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When embarking on the journey of writing a literature review, one of the most daunting tasks can be

determining the appropriate number of sources to include. The literature review is a critical
component of academic research, providing a comprehensive overview of existing literature relevant
to a particular topic or research question. It serves to contextualize the study, identify gaps in
knowledge, and demonstrate the researcher's familiarity with the subject matter.

However, determining the ideal number of sources to include in a literature review can be
challenging. There is no one-size-fits-all answer, as the appropriate number of sources will vary
depending on several factors, including the scope of the research, the depth of analysis required, and
the expectations of the target audience.

In general, a literature review should aim to be comprehensive but also focused. It should include
enough sources to provide a thorough understanding of the topic while avoiding unnecessary
repetition or redundancy. As a guideline, most literature reviews will typically include anywhere
from 20 to 50 sources, although this number can vary significantly depending on the field of study
and the specific requirements of the research project.

It's essential to prioritize quality over quantity when selecting sources for inclusion in a literature
review. Rather than simply aiming to include as many sources as possible, researchers should focus
on identifying the most relevant and credible sources that contribute meaningfully to the discussion.
This may involve conducting a thorough search of academic databases, consulting reference lists of
key texts, and critically evaluating the validity and reliability of each source.

Ultimately, the goal of a literature review is not simply to compile a list of sources but to synthesize
and analyze the existing research in a way that adds value to the current understanding of the topic.
By striking the right balance between breadth and depth, researchers can create a literature review
that is informative, insightful, and academically rigorous.

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and
discusses those sources in conversation with a literature review can be a part of a research paper or
scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections.
Source: images.template.net Format of fyp proposal report cs231 literature review evaluation. In the
last part, you should summarize the key findings of your literature review and their impact. This
square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other
disciplines. When you are citing several authors or making a general statement, use the. Not all
research articles contain an explicit review of the literature, but most do, whether it is a discrete
section or indistinguishable from the rest of the Introduction. It involves identifying, evaluating, and
analyzing the published works in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the topic. Some
people might think of a literature review as reading a book and then giving it a thumbs up or thumbs
down. Let’s Recap In this post, we’ve covered how to research and write up a high-quality literature
review chapter. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. A literature review is not
an annotated bibliography in which you summarize briefly each article that you have reviewed. Next,
you need to log all the articles in your reference manager, build your own catalogue of literature and
synthesise all the research. Make certain that all of the citations and references are correct and that
you are referencing in the appropriate style for your discipline. Lesson Four - Indigenous Village
Irrigation Systems, traditional small scale. In other words, it’s natural for newer articles to have
lower citation counts. The review provides a summary, description, and critical evaluation of a topic,
issue, or area of research. How to Write a Literature Review: 5 Steps for Clear and Meaningful 1.
Also, at this stage, it’s a good idea to allocate rough word count limits for each section, so that you
can identify word count problems before you’ve spent weeks or months writing. Format your title
page according to your university guidelines. For each publication, ask yourself: What question or
problem is the author addressing. Aids in Forming Research Questions: Helps shape precise and
meaningful research questions, building on existing theories. It can be an artifact or a manuscript or a
historical document. These cookies do not store any personal information. Moreover, you can sort
the results based on the publishing date, citation count, and relevance. To identify the most important
publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. The objective of this review was to view
the trends in composition studies within the past fifty years and see how commentary on student
writing has transformed and is still transforming. Therefore, you need to carefully evaluate the
quality of each potential source and let this inform how you use it in your literature review. A
literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending
on the assignment. Have a look at this article for more input on how to compile a stand-alone review
article that is insightful and helpful for other researchers in your field. Social media, Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth Search for relevant sources Use your keywords to begin
searching for sources.
It is crafted to give an overview of the current knowledge, to help the researcher know the methods,
theories, and. To do this, you’ll need to read as broadly and comprehensively as possible. Rely
heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you. I know it’s very tempting, but don’t try to
kill two birds with one stone and write as you read. Here are some of the benefits and challenges of
including different quantities of sources in a literature review. Here's a guide to the genre's
captivating history and key elements, along with the essential. So, it is first of all vital to define what
a literature review is. A good literature review should critically evaluate the quality and findings of
the research. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, then it will be short. Pivotal
publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field.
However, given the amount of information you will be recording, an electronic file created in a word
processing or spreadsheet is more manageable. Given the vast amount of literature available, it's
crucial to discern which publications are most pertinent to your study. For example, a journal article
that involves the collection and analysis of survey data to identify differences in personality between
two groups of people. For each topic or subtopic you identified during your critical analysis of the
paper, determine what those papers have in common. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research
papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. When you
have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always,
but often Read more about synthesis here. 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. Some reviews declare that they
have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather
lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile.
It will help you order your thoughts into an organized presentation, making the paper ultimately
easier to write. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly
challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on
further research and society. Create a balance between direct quotation (citation) and paraphrasing.
Conferenceproceedings: these can be useful in providing the latest research, or research that has not
been published. You can give your consent to whole categories or display further information and
select certain cookies. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the
complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very
important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs. Unleashing
the Power of AI Tools for Enhancing Research, International FDP on. This implies that literature
reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take
months before these appear in scientific databases. Follow the organizational structure you developed
above, including the headings and subheadings you constructed. Tip: Decide on the structure of your
literature review before you start writing. I have an amazing supervisor but one also knows they are
super busy. A good example of a literature review can't fully consist of the words of other people,
whose works are mentioned in the text.
The theoretical framework helps the researcher to focus on areas that are relevant to the research.
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). The findings can be related to the
aims of the study you are proposing to do. Rather, you can take the pieces that other researchers have
cut out and put them together to build a framework on which to hang your own “books”—that is,
your own study methods, results, and conclusions. Which points do the researchers agree (and
disagree) on. Nova has also worked as a technical and scientific writer. Literature review forms the
nucleus of all scientific research. You must prepare a list of keywords and their different variations.
A Comprehensive Analysis Michael on Exploring the Innovative JBX Theater: Revolutionizing the
Entertainment Industry R Chapman on Do Metamucil Gummies Work as Well as Powder. Once you
have decided on the subject, make sure you find literature that is relevant to it. Literature reviews
can be presented in multiple ways: a section of an article, the whole research paper itself, or a
chapter of your thesis. Knowing the type of claim needed to answer your research question will let
you know the kinds of arguments you need to be looking for as you gather and analyze the
literature. The format of a review of literature may vary from discipline to discipline and from
assignment to establish the writer's reason (point of view) for reviewing the literature; Source:
templatelab.com Literature review writing guide, structure, examples and tips for writers on
essaybasics.com. How to write a literature review. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views
on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence
of feedback. Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach. Next,
you need to log all the articles in your reference manager, build your own catalogue of literature and
synthesise all the research. 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. It involves identifying, evaluating, and analyzing the published works in
order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the topic. You’ve done the research and have all the
skills to prove to your audience why this source was perfect for your paper. For you to identify the
gap(s) in the literature and then use this as justification for your own research topic. 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. There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. To this end, it’s
essential that you make use of both a reference manager and a literature catalogue. Always keep
track of important information or data you can present in your literature review right from the
beginning. 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. When
you decide on a research topic, usually the first step you take in the direction of. Nevertheless, a
good literature review can be structured according to the chronological, thematic, methodological, or
theoretical framework approach. If writing the review as part of a thesis or dissertation, you can
research literature related to the critical research questions and objectives. The first column measures
about 2.5 inches. The second column (the larger of the two) measures about 6 inches. All of our
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