10 Hacks To Write A Critical Literature Review

The evaluation of the existing literature relevant to a topic idea is a literature review. It is the best way to show the state of the art of the topic on which you are working. While creating a literature review, you will have to keep in mind its four components. First, it surveys the literature of your chosen subject area. Secondly, it synthesizes the information in the form of a summary. Thirdly, you will have to critically analyze the existing information. At last, you will have to follow an organized manner to evaluate the information. Here, we will discuss some hacks to write a critical dissertation literature review.

Define Topic and Audience

The first hack to write a literature review is to define the topic and audience. While selecting this topic, you should make sure that it should be interesting to you and your audience. You can select an important aspect of the field as a topic idea. Sometimes, you can also make a well-defined issue in your field your topic idea. Before selecting the best topic idea, you should spend enough time reading and discussing it. Your topic idea will also define your audience.

Research the Literature

After selecting the topic and defining the audience, you should start checking the literature. Here, you will have to follow some essential tips. First, you should keep track of all the search items. Secondly, if you access the paper immediately, you should download their PDFs. Thirdly; you should follow and use the management system. Fourthly, you should define and follow criteria to exclude the papers from the list. At last, you should not only find the research papers only. You can also make use of the previous reviews.

Take Notes While Reading

If you are reading the papers without taking notes, you require a strong memory to write a literature review. Sometimes, you may forget what you have read. Therefore, it is a good idea to take notes while reading the papers. After taking notes, you can easily organize the most important points. These notes will also provide a rough draft for review. This rough draft will provide enough help in rewriting and rethinking the text. Anyhow, you should be very careful while taking notes.

Choose the Best Type of Review

When you will take notes, you can easily get an idea about the material that you have for the literature review. Therefore, you can easily define either you have to go for a mini-review or full review. You will have to select a mini-review due to space issues. While writing the mini-review, you will have to limit the words and citations. On the other hand, if you don't have a space issue, you can select full review. A full review will provide complete freedom to cover all the complexities of the text.

Stay Focused

Either you are writing a mini-review or a full review, you should be focused. You should include the material relevant to the topic idea. Anyhow, if you are presenting interdisciplinary reviews, you may have to face this kind of issue. Here, you will have to bridge the gap between fields. In some cases, you will have to make the review relevant to the broader audience. Under such a situation, you should also stay focused. You should discuss the review of the paper relevant to other disciplines.

Show Consistency and Critical Thinking

Some students think that if they want to create the best quality literature review, they will have to summarize the literature. Instead of summarizing the literature, you should discuss it critically. The students can also discuss the methodological problems and they can also point out the research gaps. Along with critical thinking, you should also show consistency. It means that you should use the active voice sentences in the literature review. Instead of using the past sentences, you should use the present sentences.

Find the Logical Structure

If you have eaten a well-baked cake, you can tell lots of things about it. Similarly, if you want to create the best quality content for your literature review, you can also discuss lots of things. First, you can provide a general introduction to the context. Secondly, you can recapitulate the main points of the text. Thirdly, you can provide your critical overview of the text. Anyhow, if you are using different things in the main body of the literature review, you will have to maintain fluency in the text. You can also draw the conceptual theme for the review.

Make Use of Feedback

When you will submit a literature review in a journal, they will peer-review it just like a research paper. Based on their feedback, you can bring improvements to your literature review. They will review the paper with fresh pair of eyes. As a result, they can easily highlight inaccuracies in your literature review. Along with these experts, you can also get feedback from some other ways.

Include Relevant Research

In some cases, the researchers include their own research in the literature review. If they will include their own research in the literature review, it can create a conflict of interest issues. Therefore, you should stay away from it. Moreover, you should read the articles relevant to your topic idea. You should not read articles relevant to other research articles. If you will read these articles, you can't create the best content for your literature review.

Be Up-to-Date

While writing the research papers, you will have to accelerate the publication of the research papers by hiring a PhD dissertation writing service. Its reason is that it drives the overall direction and achievements of the research. It provides an overview of the latest studies. While addressing a series of papers, you can easily identify the major research gap in the issue. For this reason, you should keep an eye on the electronic lists of the papers. You should also access the contribution of the papers.

Conclusion

To write the literature review, you will have to evaluate the existing literature. It is the best way to show the state of the artwork. To write the literature review, you will have to follow some essential hacks. For example, you should define the topic and audience. You should take notes while researching literature review. While writing the literature review, you should show consistency. You should also adopt a critical mindset while writing the literature review.