Q: If I am structuring my literature review by location, do I still need to identify themes?

There are several ways to structure a literature review: thematically, chronologically, alphabetically, and as in your case, geographically. Doing it thematically is a well-established way to structure a review, but the exact way would depend on your topic. If you believe discussing the literature based on location is more relevant for your research problem, then you should go ahead with doing so. For instance, if you are writing a review of the impact of COVID-19 in different countries or regions, location might be the better way to go.

To answer your other question, using the same example, ‘themes’ would mean talking about causes, outcomes, care, and prevention around COVID-19.

Coming back to your review, you may wish to talk about why you chose to go with the locational structure, explaining it in the Methods section and perhaps also in the Introduction while discussing the rationale or justification. Additionally, you may wish to discuss this when talking about the scope of the study in Methods.

You may also find the following resources helpful:

• A young researcher's guide to writing a literature review
• How to write the literature review of your research paper
• How should my literature review be structured?

​​​​​​​Good luck with the study!