Literature Review
Literature Review
- You should always take a notebook to collect citations and quotations from as many sources as you can in support of the validity of your project. The more you have references, the more credit you give to your work. In this regard, it is imperative to keep a record of the following items: the author’s last and first and initial name (complete name), the year of publication, the place of publication (the city and state in an abbreviation format without any comma in between), e.g. Santa Monaco CM, the name of the publisher, the title of the work (book, article, etc.).
- Throughout this chapter, take account of your research questions and the statement of the problems in your own setting, likewise, ponder over your theoretical framework.
- There must be a link between your arguments and hypotheses.
- Form the most general to the most specific facts. Consequently, start this chapter with an introduction to follow this continuation.
- Divide this chapter into several (at most nine) sections in response to different facets of the phenomenon under study. In so doing, you will get more organized.
- Focus on the key words that were reflected in the research questions.
- Be more critical and spend more time on criticism.
- Avoid mere descriptions. Avoid starting your paragraphs with: Smith (2002) or Anderson (1995) stated, or said or asserted.
- Explain what is so unique about your thesis, has anybody proposed anything similar to that in the past?
- Why is your research worth doing in the light of what has been done so far?
- Explain what you have learned in the previous research and how you position yourself in relation to the current research and how you justify the topic and the methodology.
- How other scholars have theorized about your topic?
- Clarify that in the general scope of the literature, your study has something new to present.
- It justifies your familiarity with the topic and field of study.
- It must be compartmentalized and in sub-headings.
- Stick to the literature review that is directly related to your research questions and topic, avoid generalization.
- Explain what contributions your study makes to the existing literature. What is unique about my study.
- Conclusion: A continuation between review of literature and methodology: make this point clear that so far, these findings have been discovered by these scholars. But I think one point is still unclear; therefore, I intend to shed more light on this point. Elaborate on the similarities and especially differences of between your study and the previous ones. Focus specifically on the aspects that differentiate your work from its peers.
