Free tool, writing and publishing
Literature review matrix
A spreadsheet for sorting papers by theme.
This page gives you a literature review matrix to download, a spreadsheet with twelve columns and one row per paper that opens in Excel or Google Sheets.
When we read draft chapters from scholars, one problem comes up again and again. Chapter 2 becomes a chain of summaries, “Kumar (2019) studied this, Rao (2021) found that”, paper after paper. Our examiners are calling this a list of abstracts and they send it back. With the matrix you note every paper under the same twelve heads. Later you sort the sheet by method, or you filter it by setting, and the common themes come up on their own. Many times the gap is also visible at that stage itself.
Columns in the template
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| No. | Number each paper so your notes can point to it. |
| Authors (year) | Write it the way you’ll cite it, e.g. Surname & Surname (2024). |
| Title | The complete title, so the paper is easy to trace later. |
| Journal / source | Journal or publisher. Check where the journal is indexed. |
| Country / setting | Where the data came from; findings often differ by setting. |
| Aim / research question | What the study tried to answer, put in your own words. |
| Theory or framework | The theory behind the study, if it names one. |
| Design and method | Survey, experiment, interviews or secondary data, plus the analysis. |
| Sample | Size, who took part and how they were picked. |
| Key findings | Results relevant to your work, with figures where reported. |
| Limitations | Weaknesses the authors state, plus any you spot. |
| Gap / relevance to my study | What remains unanswered here, and which of your objectives it feeds. |
Not sure the answer fits your study? WhatsApp us or call, and we’ll look at it with you.
How the tool works
In the table above you can see all twelve columns with a note on each. First column takes the citation. Then you note what the study wanted to find, its theory, its method and its sample. In the last three columns go the findings, the weak points and whatever the paper leaves open for your own study. We took this idea from Webster and Watson (2002). In their paper they told that a review must be organised concept-wise, not one author at a time.
There are two buttons for download.
- Excel file (.xlsx). Header row is in bold and it is frozen, so when you scroll down to row 60 the headings are still on top. Every header carries a cell note on what that column wants. In row 2 you will see one sample entry in grey italics. That row is just dummy text and you can remove it when your first real paper goes in. From row 3 to row 102 the cells wrap text, which gives room for a hundred papers. There is a second sheet named “How to use” which has all the column notes, plus one tip on filtering the matrix.
- CSV for Google Sheets. Same twelve columns, same sample row, only as plain text. We have put a UTF-8 marker at the start of this file for Excel. Without it, an author name typed in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada or Telugu may show up as question marks when Excel opens it. Cell notes are not possible in a CSV file. For the notes, come back to this page and read the table.
Nothing is made on our server for the Excel file. Your browser builds it. On your first click, the page fetches a library called ExcelJS from cdn.jsdelivr.net, and in some colleges the campus network stops that kind of request. Then the page gives you the CSV and puts a small message telling that the Excel file could not be made.
Please fill a paper’s row the same day you read it. Scholars who keep it for the end of reading mostly lose half the details. At the planning stage, filter on “Theory or framework” or on “Design and method”, and you can group the papers into themes from there. For your research gap, the last column is the one you will keep going back to, because it has the gap and the objective number together. How each theme turns into one section of Chapter 2 is covered in our literature review chapter guide.
Questions scholars ask
How do I open the matrix in Google Sheets?
Upload the Excel file to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets. The cell notes and the frozen header row come along with it. Another way is to take the CSV and bring it in through Import, which is in the File menu of Google Sheets.
How many papers should the matrix hold?
There is no fixed number for this. It depends on your field, and your guide will tell what is expected. For a PhD the review takes many more papers than for a Master’s dissertation. We have formatted a hundred rows in the Excel file. After row 102 you add more rows below in the normal way.
Can I use it with Zotero or Mendeley?
Yes, both can run together. Zotero or Mendeley is where your references stay, and you cite from there. In the matrix you keep your reading notes and the other informations you pull out of each paper. For the “Authors (year)” column, type the citation exactly as you will put it in your chapter. Then the same paper is easy to search in both.
What do I write in the gap column?
One or two lines are enough. Write what this paper did not cover and which objective number it connects to. For example, “no data from Tier-2 cities, feeds objective 2”. Once you have ten or fifteen rows filled, read this column fully, first row to last row. Suppose you see the same missing point coming up in paper after paper. That is your research gap, and the rows above already show which papers support it.
Can I change the columns?
Yes, change them as you like. Some scholars add a column for the variables measured, some for the questionnaire used, some for the income group of the country. Some column you never use, remove that. Nobody will collect this sheet from you because the matrix is only for your own reading.
Does the download send anything to you?
No. Your browser itself makes the file and it is saved on your device only. On our side the server only records that one matrix was downloaded.
Stuck on a chapter? Talk it through with us.
Call or WhatsApp, say where you are in your thesis, and we’ll tell you plainly what kind of help makes sense, if any.