If my time in academia taught me anything its how to read. An academic literature review, is a report of the academic work written on a particular topic. This might be particularly useful to you if you are thinking about expanding your community and want to know more about the communities you are looking to include, if you want to know why your community acts the way it does, how the platforms impact human understanding and behavior, or if you have particular questions. There is a lot of academic work out there on play communities, platforms, space and place, and play generally that can be called on to help you make decisions.

This generally takes the form of an annotated bibliography directed at your questions. You can request an annotated bibliography on its own or it can be a part of larger project. It can also include non-academic and community sources (community blogs, youtube videos, podcasts, books, zines, etc…).