Writing a literature review

Literature review – consecration of those sources with the help of which specific work is written. It should contain information about literally all materials, from thick textbooks to thin brochures.

Literature review concept

In some cases, a literature review should be considered as part of a more significant scientific work. Putting it together can help organize the information in your head, making it more structured.

In this article, we will consider what needs to be done at the stage of preparation for writing a literary review and directly during its compilation. Also, we will not ignore such a crucial stage as checking what has been reported.

Preparatory stage

It is always quite challenging to start writing something from scratch, with absolutely no preparation. To simplify the task a little and save time, it is worthwhile to thoughtfully and carefully prepare for writing a literary review.

To begin with, it is worth clarifying the requirements for compiling a review with your supervisor. He can tell you how many sources you should cover in the text. It is also worth checking with the teacher the form in which the review should be written. This nuance is important for understanding what they want to get from you: a regular debriefing or a widespread critical analysis.

It will not be superfluous to find out the volume of the review or the number of words involved. Then it will be easier for you to navigate the process itself since you have already figured out the discussion of the details. Plus, we managed to demonstrate to the supervisor how much you value his competent opinion.

To quickly find suitable sources, limit the topic as much as possible. Remember that the sources on which you write your work, and at the same time the review, must be relevant for a given time.

In the process of work, you must not only collect sources together but also analyze them. This is necessary so that you can later understand what ties this group of books or articles together.

Once the material is grouped, you need to write down a few theses you can insert into the review. It is in them that holds your opinion on the literary sources under consideration.

As a final step in preparing for your review, assess how authoritative sources you have taken. Perhaps they should supplement them with something, or, conversely, some of them should be removed.

Literature review writing stage

Writing any work naturally begins with an introduction. In this case, it should be logical and confident. Help the reader know what awaits him in this paragraph.

Having finished with the introductory part, you should proceed to the main one. You can build it in different ways:

Chronological order. It is appropriate when you are dealing with a specific time frame. In this case, you can demonstrate how the point of view on a particular problem has changed.
Type of publications. This method will look organic if the found sources contain very different opinions.
Method of trends. The review is compiled according to general trends that are available in various sources.
Structure by topic. In this case, much depends on the theses that will be described in the review and the sources themselves. This method is suitable for displaying an abstract topic that can be represented by various literary material.

At the end of writing the work, a conclusion naturally follows, which will generalize everything you have written before. It must necessarily reflect those thoughts that were voiced by you at the beginning and indicate those things that you were able to learn in the process of studying the bibliographic list.

It is important to remember that all parts of the review should be written in your language, not copied from anywhere. But this does not prevent you from using quotations from books as arguments, especially if you can formulate them differently.

Verification stage

Check again with the design rules since your teacher should not have questions about the content of the work and its form. Next, it’s worth checking the logic of the story. If something confuses you in the text, then it is better to reformulate it.

After you finish editing the content, check the text for grammatical, stylistic, and spelling errors. If they are, then eliminate them so that your text is pleasant to read.

In conclusion, I would like to say that the most crucial thing in compiling a literary review is its structure. It should be clear, understandable and connected with the adjacent parts of the text so that you have the opportunity to avoid abrupt transitions. Using our advice, you can write a thoughtful review. The main thing is to be diligent and attentive.