Research Writing

Session 5: Writing a Literature Review

Agenda
• What is Literature Review?
• Steps in Writing the Literature Review
• Language Focus
• Writing definitions
• Summarizing
What is a Literature Review?
What is a Literature Review?
• A survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic.
• Provides an overview of current knowledge.
• Allows to identify relevant theories, methods, gaps in the existing
research
Five key steps (*)
Step 1. Search for relevant literature
Step 2. Evaluate sources
Step 3. Identify themes, debates, and gaps
Step 4. Outline the structure of your literature review
Step 5. Write your literature review

(*)
Source: Scribbr (https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/literature-review/)
A good literature review
… doesn’t just summarize the sources, but it …

- analyzes
- synthesizes
- critically evaluate
Step 1 – Search for relevant literature
• a clearly defined topic needed
• make a list of keywords
• search for relevant sources using keywords
• Google Scholar
• Sci-hub
• Project Muse
• Jstor
• skim read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant
Step 2 – Evaluate and select sources
For each publication, ask yourself:
• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative
approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it
confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?
Step 2 – Evaluate and select sources
• Take notes and cite your sources
• take notes that can be later incorporated into the text of your literature review.
• keep track of the sources with citations to avoid plagiarism
• make an annotated bibliography where you compile full citation information
and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source.
Step 3 – Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Understand the connections and relationships between the sources
you’ve read.
• Look for
• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results)
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur
• Debates, conflicts: where do sources disagree?
• Seminal works: influential theories; shape/shift a paradigm
• Gaps: What is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to
be addressed?
Examples of trends and gaps

✓ Most research focused on young women

✓ Increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media
✗ Lack of research on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat
➠ This is a gap your research could fill
Step 4 – Outline the structure

Common structures
● Chronological: Organize by time
● Thematic: Organize by theme
● Methodological: Organize by methodology
● Theoretical: Organize by theoretical approach
Step 5 – Write the literature review

● May be divided into sections

● Analyze and interpret
● Critically evaluate
● Synthesize different sources
● Use well-structured paragraphs
● Cite your sources
References
• https://guides.library.ucsc.edu/c.php?g=119714&p=780881
• https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/reviewofliterature/
• https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/literature-review/
• Machi, L. A., & McEnvoy, B. T. (2022). The literature review: six
steps to success (4th ed). Corwin: A SAGE publishing company (Not a
very reader-friendly; best suited during thesis preparation or grad
school level).