Basics of Literature Review

&
Review Paper Writing

S. Simonthomas Dr. R. Subramanian

Research Scholar Professor
Department of Computer Science Department of Computer Science
Pondicherry University Pondicherry University
Puducherry Puducherry
 Literature Review
What is the literature review? [2]
A literature review summarises, critically analyses and evaluates previous research available on
the subject, presenting this in an organised way. It should address a clearly articulated question or
series of question.
Why do we write a literature review? [2]
•Demonstrate an in-depth understanding of your topic area including key concepts, terminology,
theories and definitions
•Identify who the major thinkers are
•Identify what research has been done in that area
•Find gaps in the research or current areas of interest to help you formulate your own research
question
•Identify the main research methodologies in your subject area
•Identify main areas of agreement or controversy
•convince the reader that your research questions are significant, important and interesting
•convince the reader that your thesis will make an original contribution to the area being
investigated.
Steps to complete the literature review:
•Find relevant literature on your topic and follow trails of references
•Identify themes/ideas/theories/approaches to the topic that have emerged from reading
•Introduce ideas by themes/theory/approach/chronologically or any other appropriate structure but do not
just list different authors’ viewpoints
•Introduce and explain each theme (or theory/approach), present evidence from readings (agreements/
disagreements), critically commentate and relate to your own research

Reference [2]
 Flow of action in Academic Paper Writing
• Before you start to write, you can prepare yourself by
• Developing the connection between ideas: It will allow you to construct the conceptual framework.
• Updating the knowledge of current research trends in your discipline.
• By familiarize yourself with the guidelines of the top journals of your field for their stylistic preferences.

Step One Step Two Step Three Step Four Step Five Step Six Critical
Generating Ideas Generating Writing First Writing Writing Final Publishing
Critical Critical Outlines Draft Multiple Draft Draft
Reading Thinking

 Analyze  Interpret  Build framework  Flexible ideas  Revision of  Formatting  Follow-up

 Evaluate   Literature around the idea  Revising write-up the final write- publishers
review Sequencing of outline  Major up guideline
idea and sub-idea  Visual changes  Proofreading
representation Feedback
 Listing
sources
Basic Rules of Academic Paper Writing
 Have Rationality

 Patent or publish: You should first see whether your work is innovative or
not. If innovation has the merit for patentability, then don’t plan the
publications before trying for patent. If the innovation is not worthy to be
patented, then go for publications.
 Novelty of the work: The novelty of work is the driving force for
publications. If you are first in reporting a work, then it’s a win-win
condition for publications.
 Contribution to the state of knowledge: Either in the form of research or in
the form of review there must be something in your work which can
contribute to the state of knowledge in that domain.
Basic Rules of Academic Paper Writing
 Plan well on time

 Start writing early

Plan the article well before the completion of your research. So that you can plan
some studies if required during writing.
 For review writing
Plan review article immediately after exhaustive literature review. See if you have
enough literature survey and your prior expertise or experience in the research
area.
 Plan the outline on time
Plan outline of paper with co-authors, PI or supervisor, well ahead of the draft
writing.
 Basic Rules of Academic Paper Writing
 Target a journal wisely

 Assess your work wisely: Neither overestimate nor underestimate your quality of work.
See the journal to be targeted and the level of articles in that and then as per the quality
of your work plan the submission. It would not be a wise decision to target a journal like
Nature or Science for a very simple a basic research like reporting antioxidant activity of a
plant.
 Target quality journals or journals with good impact or indexing: Target the best possible
journal for your article. Best in the sense of impact factor.
 Matching with the scope of the journal: Target a journal which publishes the articles
similar to your research area. You can check “Scope of journal” section of the target
journal for checking the same.
 See Article processing charges (APC): yes or no?, affordability
 Check how much time the journal takes for the peer review process: This is very important
to check the time taken by a journal in review process. Target a journal which takes less
time for the same. Surely, you cannot wait for years if you are planning article with your
Ph.D thesis submission. In general, the minimum time is 2 to 3 months taken by a journal’s
review process. Sometime journal offers fast track processing of article with a fee. If you
can afford, avail it.
Drafting a manuscript

 A tight or well-defined outline of the article helps a lot in drafting.

 Stick to author guidelines of the journal while drafting the manuscript
 Use either British or American English
 Avoid any typo and grammatical errors.
 Use simple and reader friendly language with good clarity.
 Maintain a systematic flow in writing and presenting information.
 Don’t forget to give due attribution.
 Avoid plagiarism: Do not copy
 Plan a precise aim, split it into objectives and tell what methods were
adopted for getting results and then discuss them properly.
Focus every component of an article
 Title: I suggest plan it at last. Keep in mind that it should be simple, catchy, reader friendly,
suitable for the journal to be targeted and representative of your work.
 Authorship: Only persons who have given actual contribution in planning, designing,
execution, completion, and drafting of study should be given authorship. It should not be used
as a gift or any favor.
 Affiliation: apart from your institutional address give email which you use more frequently
rather than the one which you do not use normally.
 Abstract: In drafting stage, you should plan the abstract after the completion of the paper.
Make it structured or unstructured as per requirement of the journal. Give to the point
aim/objective, methods, results and conclusion; and make it concise (generally 300 words).
 Keywords: select the keywords which are not in the title. Right selection of keywords makes it
easy to get your work searched easily on internet or search engines. Add keywords which are
related to your study and which are more likely to be used by the people to search for the
similar study.
 IMRAD style for research articles: Here, will just give very basic tips for the same here.
Focus every component of an article
 IMRAD (introduction, methods, results, and discussion structure) style for research
articles:

Section of Paper Content

Abstract The central ide
Introduction Defining problem and objectives; rationality of work

Materials and methods The way to solve the problem

Results Findings of the experiments
Discussion Analytical study of obtained results
Conclusion Concluding remark on Outcome
Acknowledgment Support received
References Sources of study
Infographics Tables and figures
Introduction:
Try to answer: What is the problem and what is your hypothesis:
 Give background or origin of idea
 Logically, sequentially, systematically introduce your problem and give your
hypothesis.
 Focus on justifying the rationality of your work.
 Give proper citation to latest and important previous studies.
 Don’t use very old references until they are indispensible or they are must to discuss.
Materials and methods:
Try to answer: How the problem was studied following your
hypothesis.
 Discuss the methodology logically and in concise way.
 Don’t miss discussing about any modification made by you in standard method.
Results:
Try to answer: What was the outcome of problem treatment from your
hypothesis.
 This section provides the evidence that leads to the answers of the study to the question you
posed at the start.
 The reader should be guided to these findings by using the text of the results along with a
judicious use of tables and illustrations.
 State the results without any bias.
 Don’t exaggerate the results.
 Don’t be afraid of reporting negative results.
 Report any paradox.
 Use good statistics to show the results
 Don’t repeat the text in figure or table or vice versa
 Cite the table or figure in text.
 Make the tables and figures self-explanatory with suitable legends or footnotes.
 Equations and special characters: Give attention to presentation of equations. Its better to write
the equations in Microsoft equation (a function in MS Word). The special characters like micron
(μ), beta (β), Rho (ρ), gamma (γ) etc. should be checked specially for their accurate presentation.
Sometime they get changed automatically upon pasting from a pdf file to word file.
Discussion:
Try to answer: How was the outcome of problem treatment correlated and/ or
contradicted with the previous studies.

 Discussion may be separate section or joined as Results and discussion section as per
the journal’s requirement.
 Take the results one by one and discuss them.
 Discuss the results in light of existing knowledge.
 Be critical.
 Don’t be biased.
 Discuss the results with clarity and reader friendliness.
 Use the references freely to support discussion.
Conclusion:
 Conclude your study outcome in concise manner.
 The conclusion should not just be copied from abstract. Give future direction also.

Acknowledgements:
Try to answer: Who helped you and supported you but not eligible to be
author on merit.
 Acknowledge only to project grants,
 Gift samples,
 Analytical or other service providers
 Logistic support etc.
 Do not use this section for greasing
 Do not acknowledge senior authors and direct stakeholders like department,
principal/head etc.
References:
 Stick to uniform formatting and style as prescribed by the journal.
 Don’t unnecessarily increase the references.
 Spell author’s name properly (he/she may be one of the reviewers; none wants his
 name printed wrong);
 Don’t miss the pioneer, most important and most relevant studies for your work.
 Do not forget to cite latest references.
 Limit the references as per the need of your article
 Review article are expected to give as much as references.
Editing & Revising:
 Major Changes: Fill the missing links, correct the flow or the logic, rewrite/ reorganize
the text for putting in the logical sequence.
 Polish the style: Refine the content followed by corrections in grammar and spelling.
 Formatting: Give time to your text so that it is more attractive and easy to read

 Do the work in the given sequence. Otherwise, you will be wasting your time in revising
the things and then deleting the same thing later.
Self-Revision by the Author(s):
 Revision of your writing is an on-going process from the time you begin until the final copy is
submitted. You must write the first draft and then leave it for a day. Then you can come back to
the first draft and begin revising again and check the things in following order.

Check
 The sequence of content and idea in each section for logical flow
 Whether there is a strong relationship of ideas between the introduction and the discussion or
not.
 Each paragraph has a main sentence for coherence or not.
 In paragraph, other sentences support the main or lead sentence or not?
 The smooth, natural and logical transitions between paragraphs.
 The accuracy of terminology used.
 For possibility of active voice framing of an existing passive voice.
 For complete removal of any colloquial language.
 For any redundancy of content
Self-Revision by the Author(s):
Check
 Clarity and brevity of sentences. Try to use fewer words for same sentence.
 Correct citation and formatting.
 The sequence of your infographics.
 The line spacing, font size in text and infographics.
 The page breaks to ensure unbroken infographics.
 The accuracy of names and affiliation of authors
Summary
Here are some suggestions for improving a manuscript:
•Write simple language with clarity.
•Rational of the study must be clear and be focused in the entire study.
•Aims and methodology should be clearly explained
•Provide the results systematically and in totality;
•Discuss the results critically and with logical reasoning without any general and vague
statements;
•Conclude the study as per the objective of the study and provide future trend (if any)
•Provide the additional data or spectra also in support of our study.
•Always stick to manuscript guidelines prescribed by the journal with respect to formatting
and all other aspects of the research article.
Reference:
1. Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University) Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand,
India

2. https://snazlan.wordpress.com/2016/11/09/topic-0019-writing-your-literature-review/