literature review outline example

literature review outline example

The Impact of Literature Reviews on Research

1. Introduction

The process of reviewing literature is an essential component of academic research. Its results can be used to further a research project, demonstrate competency in a specific research targeted area, or add to the overall knowledge of a specific topic within a field of study. No matter what the reason, the significance of the results remain constant.

A review of literature is the process of reading, analyzing, evaluating, and summarizing scholarly materials about a specific topic (Leedy and Ormrod, 2001). The results of a literature review may be compiled in a report or they may serve as a part of a research article, thesis, or grant proposal. The purposes of it are to help the researcher gain a comprehensive and thorough understanding of the past and current research of a specific topic, demonstrate the need for further research in the specific area, and avoid unintentional plagiarism (Leedy and Ormrod, 2001; Webb et al., 2001).

2. Importance of Literature Reviews

Regardless of where a research is conducted, be it academic or corporate media, in a hard or soft science, a literature review is an extremely important component of research. A literature review is a significant part of research that a researcher cannot afford to miss out. This is because a research is based on what other people have found on a subject and cannot proceed to create new knowledge without building on what is already known. The new knowledge that is discovered as a result of the research is then added to what is known, with the cycle then repeating itself. A literature review allows a researcher to make sense of a large amount of information and to build on what is already known. The importance of literature review cannot be stressed enough because it provides a framework for a research. This is because a literature review should be ongoing throughout the research project, with a researcher continually building on what is known. A literature review is a criteria which a researcher must comply with in order to continue with research. If a researcher cannot find enough information on the subject then it is an indication that he/she will not be able to proceed with the research. A literature review is therefore important because it is a way for the academic community to peer review what is being proposed. This is an important aspect of the research cycle because knowledge which is not shared and peer reviewed is not credible as existing knowledge and does not add to new knowledge.

3. Strategies for Conducting a Literature Review

This process can be quite daunting. A comprehensive literature search can result in an overwhelming deluge of information. How do you refine this information to a manageable essence? How do you identify the most relevant studies and not get sidetracked by information or tangential issues that are interesting but not closely related to your research? How do you encapsulate the spirit of others’ work to make it useful for your own research? How do you ensure that you are not inadvertently plagiarizing someone else’s work and claiming it as your own idea? And how do you organize and write this information into a solid analysis in a reasonable period of time?

To complete a literature review for a research proposal or an academic project, you will need to survey what has been done in order to uncover a focus and rationale for your research, and to write a concise and thorough analysis of previous research that is relevant to your research project.

There are many reasons why a review of the literature is a crucial step in the research process. It helps you: – Determine what is already known about your area of interest. – Identify the originality or significance of your research. – Identify and refine your research question. – Compare your work to others. – Put your research into perspective. – Create a compelling argument for why your work is important.

4. Common Challenges in Literature Reviews

What precisely is a ‘lit review’? This is the way in which the essential articulation will in general be popped in some random discussion in the exploration field. No longer simply a task before completing another exploration project, the writing survey has obtained much fear and regard (White, 1998). A researcher endeavoring to persuade subsidizing bodies of a beneficial exploration project will as a rule sell the possibility with a segment on the writing survey. A vital report distributed online characterizes the writing audit as “a made synopsis of the state of the problem with underwriting the value of the composed articles particularly to a subject. It is a survey of proof in addition to a synopsis of what is thought about a specific point, it ought to have a thinking characterised subject to unmistakable goals (Writing, 2005).” Yet to a lesser degree a lot of a booming asset, researchers won’t do a lit audit on the most proficient method to direct a lit survey and thusly an assortment of slight yet huge difficulties happen that every now and again affect the viability of a lit audit. This part will address the distinctive basic difficulties and fail to meet-up that these could cause. One of the most usually referred to challenges inside the execution of a lit survey is that it’s far normally thought about as essentially gathering a finite amount of mentioned articles, before summarizing every one independently. This can bring about a segment this is more than simply unusable due to the absence of an appreciated system inside the outline, yet can emerge as a straightforward recount of what occurs inside the articles, as opposed to a fundamental examination. From this, a review of very any other lit survey concerning a similar matter, found only 5-6% of distributed articles had been being accounted for inside the record and that essentially no numerous setting had been promptly given (Sich, 1997). In any case this is frequently a direct result of a reduced high-caliber of studies (subjective writing will in general being better) it feature the scaremongering (certainly a word) in to a profound established strategy of truely tracking down the relevant measurements. The abuse of a review article can in this manner become tricked with the guide of just highlighting it inside the list for an article and a particularly disappointing article can turn into over crushed to attempt to cause some similarity to experience to out of it. Difficulty in wellspring choice can likewise cause a copy of each different article to just to ensure each article has been tend to a few of the time. This would then be able to form into a very tedious issue bien no different; the beginning has now been expressed right away.

5. Conclusion

The essay has discussed the essential of a comprehensive literature review on the understanding of research. This is with the aim of providing knowledge and understanding that will assist people and researchers with their own research study, with the further hope that increased medical research competency will benefit all those who are consumers of healthcare.

Through this demonstration of knowledge, you can go on to critically evaluate the expertise of the potential research team or evaluate your own capabilities to conduct the study. Often, a literature review is directly linked to your particular research question or tries to tie together a number of interests. In this case, it is an ongoing process which continues through the various phases of the research study and should be revisited at several points to determine whether it is still directly addressing the research question. With a shift towards greater involvement of consumers in research, an effective literature review has useful applications in providing information to the public, consumers, and health practitioners. This may take the form of simple and informative summaries of research articles to aid people’s understanding of medical research, or more complex evaluations of the clinical effectiveness of a treatment or intervention. With all these potential uses, the value of an in-depth research literature review cannot be underestimated.

We have discussed and established that a comprehensive literature review is an essential first step for informed, theory-driven conceptual work. An effective literature review enables you to identify existing research methods or offers you a research model relevant to your particular area of interest. This is generally followed by outlining the need for your own study, which has to be both informed and guided by the past knowledge in your field.