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If you haven't yet written your literature review, this article will help you to structure and plan it.
If you have already written it, or are in the process of doing so, this article can be used as a way to check you've done the right thing at the right time.
I will address the following questions:
The job of a literature review is to make the case for your research and to showcase a problem that your thesis will seek to address/fix.
Check out the infographic we've made, which breaks down the purpose and steps involved in a literature review. Click the image to download a full-size version
Your job when writing your literature review is to wrestle an unwieldy and complex body of literature and turn it into a coherent, flowing text that contextualises your own research, showcases shortcomings in that which came before it and shows how things have been done thus far.
The typical roles of a literature review include:
To summarise what has already been discussed in your field, both to demonstrate that you understand your field and to show how your study relates to it.
To highlight gaps, problems or shortcomings in existing research to show the original contribution that your thesis makes.
To identify important studies, theories, methods or theoretical frameworks that can be applied in the research.
It's a means to an end; it is a way for you to understand your intellectual heritage or genealogy. Consider the following: if you were designing a new model of mobile phone, you’d want to know about existing models. You would want to understand how they are made and what their faults are before you started designing yours. If you didn’t, you’d have no idea where to start, what problems you’d be trying to address, and what the existing mobile phone market looks like.
In many subjects, a standalone literature review chapter is the norm. Not all subjects require it, though. Whether or not you need a separate literature review chapter depends on whether or not you need a significant amount of space to make the case for your research. It also depends on the size of the existing literature. Talk to your supervisor or adviser if you aren't sure.
When you sit down to conduct your literature review, it can seem overwhelming. But, it is more manageable if you break it down into chunks. You can break the literature review down into nine distinct steps (these are covered in the infographic I introduced above):
Pick a broad topic
Find the way in
Who's saying what and when
Take notes
Narrow down the field
Narrow does the sources
Snowball
Think about questions that haven't been asked
Write early, write quickly and write relevantly
For more detail on how to complete each of these nine steps, read this really detailed guide I've made for you. I strongly encourage you to read it - it was too long to include in this article so I've uploaded the discussion on my website for you to enjoy.
Following these nine steps, you can approach the broad literature, work out what's relevant, begin to digest it, relate it to other literature, spot gaps and then have enough insight to write up your review.
Also, by following these steps, you will have a logical trail, from the seminal texts, through to the more specific texts, and finally arriving at your specific research questions and a focal point. By working in this way, you will be structuring your thinking in a way and relating your 'edge' and research questions to both the current, up to date research in your field, as well as the seminal scholarly work.
To understand how to write your review, consider things from the reader's perspective for a moment.
By the time you have finished writing your review, the reader should be able to answer the following eight questions:
