HOW CAN I WRITE A GOOD LITERATURE REVIEW?
Remember the purpose: it should answer the questions we looked at above. Look at how published writers review the literature. You'll see that you should use the literature to explain your research - after all, you are not writing a literature review just to tell your reader what other researchers have done. You aim should be to show why your research needs to be carried out, how you came to choose certain methodologies or theories to work with, how your work adds to the research already carried out, etc.
Read with a purpose: you need to summarize the work you read but you must also decide which ideas or information are important to your research (so you can emphasize them), and which are less important and can be covered briefly or left out of your review. You should also look for the major concepts, conclusions, theories, arguments etc. that underlie the work, and look for similarities and differences with closely related work. This is difficult when you first start reading, but should become easier the more you read in your area.
Write with a purpose: your aim should be to evaluate and show relationships between the work already done (Is Researcher Y's theory more convincing than Researcher X's? Did Researcher X build on the work of Researcher Y?) and between this work and your own. In order to do this effectively you should carefully plan how you are going to organize your work.
A lot of people like to organize their work chronologically (using time as their organizing system). Unless developments over time are crucial to explain the context of your research problem, using a chronological system will not be an effective way to organize your work. Some people choose to organize their work alphabetically by author name: this system will not allow you to show the relationships between the work of different researchers, and your work, and should be avoided!
For more information about writing, access The Basics of Good Writing.
WHY WRITE A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE?
The literature review is a critical look at the existing research that is significant to the work that you are carrying out. Some people think that it is a summary: this is not true. Although you need to summarize relevant research, it is also vital that you evaluate this work, show the relationships between different work, and show how it relates to your work.
In other words, you cannot simply give a concise description of, for example, an article: you need to select what parts of the research to discuss (e.g. the methodology), show how it relates to the other work (e.g. What other methodologies have been used? How are they similar? How are they different?) and show how it relates to your work (what is its relationship to your methodology?).
Keep in mind that the literature review should provide the context for your research by looking at what work has already been done in your research area. It is not supposed to be just a summary of other people's work!
Here are some of the questions your literature review should answer:
Forwarded from:
Language Center
Asian Institute of Technology
PO Box 4, Klong Luang
Pathum Thani 12120, Thailand
http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/
Remember the purpose: it should answer the questions we looked at above. Look at how published writers review the literature. You'll see that you should use the literature to explain your research - after all, you are not writing a literature review just to tell your reader what other researchers have done. You aim should be to show why your research needs to be carried out, how you came to choose certain methodologies or theories to work with, how your work adds to the research already carried out, etc.
Read with a purpose: you need to summarize the work you read but you must also decide which ideas or information are important to your research (so you can emphasize them), and which are less important and can be covered briefly or left out of your review. You should also look for the major concepts, conclusions, theories, arguments etc. that underlie the work, and look for similarities and differences with closely related work. This is difficult when you first start reading, but should become easier the more you read in your area.
Write with a purpose: your aim should be to evaluate and show relationships between the work already done (Is Researcher Y's theory more convincing than Researcher X's? Did Researcher X build on the work of Researcher Y?) and between this work and your own. In order to do this effectively you should carefully plan how you are going to organize your work.
A lot of people like to organize their work chronologically (using time as their organizing system). Unless developments over time are crucial to explain the context of your research problem, using a chronological system will not be an effective way to organize your work. Some people choose to organize their work alphabetically by author name: this system will not allow you to show the relationships between the work of different researchers, and your work, and should be avoided!
For more information about writing, access The Basics of Good Writing.
WHY WRITE A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE?
The literature review is a critical look at the existing research that is significant to the work that you are carrying out. Some people think that it is a summary: this is not true. Although you need to summarize relevant research, it is also vital that you evaluate this work, show the relationships between different work, and show how it relates to your work.
In other words, you cannot simply give a concise description of, for example, an article: you need to select what parts of the research to discuss (e.g. the methodology), show how it relates to the other work (e.g. What other methodologies have been used? How are they similar? How are they different?) and show how it relates to your work (what is its relationship to your methodology?).
Keep in mind that the literature review should provide the context for your research by looking at what work has already been done in your research area. It is not supposed to be just a summary of other people's work!
Here are some of the questions your literature review should answer:
- What do we already know in the immediate area concerned?
- What are the characteristics of the key concepts or the main factors or variables?
- What are the relationships between these key concepts, factors or variables?
- What are the existing theories?
- Where are the inconsistencies or other shortcomings in our knowledge and understanding?
- What views need to be (further) tested?
- What evidence is lacking, inconclusive, contradictory or too limited?
- Why study (further) the research problem?
- What contribution can the present study be expected to make?
- What research designs or methods seem unsatisfactory?
Forwarded from:
Language Center
Asian Institute of Technology
PO Box 4, Klong Luang
Pathum Thani 12120, Thailand
http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/