Assignment: The Literature Review
You've been assigned to write still another literature review, but, come to think of it, no one has ever really told you just what a literature actually is.Because you've heard that you will need to prepare a literature review in your dissertation, you know this is important, but ….. you're still not sure how to go about writing one.Your instructor says, "Read everything you can find on the topic," but you think there is more to it than that.
You're right.
A literature review is a synthesis of the literature on the topic. To create this synthesis, you will need to interpret and evaluate individual pieces of literature, be they peer-reviewed journal articles or books. Then, you will need to integrate the ideas and information, restating them to create an original written work.
This means that a literature review is not a summary of every journal article you have read on your topic.It is a complex, yet coherent piece based on the diverse material found on the topic.
Overview of the Steps in Preparing a Literature Review
Step 1: Select a topic. Start reading on a topic that interests you.If possible, select a topic that is close to that of your dissertation or that you are considering for your dissertation. You might need to narrow the original topic if you discover that there is too much literature. Or the opposite might happen, and you might need to broaden the topic because of there being too little literature available. At the same time, you will need to keep in mind the audience for whom the review is being written. In this case, assume the audience is the reader of the final manuscript that will be published in a national, peer-reviewed journal. Will your reader be someone in the community college system? A school principal? A higher education administrator? A high school guidance counselor? Keep the reader in mind as you read, organize, and write.
Step 2: Read the literature and make notes, keeping in mind the need for a broad overview of the which issues have been thoroughly covered, which ones need more investigation, which principles seem to be the most firmly established and/or the most widely accepted as being valid, and probably most important, which theories are related to the topic being reviewed. This is a good time to create a matrix to help you organize your information (see readings #2 and #3 for more information on setting up a matrix). While reading and making notes, be sure to establish specific purposes for your literature review. This is when you may a case for your study by pointing out the gaps in the literature. Eventually you will explain how your study will fill these gaps, but until you have read the literature, taken notes, and organized, you won't really know what gaps are there, begging to be filled. Read both quantitative and qualitative articles. Read theory articles. Read everything you can find on your topic.
Step 3: Evaluate and interpret the literature. Use the matrix you developed in step 2 to assist in this task. Regardless of whether you lean toward quantitative or qualitative research, you should pay special attention to literature that presents, tests, or builds on theories related to your topic.
Step 4:Now it's time to synthesize the literature. First group sources according to their similarities and differences while considering possible explanations for differences and even for contradictions in the literature. Please understand that a synthesis may not consist of a single, straightforward conclusion. Instead, it could consist of speculation of how the pieces in the literature might fit together along with some tentative conclusions and a discussion of their implications. This will often lead to ideas for future research that might produce a more definitive understanding of the topic.
Step 5:Now that you have a draft of your literature review, it's time for a second opinion. While your instructor will certainly read your literature review, having another pair (or two) of eyes to read it through won't hurt. This does not mean to let someone else check your grammar and spelling. That is your task. A well-written review can be read by someone with no knowledge of the area and, hopefully, be easily understood. Non-experts can provide extremely useful feedback.
It is really easy to become defensive when people provide feedback on your writing, and when writers become defensive, they often have a hard time improving their writing. Pay particular attention to any section that a reviewer says is unclear. This section may be perfectly clear to you (probably because you've just finished reading extensively on the topic), but others who lack the knowledge that you have may find a passage unclear because it misses some meaning that your knowledge automatically brings to your reading of the literature review. Consider rewriting any section that a reader tells you is unclear, making it more clear to your readers.
To Summarize
The major steps in preparing a literature review are as follows:
1.Select a topic, and modify it in accordance to the amount of literature available AND the needs of your audience.
2.Read the selected literature carefully in order to get a broad overview, paying attention to the relationship of the literature to theory or theories and establishing specific purposes for your literature review.
3.Evaluate and interpret the literature on your topic.
4.Create a synthesis of the literature by reconciling similarities and differences in the literature. Consider the implications of possible conclusions, and identify possible areas for future research (NOTE: Don't forget to use APA levels of heading to help organize the research.)
5.Write first draft, get feedback form others, and revise your review of the literature accordingly.
