1. Chapter 14 (Wallwork)
Review of the Literature
What key skills are needed when writing a Review of the Literature?
- Right amount of literature regarding the sequence of events leading up to the current
situation.
- Usefulness of the literature
o Systematically elaborate the achievements and limitations of other studies
o Relate your new facts and data to these studies
- Length varies
How should I structure my review of the literature?
- What are the seminal works on my topic? Do I need to mention these?
- What progress has been made since these seminal works?
- What are the most relevant recent works? What is the best order to mention these
works?
- What are the achievements and limitations of these recent works?
- What gap do these limitations reveal?
- How does my work intend to fill this gap?
How should I begin my literature review? How can I structure it to show progress through the
years?
- First sentence introduces the main topic.
- Support from the literature.
- Mini summary
- Introduction to the next topic. And so on.
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2. What is the clearest way to refer to the authors? Should I focus on the authors or their ideas?
- Blinco (1992) found…
- Blinco (1992, p. 45) said, “The Japanese kids are smarter…”
What tenses should I use?
- Present (Laws, theorems, definitions, proofs, lemmas etc.).
- Present Perfect (Ongoing research).
- Past Simple
o The year of publication is stated within the main sentence (i.e., not just in
brackets). Example: In 1992, Bianco found…
o Approaches and Methods that have been probably been abandoned.
o The exact date when something was written (Proved).
How can I reduce the amount I write when reporting the literature?
Original Revised
Long sentences = poor readability
In all languages
Long sentences…Roman period
Author-centeredness
How can I talk about limitations of previous work and the novelty of my work in a constructive
and diplomatic way?
Never done before:
- As far as we know, there are no studies on…
Others’ limitations:
- Generally speaking patients’ perceptions are seldom considered.
Chapter 8 and 9 for more information about how to state contributions and limitations.
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3. Summary: How can I assess the quality of my literature review?
- Have I mentioned only what my readers specifically need to know and what I will
subsequently refer to the Discussion?
- Are the papers I have mentioned in a logical order? Is it clear why have I chosen
these papers and no others?
- Have I selected a disproportionate number of papers from my own country?
- Have I removed any redundancies when reporting the literature?
- Have I used tenses correctly?
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