My supervisor says my literature review is "just a summary"
"Just a summary" means your paragraphs are organised around authors ("Smith found… Jones found…") instead of ideas. The fix is structural, not stylistic: regroup what you have read by what it says, then write about the pattern.
The quick diagnosis
Look at the first sentence of each paragraph. If most begin with an author's name or a year, the review is organised by source. A synthesised review opens each paragraph with a claim about the field, and uses sources as evidence for it.
Build a synthesis matrix
Make a table: sources down the side, themes or questions across the top (method, setting, main finding, explanation offered, limitation). Fill each cell in a few words. Read it by column, not by row. The columns show you where studies agree, where they disagree and why, and what nobody has looked at. That last part is your gap.
Rewrite paragraph by paragraph
Make each column a section or paragraph. Open with the pattern, bring in the sources that support it, then the ones that complicate it, and close with what it means for your study.
Before: "Lee (2019) studied nurses and found burnout was high. Patel (2021) surveyed teachers and found similar results."
After: "Burnout is consistently high across caring professions (Lee, 2019; Patel, 2021), but almost all of this evidence is cross-sectional, so it cannot show whether workload causes burnout or follows it."
(Lee and Patel are invented names for illustration.)
End on the gap
The last section should lead straight to your research question: here is what we know, here is what is unresolved, and here is why that matters. If the reader can predict your question before they reach it, the review is doing its job.
Get the free 10-Step Literature Review Checklist
A one-page checklist from search strategy to synthesis, with the checks supervisors use to tell a summary from a review. We’ll email you the download link.
Frequently asked questions
How many themes should a literature review have?
Usually three to six for a thesis chapter. Fewer than three tends to be thin; more than six usually means some themes should merge.
Can I still describe key studies in detail?
Yes, for the two or three studies your work builds on directly. Everything else should serve a theme.
Is a synthesis matrix the same as an annotated bibliography?
No. An annotated bibliography summarises one source at a time; a matrix compares sources across shared questions, which is what makes synthesis possible.