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What is a literature review?
A literature review provides an overview of published sources on a topic. Your review needs to be a critical analysis of these published sources (literature). This is done through summary, classification and comparison of the ways different information is presented by the different sources.
The number of sources that you will be required to review will depend on what the literature review is for, and how advanced you are in your studies. It could be from five sources at undergraduate level to more than fifty for a doctoral thesis. Your lecturer will advise you on this.
Why do we write literature reviews?
At university you may be asked to write a literature review either as a separate assignment (undergraduate level), or as an introduction to a research report or thesis (postgraduate level).
A literature review:
- gives an overview and provides comprehensive knowledge of what has been written on a particular topic
- conveys to your reader what ideas and knowledge have been published on a topic — what has been said, who the key writers are, what the prevailing theories and hypotheses are, and what questions are being asked
- summarises and synthesises the arguments and ideas of others and highlights the strengths and weaknesses of these ideas and arguments
- provides a solid background for a research paper’s investigation.
A literature review is not:
- an annotated bibliography
- a list of available sources
- a list describing or summarising one piece of literature after another
- based on personal opinion.
Questions to ask of your sources
In order for your writing to reflect strong critical analysis, you need to ask these questions of the sources you have chosen to review:
- What are the different authors’ views on the issue?
- How do the theories and hypotheses of the sources relate to the specific themes or questions that I am addressing?
- How do the authors structure their arguments?
- Do the authors include literature that they don’t agree with?
- What questions are being asked by the different sources?
- Do the different authors present the same themes, or opposing ideas, arguments and conclusions?
- Are the claims, methodologies, interpretations of evidence and reliability similar or different between the various sources?
- What relationships between the different sources can be identified?
- Do some of the sources have gaps in the research area or require further study?
How do you write a literature review?
1. Determine your purpose
- What is the guiding concept of the literature review — is it a problem or issue you are discussing, an argument you are putting forward, or are you investigating part of your research objective?
- Have you been asked simply to demonstrate knowledge of available sources on a topic?
- Have you been asked to integrate sources and say something new about them?
- Is the literature review preparatory work for future research?
2. Do an extensive search of the literature
- Use a variety of sources that are relevant, current and authoritative. An extensive review of relevant material will include — books, journal articles, reports, government documents pamphlets and newspaper articles.
- Find out what has been written about your topic.
- Find common themes that you can use for a discussion. As you are investigating and reading widely on your topic, you will need to look for the main ideas (themes) and issues that connect all the sources together.
3. Note the bibliographical details of your sources
- Keep a note of the publication title, date, authors’ names, page numbers and publishers. These details will help you save time later.
4. Find a focus
- Take notes as you read and start to organise your review around themes (ideas).
- Consider using a table or concept map to identify how the different sources relate to each other.
- Try to avoid giving a simple description of what is written in each of your sources. The focus of your review should be to show how different sources developed the themes you are researching.
5. Write the review
- Start by writing your thesis statement. This is an important introductory sentence that will tell your reader what the topic is and what perspective or argument you will be presenting.
- Like essays, a literature review must have an introduction, a body and a conclusion.
The format of a literature review
Introduction
Your introduction should give an outline of:
- why you are writing a review, and why the topic is important
- the scope of the review — what will the discussion include and exclude
- the reasons for your literature selection
- the organisational pattern of the review.
Body paragraphs
Each body paragraph should deal with a different theme that is relevant to your topic. You will need to synthesise several of your reviewed readings into each paragraph, so that there is a clear connection between the various sources. You will need to critically analyse each source for how they contributed to the themes you are researching.
The body paragraphs could include paragraphs on:
- historical background
- methodologies
- previous studies on the topic
- mainstream versus alternative viewpoints
- principle questions being asked
- general conclusions that are being drawn.
Conclusion
Your conclusion should give a summary of:
- the main agreements and disagreements in the literature
- the general conclusions that are being drawn
- where your perspective (thesis) sits in the literature.
To view a sample literature review go to: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/media/pdf/20070515025950_667.pdf