Writing the literature review already has a lot of misconceptions. Additionally, understanding the truest sense of the term “literature review” has misconceptions.
The review of literature, be it in a research paper, dissertation, or merely a research proposal, takes on a significant contribution to the paper. It is in this section that the researcher can prove his claims regarding a certain subject. Here, he can include different articles that support the claim that he already establish in the thesis statement.
However, there are some students that have a poor grasp on the scope of a literature review. Literature review is not only limited to literary works. It is not always poems, epics, or novels that are referred to as literature. Except if one is dealing with Shakespeare works, then it will only be limited to Shakespearean novels and other works. However, if the topic will deal about panic attacks, it will be unlikely to look for resources from the works of Shakespeare or Euripides. In other words, the term literature refers to any sources that will help the study become more effective and clear.
Moreover, the literature review can seek for any kind of sources as long as it is related to the subject at hand. Aside from the typical sources, one can also look up at some newspaper articles or manuscripts to support the claim of the study. It is also another misconception that the review section is written with the opinion of the researcher. The literature review portion should not include any opinion of the researcher. Unlike the typical concept of a “review”, the student does not just gather information from different sources and express personal opinions or ideas. In fact, the researcher should compile these ideas and write it in a way that it will support the thesis statement of the research without altering any ideas from the different sources. Opinions have no room in this section and should be saved in the conclusion section of the research.
Also, it is necessary for every student writing a literature review that there are some rules to be followed. First, the sources to be used in literature review should be published articles. There is no use in citing unpublished articles. After all, it will also be difficult to cite the source in the bibliography section if it is still unpublished. Second, only those relevant to the topic should be included. The researcher should be able to identify the thin line that differentiates the chosen topic from the rest of the topics in the same field. In doing this, there will be no confusions while writing the review section. Moreover, the readers will surely understand the scope of the study. Lastly, it is also possible that this section will discuss synopsis or summary of a related study.
These are just some of the important ideas that one should remember in writing the literature review section. The student should keep in mind that it is important that the researcher should write this section effectively to be able to come up with an effective research paper or dissertation.
Research is made in order to inform people with new knowledge or discovery. However, it is not to be expected that everybody would willingly believe what you are tackling in your whole research paper. Thus, what you can do to make your research more credible will be to support them with other works which have spoken about the same topic that you have for your research. This is where literature review comes in.
Many a times, students do not have adequate knowledge, when it comes to writing literature review. A literature review refers to a brief display with discussion along with survey about a subject already studied, proved, as well as argued in reference to your area of study. It is more than just a summary or a gloss bibliography. It needs good presentation as well as organization of sources, apart from a strong establishment of connection in between the evaluated object and the project. The objective is to express the reliability of your research; and hence you are required to highlight specific points in regard to your study field.
In order to go about with this, you will have to focus on what has been studied already, along with the gaps as well as limitations, which need further study. Apart from this, discussing the gap in information in regard to the research is necessary. As it is, the review of the proposal would be a sort of brief note in comparison with the actual appraisal of your project in light of the actual details.
The dissertation literature review requires to be written meticulously. This should include a series of ideas that support the argument or topic of the study. Literature review is where other studies that support the main argument are stated and explained. To be able to write this part properly, the writer should know what to write and what not to write. Literature review is not merely a compilation of other studies. It is not even just a summary of two or three studies that a writer thinks is relevant. The writer should know how to evaluate important ideas, how to incorporate them in the study, and how to apply the appropriate theories. These are also the important ideas that a researcher should look for when searching for an example that can guide in the whole process of working out the dissertation.
Literature reviews are basically of two types and knowledge of these two may help you a great deal in this regard.
This kind of review would arrange the source in regard to time duration, right from the oldest to the newest journal of research as well as changes due to the time spent. In terms of various versions of sources, the date of publication would be considered. In this case, time is an important factor.
In such a kind of review, the subject of the sources would be focused considerably instead of the time. The most vital source would appear first and given more importance.
You can even have literature sources in works such as stories, comments, project, speech, article, novel, poem, essay, program, theory, and others. This is why literature review involves scanning the pages of any published literature like books, newspaper, magazine, website, webpage, collection, paper, pamphlet, and the like where you may be able to find any reference to the same topic that you are researching on. This time, “literature’” does not exclusively refer to the poetic rendition of words, like that of Shakespeare alone.
There are many reasons why literature review is rendered as a significant part of any research or dissertation paper. You may ask what makes it as such if it is only supposed to contain tidbits of other related works. Literature review is the part of the paper where the researcher will be given the opportunity to strengthen your paper for you will be citing what other reliable authors have said about your topic. This will prove that you are not just writing about any random subject but that many others have also poured their thoughts on the topic.
You may also ask what makes literature review a necessary part of the paper. This question can be answered by trying not to include the review in your paper. Obviously, it affects the length of your paper but this is not the noticeable part. What would most certainly be lacking is the fact that your paper, without the literature review, only contains all of your opinions about the facts that you have discovered through your research. Thus, how can you further convince the readers, in this case, the committee who will scrutinize your paper? This is the need that is answered only by the literature review. By the mere fact that you are using “referencing” by citing what more credible people had said about the topic will build a stronger foundation for your paper.
With a literature review, you need to establish a clear tie between the works that you have cited and the topic that you are writing about. You should be able to justify the inclusion of a certain work in your review so as to make everything that you have written useful. The more you include useless points in your paper, the more that the committee will think that you have not put in a lot of thinking into your paper.
Literature review is also unique from the rest of the paper. While you have to fill most of the paper with your own analysis, in a literature review alone, you will have to write purely about related works of other people. In order to write a literature review, below mentioned are the few questions, which you must consider for helping yourself.
But to better understood things about writing this section of the dissertation, the researcher might need a good example of literature review. There are some aspects that examples can provide. It cannot be denied that relying mainly in instructions and rules can make someone confused. It is always a relief that there is an example that can help the researcher come up with a good literature review and a dissertation, in general. Any researcher should consider two important aspects about the literature review example. First, it should be informative. This means that all the information that stated in the review are all relevant to the study. Another important aspect of the review is that it should be critical. There should be clear distinction by the researcher which facts should be included. Also, the details indicated are not biased and partial.
More to these aspects, the other key point that one should look for in a good example is that it clearly states the scope and limitation of the study. Also, it should be able to link all the other details to the statement of the problem or thesis statement of the study. Moreover, it should clearly differentiate the necessary and unnecessary information. Additionally, it should discuss the issues regarding the subject matter.
Another, the example should teach the researcher which information can be considered as relevant and which are irrelevant. It is also expected from a dissertation example that it will serve as guide in coming up with critical analysis about the study. Lastly, it should also show the relevance and significance of the review to the entire dissertation.
Moreover, a perfect example of the dissertation literature review includes a clear formation of ideas and facts that leads to a significant study. It also clearly shows the theoretical framework. In addition, the example should provide a sound and vivid argument.
An example of literature review is a good guide in coming up a dissertation. However, the researcher should not rely entirely to this.
You can also make a visit to dissertation writing service Primedissertations.com, where you will get a lot many ideas in this regard.
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