Writing a dissertation literature review is a must for every student. By the time a student reaches high school, he has to attain the ability and skills to write a critical literature review. Therefore, this piece of writing will teach you how to do a literature review. A literature review can be done on any subject or topic and it doesn’t require you to conduct a new research, rather you have to write the review on an existing research done by anyone else.

The ultimate goal of literature review writing is to bring the reader up to date with current literature on a subject & form the ground for another goal, such as future research that may be required in the area. A thought through critical literature review is characterized by a valid stream of ideas; up to date and relevant references with constant, appropriate referencing style; proper use of terminologies; and a neutral and comprehensive view of the previous research on the subject matter.
In order to write a literature review you have to attain an already written literature on your desired topic. For this you can choose a novel, short story or even an essay and then you have to collect all the relevant research that has been conducted by different experts of the particular subject topic. For this you can go for different libraries or even internet as internet is the best resource of the current time to gather more information in less time, however you must make sure the internet resources you use are reliable and trust able as only factual referencing will help you in doing a literature review.

Before writing the review, read all the material that you have acquired than put your understanding on the paper. Creating an outline before starting a review also holds a high worth and allows you to arrange all the info you have. You may put down all the chapters and notes in an outline which will help you to stay in the boundaries of the topic. The literature review should start off with thesis statement followed by the introductory paragraph, the main body of the review, which will be divided in to sub-bodies and in the end; the conclusion.

Consequently, doing a literature review is about summarizing the information you gather from an existing research literature and then backing it up with your critical evaluating comments. This is the part where you jot down your point of view about the topic. You can also refer to other literature reviews to prove a point or explain something.

Thus, this piece of writing explained how to do a literature review in the easiest and effective way.

Literature review is an in depth analysis of the previous research accredited by scholars and researchers which is usually the part of an introduction to an essay, report or thesis. When conducting literature review, you are required to do a review on the work established by the scholars while also highlighting its strength and weaknesses.

Conducting Literature Review:

1. How To Do Literature Research:

Conduct a brief research on what has been written on the subject. For this purpose, you can use as many bibliographical sources as possible to find the pertinent titles, like, references and bibliographies in relevant textbook and journal articles, if you are still confused ask your instructor about it. Go for the abstracting journals, such as, library and information sciences abstracts. You can also go through all the relevant electronic reference library, expanded academic etc.

2. Write Down The Bibliographical Details:

Noting all the important bibliographical details of articles and books as soon as you find the references will save your time a lot. But note down the ones which you will be utilizing in your literature review otherwise, it will be much difficult for you to find the bibliographies later on.

3. Going Through The Material:
Now, that you have all the pertinent material in your hands, you should read it thoroughly and understand what it is saying in order to effectively utilize it in your review. You should read them with a very keen eye to outline the positive and negative aspects of each and take the notes as you move along the text. Ask yourself the following questions to get yourself a literature review help.

Is it general or deals with a particular issue?
Is it following a particular school of thought?
What is theoretical basis of the literature?
What type of definitions that have been employed in the literature?
How is the work backing up its argument?
What is the conclusion of the overall work?
What is the methodical approach used?

4. Start Writing A Literature Review:

Just like the other types of academic writing, writing a literature review also has an introduction, body and conclusion. Now, let’s check out what are the connotations for each

Your introduction should include:

The topic of your discussion that is your thesis statement.
The topic parameters, that is, what should a reader expect in the coming body paragraphs.

Why have you selected the topic?

Your Body paragraphs should include:

Historical background about the topic.
Comparison between alternative viewpoints and the current one.
Different approaches to the subject, like, historical, empirical, philosophical etc.
Definitions.
Research studies.
Methodologies employed.
General perception about the topic.
Discoveries about the topic.

You conclusion should include:

Short summary of all the arguments and counter arguments in the review.
Short summary of the general conclusion in the review.
And a short summary of your thesis statement and it’s stance in the review.