How to Do a Literature Review

A literature review is a text body, which gives the review of critical points of practical approaches and current information on a specific subject. It is a secondary source, and it does not report any original or new experimental work. Literature review is often associated with an “academic-oriented” literature, for example “theses”. A literature review which leads a research proposal and results section is termed as thesis. A well- formed literature review is established by a rational flow of ideas; relevant and current references with reliable, suitable referencing style; appropriate use of terminology; and a balanced and comprehensive view of the previous research on the subject.

A “literature review” is a synopsis of earlier research on any particular subject. Literature reviews include a theses, or a bibliographic essay, and a huge report of a research assignment, which is issued separately in a “scholarly journal”. If you want to do a literature review, then just follow the instructions.

Instructions:

Before you develop your literature review, you need to think about the purpose of the review, objective, methodology, survey questions, etc.

how to do Literature Review

  • What is the objective subject?

  • Is there any gap in the knowledge of the subject?

  • Are there any further studies which have been identified by other researchers that you want to consider?

  • Who are the considerable “research personalities” in your search area?

  • What are the consensuses of the topic?

  • What are the significant aspect of denote on the topic?

  • What are the method and problem of your research, which is identified by others researchers.

  • What is the most relevant methodology for your research?

  • What are the recent statuses of research in the area of your subject?

  • What is the data and information which is required and useful for your subject?

If your literature review is a part of your assignment, PhD or college dissertation, then you need to cover all comprehensive research on the topic. In order to do your research report, you must cover the major work which is done on your topic recently, though it is not necessary to check out all research on the subject, you can identify all important and useful research work.

What is the purpose of a Literature Review?

The intention of a literature review is to communicate to the reader about the idea and information of the subject and what are the strengths and weaknesses. The literature review allows the people to be brought to date regarding the state of research in the field and familiarizes the reader with any contrasting perspectives and viewpoints on the topic. Identify the good purpose for starting a literature review before you start with research paper such as…

  • Check out what has and has not been investigated on the topic.

  • To investigate general explanation for observed variations in a phenomenon or behavior.

  • To recognize the potential relationships of concepts and to hypothesis of research.

  • To identify how other personalities have measured and defined key concepts.

  • To learn the data sources that other researches may have used.

  • To investigate alternative research projects.

  • To identify how a research reports are related to work of others.

  • How to do a literature search?

  • Develop a search strategy

Define the topic

If you starting your literature review, then first you need to define your research question. What is the purpose, the key words, objective of the subject, the words which is used earlier, such as synonyms, variations in spelling?  Your basic knowledge about the topic? What are the scopes?

Pile up a list of keywords

Before starting a search for information, it is essential to make a search strategy that will most effectively locate useful, relevant information. Compiling list of keywords usually involves breaking down a research question and an essay into:

Keywords or phrases; enlisting your search; and interpreting your results to determine whether you need to employ various strategies to broaden, narrow or otherwise modify your research.

Identifying references

Information about the subject is available on various formats.  You can take reference for your review from Books, Reference Materials, Journals, Conference Papers, Dissertations, Internet, Indexes/Abstracts Printed, Electronic Databases, and Government publications

Related Tags: how to do a literature review, Government litrature review, review of literature work, review of literature of cabbage research, literature review on credit sales, literature review of electric bicycle, literature review in literary works, How to review a literary work

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