Literature Review

The purpose of Literature Review

Literature review is often the most voluminous section, varying between 30% to 40% of a dissertation. First of all, it helps demonstrate the researcher's familiarity with the topic under investigation, including theory and methods. Additionally, it

• Provides a conceptual framework for the research
• Provides an integrated overview of the field of study
• Helps establish a need for the research
• Assists in clarifying the research problem

Skills required in producing a good Literature Review

Literature review is one of the most time-consuming part of dissertation-writing, as you need to read a lot of research works on your selected topic. You need to have a knowledge of the latest developments and contribution to extant literature via books, journal articles, web articles and even newspapers, provided your sources are reliable and referenceable. Therefore, you will have to

• Survey a very wide range of existing material and sources in the general areas of your study
• Selecting those that are the most relevant and significant for your research topic
• Understand, assess, compare, contrast and and analyse the main findings and arguments
• Synthesise the findings and integrate them into your Literature Review chapter

Most of all, remember that a good Literature Review has to contain your main argument.

How to write a Literature Review

A few points to guide you when writing your Literature Review chapter:

• Indicate the relevance of other authors' works to your research
• Let your readers know that you understand the similarities and differences between these works
• Your references should reflect both recent works, as well as those considered of seminal importance
• In the case of a cross-disciplinary or comparative piece of research, ensure that you describe how different areas of research can be drawn together in a meaningful way

Literature review is NOT an assemblage of descriptions of pieces of previous research with no apparent connection to each other or to your project.