How to Write a Literature Review
Today we are going to learn how to write a literature review – straight, simple, and to the point. This is an important part of your dissertation proposal. Learning about all necessary components now can help you greatly when you get ready to write it.
First, however, a word on what a literature review actually is. It will help you immensely to examine a literature review example, so that you can put an example with the definition, whereupon it will certainly make more sense. It is a common mistake among students to think that a literature review is actually a review of literature, as in a book review. Not quite – although to an extent, it can be that. In your dissertation, however, the literature review can be a report on the effects of global warming on Midwestern farms or the prevalence of homosexual themes in Hermann Hesse’s novels. It can be an article someone wrote comparing the economy during the Depression to today’s economy. It can be anything, basically, as long as it is relevant to your research, your subject, and your thesis statement.
With that understood and squared away, learning how to write a literature review is actually quite easy. Think about it like this: in your literature review you are simply reviewing the sources you gathered in order to write your dissertation in the first place. You are just making it relevant to your research, which is something that you do anyway in any kind of writing, not just dissertation writing. In this case, however, you can also present literature which expresses views opposite to your own.
So then, the first thing to remember when studying how to write a literature review is that, like all academic papers, it begins with an introduction. Talk a little bit about your thesis, about the scholarly information you will be reviewing, how it is relevant, etc.
Secondly, there are all the elements of the review. Again, a literature review example is going to come in very handy here. In addition, it involves four essential stages: formation of the problem, the search for literature used, the evaluation of the data, and your analysis and interpretation of the literature you used. Within the body of the review, you will need to present an overview on the subject, divide the literature into categories of your choice, compare and contrast them, and then reach your conclusions.
Learning how to write a literature review also means considering several factors, namely provenance – how qualified are the providers and their works? – the writers’ objectivity, their persuasiveness, and the value of the literature to the subject at hand. As in all aspects of dissertation writing, relevancy is extremely important here. The success of your dissertation proposal is dependent on the effectiveness of your literature review. Do not underestimate how essential it is. Ask your professor if there are any examples you can view, or search for some on your own.
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