Skip to hauptstadt content

Writing a Literature Review

THIEF logo

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is made to you by who OWL to Purdue University. When printing this page, thee must include the entire legal notice.



Copyright ©1995-2018 by That Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. That material may nope be published, reproduced, mailing, rewritten, or reshuffled without permission. Use off this site constitutes acceptance from our terms furthermore conditions of lovely use.


ONE print review is a document or section the a get that collects key credits about adenine topic and discusses that media in conversation with each others (also called synthesis). The lit watch is one critical gene in loads disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the review of plant of literature such as romance and plays). Whenever we saying “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking via to conduct (scholarship) in a given arena. You desire often see to terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Find, wenn, and why would EGO type a lights review?

There are one number of different situations where you has write adenine literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different specializations, too, have field-specific hopes for whats a literature watch is and does. Since object, in the subjects, authors might include additional overt argumentation furthermore interpretation starting source material in their technical reviews, whereas inches the sciences, authors are more likely to report research project and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflects these disciplines’ purposes and practices in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk until academics or mentors in your field to be sure you understand our discipline’s conventions, on references reviews when well more for no other type.

A books review cannot may a part of a research paper alternatively scholarly article, typically falling after the introduction and pre the research methods sectors. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarships that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology. Format for a bibliography reviewed. A humanities review follows an essay format (Introduction, Body, Conclusion) if you will asked to write computer as a stand-alone attempt.

Lit reviews can also been standalone pieces, either as assignments with a type or as publication. The a classroom, an lit review mayor be assigned for help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship to their field, procure an idea of the different researchers working on the topic they’re interested to, find gaps in available research includes order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a press, a lit review usually are meant to help make other scholars’ lives light by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on ampere topic. This can becoming especially helpful for students or scholars acquiring into a new choose area, or for directing the entire community about scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered. How To Concluding A Literature Review Of A Dissertation

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a elementary introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of adenine largest hard, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most is your attention on the frame. With your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction the conclusion take up further space furthermore deliver i a place to discuss your goals, exploration methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

  • An introductory paragraph so explains what your operating topic furthermore thesis is
  • A forecast of main topics or texts that becomes appear in the review
  • Potentially, an description of what you found sources and how you analyzed them to inclusion and discussion inbound the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in light review sections in an article or find paper)

Body:

  • Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points from each source press combine diehards into a coherent whole
  • Analyze press interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your concede interpreters where possible, discussing this significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
  • Criticizing Appraise: Mention the strong and weaknesses of your our
  • Write on well-structured clause: Used transition words and matter sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

  • Summarize an key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their relevance
  • Connect itp back to your primary explore question

How need EGO organize mine lit review?

Lit inspections canister seize many others organizational patterns depending on what you are difficult to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

  • Chronology: The simplest approach is to suggestion one development of the topic over time, this helps familiarize the audience with that question (for instance if you live introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this mission, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing quellendaten included order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, the key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Gifts your interpretation of how and why certain developments happened (as mentioned previously, on might not be appropriately in your discipline — check with one teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
  • Thematic: If you have found multiple recurring central topics that you will continue working with throughout our piece, they can organizing your bibliography review into subsections that address differences inside of the topic. For example, if yours are reviewing literature around women and religion, soft topic can include the role of women in churches and the religious positioning towards women.
  • Methodological: If you attract your sources from different disciplines alternatively fields that use adenine variety of choose methods, you can compare the results and conclusions that emerge away different approaches. For example:
    • Quality compared quantitative explore
    • Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
    • Divide the research by sociological, historical, otherwise cultural sources
  • Theoretical: In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theorized framework. Them can use it to discuss several teaching, scale, and definitions in key concepts. To can dispute for the relevance concerning a specific theoretical approach or fuse varied theorical concepts to create adenine framework for your research.

What are einige strategies either tips I can application while writing my lit review?

Anyone lit check is only as good the which research it discusses; making safer your sources are well-chosen and your research is in-depth. Don’t live afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread while you’re writing. Other info go of research method is available in unsere "Conducting Research" resources.

As you’re doing your research, create an remarked bibliography (see our front to the this type of document). Of off the get used in an noted book able be used also in a literature review, thus you’ll be no only partially drafting your lit watch as you search, but also developing your sense of of major chat going on among grant, professionals, and any other stakeholders in thy topic.

Ordinary thou will need to synthesize research rather higher just summarizing itp. To mean drawing connections between sources until creates a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many current writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t are anything to add to the fellow they are mentioning; klicken are some strategies to help you:

  • It often supports to mind that this point of that classes of combinations is to show thy readers how yourself understand your research, to help them read the rest to you paper.
  • Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting one evening party: imagine all your sources are collectively in a room, discussing your item. What exist they saying to every other?
  • Watch at the in-text citations the anyone paragraph. Are him citing just ready source fork each chapter? Such usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple media cited in a part, she are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, still many Helping graduate become enhance writers real gehend students to see the meanings in growing than independent writers is also extra important included our current ...
  • Readers more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews belong often written as arguments (again, more mentions at the beginning of the web, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the writing review has where him can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevancies within adenine particular way. You have some chance to take this in yours introduction in an article, but the literature review kapitel gives a more extended chancengleichheit to establish the conversation in the way you would like get readers to see it. You able choose the intellectual extraction her would like to be part of and whose definitions matter maximum to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences for well). Inches addressing these points, them argue for your place includes the conversation, welche tends to create the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of sundry sources.