A survey of the scholarly sources dealing with a specific topic can be regarded as a literature review. It gives us an overview of the prevailing knowledge, allowing us to identify the theories having relevance, methods, and the existing research gaps. A literature review can also be just a simple summary of the different sources which usually has an organized pattern and integrates both summaries as well as synthesis. A summary is the recapitulation of the significant information of the sources whereas a synthesis is the reorganization or reshuffling of that information. It might provide modified information of the old material or combine the modified with the old interpretations Also, it might trace the intellectual advancement of the field including the vital debates. Depending on the situation, a literature review may evaluate the different sources and guide the readers on the most relevant.

Generally, a literature review is written by searching relevant publications such as books and journal articles, critically analyzing them, and then explaining what is found.

A good literature review must cover the following criteria: -

• o be organized around and connected directly to the thesis or the research questions we are developing
• to synthesize the results into a synopsis of what is known and unknown
• to identify the areas of debate in the literature
• to formulate questions needed for further research
• the ability to apply the principles of analysis in identifying unprejudiced and valid studies.

A literature review is conducted to place one’s research within the existing knowledge while one is writing a thesis, a dissertation, or a research paper.

The various purposes behind writing a literature review include:-

• To develop a theoretical structure and methodology for one’s research
• To demonstrate one’s familiarity with the topic as well as the scholarly concept
• To place oneself in the context of other researchers and theorists
• To demonstrate how one’s research fills in the gaps or contributes to the argument.

5 key steps to write a literature review

The necessary steps which we must follow while writing a good literature review are:

We need to define the topic clearly before we begin searching for literature. If we are writing the literature review of any dissertation or a research paper, we must search for literature related to our research problem and the questions.

In case we are writing a literature review as an assignment only, we will need to focus and develop a principal question to direct our research. This question must be answered without collecting the original data and the answers should be based only on a review of the existing publications.

To write an efficient literature review we should search for relevant sources. Here, we can use some proper keywords to begin searching for the sources. Some of the user databases to find out the required journals and articles comprises:

• Google Scholar
• EBSCO
• JSTOR
• Library catalog of any university
• Project Muse (for humanities and social sciences)
• EconLit (for economics)
• Medline (for life sciences and biomedicine)
• Inspec (for physics, engineering, and computer science)

In this step, we must evaluate the sources in relevance to one’s probable questions related to the research topic. We need to make sure we use credible sources and read those landmark studies and major theories in our field of research. In this regard, a high citation count for any article signifies that the article has been influential in a particular field and can certainly be included in our literature review.

As we go through the various sources, we should take notes so that we can incorporate them into the text of our next literature review. We must keep track of our sources with the citations to avoid plagiarism. Another helpful way is to make an annotated bibliography where we compile the whole citation information and write a paragraph of synopsis and analysis for each source. This saves time and helps us to remember what we have already read.

We need to comprehend the various connections between the sources that we have gone through to begin organizing the argument of our literature review. For example, we can look for the trends, in theory, methods, or results, the pivotal publications, or the gaps to be addressed.

We must adopt a strategy to organize the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of our literature review, we can integrate several strategies such as the overall structure might be based on themes, but each theme is explained chronologically. In any literature review, there must be an introduction, the main body, and a conclusion. All the information to be included depends on the goal of our literature review.

It is important to note that a literature review is quite different from an academic research paper. The main objective of an academic research paper is to establish a new argument while a research paper is most likely to contain a literature review as one of its parts.

In the case of a research paper, we generally use the literature as support or foundation for a new insight that we contribute. But the aim of a research paper is only to summarise as well as synthesize the various arguments and ideas of other people without adding any new contribution.

Writing an English literature review or any type of literature review is a significant skill if one wishes to apply for graduate school or to pursue a career in the field of research. Assignments are one of the most vital parts of a student’s academic career. To score good grades a student needs to complete their assignments appropriately. Literature review assignment requires proper strategies for its successful completion. A student can get Literature review assignment help by visiting Dream Assignment where our team of Literature reviews experts is ready to assist you in completing your assignments efficiently by maintaining strict deadlines.