Literature review presents a brief summary of the prior researches on the topic related to yours. It allows you to ground your paper on reliable and significant facts. Besides, it allows you to bring the readers up to date.
 
In this article we are going to discuss the main requirements for a literature review format.
 
The literature review format requires your literature review to contain three sections. However, these sections should not be singled out with special headings. You are encouraged to devote a special separate paragraph to each section.
 
The first section of your literature review is the introduction. In this part you should present your topic and point out the main issue of your work. You may also define the terms if you use them.
 
In the next paragraph you should sum up the previous researches on the topic. Do not go in details. Your task is just to point out the main findings and to name the most significant researchers.
 
In the last paragraph you should draw a conclusion and point out the direction of the research you are going to conduct.
 
As your literature review is not a separate piece of writing, but only a part of some academic paper, you should design it in accordance with the writing style you apply to the whole paper. All citations within your literature review also have to be singled out according to the citation style of the paper. This means that your literature review format will coincide with the whole paper’s format.
 
By the way, in the end of your work (academic paper) you will have to present a list of the bibliographic sources. In this part you will have to list all the sources used (the sources mentioned in your literature review are to be mentioned here also). No matter what writing and citation style you apply to your paper, you will have to arrange the list of references alphabetically.