When to start literature review
Writing the Literature Review (Part One): Step-by-Step Tutorial for Graduate Students
writing the literature review effective
Writing Center tutorial here at the
University of Maryland University
College hello everyone my name is David
Taylor and it's a real pleasure to be
with you today to talk about this thing
right here the literature review you
know I thought a good way to begin today
would be to talk about not what the
literature review is first but to maybe
first talk about what the literature
review is not and one thing that the
literature review is not is that it is
not an essay it is not a research paper
the literature review is part of your
essay the literature review is part of
your research paper or maybe it's a
standalone product if you're in a
master's degree or doctoral degree
program and you have to do that first
but regardless of whether it's part of
your research essay or standalone
product one thing the literature review
does not do it does not state prove
illustrate cooperate or develop your
main points that's in the body of your
essay the literature review does not do
that it does not provide the body or
development section of your essay or
your paper well what the heck does it do
then
well the literature review is divided
into the following key terms first is
this whole idea of what the heck is the
literature the literature is simply
those major works that have been
published about your narrow topic now
remember I said narrow topic there
because you're not going to be reviewing
every published thing on a broad topic
like steroid use by athletes you're
going to have a more narrow topic like
steroid use by high school athletes or
steroid used by baseball players and so
you're going to be reviewing the major
works just on that narrow topic so
that's the first thing that you need to
know the literature is the published
peer-reviewed sources on a narrow topic
the second thing the literature review
is is that that narrow topic and all
those sources published on it are going
to be reviewed and what the heck is a
review well a review is simply a way of
looking at something and taking a
snapshot of it that's what a review is
and what is that snapshot going to
capture that snapshot is going to
capture the major concepts the major
points the major outcomes the major
whatever in that source it's not going
to be a detailed write-up of that one
source it's going to be a snapshot of it
and then once you get all those
snapshots done you're going to show the
relationships between those snapshots
and in talking about those relationships
you're probably going to be putting them
in some kind of timeline situation maybe
not but the key is that you're going to
be extracting just the major elements
and then the relationships among those
major elements may be on a timeline type
situation now the next thing to know
about the literature review is why the
heck are you doing all this stuff well I
think there are three reasons probably
while you're doing all this stuff in
school and the first one is of course to
improve your own understanding as an
undergraduate researcher coming into
these topics are into this discipline on
the undergraduate level one of the first
things that you have to do is to build
your understanding build your background
build your expertise in a particular
discipline and subjects in that
discipline then and of course in this
paper once you have built your expertise
or your knowledge in this particular
subject you're going to be demonstrating
that knowledge demonstrating that
expertise to your professor because this
is a college assignment but you know
what the real purpose of a literature
review is it's a reader service it's
something you're doing as a favor for
your readers and what are you doing you
are bringing them
up-to-date have you ever had this
experience where you've run into an old
friend after a number of years what's
the first thing you and that old friend
do you ask each other
hey what do you been doing all these
years fill me in update me you're doing
the same thing in a literature review
you're filling them in you're updating
them you and by bringing them up to date
then you can start at the present again
you see what I'm saying
you've kind of bring them along that
timeline of the past letting them know
the key element remember the major
concepts the key elements in your life
and once you're there boom then you can
start and that's the dividing line
between the literature review and the
rest of your paper or the development
you go all their ideas the past scholars
the past researchers boom and then come
your ideas your present life so to speak
