Write a Literature Review

 

In short, a dissertation literature review provides a critical assessment of the sources (literature) you have gathered and read surrounding your subject area, and then identifies a “gap” in that literature that your research will attempt to address.

What is a literature review?

There are a lot of misunderstandings about what a dissertation literature review entails. Whilst in some cases a dissertation literature review can be a simple summary of important sources, most often it requires you to critically engage with the text to convey your opinions of it, as well as any critiques that you may have. What is your interpretation of a particular source? Does this interpretation differ considerably from other viewpoints in the literature? This is the sort of critical engagement expected in a literature review.

Whereas a summary will most likely provide a simple recap of the general arguments of the source(s), the expectations concerning a literature review extend beyond this. A literature review may provide a new perspective on a classic research paper or it may combine both new and old interpretations (this is the “gap” – more on this later). A literature review may also provide a thorough and critical outline of the intellectual developments in a field with a focus on major, and often polemical, debates. In other scenarios, a literature review may also provide an assessment of a source and inform a reader about its validity, pertinence and relevance to the research subject.

There tends to be confusion between literature reviews and academic papers in general, but they are not one and the same. Generally, academic papers aim to provide new research material about a particular subject, and a literature review features as part of this objective. In a research paper, the literature review forms the basis of the research – it helps to highlight any research gaps as support for a new argument or insights you intend to provide. In a literature review, you’re aiming to summarise and provide a critical analysis of the research arguments you have found in your readings, without making new contributions to the literature. Hence the term: “literature review”.

Steps to write a literature review

1. Narrow your topic and select papers accordingly

• Consider your specific area of study. Think about what interests you and what interests other researchers in your field.
• Talk to your professor, brainstorm, and read lecture notes and recent issues of periodicals in the field.
• Limit your scope to a smaller topic area (ie. focusing on France’s role in WWII instead of focusing on WWII in general

2. Search for literature

• Define your source selection criteria (ie. articles published between a specific date range, focusing on a specific geographic region, or using a specific methodology).
• Using keywords, search a library database.
• Reference lists of recent articles and reviews can lead to other useful papers.
• Include any studies contrary to your point of view.

3. Read the selected articles thoroughly and evaluate them

Evaluate and synthesize the studies’ findings and conclusions.

Note the following:

• Assumptions some or most researchers seem to make
• Methodologies, testing procedures, subjects, material tested researchers use
• Experts in the field: names/labs that are frequently referenced
• Conflicting theories, results, methodologies
• Popularity of theories and how this has/has not changed over time

4. Organize the selected papers by looking for patterns and by developing subtopics

Note the following:

• Findings that are common/contested
• Important trends in the research
• The most influential theories

Tip: If your literature review is extensive, find a large table surface, and on it place post-it notes or filing cards to organize all your findings into categories.

• Move them around if you decide that (a) they fit better under different headings, or (b) you need to establish new topic headings.
• Develop headings/subheadings that reflect the major themes and patterns you detected

5. Develop a thesis or purpose statement

• Write a one or two sentence statement summarizing the conclusion you have reached about the major trends and developments you see in the research that has been conducted on your subject.

6. Write the paper

Follow the organizational structure you developed above, including the headings and subheadings you constructed.

• Make certain that each section links logically to the one before and after.
• Structure your sections by themes or subtopics, not by individual theorists or researchers.

Tip: If you find that each paragraph begins with a researcher’s name, it might indicate that, instead of evaluating and comparing the research literature from an analytical point of view, you have simply described what research has been done.

7. Review your work

• Look at the topic sentences of each paragraph. If you were to read only these sentences, would you find that your paper presented a clear position, logically developed, from beginning to end? The topic sentences of each paragraph should indicate the main points of your literature review.
• Make an outline of each section of the paper and decide whether you need to add information, to delete irrelevant information, or to re-structure sections.
• Read your work out loud. That way you will be better able to identify where you need punctuation marks to signal pauses or divisions within sentences, where you have made grammatical errors, or where your sentences are unclear.
• Since the purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate that the writer is familiar with the important professional literature on the chosen subject, check to make certain that you have covered all of the important, up-to-date, and pertinent texts. In the sciences and some of the social sciences it is important that your literature be quite recent; this is not so important in the humanities.
• Make certain that all of the citations and references are correct and that you are referencing in the appropriate style for your discipline. If you are uncertain which style to use, ask your professor.
• Check to make sure that you have not plagiarized either by failing to cite a source of information, or by using words quoted directly from a source. (Usually if you take three or more words directly from another source, you should put those words within quotation marks, and cite the page.)
• Text should be written in a clear and concise academic style; it should not be descriptive in nature or use the language of everyday speech.
• There should be no grammatical or spelling errors.
• Sentences should flow smoothly and logically.