1. Develop a set of specific questions about the subject of your research or questions that your research seeks to answer
2. Develop a list of key words to use in searching for information on your research questions
3. Develop a list of the most pertinent sources of information to search
4. Search the sources from step 3
5. Identify the most promising items from your search(es)
6. Continue your searching and review of pertinent items until you see the “circles of knowledge” begin to close on the topics of interest
7. Go back through and read more carefully the most promising items that you have found. Take notes on these items, and also record their full bibliographic citation using a format common to your discipline
8. Use your notes and citations to write your literature review

The following sections will go into more detail for each of the steps listed above.