Developing a literature review can be daunting. You probably have many questions, whether you find only a few articles or many articles on your topic. How many articles do you need to use? Which articles should you use? What should you say about those articles? Here, Paula Dawidowicz, a faculty member in The Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University and author of Literature Reviews Made Easy: A Quick Guide to Success offers tips for getting started.

Plan
A literature review has two purposes:

1. It tells you what you need to know to design your study.
2. It tells you what you need to know to understand and interpret the results of your study.

To accomplish this, you need to develop an unbiased, objective picture of your topic. For example, imagine you’re researching the impact of the glass ceiling on women’s management opportunities in small public relations firms. You need to know about not just research on women in small business management. You also need to know about men in small business management and about the nature of small business management and of public relations firm management. First identify what factors or variables related to your topic you need to research.

Make a list of those factors or variables before you begin and add to it if you identify more factors during the search.

It’s also important to use a literature management scheme. Whether it’s a spreadsheet, a card file or some other organizational system, it should be simple to use and allow you to easily analyze, compare and contrast articles, as well as evaluate their importance to your research.

Know What Not to Read
You don’t need to read or use every article available on your topic. Many interesting articles may not relate closely enough to it to be in your literature review. To illustrate, in the example above, an article on management methods at a women’s nonprofit organization isn’t useful. If such an article piques your interest but won’t help your dissertation, don’t get distracted. Instead, save it to read at another time.

Don’t be overwhelmed if you find lots of articles on your topic. Your goal is to achieve topic saturation, which doesn’t mean reading or using all of the articles—just enough. Some articles don’t discuss studies, and others contain similar research and results. In other words, you’ll be able to eliminate a number of articles. Read the articles’ abstracts, and batch those with similar studies and conclusions. Then, choose the most recent, descriptive or explanatory from each batch for your literature review.

Identify the Quality of Literature—and Your Own Thoughts
Be careful not to misrepresent the information you use. Present your ideas as separate from those presented in other sources, giving authors the credit they’re due and identifying your ideas as your own. Remember, as well, that non-peer-reviewed information is less valuable academically than peer-reviewed research articles, so identify it in your literature review as what it is—less valuable.

Relate All Literature to Your Study
As you discuss the literature, relate it to your proposed research. Share how it guides your research plan or prepares you to understand your research results. Why do you need to know it? Why should your reader care?

Writing a literature review can be an enjoyable, fascinating adventure if you keep in mind that, for a while after you finish your dissertation, you’ll be an expert on your topic. So dig in, and remember to enjoy the journey!

More Information
Literature Reviews Made Easy: A Quick Guide to Success

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