How To Do A Literature Review

Doing a literature review sometimes becomes s daunting for a student because each and every student doesn’t have those skills and abilities to effectively come up with a critical literature review. Hence, the following informational text will provide a brief guideline on how to do a literature review. Remember, that a literature review can be conducted on any type of subject and you don’t have to conduct a new research to come up with something out of the blue.

The basic objective of doing a literature review is to inform the readers of the current information about the subject and creates the ground for further future research work. The critical literature review is characterized by unique ideas with up to date information with pertinent references and appropriate referencing style, good use of terminologies and an unbiased attitude towards the previous research work.

In order to come up with a good literature review, you need to find an already written literature on a subject of your choice. Choose any novel, book, essays and collect all the research work done on the particular subject. You can also consult libraries and internet to get the latest information about the topic you have selected.

You need to have thorough knowledge before writing a literature review about a particular topic; you can also create an outline that will help you write a good piece of writing. Note down all the chapters in the outline to keep you under the boundaries. Make sure your literature review begins with a thesis statement, then introductory paragraphs, body that can further divided into sub-bodies and lastly, the conclusion of the review.

To put it simply, a literature review is a summary of the existing and previously done research work on a particular subject followed by the critical comments on the subject. This gives you the chance of writing your point of view about that subject and giving the further recommendations for the future research work. You can also consult and point out the other literature review to prove your stance in it. Therefore, the preceding information on how to do a literature review has surely helped you in doing a literature review in no time.

How To Come Up With A Perfect Literature Review In Some Simple Steps

Step # 1:

Writing a literature review:

Conducting literature review is not as difficult as it seems to be, but still if some students feel it as a great pain then they should read the following informational text which will guide them to come up with a good piece of work.

Step # 2

Conducting literature research:

First step is to perform a brief research on what has been written on the subject you are writing a literature review on. For this, you can consult various bibliographical sources to find all the relevant titles, references in relevant text book and journal articles and if you are not sure what to do and where to go, ask your instructor to guide you. You can also check abstracting journals or the electronic databases etc.

Step # 3

Note down The Bibliographical Details:

This will immensely save a lot of your time by noting down all the bibliographical detail at the time of going through them. Noting all the details will also save you from going back to the material to note the bibliographical details.

Step # 4:

Go through all the notes:

You have all the material in your hands, now, go through all the work and carefully analyze what is being said while also crafting out what are the negative and positive aspects of the research work so that your literature review has all the ingredients it needs to be effective.

Step # 5:

Finally, start writing your literature review:

Conducting literature review is not rocket science; it is just like the other types of academic research writing in which there is introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion. Thus, let’s check out what should all the categories should contain.

Introduction:

Make sure, it contains the thesis statement and all relevant information to it.
The parameters of the topic that is what has to be included and excluded in the review.
The main reason of choosing this particular topic.

Body:

In depth discussion on the background of the topic.
Provide some alternative viewpoints on the topic.
Various approaches to the subject, for example; historical, philosophical, empirical etc.
Important definitions.
Relevant research studies.
Methodologies involved.
General idea about the topic.
Latest findings about the topic.

Conclusion:

Short description of all the discussion done in the review.
Two lines of all the arguments done in the literature review.
And a short summary restating the thesis statement.

I hope the preceding given information about literature review help will assist you coming up with a better piece of work.