dissertation literature review

You’ve decided on a topic for your dissertation, but how do you write a literature review? What are its methods? Do you use quotations from other sources? What mistakes should you avoid? In this article, we’ll cover the basics of the literature review, including the Structure, Purpose, Methods, and Common Mistakes. After that, you’ll be well-equipped to write your own literature review.

Structure of a literature review

When choosing a dissertation topic, you’ll need to determine the structure of your literature review. This should be similar to writing a chapter of a nonfiction book. The main point of a literature review is to identify the key ideas and research, assess existing studies, and draw connections between them. When writing, you’ll want to avoid using direct quotes and instead focus on discussing your topic and the research that surrounds it. In the process, you’ll likely want to create an outline of your review to use as a guide. It’s important to understand the structure that your dissertation advisor expects you to follow.

Choosing a dissertation topic may help you narrow your options and save time. For example, you may wish to write about the relationship between servant leadership and transformational leadership. You could also write about the role of organizational knowledge, employee retention, and other areas that are related to leadership. Depending on your chosen topic, you may want to structure your review by topic or by key debates. However, make sure that your writing makes sense and follows the structure you’ve chosen.

Purpose of a literature review

If you are about to write a dissertation, you have probably already done writing a dissertation literature review and decided that you want to focus on the subject. The purpose of a literature review is to summarize the findings of previous research in the field and how they relate to your dissertation topic. Usually, the literature review is organized into sections that present themes and trends, and evaluate the materials in a logical order. Your research question or thesis statement should guide your analysis, and you should use most of your word limit to analyze the books and articles you have chosen for your topic. Finally, in the conclusion, you should tie everything up.

You will have to organize your literature review so that you can effectively present your findings and show that your research has made a contribution to the field. To make it easier to read, you can use a template to help you organize your sources. You can download a sample literature review template from the button below. It is useful to use a template so that you can take notes. You can also use it to reference your sources and make notes.

Methods of writing a literature review

While writing a literature review, you should keep your thesis statement and hypothesis clear. Focus on how the various pieces of literature related to the research question or problem that you wish to tackle. Include relevant texts and prominent voices in the field. Your thesis statement should be clear and concise and should also include the findings of other studies in your field. If you are working on a scientific theory, a hypothesis should be defined first.

The next step in the writing is to decide which organizational method to use. Chronological review groups sources in chronological order, highlighting changes in research over time. This method works well for writing historiographical papers, research methodology articles, and other papers where time is important. For example, a literature review about economic power in Germany might present the evolution of the subject throughout the years, and conclude with current theories.

Common mistakes in writing a literature review

Many people make the mistake of relying on excessive direct quotations, especially when it comes to literature reviews. While it is important to include some direct quotations in a review, it is also important to avoid using emotional phrases and personal opinions. This way, it will give your readers an idea of the entire field.

In writing students often get sucked into the nitty-gritty details of other studies, resulting in an unfocused paper. Ensure that any studies you are citing are relevant to the subheadings and research questions. Also, avoid making too many references to studies that aren’t relevant to the dissertation topic. Make use of subheadings to separate the sections into smaller pieces and keep them organized.