What is literature review & how to write one? – Importance of Lit Review
A literature review is a comprehensive overview of previous research on a certain topic. It describes, summarizes, and evaluates each relevant theory and research study. The literature review may comprise academic journal articles, books, websites, and other sources. In a thesis or dissertation, it’s typically presented as a separate chapter.
The Purpose of the Literature Review
The purpose of a literature review is to provide a critical written summary of current research on a certain topic. It also includes:
- Identifies subjects and what previous studies have been done.
- Each source is analyzed in terms of how it contributes to the understanding of the topic, field of study, or theory under examination.
- Describes the connection between every source and the one you’ve chosen.
- Identifies new ways to understand prior findings and fills in any gaps.
- Provides a plan for future research.
Literature review-Dissertation
If you’re writing an undergraduate dissertation, you might have to start with a literature review. A literature review is a research and evaluation of the current literature in the topic area or subject you’ve chosen.
There are three basic aims of a literature review:
- It examines the literature in your field of study.
- It summarized the information found in the literature.
- It critically evaluates the data acquired by identifying knowledge gaps and demonstrating the limitations of theories.
A literature review demonstrates to your readers that you have a complete understanding of your subject and that you recognize how your study fits into and contributes to an existing body of knowledge.
How to write a literature review
Literature reviews serve as a quick reference for a specific topic. The depth of the evaluation shows the student’s trustworthiness in his or her subject. Literature reviews also give a strong context for investigation in the thesis or dissertation.
There are five important stages to follow:
- Conduct a search of all relevant literature.
- Evaluate and select sources
- Search for common themes, arguments, and gaps.
- Outline the format of the literature review
- Write a literature review
A good literature review does more than summarize sources; it also analyses, synthesizes, and critically evaluates them to provide a comprehensive picture of the current state of knowledge on the topic.
Stage 1: Conduct a search of all relevant literature
You will look for relevant literature for your research problem and questions, if you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation. If you’re doing a literature review as an individual project, you’ll need to focus and establish a main topic to guide your research.
Stage 2: Evaluate and select sources
You won’t be able to read everything that has been written on the subject, so you’ll have to decide which sources are the most relevant to your search.
Consider the following questions for each publication:
- How does the author answer the question??
- What are the main ideas?
- What are the most important theories, models, and methodologies?
- What are the study’s findings and conclusions?
- What are the research’s advantages and disadvantages?
Make sure the sources you’re using are reliable. Your literature review’s dimension will be determined by your topic and discipline. In the sciences, you will often only review recent literature.
Stage 3: Search for common themes, arguments, and gaps.
To start developing the argument and framework of your literature review, you must first comprehend the connections and links between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for the following items:
- Theoretical trends and patterns: do particular methods gain or lose popularity over time?
- Themes: what are the recurring questions in the literature?
- Debates and conflicts: Where do sources disagree?
- Key publications: Have there been any influential theories or research that have shifted the field’s focus?
- Gaps in the Literature: What isn’t in the existing literature? Is there anything that needs to be filled?
This stage will assist you in determining the framework of your literature review as well as demonstrating how your own research will contribute to existing literature.
Stage 4: Outline the format of the literature review.
A literature review’s body can be formatted in a variety of ways. Before you begin writing, you should have a general overview of your strategy.
Chronological
If you use this method, be aware of listing and summarizing sources in chronological order. Analyze the trends, turning points, and major discussions that have shaped the field’s direction. Describe how and why certain events occurred.
Thematic
You can divide your literature study into subsections that address different parts of the topic if you find some repetitive main themes.
Methodological
If your sources are from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods, you may wish to compare the results and conclusions that arise from different approaches. Consider the following:
- Compare and contrast the findings of qualitative and quantitative research.
- Type the sources into social, historical, and cultural categories.
Theoretical
A theoretical framework is frequently built on the basis of a literature review. It can be used to discuss various theories, models, and important concepts. You can also develop a framework for your research by combining numerous theoretical principles.
Stage 5: Write the literature review
Your literature review should have an introduction, a major body, and a conclusion, just like any other academic document. The purpose of your literature review will decide what you include in each area.
Introduction
The main point and objective of the literature review should be clearly stated in the beginning.
Body
You may choose to break the body of your literature review into subsections depending on how long it is. Each theme, time period, or analytical approach might have its own subheading. You can write by summarizing theories and synthesizing each source, critically evaluating, and writing in well-structured paragraphs.
Conclusion
Finally, summarize and focus on the major findings from the literature.
Literature Review example
Assignment Studio’s assignment experts have successfully completed over 15,187 assignments and homework for students all over the world. Below are a few samples of literature review assignments.
