Top 10 Best Practices for Writing a Better Literature Review

As the name implies, the literature review is the analysis of the existing literature published on a particular topic. It is collected from different primary to secondary sources. It is an integral part of research that is usually carried out to critically evaluate the findings of other researches and find the literature gap. A literature gap is any void in research that must be filled with future research. A researcher can read different literature, find a research gap and choose it as a theme of his research.

Apparently, literature review looks like an exciting task, but the writer has to have great aptitude when it comes to writing it. Ask a research student, and you will realise how tough of a task literature writing is. However, many students opt for availing themselves of the literature review writing service to ease the load on their shoulders.

Anyhow, if you are having some serious problems writing a literature review for your dissertation, here are a few tips that you can follow in writing for excelling at it and getting the grade you want.

1.    Research: 

One common problem that occurs with writers is that when they start writing, they just do not have anything much to write. Why does this happen? It is because the writers do not read enough, and they do not have a lot of knowledge to jot down on the paper. The only solution to counter this problem is by doing extensive research and finding as much data around the topic as possible. When it comes to finding data for writing a literature review, you can use multiple resources such as Peer-reviewed journal articles, journal articles, and edited academic books, statistical data from government or international organisations, and reports on websites. Go through all the resources and carry out deep and extensive research. 

Remember that no matter which field you are writing a literature review in, you are required to use many resources to substantiate your research.

2.    Understand deeply: 

Just finding a bulk of literature is not enough. You must go through all of them and understand them deeply. It is indeed difficult to go through each page of the bulk of papers, and therefore, there is an easy solution that you can use to go through all the papers without tiring yourself. Go through the abstracts and findings of all the articles instead of going through the entire article. In this way, it will be easy for you to wholly understand and interpret the key information of the research.

3.    Combine different notions about the same topic: 

If you really want to write a better literature review, you must know the basic idea that almost all papers you will read will be revolved around a similar topic. Different authors will have similar or different findings. You can gather different notions about a single concept and write a comparison and evaluation. In this way, you will cover all ideas and all concepts in a critical way.

4.    Question: 

When writing the literature review, you must keep questions in your mind and write responses to those questions with the help of the literature. The questions that you will ask will be basically the research questions of your research based on the aims and objectives.

In this way, you will write the most useful and relevant literature review for your research.

5.    Indicate significance:

Make sure you are able to trace the significant parts from the research articles. When writing the literature review, you must express the significance and relevance to the study you are doing. It is impossible to write thoroughly about all of the sources. Therefore it is important to express the scope.

6.    Criticise, criticise, and criticise:

When writing a literature review, never shy away from criticising. Criticise the articles up and down, right and left to ensure you evaluate every segment of the research in the best possible manner. Express your opinion and define why you would agree or disagree with them. 

7.    Identify themes:

In the literature review part, you should be able to draw the main themes of your dissertation. It highlights the relevance and significance of sources with your research and helps the readers better understand the topics highlighted in the document.

8.    Use correct style: 

Another aspect that you may not pay attention to while writing a literature review is using the right referencing style. A literature review is the part of the section that will be completely based on citing other authors and researchers. You must read and review the requirements suggested by your university and use the referencing style recommended.

9.    Write and re-write:

Okay, so you have read all the documents, you must be ready to write them. Keep in your mind that the first write-up is never going to be the final. You must write it once, twice, and multiple times if you can. Write it until it becomes one perfect literature review. You must write and review and evaluate it against the quality measurements. Also, ask any resource you trust to offer you valid and critical insights into your write up and help you compose a perfect one.  

10. Ask for help:

Last but not least, you must never refrain from asking for help. Be it a friend, professor, peer, or advisor; you can get help to increase the value of your paper. Many students who struggle with geography essay topics seek help from professional writers. It is how they improve the quality of their work.

  In sum, if you want to write the best literature review, you must do extensive research, understand it deeply, and question. Moreover, you can combine different notions about the same topic, indicate significance and themes, and use the correct style.