A literature review is a study of the scholarly resources you’ve used in your research while undertaking academic research. Before you begin writing a literature review, understand how to write a literature review? from this article.
Literature reviews are usually only required when working on a large academic assignment, such as a thesis, research paper, or dissertation. For smaller sections of academic writing, such as essay help, citation page works.
Conducting a review of the literature
A literature review is an important aspect of any academic work. The objective of a literature review is to show readers the sources you utilized in your research. You’re conveying numerous things by doing so:
1. Research technique
In other words, you’re describing the sort of research you did, how you performed it and gathered data, why you picked the sources you did, and how you assessed the information you gathered.
2. Creation of a theoretical framework
This is basically a map of your study, indicating where you began, which topics you choose to investigate further, and where you ended up after pursuing those notions. These ideas are usually hypotheses and models developed by scholars in your profession.
What role does your job play in the wider picture? You should describe how your results relate to the current body of knowledge on your issue in this section. So, this includes how it ties to other studies, any gaps it fills, debates it adds to, and where you stand among your peers in your profession.
Essential components of a literature review
We have described everything you need to know about literature review format.
1. A literature review’s structure
A literary review follows the same format as an essay. It starts with a statement of the research question and an explanation of how you addressed it. The body paragraphs that follow discuss your study in further depth. The paper then concludes with a conclusion section that restates the research question while summarising the findings of your investigation.
2. Length of a literature review
A literature review length is mostly determined by the sort of study for which it is produced. It may simply be a few pages long for a small paper, but it might be a complete chapter in a longer work like a thesis or dissertation.
3. Literature review style
A literature review must be written in the same manner as any other academic paper. That implies no abbreviations or colloquialisms, as well as clear language, a formal tone, and a consistent objective viewpoint.
Remember to stick to the research paper format you’ve chosen, whether it’s MLA, APA, or another. Adopt the same objective academic style as you would in your research article.
Things to remember while writing a literature review
You must differentiate between your analysis and previous academic work on the topic while learning how to write a literature review? When presenting earlier research on your issue, you must use the past tense, and when expressing your point of view, you must use the present tense.
You may say, for example, that a certain author did the study or was inspired by previous researchers on the subject, but you could also say that you are experimenting with new research methodologies and raising specific questions.
Making a literature review impactful
These methods serve as an example of how to write a literature review and make it impactful.
1. Define the scope of your study
If you haven’t already, reduce your research topic to a precise, answered issue before you start looking for information. Write a list of keywords linked to your thesis that you may use to expedite your source-gathering procedure after you have a clear, precise thesis for your study.
2. Locate relevant literature
Browse your university library or databases for relevant materials using the keywords you provided.
Read the abstracts of prospective sources as you locate them to see whether they are relevant to your study. You may narrow down your choice to a collection of works by reading a small preview of each source. This gives you the facts, insights, and extra information you’ll need to do your investigation.
3. Examine your collection of sources for themes, trends, and inconsistencies
Examine the sources you’ve narrowed down. Take notice of the themes that emerge from your study and pose the following questions:
- Are various writers in agreement on these themes?
- Where do they have a disagreement?
- How does each author back up their claim?
4. Analyze the research methodologies
Examine the techniques of research employed by each author in their work. If your sources include studies or experiments, make a note of whether the findings were duplicated and, if so, how the studies differed from one another.
Make a list of your major takeaways and how each source you examine adds to the current body of information on the issue. Examine how the sources question and contradict one another, as well as when they agree or add to one another’s ideas.
5. Formulate an outline for your literature review
An outline is a crucial component of the writing process. Examine your sources and comprehend the themes, trends, and gaps. Then, you should create an outline to arrange your plan for writing about how you utilized them in your study.
Read More: How to write a case study?
Different ways you can organize your outline
The body of a literature review may be organized in a variety of ways. Before you begin writing, you should have a general notion of your plan.
You may mix many of these tactics depending on the duration of your literature study. As an example, you may have a thematic feature, discussed chronologically.
1. Following chronological order for literature review
The most straightforward method is to follow the topic’s evolution through time. If you use this technique, be cautious not to limit yourself to just identifying and summarising sources in chronological order.
Analyze the trends, turning moments, and major disputes that have affected the field’s path. Explain how and why specific events happened in your own words.
2. Thematic for literature review
You may divide your literature study into subsections that cover various parts of the issue on finding certain recurrent primary themes.
If you’re looking for information about discrepancies in migrant health outcomes, for example, relevant issues may include health policy, language difficulties, cultural views, legal standing, and economic access.
3. Methodological literature review
You may wish to compare the findings and conclusions that arise from various techniques. This happens if your sources belong to different disciplines that utilize a range of research methodologies. Consider the following scenario:
- Consider the outcomes of qualitative vs. quantitative research.
- Discuss how empirical or theoretical studies have tackled the problem.
- Separate the sources into social, historical, and cultural categories.
4. Theoretical for literature review
A theoretical framework is often built on the basis of a literature survey. So, It may be used to explain different ideas, models, and important concept definitions.
Try to come up with a particular theoretical approach. Another alternative is that you could make use of a variety of theoretical notions for creating a framework for your literature review.
Intro, body, and conclusion in a literature review
To keep it simple, keep a literature review introduction, a body with essential details, and a conclusion. The literature review objectives matter in introduction, body, and conclusion.
It’s important to remember that you don’t have to agree with every source you consult. In fact, determining where your results differ from those of a source may be the strongest trait in your literature review and overall study.
1. Introduction of literature review format
The emphasis and objective of the literature review should be clearly stated in the opening.
- Literature review for dissertation: Developing a literature review for a dissertation or thesis means explaining the main topic, also called the research question, in a detailed manner with all possible cases. You might underline the topic’s relevance or point out a gap in the literature.
- A stand-alone review of the literature: Provide certain context for the topic in hand with its significance. You need to define the crux and time period of the literature, with goals.
2. The main body
Try to cut down your literature review content into several parts. Retain a reliable analytical approach and have a subheading wherever you feel will be required.
Use these pointers while writing a literature review.
- Write a summary and a synopsis: present a summary of each source’s important elements and blend them into a unified whole
- Analyze and interpret: don’t simply repeat what other researchers have said; incorporate your own interpretations where appropriate, and describe the relevance of discoveries in the context of the whole literature.
- Evaluate critically: Highlight the weaknesses and strengths of your sources. Highlight the weaknesses and strengths of your sources. To make links, analogies, and contrasts, employ transition words and subject sentences.
3. Bibliography with annotations
Remember to create an annotated bibliography for all of your sources. Failure to properly cite your sources might lead to plagiarism charges, which can result in your work being discredited.
4. Conclusion of a literature review
In the conclusion, you should summarize and stress the significant results from the literature that you have gathered.
- Literature review for a dissertation: If your literature review is part of your thesis or dissertation so, explain how your study fills gaps and adds new information, or how you built a framework for your research by drawing on existing ideas and methodologies.
- A stand-alone review of the literature: If you’re writing a stand-alone article, you may analyze the literature’s broader implications or provide recommendations for future study based on the gaps you’ve discovered.
Don’t forget to check your literature review properly when you’ve completed writing and rewriting it.
Final Notes
Now you know how to write a literature review. A literature review is actually a literary piece of discursive prose. It is clearly not a listing describing or summarizing one piece of literature after another, but It’s commonly a bad sign to see each paragraph starting with the name of a researcher. Instead, prepare the literature review into sections that present subject matters or identify trends, such as relevant theory. You can even take review writing services assistance for further information.