The Difference Between a Literature Review and a Research Paper

The main difference between a research paper and a literature review is that a research paper makes an(oftentimes biased -- although it is not supposed to be) argument, whereas a literature review does not. You can also think of the difference between a literature review and a research paper in terms of convergent and divergent.

A research paper is an example of a convergent text. You are pulling ideas from several sources together to make one, unified argument. For example, for a history paper, you might argue that superior military forces and tactical skills enabled the North/Union to win the American Civil War. Your main point focuses on the military forces/tactical skills and your research will support that point. In a way, you are ignoring, or selectively choosing against, differing viewpoints (such as the idea that the Union won based on sheer dumb luck or because of the South's lack of ammunition/food). A literature review is an example of a divergent text. In this text, you start with a topic and explore different avenues and opinions and ideas that branch off from that idea. For example, for that same history class, you might write a literature review on why/how the North won the Civil War. That is your starting topic and your paper would cover multiple answers/ideas without privileging or prioritizing one over the others.

Similarly, a research paper in the sciences might address the topic of the effects of excessive video game participation in children. A literature review would explore the various effects: for example, it might look at the physical effects (such as obesity, lower intellectual performance), the behavioral effects (increased aggression with peers), the mental effects (increase/decrease of certain brain chemicals/hormones, etc.) or the lack of effects (playing video games is completely harmless). A research paper, on the other hand, would pick one of the above ideas and argue it's case -- that, for example, excessive video game participation causes childhood obesity. It would, effectively, disregard the other studies on behavior effects and mental effects and would try to oppose or contradict the studies which argue that there is no effect at all. Another way to think of this is as the difference between the job of a lawyer and that of a police officer (an activity we will mimic later in the unit). Say, for example, that a murder has been committed. It is the job of the lawyer (or the research) paper to make an argument or a case. It is the job of a lawyer to prove Prime Suspect #1 guilty or innocent. Oftentimes, they will ignore (or manipulate) evidence to prove their point. For example, a District Attorney might ignore Prime Suspect #1's alibi (or disprove it) in order to prove his/her guilt. Conversely, it is the job of a police office (or the literature review) to present the evidence in an objective, unbiased manner. (Ignore the corruption of law enforcement.) The police are the ones who explore all possibilities -- investigate all suspects, collect their statements, collect evidence, etc. They then present a report (the literature review) to the DA's office. The DA will then choose the most likely suspect to prosecute. In much the same way, a literature review is often the preliminary step of an advanced research paper. You have to know what others have already done and what conclusions they have come to before you can come up with a new argument. This way, you avoid repetition and wasting time doing what has already been done. http://ldandres.weebly.com/differences-between.html

In science, review paper contains results and conclusions of various researchers, while in research papers experimental portion carried by authors/author is emphasized

The question is 'what is the differences between the review paper and the literature paper?

From the answers I can see Literature review, Review & Research paper. Pls specify.

Review and literature papers share the most semblance. They all deal with existing data and theories gotten from secondary sources. Yet, review papers are must critical in its discursive approach, its richer and in-depth while drawing convincing, tentative conclusions of the phenomena studied. Literature papers usually highlights the current trends in the field of knowledge on a particular subject in a juxtaposed fashion with the existing theories to show particular gaps in the area of research.

Dickson Adom

Dear Dr. Hisham K. Hisham,

I don't think that "literature paper" is a commonly used term. If you have found it somewhere, it might be used to mean the same thing as "review paper", which is also called "literature review" because reviewing is mostly made by examining literature published before on a special topic.

Best regards,

Tatsuo

In that case, research paper is out of contest in this question. Please prove me wrong.

Best regards.

Dear Mr. Chukwuebuka Egbuna,

In my previous answer, I replied to the question as given by Dr. Hisham K. Hisham and didn't consider your first comment in which you requested to clarify the differences among "literature review", "review paper", and "research paper". The first two are the same thing. Thus, it would suffice to mention the difference between the last two.

A review paper is based on other published articles. It does not report original research but generally summarizes the existing literature on a topic in an attempt to explain the current state of understanding on the topic.

On the other hand, a research paper is based on original research. The kind of research may vary depending on your field or the topic (experiments, survey, interview, questionnaire, etc.), but authors need to collect and analyze raw data and conduct an original study. The research paper will be based on the analysis and interpretation of this data.

(The above explanations have been taken from https://www.editage.com/insights/what-is-the-difference-between-a-research-paper-and-a-review-paper .)

Best regards,

Tatsuo

They are the same!

Thanks dear Dr. Tatsuo for the clarification.