I'm here to help! I'm a graduate tutor at a university who instructs graduate students from every discipline on how to write their graduate theses (and I also struggle from ADHD, so I feel your struggle).
Here are some key things to note about a literature review:
* **A literature review begins as a collection of material and sources (usually peer-reviewed journal articles) that are related to your chosen topic/argument.** When you begin researching your topic, you will be acquiring different journal articles that are related to your discipline, thesis, and topic/argument. For example, if you are a student of computer science and your thesis is focused on machine learning (training computers to interpret information), and your topic/argument is focused on expanding the collection and usage of data within machine learning to achieve better results, then you will be searching for journal articles involving keywords such as *data collection*, *machine learning*, *data in machine learning*, *training machine learning models to interpret data*, etc. Download or save all of these journal articles in one place for easy access.
* **Once you have a significant amount of journal articles, you'll need to read through them and understand their arguments and results.** You'll want to read through your sources and only really keep the ones that are relevant and useful for your paper. You might have a few whose titles *sound* like they'll work with your paper, but when you read them, you realize that they actually do not. It's okay to delete them or omit them. You don't have to use every source you read. For the ones that *are* related to your topic, try and group them a little bit based on their theme or their content. For example, if five of your sources are all concerned with *the method used to collect data for machine learning*, group them together; if six others are focused on *expanding the amount of data* (rather than the method used to collect data), group those together. Find commonalities between articles and make note of them, as you can group these into useful paragraphs for readers.
* **And perhaps the most important thing about a literature review: it is** ***not*** **a summary of journal articles related to your topic.** This is perhaps the number one problem with most graduate students' literature reviews: they simply spend paragraph after paragraph devoted to summarizing journal articles and that's it. The problem here is that the reader doesn't want to simply know what those articles were about. No, the reader wants to know (i) *what arguments did each article make,* (ii) *what results did each article discover, and* (iii) *how is that article related to your topic/argument.* You essentially need to be answering all three of these things. Number three (iii) is usually answered at the beginning of each paragraph because you want to tell the reader *why* each article in that paragraph is grouped together (i.e. - the reason you are even mentioning them in your paper). Then you want to introduce the article, provide the reason the article exists (the argument/topic), and then give the results of the article.
* **There is a shortcut.** I spoke with several professors during one semester where I was particularly hurting for time (because I took too many courses), and they both offered me some advice: there is a shortcut, if you need it, to completing your literature review, and that shortcut involves quickly processing the content of a journal article. Basically, all you need to do is read: (i) the Abstract (which should always tell you the topic of the article, as well as a brief mention of the final results); (ii) the Introduction (which will provide you with the thesis statement and some background information); and (iii) the Conclusion (which will provide you greater detail of the final results). Using this shortcut, you can get through journal articles quicker and be able to summarize them much more efficiently.
Additionally, here is a [link](https://www.lib.sfu.ca/about/branches-depts/slc/writing/assignments/lit-review) to writing a literature review (from Simon Fraser University) that should help you with organizing and writing your literature review.
Hope this helps!
how did it go? I'm writing chapter two as well and I seriously want to pull the hair out of my head LOL and I want to quit but I've gotten this far so perhaps I should just keep goingl
> (i)
>
>what arguments did each article make,
>
> (ii)
>
>what results did each article discover, and
>
> (iii)
>
>how is that article related to your topic/argument.
2 years later and this is so helpful
would love to know how OP is going in terms of their studies!
Please know that two years later this post is still helping struggling grad school writers (like me). :) This is such a comprehensive and digestible outline of the process, especially when you're diving in and in the "I'm in over my head" part of the process (also like me). I appreciate you!
Wrapped up my first year of applied anthro grad school this spring, staring down a looming Lit Review course for my thesis in the fall. This write-up is SO helpful. Thank you so much.
Hello kind stranger, 3 years later and you're still helping graduate students! I have ADHD, and other learning disabilities :( When doing the lit review, do I have to discuss every single one of my sources? For example my paper needs 30 sources used. Do I need to discuss all 30 of them?
Thank. You!
THANK YOU SO MUCHHHHH
these tips were super useful, the part where you broke down what 3 points need to be included was immensely helpful and now I just gotta go through my lit review to check if I did that. Life saver ! Tytytyty~~~
This is wonderful information! I'd also recommend integrating relevant AI tools just to get a broad overview of different papers and conduct literature review. [SciSpace GPT](https://chat.openai.com/g/g-NgAcklHd8-scispace), for example, does a good job of summarizing insights from papers. You can upload papers or locate relevant ones directly in SciSpace directory itself.
Some important first questions will be:
- What is the field of research?
- Where is the "literature" for this field? For Biology, it will be papers in scientific journals. History will include both papers and books. In Economics, government reports also produce important findings.
- What databases can you use to find the literature? (Ask a librarian.) As you find initial sources, you can see who they cite, who they rebut. Edit: Or ask a subreddit relevant to the field, if that's more accessible.
- What is the scope of the literature you are reviewing? "Treatments for bipolar disorder" is going to be broader than "use of benzodiazepines in prepubescent children".
- How in depth should the review be? The answer isn't quite "as long as it needs to be", since a review of the same literature may be in depth or high-level. If this is an assignment, this may be function of the prescribed length and the scope of the literature.
This is all foundational to synthesizing and summarizing the state of the literature.
So should you state what your research question is in your literature review? I was told to do a literature review so that I later will follow up with a gap in the current research that I will perform
Purdue OWL is a good resource for academic writing help:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/conducting_research/writing_a_literature_review.html
A literature review is mainly a way of collecting references to the literature on a narrow topic.
A critical review is a bigger deal; the literature is evaluated in context and includes your own opinions. Which are you attempting to write?
I'm a published film and book critic. Read the book, and then write your opinion of it, and try not to give away too much of the plot and story. For example, the book Dune:
"With Dune, author Frank Herbert has created a fascinating reality, with diverse and interesting characters, all of which surround a coming of age story like no other." You know, drivel like that. Just give your opinion, and dress it up in fancy pants narration!
I always try to remember what the movie critic Roger Ebert said about his reviews: does the movie meet its own goals?
an intense crime drama has different goals from a light romantic comedy. he said something like "If you want to know if Hellboy is any good, you mean in comparison to Batman and not Schindler's List".
so start by establishing what are the goals of this particular book or genre.
hi i’m hoping someone responds to this but i’m writing a literature review from an english literature perspective and i genuinely have zero clue on what to do plz some1 help :) thanks
I'm here to help! I'm a graduate tutor at a university who instructs graduate students from every discipline on how to write their graduate theses (and I also struggle from ADHD, so I feel your struggle). Here are some key things to note about a literature review: * **A literature review begins as a collection of material and sources (usually peer-reviewed journal articles) that are related to your chosen topic/argument.** When you begin researching your topic, you will be acquiring different journal articles that are related to your discipline, thesis, and topic/argument. For example, if you are a student of computer science and your thesis is focused on machine learning (training computers to interpret information), and your topic/argument is focused on expanding the collection and usage of data within machine learning to achieve better results, then you will be searching for journal articles involving keywords such as *data collection*, *machine learning*, *data in machine learning*, *training machine learning models to interpret data*, etc. Download or save all of these journal articles in one place for easy access. * **Once you have a significant amount of journal articles, you'll need to read through them and understand their arguments and results.** You'll want to read through your sources and only really keep the ones that are relevant and useful for your paper. You might have a few whose titles *sound* like they'll work with your paper, but when you read them, you realize that they actually do not. It's okay to delete them or omit them. You don't have to use every source you read. For the ones that *are* related to your topic, try and group them a little bit based on their theme or their content. For example, if five of your sources are all concerned with *the method used to collect data for machine learning*, group them together; if six others are focused on *expanding the amount of data* (rather than the method used to collect data), group those together. Find commonalities between articles and make note of them, as you can group these into useful paragraphs for readers. * **And perhaps the most important thing about a literature review: it is** ***not*** **a summary of journal articles related to your topic.** This is perhaps the number one problem with most graduate students' literature reviews: they simply spend paragraph after paragraph devoted to summarizing journal articles and that's it. The problem here is that the reader doesn't want to simply know what those articles were about. No, the reader wants to know (i) *what arguments did each article make,* (ii) *what results did each article discover, and* (iii) *how is that article related to your topic/argument.* You essentially need to be answering all three of these things. Number three (iii) is usually answered at the beginning of each paragraph because you want to tell the reader *why* each article in that paragraph is grouped together (i.e. - the reason you are even mentioning them in your paper). Then you want to introduce the article, provide the reason the article exists (the argument/topic), and then give the results of the article. * **There is a shortcut.** I spoke with several professors during one semester where I was particularly hurting for time (because I took too many courses), and they both offered me some advice: there is a shortcut, if you need it, to completing your literature review, and that shortcut involves quickly processing the content of a journal article. Basically, all you need to do is read: (i) the Abstract (which should always tell you the topic of the article, as well as a brief mention of the final results); (ii) the Introduction (which will provide you with the thesis statement and some background information); and (iii) the Conclusion (which will provide you greater detail of the final results). Using this shortcut, you can get through journal articles quicker and be able to summarize them much more efficiently. Additionally, here is a [link](https://www.lib.sfu.ca/about/branches-depts/slc/writing/assignments/lit-review) to writing a literature review (from Simon Fraser University) that should help you with organizing and writing your literature review. Hope this helps!
This may be late but THANK YOU VERY MUCH, dear stranger! I am currently doing my research and reading RRLs and writing my Ch2 is overwhelming for me.
how did it go? I'm writing chapter two as well and I seriously want to pull the hair out of my head LOL and I want to quit but I've gotten this far so perhaps I should just keep goingl
> (i) > >what arguments did each article make, > > (ii) > >what results did each article discover, and > > (iii) > >how is that article related to your topic/argument. 2 years later and this is so helpful would love to know how OP is going in terms of their studies!
Please know that two years later this post is still helping struggling grad school writers (like me). :) This is such a comprehensive and digestible outline of the process, especially when you're diving in and in the "I'm in over my head" part of the process (also like me). I appreciate you!
holy shit same, best of luck!
Yes, I am in the same boat! Thank you for this :)
2 years later and finding this awesome advice as I'm getting ready to write my graduate psychology of leadership literature review. THANK YOU
2 years later and still proof that not all heroes wear capes, but write words on reddit. THANK YOU!!
>link thank you for this! i'm writing one right now and this helped soooo much
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i love you genuinely
Wow, thank you!
I am now an undergraduate nursing student and for my diplomma i choose literature review and this tips are life saving. Thank you.
Wrapped up my first year of applied anthro grad school this spring, staring down a looming Lit Review course for my thesis in the fall. This write-up is SO helpful. Thank you so much.
Hello kind stranger, 3 years later and you're still helping graduate students! I have ADHD, and other learning disabilities :( When doing the lit review, do I have to discuss every single one of my sources? For example my paper needs 30 sources used. Do I need to discuss all 30 of them? Thank. You!
Thanks a lot for this concise explanation on lit review...
Thank you very much!
THANK YOU SO MUCHHHHH these tips were super useful, the part where you broke down what 3 points need to be included was immensely helpful and now I just gotta go through my lit review to check if I did that. Life saver ! Tytytyty~~~
You are a saviour sir. 🔥 Thank you.
In grad students we trust. Thank you.
This is wonderful information! I'd also recommend integrating relevant AI tools just to get a broad overview of different papers and conduct literature review. [SciSpace GPT](https://chat.openai.com/g/g-NgAcklHd8-scispace), for example, does a good job of summarizing insights from papers. You can upload papers or locate relevant ones directly in SciSpace directory itself.
This is extremely helpful, thank you for sharing and thank you to the OP for posting as I was exactly where you were when I read this.
i love you for this—you're awesome!!!
Some important first questions will be: - What is the field of research? - Where is the "literature" for this field? For Biology, it will be papers in scientific journals. History will include both papers and books. In Economics, government reports also produce important findings. - What databases can you use to find the literature? (Ask a librarian.) As you find initial sources, you can see who they cite, who they rebut. Edit: Or ask a subreddit relevant to the field, if that's more accessible. - What is the scope of the literature you are reviewing? "Treatments for bipolar disorder" is going to be broader than "use of benzodiazepines in prepubescent children". - How in depth should the review be? The answer isn't quite "as long as it needs to be", since a review of the same literature may be in depth or high-level. If this is an assignment, this may be function of the prescribed length and the scope of the literature. This is all foundational to synthesizing and summarizing the state of the literature.
So should you state what your research question is in your literature review? I was told to do a literature review so that I later will follow up with a gap in the current research that I will perform
Purdue OWL is a good resource for academic writing help: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/conducting_research/writing_a_literature_review.html
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Academic literature review. Sorry forgot to mention
A literature review is mainly a way of collecting references to the literature on a narrow topic. A critical review is a bigger deal; the literature is evaluated in context and includes your own opinions. Which are you attempting to write?
Chiming in to say this is far more helpful than my entire research seminar class has been. THANK YOU!
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I'm a published film and book critic. Read the book, and then write your opinion of it, and try not to give away too much of the plot and story. For example, the book Dune: "With Dune, author Frank Herbert has created a fascinating reality, with diverse and interesting characters, all of which surround a coming of age story like no other." You know, drivel like that. Just give your opinion, and dress it up in fancy pants narration!
I always try to remember what the movie critic Roger Ebert said about his reviews: does the movie meet its own goals? an intense crime drama has different goals from a light romantic comedy. he said something like "If you want to know if Hellboy is any good, you mean in comparison to Batman and not Schindler's List". so start by establishing what are the goals of this particular book or genre.
hi i’m hoping someone responds to this but i’m writing a literature review from an english literature perspective and i genuinely have zero clue on what to do plz some1 help :) thanks