How to write the review of literature?

In earlier lessons, we talked about how to write an abstract and the introduction. Now the first and second chapters are over. This is the third chapter of your thesis. In this article, I am going to explain to you how to write a review of literature perfectly. Let’s begin. Review of literature also can be taken as the most important part of your research. When you write a literature review you want to consider the following things.
  • The problem statement.
  • Background information and relevant references.
  • Fundamentals that validate the level of your research.
In the literature review, the main topic should be introduced in the first paragraph. The other paragraphs review the major study of your topic, the problem statement and fundamentals that validate the level of your research. The final paragraph should give a clear conclusion about the overall review. When you review your topic every time you have to take the support of existing literature. From this existing literature, you can prove and describe your thesis topic well. And also, you can give a better solution to a prevailing problem. Understanding the research gap is very much important when writing a review of the literature. I have explained about the research gap in my previous article “How to write the problem statement”. You can refer to it and it will be very useful for you in this chapter too. Before writing this literature review you have to read plenty of existing literature which are very much related to your thesis topic. After understanding those literatures very well arrange them probably. You can use any referencing method to indicate references. Harvard and APA can be taken as the important referencing methods. Do not forget to mention relevant references. I will show you an example.

Example:
1. According to Nye (2004, p.5) “soft power means getting others to want the outcomes that you want co-opts people rather than coerces”.
2. Nye (2011, pp.20-21)  extended his definition into “the ability to affect others through the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuading, and eliciting positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes”.
3. (Gupta 2008) described that soft power often mobilises cultural diplomacy but also engages values, norms, ideologies and even religious values to draw support from national and transnational groups.
4. Every state defines its national interest in terms of power because this is the surest road to security and survival (Morgenthau 1952).

The first and the second examples show the direct quotations and the third and fourth examples show about paraphrasing. I have explained about these referencing methods well in my article “how to write an introduction”. You can refer to that article for further information.

You can add footnotes to the review of the literature. I will show you an example.

The literature review should not be uneasy for readers to understand. It should be simple without very much longer sentences. Because long sentences are difficult to understand. Basically in the literature review you can suggest some ideas which prove your topic while you are referring literature. It is no matter because you can have some suggestions when referring literature well. Furthermore, you can show your readers about the strong features of your topic as well as the limitations of the former works.

Finally, I can promise you that you are able to go for a better review of literature after reading this article. I have explained all the essential matters very simply and you can write a review of literature very easily after reading this article. In my next article I am going to explain about how to write a theorical analysis. And that is the fourth chapter. I think you may be really happy now because now you have completed almost three chapters well.