What Is a Literature Review Why Do We Bother with It
First what is a literature review and What is a literature review why do we bother with it a literature review is simply a critical recap of How to Write a Research Proposal, that has been conducted on your specific narrow topic academic writing is about standing on the shoulders of giants you do this review to develop and document your knowledge of the field without a literature review you won't know who the big guns in your field are or what others have said about your topic no reader will take your research seriously if you don't demonstrate your knowledge of the subject the literature review also serves another critical function it helps you identify where to focus your study let's say you have identified a topic about how teenagers communicate with their parents once you do your literature review you may find that a lot of work has been done on the topic in the United States but very little in sub-Saharan Africa this is a gap you may then decide to focus your study on parents and teenagers in one sub-Saharan African country let's say Sierra Leone or you may find that researchers have focused mostly on the perceptions of parents and little on the perceptions of teenagers so you may then decide to focus your study in this area remember there is no point in simply repeating what others have already done unless you are setting out to verify what they did for doctoral degrees you are required to contribute to new knowledge so you must be able to justify that your research is filling a specific gap for research done by practitioners your literature review will help you focus your field research there's no point in asking people questions you already know the answer to so now we What should be our first step know what a literature review is and why we do it what should be our first step one search for relevant literature.
Search by Journals Articles or Books On Your Topic
Step 1 create a list of keywords some phrases for your topic for example teen and parents and communication or teenagers or adolescents communication and/or are known as Boolean operators and narrows your search because you must have all of the key words while all makes it broader because it can include any of the keywords search for your keywords or phrases on scholarly database such as Google Scholar PubMed or Science Direct none of these databases are perfect you will find some sources in one that you may not find in.
Evaluate and Select Sources
Step 2 Evaluate and select sources scan through the results and take help from cheap dissertation writing say the first hundred results and tick whilst are the ones that seem relevant based on their title all of these databases allow you to save the relevant articles, then you need to lock all of these results somewhere I like to do this in Excel I simply note the date the author the title if you're using Google Scholar it also shows you the number of citations the number of citations is important because it shows how many times other scholars have cited the study the higher the number of citations the more important the study is in the field however remember new studies may have less citations simply because scholars have not found them yet I have linked to the template I used down below now you have all the sources listed you need to find the actual documents some of these documents may be available free on then that's great but often you will find that there is a fee to download them if you are a student you should now head to your school's database and search for these documents if you are a practitioner your organization may be subscribing to a service that lets you access these documents.
File Sources
Step 3 File Sources file your sources once you have the documents read the abstract to decide if the source is still relevant if it is then save the document I like to save my documents directly into my reference management software I use Mendeleyev and I have linked to a great video that explains how to use it anyway the important part is that you save the document once you have read the abstracts decide on the articles that are most relevant I like to highlight these in my excel tool I showed you earlier and create a second sheet just for them.
Create Annotated Bibliography
step 4 create your annotated Step 4 Create Annotated Bibliography now read the documents then write a short summary about teach source you can do all this in your Excel document also make notes on the study design methods there is used the results and conclusions make note also of your own critical analysis of the publication for example did the study results differ from what others had been reporting this is your annotated bibliography.
Organize YOUR LITERATURE REVIEW
Step 5 Organize decide on how you will organize your literature review by now you know an awful lot about your topic and you can start to see themes and connections between sources how do you want to organize your literature do you want to organize it chronologically from older to more recent publications thematic organized around key themes methodological the types of methods used and theoretical but there is a models used step 6 write the literature review using the information in your annotated bibliography organized in the way that you have chosen make sure it has an introduction main body and conclusion that's it you have written your literature review.
