AdInstaText helps you to rewrite your texts and make them more readable and understandable. Improve your academic writing. Increase your acceptance rates and publish more and faster WebIf your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more WebSteps in the literature review process Preparation of a literature review may be divided Web · Conducting a literature review Focusing on different aspects of your ... read more
The literature review provides a description, summary and evaluation of each source. It is usually presented as a distinct section of a graduate thesis or dissertation. The purpose of the literature review is to provide a critical written account of the current state of research on a selected topic:. Literature reviews are often published as scholarly articles, books, and reports. Here is an example of a recent literature review published as a scholarly journal article:. Ledesma, M. Critical race theory in education: A review of past literature and a look to the future. Qualitative Inquiry, 21 3 , Link to the article.
Adapted with permission and thanks from How to Write a Literature Review originally created by Kenneth Lyons, McHenry Library, University of California, Santa Cruz. Concordia University. On this page. The Academic Support Librarians have developed LibSmart I and II, Learn courses to help you develop and enhance your digital research skills and capabilities; from getting started with the Library to managing data for your dissertation. Finding resources in your subject: Subject guides. The Academic Support Librarians also provide one-to-one appointments to help you develop your research strategies. Advice to help you optimise use of Google Scholar, Google Books and Google for your research and study: Using Google. A referencing management tool can help you to collect and organise and your source material to produce a bibliography or reference list.
Referencing and reference management. Information Services provide access to Cite them right online which is a guide to the main referencing systems and tells you how to reference just about any source EASE log-in may be required. Cite them right. There are a number of scholarship skills books and guides available which can help with writing a literature review. Our Resource List of study skills guides includes sections on Referencing, Dissertation and project writing and Literature reviews. Study skills guides.
Skip to main content. Search: Search. Institute for Academic Development. Menu Institute for Academic Development home Study Hub Study Hub learning resources Hybrid learning and teaching Making notes in class Time management Effective studying Academic writing Reading at university Group working Critical thinking Presentations and posters Editing and proofreading Developing your English Statistical and numerical data Good academic practice Referencing and citations Exams Dissertations and research projects Literature review Digital skills Study skills guides. Home Institute for Academic Development Study Hub Study Hub learning resources Literature review. Contact us. A general guide on how to conduct and write a literature review.
The basics What is a literature review? What is the purpose of a literature review? When doing and writing a literature review, it is good practice to: summarise and analyse previous research and theories; identify areas of controversy and contested claims; highlight any gaps that may exist in research to date. Conducting a literature review Focusing on different aspects of your literature review can be useful to help plan, develop, refine and write it. A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.
Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered. Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.
Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:.
Note for Purdue Students: Schedule a consultation at the on-campus writing lab to get more in-depth writing help from one of our tutors. This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use. A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other also called synthesis.
The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature i. There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology. Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications.
This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered. Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself. Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review.
Here are some examples:. Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources. Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it.
You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well. In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources. Welcome to the Purdue OWL This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University.
Web · Conducting a literature review Focusing on different aspects of your AdInstaText helps you to rewrite your texts and make them more readable and understandable. Improve your academic writing. Increase your acceptance rates and publish more and faster WebIf your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more WebSteps in the literature review process Preparation of a literature review may be divided ... read more
The Academic Support Librarians also provide one-to-one appointments to help you develop your research strategies. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself. What is the purpose of a literature review? It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. As you read, you should also begin the writing process.
A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertationstheses, and research papers. What is the purpose help with writing a literature review a literature review? Published on February 22, by Shona McCombes. Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute. If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.