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Literature Search

Q: How do I do a review of related

literature (RRL)?
Detailed Question -

How do I do the synthesis? Also, where can I get samples of RRLs?

Asked on 04 Jan, 2020

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1 Answer to this question

Answer: A review of related literature (RRL) is a detailed review of existing literature related to
the topic of a thesis or dissertation. In an RRL, you talk about knowledge and findings from
existing literature relevant to your topic. If you find gaps or conflicts in existing literature, you
can also discuss these in your review, and if applicable, how you plan to address these gaps or
resolve these conflicts through your study.

To undertake an RRL, therefore, you first need to identify relevant literature. You can do this
through various sources, online and offline. Ensure you are saving all applicable resources
because you will need to mention them in your paper. When going through the resources, make
notes and identify key concepts of each resource to describe in the review.

Before starting the review, determine how you want to organize the review, that is, whether you
wish to discuss the resources by themes, dates, extent of relevance, and so on.

When writing the review, begin by providing the background and purpose of the review. Then,
begin discussing each of the identified resources according to the way you decided to organize
them. For each, you can mention the title, author, publication, and date before describing the
key concept and points. You may decide to list sections and sub-sections as in this sample or
keep it more free-flowing as in this sample. [Note: In case any of these links don't open, you may
need to register yourself on the respective site(s).]

Finally, in the synthesis, you explain how the various concepts of each resource link with each
other. You may decide to do this through a table or matrix, as illustrated here.

Related reading
reading:

How to write the literature review of your research paper

Tips for effective literature searching and keeping up with new publications

Make your Google searches more precise: A few tips for researchers

Answered by Editage Insights on 21 Jan, 2020

Resources for authors and journals

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