Are you wondering what is literature review? It’s a scholarly sources survey on a particular topic. It gives a current knowledge overview, enabling you to recognize relevant methods, theories, and existing research gaps that you may later use in your paper, dissertation, or thesis topic.

This article is an in-depth summary of what is literature review, what to include in your lit review, dissertation literature review, and systematic literature review. Our literature review writing services will save you the tons of time and energy required by your paper.

What is literature review paper?

Literature review papers are documents or sections of documents that collect a topic’s key sources and explain the sources in dialogue with one another (also known as synthesis). Literature reviews are important genres in most disciplines, not only literature (that is, literature works study such as plays, and novels). When you mention “the literature” or state “literature review,” you are discussing the scholarship (research) in a specific field. You’ll occasionally see the phrases “the literature,” “the research,” and “the scholarship,” applied mostly interchangeably.

What to include in a literature review

1.      Look for pertinent literature

Before commencing to search for the literature, you must have a clearly outlined topic.

If you’re writing the research paper, or dissertation literature review section or even thesis writing, you’ll search for your research questions and problem literature.

• List your keywords

Commence with listing keywords associated with your research problem. Include all the key variables or concepts you have an interest in, and create a list of any related terms and synonyms. You can keep on adding to the keyword list when you find additional keywords in the literature search process.

• Look for relevant information sources

Use the keywords to start looking for information sources. Some meaningful databases to look for articles and journals are:

• The library catalog of your university
• JSTOR
• Google Scholar
• EBSCO
• Medline (biomedicine and life sciences)
• Project Muse (social sciences and humanities)
• Inspec (computer science, physics, and engineering)
• EconLit (economics)

You might also utilize a Boolean operator to assist narrow down the search.

Ensure you study the abstracts to discover whether the article is pertinent to the research question. If you discover a useful article or book, you may check your bibliography to look for other pertinent sources.

2.      Select and evaluate sources

You most probably won’t be capable of reading absolutely all that pertains to your topic of research, so it’ll be essential to analyze which sources of information are most pertinent to the research problem.

Make sure you use credible sources, and ensure you read all major theories and landmark studies in your research field.

• Cite the sources and take notes

As you study, you must also start the process of writing. Write notes that you’ll later include in the literature review text.

It’s essential to record every source with citations to prevent plagiarism. It might be beneficial to create annotated bibliographies, whereby you write a summary paragraph and all sources analysis and compile complete citation information. This assists you recall what you studied and is time-saving later in your process.

3.      Identify gaps, themes, and debates

To start organizing the structure and argument of your literature review, ensure you comprehend the relationships and connections between the information sources you have read. Depending on your notes and reading, you can search for:

• Patterns and trends (in results, theory, or method)
• Themes
• Contradictions, debates, and conflicts
• Gaps
• Pivotal publications

This stage will assist you devise your literature review’s structure and (when applicable) demonstrating how your research will boost the existing information.

4.      Outline the structure of your literature review

There are numerous approaches to planning a literature review body. Based on your literature review’s length, you can merge several of the strategies (for instance, you might have a thematic general structure, but all themes are explained chronologically).

• Chronologically

The easiest method is to track your topic’s development over time. Nevertheless, if you select this approach, be keen to prevent simply summarizing and listing sources in sequence.

Try to evaluate key debates, patterns, and turning points that have molded the field’s direction. Give the interpretation of why and how certain developments happened.

• Thematically

If you’ve found some recurrent central themes, organize the review of literature into subsections addressing different topic aspects.

• Methodologically

If you get your information sources from distinct fields or disciplines that use various methods of research, you may need to compare your conclusions and results emerging from different strategies. For instance:

• Study what outcomes have surfaced in  quantitative versus qualitative research
• Explain how your topic of research has been addressed by theoretical versus empirical scholarship
• Divide your literature into cultural, sociological, and historical sources
• Theoretically

A review of literature is generally a theoretical framework’s foundation. You can utilize it to explain various models, theories, and key concept definitions.

You may argue for a particular theoretical approach’s relevance, or combine different analytical concepts to develop your research’s framework.

5.      Write a review of the literature

Like all other academic texts, your review of literature must include the introduction, the main body, as well as the conclusion. Whatever you are involved in each relies on the literature review’s objective.

• Introduction

It should establish the literature review’s purpose and focus.

• Body

Based on your literature review’s length, you may need to divide your body into subdivisions. You can utilize subheadings for each methodological approach, theme, or period.

• Conclusion

In a conclusion, you must summarize all key findings you’ve taken from your literature and affirm their significance.

What is a literature review in a dissertation?

A literature review in a dissertation is derived from the research process, and simply it might only sum up the arguments formed in other information sources. More frequently, however, a literature review also provides a critical assessment of the found arguments.

A literature review doesn’t make extra contributions, as it seeks to analyze existing ones. Alternatively, it might identify the research gaps, and this might form the future papers basis. It might also provide the relevance and validity of source information or might provide a newly established interpretation perspective.

A review is a significant part of the entire academic writing, as it shows a comprehension of the research topic.

Writing Tips for a Dissertation Literature Review

Writing of literature review can be complicated, but you make your homework writing simpler by dividing it into several distinct steps:

1. Identify the sources

If you’ve not been provided with a bibliography, choose your sources depending on their significance to your research topic and your research aims. Make sure there is a book and academic journal balance, inclusive of reputable scholar’s work.

2. Study the sources

By studying each source, you are capable of understanding the main sources and identifying your research gap—the literature’s unanswered questions. Jot down all significant study points.

3. Write your review

If you are unfamiliar with writing literature reviews, study some review samples to have a clue of the style and structure. Aim to ensure your review is tightly focused to prevent confusion and ensure the sources are recent in rapidly changing areas, such as medicine and science.

Once you have got all sorted out, craft your literature review in an organized way:

• The introduction demonstrates the underlying rationale, main arguments, and topics, and must be clear and short.
• The body provides an in-depth source review and might be organized chronologically or by argument or theme.
• The conclusion provides implications of the literature and argument links summary.

What is a systematic literature review?

Generally speaking, systematic literature reviews are review types that collect different research studies and sum them up to answer research questions using rigorous approaches.

The main systematic review activities are:

• Identifying pertinent research
• Critiquing a research report systematically
• Understanding the research conclusions
• Synthesizing findings

Key characteristics

Systematic reviews’ key characteristics are:

• Clear objectives set
• A duplicable methodology, including described for studies inclusion eligibility criteria, and an orderly research methodology that tries to identify every study that meets the criteria of eligibility.
• Analysis of the study quality.
• A blend of the study findings that’s been incorporated into your review

Protocols

A systematic review is guided by strategies that are made by the researchers before it’s carried out. The plans are referred to as protocols.

The protocols of a systematic review might include:

• The systematic review’s rationale.
• The systematic review’s method, including the exclusion and inclusion study selection criteria.

Advantages and disadvantages of a systematic literature review

Like other types of literature reviews that we will explore later in the course, systematic reviews have their pros and cons.

Advantages of a systematic literature review

• Bias is minimized by the application of systematic methods for selecting review studies
• Search strategy and methodology transparency enhance the review replicability.
• A more strict review type than others.

Disadvantages of a systematic literature review

• Often consumes a lot of time than other review types.
• Grey literature (like policy documents and government reports) isn’t usually involved which might bias viewpoints.

What is literature review in research methodology?

Production of knowledge within the business research field is increasing at a vast speed while simultaneously remaining interdisciplinary and fragmented. This hampers abiding by the state-of-the-art being at the research forefront and assessing a particular business research area’s collective evidence. This is the reason why literature reviews as research methods are more relevant than ever before.

A traditional literature review often lacks rigor and thoroughness and is performed ad hoc, instead of following a particular methodology. Therefore, a question can be asked about the trustworthiness and quality of these review types.

This paper explains literature reviews as methodologies for carrying out research and provides different review types overviews and some rules to both perform and assess literature review papers. It also explains how to publish literature reviews and common pitfalls.

Conclusion

For students who aren’t conversant with the phrase ‘literature review’, crafting one might be so daunting. They may be complex papers, and they’ve to adhere to set guidelines concerning writing style, structure, and content as evident in this article on what is literature review.

Don’t let your assignment on what is literature review overwhelm you while you can hire our writing services at eminencepapers.com. Our website’s examples of what is literature review are also a great learning aid! We offer reliable nursing assignment help that will be your academic associate in your journey to becoming a nurse.