Scholarly literature review

Scholarly literature review

 · A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research  · A literature review is a written summary of the existing published research on a topic. A literature review can be brief (a section in a larger article) or it can be an entire article unto itself. The purpose of a literature review is to provide an overview of the current knowledge on a topic, and/or to provide a context for new research "A literature review is a piece of discursive prose, not a list describing or summarizing one piece of literature after another. It's usually a bad sign to see every paragraph beginning with the name of a researcher. Instead, organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory

Find Scholarly Articles - Literature Reviews - Research Guides at University of British Columbia

Published on February 22, by Shona McCombes. Revised on March 9, A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methodsand scholarly literature review in the existing research. Writing a literature review involves finding relevant publications such as books and journal articlescritically analyzing them, and explaining what you found. There are five key steps:.

Table of contents Why write a literature review? When you write a thesis, dissertationor research paperyou will have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge, scholarly literature review. The literature review gives you a chance to:.

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is scholarly literature review evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic. The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps.

Before you begin searching for literature, scholarly literature review, you need a clearly defined topic. If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions.

If you are writing a literature review as scholarly literature review stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should scholarly literature review able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. You can add to scholarly literature review list if you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:. Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. Scholarly literature review you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources. To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out, scholarly literature review.

Make sure the sources you use are credibleand make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can find out how many times an article has been scholarly literature review on Google Scholar — a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, scholarly literature review, and should certainly be included in your literature review. The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time.

As you read, scholarly literature review, you should also begin the writing process, scholarly literature review.

Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review. It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism. It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliographywhere you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source.

This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process. You can use our free citation generator to quickly create correct and consistent APA citations or MLA citations. Want to check your literature review for plagiarism? Based on your reading and notes, scholarly literature review, you can look for:.

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and if applicable show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge. There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically.

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, scholarly literature review themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methodsyou might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches.

For example:. A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework, scholarly literature review. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, scholarly literature review, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic textscholarly literature review, your literature review should have an introductiona main body, and a conclusion. What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

Depending on the length scholarly literature review your literature review, you might want scholarly literature review divide the body scholarly literature review subsections. You can use a scholarly literature review for each theme, time period, or methodological approach. Example of a paragraph in a literature review Body image issues have been widely associated with social media usage, particularly in young women. The relation between media depictions and body image concerns is well-established; a meta-analysis by Grabe, Ward and Hyde concluded that exposure to mass media is linked to body image dissatisfaction among women, scholarly literature review.

However, in an era of rapidly changing digital technologies, the mass media paradigm is no longer adequate for understanding how people engage with images, and the findings of older studies like this one may not be generalizable to younger generations.

In light of this changing landscape, researchers have become increasingly interested in the specific effects of social media. Perloff theorizes that the interactive aspects of social media may influence its impact on body image, and mentions that young women are among the most active social media users.

Across these studies, there is consistent evidence that body image issues are influenced not by social media usage in general, but by engagement with the visual and interactive aspects of these platforms. Nonetheless, there is a lack of robust research on more highly visual social media HVSM such as Instagram and Snapchat that have gained more recent popularity among younger generations.

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance. Not a language expert? This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review, scholarly literature review. Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint. A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources such as books, journal articles, and theses related to a specific topic or research question.

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertationor research paperin order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge. There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:. Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation. After the introductionit grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology.

Have a language expert improve your writing. Check your paper for plagiarism in 10 minutes. Do the check. Generate your APA citations for free!

APA Citation Generator. Home Knowledge Base Dissertation How to write a literature review. How to write a literature review Published on February 22, by Shona McCombes. Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services Trustpilot.

Body image issues have been widely associated with social media usage, particularly in young women. What is a literature review? What is the purpose of a literature review?

Where does the literature review go in a dissertation? Is this article helpful? Shona McCombes Shona has a bachelor's and two master's degrees, so she's an expert at writing a great thesis.

She has also worked as an editor and teacher, working with students at all different levels to improve their academic writing. Other students also liked. Developing your theoretical framework In the theoretical framework, you define key concepts and discuss relevant theories, showing how your research fits in with established ideas. How to write a scholarly literature review methodology The methodology lets readers assess the reliability of your research, scholarly literature review.

Describe what you did and scholarly literature review how your methods match your aims. How to write a research proposal A research proposal aims to show why your project is worthwhile. It should explain the context, objectives and methods of your research. What is your plagiarism score?

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How to Write a Literature Review (UCD Writing Centre)

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Writing a Literature Review // Purdue Writing Lab

 · A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research  · A formal literature review is an evidence-based, in-depth analysis of a subject. There are many reasons for writing one and these will influence the length and style of your review, but in essence a literature review is a critical appraisal of the current collective knowledge on a subject. Rather than just being an exhaustive list of all that has been published, a literature review should be "A literature review is a piece of discursive prose, not a list describing or summarizing one piece of literature after another. It's usually a bad sign to see every paragraph beginning with the name of a researcher. Instead, organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory