Comprehensive literature review

A comprehensive literature review normally includes things like:

Searching major journal databases

For example, systematically searching databases such as JSTOR, Scopus, Web of Science, or discipline-specific indexes using carefully chosen search terms.

Examining books

Reading relevant scholarly books rather than relying only on journal articles.

Reviewing specialist monographs

A monograph is a book devoted almost entirely to one research question.

Example:

A 350-page book solely about free labor ideology during Reconstruction.

Checking footnotes

Suppose one historian cites another important study.

You follow that citation.

Then that study cites five earlier works.

You examine those too.

Follow citation chains

Researchers often trace those chains backward and forward.

Reading competing interpretations

If one historian argues

X caused Y,

another argues

Z caused Y,

a careful literature review studies both before reaching its own conclusion.