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Literary stylistics.

• Michael Toolan Michael Toolan Department of English Language and Linguistics, University of Birmingham
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.1008
• Published online: 22 November 2019

Literary stylistics is a practice of analyzing the language of literature using linguistic concepts and categories, with the goal of explaining how literary meanings are created by specific language choices and patterning, the linguistic foregrounding, in the text. While stylistics has periodically claimed to be objective, replicable, inspectable, falsifiable and rigorous, and thus quasi-scientific, subjective interpretation is an ineradicable element of such textual analysis. Nevertheless, the best stylistic analyses, which productively demonstrate direct relations between prominent linguistic forms and patterns in a text and the meanings or effects readers experience, are explicit in their procedures and argumentation, systematic, and testable by independent researchers. Stylistics is an interdiscipline situated between literary studies and linguistics, and from time to time has been shunned by both, who for decades predicted its decline if not disappearance. The opposite has happened; stylistics is flourishing, and some of its proponents argue that it offers more authentic and relevant literary studies than much of what goes on in university literature departments. Equally, some stylisticians see their work as a more coherent linguistics, adapted to a particular purpose, than much of the abstract linguistics pursued by academic linguists. In recent years, stylistics has been reanimated by adoption and adaptation of ideas sourced in cognitive linguistics and by the increasingly easy creation of huge corpora of languages in digital, machine-searchable form; these two developments have given rise to various forms of cognitive stylistics and corpus stylistics. In the early decades of the 21st century, one of the most exciting strands of work in stylistics is exploring kinds of iconicity in literary texts: passages of language that can be seen to enact or perform the effects or meanings the text is intent on conveying.

• foregrounding
• linguistic patterning
• testability
• textual meaning
• defamiliarization

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Stylistics

Introduction, classics and history.

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Stylistics by Lesley Jeffries LAST REVIEWED: 26 July 2017 LAST MODIFIED: 26 July 2017 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190221911-0048

Stylistics is the study of textual meaning. Historically, it arose from the late-19th- and early-20th-century Russian formalist approach to literary meaning, which endeavored to identify the textual triggers of certain literary effects from their structures. As a result, for much of its history, stylistics has been concerned with the style, and consequent meaning, of literary works. However, the burgeoning of modern linguistics in the early part of the 20th century and the simultaneous rise of mass media (newspapers, radio, and television in the first instance) led stylisticians toward two new concerns. First, they wanted to establish whether there was anything unique about the language of literature that differentiated it absolutely from other language use. For this project, new insights from descriptive linguistics were crucial as an objective and rigorous way of describing—and comparing—texts in terms of their style. The eventual consensus that developed from such work was that there is no absolute division, in linguistic usage, between literary and nonliterary texts, though genres of all kinds (including nonliterary genres) may have stylistic preferences that help to identify them. Second, stylisticians wanted to find out how style affected such important issues as political and social change, through the texts encountered by citizens in their daily lives. The result was the adaptation and application of stylistic analysis to nonliterary texts for the purpose of highlighting ideology—particularly hidden ideology—rather than for the purpose of explaining aesthetic effects. This development ultimately gave rise to what is now called “critical discourse analysis,” though this term now encompasses many studies that are minimally linguistic in their concerns. The initial enthusiasm for the insights that linguistics could bring to literary study, together with some of the principal notions from Russian formalism, such as “defamiliarization,” produced stylistics’ early theoretical core notions, such as foregrounding, external and internal deviation, and parallelism. These continue to be central to much stylistic scholarship, and for this reason it has not been possible to group texts relating to foregrounding and deviation together here, as they also range widely across the other categories necessary to map out the field. It is also worth noting that the increasing use of computational methodologies borrowed from corpus linguistics means that today it is possible to examine not only foregrounded, but also background features of style. Meanwhile, stylistics has continued to follow the “new” subdisciplines of the field (sociolinguistics, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, etc.), as well as developing connections with other disciplines, notably psychology, to develop a range of more subtle tools of analysis to understand how the texts that are its central concern make meaning.

It is generally true that each item in this list could have been categorized differently, but an attempt has been made to identify the publications that have most clearly made an impact on thinking about style that continues to the present day. These debates include the dissatisfaction of literary scholars with the lack of clarity of literary criticism where it has no shared framework of analysis or descriptive language, as seen in Ehrlich 1965 , an introduction to stylistics first published in 1955; the question of whether advances in rigor and systematicity tend to produce analysis that is lacking in understanding of textual/literary meaning, in particular the many critical reviews that followed Sebeok 1960 ; the two parallel threads of a developing stylistics, arising from literary criticism on the one hand (as in Epstein 1978 ), and from linguistics, on the other (as in Sebeok 1960 and Fowler 1971 ). Other entries here, such as Fowler 1971 ; Fowler 1986 , merge the two approaches more completely, and, in the case of Leech and Short 2007 (first published 1981), have been judged by peers to have made the largest contribution to the discipline in the last twenty-five years, as determined by the Poetics and Linguistics Association.

Crystal, David, and Derek Davy. Investigating English Style . London: Longman, 1966.

An early, and at the time unique, application of linguistics to the study of stylistic differences between nonliterary texts. Crystal and Davy’s aim was a practical and systematic method for identifying textual style, based on regularity of occurrence of certain linguistic features in texts, linked to (situational and other) external features.

Ehrlich, Victor. Russian Formalism: History, Doctrine . 2d ed. The Hague: Mouton, 1965.

A critical but balanced study of the formalist origins of stylistics, this book traces the impetus for a new discipline with objectivity and rigor resulting from the impatience of literary scholars with “impressionistic criticism” and introduces the Russian formalists through the work of its most distinguished pioneer, Roman Jakobson. First published 1955.

Enkvist, Nils Erik. Linguistic Stylistics . The Hague: Mouton, 1973.

DOI: 10.1515/9783111348926

Enkvist showcases the methods and techniques of stylistics that drew most strongly on new insights from linguistics. His emphasis was on systematicity and transparency.

Epstein, E. L. Language and Style . London: Methuen, 1978.

This book attempts to use linguistic description to address the question of whether there is a qualitative difference between personal (i.e., unique) style and public patterning of language. This ambition appears implicitly linked to the quest for a definition of literary and particularly individual author style as separate from “everyday” language, but it has been superseded by a more holistic view of style as being on a continuum between genre and individual author.

Fowler, Roger. The Languages of Literature . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971.

A collection of papers republished from elsewhere that attempt to make the case for a linguistic approach to literature, though often reviewed negatively in failing to adequately illustrate with examples of analysis, beyond those dealing with meter. The collection reprints both sides of Fowler’s argument with F. W. Bateson about the value of linguistic criticism.

Fowler, Roger. Linguistic Criticism . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

This is one of the ground-breaking books of early stylistics which introduces the precision and systematicity of linguistic approaches to literary meaning. It explains in a clear style how the analytical insights of linguistics can illuminate the reader’s understanding of literary works and it illustrates from poems, plays and fiction. Whilst now relatively old, this remains a very good introduction to the field for readers new to stylistics. First published 1971.

Freeman, D. C. Essays in Modern Stylistics . London: Methuen, 1981.

This collection of articles demonstrates a range of applications of linguistics to the style and interpretation of literature. It includes studies of individual authors, such as the poets John Keats and William Blake, as well as essays that consider the place of stylistics alongside literary studies and linguistics.

Leech, Geoffrey, and Mick Short. Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose . 2d ed. London: Pearson Education, 2007.

Like many stylistics books, this one is partly aimed at students, though it also breaks new theoretical ground, particularly in relation to speech presentation and demonstrates the accuracy with which linguistically trained scholars can describe features of literary works. The second edition has new material. First published 1981.

Lemon, L. T., and M. J. Reis, eds. Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays . 2d ed. University of Nebraska Press, 2012.

This reissued book collects together four of the most influential essays by Russian formalist scholars from the early 20th century—work that laid down the foundations of what we would today call “stylistics.” The essays include two by Viktor Shklovsky, one that introduces defamiliarization, and one that puts forward a theory of narrative through analysis of Tristram Shandy . The others are Boris Tomashevsky’s “Thematics” (1925), which looks at the components of stories, and Boris Eichenbaum’s “The Theory of the ‘Formal Method’” (1927), which defends formalism from various criticisms.

Sebeok, Thomas Albert, ed. Style in Language . Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1960.

The papers and some of the discussion from a gathering at Indiana University in 1958. Participants came from a range of disciplines, including psychology and anthropology, as well as linguistics and literary studies, and the volume includes contributions from two of the discipline’s most renowned scholars, Roman Jakobson and I. A. Richards.

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Book contents

• The Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics
• Series page
• Copyright page
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• Part I The discipline of stylistics
• 2 The theory and philosophy of stylistics
• 3 The stylistic tool-kit: methods and sub-disciplines
• 4 Quantitative methods in literary linguistics
• 5 Stylistics as rhetoric
• 6 Stylistics as applied linguistics
• 7 Stylistics as literary criticism
• Part II Literary concepts and stylistics
• Part III Techniques of style
• Part IV The contextual experience of style
• Part V Extensions of stylistics

7 - Stylistics as literary criticism

from Part I - The discipline of stylistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2015

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• Stylistics as literary criticism
• By Geoff Hall
• Edited by Peter Stockwell , University of Nottingham , Sara Whiteley , University of Sheffield
• Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics
• Online publication: 05 March 2015
• Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139237031.008

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Russian Formalism › Stylistics

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on October 20, 2020 • ( 0 )

Treatises devoted to the study of style can be found as early as Demetrius’s On Style (C.E. 100). But most pre-twentieth-century discussions appear as secondary components of rhetorical and grammatical analyses or in general studies of literature and literary language. The appearance of stylistics as a semiautonomous discipline is a modern phenomenon, an ongoing development in linguistic description that is closely tied to the similar rise of literary criticism and linguistics as academic subjects and departments. Modern stylistics, in general, draws much of its analytical power from the analytical methods and descriptive intentions of linguistics, while modern literary stylistics, in particular, draws upon that area and adds to it the interpretive goals of modern literary criticism. In both cases, the use of linguistic methodology has allowed stylistics to move beyond earlier normative and prescriptive descriptions of “correct” styles to a fuller analysis of language itself and the purposes to which language regularly is put.

Whatever the limits of previous approaches to style, or the difficulties that have arisen from the practical application of linguistic methods to stylistic analysis, the desire to begin with a set of well-defined terms and procedures lies at the core of the initial formation of stylistics as a discipline. While all versions of literary stylistics have dedicated themselves to the study and interpretation of literary texts, it was the growing importance of European historical linguistics during the mid-nineteenth century that produced the most easily recognized component of early modern stylistics: a deeply rooted concern with formal linguistic description of literary language. The methodological benefits that stylistics gained by uniting literary interpretation and linguistic analysis were matched by institutional gains as well. Historical and general linguistics were well-established academic disciplines at the turn of the twentieth century, and stylistics could expect to benefit from that status. The use of linguistic procedures thus offered stylistics both an affinity with an established discipline and the possibility of founding the description and interpretation of style upon the bedrock of science.

While its air of scientific analysis made linguistics attractive, linguistic science was not itself a monolithic entity. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, linguistic study oscillated between a desire to define language through efficient analytical methods (often requiring a-contextual descriptions) and another, competing desire to define language as a social and cultural phenomenon. The work of the neogrammarians, key figures in the formation of linguistics as a modern scientific discipline, displays the tension well. Although the neogrammarians began their work with the intention of reintroducing behavior into linguistic description, the attractiveness of scientific method dictated the slow elimination of the user as a complex part of the description. The result for some linguists, notably the philologians, was a sacrificing of the real heart of linguistics to a sterile formalism; for many, however, the shift was the logical result of a move into the modern scientific age. It was in terms of these separate views of the proper role of linguistic description that the predominant approaches to modern stylistics developed, and because of the strong Continental influence of Romance Philology on historical linguistics, modern stylistics usually is seen as having begun there.

The roots of modern stylistics can be uncovered in the work of Charles Bally (1865-1947) and Leo Spitzer (1887-1960). Bally’s Précis de stylistique (1905) stresses the description and analysis of a language’s generally available stylistic properties. Literary texts, in Bally’s formulation, are particular examples of language use, and the analysis of their style is not a central part of the general stylistics he emphasizes. Nevertheless, Bally’s work, and its later realization in the work of Jules Marouzeau ( Précis de stylistique française , 1946) and Marcel Cressot ( Le Style et ses techniques , 1947), strongly influenced the formation of literary stylistics. Such analytical work offered literary critics a relatively precise methodology for describing the components and features of a text. In place of an open-ended and evaluative interpretive process, linguistics both underwrote the need for a more precise analytical attitude toward language study and provided specific categories for characterizing sound, rhythm, and eventually syntax, as well as points of comparison and contrast between registers, forms, and functions within genres and literary periods.

In contrast to the stylistique of Bally and his proponents, Leo Spitzer insisted upon following the more philologically based tradition of textual (and often literarytextual) analysis. Such work, while usin g the analytical techniques of modern linguistics, strives to unite the analytical description with a critical interpretation that relat es the style to a larger conceptual or situational frame (e.g., Linguistics and Literary History 1-39). Style is seen as an expression of a particular psychological, social, or historical sensibility or moment rather than as a general property of a particular language. In undertaking these wider interpretations, critics such as Spitzer did not, however, assume that they were defining their stylistics as separate from, or even as a subset of, linguistic analysis. In both his etymological studies and his more specifically literary-critical interpretations ( Stilstudien , 1928, and Romanische Stil- und Literaturstudien , 1931), Spitzer insisted that he was promulgating a general program of linguistic study, offering his stylistics in opposition to what he saw as the more reductionist analyses of general, scientific linguistics. Spitzer himself emphasized the split until the end of his career, regularly referring to his work as Stilforschung (literary, cultural interpretation of style—philology in his eyes) to set it apart from that of Stilistik , or Bally’s stylistique (e.g., “Les Études de style et les différents pays” 23-39). At the same time, he assumed—as did fellow critics of style such as Ernst Robert Curtius, Karl Vossler, and Helmut Hatzfeld—that he was not reducing the scientific aspect of linguistics but only offsetting a false, positivistic tone that was becoming increasingly predominant in the field. The tension in linguistics between general linguistic description and less formal sociocultural interpretation thus was mirrored in this early separation in stylistics between linguistic stylistic description and literary stylistic interpretation. It is a separation, and a tension, that remains at the heart of modern stylistics.

This tension, Spitzer’s and Bally’s position as Continental rather than Anglo-American linguists, and the popularity of Practical Criticism and new Criticism in England and the United States all lay behind the relative lack of an organized, Anglo-American literary stylistics during the first half of the twentieth century. Literary stylistic analyses were occurring in England and in the United States at this time, but they often did not contain the formal linguistic orientation that characterizes the modern discipline of stylistics. Instead, they drew support and procedures from the basic but less analytically structured orientation of New Criticism and practical criticism. And while the influence of Romance language study grew during the mid-twentieth century (due in no small part to the presence in England and in the United States of many expatriated scholars), the established strength of other, more empirical linguistic methodologies reduced possible exchanges between linguistics and literary criticism. The eventual appearance of modern stylistics in Anglo- American work repeated the earlier Continental process, appearing most clearly when united with an interest in linguistic analysis at mid-century and with the related interest in literary Structuralism somewhat later. By the late 1950s, the general critical ambience provided by the rise and fall of New Criticism and practical criticism, in combination with a growing interest in comparative literary studies and a new awareness of the increasing importance of linguistic science, provided the needed impetus for a strong appearance of literary stylistics outside the European continent. The processes behind the formation of American stylistics are exemplified by work done by Michael Riffaterre on Romance languages. Riffaterre’s published dissertation, Le Style des Pléiades de Gobineau (1957), is a self-described attempt to blend Spitzer’s work with that of contemporary structural linguistics, while the later, even more formal stylistic methodology set forth in “Criteria for Style Analysis” (1959) and “Stylistic Context” (i960) shifts away from interpretive description and toward the general linguistic analysis that was beginning to dominate academic study.

Lacan and Roman Jakobson/Pinterest

Such work in stylistics reflected a larger trend occurring within literary criticism as a whole during this period. Riffaterre’s particular interest in a systematic, formal description of literary style mirrored a growing awareness among literary critics in general of the possibilities provided to literary study by trends and theories available from formal linguistic study. The discovery of linguistic work by Ferdinand de Saussure , Roman Jakobson , and structural linguistic theory in general all formed part of the rapid flowering of critical work closely related to, if not directly based upon, particular methods of linguistic analysis. It was not a link between literary stylistics and structural linguistic analysis that marked the real establishment of stylistics as a discipline within the United States, however. It was the transformational-generative grammar of Noam Chomsky ( Syntactic Structures , 1957) that signaled the arrival of stylistics as a discipline with independent, self-defined goals, if not yet a real autonomy from either linguistic or literary-critical approaches to language analysis.

The rapidly established importance of Chomsky’s linguistics within his own discipline provided a strong argument for the importance of transformational-generative grammar within literary stylistics as well. But beneath that academic, institutional cause lay particular features of the theory that explain further the explosion of stylistic work using transformational-generative grammar. The grammar’s focus on syntax, its distinction between deep and surface structures, and the resulting dynamism in its descriptive procedures all contributed to a methodology that allowed for a much wider discussion of the possible forms (and by implication styles) available to the user of language. At the same time, the declared mentalism of Chomsky’s grammar was seen by many as providing literary stylistics with a means of uniting a still lingering Romantic sense of creativity with the formal linguistic description needed to provide the analysis with a now-requisite air of scientific study. Many critics found not only an implied linkage between language and mind within Chomsky’s grammar but an actual justification for tying intention to structure. Whichever aspect of Chomsky’s grammar provided the impetus for a particular study, the general influence was huge, and the numerous studies that appeared during the years 1965-75 testify to the boost that Chomsky’s thinking on language gave to the era, one of the most hectic and dramatic in the formation and growth of stylistics.

The founding of the field’s major Anglo-American journals— Style (1967) and Language and Style (1968)— provides one convenient benchmark for the full arrival of stylistics as an academic discipline in Britain and the United States, while a plethora of studies and editions from 1970 and later provides another, more wide-ranging view. Representative texts, which display not only a sense of the myriad volumes available on the two continents but also a sampling of other methods either related or opposed to Chomsky’s work, include Donald Freeman, ed., Linguistics and Literary Style (1970); Pierre Guiraud, Essais de stylistique (1970); Guiraud and Pierre Kuentz, eds., La Stylistique: Lectures (1970); Seymour Chatman, ed., Literary Style: A Symposium (1971); Roger Fowler, ed., Style and Structure in Literature: Essays in the New Stylistics (1975); Helmut Hatzfeld, ed., Romanistische Stilforschung (1975); and Freeman, ed., Essays in Modern Stylistics (1981). The last text in this list, Freeman’s second collection, argued for the gradual cementing of transformational- generative grammar’s position within much of American stylistics, an argument made clear by comparing this collection’s announced focus on transformational-generative grammar with the eclecticism of Freeman’s first text. But the position of transformational-generative grammar had become decidedly less dominating by 1980, as the rest of the collections demonstrate.

The differing models and methodologies found in a text such as Chatman and Samuel R. Levin’s Essays on the Language of Literature (1967), which is not devoted to stylistics alone, serve to demonstrate that other methods were equally popular elsewhere, even before the eager pursuit of Chomsky’s linguistics had faded. In England, interest in describing not only the structure of language but also the properties of discourse and its functions gathered around the work of J. R. Firth, in general, and in the union between linguistics and literary criticism that appears in the work of M. A. K. Halliday, in particular, while the work of Stephen Ullman provided yet another example of stylistic analysis brought to fruition by an expatriated Continental Romance scholar. At the same time, philologically oriented work similar to that of Spitzer continued to be available, especially in Italy, while other work, such as that of Richard W. Bailey and Lubomir DoleZel in statistical analysis, argued for yet another method within What was already a very eclectic field. In fact, while linguistic formalism applied to literary language remained the basis of modern stylistic procedure, the field continued to build upon what was historically a large variety of possible stylistic approaches.

Numerous descriptive categories have been created to provide some order among the resulting variety of approaches to style, but the most common and useful taxonomies are those designed around a communication model such as that of Jakobson (“Linguistics and Poetics,” in Sebeok). Some approaches are essentially concerned with describing style as a habitual form of expression particular to an author or authorial psyche, while other formats begin with style as an affective response generated in the reader. Similar to these alternatively expressive and receptive approaches are definitions that see style as indicative of a larger context: a cultural sensibility, a historical period, or a national feeling. More textually focused approaches define style in terms of a particular genre, or in relation to other linguistic registers, or simply as a web of relations between the elements of the text itself. In all this work, whatever its variety, the main attraction for stylistics remains that of formal descriptive power.

That interest eventually began to come under increasing censure for what was perceived as its sacrificing of interpretive complexity for scientific efficiency. The swinging back of the critical pendulum is most clearly apparent in Stanley Fish ‘s pointed attack, “What Is Stylistics and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things about It?” issued in two parts, in 1973 and 1980. The main thrust of such arguments was not simply that stylistic analyses were misguided or misinterpretive but that the very foundation of scientific analysis on which stylistics based itself was inherently flawed. In essence, the arguments stated that there was no way to link the empirically defined features of the text with the rest of the critical analysis except through the subjective, interpretive framework of the critic. In fact, the arguments declared, even the stylistic features described in the analysis were themselves subject to the interpretive choices of the reader/critic.

In attacking this aspect of stylistic analysis, these discussions were taking aim at one of the specific reasons for the rise of stylistics as an academic discipline during the twentieth century. The depth and cogency of arguments such as those put forth by Fish, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, and others were a clear signal of shifting trends in literary criticism—and in its attitude toward linguistic analysis. By 1980 it was impossible to argue for any stylistic model without addressing these trends, although by then the issue already had been partially settled by an increasing concern with discourse in the field of linguistics. Speech-act theory was providing cogent arguments in favor of a return to the speech situation and the context of production, and those discussions merged nicely in literary circles with an increased interest in historical and contextual analysis. The question for stylistics became one of how to blend this increased desire for social, cultural, and contextual critical analyses with the discipline’s foundation in formal linguistics.

Although the problem came to the forefront of stylistics by 1980, it had been looming on the horizon for a while. The value of efficient description began to fade before a renewed desire for social and contextual analysis in the study of language and of its situation of production and reception, and the basic movement under way in linguistics displayed itself in a variety of ways and works in literary stylistics. Roger Fowler, for example, issued Essays on Style and Language (1966) and Style and Structure in Literature (1975) but shifted to Literature as Social Discourse (1981). Halliday, who also had been working on discourse issues for some time in Great Britain, produced Language as Social Semiotic (1978), while the positive reception given to Mary Louise Pratt’s Toward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse (1977) demonstrated the degree to which such concerns were taking root in critical discussions within the United States. Finally, the growing influence of feminism and psychoanalysis on linguistics and literary criticism, exemplified by Robin Lakoff’s Language and Woman’s Place (1975), Chéris Kramarae’s Women and Men Speaking (1981), Deborah Cameron’s Feminism and Linguistic Theory (1985), and John Forrester’s Language and the Origins of Psychoanalysis (1980), reinforced the need to adopt a new stance toward contextually rooted discussions in both stylistics and linguistics. The resulting shift away from strict formalism and toward a greater concern with function and context, together with a rebirth of interest in interpretive as well as descriptive analysis, once again forcefully brought forward the issue of what constituted the proper degree (or non-degree) of methodological rigor in stylistics.

At the turn of the twentieth century, allegiance to linguistic procedures was the primary defining element of stylistics as a discipline, and it remains so in the last quarter of the century. The major question facing stylistics is whether movement away from that defining characteristic, no matter how slight, will result not only in a loss of self-definition but also in a shifting back of the entire field into the related disciplines of literary criticism, linguistics, or more probably rhetoric, which is enjoying a strong rebirth. In addressing that question, stylistics continues to face its status as a discipline operating among all these disciplines, from which it historically has drawn both its goals and its methods. Work being done in the last quarter of the century on historical and contextual readings of literary and nonliterary texts suggests that stylistic models can be expanded sufficiently to allow the discipline to continue to draw upon all related fields adequately for its own purposes while maintaining its own autonomy.

Further Reading Charles Bally, Précis de stylistique (1905); Deborah Cameron, Feminism and Linguistic Theory (1985); James Catano, Language, History, Style: Leo Spitzer and the Critical Tradition (1988); Seymour Chatman, ed., Literary Style: A Symposium (1971); Seymour Chatman and Samuel R. Levin, eds., Essays on the Language of Literature (1967); Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures (1957); Marcel Cressot, Le Style et ses techniques (1947); Lubomir DoleZel and Richard W. Bailey, eds., Statistics and Style (1969); John Rupert Firth, Selected Papers of J. R. Firth: 1952-59 (1968); Stanley Fish, “What Is Stylistics and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things about It?” (1973, pt. 2,1980, Is There a Text in This Class? 1980); John Forrester, Language and the Origins of Psychoanalysis (1980); Roger Fowler, Essays on Style and Language: Linguistic and Critical Approaches to Literary Style (1966), Literature as Social Discourse: The Practice of Linguistic Criticism (1981); Roger Fowler, ed., Style and Structure in Literature: Essays in the New Stylistics (1975); Donald C. Freeman, ed., Essays in Modem Stylistics (1981), Linguistics and Literary Style (1970); Pierre Guiraud, Essais de stylistique (1970); Pierre Guiraud and Pierre Kuentz, eds., La Stylistique: Lectures (1970); M. A. K. Halliday, Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning (1978); Helmut Hatzfeld, ed., Romanistische Stilforschung (1975); Roman Jakobson, “Linguistics and Poetics” (Sebeok); Chéris Kramarae, Women and Men Speaking (1981); Robin T. Lakoff, Language and Woman’s Place (1975); Language and Style (1968-); Jules Marouzeau, Précis de stylistique française (1946); Mary Louise Pratt, Toward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse (1977); Michael Riffaterre, “Criteria for Style Analysis,” Word 16 (1959), Essais de stylistique structurale (1971), Le Style des Pléiades de Gobineau (i957)/ “Stylistic Context,” Word 16 (i960); Thomas Sebeok, ed., Style in Language (i960); Herbert Seidler, Allgemeine Stilistik (2d ed., 1963); Barbara Herrnstein Smith, On the Margins of Discourse: The Relation of Literature to Language (1978); Leo Spitzer, “Les Études de style et les différents pays,” Langue et littérature: Actes du VIII Congrès de la Fédération Internationale des Langues et Littératures Modernes (1961), Linguistics and Literary History: Essays in Stylistics (1948), Leo Spitzer on Language and Literature: A Descriptive Bibliography (ed. E. Kristina Baer and Daisy E. Shenholm, 1991), Romanische Stil- und Literaturstudien (2 vols., 1931), Stilstudien (2 vols., 1928); Style (1967-); Stephen Ullman, Meaning and Style: Collected Papers (1973)· Richard W. Bailey and Dolores Μ. Burton, English Stylistics: A Bibliography of Stylistics and Helmut Hatzfeld, A Criistics Applied to the Ron and 1953-1965 (1966). Source: Groden, Michael, and Martin Kreiswirth. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

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Stylistics and Elements of Style in Literature

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Stylistics is a branch of applied linguistics ; it is the study of style in all texts, especially literary texts. Also called literary linguistics, stylistics focuses on the figures, tropes, and other rhetorical devices used to provide variety and a distinctness to someone's writing. It is linguistic analysis plus literary criticism.

According to Katie Wales in " A Dictionary of Stylistics ," the goal of

"most stylistics is not simply to describe the formal features of texts for their own sake, but in order to show their functional significance for the interpretation of the text; or in order to relate literary effects to linguistic 'causes' where these are felt to be relevant."

Studying a text closely helps to unearth layers of meaning that run deeper than just the basic plot, which happens on the surface level.

Elements of Style in Literature

In any literature or writing class, the elements of style studied in literary works will be discussed. These include:

Big-Picture Elements

• Character development: How a character changes throughout the story  
• Dialogue: Lines spoken or internal thoughts
• Foreshadowing: Hints dropped about what's going to happen later 
• Form: Whether something is poetry, prose, drama, a short story, a sonnet, etc.
• Imagery: Scenes set or items shown with descriptive words 
• Irony: An occurrence that's the opposite of what's expected 
• Juxtaposition: Putting two elements together to compare or contrast them 
• Mood: The atmosphere of a work, the attitude of the narrator 
• Pacing: How quickly the narration unfolds 
• Point of view: The narrator's perspective; first person (I) or third person (he or she) 
• Structure: How a story is told (beginning, action, climax, denouement) or how a piece is organized (introduction, main body, conclusion vs. reverse-pyramid journalistic style) 
• Symbolism: Using an element of the story to represent something else  
• Theme: A message delivered by or shown in a work; its central topic or big idea
• Tone: The writer's attitude toward the subject or manner with choosing vocabulary and presenting information, such as informal or formal

Line-by-Line Elements

• Alliteration: Close repetition of consonants, used for effect
• Assonance: Close repetition of vowels, used for effect
• Colloquialisms: Informal words, such as slang and regional terms
• Diction: The correctness of the overall grammar (big picture) or how characters speak, such as with an accent or with poor grammar
• Jargon: Terms specific to a certain field
• Metaphor: A means to compare two elements (Can also be big-picture if an entire story or scene is laid out to show a parallel with something else) 
• Repetition: Using the same words or phrases in a short amount of time for emphasis 
• Rhyme: When the same sounds appear in two or more words
• Rhythm: having a musicality to the writing such as by using stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry or sentence variety or repetition in a paragraph
• Sentence variety: Variation in the structure and length of consecutive sentences 
• Syntax: The arrangement of words in a sentence

Elements of style are the characteristics of the language used in the written work, and stylistics is their study. How an author uses them is what makes one writer's work distinct from another, from Henry James to Mark Twain to Virginia Woolf. An author's way of using the elements creates their distinct writing voice.

Why Studying Literature Is Useful

To compare to sports: a baseball pitcher studies how to properly grip and throw a pitch a certain way to make the ball go in a certain location and to create a game plan based on a lineup of specific hitters. Studying writing and literature helps people to learn how to improve their writing (and thus communication skills) as well as to learn empathy and the human condition.

By becoming wrapped up in a character's thoughts and actions in a book, story, or poem, people experience that narrator's point of view and can draw on that knowledge and those feelings when interacting with others in real life who might have similar thought processes or actions.

Stylisticians

In many ways, stylistics is an interdisciplinarity study of textual interpretations, using both language comprehension and an understanding of social dynamics.

There are various overlapping subdisciplines of stylistics, and a person who studies any of these is known as a stylistician:

• Literary stylistics: Studying forms, such as poetry, drama, and prose
• Interpretive stylistics: How the linguistic elements work to create meaningful art
• Evaluative stylistics: How an author's style works—or doesn't—in the work
• Corpus stylistics: Studying the frequency of various elements in a text, such as to determine the authenticity of a manuscript
• Discourse stylistics: How language in use creates meaning, such as studying parallelism, assonance, alliteration, and rhyme
• Feminist stylistics: Commonalities among women's writing, how writing is engendered, and how women's writing is read differently than men's
• Computational stylistics: Using computers to analyze a text and determine a writer's style
• Cognitive stylistics: The study of what happens in the mind when it encounters language

A stylistician's textual analysis is influenced by rhetorical reasoning and history.

Michael Burke describes the field in " The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics " as an empirical or forensic discourse critique, wherein the stylistician is

"a person who with his/her detailed knowledge of the workings of morphology, phonology, lexis, syntax, semantics, and various discourse and pragmatic models, goes in search of language-based evidence in order to support or indeed challenge the subjective interpretations and evaluations of various critics and cultural commentators."

Burke paints stylisticians as Sherlock Holmes-type characters who have expertise in grammar and rhetoric and a love of literature and other creative texts, picking apart the details on how they operate piece by piece—observing style as it informs meaning, as it informs comprehension.

Modern Understanding of Rhetoric

As far back as ancient Greece and philosophers like Aristotle, the study of rhetoric has been an important part of human communication and evolution. It's no wonder, then, that author Peter Barry uses rhetoric to define stylistics as "the modern version of the ancient discipline known as rhetoric," in his book " Beginning Theory ."

Barry goes on to say that rhetoric teaches

"its students how to structure an argument, how to make effective use of figures of speech, and generally how to pattern and vary a speech or a piece of writing so as to produce maximum impact."

He says that stylistics' analysis of these similar qualities—or rather how they are utilized—would, therefore, entail that stylistics is a modern interpretation of the ancient study.

However, he also notes that stylistics differs from simple close reading in the following ways:

"1. Close reading emphasizes differences between literary language and that of the general speech community. ...Stylistics, by contrast, emphasizes connections between literary language and everyday language.

"2. Stylistics uses specialized technical terms and concepts which derive from the science of linguistics, terms like 'transitivity,' 'under-lexicalisation,' 'collocation,' and 'cohesion'.

"3. Stylistics makes greater claims to scientific objectivity than does close reading, stressing that its methods and procedures can be learned and applied by all. Hence, its aim is partly the 'demystification' of both literature and criticism."

Stylistics argues for the universality of language usage while close reading hinges upon an observation of how this particular style and usage may vary from and thereby make an error relating to the norm. Stylistics, then, is the pursuit of understanding key elements of style that affect a given audience's interpretation of a text.

• Wales, Katie. "A Dictionary of Stylistics." Routledge,1990, New York.
• Burke, Michael, editor. "The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics." Routledge, 2014, New York.
• Barry, Peter. "Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory." Manchester University Press, Manchester, New York, 1995.
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stylistic analysis and criticism .  

Stylistics is a systematic and objective study of texts which adapts the methods and principles of linguistics to the analysis of literature. Stylistics developed out of the much older discipline of rhetoric, evolving hand-in-hand in the mid-20th century with other approaches that emphasize the analysis of formal elements in literary texts like those of the Brontës: formalism, New Criticism, structuralism, semiotics, and poetics. Stylistics typically does not produce an interpretation of the text, as the New Criticism does; rather, like formalism and structuralism, stylistic criticism is centrally concerned with the modes of signification that texts employ. In stylistics, this entails the taxonomic study of the significant linguistic features by which the text operates; stylistic analysis of a particular work will examine features such as diction, imagery, sound, syntax, rhythm, metaphors, and other figures, identifying and classifying them in a systematic fashion derived from the theories and concepts of modern linguistics.... ...

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Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
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• Reproducibility

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• Null hypothesis
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Research bias

• Optimism bias
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A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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Introduction: Pragmatic Literary Stylistics

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• Billy Clark  

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Pragmatics is an aspect of the study of language in use. It is concerned with how language users interact, communicate and interpret linguistic behaviour. Literary stylistics is the study of how close attention to language use can contribute to accounts of how texts are understood and evaluated. Yet despite the apparent overlaps and commonalities of interest between the two disciplines, there has, until now, been relatively little work that brings them together, or that explores the interface between them. This interface is central to the ten separate essays brought together in this volume, all representative of recent significant developments within the field that we are here naming ‘pragmatic literary stylistics’. 1

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Chapman, S., Clark, B. (2014). Introduction: Pragmatic Literary Stylistics. In: Chapman, S., Clark, B. (eds) Pragmatic Literary Stylistics. Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137023278_1

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Revisiting Style, a Key Concept in Literary Studies

Language and literary studies have studied style for centuries, and even since the advent of ›stylistics‹ as a discipline at the beginning of the twentieth century, definitions of ›style‹ have varied heavily across time, space and fields. Today, with increasingly large collections of literary texts being made available in digital form, computational approaches to literary style are proliferating. New methods from disciplines such as corpus linguistics and computer science are being adopted and adapted in interrelated fields such as computational stylistics and corpus stylistics, and are facilitating new approaches to literary style.

The relation between definitions of style in established linguistic or literary stylistics, and definitions of style in computational or corpus stylistics has not, however, been systematically assessed. This contribution aims to respond to the need to redefine style in the light of this new situation and to establish a clearer perception of both the overlap and the boundaries between ›mainstream‹ and ›computational‹ and/or ›empirical‹ literary stylistics. While stylistic studies of non-literary texts are currently flourishing, our contribution deliberately centers on those approaches relevant to ›literary stylistics‹. It concludes by proposing an operational definition of style that we hope can act as a common ground for diverse approaches to literary style, fostering transdisciplinary research.

The focus of this contribution is on literary style in linguistics and literary studies (rather than in art history, musicology or fashion), on textual aspects of style (rather than production- or reception-oriented theories of style), and on a descriptive perspective (rather than a prescriptive or didactic one). Even within these limits, however, it appears necessary to build on a broad understanding of the various perspectives on style that have been adopted at different times and in different traditions. For this reason, the contribution first traces the development of the notion of style in three different traditions, those of German, Dutch and French language and literary studies. Despite the numerous links between each other, and between each of them to the British and American traditions, these three traditions each have their proper dynamics, especially with regard to the convergence and/or confrontation between mainstream and computational stylistics. For reasons of space and coherence, the contribution is limited to theoretical developments occurring since 1945.

The contribution begins by briefly outlining the range of definitions of style that can be encountered across traditions today: style as revealing a higher-order aesthetic value, as the holistic ›gestalt‹ of single texts, as an expression of the individuality of an author, as an artifact presupposing choice among alternatives, as a deviation from a norm or reference, or as any formal property of a text. The contribution then traces the development of definitions of style in each of the three traditions mentioned, with the aim of giving a concise account of how, in each tradition, definitions of style have evolved over time, with special regard to the way such definitions relate to empirical, quantitative or otherwise computational approaches to style in literary texts. It will become apparent how, in each of the three traditions, foundational texts continue to influence current discussions on literary style, but also how stylistics has continuously reacted to broader developments in cultural and literary theory, and how empirical, quantitative or computational approaches have long ­existed, usually in parallel to or at the margins of mainstream stylistics. The review will also reflect the lines of discussion around style as a property of literary texts – or of any textual entity in general.

The perspective on three stylistic traditions is accompanied by a more systematic perspective. The rationale is to work towards a common ground for literary scholars and linguists when talking about (literary) style, across traditions of stylistics, with respect for established definitions of style, but also in light of the digital paradigm. Here, we first show to what extent, at similar or different moments in time, the three traditions have developed comparable positions on style, and which definitions out of the range of possible definitions have been proposed or promoted by which authors in each of the three traditions.

On the basis of this synthesis, we then conclude by proposing an operational definition of style that is an attempt to provide a common ground for both mainstream and computational literary stylistics. This definition is discussed in some detail in order to explain not only what is meant by each term in the definition, but also how it relates to computational analyses of style – and how this definition aims to avoid some of the pitfalls that can be perceived in earlier definitions of style. Our definition, we hope, will be put to use by a new generation of computational, quantitative, and empirical studies of style in literary texts.

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Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

• Sample Literature Reviews
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• Finding "The Literature"
• Organizing/Writing
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Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts

Have an exemplary literature review.

Note: These are sample literature reviews from a class that were given to us by an instructor when APA 6th edition was still in effect. These were excellent papers from her class, but it does not mean they are perfect or contain no errors. Thanks to the students who let us post!

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• Literature Review Sample 2
• Literature Review Sample 3

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SOC 200 - Sims: How to Write a Lit Review

• What are Literature Reviews?
• How to Write a Lit Review
• How to Choose a Topic
• Finding the Literature

How to write a literature review

Below are the steps you should follow when crafting a lit review for your class assignment.

• It's preferable if you can select a topic that you find interesting, because this will make the work seem less like work. 
• It's also important to select a topic that many researchers have already explored. This way, you'll actually have "literature" to "review."
• Sometimes, doing a very general search and reading other literature reviews can reveal a topic or avenue of research to you. 
• It's important to gain an understanding of your topic's research history, in order to properly comprehend how and why the current (emerging) research exists.
• One trick is to look at the References (aka Bibliographies aka Works Cited pages) of any especially relevant articles, in order to expand your search for those same sources. This is because there is often overlap between works, and if you're paying attention, one source can point you to several others.
• One method is to start with the most recently-published research and then use their citations to identify older research, allowing you to piece together a timeline and work backwards. 
• Chronologically : discuss the literature in order of its writing/publication. This will demonstrate a change in trends over time, and/or detail a history of controversy in the field, and/or illustrate developments in the field.
• Thematically : group your sources by subject or theme. This will show the variety of angels from which your topic has been studied. This method works well if you are trying to identify a sub-topic that has so far been overlooked by other researchers.
• Methodologically : group your sources by methodology. For example, divide the literature into categories like qualitative versus quantitative, or by population or geographical region, etc. 
• Theoretically : group your sources by theoretical lens. Your textbook should have a section(s) dedicated to the various theories in your field. If you're unsure, you should ask your professor.
• Are there disagreements on some issues, and consensus on others?
• How does this impact the path of research and discovery?
• Many articles will have a Limitations section, or a Discussion section, wherein suggestions are provided for next steps to further the research.
• These are goldmines for helping you see a possible outlook of the situation. 
• Identifying any gaps in the literature that are of a particular interest to your research goals will help you justify why your own research should be performed. 
• Be selective about which points from the source you use. The information should be the most important and the most relevant. 
• Use direct quotes sparingly, and don't rely too heavily on summaries and paraphrasing. You should be drawing conclusions about how the literature relates to your own analysis or the other literature. 
• Synthesize your sources. The goal is not to make a list of summaries, but to show how the sources relate to one another and to your own analysis. 
• At the end, make suggestions for future research. What subjects, populations, methodologies, or theoretical lenses warrant further exploration? What common flaws or biases did you identify that could be corrected in future studies? 
• Common citation styles for sociology classes include APA and ASA.

Understanding how a literature review is structured will help you as you craft your own. 

Below is information and example articles that you should review, in order to comprehend why they are written a certain way.

Below are some very good examples of Literature Reviews:

Cyberbullying: How Physical Intimidation Influences the Way People are Bullied

Use of Propofol and Emergence Agitation in Children

Eternity and Immortality in Spinoza's 'Ethics'

As you read these, take note of the sections that comprise the main structure of each one:

• Introduction 
• Summarize sources
• Synthesize sources

Below are some articles that provide very good examples of an "Introduction" section, which includes a "Review of the Literature."

• Sometimes, there is both an Introduction section, and a separate Review of the Literature section (oftentimes, it simply depends on the publication)

Krimm, H., & Lund, E. (2021). Efficacy of online learning modules for teaching dialogic reading strategies and phonemic awareness.  Language, Speech & Hearing Services in Schools,  52 (4), 1020-1030.  https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_LSHSS-21-00011

Melfsen, S., Jans, T., Romanos, M., & Walitza, S. (2022). Emotion regulation in selective mutism: A comparison group study in children and adolescents with selective mutism.  Journal of Psychiatric Research,  151 , 710-715.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2022.05.040

Citation Resources

• MU Library's Citing Sources page
• Purdue OWL's APA Guide
• APA Citation Style - Quick Guide
• Purdue OWL's ASA Guide
• ASA Citation Style - Quick Tips

Suggested Reading

• How to: Conduct a Lit Review (from Central Michigan University)
• Purdue OWL Writing Lab's Advice for Writing a Lit Review

How to Read a Scholarly Article

 read:.

• Things to consider when reading a scholarly article This helpful guide, from Meriam Library at California State University in Chico, explains what a scholarly article is and provides tips for reading them.

  Watch:

• How to read a scholarly article (YouTube) This tutorial, from Western University, quickly and efficiently describes how to read a scholarly article.
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Journal of Tourismology

Araştırma makalesi, sociology and tourism: a systematic literature review.

This study examines how tourism sociology research has evolved, provides a summary of the pertinent field, and potential directions of interest for future research. To identify key turning points in the history of tourism sociology, such as phases of development, theories, techniques, premises, and outcomes, a systematic literature review was conducted. Using several keywords, the Web of Science and Scopus databases were searched on February 16, 2024, yielding 799 articles. With consideration of the PRISMA methodology, the research analysis process involved 19 scientific papers. The results show that mass and authenticity were the primary concerns of the initial sociological approaches to tourism. Furthermore, the field has progressed significantly because of phenomena such as tourist typologies and the tourist gaze. However, most researchers appear to be preoccupied with debates over the evolution of tourism theory, whether tourism is a discipline, and the need for scientific methodologies. Therefore, to advance the field and set itself apart from other academic specialties, tourism academics must resolve a few common problems. 

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Biçimlendirilmiş bir atıfı kopyalayıp yapıştırın veya seçtiğiniz biçimde dışa aktarmak için seçeneklerden birini kullanın

Atasoy , B . ( 2024 ). Sociology and Tourism: A Systematic Literature Review . Journal of Tourismology , 0 ( 0 ) , - . https://doi.org/10.26650/jot.2024.10.2.1452270

Atasoy B . Sociology and Tourism: A Systematic Literature Review . Journal of Tourismology . 2024 ; 0 ( 0 ): - . https://doi.org/10.26650/jot.2024.10.2.1452270

Atasoy , B . Sociology and Tourism: A Systematic Literature Review . Journal of Tourismology , [Publisher Location], v. 0 , n. 0 , p. - , 2024 .

Chicago: Author-Date Style

Atasoy , Burak , . 2024 . “ Sociology and Tourism: A Systematic Literature Review .” Journal of Tourismology 0 , no. 0 : - . https://doi.org/10.26650/jot.2024.10.2.1452270

Chicago: Humanities Style

Atasoy , Burak , . “ Sociology and Tourism: A Systematic Literature Review .” Journal of Tourismology 0 , no. 0 ( Sep. 2024 ): - . https://doi.org/10.26650/jot.2024.10.2.1452270

Harvard: Australian Style

Atasoy , B 2024 , ' Sociology and Tourism: A Systematic Literature Review ', Journal of Tourismology , vol. 0 , no. 0 , pp. - , viewed 29 Sep. 2024 , https://doi.org/10.26650/jot.2024.10.2.1452270

Harvard: Author-Date Style

Atasoy , B . ( 2024 ) ‘ Sociology and Tourism: A Systematic Literature Review ’, Journal of Tourismology , 0 ( 0 ), pp. - . https://doi.org/10.26650/jot.2024.10.2.1452270 ( 29 Sep. 2024 ).

Atasoy , Burak , . “ Sociology and Tourism: A Systematic Literature Review .” Journal of Tourismology , vol. 0 , no. 0 , 2024 , pp. - . [Database Container], https://doi.org/10.26650/jot.2024.10.2.1452270

Atasoy B . Sociology and Tourism: A Systematic Literature Review . Journal of Tourismology [Internet]. 29 Sep. 2024 [cited 29 Sep. 2024 ]; 0 ( 0 ): - . Available from: https://doi.org/10.26650/jot.2024.10.2.1452270 doi: 10.26650/jot.2024.10.2.1452270

Atasoy , Burak . “ Sociology and Tourism: A Systematic Literature Review ”. Journal of Tourismology 0 / 0 ( Sep. 2024 ): - . https://doi.org/10.26650/jot.2024.10.2.1452270

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The efficacy of probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics in children and adolescents with overweight or obesity remains uncertain. This systematic review evaluates their intervention effects through a network meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials (RCTs). Searches of 4 electronic databases until January 7, 2024, yielded 17 papers reporting on 15 RCTs involving 820 participants. Multiple-strain probiotics (MSP) showed significant efficacy in reducing BMI (Mean Difference (MD) −2.13 kg/m 2 , 95% credible interval (CrI) [−2.7, −1.57]), waist circumference (MD −1.34 cm, 95% CrI [−2.33, −0.35]), total cholesterol (MD −6.55 mg/dL, 95% CrI [−10.61, −2.45]), triglycerides (MD −3.71 mg/dL, 95% CrI [−5.76, −1.67]), leptin (MD −3.99 ng/mL, 95% CrI [−4.68, −3.3]), and hypersensitive C-reactive protein (Hs-CRP) (MD −1.21 mg/L, 95% CrI [−1.45, −0.97]). Synbiotics were effective in reducing BMI-z score (MD −0.07, 95% CrI [−0.10, −0.04]) and LDL-C (MD −1.54 mg/dL, 95% CrI [−1.98, −1.09]) but led to a slight increase in fasting glucose (MD 1.12 mg/dL, 95% CrI [0.75, 1.49]). Single-ingredient prebiotics and single-strain probiotics also had some beneficial effects on BMI and Hs-CRP, respectively. Moderate to low evidence suggests MSP may be a potential choice for improving BMI and reducing lipids, leptin, and Hs-CRP levels, implying that MSP could aid in managing pediatric obesity and related metabolic issues by modulating the gut microbiota. Although synbiotics show their favorable effects on body metrics and lipid control, their potential impact on blood glucose currently prevents them from being an alternative to MSP for treating pediatric obesity. Further large-scale, well-designed studies are needed to confirm these findings.

• Pediatric obesity
• weight reduction
• obesity-related metabolic abnormality

Over the past four decades, the prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity has increased eightfold globally, as estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) (NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)) Citation 2017 ). This high prevalence rate is observed not only in high-income countries but also in low- and middle-income countries, including China (NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)) Citation 2017 ; Dong et al. Citation 2019 ). In 2017, a cross-sectional survey of Chinese school-aged children and adolescents revealed that more than 25% of students had overweight or obesity (Zhu et al. Citation 2019 ). Children and adolescents with obesity are not only vulnerable to various physical and psychological health implications (Pulgaron Citation 2013 ; Steinbeck et al. Citation 2018 ), but also a significant proportion of them are likely to carry excess adiposity into adulthood. This poses a threat to their adult health and longevity due to an increased risk of cardiometabolic diseases and certain types of cancer (Geng et al. Citation 2018 ; Berger Citation 2018 ).

To address childhood and adolescent obesity, behavioral strategies, such as modifying dietary intake and quality and increasing physical activity levels are commonly employed as standard approaches. Despite being recommended by esteemed organizations like the European Society of Endocrinology and the Pediatric Endocrine Society (Styne et al. Citation 2017 ), these interventions have yielded unsatisfactory outcomes in terms of weight reduction (Brown et al. Citation 2019 ). Combining dietary modifications with physical activity interventions only resulted in a slight reduction in BMI-z score (−0.05; 95% confidence interval (CI), −0.10 to −0.01) among children aged 6–12 years, with no significant impact on BMI itself (Brown et al. Citation 2019 ).

In recent years, multidisciplinary behavioral interventions incorporating lifestyle modifications, trained case managers, health education, physical activity promotion, caregiver involvement, monitoring, and feedback have emerged as integral components of obesity treatment for children and adolescents (Kornet-van der Aa et al. Citation 2017 ; Thomason et al. Citation 2016 ). These comprehensive approaches have demonstrated effectiveness in reducing mean BMI and obesity prevalence among primary school children (Liu et al. Citation 2022 ), suggesting their superiority over single-intervention approaches (Feng et al. Citation 2017 ). However, it is important to note that implementing multidisciplinary behavioral interventions requires various prerequisites, including coordination and cooperation among interdisciplinary teams, professional training, and necessary equipment, all of which may serve as barriers to integrating evidence-based practices into routine service delivery (Jebeile et al. Citation 2022 ).

Furthermore, in adolescents with severe obesity who demonstrate suboptimal responses to multidisciplinary behavioral interventions, pharmacological interventions may be considered as adjunctive measures (Styne et al. Citation 2017 ). In case of adolescent with severe obesity, bariatric surgery emerges as the most effective treatment option (Cardel et al. Citation 2020 ). However, the potential adverse effects of anti-obesity drugs, long-term complications, and the complex post-operative care associated with bariatric surgery often restrict their utilization (Cardel et al. Citation 2020 ; Inge et al. Citation 2019 ).

In addition to well-established factors such as genetic susceptibilities, excessive energy intake, poor eating habits, and physical inactivity (Jebeile et al. Citation 2022 ), recent research has underscored the significant role of gut microbes in the development of obesity (Wang, Yan, et al. Citation 2023 ). Compared to lean individuals, people with obesity exhibit decreased microbial diversity and richness (Le Chatelier et al. Citation 2013 ; Vallianou et al. Citation 2019 ), along with elevated levels of Firmicutes and reduced levels of Bacteroidetes (Bervoets et al. Citation 2013 ; Kalliomäki et al. Citation 2008 ; Indiani et al. Citation 2018 ). Consequently, strategies aimed at modulating the gut microbiome and associated metabolic changes have emerged as potential therapeutic avenues (Aron-Wisnewsky et al. Citation 2021 ). In clinical practice, the oral administration of probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics represents a convenient approach. In adult populations, with overweight and obesity, both probiotics and synbiotics (combinations of probiotics and prebiotics that confer benefits to the host) have been shown to aid in weight loss (Álvarez-Arraño and Martín-Peláez Citation 2021 ). However, there is limited research on the use of probiotics for treating obesity in children and adolescents (Loy et al. Citation 2023 ), and ongoing debate persists in this area (Borka Balas et al. Citation 2023 ). Therefore, the modulation of gut microbiota has become a focal point in pediatric obesity treatment (Borka Balas et al. Citation 2023 ; Wang, Yan, et al. Citation 2023 ). The present systematic review and network meta-analysis (NMA) aimed to assess the intervention effects of probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics on children and adolescents with overweight or obesity.

Search strategy and selection criteria

We registered our protocol with PROSPERO (Registration Number: CRD42024500052 ). Electronic databases including PUBMED, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library were systematically searched from inception to 7 January 2024, to identify published RCTs employing probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics alone or in combination for the treatment of overweight or obesity in children and adolescents. These interventions were compared to control groups, with no intervention, placebo, or each other (the detailed search strategy is provided in supplementary 2). Additionally, reference lists of eligible trials and related reviews were screened to identify additional RCTs meeting the inclusion criteria. The network meta-analysis was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) extension statement for reporting systematic reviews incorporating NMA (Hutton et al. Citation 2015 ) (Supplementary 3).

Literature screening was independently conducted by two reviewers (L.Z. and F.W.). Discrepancies were resolved through discussion, and if needed, by consulting a third reviewer (P.J.L. or R.W.). Eligible trials included those utilizing any probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics for the treatment of overweight or obesity in children and/or adolescents (aged 2–18 years). The inclusion criteria were as follows (Supplementary 1): (1) Children and adolescents (2–18 years) with simple overweight or obesity (diagnosed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria: A BMI above the 85th or 95th percentiles, respectively, of age- and sex-specific BMI values) (de Onis et al. Citation 2007 ). (2) trials with parallel or cross-over designs; If the trial was a crossover study, the outcomes at the end of the first phase (before the crossover) were analyzed. (3) trials with intervention durations of 4 wks or more; (4) trials with outcome measurements encompassing at least one of the following parameters: weight, BMI, BMI-z score, waist circumference (WC), blood lipid profiles (total cholesterol [TC], triglyceride [TG], low-density lipoprotein cholesterol [LDL-C], and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol [HDL-C]), fasting insulin, fasting glucose, homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), C-reactive protein (CRP) or hypersensitive C-reactive protein (Hs-CRP), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6), leptin, and adiponectin; and (5) trials utilizing single-strain probiotics (SSP), multiple-strains probiotics (MSP), single-ingredient prebiotic (SIP) (including inulin, galactooligosaccharides, fructo-oligosaccharides, and human milk oligosaccharides), compound prebiotics, or any type of synbiotics (SYN).

The following types of studies were excluded: (1) cross-sectional, cohort or case-control studies, reviews, meta-analyses, case reports, and animal or cell experiments; (2) children and/or adolescents with known mental/psychological, congenital (e.g., prader-willi syndrome) or endocrine diseases (e.g., Cushing’s syndrome); (3) trials concurrently using any anti-obesity drug (e.g., Olistat, or Liraglutide); (4) children or adolescents who had undergone bariatric surgery; and (5) trials with fewer than 10 participants in the intervention or control group used for data analysis. The excluded studies and reasons are presented in Supplementary 4.

Outcome measures

Primary outcomes.

The primary outcome measures included BMI-z score, BMI, serum lipid profiles (total cholesterol [TC], triglycerides [TG], high-density lipoprotein cholesterol [HDL-C], and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol [LDL-C] in mg/dL), homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), and glucose levels (mg/dL).

Secondary outcomes

Secondary outcome measures comprised waist circumference (WC in cm), weight (kg), waist-hip ratio (WHR), fasting insulin levels (μU/mL), leptin (ng/mL), adiponectin (μg/mL), C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in mg/L, hypersensitive C-reactive protein (Hs-CRP) levels in mg/L, waist-height ratio (WHtR), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) in pg/mL, and interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels in pg/mL.

Data extraction and assessment of risk of bias

Name of the first author, publication year, and country of study;

Sample size, mean age, and duration of intervention;

Study design, intervention method for each group, and outcome measurements.

Adherence/Compliance assessment was presented in Supplementary 6. Data were extracted by L.Z. and examined by P.J.L. for any potential errors.

Two reviewers (P.J.L. and R.W.) independently assessed the risk of bias using the Cochrane Collaboration Tool (Higgins et al. Citation 2019 ). Discrepancies were resolved through discussion, with consultation from a third reviewer (L.Z. or F.W.) if necessary. Trials were evaluated for low or high bias or deemed to have an unclear risk based on the following domains: sequence generation, allocation concealment, participant blinding, personnel and outcome assessors, outcome assessment blinding, incomplete outcome data, selective outcome reporting, and other potential sources of bias.

Data synthesis and statistical analysis

Relevant data were systematically extracted from eligible original randomized controlled trials (RCTs) covering anthropometric measures (BMI, BMI-z score, WC, WHR, WHtR, Weight), metabolic parameters (glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR, TC, TG, HDL, LDL), markers of inflammation (CRP, Hs-CRP, TNF-α, IL-6), and protein hormones (adiponectin, leptin). Mean Difference (MD) with standardized units was used to pool effect estimates post-intervention. Standard deviation (SD) was calculated from the Standard Error of the Mean (SEM) using the Formula A , and the pooled standard deviation (SD) was determined using the Formula B . Data extraction was conducted independently by two authors (L.Z. and P.J.L.).

Following a comprehensive data review, WHtR, TNF-α, and IL-6 were excluded from NMA due to insufficient analyzable data. Consequently, the remaining 16 outcome categories were selected for subsequent network comparison, as illustrated in graphical network plots ( Figure 1A–F and Supplementary 13). Plot sizes were proportional to participant numbers, while the widths of connection lines reflected the number of studies.

Figure 1. Network plots results for the primary outcomes. (A) Network plots display comparisons between treatments for BMI-Z. (B) Network plots illustrate comparisons between treatments for BMI. (C) Network plots show comparisons between treatments for Total Cholesterol. (D) Network plots demonstrate comparisons between treatments for Triglycerides. (E) Network plots illustrate comparisons between treatments for HOMA-IR. (F) Network plots display comparisons between treatments for Glucose. These plots include nodes and lines, with node size representing participant numbers, and line width indicating the number of studies between comparisons (study numbers are labeled near the lines).

We conducted both traditional pair-wise and Bayesian Network meta-analyses using Stata (Version14) and R (Version 4.3.1) software with the gemtc package for original analyses. Model selection was guided by heterogeneity ( I 2 ) and the Deviance Information Criterion (DIC), a parameter providing a comprehensive indication of model fit and complexity, as detailed in Supplementary 7. In brief, model selection was determined by the direction of a significantly smaller DIC (a DIC differential greater than 3 was considered significant). When I 2 was less than 25% or when there was no significantly smaller DIC in model comparisons, summary MD and 95% credible intervals (CrI) were estimated using the fixed-effects model; otherwise, the random-effects model was applied.

Consequently, all comparisons were conducted using the fixed-effects model, except for HDL and Weight data, which were analyzed using the random-effects models.

Bayesian network meta-analysis construction utilized the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation technique (Toft et al. Citation 2007 ). To ensure model stability and convergence, we ran four chains for 50,000 simulation iterations with 20,000 adaption iterations. The thinning interval was set to 10. Model convergence was assessed using trace and density plots, as well as Gelman-Rubin-Brooks figures (Supplementary 12).

Due to the absence of closed loops in any of our networks, assessing inconsistency between direct and indirect interventions was not feasible. Thus, all analyses were considered consistent. Additionally, heterogeneity was assessed using the I 2 statistic, with values up to 50%, 75%, and 100% indicating moderate, high, and very high heterogeneity, respectively. In cases where I 2 >50%, we conducted sensitivity analyses to identify the source of heterogeneity. The sensitivity analysis included the “leave-one-out” approach, which involved excluding one study at a time to test the model stability of the comparisons and to pinpoint the source of heterogeneity. Furthermore, rank probabilities for each intervention based on the Surface Under the Cumulative Ranking Curve (SUCRA) values were calculated and presented (see Supplementary 9).

Quality of the evidence

The assessment of the certainty of evidence (CoE) was conducted using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) framework (Salanti et al. Citation 2014 ). Initially, all direct and indirect comparisons in the included RCTs were assigned an initial grade of 4. Subsequently, the weight assigned to each direct and indirect comparison in the network estimate, determined through the Risk of Bias (RoB) assessment, was incorporated to calculate the downgrading score (Salanti et al. Citation 2014 ). The downgrading due to limitation was rounded up to the nearest whole number. Other criteria for downgrading included considerations related to indirectness, inconsistency, heterogeneity, imprecision, and publication bias. Comprehensive results of the GRADE assessment, including rationales for downgrading, are available in Supplementary 10.

Result summary using the GRADE approach

We summarized the outcomes by incorporating GRADE assessments, significant differences, and SUCRA values to determine the most effective probiotics strategy for childhood obesity (Wang, Florez, et al. Citation 2023 ). Firstly, categories were created into two classes by GRADE: high/moderate CoE and low/very low CoE. Then, significant difference comparisons were divided into two groups: (1) direct comparison and at least one indirect comparison showing statistical significance (2) only direct comparison indicating significant differences. These two groups and their corresponding SUCRA scores were subsequently assigned to the two aforementioned GRADE classes ( Table 1(B) ). Table 1(A) defines the terms corresponding to this categorization. No rankings were assigned to non-significant results.

Table 1. A summary and effectiveness ranking for all statistically significant results in network analysis.

Literature search.

Our initial search strategies yielded a total of 1502 hits from Medline ( n  = 462), Embase ( n  = 574), Cochrane Library ( n  = 247), and Web of Science ( n  = 219). Additionally, nine relevant pieces of literature were identified from other sources. The selection process is depicted in the PRISMA flowchart ( Figure 2 ). Ultimately, 17 articles representing 15 RCTs were included in the Network Meta-Analysis (NMA).

Figure 2. The study selection process using PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) flow diagram.

Characteristics of included studies

The detailed characteristics of the included studies are summarized in Table 2 . All the included studies were parallel-design, controlled trials conducted in Canada (Hume, Nicolucci, and Reimer Citation 2017 ; Nicolucci et al. Citation 2017 ), China (Chen et al. Citation 2022 ), Denmark (Gøbel et al. Citation 2012 ), India (Goyal et al. Citation 2019 ), Iran (Atazadegan et al. Citation 2023 ; Famouri et al. Citation 2017 ; Kelishadi et al. Citation 2014 ; Kianifar et al. Citation 2018 ; Safavi et al. Citation 2013 ), Italy (Alisi et al. Citation 2014 ; Vajro et al. Citation 2011 ), Poland (Liber and Szajewska Citation 2014 ), Sli Lanka (Rodrigo et al. Citation 2022 ), Spain (Sanchis-Chordà et al. Citation 2019 ), Turkey (Ipar et al. Citation 2015 ; Kilic Yildirim et al. Citation 2022 ). A total of 820 children and adolescents with overweight or obesity (aged 5–18 years) were enrolled. The intervention duration ranged from 4 to 24 wks. The intervention methods used in the included trials were single-strain probiotics (SSP) (Sanchis-Chordà et al. Citation 2019 ; Vajro et al. Citation 2011 ; Gøbel et al. Citation 2012 ), multiple-strain probiotics (MSP) (Rodrigo et al. Citation 2022 ; Alisi et al. Citation 2014 ; Chen et al. Citation 2022 ; Famouri et al. Citation 2017 ; Goyal et al. Citation 2019 ), single-ingredient prebiotics (SIP) (Hume, Nicolucci, and Reimer Citation 2017 ; Nicolucci et al. Citation 2017 ; Liber and Szajewska Citation 2014 ), or synbiotics (SYN) (Ipar et al. Citation 2015 ; Kelishadi et al. Citation 2014 ; Safavi et al. Citation 2013 ; Kianifar et al. Citation 2018 ; Kilic Yildirim et al. Citation 2022 ; Atazadegan et al. Citation 2023 ). For the primary outcomes measures, 8 studies (Gøbel et al. Citation 2012 ; Kilic Yildirim et al. Citation 2022 ; Kianifar et al. Citation 2018 ; Liber and Szajewska Citation 2014 ; Safavi et al. Citation 2013 ; Sanchis-Chordà et al. Citation 2019 ; Vajro et al. Citation 2011 ; Goyal et al. Citation 2019 ) were related to BMI-z, and 7 studies (Alisi et al. Citation 2014 ; Atazadegan et al. Citation 2023 ; Chen et al. Citation 2022 ; Ipar et al. Citation 2015 ; Kilic Yildirim et al. Citation 2022 ; Nicolucci et al. Citation 2017 ; Goyal et al. Citation 2019 ) focused on BMI. Lipid measurements had more study numbers than BMI, with 8 studies for TC (Famouri et al. Citation 2017 ; Gøbel et al. Citation 2012 ; Ipar et al. Citation 2015 ; Kilic Yildirim et al. Citation 2022 ; Safavi et al. Citation 2013 ; Sanchis-Chordà et al. Citation 2019 ; Rodrigo et al. Citation 2022 ; Goyal et al. Citation 2019 ) and 9 studies for TG (Alisi et al. Citation 2014 ; Famouri et al. Citation 2017 ; Gøbel et al. Citation 2012 ; Ipar et al. Citation 2015 ; Kilic Yildirim et al. Citation 2022 ; Safavi et al. Citation 2013 ; Sanchis-Chordà et al. Citation 2019 ; Rodrigo et al. Citation 2022 ; Goyal et al. Citation 2019 ). Glucose measurements were reported in 7 studies (Chen et al. Citation 2022 ; Gøbel et al. Citation 2012 ; Kilic Yildirim et al. Citation 2022 ; Safavi et al. Citation 2013 ; Sanchis-Chordà et al. Citation 2019 ; Rodrigo et al. Citation 2022 ; Goyal et al. Citation 2019 ), and only 5 studies (Alisi et al. Citation 2014 ; Chen et al. Citation 2022 ; Gøbel et al. Citation 2012 ; Kilic Yildirim et al. Citation 2022 ; Sanchis-Chordà et al. Citation 2019 ) were relevant to HOMA-IR.

Table 2. Characteristics of included studies.

Quality assessment.

The risk of bias assessment revealed a high risk in the majority of included studies (60%), with only 6% exhibiting a low risk. The primary source of bias was “Incomplete outcome data,” identified in 40% of studies. Risks related to “Allocation concealment,” “Binding participants/assessment,” and “selective reporting” were also identified (6% for each) (see Supplementary 5).

We applied the GRADE approach to optimize the NMA results for interpretation. The CoE for each intervention comparison was summarized in Supplementary10, utilizing categories of High, Moderate, Low, and Very Low. High and Moderate evidence with significant differences were considered the most reliable results. Overall, the CoE is low, with some moderate and very low confidence appearing intermittently.

Convergence assessment indicates that the MCMC chains fit well. The chains show fusion-stabilization, and the overlap area accounts for most of the chain fluctuation range. There is no fluctuation identified from any single chain through the trace plots by the naked eye. All 4 chains converge to normal distribution density plots in all observation results (see Supplementary 12, left), and Bandwidth values trend toward stability (close to 0). The Brooks-Gelman-Rubin diagnosis plot reveals that the median and 97.5% shrink factor both trend toward 1 (see Supplementary 12), and the PSRF value (the Potential Scale Reduction Factor) is also equal to 1 in any outcome measures (PSRF < 1.05(van Valkenhoef et al. Citation 2012 ) is considered convergence for Markov chain). These results suggest our model used for NMA analysis satisfies convergence criteria.

No evidence of publication bias was identified in this analysis. These findings are detailed in Supplementary 16.

The intervention efficacy for anthropometrics

We analyzed all anthropometric measures related to BMI, BMI-z score, WC, WHR, WHtR, and Weight, as previously mentioned. The network plots are presented in Figure 1(A,B) for BMI-z score & BMI, while the others are demonstrated in Supplementary 14.

In the analysis of BMI-z score involving 8 studies with 401 participants and 4 comparisons, all results were derived from direct comparisons, and no statistical heterogeneity was observed ( I 2 = 0%, p  > .5). The Network plot is visually represented in Figure 1(A) and Table 3(A) (Bottom left) presents the NMA results. SYN was the only intervention that significantly reduced the BMI-z score (MD −0.07, 95% CrI [−0.10, −0.04], p  < .00001, Low certainty) compared to the placebo ( Table 3(A) , Bottom left). No other significant intervention outcomes were observed in direct and indirect comparisons.

Table 3. The league table for network analysis of primary outcomes.

In the analysis of BMI involving 390 participants in 7 studies with 3 direct intervention comparisons ( Figure 1(B) ), there was no significant heterogeneity between studies (range from I 2 = 0%-21%). Network plots ( Figure 1(B) ) and NMA results ( Table 3(A) , upper right) are visually depicted. MSP (MD −2.13 kg/m 2 , 95% CrI [−2.70, −1.57], p  < .00001, Low certainty) and SIP (MD = −0.71 kg/m 2 , 95% CrI [−1.26, −0.15], Moderate certainty) demonstrated significant improvements compared to the placebo. In indirect results, MSP also showed significant improvement compared to SIP (MD −1.43 kg/m 2 , 95% CrI [−2.22, −0.64], Low certainty) and SYN (MD −2.09 kg/m 2 , 95% CrI [−2.77, −1.42]).

The secondary outcomes are demonstrated in Supplementary 8, 9, 11, 13, and 15. No significant heterogeneity was observed, except in the comparison between Placebo and SYN in Weight (I 2 = 82%). Significant results were only identified between MSP and placebo in WC measure (MD −1.34 cm, 95% CrI [−2.33, −0.35], p  = .008, Very low certainty).

The measure related to the WHtR could not be analyzed using the network analysis due to only 2 studies demonstrating the comparison between Placebo and SYN. Consequently, we only conducted a pair-wise meta-analysis for this measure. Our results did not show a significant difference ( p  = .98, I 2 = 35%) (Supplementary 11).

The intervention efficacy for metabolic measurements

Lipid metabolic analysis.

Lipid metabolic analysis for TC and TG involved 8 studies (494 participants and 3 direct comparisons) and 9 studies (538 participants and 3 direct comparisons), respectively. There was no significant heterogeneity in these measurements (see Supplementary 11). The Network plots for TC and TG are illustrated in Figure 1(C,D) , respectively. The results of the NMA for lipid indexes are presented in Table 3(B) (bottom left for TC; upper right for TG). SYN significantly decreased TC levels compared to the Placebo (MD −4.17 mg/dL, 95% CrI [−5.43, −2.89], p  < .00001, Low certainty, I 2 = 0%). Moreover, MSP also demonstrated a significant decrease in TC compared to the placebo (MD −6.55 mg/dL, 95% CrI [−10.61, −2.45], p  = .001, Moderate Certainty, I 2 = 0%). No other statistically significant findings or heterogeneity were identified in direct and indirect comparisons for these measures. In the TG network analysis ( Table 3(B) , upper right), only significant results were found between MSP and placebo (MD −3.71 mg/dL, 95% CrI [−5.76, −1.67], p  = .0004, Low certainty, I 2 = 35%).

HDL-C and LDL-C as the secondary outcomes were also tested using network analysis presented in Supplementary 8, 9, 11, 13, and 15. Only moderate heterogeneity was identified between the comparison of placebo vs SYN in HDL-C (I 2 = 69%) (Supplementary 11). Network plots were illustrated in Supplementary 13. Significant results were identified between SYN vs placebo in the LDL-C measure (MD −1.54 mg/dL, 95% CrI [−1.98, −1.09], p  < .00001, Very low certainty).

Glucose metabolic analysis

An examination of 5 studies, comprising 256 participants and 3 direct comparisons, was conducted for HOMA-IR. No heterogeneity was observed in any of the comparisons (I 2 = 0). The network plot illustrates direct comparisons against placebo without indirect comparisons ( Figure 1(E) ). However, no statistically significant improvement was discerned in the league table ( Table 3(C) , bottom left).

For Glucose, 7 studies with 406 participants and 3 direct comparisons were included. No indirect comparisons were made ( Figure 1(F) ). High heterogeneity exists in Placebo vs MSP (I 2 =63%). The Network plot is depicted in Figure 1(F) , and the league table ( Table 3(C) , upper right) revealed statistical significance between SYN and placebo (MD 1.118 mg/dL, 95% CrI [0.748, 1.487], p  < .00001, low certainty).

Insulin network analysis indicates neither a statistically significant effective difference nor significant heterogeneity exists (Supplementary 8).

The intervention efficacy for protein peptide and inflammation factors

Additional analyses were performed on various indexes including protein hormones and inflammation factors using NMA. Results are detailed in the Supplementary 8, 9, 11, 13, and 15. There is only one study for each comparison related to protein hormones (Supplementary 13). Significant improvements were observed in MSP vs placebo related to leptin (MD −3.99 ng/mL, 95% CrI [−4.68, −3.3], p  < .00001). However, no significant difference was observed in the measure for adiponectin (Supplementary 8).

For inflammation factors, all direct comparisons (SYN vs P: MD −0.79 mg/L, 95% CrI [−0.96, −0.62], p  < .00001; SSP vs P: MD −2.24 mg/L, 95% CrI [−4.15, −0.31], p  < .05; MSP vs P: MD −1.21 mg/L, 95% CrI [−1.45, −0.97], p  < .00001) and indirect comparison of SYN vs MSP (MD 0.42 mg/L, 95% CrI [0.13, 0.71]) indicate a significant difference in Hs-CRP. However, no statistical significance exists in CRP (Supplementary 8).

Only 2 studies (Gøbel et al. Citation 2012 ; Vajro et al. Citation 2011 ) compared the SSP with placebo for TNF-α, neither statistical significance was observed in effects difference nor heterogeneity. On the other hand, there is only 1 study (Gøbel et al. Citation 2012 ) that compared SSP with placebo for IL-6, as a result, we cannot make a meta-analysis for this measurement.

Results summary and ranking

All statistically significant differences were summarized in Table 1 , and interventions were ranked by integrating statistical results with GRADE and SURCA ( Table 1(A,B) ). Our results identified MSP as the most effective intervention on BMI, TC, TG, MSP, Leptin, and Hs-CRP, implying its clinical potential for improving body metrics, metabolic measurements, and reducing inflammation. Additionally, SYN also proved to be the best intervention for BMI-z score and LDL-C, despite low certainty evidence indicating it may increase blood sugar levels. SSP and SIP also show improvements in Hs-CRP and BMI, respectively; however, the benefits seem to be moderate.

Sensitivity analysis

We conducted a “leave-one-out” approach for sensitivity analysis, which revealed that most measurements remained stable after this procedure. However, there were notable changes in some instances, particularly in the comparison between Placebo and SYN for weight measurement. Removing the study of Atazadegan et al. ( Citation 2023 ) resulted in a significant decrease in I 2 , from 82% to 0%. Further examination indicated that Atazadegan et al. ( Citation 2023 ) used 10 9 CFU, contrasting with other studies using 10 8 CFU or less, which could be considered a source of heterogeneity.

Similarly, in the comparison between placebo and SYN regarding HDL-C, excluding the study by Ipar et al. ( Citation 2015 ) led to a reduction in I 2 from 69% to 0%. Further investigation revealed that this study lacked blinding in its design, which could have contributed to significant heterogeneity in this comparison.

Additionally, removing the study by Rodrigo et al. ( Citation 2022 ) resulted in a decrease in I 2 from 63% to 0% in the comparison between Placebo and MSP for glucose measurement. Further review indicated that NASH participants were included in this study, which differed from other studies and may have contributed to the source of heterogeneity. However, after dropping this study, no changed in the pooled effect was observed.

In the past two decades, significant mechanistic insights have emerged regarding how the gut microbiota modulates host metabolism and weight status. These insights demonstrate that the microbiota influences the digestion, absorption, and metabolism of food, affecting body weight by regulating appetite, energy expenditure, storage, as well as hormonal and immune systems (Van Hul and Cani Citation 2023 ). Consequently, strategies aimed at modulating the intestinal microbiome to address metabolic abnormalities, such as supplementing probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics (Aron-Wisnewsky et al. Citation 2021 ), and fecal microbiome transfer (Leong et al. Citation 2020 ), have been explored as potential treatments for obesity in both adults and children.

While accumulating evidence supports the favorable effects of probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics on body adiposity (Pontes et al. Citation 2021 ; Hadi et al. Citation 2020 ), cardiovascular risk factors (Pontes et al. Citation 2021 ; Beserra et al. Citation 2015 ), and appetite-regulating hormones (Noormohammadi et al. Citation 2023 ), research on their application in childhood and adolescent obesity remains limited and controversial. Our present study systematically reviewed and quantitatively pooled data from 15 RCTs to assess the effects of supplementing probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics on obesity indices and cardiometabolic risk factors among children and adolescents with overweight or obesity. Specifically, we evaluated outcomes such as changes in BMI, waist circumference, lipid profiles, and inflammatory markers.

Regarding the methodology, to our knowledge, this review is the first to summarize the effects of these interventions on pediatric obesity using NMA. Our findings exhibit both similarities and differences with the two meta-analyses published thus far.

In our systematic review, we observed low certainty suggesting that supplementation with SYN was associated with a decrease in BMI-z score, total cholesterol (TC), and LDL-C, but with a slight increase in fasting blood glucose (FBG) compared to placebo. Meanwhile, MSP indicated decreased BMI, waist circumference (WC), TC, and triglycerides (TG) in direct comparisons, although with varying levels of certainty of evidence. However, neither MSP nor SYN significantly affected body weight, waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), fasting insulin, HOMA-IR, HDL-C, adiponectin, or C-reactive protein (CRP).

Interestingly, a meta-analysis by Mohammadi et al.(Mohammadi et al. Citation 2019 ) reported that supplementation with probiotics/SYN did not yield favorable effects on obesity indices (such as BMI-z score, WC, weight, or body fat), serum lipids, or FBG, although subgroup analysis suggested a significant reduction in BMI-z score with SYN in children and adolescents with overweight or obesity (Mohammadi et al. Citation 2019 ). Another meta-analysis revealed that probiotics supplementation was associated with a decrease in LDL-C, and TNF-α, but with an increase in BMI, HDL-C, and adiponectin (Li et al. Citation 2023 ), contradicting some of our results.

However, our findings align with Li et al. ( Citation 2023 ) ‘s study, which found that MSP was associated with a decreased level of leptin. Regarding Hs-CRP, our study found favorable effects for MSP, SYN, and SSP, whereas previous meta-analyses did not report on Hs-CRP (Li et al. Citation 2023 ; Mohammadi et al. Citation 2019 ). However, SSP did not show any other benefits in blood lipids, glucose metabolism indicators, or anthropometrics. Unfortunately, conclusive results on WHtR, TNF-α, and IL-6 were not obtained due to insufficient data for network analysis.

The variability in the findings delineated above could be ascribed to variations among the included studies, diverse probiotic attributes (e.g., distinct strains, species, and dosages), varying durations of interventions, geographical locations of participants, and lifestyle factors like dietary habits, which may impact the propagation and viability of probiotics, alongside the timing of their administration (Mohammadi et al. Citation 2019 ).

Regarding prebiotics, oligofructose has been linked to reduced weight and ghrelin levels (Parnell and Reimer Citation 2009 ), as well as suppressed appetite (Parnell and Reimer Citation 2009 ; Daud et al. Citation 2014 ), and increased plasma PYY concentrations (Daud et al. Citation 2014 ) in adults with overweight and obesity. Additionally, it has been shown to decrease serum TG and IL-6 levels and increase the abundance of fecal Bifidobacterium spp in children and adolescents with obesity (Nicolucci et al. Citation 2017 ). A recent meta-analysis has also indicated the beneficial effects of prebiotics on cardiovascular risk factors (Beserra et al. Citation 2015 ). However, due to the limited number of relevant studies involving pediatric populations, our study only incorporated two RCTs. Although our findings demonstrated that SIP (oligofructose) was associated with reduced BMI compared to placebo, this observation was derived from just one study (Nicolucci et al. Citation 2017 ), whereas another study (Liber and Szajewska Citation 2014 ) reported no effect on BMI-z score or body fat in children with overweight or obesity. Presently, there is no meta-analysis available on the effects of prebiotics alone on childhood and adolescent obesity, underscoring the necessity for further research in this area.

In addition to comparing intervention approaches with placebo, our study also identified that MSP was the most effective intervention in reducing BMI and Hs-CRP levels in childhood and adolescent obesity through indirect comparisons. In contrast to our findings, several reviews have suggested that SYN may yield superior outcomes regarding the recipients’ health compared to prebiotics or probiotics (Markowiak and Śliżewska Citation 2017 ; Gurry Citation 2017 ). Furthermore, a recent systematic review (Álvarez-Arraño and Martín-Peláez Citation 2021 ) has indicated that supplementing adults with overweight and obesity with probiotics or SYN could lead to comparable and significant weight loss, particularly with the genus Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium, especially when combined with lifestyle modifications, energy restriction, or active physical activity (Álvarez-Arraño and Martín-Peláez Citation 2021 ). The aforementioned discrepancies underscore the importance of investigating the roles of prebiotics, probiotics, and synbiotics in childhood obesity and its associated complications, and whether disparities exist among these three interventions.

Strengths and limitations

Our review represents the first systematic attempt to comprehensively summarize the effects of probiotics, synbiotics, and prebiotics on pediatric obesity using NMA. We conducted a thorough analysis of various obesity-related indicators and employed the GRADE approach to enhance the interpretation of outcomes.

However, our review is subject to several limitations primarily stemming from the current state of research in this field. Firstly, there is a notable scarcity of studies investigating the use of probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics in pediatric obesity compared to adult obesity. Secondly, the majority of included studies focused on MSP and synbiotics, with fewer trials involving SSP and prebiotics. Furthermore, no inter-probiotics comparisons were conducted. Thirdly, the variability in probiotic characteristics such as different strains, species, and doses presents a challenge in determining the most effective probiotic species or types of pre-/synbiotics, thereby leading to uncertainty in formulating clinical recommendations.

Implications for practice

Accumulating evidence underscores the crucial role of the gut microbiota in addressing obesity and associated metabolic abnormalities. Modulating the gut microbiota through supplementation with probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics presents a promising approach for managing pediatric obesity. Our network meta-analysis suggests that supplementation with probiotics or synbiotics could lead to favorable outcomes in terms of BMI and serum lipids among children and adolescents with overweight or obesity. When considering the BMI-z score, our study did not find a positive effect of probiotics or synbiotics, suggesting a need to differentiate between BMI and BMI-z score when it comes to interventions for children and adolescents with overweight or obesity. Because the change in BMI-z score does not necessarily reflect true changes in weight status or comorbidity risk, especially for children and adolescents with severe obesity, where BMI-z scores are condensed into a very limited range. In light of these challenges, alternative measures have been described by investigators, focusing on the percentage above the 95th percentile or the median for BMI, tailored to age and sex (Hampl et al. Citation 2023 ). In addition, among the included studies, all studies reported no side effects or no relevant reports, except for one trial (Hume, Nicolucci, and Reimer Citation 2017 ; Nicolucci et al. Citation 2017 ) in which participants in the prebiotic (oligofructose-enriched inulin) (25%) and placebo (28%) groups experienced a mild increase in flatulence and bloating. 5% and 11% of participants in the prebiotic and placebo groups, respectively, reported a moderate increase in flatulence and bloating. None of the participants belonging to either group reported a severe increase in flatulence and bloating. In future studies, attention should be paid to observing the possible side effects of prebiotics (oligofructose-enriched inulin). Nevertheless, establishing guidelines for clinical practice proves challenging due to the limited number of studies and the current low level of evidence currently available.

Implications for research

Although the association between gut microbiota and obesity has been predominantly elucidated in studies involving adults, research on the intervention of probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics in childhood obesity remains limited and yields varied outcomes. Further large-scale, well-designed studies are imperative to validate the effects of these interventions on pediatric obesity. Additionally, there is an urgent need to identify specific probiotic strains and types of prebiotics with safe and effective dosages for ameliorating pediatric obesity and associated metabolic abnormalities.

This systematic review and network meta-analysis provide a comprehensive overview of the efficacy of probiotics in addressing various outcomes associated with obesity. Moderate to low evidence suggests that MSP may represent the most effective option for improving BMI, and reducing lipids, leptin, and inflammatory levels. Synbiotics appear to excel in reducing BMI-z score and LDL-C levels, ranking second in terms of body metrics and lipid control, albeit potentially associated with a slight increase in blood sugar levels. On the other hand, SSP showed no significant benefits aside from reducing Hs-CRP levels, while the effects of SIP on BMI were observed in only one study. It is important to note that the current conclusions primarily stem from direct comparative data derived from a limited number of RCTs. Therefore, further large-scale, well-designed studies are warranted to validate the effects of probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics on pediatric obesity in the future.

Authors contributions

P.J.L. and L.Z. conceptualized the study and reviewed the manuscript for intellectual content. F.W. and R.W. collected the data. L.Z. and R.W. performed the statistical analysis. F.W., P.J.L. and L.Z. wrote the manuscript. L.Z. and B.S. adjusted all figures, tables, and graphs in the manuscript and supplementary materials, P.J.L, L.Z., F.W. and B.S. revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Supplementary materials.pdf

Acknowledgment.

The authors thank Guannan Luan for helping with the literature search process.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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