How to Write a Literature Review
Writing a literature review is not same as writing a book review. People often confused these two up and end up writing wrong material. A literature review simply covers scholarly articles, research papers and other such sources. It is usually referred to a particular issue and the main purpose of writing a review of the particular literature is to offer and easy and simple overview of the published literature.
Literature review is not as easy as it seems but at the same time, it is not the biggest of the deals. If you are aware of the basic procedure, you can easily write review of any given literature provided your expertise in the topic.
Every literature review has some core elements which are common in all types of literature review no matter what the topic of discussion is. By following this simple procedure, you can easily write a literature review without much trouble.
Instructions
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1
A literature review must include an overview of the subject. Subject is the most important thing so it should be given the most attention along with the objectives of literature review. There is always a reason of writing a literature review and you have to keep this in mind that why are you writing this particular review.
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2
To make things easier, it will be better to categorize your work. Every literature usually has some pros and cons, so you can arrange your work in those two categories or any other of your choice.
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3
You need more than just the given literature to write a review on it. A huge amount of research is required to write a respectable literature review. Use different database, library catalogues, and encyclopedias for that purpose. Research is a very important tool while writing a literature review and without proper research, you cannot expect your review to be of enough credibility.
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4
Carefully evaluate your findings and chose the material you think should be added in the literature review. Research can help you collect a huge amount of data but you cannot add all of it to your review. Since, pick the material you think is most suitable for you and skim through the rest. The main thing you should keep in mind is that you should add only that material which helps in understanding of the topic.
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5
Analysis and interpretation is the step where you tell your own point of view about the literature. It must be short but comprehensive.
