Learn How To Write A Literature Review From Scratch (2023)

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The famous Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh once said, “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” True. Also, this same statement has a lot of value in every aspect of life. Research paper writing is no different. A literature review may not take up the bulk of time and pages in your entire research paper writing process, but you cannot ignore its significance in your academic paper writing or the exhaustion you feel after completing the task. Although, developing a literature review is not child’s play. The comprehensive process starts with searching for reliable resources you need for writing your assignment. Nonetheless, if you are a novice to these steps, then this blog can be quite helpful for you. From here, you can learn the details of how to write a literature review without putting much effort.

What is a literature review?

When you start a research paper, you must be aware of the studies done to date on the subject you are investigating. It helps you to understand the following details:

1. How valuable is your topic is top the academic field?
2. How much you can contribute to the subject?
3. What gaps in existing research can you fulfill?
4. The available theories and methods on the subject of research.

This study of scholarly resources is termed a literature review. To learn how to write a literature review, you must learn the details of the steps involved in it.

What Are The Steps Involved In Writing A Literature Review?

If you want to know how to write a literature review, you must take the following 5 steps:

1. Find pertinent literature
2. Examine the sources
3. Find out the themes, debates, and gaps of study available on the topic of your research
4. Sketch the format of the literature review
5. Draft your literature review

However, you must know that writing a literature review is not all about summing up the sources; you must examine, integrate and weigh up the sources to get a clear image of the status of literature available on the subject. To help you get a better understanding of the methods involved in writing a literature review, below we have shared some samples and templates.

Why Should You Write A Literature Review?

Writing a research paper, dissertation or thesis mandates conducting a literature review. It helps you to position your research among the information available on the subject of your study. Moreover, you get a scope to:

1. Showcase your acquaintance with the topic and the context of your study.
2. Create a theoretical structure and methodology for your research.
3. Fit your work among the research studies of other scholars and theorists.
4. Highlight your contribution to a debate or solve a gap in your study.

How Long Should A Literature Review Be?

The length of a literature review is an essential concern if you want to learn the nooks and niches of research paper writing. It usually depends on the type of academic paper and the academic level for which you are devising it. For example:

1. For a research proposal

All researchers want to get 100% funding for their study. However, the count of sponsors is limited. Hence, there is a huge competition among researchers to get the highest fund. Therefore, it is a safe bet if you limit the literature review to just 1-2 pagers. Nonetheless, keep in mind that you have reviewed relevant and recent articles for your document.

2. For a thesis or dissertation

The count of pages for a thesis or dissertation depends on the academic institution. However, the rule of thumb is to keep it limited to 15-20% of the total word count. Some university recommends writing about 10 -12 peer-reviewed articles for a 10, 000-word paper. However, the word count also depends on the subject you research. For example, if you are researching a topic based on mathematics, you are most likely to develop a literature review of a much lower cord count than that of a psychology dissertation. After all, you cannot express a mathematical equation using words. Moreover, doing so would be inappropriate.

3. For a scientific journal

You may as well complete your literature review in 3 – 4 pages, if you write it for a scientific journal. Here, you will just have to talk about the most important information published recently. Only then, you can get an appreciation for your report on a specific issue or concern.

Templates of Literature Reviews

Reading a literature review example is always helpful to learn how to write a literature review. However, you must know the template each literature review writing follows to figure out the elements of the sample easily.

Mostly, a literature review will be built with the following components:

Introduction

1. It gives a brief description of a topic of research and the scope of the studied literature. Suppose the research is conducted on the topic ‘diary of women in wartimes’. Then, the scope of research should never go beyond published works and manuscripts of a specific location, period, or debate.
2. It must also state the diaries of deliberate exclusions. For example, while writing on the topic, ‘diary of women in wartimes’, you may state that the review will not analyze ‘the diaries of teenage girls.’
3. Describe the wide-ranging conclusion of the review, and make a statement on the accessibility of sources in the subject area.

Main Body

1. This section critically evaluates and sums up the foreground, methodology, and findings using any specific type of literature review. [You will find the categories described in detail below]
2. Take care of all the irregularity, exclusion, and errors, as it is to recognize the precision, profundity, and relevance.
3. Use reasonable connections and transition to link sources.

Conclusion

1. The conclusion recaps the main findings of the review. You may include all the notable similarities between works and analyze if you must include them or not.
2. It validates a research proposal. Therefore, you must restate and uplift the idea based on the findings of the review.

References

1. Apart from the in-text citations, you must as well include complete and accurate citations for every source mentioned in the literature review.

Examples of Literature Reviews

Writing about the previous studies that have been conducted on your subject of research can be quite challenging. However, if you take a look at the examples listed below, you will easily know how to create a literature review.

Topic – Living with chronic physical illness

Marriage is the foundation of most families in many societies. Maintaining the marital relationship strong could be impossible while enduring a chronic physical illness. A chronic physical illness could ultimately alter the day-to-day lives and interactions of the entire conjugal relationship. It is essential to talk about the exchange of ideas that takes place around these diseases. It helps to find out how those who have one have been medically cured after they identified diseases based on research previously performed in similar communication methods.

Rendell and Acitelli (2007) observed that in couples that took the help of relationship talk or converse about the character and course of the relationship, chronically ill couples enjoyed more benefits than a couple where someone with no chronic physical illness did. This literature establishes that in a condition where a spouse is chronically ill, it is essential to communicate with each other. It will make the one suffering from the illness feel more deeply about the condition and what people can expect from expects or need from their partners.

This is just an excerpt from the literature review. Click to read the entire content.

Now let us understand the steps of writing a literature review in detail.

How to Look For Appropriate Literature?

If you have a fair idea of how to write a literature review, you might know that a literature review is not the first step of writing an academic paper. It comes after the abstract and introduction. Therefore, you should have the topic of your literature review in hand already. If you just scroll up to the above section of this blog you will notice that we have mentioned the topic of literature review. It is the topic of the research paper as well. Now, based on this topic and your chosen primary research question or thesis statement you must search your literature review. You can do it in 2 simple steps:

Enlist your keywords

Begin your search for appropriate literature by creating a list of keywords based on your research question. Consider every key concepts or variable that you find interesting, and add in any synonyms and connected terms. Moreover, if you come across any new keyword that can help you in your search for appropriate literature, add it to your list.

Here are some examples of popular keywords used in the search for literature review:

1. Financial scams, Phishing, Bernie Madoff, Charles Ponzi, Ivan Boesky
2. Body image, figure sizes, peer comparison, self-respect, mental health, depression
3. Millennial lingo, teenagers, adolescents, young adults

Search for relevant sources

Now, use the keywords to search for various literary sources. Ensure to research for credible sources to include in your literature review. Databases are the hotspots of academic articles and journals. Some of the most popular ones include:

1. The library catalog of your university
2. Google Scholar
3. JSTOR
4. EBSCO
5. Project Muse(to find literature in academic fields like humanities and social sciences)
6. Medline( for credible life sciences and biomedicine sources)
7. EconLit(to look for literature on economics)
8. Inspec(to find physics, engineering, and computer science sources)

How To Evaluate And Select Sources?

Searching with the right keywords effectively on reliable databases will help you come across a variety of literary sources on your topic of research. However, you may never be able to complete reading the entire contents of all these collected sources. Hence, you must evaluate the most suitable sources that are pertinent to your subject of research.

For each publication, find answers to the following questions:

1. What is the primary question answered in the document?
2. Which key concepts rule in the paper and how did the author define it?
3. What are the principle theories, models, and methods discussed in this source?
4. Does the research employ traditional frameworks or utilize a unique approach?
5. What did the study conclude?
6. In what way is the publication related to other literature in the field? How does it contribute to the existing knowledge – does it confirm, add, or challenged the available theories?
7. What are the strong point and drawbacks of the research?

However, take notes as you select the sources and include them in your literature review. But, never forget to cite them. It will help you to keep track of the sources and make the annotated bibliography quite easy.

Read more: Interesting Debate Topics for you to consider

What Are The Ways To Identify Themes, Debates, And Gaps?

To start arranging the arguments and structure of your literature review make sure that you recognize the links and interactions between the sources you have read. Depending on what you have read and noted, you can hunt for:

1. Inclination and model (in hypothesis, technique, or outcome):Does a specific method turn out to be more or less accepted over time?
2. Subject matter:what problem or concept comes back across the literature?
3. Debate, argument, and disagreement:where do sources differ?
4. Pivotal publications:Is there any important assumption or studies that changed the direction of the field?
5. Gaps:what is absent from the literature? Are there limitations that need to be dealt with?

This step will assist you in deciding the configuration of your literature review and highlight the contribution of your research to the obtainable knowledge.

Suppose you are developing a research paper on the topic – social media and body image. Then, while you review the literature on the topic, you can note trends and gaps in the literature as:

1. Most studies paid attention to the young women.
2. People are more interested in the visual aspects of social media.
3. There is still a deficient of vigorous investigation on highly visual applications like Instagram and Snapchat.

How to Outline The Structure Of A Literature Review?

When you want to learn how to write a literature review you must be aware of the different methods to arrange the body of a literature review.Varying with the length of your literature review, you can unite multiple strategies (for instance, your general formation can be thematic, but each subject is mentioned chronologically). Here are the most common methods of literature review:

Chronological

It is the easiest method to outline the growth of the subject over time. However, if you use this approach, avoid listing and condensing sources in order.

Try to examine the prototype, crisis, and primary argument that have created the direction of the subject. Add in your understanding of how and why specific expansion occurred.

Thematic

If you have discovered some frequent central subject, you can systematize your literature review into subparts that talk about varied features of the theme.

For instance, if you are reviewing literature about disparities in immigrant health outcomes, primary themes might comprise healthcare policy, language blockade, cultural outlook, legal position, and economic admission.

Methodological

If you collect your sources from a variety of disciplines or fields that employ a variety ofmultiple research methods, you might want to weigh against the results and conclusions that come out from different methods. For example:

1. Observe what results have emerged inqualitative and quantitative research
2. Argue how experiential and theoretical viewpoints have approached the theme
3. Segregate the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the base of ahypothetical framework. You can employ it to talk about various hypotheses, representations, and definitions of important concepts.

You might contest or argue for the significance of a precise theoretical approach, or join various notional concepts to craft a structure for your research.

How to Write a Literature Review?

Similar to any academic document, a literature review has an introduction, body, and conclusion. However, it is just the framework; the contents in it vary with the aim of your literature review.

Introduction

The introduction should establish the focus and purpose of the literature review. If you are writing a literature review to include in your dissertation paper or thesis, restate your fundamental issue or research question and give add a short summary of the research context.

Body

Based on the size of your literature review, you might wish for separating the body into subsections. You can use asub-headlinefor every theme, period, or practical approach.

When you write, keep the following tips in mind:

1. Sum upand combine: give a general idea of the key points of each source and bring them together into a rational whole
2. Analyze and interpret:avoid rephrasingadditional studies—include your understanding where possible, and talk about the importance of results concerning the literature as a whole
3. Critically estimate:talk about the strong point and drawbacks of your sources
4. Write in well-structured paragraphs:usetransition wordsandtheme sentencesto illustrate relations, similarities and contrasts

Conclusion

Sum up the primary findings you have deduced from the literature in your conclusion and stress their significance. Ensure that you have highlighted how your research has addressed the gaps of the study and added new information to the field. Moreover, you can also describe how you have developed the research paper framework using the present theories and methods. Finally, after writing every step of the literature review, make sure to proofread your content thoroughly before submitting it.

Wrapping Up

Once you adhere to these detailed guidelines, you will attain the following goals:

1. Know how to write a literature review in a breeze
2. Enhance your chance of getting the desired scholarship
3. Highlighting your depth of knowledge of the subject of your research to the professors

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