A literature review provides your reader with an account of what has been published on a specific topic or subject by experts, scholars and researchers in the field/discipline. You might be asked to write a literature review as a separate assignment, but in most cases it functions as a part of the introduction to an essay, research report or thesis.
When writing a literature review, your aim is to inform the reader about what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic or subject and what their strengths and weaknesses are. The literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis).
Remember! It is NOT just a descriptive list of the resources available, or a set of summaries.
What is Synthesis? Synthesis writing is a form of analysis related to comparison and contrast, classification and division. On a basic level, synthesis requires the writer to pull together two or more summaries, looking for themes in each text. In synthesis, you search for the links between various materials in order to make your point. Most advanced academic writing, including literature reviews, relies heavily on synthesis. (Temple University Writing Center)
Literature reviews synthesize large amounts of information and present it in a coherent, organized fashion. In a literature review you will be combining material from several texts to create a new text – your literature review.
You will use common points among the sources you have gathered to help you synthesize the material. This will help ensure that your literature review is organized by subtopic, not by source. This means various authors' names can appear and reappear throughout the literature review, and each paragraph will mention several different authors.
When you shift from writing summaries of the content of a source to synthesizing content from sources, there is a number things you must keep in mind:
The format of a literature review may vary from discipline to discipline and from assignment to assignment. However, a literature review must do these things:
Remember! A literature review is not a list describing or summarizing one piece of literature after another.
Try and avoid starting every paragraph with the name of a researcher or the title of the work. Rather, try organizing the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theories. You are not trying to list all the material published on a topic, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or research question.
Doing a Literature Review in Health and Social Care by
This bestselling book is a step-by-step guide to doing a literature review in health and social care. It is vital reading for all those undertaking their undergraduate or postgraduate dissertation or any research module which involves a literature review.
Health Promotion and Education Research Methods by
Health Promotion and Education Research Methods provides a comprehensive and thorough presentation of the skills and processes needed to complete high quality research. The text makes extensive use of examples from health education and remains flexible enough to serve those interested in teaching research outside of a thesis or dissertation context.
A Short Guide to Writing about Criminal Justice by
The purpose of A Short Guide to Writing About Criminal Justice is to help students navigate the writing process. Criminal Justice courses are based upon theoretical, practical, experiential and policy-based issues, and students must understand how to think and write about issues from multiple perspectives. This book discusses the major approaches to writing in Criminal Justice and outlines for students how to think and write from various perspectives.
