how long are literature reviews

how long are literature reviews

The Significance and Structure of Literature Reviews in Academic Writing

1. Introduction to Literature Reviews

Not to be confused with a book review, a literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to provide a concise overview of what is known about the topic. The literature review is concomitantly the easiest and the most difficult of academic documents to write. Suitable in scope, depth, and breadth of coverage for presentation in a reviewed paper or (Ph.D.) dissertation, the literature review can be hard to organize and manage unless the author is scrupulous with references and annotations and formally evaluates them in a logical and systematic manner. It is necessary to build upon the work of others in nearly every measure since no valuable contribution to the knowledge of any given field is likely to happen in a vacuum or as the work of a sole investigator.

1. Introduction

2. Key Components of a Literature Review

Formulate a clear question that your literature review aims to answer and understand why it is important to answer. Search the literature and select relevant papers and studies. Only a very small part of the literature needs to be extensively read and researched in a systematic manner, and the entire literature, nor all interconnected and neighboring works, should be reviewed. While you study the papers and trials, take brief notes and analyze the ideas, analyze around, and thoroughly consider their importance to the problem studied, and the relevant meetings with other literature. Review and organize the available literature. Write the structure and the topic of the academic paper that aims to offer new contributions to the field.

Introduction: As a student, you will be expected to operate with a range of studies and relevant investigations in order to come up with a well-analyzed, thought-out, and reasoned paper. Literature reviews usually contain a title, an introduction, the body, a conclusion, and a reference list, although they might not be required as separate groups of the whole. A large literature review will contain article introductions, definitions of terms, outlines of theories, conceptual frameworks, significant investigations, contentious methodologies, and sometimes even present problems, and finally gaps.

3. Strategies for Conducting a Literature Review

How do you get started? Begin by establishing what type of literature you have. A big part of your review of the literature is likely to be quantitative. This is written focus on hard statistical data. This can also contain literature that is qualitative. A literature review in this sense is just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation must be classified, disposed within the research topic, challenging, and logical. You should assess the quality of what you read, providing appropriate reasons to criticize it, not just simply report on it. You have to have an open mind when doing these things, of course. If you are evaluating a study conducted at a university, for example, it is not the university that you might be quick to criticize but instead, the study and its design. Therefore, you should always mention conflicting theories and findings within the body of the review. Despite the importance of writing a literature review, many students still do not understand how to do this work properly. In this review, we’ll describe how to choose a subject for the literature review, build an outline, adhere to academic sources while using key publication databases, compose a unique linear history, properly organize the review.

A literature review requires a synthesis of different sub-topics in order to come to a conclusion of the context. The great importance attached to the literature review suggests it as one of the most essential components of the entire paper. The length and depth of your literature review may be based on the parameters of your assignment as well as your discipline.

4. Common Mistakes to Avoid in Literature Reviews

Not well-defined intent: the correct documentation and citation should be used with our words when it comes to the ownership of ideas and content. Even though ideas come from the authors of the cited references, such ideas used in a literature review came from the understanding or interpretation of those involved during the discussion. Correction of plagiarism should be done in the literature of the literature, and as such, there involves citation where necessary.

Plagiarism – it is important to identify that during the process of handling different perspectives on different topics, authors may cause that information to be written differently in terms of content and presentation. But if we know the exact points of information that are used and are not original, it is important to mention and cite such information correctly. Making information come across as your original ideas without properly citing the original sources violates copyright.

When it comes to the structure of a literature review, authors mention that a literature review is a signpost that provides clues about what is going to be done, reviews information, presents past research, and gives a sequential development about the research of interest. It explains the relevance of the chosen project. It is the analytical aspect, heavily loaded with relevance, and provides a complete view of the past.

5. Conclusion and Future Directions

Our discussion aims at helping both novices as well as experienced authors assess the quality of their literature review, as well as support them to design and write up strong, effective literature sections. Doing so aligns with the academic paper as a genre as it helps to inform the collective understanding of research in a specific area.

In this article, we have presented a detailed discussion of the features that an effective literature review in computer science should address. We have reviewed the literature on how to conduct a literature review and on how to write an effective and strong literature review in computer science. We then showed how understanding the role of the various foundations, standards of judgment, and dreams which are central elements of a literature review provide a basis for understanding what a literature review ought to address.