A guide to writing the dissertation literature review

A guide to writing the dissertation literature review

A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review Justus J. Randolph Walden University Writing a faulty literature review is one of many ways to derail a dissertation. This article summarizes some pivotal information on how to write a high-quali ty dissertation literature review. It begins with a  · Below is a detailed guide on how to do this: Think about the basic structure first. Like any other academic paper, a dissertation literature review will comprise a basic introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction of a literature review should be clear, short and focused Search Relevant Literature. The first important step before starting a review section is to have a clearly defined topic. Writing a literature review for a research paper requires you to search for literature. It should be relevant to your research problem and questions. Similarly, use the keywords to search for different sources

"A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review" by Justus Randolph

Published on 22 February by Shona McCombes. Revised on 9 June A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research. Conducting a literature review involves collecting, evaluating and analysing publications such as books and journal articles that relate to your research question, a guide to writing the dissertation literature review.

There are five main steps in the process of writing a literature review:. Table of contents Why write a literature review? When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:.

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic. The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps.

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic. If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research objectives and questions. If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data.

You should be able to answer it based only on a review a guide to writing the dissertation literature review existing publications. Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. You can add to this list if you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search. Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some databases to search for journals and articles include:. Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question.

When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources. To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If a guide to writing the dissertation literature review same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out. Scribbr Plagiarism Checker. Make sure the sources you use are credible, and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar — a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, a guide to writing the dissertation literature review, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time. As you read, you should also begin the writing process. T ake notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review. It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source.

This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process. You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:.

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and if applicable show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge. There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically.

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, a guide to writing the dissertation literature review, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give a guide to writing the dissertation literature review interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organise your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methodsyou might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For a guide to writing the dissertation literature review. A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an introductiona main body, and a conclusion. What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review. If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, a guide to writing the dissertation literature review, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context.

If you are writing a stand-alone paper, give some background on the topic and its importance, discuss the scope of the literature you will review for example, the time period of your sourcesand state your objective. What new insight will you draw from the literature? Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to a guide to writing the dissertation literature review the body into subsections.

You can use a subheading for a guide to writing the dissertation literature review theme, time period, a guide to writing the dissertation literature review, or methodological approach. Example of a paragraph in a literature review Body image issues have been widely associated with social media usage, particularly in young women.

The relation between media depictions and body image concerns is well-established; a meta-analysis by Grabe, Ward and Hyde concluded that exposure to mass media is linked to body image dissatisfaction among women. However, in an era of rapidly changing digital technologies, the mass media paradigm is no longer adequate for understanding how people engage with images, and the findings of older studies like this one may not be generalizable to younger generations.

In light of this changing landscape, researchers have become increasingly interested in the specific effects of social media. Perloff theorizes that the interactive aspects of social media may influence its impact on body image, and mentions that young women are among the most active social media users.

Across these studies, there is consistent evidence that body image issues are influenced not by social media usage in general, but by engagement with the visual and interactive aspects of these platforms.

Nonetheless, there is a lack of robust research on more highly-visual social media HVSM such as Instagram and Snapchat that have gained more recent popularity among younger generations. In the conclusion, you should summarise the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasise their significance.

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section. If you are writing a stand-alone paper, you can discuss the overall implications of the literature or make suggestions for future research based on the gaps you have identified.

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources such as books, journal articles, and theses related to a specific topic or research question. It is often written as part of a dissertationthesis, research paperor proposal. There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:. Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your dissertation. After the introductionit grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology. Your advice is so helpful - many thanks! Please could you tell me whether we can include material from an awarded Phd thesis and cite it in our literature review for an MSc. There's certainly nothing wrong with citing information from a PhD thesis if it's relevant to your chosen topic.

Feel free to do so. Hi Shona I just wanted to say that this is an absolute lifesaver and I feel so much more confident about writing my literature review for my research proposal after reading this- I was in a complete mess before!

Thank you so so much for writing this! My literature is divided in 5 sections: Introduction, methodology, findings discussion and conclusion. Where do I show the gap in literature. Is it in my findings section or discussion section. If you're not including a separate literature review chapter, you would usually demonstrate the gap in the literature in your introduction chapter, where you give the background to your topic and introduce your research questions. I have written my proposal for my MA and about to start my thesis write up.

where do I start and can I use my proposal or do I need to start from scratch? You can certainly use your proposal as a basis, but you should generally expand and revise it as you write your thesis. Check with your supervisor whether you're allowed to copy passages of text directly from your proposal or if it needs to be rewritten; if you submitted the proposal as an assignment for credit, re-using it may be considered self-plagiarismbut universities have different rules about this.

A good literature review doesn't just summarise individual sources in turn, but synthesises them — that means that each paragraph should connect the findings of a few related sources rather than just summarising a single source. This article about synthesising literature can help you get started. I was wondering if it is allowed to use the abstract from a paper to use as a summary for the literature review? No, you should never copy the text of an abstract into your literature review; try to summarise the study in your own words, a guide to writing the dissertation literature review.

If you want to get a quick overview of a study's main findings, the abstract is a good place to start. But it's always best to read the full paper if possible or, at the very least, read the introduction and conclusion before including it in your literature review.

If you want to use a sentence or short passage from the paper, make sure to properly quote — but paraphrasing is usually a better choice, as it shows you've read and understood the paper. Remember that the literature review a guide to writing the dissertation literature review just a list of summaries, but an original text that explains and draws connections between existing research.

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How To Write A Literature Review In 3 Simple Steps (FREE Template With Examples)

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How To Write A Literature Review - A Step By Step Guide

 · The next section of this blog offers 10 top tips on how to ensure you write a great dissertation literature review. 1. Questions Do not begin analysing the literature before clarifying in your own mind the research questions that will guide your dissertation. By formulating problems beforehand, you will avoid wasting hours in aimless reading Search Relevant Literature. The first important step before starting a review section is to have a clearly defined topic. Writing a literature review for a research paper requires you to search for literature. It should be relevant to your research problem and questions. Similarly, use the keywords to search for different sources A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review Justus J. Randolph Walden University Writing a faulty literature review is one of many ways to derail a dissertation. This article summarizes some pivotal information on how to write a high-quali ty dissertation literature review. It begins with a