Purpose of a Literature Review Essay

Purpose of a Literature Review – to identify what has already been done/found, in relation to the research topic that is being studied and answers the question of what needs to happen next. – provide a brief overview of research you’ve read. – Demonstrate that you understand the topic and have significant knowledge within the field of study and then make a case. – Making a case may be an analysis of research, study, or conceptual argument. – Also, be sure to include a persuasive argument. – At the end of a literature review you should identify a gap or misinterpretation within the information (identify and explore the gap). My approach to writing this literature review was somewhat similar to the writing of a â€Å"regular† essay. I’ve used this approach in past assignments I’ve completed including such as a narrative and an annotated bibliography. They all have similar characteristics. Thank goodness for this! It gives me an idea of where to start. I believe these common characteristics are the main subject of the piece of writing and evidence/textuality of your point from other readings. Textuality is using pieces of writing from other works to support your points.  Beware, though these essays may serve as a guide, they also have many differences. – What should you do next? *Ponders* – Information! Information! Information! Be resourceful, support your claims, justify your answers. – It is important that you do this in the correct way. – My greatest advice would be to ask your professor for a peer review guide and use it as you write. This will ensure that your writing is clear, organized, flowing, and well-written. If you feel as though you cannot do this for yourself, I’d suggest having someone else read your literature review aloud. Dailyn’s essential steps to writing a literature review; these are my own ideas so I have no proof if they actually worked until I recieve feedback. I’m hoping I pulled this one together. How do you approach literature reviews? Good luck, and until next time. Take care. Literature Reviews What this handout is about This handout will explain what a literature review is and offer insights into the form and construction of a literature review in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Introduction OK.  You’ve got to write a literature review. You dust off a novel and a book of poetry, settle down in your chair, and get ready to issue a â€Å"thumbs up† or â€Å"thumbs down† as you leaf through the pages. â€Å"Literature review† done. Right? Wrong! The â€Å"literature† of a literature review refers to any collection of materials on a topic, not necessarily the great literary texts of the world. â€Å"Literature† could be anything from a set of government pamphlets on British colonial methods in Africa to scholarly articles on the treatment of a torn ACL. And a review does not necessarily mean that your reader wants you to give your personal opinion on whether or not you liked these sources. What is a literature review, then? A literature review discusses published information in a particular subject area, and sometimes information in a particular subject area within a certain time period. A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. It might give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations. Or it might trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates. And depending on the situation, the literature review may evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant. But how is a literature review different from an academic research paper? The main focus of an academic research paper is to develop a new argument, and a research paper will contain a literature review as one of its parts. In a research paper, you use the literature as a foundation and as support for a new insight that you contribute. The focus of a literature review, however, is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of others without adding new contributions. Why do we write literature reviews? Literature reviews provide you with a handy guide to a particular topic. If you have limited time to conduct research, literature reviews can give you an overview or act as a stepping stone. For professionals, they are useful reports that keep them up to date with what is current in the field. For scholars, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the writer in his or her field. Literature reviews also provide a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. Comprehensive knowledge of the literature of the field is essential to most research papers. Who writes these things, anyway? Literature reviews are written occasionally in the humanities, but mostly in the sciences and social sciences; in experiment and lab reports, they constitute a section of the paper. Sometimes a literature review is written as a paper in itself.