How to write literature review?

It can be a separate piece of writing or the one that you add to the academic paper. There’s no big difference between them, so we’ll focus on the main steps that will fit both variants.

Make up a list of sources

You can use Google to find all the information about the topic. Use only primary sources of information. It’s better to avoid using information from Wikipedia or similar ones. It’s good to make this list longer as you will probably have to remove some items at the stage of evaluation.

Make a literature review outline

It’s a detailed plan or even a skeleton of your future text. Find the things that could unite some list items into groups. You can put them one after another to develop a logical chain of some facts or evidence. Write short notes for each source and find one quotation that can support your words.

Evaluate your findings

According to the literature review definition, you should provide your position towards the source. Answer the following questions:

• Is this source interesting for you?
• Can you get any valuable information from it?
• Can you find valuable findings in the book?
• Do you see any controversial points of view?
• Does the author of the book have any credentials?

How long should a literature review be?

You can write from one page up to ten pages of the text depending on the type of review you are making. If you are writing a literature review for a dissertation paper, you will have to process a great number of literature sources. If you write a standalone paper, you can be fine with only one paper. It’s good to ask your tutor how long should your review be.

You know how to do a literature review and you know how to evaluate the sources. It’s time to edit and proofread your text. The first thing to do is to make it visually attractive. Use double spacing and 12 font. Mind the margins and other elements that can make your text more readable. The next step is proofreading your review and correcting all the mistakes. You can do it yourself or use any software that you trust. Finish this task with reading the review from start to finish and evaluate your whole work.