Writing literature review is the most challenging task in a dissertation. It takes a lot of effort and time to complete. It happens due to the research it requires. A researcher has to spend days and nights reading research papers and exploring them in depth. The in-depth study and exploration help the researchers get useful insights into the current knowledge. Today’s topic is all about mistakes you must avoid when writing literature review. In addition to this, it will also discuss some rules of literature review. So, let’s begin our discussion with the following question:
What Makes A Bad Literature Review?
There are two types of literature review. One is a good review, and the other is bad. The level of research that you perform makes a review good and bad. A poorly researched literature will bring no good to your dissertation. You cannot enjoy good marks and a great appraisal from your professors. Below are some of the characteristics of a bad literature review.
- It rambles around topic and does not have any link between the text
- It does not evaluate the research findings critically and only summarises the results
- It has inaccurate and poor references, and the formatting of citations is also bad
- It does not take any writing guidelines into account. There is no order in the information.
These are some of the characteristics of bad literature. You must avoid these things when writing literature review of your dissertation.
What Are The 5 Rules For Writing A Literature Review?
Every writing work follows some rules, and so does the literature review. You should consider those rules and write a literature review based on them. The rules are very simple and easy to remember. Below is a brief description of all of them:
Rule no. 1: Identify the topic
The first most important thing is identifying your topic. This identification can eliminate most of your problems. After identifying a topic properly, you will be on the right path to completing a literate review. Internet is full of information, and sometimes that information can be misleading. Therefore, you must have a full understanding of your topic.
Rule no. 2: Search the literature
After identifying the topic, the next stage is the research stage. In this literature review phase, you search for the relevant literature. To do that, you can take the support of keywords and topics. Keywords can be of great help in writing literature review. They provide you with more relevant and authentic information. However, hiring a dissertation writing service can also be a great choice in this regard.
Rule no. 3: Take notes
Taking notes while exploring and reading the relevant literature is a good thing. It allows you to memorise the important points. Notes also help you write as everything will be in front of you.
Rule no. 4: Be critical
While reading a literature review, be critical and consistent. It is not just collecting information about the current knowledge. It is about writing a literature review that is critically evaluated and relevant to your study.
Rule no. 5: Be Up-to-date
In a literature review, your sources of information must be recent. Mentioning too old research papers is not good for the health of the literature review. The teacher may see it as vague and not give you good marks. Thus, you must use up-to-date information when writing literature review.
What Are The Common Problems Of Literature Review?
The reliability and relevance of the information in the literature review are very important. The researchers often miss these two, and their reviews do not look good. So, there are some common problems that every researcher does, and they need to stop that. A brief description of those common problems is as follows:
Lack of relevance
One of the major problems that researchers face when writing literature reviews is a lack of relevance. You cannot find data that relates directly to your topic most of the time. There can be multiple reasons behind this problem, and not using proper research keywords is the most prominent. Thus, you must avoid this problem and only search for the relevant literature.
Mission creep
Mission creep is also a major problem associated with literature review. It occurs when researchers deviate from the research objectives. They get off track and start writing things that do not hit the objectives of the research. In order to avoid this problem, you must keep yourself updated with the recent happenings of the field. You should also try to relate everything you find to your research goals.
Inability to review
Reviews are often regarded as the most challenging task. It is very hard to review something written by the top researchers. This is a very common problem in the literature review. The researchers do not have the ability to replicate the information and evaluate it. There is no point in writing literature review if the reader cannot understand it. Thus, the literature review must replicate the information correctly.
Selection bias
The selection bias is probably the biggest problem. Researchers try to select papers that are easy to read and interpret. Easy papers often do not have much information in them to present a critically evaluated literature review. This is why there should not be a selection bias in the case of research papers. The papers must be selected on merit, and they should be top-notch researches of the respective field.
Publication bias
Along with selection bias, there exists publication bias too. The findings of some research papers are so insignificant that they are published in low impact journals. This is a publication bias because there is no room for such papers in the top journals. The findings can also show biasness. Sometimes, the findings of research papers are totally fabricated and edited.
Conclusion
A literature review is the backbone of any research. You must be able to write a thoroughly researched and evaluated review. Writing literature review can take time, and you should have patience. As a researcher, you must also avoid the mistakes mentioned above.