3 purposes of literature review
The purpose of a literature review is to:. What's it mean to "review" the literature? Get the big picture of what to expect as part of the process. This video is published under a Creative Commons 3. Systemic Review vs. Literature Review.
Literature reviews
People often treat writing the literature review in an academic paper as a formality. Usually, this means simply listing various studies vaguely related to their work and leaving it at that. But this overlooks how important the literature review is to a well-written experimental report or research paper.
Common in the social and physical sciences, but also sometimes required in the humanities, a literature review is a summary of past research in your subject area. Sometimes this is a standalone investigation of how an idea or field of inquiry has developed over time. In a college paper, you can use a literature review to demonstrate your understanding of the subject matter. This means identifying, summarizing and critically assessing past research that is relevant to your own work.
The literature review also plays a big role in justifying your study and setting your research question. This is because examining past research allows you to identify gaps in the literature, which you can then attempt to fill or address with your own work. It can help to think of the literature review as the foundations for your study, since the rest of your work will build upon the ideas and existing research you discuss therein.
A crucial part of this is formulating a theoretical framework , which comprises the concepts and theories that your work is based upon and against which its success will be judged.
A framework made of theories. No, wait. This one is metal. Our mistake. Conducting a literature review before beginning research also lets you see how similar studies have been conducted in the past. By examining the strengths and weaknesses of existing research, you can thus make sure you adopt the most appropriate methods, data sources and analytical techniques for your own work.
The significance of any results you achieve will depend to some extent on how they compare to those reported in the existing literature. When you come to write up your findings, your literature review will therefore provide a crucial point of reference. If your results replicate past research, for instance, you can say that your work supports existing theories.
This may have implications for bacon production. Writing Tips. Home 5 Reasons the Literature Review is Crucial to Your Paper People often treat writing the literature review in an academic paper as a formality.
What Is a Literature Review? Like a timeline, but a bit more wordy. Instant Quote. Order Now. Tips straight to your inbox! Trusted globally by thousands of companies and colleges, including:.
A literature review is a search and evaluation of the available literature in your given subject or chosen topic area. A literature review has four main objectives:. The purpose of a literature review is to: In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that.
A literature review is a comprehensive summary of previous research on a topic. The literature review surveys scholarly articles, books, and other sources relevant to a particular area of research. The review should enumerate, describe, summarize, objectively evaluate and clarify this previous research. It should give a theoretical base for the research and help you the author determine the nature of your research. The literature review acknowledges the work of previous researchers, and in so doing, assures the reader that your work has been well conceived.
If you have to write an undergraduate dissertation, you may be required to begin by writing a literature review.
Date published 22 February by Shona McCombes. Date updated: 27 March A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic.
Literature Review: Purpose of a Literature Review
Researchers should check with their librarian to determine their access rights. Despite a surge in published scholarship in medical education 1 and rapid growth in journals that publish educational research, manuscript acceptance rates continue to fall. By understanding the goals of a literature review and following a few basic processes, authors can enhance both the quality of their educational research and the likelihood of publication in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education JGME and in other journals. In medical education, no organization has articulated a formal definition of a literature review for a research paper; thus, a literature review can take a number of forms. Depending on the type of article, target journal, and specific topic, these forms will vary in methodology, rigor, and depth. Several organizations have published guidelines for conducting an intensive literature search intended for formal systematic reviews, both broadly eg, PRISMA 5 and within medical education, 6 and there are excellent commentaries to guide authors of systematic reviews.
What Is The Purpose Of A Literature Review?
What is the purpose of literature review in your research and why it is so important to have a thorough review of the literature before you begin your research? You cannot conduct research without having a complete and comprehensive understanding of your topic or research problem. A review of the relevant literature is probably the best answer to this question. Simply put a literature review is a survey of books, articles and write ups and in the process leading to a discussion and a summary of past work done by other researchers that is relevant and related to your field and area of interest for doing research. Does this mean that you just make a list that so and so researcher did such and such work, in this particular area, within this time frame? Most certainly, this is not the case or the reason for doing a literature review. A literature review is an enumeration, critical evaluation, synthesis and summary of past research in a logical and methodical way that displays to the reader. Many people when writing their research tend to overlook the importance of a literature review and treat it as a mere formality, that is, vaguely citing the relevant pieces of work by other researchers and leaving it that way. However, it is a fact that a well-written literature review serves as the background for your research. A literature review serves a number of purposes, an attempt is made to bring them into notice through the following discussion.
Why is it so important?
A literature review or narrative review is a type of review article. A literature review is a scholarly paper that presents the current knowledge including substantive findings as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a particular topic.
How to write a literature review
People often treat writing the literature review in an academic paper as a formality. Usually, this means simply listing various studies vaguely related to their work and leaving it at that. But this overlooks how important the literature review is to a well-written experimental report or research paper. Common in the social and physical sciences, but also sometimes required in the humanities, a literature review is a summary of past research in your subject area. Sometimes this is a standalone investigation of how an idea or field of inquiry has developed over time. In a college paper, you can use a literature review to demonstrate your understanding of the subject matter. This means identifying, summarizing and critically assessing past research that is relevant to your own work. The literature review also plays a big role in justifying your study and setting your research question. This is because examining past research allows you to identify gaps in the literature, which you can then attempt to fill or address with your own work. It can help to think of the literature review as the foundations for your study, since the rest of your work will build upon the ideas and existing research you discuss therein. A crucial part of this is formulating a theoretical framework , which comprises the concepts and theories that your work is based upon and against which its success will be judged.
The Literature Review: A Foundation for High-Quality Medical Education Research
Metrics details. Systematic literature searching is recognised as a critical component of the systematic review process. It involves a systematic search for studies and aims for a transparent report of study identification, leaving readers clear about what was done to identify studies, and how the findings of the review are situated in the relevant evidence. Information specialists and review teams appear to work from a shared and tacit model of the literature search process. How this tacit model has developed and evolved is unclear, and it has not been explicitly examined before. The purpose of this review is to determine if a shared model of the literature searching process can be detected across systematic review guidance documents and, if so, how this process is reported in the guidance and supported by published studies. Two types of literature were reviewed: guidance and published studies. Nine guidance documents were identified, including: The Cochrane and Campbell Handbooks. The relevant sections within each guidance document were then read and re-read, with the aim of determining key methodological stages. Methodological stages were identified and defined.
