Emperical Articles on the Strategies for Writing the Literature Review

What this handout is about

This handout will explain what literature reviews are and offer insights into the course and structure of literature reviews in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

Introduction

OK. You've got to write a literature review. You grit off a novel and a book of poetry, settle down in your chair, and go ready to event a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" as you leaf through the pages. "Literature review" done. Right?

Wrong! The "literature" of a literature review refers to any drove of materials on a topic, not necessarily the great literary texts of the earth. "Literature" could exist anything from a prepare of authorities pamphlets on British colonial methods in Africa to scholarly articles on the handling of a torn ACL. And a review does not necessarily mean that your reader wants y'all to give your personal opinion on whether or not you lot liked these sources.

What is a literature review, then?

A literature review discusses published information in a particular subject area surface area, and sometimes information in a particular field of study expanse within a certain time menstruation.

A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, simply information technology ordinarily has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, only a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. It might give a new interpretation of erstwhile material or combine new with old interpretations. Or it might trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates. And depending on the situation, the literature review may evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the well-nigh pertinent or relevant.

But how is a literature review different from an academic research paper?

The main focus of an bookish enquiry newspaper is to develop a new statement, and a research paper is probable to contain a literature review every bit ane of its parts. In a research paper, you use the literature as a foundation and as support for a new insight that you contribute. The focus of a literature review, all the same, is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of others without adding new contributions.

Why do we write literature reviews?

Literature reviews provide y'all with a handy guide to a particular topic. If you lot accept limited time to carry research, literature reviews can give you an overview or human action as a stepping rock. For professionals, they are useful reports that continue them upwards to date with what is current in the field. For scholars, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the brownie of the writer in his or her field. Literature reviews also provide a solid groundwork for a research paper's investigation. Comprehensive knowledge of the literature of the field is essential to near research papers.

Who writes these things, anyway?

Literature reviews are written occasionally in the humanities, but by and large in the sciences and social sciences; in experiment and lab reports, they constitute a section of the paper. Sometimes a literature review is written as a paper in itself.

Allow's become to it! What should I do before writing the literature review?

Clarify

If your assignment is not very specific, seek clarification from your teacher:

• Roughly how many sources should you lot include?
• What types of sources (books, journal articles, websites)?
• Should y'all summarize, synthesize, or critique your sources by discussing a common theme or issue?
• Should yous evaluate your sources?
• Should yous provide subheadings and other background data, such as definitions and/or a history?

Detect models

Expect for other literature reviews in your area of interest or in the subject and read them to become a sense of the types of themes you lot might want to wait for in your own research or ways to organize your final review. Yous can simply put the word "review" in your search engine along with your other topic terms to find articles of this blazon on the Internet or in an electronic database. The bibliography or reference department of sources you've already read are also splendid entry points into your ain research.

Narrow your topic

At that place are hundreds or even thousands of articles and books on most areas of study. The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you demand to read in order to get a practiced survey of the fabric. Your teacher will probably not look you lot to read everything that's out there on the topic, but you'll brand your chore easier if you first limit your telescopic.

Continue in listen that UNC Libraries have inquiry guides and to databases relevant to many fields of study. You tin can reach out to the subject librarian for a consultation: https://library.unc.edu/support/consultations/.

And don't forget to tap into your professor'southward (or other professors') noesis in the field. Ask your professor questions such as: "If you lot had to read but one book from the xc'southward on topic X, what would information technology exist?" Questions such as this help you to find and determine chop-chop the most seminal pieces in the field.

Consider whether your sources are electric current

Some disciplines require that you utilize information that is as current as possible. In the sciences, for example, treatments for medical bug are constantly changing according to the latest studies. Data even 2 years old could be obsolete. Withal, if you are writing a review in the humanities, history, or social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be what is needed, because what is important is how perspectives have inverse through the years or within a certain time period. Effort sorting through some other electric current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to go a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to consider what is currently of interest to scholars in this field and what is non.

Strategies for writing the literature review

Find a focus

A literature review, like a term paper, is normally organized effectually ideas, not the sources themselves every bit an annotated bibliography would be organized. This means that you will not just but list your sources and go into detail about each i of them, one at a time. No. Every bit you read widely but selectively in your topic area, consider instead what themes or issues connect your sources together. Practice they nowadays one or different solutions? Is in that location an aspect of the field that is missing? How well exercise they nowadays the cloth and do they portray information technology according to an appropriate theory? Practice they reveal a trend in the field? A raging debate? Choice i of these themes to focus the organization of your review.

Convey it to your reader

A literature review may non have a traditional thesis statement (one that makes an argument), but y'all do demand to tell readers what to wait. Attempt writing a simple statement that lets the reader know what is your main organizing principle. Here are a couple of examples:

The current trend in treatment for congestive heart failure combines surgery and medicine.
More than and more cultural studies scholars are accepting popular media every bit a subject worthy of academic consideration.

Consider organization

You've got a focus, and yous've stated information technology clearly and directly. At present what is the most effective way of presenting the information? What are the most important topics, subtopics, etc., that your review needs to include? And in what society should yous present them? Develop an organisation for your review at both a global and local level:

First, cover the basic categories

Just like most academic papers, literature reviews also must contain at least three basic elements: an introduction or background information department; the trunk of the review containing the discussion of sources; and, finally, a conclusion and/or recommendations department to end the newspaper. The following provides a brief clarification of the content of each:

• Introduction: Gives a quick idea of the topic of the literature review, such as the key theme or organizational pattern.
• Trunk: Contains your discussion of sources and is organized either chronologically, thematically, or methodologically (see beneath for more information on each).
• Conclusions/Recommendations: Discuss what you have drawn from reviewing literature so far. Where might the word proceed?

Organizing the body

Once you take the basic categories in place, and then y'all must consider how you will nowadays the sources themselves within the body of your paper. Create an organizational method to focus this section fifty-fifty farther.

To help you come up with an overall organizational framework for your review, consider the post-obit scenario:

Yous've decided to focus your literature review on materials dealing with sperm whales. This is because you've only finished reading Moby Dick, and y'all wonder if that whale's portrayal is really existent. Y'all start with some manufactures well-nigh the physiology of sperm whales in biology journals written in the 1980's. Simply these articles refer to some British biological studies performed on whales in the early 18th century. And then you check those out. So you expect up a book written in 1968 with information on how sperm whales have been portrayed in other forms of art, such equally in Alaskan poetry, in French painting, or on whale os, as the whale hunters in the late 19th century used to practise. This makes you wonder about American whaling methods during the time portrayed in Moby Dick, and then you find some academic manufactures published in the concluding five years on how accurately Herman Melville portrayed the whaling scene in his novel.

Now consider some typical means of organizing the sources into a review:

• Chronological: If your review follows the chronological method, yous could write about the materials above co-ordinate to when they were published. For instance, beginning you would talk well-nigh the British biological studies of the 18th century, and so about Moby Dick, published in 1851, then the book on sperm whales in other art (1968), and finally the biology articles (1980s) and the recent articles on American whaling of the 19th century. But there is relatively no continuity among subjects here. And notice that even though the sources on sperm whales in other art and on American whaling are written recently, they are about other subjects/objects that were created much before. Thus, the review loses its chronological focus.

• By publication: Club your sources by publication chronology, and then, only if the society demonstrates a more than important tendency. For instance, you could order a review of literature on biological studies of sperm whales if the progression revealed a change in autopsy practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies.

• By trend: A better way to organize the above sources chronologically is to examine the sources under some other trend, such as the history of whaling. And so your review would accept subsections co-ordinate to eras within this period. For instance, the review might examine whaling from pre-1600-1699, 1700-1799, and 1800-1899. Under this method, you would combine the recent studies on American whaling in the 19th century with Moby Dick itself in the 1800-1899 category, even though the authors wrote a century autonomously.

• Thematic: Thematic reviews of literature are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of fourth dimension. Nevertheless, progression of fourth dimension may nevertheless be an important cistron in a thematic review. For instance, the sperm whale review could focus on the development of the harpoon for whale hunting. While the study focuses on i topic, harpoon technology, information technology volition still be organized chronologically. The only divergence hither between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the virtually: the development of the harpoon or the harpoon technology.But more authentic thematic reviews tend to suspension away from chronological society. For case, a thematic review of material on sperm whales might examine how they are portrayed as "evil" in cultural documents. The subsections might include how they are personified, how their proportions are exaggerated, and their behaviors misunderstood. A review organized in this manner would shift betwixt time periods inside each section co-ordinate to the point made.

• Methodological: A methodological arroyo differs from the two above in that the focusing factor usually does not have to do with the content of the material. Instead, it focuses on the "methods" of the researcher or writer. For the sperm whale project, one methodological approach would exist to wait at cultural differences between the portrayal of whales in American, British, and French art piece of work. Or the review might focus on the economic impact of whaling on a customs. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.
  In one case you lot've decided on the organizational method for the torso of the review, the sections you need to include in the newspaper should exist easy to figure out. They should ascend out of your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time catamenia. A thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that chronicle to the theme or event.

Sometimes, though, yous might demand to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the torso. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. Put in only what is necessary. Here are a few other sections you might want to consider:

• Current State of affairs: Information necessary to understand the topic or focus of the literature review.
• History: The chronological progression of the field, the literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Methods and/or Standards: The criteria you used to select the sources in your literature review or the way in which y'all present your information. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed articles and journals.

Questions for Further Research: What questions near the field has the review sparked? How volition you farther your research equally a effect of the review?

Begin composing

Once you've settled on a general design of organisation, you're ready to write each section. There are a few guidelines you should follow during the writing stage as well. Here is a sample paragraph from a literature review about sexism and linguistic communication to illuminate the following discussion:

However, other studies have shown that even gender-neutral antecedents are more than likely to produce masculine images than feminine ones (Gastil, 1990). Hamilton (1988) asked students to complete sentences that required them to fill in pronouns that agreed with gender-neutral antecedents such every bit "writer," "pedestrian," and "persons." The students were asked to draw any image they had when writing the sentence. Hamilton found that people imagined iii.3 men to each woman in the masculine "generic" status and i.5 men per adult female in the unbiased condition. Thus, while ambient sexism deemed for some of the masculine bias, sexist language amplified the effect. (Source: Erika Falk and Jordan Mills, "Why Sexist Language Affects Persuasion: The Function of Homophily, Intended Audience, and Offense," Women and Language19:two).

Utilize evidence

In the example higher up, the writers refer to several other sources when making their bespeak. A literature review in this sense is simply like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must exist backed upwards with evidence to show that what you are saying is valid.

Exist selective

Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should chronicle direct to the review's focus, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological.

Utilize quotes sparingly

Falk and Mills do not use any direct quotes. That is considering the survey nature of the literature review does non allow for in-depth discussion or detailed quotes from the text. Some brusk quotes hither and at that place are okay, though, if y'all want to emphasize a betoken, or if what the writer said just cannot exist rewritten in your own words. Notice that Falk and Mills do quote certain terms that were coined by the author, not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Only if you discover yourself wanting to put in more quotes, bank check with your instructor.

Summarize and synthesize

Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources inside each paragraph too every bit throughout the review. The authors here recapitulate of import features of Hamilton's study, simply and so synthesize information technology by rephrasing the study's significance and relating information technology to their own work.

Go on your ain voice

While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice (the writer's) should remain front and center. Observe that Falk and Mills weave references to other sources into their own text, but they notwithstanding maintain their ain voice by starting and catastrophe the paragraph with their own ideas and their ain words. The sources back up what Falk and Mills are proverb.

Utilise caution when paraphrasing

When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be certain to represent the author's data or opinions accurately and in your own words. In the preceding example, Falk and Mills either direct refer in the text to the author of their source, such as Hamilton, or they provide aplenty notation in the text when the ideas they are mentioning are non their own, for example, Gastil's. For more information, please meet our handout on plagiarism.

Revise, revise, revise

Draft in hand? At present y'all're ready to revise. Spending a lot of time revising is a wise idea, because your main objective is to present the material, not the argument. And then check over your review again to make certain it follows the assignment and/or your outline. Then, merely as you would for most other academic forms of writing, rewrite or rework the language of your review so that you've presented your information in the near concise manner possible. Be certain to use terminology familiar to your audience; go rid of unnecessary jargon or slang. Finally, double check that you've documented your sources and formatted the review accordingly for your discipline. For tips on the revising and editing process, see our handout on revising drafts.

Works consulted

Nosotros consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive listing of resources on the handout'south topic, and we encourage you to do your own enquiry to find additional publications. Please do not use this list every bit a model for the format of your own reference list, every bit it may non friction match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please encounter the UNC Libraries commendation tutorial. We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers, sixth ed. New York: Longman.

Jones, Robert, Patrick Bizzaro, and Cynthia Selfe. 1997. The Harcourt Brace Guide to Writing in the Disciplines. New York: Harcourt Brace.

Lamb, Sandra E. 1998. How to Write Information technology: A Complete Guide to Everything You'll E'er Write. Berkeley: X Speed Press.

Rosen, Leonard J., and Laurence Behrens. 2003. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook, 5th ed. New York: Longman.

Troyka, Lynn Quittman, and Doug Hesse. 2016. Simon and Schuster Handbook for Writers, 11th ed. London: Pearson.

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Source: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/literature-reviews/

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