Literature Review

By Bakhtmina Zia
What is a Literature Review?
A literature review is a critical look at the existing research that is
significant to the work that you are carrying out. This overview
identifies prominent research trends in addition to assessing the overall
strengths and weaknesses of the existing research.
Purpose of the Literature Review

• To provide background information about a research topic.

• To establish the importance of a topic.
• To demonstrate familiarity with a topic/problem.
• To “carve out a space” for further work and allow you to position
yourself in a scholarly conversation.
Characteristics of an effective literature review

An effective literature review provides a critical overview of existing

research by
• Outlining important research trends;
• Assessing strengths and weaknesses (of individual studies as well the
existing research as a whole);
• Identifying potential gaps in knowledge;
• Establishing a need for current and/or future research projects.
The Steps of the Literature Review Process

1) Planning: identify the focus, type, scope and discipline of the review you intend to write.
2) Reading and Research: collect and read current research on your topic. Select only those
sources that are most relevant to your project.
3) Analyzing: summarize, synthesize, critique, and compare your sources in order to assess
the field of research as a whole.
4) Drafting: develop a thesis or claim to make about the existing research and decide how
to organize your material.
5) Revising: revise and finalize the structural, stylistic, and grammatical issues of your
paper.
(This process is not always a linear process; depending on the size and scope of your
literature review, you may find yourself returning to some of these steps repeatedly as you
continue to focus your project.)
 (1) Planning
As you plan to write your literature review, you’ll need to begin by asking,
what type of literature review am I writing? What are the focus, type,
scope, and discipline of my review?
• Focus: What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my
literature review helps to define?
• Type: What type of literature review am I conducting? Will my review
emphasize theory, methodology, policy, or qualitative or quantitative
studies?
• Scope: What is the scope of material that I will include? What types of
sources will I be using?
• Discipline: What academic discipline(s) will be included (e.g. nursing,
psychology, sociology, economics, medicine)?
 (2) Reading and Research
What material am I going to use?
Collecting and reading current research on your topic may entail
several steps:
i) Collect and Read: Collect literature relevant to your topic that fits
within the focus, type, scope, and discipline you have chosen for your
review. Use databases, bibliographies, and recommendations from
advisers to identify source material. Read the sources carefully enough
to understand their main arguments and relevance to your study.
ii) Summarize: Once you have read your source material, consider writing a brief
summary of the text using the following questions:
a. Who is the author? What is the author’s standing in the field?
b. What seems to be the author's main purpose? To offer advice, make practical
suggestions, solve a specific problem? To critique? To establish the truth?
c. What is the author’s theoretical perspective? Research methodology?
d. Who is the intended audience?
e. What is the principal point, conclusion, thesis, contention, or question?
f. How is the author’s position supported? Does the author consider alternative
evidence or explanations?
g. How does this study fit into the context of the problem or topic? Does this study
cite other studies you’ve seen cited elsewhere? Is it cited by other studies? If so,
how?
h. What does this study add to your project?
Please note: These summaries will probably not get incorporated into
your final literature review. Their purpose is to help you clarify your
understanding of what each text is arguing and what approach(es) the
author(s) uses.
Select
Your next step is to sort through your summaries and select only those
books and articles that are most relevant to your project. Resist the
temptation to incorporate everything you have read—this will only
serve to make a difficult task impossible.
 (3) Analyzing
How can I assess existing research?
• A literature review is never just a list of studies—it’s always an
(implicit) argument about a body of research (or it is part of a larger
argument). Thus, your literature review needs to contain a balance of
summary and analysis. This analysis occurs on two levels: individual
studies and the field as a whole. The following four tasks will help you
analyze the existing research in your chosen field.
 Summary and Synthesis

In your own words, summarize and/or synthesize key findings relevant

to your study from each of the major studies. Consider asking the
following questions about the field as a whole:
• What do we know about the immediate areas of this research field?
• What are the key arguments, key characters, key concepts, key
figures?
• What are the existing debates/theories?
• What kinds of methodologies are generally employed by researchers
in this area?
Sample language for summary and synthesis

• Normadin has demonstrated…

• Early work by Hausman, Schwarz, and Graves was concerned with…
• Elsayed and Stern compared algorithms for handling…
• Additional work by Kuznet et. al, Adam, and Parry et. al deals with…
Examples of summary and synthesis

• Under the restriction of small populations, four possible ways [to avoid
premature convergence] were presented. The first one is to revise the gene
operators. . . . Griffiths and Miles applied advanced two-dimensional gene
operators to search the optimal cross-section of a beam and significantly
improve results. The second way is to adjust gene probability. Leite and
Topping adopted a variable mutation probability and obtained an
outperformed result.
• Piaget’s theory of stages of cognitive development and Erikson’s stages of
psychosocial development are commonly used for educational psychology
courses (Borich & Tombari, 1997; LeFrancois, 1997; Slavin, 1997). Piaget
described characteristic behaviors, including artistic ones such as drawing,
as evidence of how children think and what children do as the progress
beyond developmental milestones into and through stages of
development.
Comparison and Critique

Comparison and critique allow you to see the strengths and weaknesses of
your field of research. Remember that you may not recognize strengths and
weaknesses until you have read widely in your subject and begin to see
which studies are stronger. As you compare studies, you’ll begin to be able to
offer critique. You may consider asking the following questions:
• How do the different studies relate to one another? What is new, different,
or controversial about the various studies?
• What views need to be further tested?
• What evidence is lacking, inconclusive, contradicting, or too limited?
• What research designs or methods seem unsatisfactory?
Sample language for comparison and critique

• In this ambitious but flawed study, Jones and Wang . . .

• These general results, reflecting the stochastic nature of the flow of
goods, are similar to those reported by Rosenblatt and Roll . . .
Examples of comparison and critique
• The critical response to the poetry of Phillis Wheatley often registers
disappointment or surprise. Some critics have complained that the
verse of this African American slave is insecure (Collins, 1975, p. 78),
imitative (Richmond, 1974, pp. 54-66), and incapacitated (Burke,
1991, p. 33, 38)—at worst, the product of a “White mind” (Jameson,
1974, pp. 414-15). Others, in contrast, have applauded Wheatley’s
critique of Anglo-American discourse(Kendrick 1993, pp. 222-23), her
revision of literary models…
• The situationist model has also received its share of criticism. One of
the most frequently cited shortcomings of this approach centers
around the assumption that individuals enter into the work context
tabula rasa.
Evaluative Adjectives
In order to effectively convey your critique, you will want to use evaluative adjectives. Remember that a critique can be positive as
well as negative; what readers want from you is your assessment of the available literature.
• Unusual
• Small
• Simple
• Exploratory
• Limited
• Restricted
• Complex
• Competent
• Important
• Innovative
• Useful
• Careful
Analysis: Putting it all together

Once you have summarized, synthesized, critiqued and compared the

relevant literature, you will want to consider the overall picture that
emerges. What kinds of common trends do you see? What kinds of
conversations are scholars having about your topic? Ask yourself whether
the studies you’ve identified
• Show that the problem or topic has been approached from several
different perspectives at once.
• Demonstrate the problem or topic’s chronological development.
• Show an ongoing debate between/among competing interpretations.
• Center on a “seminal” study or studies.
• Demonstrate a “paradigm shift.”
Your literature review as a whole should demonstrate both what
scholars in your field KNOW about your topic—and what they DO NOT
know. After assessing the literature in your field, you should be able to
answer the following questions:
• Why should we study (further) this research topic/problem?
• What contributions will my study make to the existing literature?

Once you have answered these questions, you are ready to begin
drafting your literature review.
 (4) Drafting
What am I going to write?
As you begin to write your paper, you will want to consider the following:
• Exigence: explain why your topic is currently an important area of scholarly
concern. You may also want to indicate how this study/literature review
contributes to existing research on this topic.
• Thesis: offer an argument about the existing literature.
• Organization: arrange your material in a logical fashion to support your
major claim.
• Introduction and conclusion: consider how you will introduce readers to
your topic and provide closure to your paper.
• Citations: integrate citations smoothly and appropriately into your draft.
Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement offers an argument about the literature. It may:

1. Offer an argument and critical assessment of the literature (i.e. topic
+ claim).
2. Provide an overview of current scholarly conversations about your
topic.
3. Point out gaps or weaknesses in the literature.
4. Relate the literature to the larger aim of the study.
Examples of thesis statements

1) In spite of these difficulties we believe that preservice elementary art

teachers and classroom teachers need some knowledge of stage theories of
children’s development…[then reviews development theories]
2) Research on the meaning and experience of home has proliferated over
the past two decades, particularly within the disciplines of sociology,
anthropology, psychology, human geography, history, architecture and
philosophy. . . . Many researchers now understand home as a
multidimensional concept and acknowledge the presence of and need for
multidisciplinary research in the field. However, with the exception of two
exemplary articles by Després (1991) and Somerville (1997) few have
translated this awareness into genuinely interdisciplinary studies of the
meaning of home.
 Organization

One of the most difficult parts of drafting a literature review is deciding how to organize the
information you have accumulated. Organizing your literature review according to themes,
methodologies, and/or underlying concepts is generally more effective than presenting each source
one by one, as it demonstrates your mastery of the topic and provides readers with a better sense
of the state of research in that field. Some common organizational approaches include:
Topical
• Characteristics: This approach breaks the field into a number of subfields, subject areas, or
approaches, and discusses them one by one, sometimes with critiques of each. (Most common
pattern). Most useful for organizing a large body of literature that does not have one or two
studies that stand out as most important or a clear chronological development.
• Typical language: Three important areas of this field have received attention: A, B, and C. A has
been approached from two perspectives . . . . The most important developments in terms of B
have been . . . . C has also been an important area of study in this field.
Distant to Close
• Characteristics: This is a variation of topical organization; studies are
organized in terms of their relevance to the current study. This
approach starts by describing studies with general similarities and
ends with studies most relevant to the specific topic. Most useful for
reviews of methodologies or models.
• Typical language: Method/model M (slightly similar to current
research) addresses . . . . Drawing upon method/model N (more
similar to current research) can help . . . . This study applies the
procedure used in method/O (most similar to current research) to . . .
Debate
• Characteristics: Also a topical organization, with a chronological element. This
organization emphasizes various strands of research in which proponents of
various models openly criticize one another. Most useful when clear opposing
positions are present in the literature.
• Typical language: There have been two (three, four, etc.) distinct approaches to
this problem. The first model posits . . . The second model argues that the first
model is wrong for three reasons. Instead, the second model claims . . .
Chronological
• Characteristics: This approach lists studies in terms of chronological
development; it is most useful when a field shows clear development over time,
either linear progression of thinking or a linear progression that is interrupted by
a paradigm shift.
• Typical language: This subject was first studied by X, who found . . . . In (date), Y
modified/extended/contradicted X’s work by . . . . Today, research by Z represents
the current state of the field.
Seminal Study
• Characteristics: Begins with a detailed description of one extremely
important study. Later work is organized following another pattern
(chronological, topical, etc.). Most useful when one study is clearly
most important or central in laying the groundwork for future
research.
• Typical language: The most important research on this topic was the
study by X in (date). Following X’s study, research fell into two camps
(extended X’s work, etc.).
 Introductions

The main tasks of an introduction are to:

1) Indicate the scope of the literature review.
2) Provide some background to the topic.
3) Demonstrate the importance of the topic or the need for more
research on the topic.
4) Make a claim.
5) Offer an overview/map of the structure of the paper.
 Conclusions
The main tasks of a conclusion are to:
1) Summarize the main findings of your review.
2) Provide closure.
3) Answer the question: So what?
4) Discuss implications for future research (if the literature review
stands alone)—OR—connect to the current project.
 Citations

• A successful literature review will not consist simply of a string of

linked quotes or paraphrases. Over-reliance on the author's words or
ideas suggests “book report” instead of “analytical review.” Your goal
is to synthesize your summary of a source's ideas with your own
opinions and comments on the source material.
• Basic rule for citation: If it’s not your own idea (and it’s not common
knowledge), document it!
 (5) Revising
How can I fine-tune my draft?
As you complete your draft and begin to revise, here are some things you may want to
address:
• Title: Is my title consistent with the content of my paper? Does it help orient readers
toward the topic?
• Introduction: Does my introduction achieve the main tasks of an introduction?
• Thesis: Does my review have a clear claim? Does it provide an assessment of the field?
• Body: Is the organization clear? Have I provided headings where appropriate?
• Topic sentences: Have I clearly indicated the major idea(s) of each paragraph?
• Transitions: Does my writing flow (between sentences and paragraphs)? Are there places
where the movement between topics is rough or unclear?
• Conclusion: Does my conclusion achieve the main tasks of a conclusion?
• Spelling and Grammar: Are there any major spelling or grammatical mistakes?