Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.
You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.
The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps.
A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.
Chronological
A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources – it analyzes, synthesizes, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.
For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.
There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.
Many students writing their undergraduate or Masters dissertation struggle with the concept of the literature review. What is it? How long should a literature review be? How should it be structured? If you're a new student or writing essays at a lower level where a literature review isn't a usual requirement, the concept of compiling one for a dissertation can be even more daunting.
The need to consult a broad range of material has already been stated, but consider also the validity of the sources you review. In some subject areas classic texts retain their authority for literally thousands of years
Here, we break down the dissertation literature review and give you some top tips on how to get it right.
Rather than simply a list of different writers in the field and their opinions, your literature review should give a clear idea of the whole field as it currently stands, describing different bodies of literature, providing varying standpoints on the important issues, and indicating where general opinions have recently changed or are currently being challenged. It must provide a critique of each work, not simply a summary of the books and articles to which you refer. Furthermore, this should be done using authoritative works written by experts – you'll need to evaluate each relevant book or article you discover to ensure it has been written by an academic.
What is a literature review?
Key themes provide a natural structuring principle in a literature review, as do categories based on relevance to research questions, academic position, theoretical paradigm, chronology, and so on. Categorising reviewed material into ‘for’ and ‘against’ classes for certain controversies is one useful way to present findings.
In practice, this process will ensure that the review remains concisely tailored to the topic discussed. Moreover, if you find that the literature available is too sparse, or conversely, insurmountable
Paragraphs giving the title of each book and then summarising their contents do not constitute a literature review. You need to look for themes that several authors mention and discuss the ways the different authorities have tackled them. Your literature review should be as comprehensive as possible, mentioning all the major theorists or writers in the field of your dissertation subject.
Make sure that your sources are balanced
The introduction of a literature review should be clear, short and focused. It should outline the focus of the review – in other words, it should clearly state the main topics to be covered. A good literature review will also state the arguments to be made, as well as underlying rationale that underpins these arguments.
"While scholars such as X argue that migration policies must be made more stringent to counteract the increased flow of Syrian refugees to Europe, other scholars such as Y offer a divergent perspective. They specifically espouse a perspective based on a human rights approach…"
Do not simply describe the opinions of writers
Analyse, analyse, analyse, and ensure that your analysis is critical (what have the writers missed
Is a literature review really necessary?
Now that we know what a literature review is, the next step is to understand the point of writing one in the first place. Like it or not, a literature review is an essential part of any academic piece of writing, as it demonstrates to your tutor or reader that you have a nuanced understanding of the sources concerning your research area or question.
Abstracts and recommendations
Whichever avenue you choose, reading the abstract is often a good starting point to get a sense of what the articles entails. You should also do a quick examination of the introductory and concluding paragraphs of the paper as these sections always provide some information on the aims and outcomes of the research, as well as ‘recommendations for future studies.’ These recommendations typically provide some insight on the research gaps in the literature. Another route would be to simply read as much as you can on your research subject while considering which research areas still need addressing in the literature – this is usually an indication of research gaps.
Like any other academic paper, a dissertation literature review will comprise a basic introduction, body, and conclusion.
This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.
In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.
Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).
If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods, you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:
Introduction
It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation, or research paper, in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.
If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.
Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic.
The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps.
“Cyberbullying gives the bully a much larger spectrum to choose from when it comes to how exactly they want to intimidate their victims, which may be why it is often easier for them to carry out the act. Of all the different ways to cyberbully Faucher et al. (2014) found the most common platforms for cyberbullying to be social media, text messaging, and email, which were used to bully students about half of the time followed up by blogs forums and chat rooms which were 25 percent. This is no surprise that social media is the most common platform for cyberbullying because it can allow for the bully to remain completely anonymous to your average victim. This allows people who may not fit the mold of your average bully to create a fake account and build their own persona in order to bully others.”
Like other forms of academic writing, your literature review should take this format: introduction, body, and conclusion. Here is what to include in every section:
- Medline.
- JSTOR.
- Inspec.
- Project Muse.
- Google Scholar.
- Your university library.
You should only pick the most relevant resources. Also, it is important to appreciate that if you are in the sciences, the review has to be focused on the latest resources. But if your thesis is in humanities, it might be necessary to check older resources to bring out the historical perspectives. As you read through, keep track of the resources by taking notes, capturing the pages, and citing them properly.
Types Of Literature Review
This guide on how to write literature review for thesis cannot be complete without including a bibliography. This is a complete list of all the resources that you have used during the review. It is important to ensure that you follow the method that your supervisor recommends for formatting and referencing. See two reference examples presented below.
By the time you get to writing the thesis for your literature, you will have worked on chapter one (introduction) that clearly defines the topic. But you can still relook at it before setting off to look for the relevant resources. By defining the problem, you will be able to look at the resources that are closely related to the study questions and problems.
To help you craft a good literature review for thesis, here are the main steps that you should follow.
Doing a literature review requires you to collect and analyze scholarly resources that are related to your topic. When conducting a literature review, the process can be broken down into five key stages.
Like any other academic paper, a literature review format must have three sections: introduction, body section, and a conclusion. What to include in each section depends on the aims and objectives of your literature review.
It is the first paragraph that clearly defines the purpose and focus of the review.
Divide the body into subsections for each theme or a methodological approach. While writing the body of a literature review, keep in mind the following things.
Literature Review For A Scientific Research Paper (PDF)
Write Your Literature Review
- Students do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources.
- Sources of your literature review are not related to the research problem.
- Excessive reliance on secondary sources rather than relevant primary data.
- Accepting other research findings as valid rather than critically examining the research design and analysis.
- Not describing the search procedures to identify the review of the literature.
- Only considering statistical results as valid rather than integrating the chi-squared or meta-analytic methods.
- Not considering the research findings and interpretations found in the literature.
The first important step before starting a review section is to have a clearly defined topic.
Also, take enough time to evaluate the sources. Make a list of citations and ensure there are no repetitive authors, articles, or publications in the literature review.
If you are writing a standalone literature review, provide background information on the topic. Also, discuss the scope of the literature and your research objectives. However, don’t forget to mention the results that you will draw from the literature.