You are on page 1of 8

Title: Simple Steps To Writing A Literature Review

Crafting a literature review can be a daunting task for many individuals, whether they are students or
professionals. This crucial component of academic or research papers requires meticulous attention to
detail, comprehensive research, and the ability to synthesize information from various sources.
However, fear not! With the right approach and guidance, you can navigate through this process
smoothly and effectively. Here are some simple steps to help you conquer the challenge of writing a
literature review:

1. Understand the Purpose: Before diving into the writing process, it's essential to grasp the
purpose of a literature review. It serves to summarize, analyze, and evaluate existing literature
on a particular topic, providing context and insight for your own research or argument.
2. Conduct Thorough Research: Begin by conducting comprehensive research on your chosen
topic. Utilize academic databases, scholarly journals, books, and reputable online sources to
gather relevant literature. Take notes and organize your findings to streamline the writing
process.
3. Identify Key Themes and Debates: As you review the literature, identify key themes,
theories, methodologies, and debates relevant to your topic. Pay attention to recurring
patterns, conflicting viewpoints, and gaps in the existing research. This will help you
structure your literature review effectively.
4. Outline Your Review: Create a clear outline for your literature review, outlining the main
sections and subheadings based on the themes and concepts you've identified. This will serve
as a roadmap for your writing and ensure coherence and logical flow.
5. Synthesize Information: Avoid merely summarizing each source individually. Instead, strive
to synthesize information from various sources, highlighting connections, contradictions, and
overarching trends. Analyze and interpret the literature critically to provide meaningful
insights.
6. Provide Critique and Evaluation: A literature review isn't just a summary; it also involves
critical analysis and evaluation of the literature. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the
existing research, identify limitations, and suggest areas for future exploration or research.
7. Maintain Clarity and Conciseness: While it's essential to be thorough in your review, avoid
overwhelming readers with excessive detail. Maintain clarity and conciseness in your writing,
focusing on the most relevant and impactful information.
8. Follow Citation Guidelines: Ensure that you follow the appropriate citation style (e.g., APA,
MLA, Chicago) consistently throughout your literature review. Accurate and proper citation
is crucial for acknowledging sources and maintaining academic integrity.

Writing a literature review may indeed be challenging, but with patience, diligence, and the right
approach, you can master this essential academic task. For those seeking additional assistance and
expertise, consider reaching out to professional writing services like ⇒ StudyHub.vip ⇔. With
experienced writers and dedicated support, they can help streamline the process and ensure the
quality of your literature review.

Remember, a well-crafted literature review not only demonstrates your understanding of the topic
but also contributes valuable insights to the academic discourse. So, embrace the challenge, follow
these simple steps, and embark on your journey to writing a compelling literature review.

[Contact us at ⇒ StudyHub.vip ⇔ for expert assistance with your literature review!]


The format of a literature review varies and depends upon the length of the research. At the end of
the day, it’s the students responsibility to do their own research and work. Keep refining your ideas
until you find something that will pique your curiosity. What fundamental theories, models, and
methods does the author use. If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate
how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn
on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. However, most people end
up merely listing and summarizing their sources in chronological order. A solution can be to involve a
set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved,
some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack
at predicting where solutions are going to come from. Students can find guides on how to improve
their writing and academic performance in general, get useful tips on making their study process
more efficient, or learn how to deal with particular issues. Bila anda meninjau beberapa literatur
dalam 1 perenggan, gabung-jalinkan info utama. Check out whether there is an important review
why the research has not been done, which would make it sensible for you to choose a different
focus. Ensure you understand the research topic inside out, or else seek clarifications. Some might
argue that you should be sending your work to your supervisor sooner than this (indeed your
university might formally require this), but in my experience, supervisors are extremely short on time
(and often patience), so, the more refined your chapter is, the less time they’ll waste on addressing
basic issues (which you know about already) and the more time they’ll spend on valuable feedback
that will increase your mark-earning potential. 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. Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow. Keeping these
notes will help you avoid this nightmare in the future. So, what exactly is the purpose of the
literature review. Instead, a literature review definition shows that it: Locates your research focus
within the context of the existing literature in the field. Federal government websites often end
in.gov or.mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.
Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transitions and topic sentences to draw connections,
comparisons and contrasts. Source: Effective Writing Center, University of Maryland. The purpose is
to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and
identify future research's likely directions. Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad
Interest Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16,
17. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and
discussion does not work or is rarely used. Now you can nail your literature review without a
struggle. Groups of scientists argue or disagree with other groups. Check with your professor, or a
subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field. Journal of Chiropractic
Medicine, 5(3), 101117. Lyons, K. (2005). UCSC library - how to write a literature review. Can you
verify the data against other trusted sources. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie
policy. Choosing incorrect or non-descriptive keywords will return results that are too shallow.
Jul 7, 2016 Galal Sheher Oct 22, 2016 Alljey Gimpes Jun 15, 2016 Jvert Smith Oct 4, 2018 Featured
Articles Trending Articles Watch Articles Terms of Use Privacy Policy Do Not Sell or Share My Info
Not Selling Info Get all the best how-tos. Always keep track of important information or data you
can present in your literature review right from the beginning. In some cases, the professor may fail
to provide you with a topic, which tasks you with the responsibility of coming up with one. Is the
analysis of the data accurate and relevant to the research question. A good starting point could be to
look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write. Write a
review of studies on the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. Dr Cheryl Lange. Integral aspects
of academic work. A conclusion, which summarizes the key findings, the main agreements and
disagreements in the literature, your overall perspective, and any gaps or areas for further research.
?? If your literature review is part of a longer paper, visit our guide on what is a research paper for
additional tips. ?? UNC writing center: Literature reviews. Utilize reputable academic databases for
literature searches like Google Scholar or your university's library resources. Moreover, you can sort
the results based on the publishing date, citation count, and relevance. It analyzes the state of the
field on a given topic and creates a scholarly foundation for you to make your own intervention. In
this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD
and postdoctoral student. Check out the theories, models, and methods used in the research.
Chronological This is tracing the development of the topic over time chronologically, but you should
avoid summarizing or listing sources in order. Encourages Scholarly Dialogue: Integrates your work
into ongoing academic discussions, influencing future research. Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused,
but Make It of Broad Interest Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice
to keep it focused 16, 17. To create your topic, consult with your supervisor. While you probably
already have a decent base of this from your research proposal, you need to expand on this
substantially in the dissertation or thesis itself. Accept all Save Essential cookies enable basic
functions and are necessary for the proper function of the website. This step will help you work out
the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute
to existing knowledge. Similarly, keep track of the materials that you have with you. Standalone 2.
As a section of a research paper How SciSpace Discover makes literature review a breeze. When
writing literature reviews, you should avoid the usage of first-person pronouns. The introduction
should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review. All the materials from our
website should be used with proper references. Writing a literature review could be hard, especially
if you have never handled one before. Using your own words will help you avoid plagiarism, which
many academic departments take very seriously. You can use a subheading for each theme, time
period, or methodological approach. Then tighten it up and submit it to your supervisor. Now you
need to find out what has been written on the topic and search for literature related to your research
topic.
This is awesome! I wish I come across GradCoach earlier enough. Remember, before writing; you
need to come up with a research question. This assignment is often given in social sciences and other
experiment-driven subjects, but these can also pop up in liberal studies such as English. This may be
necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those
studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas. It deserves capitals, because it
is truly one of the beasts of academic writing. Qualitative versus quantitative research Empirical
versus theoretical scholarship Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
Theoretical: In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical
framework. You will find yourself writing and rewriting as you evaluate what you have written. But
no need to stress out; you can get all the help you. Some literatures are now favouring the
publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of
words and citations. The literature review chapter of your dissertation, thesis or research project is
where you synthesise this prior work and lay the theoretical foundation for your own research.
Finally, don’t forget to tie your previous work to the academic knowledge that is currently available.
As you work your way to the right, the information grows increasely more detailed. You can use
lines and symbols to build and link the related ideas. He suggests that the physical environment in the
more public spaces of the building did not have much impact on their perceptions. For the starters:
Literature can be anything from a set of poems about love to serious scholarly articles about
pneumonia treatment. We will make assist you in writing your dissertation applying the appropriate
and best literature review and a laudable literate review. You can use this table as a checklist for
evaluating your sources. University of Wisconsin. (2006). UW-madison writing center writer's
handbook. The smaller column is to be used to create cue words or keywords that describe the
information they are taking notes about. If there is a natural progression (radical to conservative, for
example) between the sources, this works swimmingly. So instead of focusing on the content, it
focuses on the method used in data analysis. Groups of scientists argue or disagree with other
groups. It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping
techniques. You must ensure that your sources are credible and note any significant theories or major
landmarks in your study. Catatkan Rujukan bagi sumber yang dikenal pasti juga. I also provide
literatures at the end of this guide to resources that you should use in order to search the literature
and as you write your review. Theoretical You may use a theoretical approach to discuss theories,
definitions of key ideas, and models. Make sure you thoroughly go through appropriate reference
sources like books, reports, journal articles, government docs, and web-based resources. When
printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice. Review the articles and studies analyzing
the opioid crisis problem.
Plagiarism: Including references without any citation, using the author’s exact phrases without
making any changes, using quotes to denote that the words belong to someone else but not giving
credits to them. Moreover, you can sort the results based on the publishing date, citation count, and
relevance. Divide the reviewed works into categories: in support or against a specific position,
presenting alternative positions, etc. 3. Main features of the studies Present the similarities and
differences between the works under evaluation. The first step is to hunt down the relevant
literature. Though not included in all types of research papers, it serves as a critical component in
academic research. It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. Carefully edit
to ensure logical argument flow and concise writing. Some databases to search for journals and
articles include: Your university’s library catalogue Google Scholar Project Muse (humanities and
social sciences) Medline (life sciences and biomedicine) EconLit (economics) Inspec (physics,
engineering and computer science) You can use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:
Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. One method is to
interpret how or why specific developments occurred. You should always look at examples from
your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your
discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre. A literature review
must do the following: It should organized around and related directly to the. The larger column is
the space to take your notes in. Should this happen, try to go over them again, and check whether
you need to add a new category. Tip: Decide on the structure of your literature review before you
start writing. Follow this approach only if a clear path of research can be identified. The smaller
column is to be used to create cue words or keywords that describe the information they are taking
notes about. Example: If reviewing the development of technology in the last decade, you might
organize your sections based on each year or significant milestones. Are there any weaknesses that
should be addressed. Your assignment will likely specify what kinds of formats you should use for
citations within the text. This is understandable for it determines how the project must move
forward. It demonstrates to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of study.
Sources for a literature review should be as current as possible or not older than ten years. Usually
you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. Of course, you’ll need to
summarize the sources enough for your committee to understand what they’re about. Writing
teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a
room, discussing your topic. Here are some examples: Chronological: The simplest approach is to
trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for
instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). Let’s start with
the obvious: Google does not have all the answers. Look for links between the various articles and
try to develop a bigger picture view of the state of the research. The funders had no role in the
preparation of the manuscript. Questions being asked, methods used for research, and relevant
conclusions draw.
With everything said as clear as day, does it flow together. Usefulness Is the source closely related to
your topic. Talk to your professor, brainstorm, and read lecture notes and recent issues of periodicals
in the ?eld. This type of review serves to place certain research through its historical context to show
the developments and any predictable future. Should this happen, try to go over them again, and
check whether you need to add a new category. So, find ways to group sources together within
paragraphs. Table of contents Why write a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1:
search for relevant literature, step 2: evaluate and select sources, step 3: identify themes, debates and
gaps, step 4: outline your literature review’s structure, step 5: write your literature review, frequently
asked questions about literature reviews, introduction. You are not trying to list all the material
published, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or
research question. Lisa Eblen, MLIS, AHIP Research Symposium Naval Hospital Pensacola
September 2011. It analyzes the state of the field on a given topic and creates a scholarly foundation
for you to make your own intervention. If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis,
reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have
drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. Also, note any
issues you feel arise due to the methodology. Come up with a list of relevant keywords and then
start your search with your institution's library catalog, and extend it to other useful databases and
academic search engines like: Google Scholar Science.gov ?? Our guide on how to collect data for
your thesis might be helpful at this stage of your research as well as the top list of academic search
engines. It should have a summary of the main points you have taken from the literature. A search
strategy helps prevent that, by using punctuation and keywords to make the database understand
exactly what you want. These will break the content into smaller, more readable sections. It is
instrumental. It encouraged me to write a dissertation now. A meta-synthesis is based on non-
statistical techniques that aim to integrate, evaluate, and interpret the results of several qualitative
results. All you have to do is skim through literature review chapters of existing dissertations related
to your topic and you’ll find a gold mine of potential literature. Therefore, it aims to find all the
relevant publications. In being asked to write a literature review, you may hear the following
phrases: “What does the literature show us?” “Connect your ideas to the literature.” “Survey the
literature on the topic.”. Analysis: Involves critically evaluating and summarizing key findings,
methodologies, and debates found in. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are
provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. Write a review of studies on the legalization of
physician-assisted suicide. Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement. But, writing literature
reviews is a difficult task. As you’re working through your treasure chest, it’s essential that you
simultaneously start organising the information. You could also use a reference manager like
Paperpile to automatically save, manage, and cite your references. It is a critical step in the process
that allows you to establish the scope of your research, and provide a background for the rest of your
work. Would you like to explore SciSpace Discover and kick off your literature search right away.
It is beneficial when examining how different theories contribute to the understanding of a
phenomenon. Then, read through the sources and come up with a thesis statement for your paper.
Five key elements of a literature review play an essential role: Elements Purposes 1. 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. It must (1)
provide an overview of the topic you’re studying and clarify its importance. The relationship
between ideas and information is carried out through the indentation. Make sure that each note goes
into a pile. 22:51 Gurisar: I thought that you people will charge some amount for your draft service.
The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your dissertation. How are their arguments
supported (narratives, statistics, historical findings, etc.)? Is the author's perspective unbiased and
objective. SciSpace Discover helps you assess the quality of a source by providing an overview of its
references, citations, and performance metrics. Explore the academic literature examining the role of
corticosteroids in asthma treatment. Journalists aren’t usually scholars, which means they aren’t
specialists on the topics they write about; hence newspaper stories aren’t scholarly sources. You have
to learn the elements of literature review and how to deal with them. If you start writing the lit
review before you've read all of your sources, you may end up having to delete and revise what
you've written. Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies Given the progressive
acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness
not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies,
so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Lisa Eblen, MLIS, AHIP Research
Symposium Naval Hospital Pensacola September 2011. If you are uncertain which style to use, ask
your professor. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly
conversation on a topic over time. Your librarian can help you determine the best databases to use for
your topic, assess scope, and formulate a search strategy. It starts with the initial report of the
concept, issue phenomena, or theory, and when it first emerged in the literature. When you reach the
point of having written all your paragraphs, you can revisit the whole section and make the words tie
in together more. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature”
used mostly interchangeably. If you have a good research proposal, it means that you are going to
carry out adequate research. Remember, some parts, such as the introduction and conclusion, may
vary based on the purpose of your literature review. Meta-analysis review Meta-analysis uses
statistical methods to summarize the results of independent studies. LibGuides: Writing a Literature
Review: Step 4: Taking Notes The first column measures about 2.5 inches. The second column (the
larger of the two) measures about 6 inches. Argumentative Essay: The Simple definition If you are
writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread
of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the
study of cultural diffusion. Writing the literature review: A practical guide Available 3rd floor of
Perkins Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and behavioral sciences
Available online. Take some time to understand the studies and arguments contained in the published
literature. Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check. To begin organizing your literature review’s
argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the
sources you’ve read.
You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section
gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your
readers to see it. Make referring sources super easy To ensure you don't lose track of your sources,
you must start noting down your references when doing the literature review. A current literature
study I’m working on, for example, investigates impediments to higher education for undocumented
students. By the end, you'll know how to create a compelling literature review and add your own
ideas to the mix. It is based on a desktop program that syncs back and forth to the cloud. It's not
long, and gives some tips to fill in what you just learned from the video. You can do this by assessing
the citation count of any given article in Google Scholar. The same point applies to the dichotomy of
descriptive vs. Current trends vs. alternative theoretical assumptions, political outlooks, or other
conflicting viewpoints. This helps create a coherent narrative and highlights the connections between
different works. Also, it aims to explain the contribution of each publication to understanding the
topic. Or, maybe they did and you were playing Plants vs Zombies. Feedback is vital to writing a
good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views
on the draft. Provide a review of the literature exploring the pros and cons of vegetarianism. A meta-
synthesis is based on non-statistical techniques that aim to integrate, evaluate, and interpret the
results of several qualitative results. Do you need to provide background information, such as
definitions or histories, to aid in your audience's understanding. We understand that a lot comes with
the responsibility of creating a Master’s thesis from scratch. An annotated Works Cited list, on the
other hand, is just an alphabetized list of sources with summaries and evaluations (annotations).
What fundamental theories, models, and methods does the author use. Lit reviews can take many
different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review.
Therefore, there are some steps that you must follow as you write a literature review. As a rule,
incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. A good, well-explained
structure is also a huge help to the reader. External Media Individual Privacy Preferences Cookie
Details Privacy Policy Imprint Here you will find an overview of all cookies used. Rely heavily on
the guidelines your instructor has given you. Book an appointment Consider your specific area of
study. It is not only about giving out a synopsis of existing information but also recording your
interpretation of the same. Buy at discounted student rate Not web-based Has more output styles
than RefWorks (2 times as many) Easier to create custom output styles “Cite while you write” easier
to work with than Ref Work’s Write-N-Cite MS 640: Introduction to Biomedical Information 31.
The good news is this: Once it’s done the way it should be, the research almost writes the literature
review for you. Here, find out information about selecting a creative literature However, if you are
writing a review in the humanities, history, or social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature
may be what is needed, because what is important is how perspectives have changed through the
years or within a certain time period.

You might also like