Everything You Need to Know About Writing a Literature Review
A good literature review article is the cornerstone of any scholarly work, whether as an academic paper, research project, or thesis. It provides an intellectual context of a published study. Moreover, you need to devote enough time and resources to intricately researching the source material. However, there are different types of literature review articles, and crafting them is a complex task.
You must have an eye for details, a deep understanding of your research area, and the ability to write it systematically. Literature review articles aim to provide a comprehensive overview of a scholarly topic and identify gaps in the existing work. Let’s break it down further to get a complete understanding of a good review article.
What Defines a Good Literature Review Article?
In short, literature review articles are a summary presentation of an established work in a particular field of study. It can be an overview of a small section of a more extensive scholarly work or cover the entire piece. It aims to examine and provide a constructive analysis of the work to justify research questions or thesis.
Researchers use literature review articles as valuable tools for those who need a summary of work in their respective fields. It critically evaluates and paints a clear picture of the subject after careful analysis. The material in question can be methodological, analytical, critical, theoretical, or empirical.
Importance of Literature Review Articles
Literature review articles are essential scholarly sources in various fields of knowledge. They help to identify research methodologies and build knowledge on a particular subject. Moreover, they aim to summarize or identify potential errors and gaps in the scholarly work.
Therefore, they are essential for the following reasons:
- Perform extensive research on a topic
- Become an expert in the subject area
- Use a particular methodology
- Identify gaps in knowledge and provide relevant sources to help support the claim
- Publish and share your findings
- Justify requests for further research via grants or funding
- Create a broader platform for program evaluation
- Present them in seminars and conferences organized by ARDA and others.
Structure of a Literature Review Article
As mentioned earlier, there are different types of literature review articles with varying structure. Using a structure depends on your thesis or research questions and how you wish to portray them. They can be classified into the following:
Classical
It is the most common structure, often considered a benchmark for creating literature review articles. It portrays major writings as necessary in the report.
Topical
Here, multiple sections define the review article. Each section reflects conceptual subjects or categories for your topic. Additionally, you organize the writing accordingly.
Chronological
As the name suggests, the article organizes the writings in a developmental context. For example, you would arrange a report on historic events chronologically by year.
Inverted Pyramid
Here, the review article introduces a broad perspective discussion. After that, it breaks down into minute details, picking up research questions one by one in a specific way.
On the contrary, you can follow the set formula mentioned below.
1. Introduction
Every good literature review article begins with a proper introduction. It should establish the purpose and focus of your discussion. You can include the essential research questions without indulging in too much information. The purpose of the introduction is to provide a general idea of what the article is going to talk about.
2. Body
Naturally, the body of the literature review article plays a pivotal role. It consists of the main writings, including the discussions on the scholarly work. Ensure to create a theoretical base and use relevant sources to validate your research. Dive into the validation and justification of your arguments and mention limitations or implications, if any.
3. Conclusion
Complete the literature review article with a proper conclusion encompassing the entire article. It should present a further summary of the discussions and appropriate sources to support your claims.
Helpful Tips to Write a Literature Review Article
Most students would consider writing a literature review article an overwhelming task. Although true, you can easily break it down into simple fragments to approach it from a different perspective. Therefore, you can follow the steps below to get started:
1. Identify Research Scope
Discussing research questions forms the basis of a good literature review article. You can create the outline of the final report with its help. Create a list of sources and references to help answer these questions.
2. Evaluate the Subject
The next step is to perform comprehensive research on the subject at hand. Gain a good understanding of the topic and record the sources. It will help you retrieve them whenever necessary. Ensure the subject area is relevant to your literature review article so you do not get sidetracked.
3. Analyze the Literature
Consequently, dive deeper to identify the central area of themes, debates, and gaps in the existing work. Explore the significant parts of the literature and summarize them to get a good understanding of the topic. Remember to record the sources to reference them later.
4. Create an Outline
A rough outline will help in the final writing process. You can organize your findings according to the outline. Moreover, you can categorize them according to your research questions to ensure the proper flow of the article.
5. Writing the Review Article
Finally, begin with the writing process according to your outline. Start with the introduction and continue with presenting your findings. Discuss the main objective of the literature review article with relevant sources. The initial writing doesn’t have to be perfect, as you can always come back to it to perfect it later. Do not forget to follow the rules laid out by the academic conventions.
Conclusion
To summarize, writing a good literature review article entails devoting time toward research to create a compelling overview of a published work. It can become helpful scholarly sources in the future and help pave the way for a successful academic life. You can work on them or utilize literature review writing services like most students. However, third parties guarantee quality only on occasion. Therefore, you can follow this guide to write your literature review article in a new light.
