas and thoughts while analysing and synthesising the research.
• helps make planning the structure and paragraph order easier 
• allows for paraphrasing and summarising before actually writing
• provides a clearer view of the relationship between different sources
• aids in identifying themes and patterns in the findings and conclusions.
• gives a glance view of each area under scrutiny

  The organisation/headings will change depending on the focus of your review. 

Using a spreadsheet will also help organise your reading and matrix. 

You will find some examples of a synthesis matrix to download at the bottom of this page. 

Example 1. 

C. Hartigan University of Tasmania

Example 2: Organised by themes.

from:  The Thesis Whisperer:Using a matrix to organise your notes

Example 3: Literature Review preparation.

Watch this short clip for some more ideas.  ( N.B. Ignore the APA referencing in this clip)

• Synthesis matrix
• Literature Review Prep: Synthesis matrix: Johns Hopkins University
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• Next: How to bring it all together: examples, templates, links, guides >>
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Free download simple literature review excel template

Welcome to our literature review template excel. If you are looking for a simple literature review template in excel then you are in right place. Excel is the best organizer. It helps us in creating a lot of useful documents. Can be used in every field of life. Only the problem is that it does not have any default templates.

In this article, I am going to present some well-defined literature review templates in excel. The literature review is a research document of what you have done and what is left behind. You can easily develop a literature review by customizing this super simple and easy-to-understand literature review template in excel. Below are some professional literature review templates in excel:

1. Review Plan and Schedule Excel Template:

This simple and well-mannered columned template can be used as a simple literature review template in excel. Free download this neat and clean sophisticated template.

2. Employee Performance Review Excel Template:

Review the performance of your employee by customizing this pretty template having different sections for different information. Edit this sample literature review template in excel for better understanding.

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Looking for the perfect monthly literature review template in excel? Grab this pink-colored vertical template with the heading of objectives to perform. Available for free.

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A literature review in business is a summary of your current state. If you are looking for a weekly summary report? Free download this captivating and professional template and customize it as it is fully flexible.

6. Simple Blues Yellow Work Plan Excel Template:

Simple and minimalistic blue-yellow work plan. You can add or delete its columns according to your requirement and can also change the names.

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A simple review schedule template that is designed for industry charge. Red color enhance its beauty. Never miss out on this captivating and gorgeous template. Available for free.

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Put your logo on the topmost left side. Create a fully organized attendance summary by using this monthly literature review template in excel. Free download and customize this eye-pleasing template.

10. Basic Daily Schedule Excel Template:

This daily schedule excels template is best for any purpose. You can create a list of daily tasks to be performed by using this simple amazing neat and clean template. Perfect for office use. Available for free.

Literature review excel template is the summary of work you have done and what is remaining. It gives an overall review of your work. WPS office software always produces amazing and professional templates. Visit WPS office software and grab the desired templates for free.

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