Easy steps on how to write a literature review
The literature review is the basic and almost the most essential part that precedes everything that will be the subject and content of your research paper. When elaborating what is the purpose of a literature review, we need to discuss goals, hypotheses, research questions, and research methodology that should be derived from a critical review of the literature. Knowing this is a challenging task, we bring you essential steps for writing a literature review to help you cope with any project.
Read and understand the assignment
A critical review should “cover” and answer relevant and valid questions related to the chosen field of research, theoretical concepts, and practical and academic problems, especially previous research approaches and methods.
Image source: Unsplash
When writing the review, you should define basic terms, definitions, significance and mutual relations for all relevant sources and valid topics and areas of your research. Also, you need to find and determine relevant literature and valid information in your field of research.
Find the relevant information
Like any written work, literature reviews also require a strong organization of facts in the review introduction, body, and conclusion style. When writing the literature review introduction, you should define the research area you want to pursue and your purpose for the review. Starting with definition and purpose, you can then move forward and present your findings, always deriving from relevant sources.
To present your findings in the body of a discussion, you can start by discussing the general idea or overview of your particular field of study, then quickly narrow it down to a discussion of scientific research related to your specific topic. By doing so alone, you make the study feasible and valid.
Begin the research process
The approach to writing literature reviews is mainly standardized. The plan is prepared in advance, all to reduce bias or subjectivity. The process begins with a research question we must consider while preparing a systematic review article. The research question creates a plan for preparing a systematic review article. We design a search for literature strategy, define criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of studies, assess strengths and weaknesses and prepare a report.
The research question should not be too narrow or too broad, so different tools can be used to overcome the weaknesses of the research. The choice depends on the type of research question, and you should search for the appropriate articles and books accordingly.
Consider literature review writing help
As already stated, writing literature reviews can be challenging for many, and thus, we encourage people to learn how to ask someone to write a review. Hiring a literature review writer at PapersOwl sounds like an excellent idea since you’ll get expert writers at affordable rates.
In addition to the first-class literature review writing service, you will get a 24/7 support team and research papers free of plagiarism. Paper Owl also provides tips for writing and a literature review generator, which is a handy tool whenever you want to write your literature review online.
Image source: Unsplash
Build an organized plan
After consulting with your mentor, set a deadline for the first draft. If you don’t schedule tasks will spiral far beyond your control if you don’t schedule them. You will read far, far too many and end up stuck with an unmanageable collection of references.
Look for continuous windows of time in your schedule that last at least two hours and, at most, four hours. Don’t be fooled into thinking you can read and extract all day. It takes time to absorb content well. Be kind to yourself, and take breaks and time for other tasks.
Write it up
Before taking the first steps to writing, it is recommended to prepare a draft. The key concepts answer the main questions, what article’s topic title, who will need it and for what purpose, what are the key results and what is the main contribution. On this basis, we prepare a content draft that will take the reader from the beginning to the end of the story. Prepare keywords related to each point and then play with different combinations until you find the optimal order. We also prepare the literature and resources we will use in this order.
Keep track of keywords. They may be helpful as topics later. You can always pay for literature review if you don’t know how to do a good one or take the time to learn about it at this stage. Create a .docx document with the key topics you noticed in the article titles. Write the word limit at the top. This document will become your literature review format template, so give it a name and save it accordingly.
Evaluate and edit your work
As you read the material in depth, use the key topics document as a place to jot down ideas about how the content fits together. These notes will form the connective tissue of your review, which you can later supplement with specific references. Writing a master’s or doctoral thesis is more about watching the picture become apparent than throwing out the assigned text.
Bottom line
The literature review writing process is an essential, relevant, and valid component of the thesis, and it is usually written in the second chapter of the work, near the beginning. All good theses begin and end with a review of the literature. The literature review defines all relevant and valid questions based on the purpose, goal, research methodology, research questions, and hypotheses. Finally, the essential criterion of successful and good theses, the criterion and skill of synthesizing, should be shown and demonstrated using the obtained research, analysis, and evaluation. A good literature review, introductory presentations, conclusions, and analyses are linked and observed concerning the obtained quantitative, qualitative, or mixed research results.