Jump Starting Your Literature Review

Let’s assume for a moment that you know how to select a research-worthy problem, find good literature sources, and identify the main components of a research article. These are not trivial skills!  Even so, a formal literature review is a different beast.  A quick way to get off the mark is to start summarizing the articles you want to use. My favorite format is the annotated bibliography citation.    

An annotated bibliography is just what it sounds like: a bibliography, or list of sources, with notes. Each entry begins with the proper APA or MLA format for listing the article in the reference section of your paper. This alone saves lots of time later. Following this are about 150 words that describe and evaluate the article. I like to identify the problem being investigated, the methodology used, the results and conclusions, and the limitations and open questions. That’s the descriptive part. My evaluation would be my opinion of how the work contributes to the body of knowledge on the subject. Doing all this in 150 words is good practice in thrifty writing.  When you start assembling the literature review you can draw directly from these summaries, sometimes even using them verbatim. Voila! You have a big chunk of the lit review out of the way.

   

A good literature review is more than a collection of article analyses, however. Synthesis is also needed. By synthesis I mean weaving together a cohesive narrative around your analysis. This is partly a matter of organizing the material in a logical way but it also includes introductions, transitions, and summaries that draw out and connect the themes that are present in the literature you’re reviewing.  Good analysis and good synthesis, coupled with good writing that allows any reader to understand, make for a good literature review.

  

While we’re on the subject of writing, I consider the best academic writing to be easy to read. It is designed for clarity, it is grammatical and adheres to guidelines, and it is free of ego. By that I mean that its purpose is to communicate clearly to any reader, not to demonstrate the writer’s intelligence or mastery of the subject.  As with many things in life, more is not always better when it comes to writing. In fact, more is often simply lazy or undisciplined. This is another reason to cut your teeth on AB citations. They tighten up your writing measurably.

  

The literature review can be fun. It is an opportunity to dig into a subject that interests you and to exercise your creative and intellectual muscles. Think of it as sharing what you’ve learned.  Remember, when you perform this level of research on a topic, you become something of an expert on that topic. You can take pride in that. 

  

Rick