How To Write A Literature Review

10 Feb 2022

Emma Clerk

How to write a literature review

We provide the best guidance on how to write a literature review. A literature review is an examination of scholarly materials on a particular subject. A literature review entails gathering, analyzing, and assessing publications (such as books and journal articles) that are relevant to your research subject. In the process of writing a literature review, there are five basic steps:

Look up related material.
Examine the sources
Determine the topics, arguments, and gaps.
Create a blueprint for the structure.
Prepare a literature review.

Students are nervous about how to write a dissertation literature review? But don’t stress we will help you. A professional literature review does more than summaries sources; it analyses, synthesizes, and critically assesses them to present a complete picture of the current state of knowledge on the issue. We provide the best Annotated bibliography and MBA dissertation help at dissertation sky.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

We provide the best guidance on how to write a literature review. You’ll need to perform a literature evaluation to contextualize your study within current knowledge while writing a dissertation or thesis. The literature review provides you with the opportunity to

Demonstrate your understanding of the subject and scholarly background.
Make a theoretical framework and a research strategy for your project.
Place yourself in relation to other thinkers and researchers.
Demonstrate how your dissertation fills a void or contributes to a discussion.

The goal here is to assess the current level of research and exhibit your understanding of academic arguments on a certain issue. Each case will have somewhat different material, but the processes for performing a literature study will be the same.

Step 1: Conduct a literature search.

We provide the best guidance on how to write a literature review. You’ll need a well-defined topic before you start looking for books. You will look for literature relating to your research objectives and questions if you are writing the literature review portion of a dissertation or research paper.

This question, unlike a dissertation research topic, must be answered without the use of original data.

Example of a research question
What effect does social media have on Generation Z’s body image?

Make a keyword list.

Begin by making a list of keywords that are relevant to your study topic. List any synonyms and similar phrases for each of the primary topics or variables you’re interested in. If you come across new terms while doing your literature search, you may add them to this list. We provide the best guidance on how to write a good literature review

example of keywords

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok are all examples of social media.
Mental health, body image, self-perception, and self-esteem
adolescent, adolescent, adolescent, ado

Look for related resources.

We provide the best guidance on how to write a good literature review. Begin your search for sources by using your keywords. The following databases can be used to find journals and articles:

The catalogue of your university’s library
Scholar on Google
JSTOR
EBSCO
Project Muse is a software programmer that allows you to create (humanities and social sciences)
MedlinePlus (life sciences and biomedicine)
EconLit is an acronym for economic literature (economics)
Examine (physics, engineering and computer science)

To assist you to narrow down your search, you may use Boolean operators:

AND to locate sources that have several keywords (for example, social media
AND body image
AND generation Z).
OR to locate sources that have one of a number of synonyms (e.g. generation Z OR teenagers OR adolescents)
TO INCLUDE RESULTS WHICH CONTAIN CERTAIN TERMS (e.g. apple NOT fruit)

To see if an article is related to your topic, read the abstract. You may utilise the bibliography to identify more relevant sources after you’ve found a helpful book or article. Are you worried about who will write my dissertation? Contact us

Take notice of repeated citations to find the most essential articles on your topic. Make a point of seeking out the same authors, books, or articles if they keep surfacing in your reading.

Step 2: Assess and choose sources

You won’t be able to read everything that has been published on the subject, so you’ll have to figure out which sources are the most relevant to your inquiries. Students are nervous about how to write a dissertation literature review? But don’t stress we will help you Consider the following questions for each publication:

What is the author’s response to the question or problem?
What are the most important ideas and how are they defined?
What are the most important theories, models, and techniques? Is the study based on well-established frameworks or does it take a fresh approach?
What are the study’s findings and conclusions?
What is the relationship between the publication and other literature in the field? Is it a confirmation, addition, or challenge to previously held beliefs?
What contribution does the publication make to your understanding of the topic? What are the main points and arguments it makes?
What are the research’s advantages and disadvantages?

Make sure the sources you’re using are reliable, and that you’ve studied any landmark studies or key theories in your subject. We provide the best guidance on how to write a literature review. On Google Scholar, you can see how many times an article has been mentioned; a high citation count indicates that the piece is significant in the subject and should be included in your literature review. The extent of your review will be determined by your topic and discipline: in the sciences, you will often just study contemporary literature, but in the humanities, you may take a long historical view (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Make a list of your sources and take notes.

You should start writing as you are reading. Make notes that you may use in the text of your literature review later.

To avoid plagiarism, it’s critical to maintain track of your sources and mention them. Making an annotated bibliography, in which you assemble full reference information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source, might be beneficial. This will help you remember what you read and save you time later on. Students are tense about how to write a dissertation proposal in the UK? But don’t worry we will help you how to write a literature review uk

For quick, accurate, and consistent citations, you may utilize our free APA Reference Generator.

Step 3: Look for common themes, arguments, and gaps.

To begin organizing the argument and framework of your literature review, you must first comprehend the connections and links between the sources you’ve studied. You can search for the following things based on your reading and notes: Trends and patterns (in theory, practice, or outcomes): do some approaches gain or lose popularity over time?

What questions or topics appear repeatedly throughout the literature?
Where do sources disagree? There are debates, disputes, and inconsistencies.
Are there any influential theories or research that have shifted the field’s direction?
What are the gaps in the literature? Are there any flaws that should be addressed?

This stage will assist you in determining the framework of your literature review as well as demonstrating how your own study will contribute to current knowledge (if appropriate).

Trends and Gaps as an Example

You notice that the majority of studies on social media and body image has concentrated on young women as you scan the literature.

The visual parts of social media are becoming increasingly popular.

However, there is still a scarcity of solid data on highly visual sites like Instagram and Snapchat, which you might fill with your own study.

Step 4: Outline the format of your literature review.

The body of a literature review can be organized in a variety of ways. Before you begin writing, you should have a general notion of your plan.
Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine many of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The most straightforward method is to follow the topic’s evolution through time. If you select this technique, be wary of merely listing and summarizing sources in chronological order. Are you anxious about how to write a literature review dissertation? For better-understanding contact at dissertation sky.
Analyze the trends, turning moments, and major disputes that have affected the field’s path..

Thematic

Students are tense about how to write a dissertation proposal in the UK? But don’t worry we will help you how to write a literature review uk You can organize your literature study into subsections that address different parts of the issue if you find certain recurrent primary themes.
If you’re looking for information about discrepancies in migrant health outcomes, for example, relevant issues may include healthcare policy, language difficulties, cultural views, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

You might wish to compare the results and conclusions that arise from different techniques if your sources are from different disciplines or fields that utilize a range of research methodologies. Consider the following scenario:

Consider the outcomes of qualitative vs quantitative research.
Discuss how empirical vs theoretical study has tackled the problem.
Sort the sources into social, historical, and cultural categories.

Theoretical

A theoretical framework is frequently built on the basis of a literature survey. It may be used to explain various ideas, models, and important concept definitions.

You may provide a case for a particular theoretical approach, or you could mix several theoretical notions to build a framework for your study.

Step 5: Write a review of the literature.

Your literature review should include 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 emphasis and objective of the literature review should be clearly stated in the opening.

Review of the literature for a dissertation

If you’re preparing a literature review for a dissertation or thesis, restate your main topic or research question and provide a quick overview of the academic environment. You might emphasise the topic’s relevance (“many recent studies have concentrated on the problem of x”) or point out a gap in the literature (“although the considerable study has been done on x, few scholars have taken y into account”). Students are tense about how to write a dissertation proposal in the UK? But don’t worry we will help you how to write a literature review UK.

Literature criticism on its own

If you’re writing a standalone paper, provide some context for the issue and its significance, define the extent of the literature you’ll be reviewing (for example, the time span of your sources), and express your goal. What fresh knowledge will you get from the research?

Body

You may choose to break the content of your literature review into subsections depending on how long it is. Each subject, historical period, or analytical approach might have its own subheading. Are you anxious about how to write a literature review dissertation? For better-understanding contact at dissertation sky. Keep these suggestions in mind when you write:

Summarize and synthesize: provide a summary of each source’s important points before combining them into a cohesive whole.
Analyze and interpret: don’t just repeat what other researchers have said; add your own views and analyze the importance of the findings in the context of the whole literature.
Examine your sources critically, noting their advantages and disadvantages.
Use transitions and topic sentences to generate links, parallels, and contrasts in well-structured paragraphs.

Conclusion

In the conclusion, you should summaries the most important results from the literature and emphasis their importance. Are you anxious about how to write a literature review dissertation? For better-understanding contact at dissertation sky.

Review of the literature for a dissertation

If your literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, emphasizes how your study fills gaps and offers new information, or explain how you built a framework for your research by drawing on existing ideas and methodologies. This is a good way to start your methodology section.

Literature criticism on its own

If you’re writing a stand-alone article, you can analyze the literature’s broader implications or provide recommendations for future study based on the gaps you’ve discovered.

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