Are you having challenges with composing a literature review? This should be the right article for you. We have with us excellent tips on how to write literature review for dissertation that will enable you to hack the various challenges that might come your way. Read on and find out more.
To begin with, it would be nice to define literature reviews before going ahead to look at the writing process.
What is a literature review? This is a summary of various publications on specific topics at a specified time. By reading a literature review, you should get a brief overview of some of the essential and do without aspects of the paper through the help of the research and analysis. It doesn’t stop at the summary, but rather it also looks at;
- Profound analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of different works
- Synthesis of information sources to bring out the connections and patterns between the publications
- Mention on the current status of the information gathered on the topic in correspondence with the research question
Literature reviews are typically written whenever you’re tasked with writing a dissertation or thesis to focus your research concerning the existing information. This can be captured just by the introduction part or at times written separately as a section that appears immediately before the methodology and research findings.
There are different types of literature reviews; we have the stand-alone paper and the dissertation literature review. Based on the content, you’d notice the difference, but when it comes to how to write literature review for thesis, they both assume the same approach. To get a better view, check out the content based plan on how to write literature review for thesis, they’re available online. Take your time and find out!
Importance of a Literature Review
Just like all other academic writings, literature reviews also have a role to serve. What’s the point of coming with an academic paper that has to purpose, it won’t be beneficial in any form. Before we tackle how to write literature review for research paper, check this out;
- Targeting writers dedicated to doing research, literature reviews could be the best option for you. They’ll give you an excellent foundation to form the basis of the whole project, more so when it comes to dissertation literature reviews. Picture yourself handling areas of research that you aren’t familiar with. This could be challenging if not time-consuming in every aspect. Starting with a summarized, evaluation and comparison writing of the whole project can be a step in the right direction to help make the work easier.
- Literature reviews help readers with their research project by narrowing down the focus of the work; this is ease to the whole work. Gathering or the detailed and good quality literature works that are quite important to a readers research work and putting them collectively into one could be quite helpful to a reader.
- They help avoid instances of duplication. Ingenuity is an aspect of writing that is very treasured; a literature review could help you with achieving that goal.
- Takes note of some of the valuable, useful and crucial research findings that one might have bumped into during the process.
- Literature reviews can as well guide readers and writers by providing them with ideas on where subsequent research on the same can be based and focused on. Some of these recommendations have so far proven useful.
- Mind you the various research methodologies, relevant and applicable research approaches used in the literature can be brought out clearly through the in-depth analysis involved.
- Generally, literature reviews involves various bits of analyzing the presenting information that could help with detecting some of the limitations, missing patterns in the literature publications.
How to Write Literature Review for Research Paper
Having defined literature reviews, it’s safe to move to look at some of the ways on how to write literature review example.
We’ve at least gave you a brief definition of what a literature review actually is; how about we now go a step further and now focus on how to write literature review for research paper. Don’t be in a hurry with your research but if you’re, a literature review is something you ought to consider within your short period. However, the pros use them to stay posted with the current trends in the field of research and as well give some background information on the direction of the given research. You’d notice such papers assigned in various areas including humanities, social sciences and so on. You can always look at the instructions and topic to confirm.
Arrange Your Work
When it comes to how to write literature review for dissertation how you arrange and organize your work matters the most. You have all you need to compose your paper, what do you do next? The data you’ve gathered, the information you’ve collected, the theories you’ve come up with, the ideas you’ve settled for, how best you can put them across and still achieve the desired effect you had in mind.
An excellent approach to this can be to develop an outline with the guided format on where and when to place the various sets of information, but this can at times not be enough for the whole project on how to write literature review article. Organization on how to write literature review assignment you ought to begin by looking at what’s necessary, and this is the structure of the literature review. Just like most other academic papers use this, literature reviews are not so different, except for the content basis.
- Introduction
Create a positive halo effect.
Intrigue your readers!
This is the beginning of your paper. Some introductions contain a thesis statement customarily made up of two clauses, the dependent and independent clause, which are like two peas in a pod, they go hand in hand. How to write literature review assignment should help you with bringing out your point of view and stance on the given topic. The introductory section of the literature review welcomes the reader to the text by giving them a brief overview of what the paper is all about. Keep your readers in the loop with what’s going on.
- Body
This section of the literature review structure requires one to give further details on the information gathered. Some of the various ideas and theories you stumbled upon or settled for should be well highlighted in this section of the paper. Try to be as specific as possible. It’s a discussion of the given literature be it humanities, social sciences or lab experiments. You ought o organize your information in a sensible, chronological and logical manner. First, go for the more critical points then, later on, you can now mention the less strong ones once you’ve exploited your winning ideas. Nevertheless, it’d be a better idea if you ensured that the points you pose are all strong.
- Conclusion
Having gone through the whole project, what are some of the weaknesses and strengths of the publication you were tasked to review? Recommendations for future research on the topic a and subject for those in the future who’d be interested in the same works could ease the work for them. Judging from the research, you conducted what some of the possible conclusions that you find are quite relevant to the paper and that you think you should touch on. Read more on how to write literature review article conclusion and stand a higher chance of coming up with better concluding literature review paragraphs.
The Topic
Take your time to research for information sources. You’ll surely come across various books and journal articles that have been done that are focusing on your discipline. The guarantee is that if you make good use of these information sources, they will guide and help you come up with a great topic you could use if not succeed in.
Based on how to write literature review example topic, you’re required to effectively use your brain cells and be wise with whatever you decide to settle for. Normally, the topic can either be assigned to you by the lecturer, or you can be given an open ground to formulate your topic. If for example, the assignment comes with an already chosen topic, you’ll have to go the library, stay focused and find a way of making it happen for you, besides the topic wouldn’t be far from what you’re being taught in class. Far from that, if given an opportunity to formulate with your topic, you thank your instructor and the only to do this is to excel in the literature review. Here you ought to make some appropriate considerations before settling for a topic. Here are some of them;
- Opt for topics you find quite comfortable
- Keep off quite common topics
- Think through some of the relevant topics you could consider for the literature review
- Research the web with a strong focus on some of the trending topics with coverage on your field of study
- Seek for secondary advice from your instructor or seniors with experience on the same
- Go through the lecture notes you made
- Go for options of research topics that are up to be reviewed
- Be time considerate whenever you’re choosing your topic
- Avoid blunt topics or those that are too broad, go for something that will help achieve the desired work coverage without posing a significant challenge
Review Other Articles
Here is a practical guide on the best approachable way to this:
- Perform a critical analysis of the findings you’ve collected from your research. Come up appropriate and relevant summarized versions of results
- You’re researching topic however you’re not alone in this, consider the other researchers and whole at this try and appreciate their logic and point of views
- What are the conventional theories that have been used for a long time? Why are writers opting for them and why have they lasted this long?
- Who are some of the scholars and renowned pros in that field of study? What makes their work so outstanding to deserve the recognition? You could as well mention their works in your literature review paper.
- What are some of the arising and contradicting ideas in the literature? How have society and other writers responded to them?
- What the research methodologies that have so far been pronounced in almost all the articles? What are your thoughts on the areas you’re required to focus on!
Take Note and Cite Your Sources
The writing and reading should go together. While doing your research, be sure to take down notes as you write. These notes are to be incorporated into the paper as you write. Remember the sources and citations. These are to be appreciated. Be on the lookout for plagiarism as it’s something most lecturers find disturbing and you’d be penalized for committing such an academic offense leave alone disrupting your integrity as a person. A good practice is to come up an annotated bibliography to compile all the gathered information.
Be keen on the literature review structure when it comes to the organization of the body. Come up with an outline on how you’ll organize the body text before you sit down to draft the paper. Outlines should help you know where and when to place specific information. There are various approaches. We have; chronological, methodological, thematic and many others.
Conclusion
What we just covered will only be of help if you make good use of it and do further research. We know right now you are feeling a bit well compared to your previous state while tackling you are stressing literature review paper. We’re always here for you to ensure you get the best and nothing short of that. Well, we hope that this article has provided you with some insight on how to tackle literature review academic papers and give your grades a paradigm shifting change.
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