What is a Literature Review? Guide with Examples

A literature review refers to an assessment of academic sources on a particular topic. The review provides adequate information, allowing you to distinguish applicable theories, methods, and gaps in the present study.

A literature review entails discovering significant publications, analyzing them and clarifying your findings. A good literature review shouldn’t only summarize sources but investigates, integrates, and fundamentally examine to provide a reasonable image concerning the matter.

What is the Motivation Behind a Literature Review?

The motivation of the review is to provide an audit of compositions on the topic to establish the commentator’s verdict. The audit gives a reader a far-reaching look at past discussions going before the one the expert will make in his/her own investigation paper, proposition, or theory. To lay it out simply, a review shows readers where the expert is entering the academic conversation on a particular point with respect to existing grants or academic pursuit,

The review provides you with relevant guidance for a particular subject. On the off chance that you have a limited opportunity to lead research, a review of literature can give you a layout. Researchers provide significant reports that keep awake with the most recent with what is current in the field. For researchers, the review’s significance and extensiveness highlight the acceptability of the writer in their field. Literature review similarly gives a solid establishment to an investigation paper’s assessment. Complete data on the composition of the field is key for most assessment papers.

Is there a Difference Between a Literature Review and an Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a rundown of your references with a synopsis of the substance and the publication’s relationship to your exploration question. A literature review is an outline of the point, a clarification of how publications contrast from each other, and an assessment of how every publication adds to the subject’s conversation and comprehension.

What is the Contrast Between a Literature Review and a Scholarly Research Paper?

The essential point of an educational investigation piece is developing another argument, and an assessment paper will likely contain a review as one of its parts. In an investigation paper, you use the composition as a foundation and help for other information that you contribute. In any case, the point of convergence of a review is to summarize and fuse others’ conflicts and ideas without adding new commitments.

Why Compose a Literature Review?

When you compose a proposition or scholastic piece, you should review the literature to position your study within current knowledge. The literature review permits you to:

  1. Exhibit your knowledge of the theme and detailed context.
  2. Establish a theory for your examination
  3. Compare yourself with other researchers
  4. Demonstrate how your examination addresses gaps or make additions to existing debates.

Also, you may write a literature review as a stand-alone project. In such a scenario, the primary objective is to explore the current status of studies and collect facts regarding a particular phenomenon.

Steps for Conducting a Literature Review

Here are the steps for conducting a literature review

Search for important literature

Before you begin searching for writing, you need an evidently described subject.

If you are creating a proposition or assessment paper’s literature review fragment, you will search for writing related to your research problems.

If you are reviewing literature as a free undertaking, you should get a fixation and assemble a central request to facilitate your interest. Dissimilar to a research paper question, it must be liable without data collection. You should have the alternative to answer a question based on a review of existing publications.

Make a rundown of keywords

Begin with an overview of keywords related to your assessment question. Fuse all of the key thoughts or variables you’re enthusiastic about and list any counterparts and related terms. You can add to this summary on the off chance that you discover new expressions during the time spent in your composing search.

Search for significant sources

Utilize your keywords to start looking for sources. Some helpful information bases to look for journals and articles include your college’s library inventory, Google Scholar, JSTOR, and many more.

Evaluate and select sources

You probably won’t have the alternative to examine absolutely all that has been made on the subject – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are by and large appropriate to your study.

Make sure the sources you use are legitimate and ensure you read any renowned research and huge hypotheses in your area of assessment.

You can find how regularly an article has been alluded to on Google Scholar – a high citation infers the article has been amazing in the field and ought to be incorporated for your composing review emphatically.

The degree of your survey will depend upon your subject and order: in technical disciplines, you typically review ongoing writing; however, in the social sciences, you may take a long certain perspective (for example, to follow how thought has changed in significance as time goes on).

Take notes and refer to your sources

As you peruse, you should moreover begin the composting cycle. Pay heed that you can later venture into the substance of your writing.

It is vital to screen your sources with references to avoid copyright infringement. It might be valuable to make an annotated bibliography, where you request full reference information and make a section out of plan and examination for each source. This helps you with reviewing what you read and saves time later all the while.

Identify themes, debates, and gaps

To begin figuring out your review’s argument and development, you need to fathom the affiliations and associations between the sources you’ve scrutinized. Considering your examining and notes, you can look for:

Examples and models (on a basic level, system, or results): do certain techniques end up being basically popular after a certain period?

  1. Topics: what questions or thoughts rehash across the literature?
  2. Discussions, conflicts, and irregularities: where do sources go against this thought?
  3. Basic distributions: Do convincing theories or studies that adjusted the course of the field exist?
  4. Gaps: What is missing from the composition? Are there weaknesses that ought to be addressed?

This progression will help you handle your writing plan and (if applicable) show how your investigation will add to existing data.

Outline your Literature Review’s Structure

There are various approaches to getting sorted out the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your approach before you start writing.

Dependent on the length of your literature review, you can solidify a couple of these methods (for example, your overall plan might be topical, yet every point is inspected consecutively).

Sequential

The least difficult strategy is to follow the improvement of the point after a while. In any case, in the event that you are picking this method, be aware of going without simply posting and summarizing sources altogether.

Endeavour to look at plans, pivotal turning points, and critical conversations that have shaped the field’s course. Give your comprehension of how and why certain enhancements occurred.

Topical

In the event that you have found some normal central subjects, you can orchestrate your composing review into subtopics that handle different parts of the point.

For example, in the event that you are reviewing the literature on the awkward nature of transient prosperity results, key topics may join clinical services technique, language limits, social viewpoints, authentic status, and financial access.

Methodological

On the off chance that you draw your sources from different fields that use a combination of investigation strategies, you should consider the results and closures that emerge out of different systems. For example:

See what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative investigation.

Look at how the subject has been moved closer by trial versus theoretical award

Gap the composition into sociological, irrefutable, and social sources

Theoretical

A literature review is the foundation of speculative construction. You can use it to look at changed speculations, models, and implications of key thoughts.

You may battle for the significance of a specific speculative technique or join diverse theoretical plans to make a structure for your investigation.

Write your Literature Review

Like some other educational substance, a review of your literature ought to have an introduction, a basic body, and a conclusion. What you incorporate for each depends upon the objective of your review.

Components of a Literature Review

Here are the components of a literature review.

Introduction:

An introduction is early on the section that clarifies what your functioning point and proposition are. It is a gauge of key points or messages that will show up in the survey.

Conceivably, it is a portrayal of how you discovered sources and how you broke down them for incorporation and conversation in the review.

Body:

  1. Sum up and combine: Give an outline of the central matters of
  2. Dissect and decipher: Don’t simply summarize different scientists – add your own translations where conceivable, talking about the meaning of discoveries corresponding to the writing in general.
  3. Fundamentally Evaluate: Mention the qualities and shortcomings of your sources.
  4. Write in very much organized sections: Use progress words and theme sentences to draw associations, examinations, and differentiation.

Conclusion:

Sum up the key discoveries you have taken from the writing and accentuate their importance.

Interface it back to your essential examination question

What to Consider Before Composing the Literature Review

Clarification

On the off chance that your task isn’t unmistakable, look for an explanation from your educator:

Discover models

Search for other literature reviews in your general vicinity of interest or the order and read them to get a feeling of the sorts of topics you should search for in your own examination or approaches to arrange your literature review.

Narrow your subject

There are hundreds or even huge number of articles and books on most regions of study. The smaller your point, the simpler it will be to restrict the number of sources you need to peruse to get a decent study of the material. Your teacher will most likely not anticipate that you should peruse all that is out there on the theme, yet you’ll make your work simpler if you were first breaking point your extension.

Consider current sources

A few subjects require that you use information that is just probably as current as could be considered typical. For instance, in science, treatments for clinical issues are constantly changing, as demonstrated by the latest examinations. A two-years-old data could be old. In any case, on the off chance that you are forming a survey in the humanities, history, or social sciences, an outline of the composing chronicled setting may be what is required in light of the fact that what is critical is the manner in which perspectives have changed during that time or inside a particular time period. Have a go at sorting out some other current book files or composing studies in the field to get a sensation of what your request expects. Moreover, you can use this procedure to consider what is at present essential to specialists in this field and what isn’t.

Strategies for Writing the Literature Review

Discover a core interest

Like an exploration paper, the literature review is typically planned around contemplations, not just the sources as a remarked on book reference would be composed. This suggests that you will not simply overview your sources and comprehensively explain every single one of them, one by one. No. As you for the most part read at this point explicitly in your subject area, take into consideration what themes or issues partner your sources together. Do they present one or different game plans? Is there a piece of the field that is missing? How well do they present the material, and do they portray it according to appropriate speculation? Do they uncover an example in the field? Is it a seething conversation? Pick one of these subjects to focus on the organization of your review.

Pass it on to your reader

A literature review might not have a conventional thesis statement (one that makes a contention), yet you have to mention to readers what’s in store. Have a composing a straightforward explanation that tells the reader your organizing principle.

Example:

The latest thing in treatment for congestive cardiovascular breakdown combines a medical procedure and medication.

An ever-increasing number of social examination researchers are tolerating mainstream media as a subject deserving of scholastic thought.

Think about organization

You have a point, and you’ve expressed it unmistakably and straightforwardly. Presently, what is the best method of introducing the data? What are the main themes, subtopics, and so on that your survey needs to incorporate? Furthermore, in what order would it be a good idea for you to introduce them? Build up an association for your survey at both a worldwide and local level:

Tips for Composing a Literature Review

Here are the tips for writing a literature review.

Use proof

In the model, the journalists allude to a few different sources when coming to their meaningful conclusion. A literature review, in this sense, is very much like some other scholarly exploration paper. Your understanding of the accessible sources should be upheld up with proof to show that what you are saying is substantial.

Be particular

Select just the main focuses in each source to feature in the survey. The sort of data you decide to refer to ought to relate straightforwardly to the review’s focus, regardless of whether it is topical, methodological, or ordered.

Use quotes sparingly

A literature review doesn’t allow in-depth discussion or direct quotes from sources. To a great extent, some short statements are alright; however, on the off chance that you need to accentuate a point, or if what the writer said just can’t be modified in your own words.

Sum up and synthesize

Make sure, to sum up, and synthesize your sources inside each passage just as all through the survey. For instance, the authors here restate significant highlights of Hamilton’s examination, however, then combine it by rewording the investigation’s importance and relating it to their own work.

Keep your own voice

While the writing survey presents others’ thoughts, your voice (the writer’s) ought to stay upfront.

Be cautious when paraphrasing

While rewording a source that isn’t your own, make certain to address the author’s data or suppositions precisely and in your own words to avoid plagiarism.