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Writing a literature review
Many assignment tasks require you to review the literature on a particular topic or issue in the process of responding to the major task. For instance, in an essay, report, project or thesis, you review the literature to develop your perspective on a topic or issue. In explaining your perspective, you need to support it with evidence from the literature.
Some assignments, however, may purely ask you to present a literature review on a particular topic. This type of assignment is the focus of this chapter.
The academic skills that you will develop and use in completing a literature review are important. They prepare you for life after graduation where you will need to cope with, and negotiate, increasingly large amounts of information as the world becomes increasingly globalised and information-rich. For instance, after accessing suitable information for your topic, you will develop and exercise skills in judging its suitability and validity. This ability, to critically analyse information and research, is essential to the logical and coherent organisation of material in your academic work. Reviewing literature demands the critical evaluation of its contribution to a given topic or field including identification and articulation of its shortcomings, if relevant.
A literature review is based on the understanding that knowledge is not fixed and static. Rather, it evolves as researchers investigate and report on their findings in publications, whether in a book, a chapter in an edited book or a refereed journal article. Material published in these types of publications is seen as authoritative and therefore valid. This particularly applies to refereed journal articles, where the articles have undergone rigorous scrutiny from experts in the field before being accepted for publication.
You need to read and understand the published views in the field of your topic so that you are aware of the state of knowledge; that is, the way knowledge in the field of the topic has developed, and the controversies surrounding it.
The purpose of a literature review may then be summarised as:
6.1 The nature of a literature review
In a summarised form, a literature review involves:
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Clear statement of the issue/topic, and its dimensions. You need to find published material that discusses the major aspects of the topic;
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Clear, explicit and logical organisation of the range of views in the literature;
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Critical and comparative evaluation of the views in the literature.
Be aware:
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6.2 Procedure for completing a literature review
When completing a literature review the following steps can be followed:
- Analyse the topic to identify its dimensions.
- Locate suitable published material on the topic.
- Read, understand and summarise the views presented in the published material.
- Consider the published views in terms of a matrix, or ‘jigsaw puzzle’ surrounding the topic, identifying their similarities and differences.
- Juxtapose the views against each other, critiquing, or identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and contribution to knowledge on the topic.
- Decide on a way of organising or classifying the range of views you have collected.
- Organise the published views under the themes or headings you have established in the previous step.
You may organise, or classify, the published views along the following lines:
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from general to specific;
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from earliest to most recent;
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on the basis of how the ideas have emerged;
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on the basis of how the views conflict with other views;
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how the views relate to others;
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the usefulness of the views.
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6.3 Writing the literature review
6.4 Checklist for a literature review
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