A literature review involves the systematic identification, collection, and analysis of work related to the research topic that has been done by other people. It helps to determine the achievements of other work to avoid unnecessary and unintentional replication of the work. It also creates the framework from which findings will be based on. Through the literature review, the author and audience of the research get more knowledge of useful procedures, strategies, and tools already discovered by other researchers.
The literature review integrates and summarizes what is known in the research area. This helps to identify information gaps and research questions for the subject. The main objective of the literature review is to obtain detailed knowledge of the topic being reviewed. This knowledge can be collected from either primary or secondary sources or both. Due to its complexity, most people have a challenge in writing a literature review and, therefore, seek help from qualified assignment helpers. This article will review some of the key things that the researcher should keep in mind while formulating literature review
Research Objectives
Before writing literature, the author of the research should analyze the objectives of the research. The objectives are within the scope of the research topic the researcher wants to focus on. A good objective should be measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound, and specific to the research problem. Creating the research objectives will assist the researcher to understand the topic with more clarity and narrow the research to the specifics of the topic. It will also help the researcher to formulate testable hypotheses and form relationships between previous, current, and future works. Testing the hypotheses will help to determine the relevance of the existing theories. When creating objectives, the author of the research should avoid biased and subjective terms but rather be neutral to the topic.
Synthesis
The quality of the literature review relies heavily on the synthesis of the sources. Synthesis involves finding the connections between various resources to validate a point. The researcher can achieve this by contrasting and comparing the findings to find their relationship with each other. Evaluating the synthesis helps the researcher to interpret and make a conclusion on the integrated review as a whole.
Integrating common points in the related works will help the author of the research to make a good synthesis. This implies that authors of related works can reappear in different subtopics of the literature review. The review should remain relevant to the objective so that it can integrate well with the research topic. The review should be organized in such a manner it portrays the flow and relationships of the concepts found in the reviewed work.
Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations
Some situations force the researcher to make several assumptions to keep the research relevant. However, assumptions must be accompanied by their justification to demonstrate their importance to the study. Limitations indicate the weaknesses in the research that the researcher could not control. The researcher should make sure that he/she indicates how to handle these limitations. Delimitations include aspects that limit the scope of the research but are controllable.
Research Gaps
After careful and critical evaluation of related works, the author of the research has to check for gaps in the existing works. The researcher checks for areas that are related to the research questions and not covered by other authors. Finding a research gap can help the research to gain insights into potential areas to strengthen the research and also find areas for further recommendations in the research. Identification of gaps can only be achieved through critical evaluation of the related works.
Be the first to comment on "Things to Keep Mind When Writing a Literature Review"