Strategies For Writing The Review of Related Literature

Strategies for Writing the
Review of Related
Literature
■ To help you understand the purpose and basic
requirements of an effective literature review.
■ To help you critically assess research materials.
■ To develop strategies for inventing, organizing,
and drafting a literature review.
■ To help you cite sources appropriately.
Purpose of a Literature Review
The literature review is a critical look at the existing

research that is significant to the work that you are
carrying out.
■ To provide background information
■ To establish importance
■ To demonstrate familiarity
■ To “carve out a space” for further research
Characteristics of
Effective Literature Reviews
■ Outlining important research trends
■ Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of
existing research
■ Identifying potential gaps in knowledge
■ Establishing a need for current and/or future
research projects
Steps for Writing a Lit Review
■ Planning
■ Reading and Research
■ Analyzing
■ Drafting
■ Revising
Planning
What Type of Literature Review

Am I Writing?
Planning
■ Focus
■ What is the specific thesis, problem, or research
question that my literature review helps to define?
■ Identifying a focus that allows you to:
■ Sort and categorize information
■ Eliminate irrelevant information
■ Type
■ What type of literature review am I conducting?
■ Theory; Methodology; Policy; Quantitative;
Qualitative
Planning
■ Scope
■ What is the scope of my literature review?
■ What types of sources am I using?
■ Academic Discipline
■ What field(s) am I working in?
Reading and Researching
What Materials
Am I Going to Use?
Reading and Researching
■ Collect and read material.
■ Summarize sources.
■ Who is the author?
■ What is the author's main purpose?
■ What is the author’s theoretical perspective? Research
methodology?
■ Who is the intended audience?
■ What is the principal point, conclusion, thesis, contention, or
question?
■ How is the author’s position supported?
■ How does this study relate to other studies of the problem or
topic?
■ What does this study add to your project?
■ Select only relevant books and articles.
Analyzing
How Do I Assess
Existing Research?
Analyzing Sources
■ A literature review is never just a list of studies
—it always offers an argument about a body of
research
■ Analysis occurs on two levels:
■ Individual sources
■ Body of research
Four Analysis Tasks of the
Literature Review
TASKS OF
LITERATURE
REVIEW
SYNTHESIZE CRITIQUE COMPARE

SUMMARIZE
Summary and Synthesis
In your own words, summarize and/or
synthesize the key findings relevant to your
study.
■ What do we know about the immediate area?
■ What are the key arguments, key characteristics,
key concepts or key figures?
■ What are the existing debates/theories?
■ What common methodologies are used?
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 Karasawa et. al, Azadivar,
and Parry et. al deals with…
Comparison and Critique
Evaluates the strength and weaknesses of the
work:
■ How do the different studies relate? What is new, different,
or controversial?
■ What views need further testing?
■ 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…
Evaluative Adjectives
■ Unusual ■ Complex
■ Small ■ Competent
■ Simple ■ Important
■ Exploratory ■ Innovative
■ Limited ■ Impressive
■ Restricted ■ Useful
■ Careful
Analyzing: Putting It All Together
Once you have summarized, synthesized, compared,
and critiqued your chosen material, you may
consider whether these studies
■ Demonstrate the topic’s chronological development.
■ Show different approaches to the problem.
■ Show an ongoing debate.
Analyzing: Putting It All Together
■ What do researchers KNOW about this field?

■ What do researchers NOT KNOW?
■ Why should we (further) study this topic?
■ What will my study contribute?
Drafting
What Am I
Going to Write?
Drafting: An Overview
To help you approach your draft in a
manageable fashion, this section addresses
the following topics:
■ Thesis Statement
■ Organization
■ Introduction and conclusion
■ Citations
Thesis Statements
The thesis statement offers an argument about
the literature. It may do any of or a
combination of the following:
■ Offer an argument and critical assessment of the literature
(i.e. topic + claim).
■ Provide an overview of current scholarly conversations.
■ Point out gaps or weaknesses in the literature.
■ Relate the literature to the larger aim of the study.
Examples: 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 goes on to review theories
of development]
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.
Examples: Thesis Statements
3) Polyvalency refers to the simultaneous binding of multiple ligands on
one entity to multiple receptors on another. Polyvalent interactions are
ubiquitous in nature, with examples including the attachment of
viruses to target cells, bacteria to cells, cells to other cells, and the
binding of antibodies to pathogens. . . . In this article, I review recent
developments in polyvalency and discuss the numerous opportunities
for chemical engineers to make contributions to this exciting field,
whose applications include drug discovery, tissue engineering, and
nanofabrication.
4) In this article, we review and critique scholarship on place-based
education in order to consider the ingredients of a critical place-based
pedagogy for the arts and humanities. . . We begin by reviewing
ecohumanism's call for a more locally responsive education in light of
the marginalization of place and community…
Organization
Five common approaches to organizing the
body of your paper include:
■ Topical order (by main topics or issues, showing
relationship to the main problem or topic)
■ Chronological order (simplest of all, organize by
dates of published literature
■ Problem-cause-solution order
■ General to specific
■ Comparison and contrast order
Introductions
■ Indicate scope of the literature review.

■ Provide some background to the topic.
■ Demonstrate the importance or need for
research.
■ Make a claim.
■ Offer an overview/map of the ensuing
discussion.
Example: Introduction
■ There is currently much controversy over how nonhuman primates
understand the behavior of other animate beings. On the one hand, they
might simply attend to and recall the specific actions of others in
particular contexts, and therefore, when that context recurs, be able to
predict their behavior (Tomasello & Call, 1994, 1997). On the other hand,
they might be able to understand something of the goals or intentions of
others and thus be able to predict others’ behaviors in a host of novel
circumstances. Several lines of evidence (e.g., involving processes of
social learning; Tomasello, 1997) and a number of anecdotal observations
(e.g., Savage-Rumbaugh, 1984) have been adduced on both sides of the
question, but few studies directly address the question: Do nonhuman
primates understand the intentions of others?
Main Body
■ organise the literature according to common
themes;
■ provide insight into the relation between your
chosen topic and the wider subject area e.g.
between obesity in children and obesity in
general;
■ move from a general, wider view of the
literature being reviewed to the specific focus
of your research.
Conclusions
■ Summarize the main findings of your

review.
■ Provide closure.
■ Explain “so what?”
■ Implications for future research.
OR
■ Connections to the current study.
Example: Conclusion
■ In summary, although there is some suggestive evidence that
chimpanzees may understand others’ intentions, there are also negative
findings (e.g., Povinelli et al., 1998) and a host of alternative
explanations. As a consequence, currently it is not clear whether
chimpanzees (or other nonhuman primates) distinguish between
intentional and accidental actions performed by others. In contrast,
there are several studies indicating that children as young as 14
months of age have some understanding of others’ intentions, but the
lack of comparative studies makes it difficult to know how children
compare to apes. This study is the first to directly compare children,
chimpanzees, and orangutans with the use of a nonverbal task in
which the subjects were to discriminate between the experimenter’s
intentional and accidental actions.
Citing Sources
If it’s not your own idea (and not common
knowledge)—DOCUMENT IT!
■ Paraphrase key ideas.
■ Use quotations sparingly.
■ Introduce quotations effectively.
■ Use proper in-text citation to document the source of ideas.
■ Maintain accurate bibliographic records.
Citing Sources: Things to Avoid
■ Plagiarism
■ Irrelevant quotations.
■ Un-introduced quotations.
Revising
How Can I
Fine-tune My Draft?
Some Tips on Revising
■ Title: Is my title consistent with the content of my paper?
■ Introduction: Do I appropriately introduce my review?
■ Thesis: Does my review have a clear claim?
■ Body: Is the organization clear? Have I provided
headings?
■ Topic sentences: Have I clearly indicated the major idea(s)
of each paragraph?
■ Transitions: Does my writing flow?
■ Conclusion: Do I provide sufficient closure? (see p. 10)
■ Spelling and Grammar: Are there any major spelling or
grammatical mistakes?
Writing a Literature Review:
In Summary
■ As you read, try to see the “big picture”—your literature
review should provide an overview of the state of research.
■ Include only those source materials that help you shape
your argument. Resist the temptation to include
everything you’ve read!
■ Balance summary and analysis as you write.
■ Keep in mind your purpose for writing:
■ How will this review benefit readers?
■ How does this review contribute to your study?
■ Be meticulous about citations.

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Strategies for Writing the

The literature review is a critical look at the existing

What Type of Literature Review

SYNTHESIZE CRITIQUE COMPARE

■ What do researchers KNOW about this field?

■ Indicate scope of the literature review.

■ Summarize the main findings of your

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