Literature review 1

The first literature review seems to be in accordance with all the principles of
academic writing. The writer demonstrates his/her research purposes by enumerating
a number of objectives that are going to be discussed later on. The purpose of the
objectives is clear and the whole literature review is cohesive and coherent. The writer
has separated his/her text in paragraphs and each paragraph is supported with
evidences and justifications based on the literature review. The references are drawn
from academic journals and good quality textbooks and the review had developed key
arguments from the literature thematically. Key issues are discussed and conlusions
are drawn.

Literature review 2

With respect to the second literature review, there are some issues that should be
discussed. The specific literature review is not coherent and cohesive at all. The
advantage of the above literature review is that the writer has constructed a thesis
statement “In this section of my work I will review several studies which confirm the
importance of pragmatic competence for EFL/ESL learners and also prove that there
is a place for teaching pragmatics and promotion of pragmatic awareness in the
classroom” in the introductory section but the main body is incoherent and no
conclusions are drawn. The writer has separated the literature review based on studies.
He/she presents five studies, which of course are reverent to the topic but it is just as
making a summary and not synthesizing. The writer seems to have not carefully and
critically reviewed his/her literature review. The literature review seems to be
insufficient and the writer proceeds only with the studies to supports-unsuccessfully-
his/her thesis statement.