A Good Literature Review

A literature review is a document that reflects the degree of student’s knowing the subject of research.This piece of writing introduces the degree of its relevance, points to strengths and weaknesses of the problem being under study. Researching on literature and analyzing relevant materials is undoubtedly the most difficult stage of writing a dissertation.

You have to be able to demonstrate to fellow scholars that you are familiar with the academic debates in the field, have defined your topic of investigation in an appropriate way and that you have a (albeit modest) contribution to make to the field.

You should be able to show why anyone should care about your topic, raise the problem you have found, and pave the way for an interesting and sound investigation.

There are no rules on what literature and material to use as sources in your paper.

The popular majority of students use information from latest journal publications, abstracts, and online books that relate to the topic being under study.

Your literature review should be something which you, yourself, enjoy reading rather than a boring list of summaries of what you have read.

You are an emerging expert on your topic and must show this.(You can’t agree or disagree with something if you don’t have a clear idea of what it is you are agreeing or disagreeing with! Take note of the authority of authors and the reliability and validity of their methods.There’s a delicate balance between discussing what others have said and found, and developing your own “voice”.If you lack anything from the above list, the risk of you accomplishing poor literature review is high.It is impossible to become a writing guru overnight.How to write a literature review for a dissertation, scientific article, any another assignment so that it covers all aspects of your research and is compliant with all writing requirements? Literature review writing will not be a problem for you if you have ever worked on similar tasks.However, due to strict requirements for postgraduate scientific works and literature review format, students have many questions concerning principles of writing and the main rules to be followed. If you want to know everything about literature review writing - from assignment description to effective approaches of handling the task, keep reading the post.You are neither just listing what others have said, nor are you merely “telling your own story” – you need to demonstrate that you have an informed voice.So, don’t quote too many studies or always begin with “Smith (1999) found that ……”, as it takes away the focus of your own argument onto that of others.The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic. Components Similar to primary research, development of the literature review requires four stages: 3.Definition and Use/Purpose A literature review may constitute an essential chapter of a thesis or dissertation, or may be a self-contained review of writings on a subject.