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Some types of reviews, for example literature and systematic reviews, are commonly known, but many other formal review types exist to address varying needs of scientific and clinical research. Check out the link and boxes below for more details and differentiation.

Narrative reviews provide up-to-date knowledge on a specific topic from a theoretical and contextual point of view based on the research literature, i.e. published books and/or journal articles. A narrative review aims for:

• comprehensiveness, 
• broad coverage of a perspective of the topic,
• a qualitative approach as opposed to the strict protocol, methodology and inclusion/exclusion criteria of SRs.

For example, a historical (narrative) review traces the development of a topic, such as the history and progress of the chicken pox vaccine. The comprehensive narrative thread that forms the body is not appropriate to the more structured format of a systematic review, characterized by a narrowly focused topic, answering a specific question, and conducted with a methodical, transparent, and reproducible protocol with strict inclusion/exclusion criteria.

Differs from a Systematic Review in several ways:

• Attempt to include elements of systematic review process while stopping short of systematic review.
• Typically conducted as postgraduate student assignment.
• Usually more comprehensive than a literature review.
• May or may not include comprehensive searching.
• May or may not include quality assessment.
• Typically narrative with tabular accompaniment.
• Discusses what is known, lists the uncertainty around findings, and limitations of the methodology.

Rapid Review

• Applies Systematic Review methodology within a time-constrained setting.
• Useful for addressing emerging issues.
• See Evidence Summaries: The Evolution of a Rapid Review Approach

Literature Review

In general, a lit review is a carefully designed overview, summarizing and synthesizing a topic or research question. The purpose determines how rigorous and comprehensive your search needs to be in order to conduct a high quality literature review.

• Useful in tracing concept development
• Scope is broad and may or may not be comprehensive, methodology is not standardized.
• Journal requirements vary, check the journal's instruction for authors.
• Literature reviews can take many forms, including narrative, scoping, critical, or a chronological overview.

For more information on writing a literature review, see: Research Portal>Literature Review

A Scoping Study/Review

• Addresses a broader research question or set of questions
• Often conducted in preparation for conducting a systematic review
• Seeks to identify research gaps and opportunities for evidence synthesis
• See Enhancing the scoping methodology study  and A scoping review on the conduct and report of scoping reviews for more information.

Steps in a Scoping Study/Review from Levac, et. al.

• Identify the research question
• Identifying relevant studies
• Study selection
• Charting the data
• Collating, summarizing, and reporting results
• Consultation (optional)

Umbrella Review

• Systematic review of other systematic reviews on a topic. 
• Often defines a broader question than is typical of a traditional systematic review.
• This type of review is most useful when there are competing interventions to consider.
• See Methodology of conducting a systematic review of systematic reviews of healthcare interventions.
• Joanna Briggs Institute Methodology for Umbrella Reviews.