Preliminary Literature Review and Action Item Checklist Examples

How to Write a Literature Review: Six Steps to Become You lot from Outset to Terminate

Writing a literature review is often the near daunting part of writing an commodity, book, thesis, or dissertation. "The literature" seems (and oft is) massive. I have found information technology helpful to be as systematic every bit possible when completing this gargantuan task.

Sonja Foss and William Walters* describe an efficient and constructive way of writing a literature review. Their arrangement provides an excellent guide for getting through the massive amounts of literature for whatever purpose: in a dissertation, an M.A. thesis, or preparing a research article for publication in any field of study. Below is a  summary of the steps they outline as well every bit a step-by-step method for writing a literature review.

How to Write a Literature Review

Footstep Ane: Decide on your areas of research:

Before y'all brainstorm to search for manufactures or books, decide beforehand what areas you are going to research. Make sure that you lot but get articles and books in those areas, fifty-fifty if you come beyond fascinating books in other areas. A literature review I am currently working on, for example, explores barriers to higher instruction for undocumented students.

Pace Two: Search for the literature:

Conduct a comprehensive bibliographic search of books and manufactures in your expanse. Read the abstracts online and download and/or print those articles that pertain to your area of research. Find books in the library that are relevant and check them out. Fix a specific time frame for how long you will search. Information technology should not take more than ii or iii dedicated sessions.

Pace Three: Find relevant excerpts in your books and articles:

Skim the contents of each volume and article and look specifically for these v things:

one. Claims, conclusions, and findings about the constructs you are investigating

2. Definitions of terms

3. Calls for follow-up studies relevant to your project

4. Gaps you notice in the literature

five. Disagreement virtually the constructs you are investigating

When you lot find any of these five things, type the relevant excerpt directly into a Word document. Don't summarize, every bit summarizing takes longer than simply typing the excerpt. Make sure to notation the proper noun of the author and the folio number following each extract. Do this for each commodity and volume that you take in your stack of literature. When y'all are washed, impress out your excerpts.

Step Four: Code the literature:

Leave a pair of pair of scissors and cut each excerpt out. Now, sort the pieces of paper into similar topics. Figure out what the master themes are. Place each excerpt into a themed pile. Brand sure each note goes into a pile. If there are excerpts that you tin't effigy out where they belong, separate those and go over them again at the end to see if you need new categories. When you finish, place each stack of notes into an envelope labeled with the proper name of the theme.

Pace Five: Create Your Conceptual Schema:

Type, in large font, the name of each of your coded themes. Print this out, and cutting the titles into individual slips of paper. Accept the slips of paper to a tabular array or large workspace and figure out the best way to organize them. Are there ideas that go together or that are in dialogue with each other? Are in that location ideas that contradict each other? Move around the slips of newspaper until yous come up with a mode of organizing the codes that makes sense. Write the conceptual schema down before you forget or someone cleans upwards your slips of newspaper.

Step 6: Begin to Write Your Literature Review:

Choose any section of your conceptual schema to begin with. You tin can brainstorm anywhere, because you already know the order. Find the envelope with the excerpts in them and lay them on the table in front end of yous. Effigy out a mini-conceptual schema based on that theme by group together those excerpts that say the same affair. Use that mini-conceptual schema to write upwardly your literature review based on the excerpts that you have in front of yous. Don't forget to include the citations equally you write, so as not to lose track of who said what. Repeat this for each department of your literature review.

Once you consummate these 6 steps, y'all will have a complete draft of your literature review. The neat thing well-nigh this process is that it breaks down into manageable steps something that seems enormous: writing a literature review.

I remember that Foss and Walter'southward system for writing the literature review is ideal for a dissertation, because a Ph.D. candidate has already read widely in his or her field through graduate seminars and comprehensive exams.

Information technology may be more challenging for M.A. students, unless you are already familiar with the literature. It is always difficult to figure out how much you need to read for deep meaning, and how much you just need to know what others take said. That balance will depend on how much you already know.

For people writing literature reviews for articles or books, this system too could work, peculiarly when you are writing in a field with which y'all are already familiar. The mere fact of having a system can brand the literature review seem much less daunting, so I recommend this arrangement for anyone who feels overwhelmed past the prospect of writing a literature review.

*Destination Dissertation: A Traveler's Guide to a Done Dissertation

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Source: https://www.wiley.com/network/researchers/preparing-your-article/writing-a-literature-review-six-steps-to-get-you-from-start-to-finish

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