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A literature review presents an understanding, or a snapshot, of the overall state of the literature by surveying, summarizing, and synthesizing existing literature about the topic of interest.
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WHY DO I HAVE TO WRITE A LITERATURE REVIEW? As mentioned in the Introduction above, you will find yourself being asked to review the literature and to write about it for a number of reasons. As a student, you will be asked to do this to demonstrate your familiarity and understanding of the research that underpins your subject area. It serves as ...
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The Purpose of a Literature Review: The purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of major research on a particular topic. It should establish the importance of a research topic by reviewing relevant academic research and identifying the main patterns, themes or trends that exist in relation to it.
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To help you write your literature review it may help to look at examples of literature reviews in your subject area to give you an idea of the themes or structures you may want to develop or employ within your own work.
The literature on writing literature reviews is generally useful in three areas: describing the aims of the review; suggesting how the literature might be evaluated; and identifying common faults in reviews.
A literature review is usually written as part of a postgraduate thesis proposal or at the beginning of a dissertation or thesis; however, you may be required to write a literature review as a stand-alone essay in a unit of study.
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STEP ONE: DEFINE THE SCOPE. Look for relevant models in journals in your field (e.g., a target journal for publication) and papers, qualifying exams, proposals, and dissertations of colleagues. While none of these will necessarily provide you with literature relevant to your topic, they will be good guides for scope in terms of: 1.
