How to conduct a literature review with ATLAS.ti

Who this article is for

Anyone who wants to use ATLAS.ti to conduct a literature review, systematic review, scoping review, narrative review, critical review, or another review of published literature.

How to conduct a literature review in ATLAS.ti

A literature review is a critical discussion and synthesis of existing research related to a topic. It helps researchers understand the current state of knowledge, identify research gaps, and position their own research within the broader academic discussion.

ATLAS.ti helps organize this process by allowing you to:

• Store and organize articles
• Search and review literature
• Highlight and code important passages
• Write notes and reflections
• Compare themes across studies
• Visualize relationships between concepts
• Export reports for writing

Conducting a literature review in ATLAS.ti Web

ATLAS.ti Web is an online platform for qualitative analysis that also supports literature review workflows.

Step 1 - Add and organize articles

1.    Open the Document manager and select Add Documents.

2.   Add PDFs, Word documents, or text files from your computer.

3.   Rename documents clearly using author names, publication year, and article title to make them easier to identify later.

4.   Paste the full bibliographic reference into the document comment area.

You can also use Paper Search inside ATLAS.ti Web. With the new Paper search tool, you can conduct your entire literature review right in ATLAS.ti Web.

1.    Open Paper Search inside ATLAS.ti Web.

2.   Search using keywords related to your research question.

3.   Filter results by publication type or publication date if needed.

4.   Review abstracts and summaries to identify relevant papers.

5.   Click Import PDF to add selected articles directly into your project.

Paper Search uses Semantic Scholar and searches across more than 200 million scientific resources.

Step 2- Read, code, and annotate articles

1.    Open an article and highlight relevant text segments.

2.   Apply codes to organize important concepts or themes.

3.   Write notes and reflections while reading.

You can also use AI assistance.

• Conversational AI

Use Conversational AI to ask questions about your articles and explore themes across the literature.

• You can:
  • ask questions about the article
  • review linked text segments in context
  • save text segments as quotations
  • apply codes to AI-discovered passages
  • write reflections and analytical notes

• AI Coding with Intentions

AI Coding with Intentions can automatically analyze literature based on your research goals.

1.    Open AI Coding with Intentions.

2.   Enter an intention such as:

o   identify research gaps

o   compare definitions

o   explore methodological differences

3.   Review or edit the AI-generated guiding questions.

4.   Run the analysis.

ATLAS.ti Web organizes results into categories and subcodes to help you identify major themes and more detailed concepts across the literature.

Step 3 - Export and continue analysis

You can save AI Coding results as a view and export results as spreadsheets for further analysis or reporting.

Conducting a literature review in ATLAS.ti Windows and Mac

Step 1 - Add and organize articles

• ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Add Document > Add File(s).
• ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Documents > Add Documents.

A document in ATLAS.ti refers to any source of information you want to analyze, including literature review articles.

After importing articles:

1.    Rename documents using the author name, year, and article title.

2.   Paste the full bibliographic reference into the document comment section.

Example document name:

Barr, S., & Gilg, A. (2006). Sustainable lifestyles: Framing environmental action in and around the home.

Import references from reference managers

You can also import references from tools such as Zotero or Mendeley.

• ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to the Import/Export tab

• ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Document > Import > Reference Manager Data.

Step 2 - Generate article summaries with AI Summaries

Before reading articles in detail, you can generate summaries to get a quick overview.

• ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Search & Code > AI Summaries.

• ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Analysis > AI Summaries.

Step 3 - Code literature manually or with AI assistance

1.    Highlight a relevant text segment (quotation).

2.   Right-click the highlighted text.

3.   Select Apply Codes.

You can:

• create new codes
• apply existing codes
• attach multiple codes to the same quotation

• Use Suggested Codes

Suggested Codes helps support manual coding by recommending codes for selected text segments.

This tool works similarly to AI Coding but focuses on selected passages instead of entire documents.

Step 4 - Write memos during the review process

Memos help capture reflections, comparisons, emerging themes, and analytical ideas.

• ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Memo > Memos > New Memo.
• ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Memo > New Memo.

You can also link memos to quotations by:

• right-clicking a quotation and selecting the option to add a memo
• dragging and dropping a memo onto a quotation

Step 4 - Explore and analyze literature

• Word Frequencies

Word Frequencies helps identify commonly used terms in the literature.

• ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to the Search & Code tab.
• ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to the Analysis menu.

You can display results as:

• a word list
• a word cloud

• Text Search:

Text Search helps find recurring words or phrases across articles and understand how they appear in context.

1.    Open Text Search.

2.   Enter a word or phrase.

3.   Review all matching results.

4.   Optionally auto-code matching quotations.

• Concept tools

The Concepts tool identifies concepts mentioned across selected documents. You can automatically code discovered concepts to support thematic analysis.

• Intentional AI Coding.

Intentional AI Coding helps identify information related to a specific analytical goal.

For example:

find the research gap

ATLAS.ti generates questions related to your intention and analyzes documents paragraph by paragraph using those questions.

You can:

• edit generated questions
• remove questions
• add your own questions

• Code co-occurrence analysis

Code co-occurrence analysis helps identify where codes appear together within the literature.

• ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to the Analyze tab.
• ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to the Analysis menu.

Co-occurrence analysis helps identify patterns, relationships, and overlapping themes.

• Code-document analysis

Code-document analysis compares how frequently concepts appear across articles.

• ATLAS.ti Windows: Go to Analyze > Code Document Analysis.
• ATLAS.ti Mac: Go to Analysis > Code Document Analysis.

This helps compare themes, concepts, and patterns across multiple studies.

Step 5 - Create literature review frameworks with networks

Networks help visualize relationships between themes, concepts, quotations, and memos.

To create a network:

1.    Go to Network > New Network.

2.   Add codes, quotations, or memos.

3.   Draw relationships between concepts.

Networks can help you:

• map relationships across the literature
• develop conceptual frameworks
• identify connections between themes
• prepare visualizations for reports or presentations

Step 6 - Export reports and visualizations

You can create reports for quotations, codes, and analysis results from the entity managers.

• Export reports

You can export reports as:

• Excel spreadsheets
• Word documents
• PDF files
• Export visualizations

To export visualizations as images:

1.    Open the visualization.

2.   Select Export > Image

Common issues and mistakes

• Only summarizing articles instead of synthesizing the literature
  • A literature review should compare studies, identify patterns, discuss agreements or disagreements, and highlight research gaps.
• Not organizing documents before coding
  • Rename documents clearly and store citation information in the document comments to make articles easier to identify later.
• Creating too many overlapping codes
  • Use short and meaningful code names. Merge, rename, or organize similar codes into categories when needed.
• Relying entirely on AI-generated results
  • AI Coding, Suggested Codes, AI Summaries, and Conversational AI can support the review process, but researchers should still review and refine the results manually.
• Forgetting to write memos during the review process
  • Memos help capture reflections, comparisons, emerging themes, and draft ideas while reading the literature.
• Using the wrong platform for the intended workflow
  • ATLAS.ti Web is useful for browser-based work, Paper Search, AI tools, and collaboration, while Windows and Mac include additional advanced analysis and visualization tools.
• Expecting all features to appear in the same location across platforms
  • Windows, Mac, and Web support similar workflows, but the interface and menu locations may differ slightly.

When to contact support

Contact ATLAS.ti Support if:

• You cannot import articles, PDFs, or reference manager data
• Paper Search does not return results as expected
• AI tools such as Conversational AI or AI Coding are unavailable or not working correctly
• Reports, exports, or visualizations fail
• Projects cannot be moved between ATLAS.ti Web and Desktop
• A feature behaves differently from the documentation or tutorial

When contacting support, please include:

• Your ATLAS.ti platform (Windows, Mac, or Web)
• Your ATLAS.ti version, if using Desktop
• A description of the issue or workflow
• Screenshots or error messages, if available
• The file type or import method you are using (PDF, Word, EndNote XML, etc.)