Example of a Literature Review on Research Papers
What is a Literature Review
A literature review is an objective, concise, critical summary of published research literature relevant to a topic being researched in an article.
A literature review does NOT:
A literature review does not simply reference and list all of the cloth you have cited in your paper.
- Presenting textile that is non directly relevant to your study will distract and frustrate the reader and make them lose sight of the purpose of your study.
- Starting a literature review with "A number of scholars have studied the relationship betwixt X and Y" and simply listing who has studied the topic and what each scholar concluded is not going to strengthen your paper.
A good literature review DOES:
- Present a brief typology that orders articles and books into groups to assist readers focus on unresolved debates, inconsistencies, tensions, and new questions about a research topic.
- Summarize the most relevant and important aspects of the scientific literature related to your area of research
- Synthesize what has been done in this surface area of research and by whom, highlight what previous research indicates well-nigh a topic, and identify potential gaps and areas of disagreement in the field
- Give the reader an understanding of the groundwork of the field and show which studies are important—and highlight errors in previous studies
Edifice Your Literature Review Bookshelf
One style to conceive of a literature review is to think about writing it as you would build a bookshelf. You don't need to cut each piece by yourself from scratch. Rather, yous tin can take the pieces that other researchers accept cutting out and put them together to build a framework on which to hang your own "books"—that is, your ain report methods, results, and conclusions.
What Makes a Proficient Literature Review?
The contents of a literature review are determined by many factors, including its precise purpose in the article, the degree of consensus with a given theory or tension between competing theories, the length of the article, the number of previous studies existing in the given field, etc. The following are some of the near important elements that a literature review provides.
- A historical background for your research: Analyze what has been written about your field of enquiry to highlight what is new and pregnant in your study—or how the analysis itself contributes to the understanding of this field, fifty-fifty in a small way. Providing a historical background also demonstrates to other researchers and journal editors your competency in discussing theoretical concepts. You should also make sure to sympathise how to paraphrase scientific literature to avoid plagiarism in your work.
- The current context in which your research is situated: Discuss central (or peripheral) questions, problems, and debates in the field. Because a field is constantly being updated past new work, you tin bear witness where your research fits into this context and explicate developments and trends in inquiry.
- A discussion of relevant theories and concepts that provide the foundation for your research: For example, if you are researching the relationship between ecological environments and human populations, provide models and theories that focus on specific aspects of this connection to contextualize your study. If your study asks a question apropos sustainability, mention a theory or model that underpins this concept. If information technology concerns invasive species, cull material that is focused in this management.
- A definition of the relevant terminology: In the natural sciences, the meaning of terms is relatively straightforward and consistent. Only if you nowadays a term that is obscure or context-specific, you should define the pregnant of the term in the Introduction section (if y'all are introducing a study) or in the summary of the literature beingness reviewed.
- A clarification of related research that shows how your work expands or challenges earlier studies or fills in gaps in previous work: You tin use your literature review as evidence of what works, what doesn't, and what is missing in the field.
- Supporting evidence for a practical problem or event your enquiry is addressing that demonstrates its importance: Referencing related research establishes your area of research as reputable and shows you are building upon previous work that other researchers have deemed significant.
Types of Literature Reviews
Literature reviews can differ in construction, length, and amount and breadth of content included. They can range from the selective (a very narrow area of research or only a single work) to the comprehensive (a larger corporeality or range of works). They can also be function of a larger work or stand up on their own.
- A course consignment is an example of a selective, stand-lone piece of work. It focuses on a minor segment of the literature on a topic and makes up an entire piece of work on its own.
- The literature review in a dissertation or thesis is both comprehensive and helps make up a larger work.
- A majority of journal manufactures get-go with a selective literature review to provide context for the research reported in the study; such a literature review is normally included in the Introduction section (merely it tin can as well follow the presentation of the results in the Give-and-take section).
- Some literature reviews are both comprehensive and stand as a separate work—in this case, the unabridged article analyzes the literature on a given topic.
Blazon of Literature Reviews Constitute in Journals
The two types of literature reviews commonly establish in journals are those introducing research articles (studies and surveys) and stand up-alone literature analyses. They tin can differ in their scope, length, and specific purpose.
Literature reviews introducing research articles
The literature review constitute at the beginning of a journal article is used to introduce research related to the specific written report and is found in the Introduction section, commonly nigh the finish. It is shorter than a stand-alone review considering information technology must be limited to very specific studies and theories that are directly relevant to the current study. Its purpose is to ready research precedence and provide support for the written report's theory, methods, results, and/or conclusions. Non all inquiry articles comprise an explicit review of the literature, but most do, whether it is a detached section or duplicate from the rest of the Introduction.
How to structure a literature review for an article
When writing a literature review equally office of an introduction to a study, simply follow the structure of the Introduction and move from the general to the specific—presenting the broadest background data about a topic kickoff and and then moving to specific studies that support your rationale, finally leading to your hypothesis statement. Such a literature review is frequently indistinguishable from the Introduction itself—the literature is INTRODUCING the background and defining the gaps your study aims to make full.
The stand-alone literature review
The literature review published equally a stand up-alone article presents and analyzes as many of the important publications in an area of written report equally possible to provide background information and context for a current expanse of research or a report. Stand-lone reviews are an first-class resource for researchers when they are first searching for the most relevant data on an area of study.
Such literature reviews are generally a bit broader in scope and can extend further back in time. This means that sometimes a scientific literature review tin can be highly theoretical, in add-on to focusing on specific methods and outcomes of previous studies. In add-on, all sections of such a "review article" refer to existing literature rather than describing the results of the authors' own study.
In addition, this type of literature review is usually much longer than the literature review introducing a written report. At the end of the review follows a conclusion that once again explicitly ties all of the cited works together to testify how this analysis is itself a contribution to the literature. While not absolutely necessary, such articles often include the terms "Literature Review" or "Review of the Literature" in the title. Whether or non that is necessary or advisable tin also depend on the specific author instructions of the target periodical. Accept a look at this article for more input on how to compile a stand-alone review commodity that is insightful and helpful for other researchers in your field.
Writing a Literature Review in half-dozen Steps
Then how do authors turn a network of articles into a coherent review of relevant literature?
Writing a literature review is non commonly a linear process—authors frequently go back and cheque the literature while reformulating their ideas or making adjustments to their study. Sometimes new findings are published before a study is completed and need to be incorporated into the current piece of work. This also means you volition non be writing the literature review at whatever one time, but constantly working on it earlier, during, and afterward your study is complete.
Here are some steps that will help yous begin and follow through on your literature review.
Step 1: Choose a topic to write about—focus on and explore this topic.
Cull a topic that you are familiar with and highly interested in analyzing; a topic your intended readers and researchers will find interesting and useful; and a topic that is current, well-established in the field, and about which there has been sufficient inquiry conducted for a review. This will help you detect the "sweet spot" for what to focus on.
Stride 2: Enquiry and collect all the scholarly information on the topic that might be pertinent to your study.
This includes scholarly articles, books, conventions, conferences, dissertations and theses—these and any other academic work related to your area of study is chosen "the literature."
Pace 3: Clarify the network of information that extends or responds to the major works in your expanse; select the material that is most useful.
Use thought maps and charts to identify intersections in the inquiry and to outline of import categories; select the material that volition exist most useful to yous review.
Step iv: Describe and summarize each article—provide the essential information of the commodity that pertains to your study.
Make up one's mind 2-three important concepts (depending on the length of your article) that are discussed in the literature; take notes about all of the of import aspects of this study relevant to your topic being reviewed.
For example, in a given written report, perhaps some of the main concepts are X, Y, and Z. Note these concepts then write a brief summary about how the article incorporates them. In reviews that innovate a study, these can be relatively short. In stand-alone reviews, there may be significantly more texts and more concepts.
Step v: Demonstrate how these concepts in the literature chronicle to what you lot discovered in your written report or how the literature connects the concepts or topics being discussed.
In a literature review intro for an article, this information might include a summary of the results or methods of previous studies that correspond and/or ostend to those sections in your own report. For a stand-lone literature review, this may hateful highlighting the concepts in each commodity and showing how they strengthen a hypothesis or show a design.
Discuss unaddressed problems in previous studies. These studies that are missing something yous accost are important to include in your literature review. In addition, those works whose theories and conclusions direct support your findings will be valuable to review here.
Step vi: Place relationships in the literature and develop and connect your ain ideas to them.
This is essentially the aforementioned as pace v, just focused on the connections between the literature and the current study or guiding concepts or arguments of the newspaper, not simply on the connections between the works themselves.
Your hypothesis, statement, or guiding concept is the "golden thread" that will ultimately necktie the works together and provide readers with specific insights they didn't take before reading your literature review. Make sure you know where to put the research question, hypothesis, or statement of the problem in your research paper so that you guide your readers logically and naturally from your introduction of before work and evidence to the conclusions you desire them to draw from the bigger picture.
Your review will not just comprehend publications on your topics but will include your own ideas and contributions. By following these steps you lot will be telling the specific story that sets the background and shows the significance of your research and you tin plough a network of related works into a focused review of the literature.
In addition to these guidelines, authors also need to check which style guidelines to apply (APA, AMA, MLA, etc.) and what specific rules the target journal might have for how to structure such articles or how many studies to include—such information can normally be institute on the journals' "Guide for Authors" pages.
Finally, subsequently you have finished drafting your literature review, exist certain to receive proofreading and language editing for your bookish piece of work. A competent proofreader who understands bookish writing conventions and the specific style guides used by academic journals will ensure that your paper is prepare for publication in your target journal.
Wordvice Resource
If yous need more advice on how many references to include in your paper, how to write the abstruse or title for your manuscript, or how to impress the editor of your target journal with a perfect comprehend alphabetic character, then head over to the Wordvice bookish resources website.
Source: https://blog.wordvice.com/how-to-write-a-literature-review/
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