Crafting a dissertation, particularly the literature review section for a master's degree, is no small

feat. This critical component requires a scholar to meticulously comb through an extensive array of
academic literature to identify, analyze, and synthesize existing research relevant to their chosen
topic. The complexity of this task cannot be overstated. It demands not only a deep understanding of
the subject matter but also the ability to critically evaluate various sources, discern patterns and
themes, and construct a coherent narrative that advances the academic conversation.

The literature review serves as the foundation of a dissertation, setting the stage for the research
question and providing the context necessary to understand the significance of the study. It requires
the identification of gaps in the current literature, thereby justifying the need for the proposed
research. This process involves rigorous methodology, including the selection of appropriate
databases and resources, the application of specific criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of
literature, and the organization of the review in a way that logically supports the research objectives.

Given the daunting nature of this task, it's understandable that many students feel overwhelmed. The
intricacy of navigating academic databases, the challenge of critically analyzing scholarly articles,
and the pressure to synthesize a vast amount of information into a coherent narrative can be
paralyzing. This is where professional assistance can be invaluable.

For those grappling with the complexities of constructing a literature review for their master's
dissertation, seeking support from professional writing services, such as ⇒ HelpWriting.net ⇔, can
provide much-needed relief. These services offer the expertise of experienced writers who are well-
versed in the intricacies of academic writing and can provide tailored support to meet the unique
needs of each student. From helping to refine research questions to assisting in the identification of
relevant literature and providing guidance on structuring the review, these professionals can help
alleviate the burden and ensure that the literature review not only meets but exceeds academic
standards.

In conclusion, the literature review is a critical and challenging component of a master's dissertation.
Its successful execution requires a blend of in-depth knowledge, critical thinking, and sophisticated
writing skills. For students feeling daunted by this task, enlisting the support of professional writing
services like ⇒ HelpWriting.net ⇔ can offer a pathway to success, ensuring that their dissertation
stands as a testament to their hard work and academic prowess.
Literature Review This is the most time-consuming aspect in the preparation of your research
proposal and it is a key component of the research proposal. While there is no one formula for writing
a literature review, most literature reviews include the following key elements: An introduction that
provides an overview of the topic under investigation and puts it into context. Your literature review
should have a strong structure, and this is where you need to think carefully about your argument.
This should help you to focus in on your topic and establish the angle that your work will take. If this
is not going beyond the requirements of writing a sample of literature review, why not. The purpose
is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. It’s basically a hint for the
following researchers. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, whereas a
synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. So think about these three
structural possibilities. You’ll want to keep the chapter summary short and to the point, and avoid
going over one page in length. When you have decided on the topic to proceed with, you need to
analyze it, and thereafter, think of all the possible terms that are associated with the topic. But how is
a literature review different from an academic research paper. Find out what style guide you are
required to follow (e.g., APA, MLA, ASA) Follow the guidelines to format citations and create a
reference list or bibliography Cite Your Sources This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. So this is a work in progress
simply because the more that you read, the more you might think this topic is interesting. It is
important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism. It can be helpful to make
an annotated bibliography, where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of
summary and analysis for each source. Sometimes, students hesitate whether to trust authors or not.
But now you can take this task to the best academic writers. Nevertheless, it is a matter determined
by a number of factors, including the dissertation structure and scope of available sources. And you
will show it off to the readers so that they have more confidence in your reliability. In-text citations
are key to a good literature review. Be selective Select only the most important points in each source
to highlight in the review. It’s basically a hint for the following researchers. Regardless of your
methodology, though, it provides the explanatory framework used to interpret the meanings of your
results or findings in your discussion chapter. Its objective is to elucidate and add to the existing
body of literature available on a particular topic. They originated from criticisms of positivist
systematic reviews which centre on their “simplistic” underlying assumptions ( Oates, 2011 ). You
Might Also Like: very good, as the first writer of the thesis i will need ur advise. This handout will
explain what literature reviews are and offer insights into the form and construction of literature
reviews in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Use Evidence A literature review section is,
in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. The analytical features of a literature review
might: Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations, Trace the
intellectual progression of the field, including major debates, Depending on the situation, evaluate
the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or Usually in the
conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to
date.
There are numerous library research examples you can find online. A comprehensive search would
combine a keyword search and a subject search. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the
research. For the sperm whale project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural
differences between the portrayal of whales in American, British, and French art work. You may
consider looking at some of the available sources and thereafter, determine which ones of them will
aid you in writing the literature review. We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback. In
what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large
cities than how social workers might study the issue. Sort through other current bibliographies or
literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. The literature review
surveys scholarly articles, books, and other scholarly sources relevant to a particular area of research.
A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational
pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. Cite this Scribbr article If you want to cite this
source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to
automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator. Through a systematic literature review,
writers are able to examine coincident and conflicting findings together with the themes that should
be investigated further. The main body needs to include the discussion of the sources you selected
following the organizational strategy you chose. The lit review is an important genre in many
disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). Share
This Book Essay Guide Alex Essay Writing Tool Dissertation Guide Ask The Elephant The structure
of a literature review A literature review should be structured like any other essay: it should have an
introduction, a middle or main body, and a conclusion. What topics overlap in order for your
research to be understood. Here are some tips to help you structure your literature review effectively.
Notice that Falk and Mills do quote certain terms that were coined by the author, not common
knowledge, or taken directly from the study. The literature review might give a new interpretation of
old material or combine new with old interpretations. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you
can follow below. It goes beyond documentation and reflects decisions related to the selection of the
sources, the search terms used, the period of time covered, the articles selected in the search, and the
application of backward and forward searches ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). In short, the rigour of any
review article is reflected by the explicitness of its methods (i.e., transparency) and the soundness of
the approach used. The methodology must discuss all the aspects of the topic that the author has
chosen to elaborate upon. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of
and consider as you go through your own study. If you rely too heavily on one source, you may miss
important points that could be made by other authors. 4. Plagiarism Plagiarism is when you use
someone else’s words or ideas without giving them credit. Because of this, it’s often one of the most
challenging sections in graduate research. If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone
assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. If
you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this. This may be due to the large number of mature
students recruited to this post-experience course. A literature review can be just a simple summary of
the sources, but usually contains an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis.
How is the topic of your research proposal related to the problem.
Thematic: Thematic reviews of literature are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the
progression of time. Right? Wrong! The “literature” of a literature review refers to any collection of
materials on a topic, not necessarily the great literary texts of the world. “Literature” could be
anything from a set of government pamphlets on British colonial methods in Africa to scholarly
articles on the treatment of a torn ACL. So division, all these topics, were around this Venn diagram,
because that my research is on the boundary of other topics. Resources Dive into our extensive
resources on the topic that interests you. Like any other academic text, your literature review should
have an introduction, a main body, and a conclusion. Keep the balance in your points of view and
point out at the available deficiencies and controversies, relating different positions with your own
beliefs. A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. In addition, an outline
will make the writing process easier and ensure that you have included all the important details in
your paper. Writing Your Literature Review Once you've settled on how to organize your literature
review, you're ready to write each section. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re
interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new
keywords in the process of your literature search. These authors reviewed the existing literature on
personal health record ( phr ) systems including design, functionality, implementation, applications,
outcomes, and benefits. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for: Trends and patterns (in
theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time. Of course,
you can structure your chapter in a way that reflects these three components (in fact, in some cases
that works very well), but it’s certainly not the only option. Your literature review should have a
strong structure, and this is where you need to think carefully about your argument. Therefore this
means that it can only use evidence that has already been published and therefore validated.
Hamilton found that people imagined 3.3 men to each woman in the masculine “generic” condition
and 1.5 men per woman in the unbiased condition. How will you further your research as a result of
the review. Simply put, your task here is to present a synthesis of what’s been done (and found)
within the empirical research, so that you can clearly assess the current state of knowledge and
identify potential research gaps, which leads us to our third essential ingredient. To do both
effectively, you need to engage in considerable synthesis and critical analysis (terms you may have
heard before!) of current research in your field. Depending on the length of your literature review,
you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic,
but each theme is discussed chronologically). Remember that getting top notch dissertation literature
review help from EssaysService.com, you will also get all the materials collected and analyzed, but
with no time wasted on search. A good literature review doesn't just summarise sources - it analyses,
synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.
Save the relevant sources using folders or Refworks. You likely won’t be able to read absolutely
everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are
most relevant to your research question. Indeed, a really common type of dissertation help we are
asked for is creating a greater degree of synthesis in the literature review. Analyze its literature
review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions. Help Center Here you'll find
an answer to your question. However, since the focus of this research is on obesity in children, these
will not be reviewed in detail and will only be referred to as appropriate. In addition to keywords,
you can make your search much more focused and systematic by taking a moment to learn about the
search filters available through the search interface. So for example, you might want to run a survey
or have a questionnaire to identify what people in a specific area think about a specific thing.
Depending on the field, the literature review might be a stand-alone piece or part of a larger research
article. You can even incorporate complementary materials like an itinerary printable chart or data
table for your literature review. A chronological compilation of studies The reason for conducting a
literature review is to: Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students While this 9-minute
video from NCSU is geared toward graduate students, it is useful for anyone conducting a literature
review. You have not worked on papers of such kinds before; thus, it is not clear for you how you
should plan your work and how to make your assigned literature review successful from the
perspective of your professor. Your task is to be explicit in presenting your rationale and your
personal position. It it crucial as a part of your qualifying exams and the accompanying literature
reviews that you elaborate on the context of the studies being cited. Focus on the questions you want
to raise and analyze whether the part of a review is too general or insufficiently wide. The research
team started with an exploratory review of background documents and research studies to identify
ways in which patient portals may contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. To
summarize the evidence presented and show its significance Rather than restating your thesis or
purpose statement, explain what your review tells you about the current state of the field If the
review is an introduction to your own research, the conclusion highlights gaps and indicates how
previous research leads to your own research project and chosen methodology. However, particularly
in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for
finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Some short quotes here and there
are okay, though, if you want to emphasize a point, or if what the author said just cannot be
rewritten in your own words. Types of Literature Reviews What kinds of literature reviews are
written. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the
state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the
author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic
reviewed. When you have answers to these questions you can begin searching for sources. For
example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the
role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is
mentioned in the text. When you are assigned a literature review, you should always read the entire
work before writing your review. Literature Review Sample 1 Literature Review Sample 2 Literature
Review Sample 3 Have you written a stellar literature review you care to share for teaching purposes.
This should help you to focus in on your topic and establish the angle that your work will take. Find
out what style guide you are required to follow (e.g., APA, MLA, ASA) Follow the guidelines to
format citations and create a reference list or bibliography Cite Your Sources This work is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. You
will have to demonstrate valid and interesting findings in the field after the conducted analysis. Are
all the key ideas, findings and trends presented backed up by multiple sources. Reply Delete Replies
Reply Unknown 5 February 2018 at 06:50 Wow, great post. On the other end of the spectrum, there
might be a wealth of research regarding a certain topic within one country (say the US), but very
little research on that same topic in a different social context (say, China). A good starting point could
be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write. In
addition, an outline will make the writing process easier and ensure that you have included all the
important details in your paper. For example, what methods have been used by other researchers in
similar studies. Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly
reviewed the literature: Look for repeating patterns in the research findings. There is an increasing
interest in the visual aspects of social media. Assume that the person or people who will read your
research proposal know nothing or very little about the research problem. Weaving together the
findings of different studies is really pretty difficult to accomplish.
Learn a lot and consult your professors to make sure that the sources you have chosen for it are valid
and reliable. Note that this is not the same as a conceptual framework. The purpose is to develop a
body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Use different coloured highlighters or post
its on the wall, whatever works for you. Rather than simply summarizing sources (as an annotated
bibliography does), synthesis also does the following. It should be a fair representation of the
perspectives and voices of a range of scholars across the field. They are commonly written in social
and health science classes, but may be a part of any course in any field. What has the literature
revealed? (not what do you seek to discuss). You might argue for the relevance of a specific
theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your
research. As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this
type of document ). Then this Historical Literature Review Example voices your familiarity with the
topic. So you’re critically evaluating, which means you’re not just reading it, reviewing it, and trying
to find out flaws within it’s trying to be selective, trying to find gaps within the research to fit
yourself into a bit of a research space. What are the key concepts and how are they defined. Use
Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an
author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Apparently, the other percentage of the students believes
that composing a quality literature review poses the most significant challenge. In these cases, the lit
review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes
it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology. Include an objective topical
sentence that introduces your readers to the purpose of that paragraph. However, and regardless of
whether you’re conducting quantitative or qualitative research (or a mixed methods study!), analysis
is a critical part of justifying your proposed study’s methodological approach. For example, if you
are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in
churches and the religious attitude towards women. Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key
debates that have shaped the direction of the field. A systematic literature review entails the
following. Indeed, a really common type of dissertation help we are asked for is creating a greater
degree of synthesis in the literature review. Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established
knowledge. The specific goals were to investigate how outcomes are produced and, most
importantly, how variations in outcomes can be explained. Weaving together the findings of different
studies is really pretty difficult to accomplish. Definition: A literature review is a systematic
examination and synthesis of existing scholarly research on a specific topic or subject. All in all, 130
articles met the criteria and their data were extracted manually into a database. Literature reviews
mainly serve as the section in a research article where the author presents and criticizes relevant
background information and may describe the significance their research will have in the field based
on this prior research. Regardless of your methodology, though, it provides the explanatory
framework used to interpret the meanings of your results or findings in your discussion chapter.
Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems; 2011.
In other words, a literature review not only acknowledges the work performed by other researchers
but also creates for the reader a kind of landscape that describes how a particular field or subject has
developed. Find all the relevant theories and foundational research that characterize your work.
Therefore, it is a significant way to determine the efficacy and depth of the research. Does the
research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach. Download Word doc Download
Google doc Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic. Depending
on how long your literature review is, you can divide your body into subsections. Critically evaluate:
mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources. Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where
do sources disagree. Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the
body into subsections. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to
understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings. You do proper
evaluation of the discovered sources and your readers should know for sure that academic sources
are valid. You need to be careful about the literature review paragraph structure. It might give a new
interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations. The content will look slightly
different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. It
should also help you to spot that gap or area for further development and work out how your
research will extend and develop the research already carried out. For instance, the sperm whale
review could focus on the development of the harpoon for whale hunting. So I wanted to take some
time to talk in detail about this chapter, its purpose, and how you can make it great. Thematic: If you
have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your
piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the
topic. The focus of a literature review, however, is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and
ideas of others without adding new contributions. It's like a masterclass to be explored at your own
pace. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Once you
have determined your audience, you can then decide what type of literature review is appropriate. I
think that’s why the literature review is probably one of the most important parts of your thesis,
particularly because it really does define and encourage the reader to understand what it is that you
are going to be presenting, and the importance of it. We get so many requests for dissertation
consulting around the literature review. Whenever you are working on a significant paper, a literature
review is unavoidable. Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources
you’re thinking about using. Let's take a look at some of the most important differences between the
two. Where will your education and career journey take you? Consequently, a good strategy for
writing the literature review is to break the literature into conceptual categories or themes, rather
than attempting to describe various groups of literature you reviewed. Instead a literature review
explores the key themes or concepts in the literature and compares what different research has found
about each theme.