literature review vs research paper

literature review vs research paper

Literature Review vs Research Paper

1. Introduction

This guide is meant to help you understand what a literature review is and a research paper. How they are different and also similar in many ways. This is a common question, and this is the question that we will be answering in this post. Literature reviews can be a separate assignment or it can be part of a larger assignment, such as a research paper. We have narrowed down the details in a total of 6 categories to keep it simple so you can get a clear understanding of what each is all about. Many people are unaware of the differences and similarities between the two. If you have ever been unsure on what exactly a literature review is, or been confused on what to include while writing one, or you may not know what a research paper is. Then this guide is for you. A literature review is a critical analysis of published sources, or literature, on a particular topic. It is an assessment of the literature and provides a summary, classification, comparison and evaluation. At postgraduate level literature reviews can be incorporated into an article, a research report or thesis. At undergraduate level literature reviews can be a separate stand alone assessment. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic. A literature review is typically composed to identify new thinking, trends and findings in a particular field of study. A piece of writing that tells the reader what to expect and how to go about reviewing the rest of the work.

2. Literature Review: Purpose and Structure

A well-organized literature review is composed of a series of concise summaries of research findings. The findings are grouped by theme or subtopic. Thus, a review of the literature should be well organized. The goal of a literature review is to convey to the reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic and what are the strengths and weaknesses of those ideas. A well-written literature review will identify existing knowledge on a topic, identify questions which remain to be answered in the area, and compare and contrast findings with those of other researchers. What is crucial is not the form of the review, but that it highlights the findings as well as the conclusions of other researchers that are relevant to the research question. The emphasis of a review paper is interpreting the primary, recent literature. It is a useful first step in planning, summarizing, and evaluating a research project. The review should examine the major theories related to the topic. It should demonstrate to the reader that you have a comprehensive understanding of the relevant publications, and that you have considered and filtered them based on quality and validity. This is key to a literature review; it is not something that should be rushed, it should be conducted with precision and a critical mindset. A thorough, well-structured review provides all essential background information on the basic concepts of the research and the researcher is provided with a more coherent understanding of the problem at hand.

3. Research Paper: Purpose and Structure

The goal of a research paper is to bring together different views, evidence, and facts about a topic from books, articles, and interviews, then interpret the information into your own writing. It’s about a relationship between you, other writers, and your teacher/audience. A research paper will show two things: what you know or learned about a certain topic, and what other people know about the same topic. Often you make a judgment, or just explain complex ideas to the reader. The length of the research paper depends on your teacher’s guidelines. It’s always a good idea to keep your teacher in mind while writing your paper because the teacher is your audience. This way, you can keep on track and continue in a specific direction. It’s always helpful to have someone else read over your paper to give you a new perspective. An academic research paper is not a mystery novel. An effective research paper will clearly and thoroughly attempt to prove or disprove a hypothesis. This is accomplished through discussing factual information on the topic and whittling down a variety of sources to conclude the most reliable one.

4. Key Differences between Literature Review and Research Paper

There are essential similarities and differences between a literature review and a research paper. A literature review is a written summary of evidence-based information on a certain topic. A literature review often provides a theoretical framework for a research paper, theory development, and the analysis of the work already completed on that given topic. A research paper involves an analysis of published information in a perspective that is being given. With a research paper, the sole intent of the paper is usually either proving or disproving a hypothesis proposed by another work. A research paper is developed to get a better knowledge of a known issue. Evidently, our research paper and literature review is focused on the best help with writing a research paper and the skills required in conducting using systematic methods to find the answer to the search and the best available evidence.

A research paper is a piece of writing that is an original work except for the work cited. A research paper involves surveying a field of knowledge in order to find the best possible information in that field. An English research paper is a living and breathing document that matures as the student finds new and better sources in his or her topic. The hardest part about writing a research paper is often deciding where to start and trying to figure out what recent and notable works will provide sufficient information for the work.

A literature review is an examination of the work that has been published on a certain topic. It provides the reader with an idea about the existing theories, as well as giving a comparison between these theories. A literature review is very helpful in providing background information for a research paper and how the work in the paper’s question fits in with the work already completed with a given topic.

5. Conclusion

Research paper is a special term that describes an entire assignment from establishing a question to presenting evidence effectively. A literature review is more generic. From this aspect, the transposition from research paper to literature review can be a difficult process. The questions this study addresses are “What impact does this transposition have? Can knowledge of genre in terms of discipline influence the content and organization of ideas in students’ writing?” The study is significant in that it takes a cross-disciplinary approach to investigating student writing as it seeks to compare instances of the same task-situated genre in two different disciplines. It has long been assumed that familiarity with a certain genre will have an effect on the way it is written and understood. As Lee (1993) states, “Genre embodies the connections between a text and a situation—the ways in which it is (and is intended to be) socially ratified, accepted, or lauded with socio-politically situated users and audience.” This can be tied to an earlier statement by Freedman and Medway (1994) on what separates writing of different disciplines. Though they claim that the fundamental rhetorical processes of all writing are the same, they go on to explain how “in each field, the disciplinary community finds and uses these processes in different ways; that is, the community uses the processes to achieve differing kinds of results” (ibid). One of the ways in which this is accomplished is through the use of different genres. If it is accepted that writing reflects the environment in which it is conceived, and that writing is a tool for achieving the results mentioned above, then it can also be assumed that an effective understanding of a certain genre can aid in writing said genre, in terms of meeting its intended socio-political ends. In instances where English is a second language for students studying abroad in preparation for a specific discipline, the ability to effectively manipulate genre can often be the factor that determines success or failure in said discipline. The previously quoted Sugioka exemplifies this in the expectations he mentions a taught genre should fulfill, and the effects its failure has.