What is Literature Review, and how to write a great one

A literature review is a comprehensive summary of previous research on a topic. The literature review surveys scholarly articles, books, and other sources relevant to a particular area of research. The review should enumerate, describe, summarize, objectively evaluate and clarify this previous research. At masters level, a literature review should also highlight the limitations/problems of that research. Here’s how to write an effective Literature Review. Find format, examples and templates.

What is Literature?

Definition: A literature review is an objective, critical summary of published research literature relevant to a topic under consideration for research. Its purpose is to create familiarity with curtail thinking and research on a particular topic, and may justify future research into a previously overlooked or understudied area.

Learn the importance of a literature review

Understand how to use other people’s research in order to determine how and where your work will fit into the current canon

Understand how to locate literature relevant to your research.

Outline the key aspects of compiling a literature review.

Why is literature review required

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A good literature review will substantiate your work by helping to demonstrate its authority, importance and reliability by:

• Help you to refine your research questions
• Help you to contextualise your research topic
• Help you to enhance/demonstrate your subject-specific knowledge
• Help you to identify your contribution
• Help you to decide on your methodology and methods
• Help you to ensure that your research is of contemporary interest
• Help you to organise valuable ideas and findings
• Help you to develop a critical perspective

Approaches used

Deductive – Develops a conceptual framework from the literature which is then tested using the data.

Inductive – Explores the data to develop theories which are then tested against the literature.

Sources that can be used for literature review?

Wide range of sources available to you in terms of putting your literature review together:

Books – some will be more beneficial than others, textbooks which cover the basic information about a broad range of topic areas, but in a rather superficial way. Usually a good place to start to get a sense of the relevant theories and concepts in your topic area.

Monographs – these come in two different types. The first is standard monographs, which reports the results or conclusions of an original research project by one or more authors. The second is the edited book, which collects together chapters written by individual authors reporting their own research into a particular topic.

Reader – contains extracts from previously published work either by one author or on one particular topic by several authors. It is quick and easy to access original commentary on a subject, and getting a flavour of what is involved.

Journal articles – majority of your sources will be academic journals like the Journal of Management Studies, as opposed to trade or professional journals such as People Management (CIPD publication). Academic journals are refereed, the papers published have been subject to an anonymous review process involving commentary from at least two independent referees. The authors tend to make revisions and amendments as recommended by the referees before publication.

Mintel market research reports, government reports – you can also include company reports, conference papers/proceedings, working papers.

Student thesis and dissertations – use these as a source for references and further reading.

Newspapers, radio and television programmes.

Library catalogues, encyclopaedias, databases, bibliographies – they are not literature in themselves but they provide lists of the relevant literature in a subject area.

• Tertiary: Indexes, Abstracts, Catalogues, Encyclopaedias, Dictionaries, Bibliographies, Citation Indexes
• Secondary: Journals, Books, Newspapers, Some government publications.
• Primary

How to find these sources?

Trawling and fishing for information through various mediums – this should involve as comprehensive an overview as you can manage of the relevant material to ensure breadth of coverage.

Reading lists from modules you have done at undergraduate level.

Library databases

You are free to use literature that has been published in languages other than English for your research, as long as it is relevant to your research, as well as being a robust source in its own right. However you will need to translate both the ideas and the necessary references into English.

Useful material in other social science and humanities disciplines – like sociology, psychology, media studies, cultural studies, history, philosophy, politics, international relations etc (useful parallels can be drawn).

Also Read: How to use Google Search effectively.

Using the literature

Skills for effective reading: Previewing, Annotating, Summarising, Comparing and contrasting, Taking notes.

Important skills:

• The capacity to evaluate what you read
• The capacity to relate what you read to other information
• To record all the relevant details for referencing purposes
• Formulate a working structure for your literature review

Questions to ask whilst going through the literature:

• What is the author trying to say?
• Is it convincing?
• What methodology has been used by the author(s)
• Is it reliable and valid piece of work

Compiling a literature review

When drafting and redrafting, again focus on your research questions and remember that the literature review should be organised around themes, not presented as a list.

Cover all sides of the relevant arguments.

Structuring the finished version:

Begin with a short introduction laying out what the chapter will do. Then move to the main ideas, concepts and theories in the available literature. Summarise and contrast these key ideas then narrow down to more specific ideas – those most relevant to your research. Summarise the key points from the review and then suggest that these issues will form the basis for your own data gathering process.

Key points:

• Demonstrate that you have read, understood and evaluated your material
• Link the different ideas to form a cohesive and coherent argument
• Make clear connections to your research objectives and the subsequent empirical material

Literature Review: Stages

Problem formulation—which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues?

Literature search—finding materials relevant to the subject being explored.

Data evaluation—determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic.

Analysis and interpretation—discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

What a good literature review looks like

It has three main things:

There must be evidence of reading: references and direct quotations from key texts, theories, concepts, models and findings that prove the review reasonably comprehensive.

Literature review shows the research material has been understood. A comparative, thematic approach is the key here, as is writing in your own words for the most part.

The literature must be evaluated. How well do the various authors make their cases? Do they use a narrow range of methods? Is their evidence convincing? And how does all of this relate to your work?

In general, a Literature Review must:

• Compare and contrast different author’s point of view
• Evaluate aspects of methodology
• Note areas of disagreement
• Highlight gaps in research

How to avoid plagiarism

• Paraphrase with supporting documentation
• Cite – one of the effective ways to avoid plagiarism
• Reference everything that you have used
• Four common forms of plagiarism:
• Stealing material from another source
• Submitting material written by another
• Copying material without quotation marks
• Paraphrasing material without documentation

Literature Review – Assessment

Provenance: What are the author’s credentials? Are the author’s arguments supported by evidence (e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings)?

Objectivity: Is the author’s perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author’s point?

Persuasiveness: Which of the author’s theses are most/least convincing?

Value: Are the author’s arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

Literature Review Format: Various Components

A typical literature review consists of the following components:

Introduction:

• A concise definition of a topic under consideration (this may be a descriptive or angumemative thesis. or proposal) as well as the scope of the related literature being investigated. (Example: If the topic under consideration is ‘women’s wartime diaries’, the scope of the review may be limited to published or unpublished works. works in English. works from a particular location. time period, or conflict. etc.)
• The introduction should also note Intentional exclusions. (Example: “This review will not airfare the diaries of adokscent
  <li>Another purpose of the introduction is to state the general findings of the review (what do most of the sources conclude). and comment on the availability of sources in the subject area.

Main Body

• There arc many ways to organize the evaluation of the sources. Chronological and thematic approaches arc each useful examples.
• Each work should be critically summarized and evaluated for ut premise, mei hodology. and conclusion. It is as important to address inconsistencies, omissions, and emirs, as it is to identify accuracy. depth, and relevance.
• Use logical connections and transitions to connect sources.

Conclusion

• The conclusion summarizes the key findings of the review in general terms. Notable commonalities between works, whether favourable or not, may be included here.
• This section is the reviewer’s opportunity to Justify research proposal. Therefore, the idea should be clearly restated and supported according to the findings of the review.

References

As well as accurate in-text citations. a literature review must contain complete and correct citations for every source.

Here’s a literature review template.

Things to Keep in Mind

Literature review is an important part of your research. Students can use it to improve their research topic and questions. If you have rough ideas about what you want to study but have not yet clearly conceptualized your ideas, a literature review will help you conceptualize them and refine your research topic.

While doing literature review, you need to evaluate and analyze the key concepts and theories that are central to your research project, with a view of surveying what the academic literature has to offer. Literature review synthesizes the current knowledge that forms the basis of building a convincing thesis. Additionally, the narrow goal of the literature review is to enable me to articulate the academic research questions that you seek to pursue and answer through my research.

A literature review is an evaluative report of information found in the literature related to your selected area of study. The review should describe, summarize, evaluate and clarify this literature. It should give a theoretical base for the research and help you (the author) determine the nature of your research.

Once you have located literature for your selected topic, you will need to go through it, and summarize the literature. Writing a literature review is an important part of any research proposal, which forms a section of your final research report.

If you go through journal articles on any topic, you will find the literature review section, usually in the beginning, describing theoretical frameworks and previous research findings of the research topic.

It means you will need to provide lot of citations.

This section is the space where researchers show how their studies are connected to previous knowledge on the topic. It refers to all previous research done on a specific topic, including theoretical analyses and empirical research findings on the topic. It provides readers with an organized overview of the existing studies on the topic.

We suggest you include the following types of studies:

• Studies whose topic or research questions are similar to yours or include the same variables as yours
• Studies using your theoretical approach;
• Studies testing the same set of independent and dependent variables;
• Studies of the same issue or question but done on a different population from your target population; and
• Studies that other sources on your topic cite frequently.

Reviewing the literature has two phases.

1. The first phase includes identifying all the relevant published material in the problem area and reading that part of it with which we are not thoroughly familiar. We develop the foundation of ideas and results on which our own study will be built.
2. The second phase of the review of literature involves writing this foundation of ideas into a section of the research report. This section is for the joint benefit of the researchers and readers. For the researcher, it establishes the background in the field. For the readers, it provides a summary of the thinking and research necessary for them to understand the study.

References:

Bell, J. (2005) Doing Your Research Project. 4th ed. Buckingham: Open University Press, Chapter 6

Bryman, A (2016). Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p11-21.

Bryman, A and Bell, E (2007). Business Research Methods . 2nd ed. Oxford : Oxford University Press. p19-31.

Cohen, L; Manion, L and Morrison, K (2011). Research Methods in Education . 7th ed. Oxon: Routledge. p37-56.

Johnson, P. and Duberley, J. (2000). Understanding Management Research: An Introduction to Epistemology, London: Sage, Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4

Leicester, U (2009). Research Methods . Cheltenham: Learning Resources. p3-11.

Saunders, M; Lewis, P and Thornhill, A (2009). Research methods for business students . 5th ed. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. p11-37

Silverman, D. (2005) Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook, 2nd ed. London: Sage, Chapters 1 and 7