How to write an effective literature review
Pmc3715443ten simple rules for writing a literature reviewmarco so m (2010) worsening file-drawer problem in the abstracts of natural, medical and social science databases. Tc, cullen p, erren m (2009) how to surf today's information tsunami: on the craft of effective reading. Dn, beile p (2005) scholars before researchers: on the centrality of the dissertation literature review in research preparation. S m (2009) the task force on systematic reviews and guidelines (2009) the value of “traditional” reviews in the era of systematic reviewing. Ll r, daly w (2001) strategies for the construction of a critical review of the literature. S pd, stewart gb, pullin as (2006) are review articles a reliable source of evidence to support conservation and environmental management? N h, glasziou p, chalmers i (2010) seventy-five trials and eleven systematic reviews a day: how will we ever keep up? If you have any questions, comments,Or suggestions to improve these guidelines please me at e-mail hrallis@ines for writing a literature helen mongan-rallis. Literature review is not an annotated bibliography in which you summarize briefly each article that you have reviewed. While a summary of the what you have read is contained within the literature review, it goes well beyond merely summarizing professional literature. Galvan outlines a very clear, step-by-step approach that is very useful to use as you write your review.
Writing an effective literature review
I have integrated some other tips within this guide, particularly in suggesting different technology tools that you might want to consider in helping you organize your review. I also provide links at the end of this guide to resources that you should use in order to search the literature and as you write your addition to using the step-by-step guide that i have provided below, i also recommend that you (a) locate examples of literature reviews in your field of study and skim over these to get a feel for what a literature review is and how these are written (i have also provided links to a couple of examples at the end of these guidelines (b) read over other guides to writing literature reviews so that you see different perspectives and approaches: some examples are:Review of literature: university of wisconsin - madison the writing to .. Bluford ed links to resources on writing a literature 1: review apa through the links provided below on apa guidelines so that you become familiar with the common core elements of how to write in apa style: in particular, pay attention to general document guidelines (e. Font, margins, spacing), title page, abstract, body, text citations, 2: decide on a will help you considerably if your topic for your literature review is the one on which you intend to do your final . However, you may pick any scholarly 3: identify the literature that you will review:Familiarize yourself with online databases (see umd library resource links below for help with this), identifying relevant databases in your field of relevant databases, search for literature sources using google scholar and also searching using furl (search all sources, including the furl accounts of other furl members). Some tips for identifying suitable literature and narrowing your search :Start with a general descriptor from the database thesaurus or one that you know is already a well defined descriptor based on past work that you have done in this field. You will need to experiment with different searches, such as limiting your search to descriptors that appear only in the document titles, or in both the document title and in the ne your topic if needed: as you search you will quickly find out if the topic that you are reviewing is too broad. Try to narrow it to a specific area of interest within the broad area that you have chosen (remember: this is merely an introductory literature review for educ 7001). It is a good idea, as part of your literature search, to look for existing literature reviews that have already been written on this part of your search, be sure to identify landmark or classic studies and theorists as these provide you with a framework/context for your your references into your refworks account (see: refworks import directions for guide on how to do this from different databases). You can also enter references manually into refworks if you need 4: analyze the you have identified and located the articles for your review, you need to analyze them and organize them before you begin writing:Overview the articles: skim the articles to get an idea of the general purpose and content of the article (focus your reading here on the abstract, introduction and first few paragraphs, the conclusion of each article. Key statistics that you may want to use in the introduction to your useful quotes that you may want to include in your review.
Important: if you copy the exact words from an article, be sure to cite the page number as you will need this should you decide to use the quote when you write your review (as direct quotes must always be accompanied by page references). Note: although you may collect a large number of quotes during the note taking phase of your review, when you write the review, use quotes very sparingly. Your role as a reviewer is to evaluate what you read, so that your review is not a mere description of different articles, but rather a critical analysis that makes sense of the collection of articles that you are reviewing. Major trends or patterns: as you read a range of articles on your topic, you should make note of trends and patterns over time as reported in the literature. This step requires you to synthesize and make sense of what you read, since these patterns and trends may not be spelled out in the literature, but rather become apparent to you as you review the big picture that has emerged over time. Your analysis can make generalizations across a majority of studies, but should also note inconsistencies across studies and over fy gaps in the literature, and reflect on why these might exist (based on the understandings that you have gained by reading literature in this field of study). These gaps will be important for you to address as you plan and write your fy relationships among studies: note relationships among studies, such as which studies were landmark ones that led to subsequent studies in the same area. You may also note that studies fall into different categories (categories that you see emerging or ones that are already discussed in the literature). When you write your review, you should address these relationships and different categories and discuss relevant studies using this as a your review focused on your topic: make sure that the articles you find are relevant and directly related to your topic. As you take notes, record which specific aspects of the article you are reading are relevant to your topic (as you read you will come up with key descriptors that you can record in your notes that will help you organize your findings when you come to write up your review). Typically a review will cover the last five years, but should also refer to any landmark studies prior to this time if they have significance in shaping the direction of the field.
If you include studies prior to the past five years that are not landmark studies, you should defend why you have chosen these rather than more current 5: summarize the literature in table or concept map (2006) recommends building tables as a key way to help you overview, organize, and summarize your findings, and suggests that including one or more of the tables that you create may be helpful in your literature review. If you do include tables as part of your review each must be accompanied by an analysis that summarizes, interprets and synthesizes the literature that you have charted in the can plan your table or do the entire summary chart of your literature using a concept map (such as using inspiration). Of tables that may be relevant to your review:Definitions of key terms and y of research 6: synthesize the literature prior to writing your the notes that you have taken and summary tables, develop an outline of your final review. The following are the key steps as outlined by galvan (2006:Consider your purpose and voice before beginning to write. In the case of this educ 7001 introductory literature review, your initial purpose is to provide an overview of the topic that is of interest to you, demonstrating your understanding of key works and concepts within your chosen area of focus. You are also developing skills in reviewing and writing, to provide a foundation on which you will build in subsequent courses within your . In your final project your literature review should demonstrate your command of your field of study and/or establishing context for a study that you have er how you reassemble your notes: plan how you will organize your findings into a unique analysis of the picture that you have captured in your notes. In the case of a literature review, you are really creating a new forest, which you will build by using the trees you found in the literature you read. This can then be exported into a microsoft word nize your notes according to the path of your each topic heading, note differences among each topic heading, look for obvious gaps or areas needing more to describe relevant to discuss how individual studies relate to and advance to summarize periodically and, again near the end of the to present conclusions and to suggest specific directions for future research near the end of the out your outline with details from your 7: writing the review (galvan, 2006: 81-90). The broad problem area, but avoid global in the review, indicate why the topic being reviewed is guish between research finding and other sources of te why certain studies are you are commenting on the timeliness of a topic, be specific in describing the time citing a classic or landmark study, identify it as a landmark study was replicated, mention that and indicate the results of the s other literature reviews on your the reader to other reviews on issues that you will not be discussing in y comments such as, "no studies were found. Long lists of nonspecific the results of previous studies are inconsistent or widely varying, cite them all relevant references in the review section of thesis, dissertation, or journal 8: developing a coherent essay (galvan, 2006: 91-96).
Your review is long, provide an overview near the beginning of the the beginning of a review, state explicitly what will and will not be y your point of view early in the review: this serves as the thesis statement of the for a clear and cohesive essay that integrates the key details of the literature and communicates your point of view (a literature is not a series of annotated articles). Subheadings, especially in long transitions to help trace your your topic teaches across disciplines, consider reviewing studies from each discipline a conclusion for the end of the review: provide closure so that the path of the argument ends with a conclusion of some kind. If the review was written to stand alone, as is the case of a term paper or a review article for publication, the conclusion needs to make clear how the material in the body of the review has supported the assertion or proposition presented in the introduction. On the other hand, a review in a thesis, dissertation, or journal article presenting original research usually leads to the research questions that will be the flow of your argument for , j. Glendale, ca: pyrczak & library resources and links:umd library research tools: includes links ks import directions: links to step-by-step directions on how to important to refworks from different owl (online writing lab): a user-friendly writing lab that parallels with the 5th edition apa style essentials: overview of common core of elements of apa research style crib sheet is a summary of rules for using apa style for electronic media and url's: commonly asked questions regarding how to cite electronic es of literature reviews:Johnson, b. Exchangesaboutdevelopeducatediscoveremail alertsreturn to education servicesdiscover the future of researchreturn to customer supportdiscover the future of researchreturn to engagediscover the future of researchreturn to fellowsdiscover the future of researchreturn to emeadiscover the future of researchreturn to for dummiesreturn to leadership practices inventory (lpi)return to sybexreturn to wiley efficient learning (wel)return to wroxcustomer supportintegrationscustomer supportreturn to wiley directreturn to the studiodiscover the future of researchreturn to author servicesauthor servicesreturn to cfa career centerreturn to er the future of golash-bozaassociate professor of sociology, university of california, mercedwriting a literature review is often the most daunting part of writing an article, book, thesis, or dissertation. I have found it helpful to be as systematic as possible when completing this gargantuan foss and william walters* describe an efficient and effective way of writing a literature review. Their system provides an excellent guide for getting through the massive amounts of literature for any purpose: in a dissertation, an m. Below is a summary of the steps they outline as well as a step-by-step method for writing a literature one: decide on your areas of research:before you begin to search for articles or books, decide beforehand what areas you are going to research. A literature review i am currently working on, for example, explores barriers to higher education for undocumented two: search for the literature:conduct a comprehensive bibliographic search of books and articles in your area. Do this for each article and book that you have in your stack of literature.
When you are done, print out your four: code the literature:get out a pair of scissors and cut each excerpt out. Write the conceptual schema down before you forget or someone cleans up your slips of six: begin to write your literature review:choose any section of your conceptual schema to begin with. Use that mini-conceptual schema to write up your literature review based on the excerpts that you have in front of you. Don’t forget to include the citations as you write, so as not to lose track of who said what. Repeat this for each section of your literature you complete these six steps, you will have a complete draft of your literature review. The great thing about this process is that it breaks down into manageable steps something that seems enormous: writing a literature review. Think that foss and walter’s system for writing the literature review is ideal for a dissertation, because a ph. That balance will depend on how much you already people writing literature reviews for articles or books, this system also could work, especially when you are writing in a field with which you are already familiar. The mere fact of having a system can make the literature review seem much less daunting, so i recommend this system for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the prospect of writing a literature review. To turn your dissertation into journal articlesjournalmap: map-based discovery of scholarly literatureimproving phd completion rates: where should we start? An editor’s cy in action: a q&a with actfl’s executive director on public awareness open data means for an institution - the university of cape access week 2017: wiley open access by the aphic: 6 steps for writing a literature to turn your dissertation into journal g for publication-how can a structured writing retreat help?