Definition of a written literature review document

The literature review document is a scholarly written document that describes, summarizes and evaluates some sources and study researches about a particular topic. These sources that a literature review document summarize must be related and around a particular topic. A written literature review document can be a part of thesis or dissertation.

Or a written literature review document can be a stand-alone written document. Sources and study researches that covered by a literature review can be books, websites, journals, government reports or others.

 Aims and goals for writing a literature review document 

Any written document is written for achieving some goals and aims.

So, the written literature review document has many aims and goals which are:

• First aim/goal: the first goal is that the literature review determines what exist in the current research field for a particular topic.
• Second aim/goal: the second goal is that a written literature review document collects many relevant sources. So, a written literature review document places each source in the context of understanding the particular topic.
• Third aim/goal: the third goal is that the written literature review document describes the relationship between the collected sources. 
• Fourth aim/goal: the fourth goal is that a literature review identifies the existing gaps in current sources and studies for further research. So, the written literature review document also identifies new way to interpret
• Fifth aim/goal: the fifth goal is that the literature review tries to find new ways to step the further research forward.
• Sixth aim/goal: the sixth goal is that the literature review identifies if there is a need to make additional researches

 Disadvantages of writing a literature review document 

In this paragraph, you will be deal with the disadvantages of the written literature review document:

1. The written literature review requires a good supervision from teacher specially when the students have a little bit of experience.
2. The student does not find enough sources for their literature review document or the sources have no certain information. So, the student lost their time to search for unnecessary sources.
3. The supervisors or teachers consume a lot of time to correct and provide a feedback about student’s literature review documents.

 Structure and components of a written literature review document 

Any literature review written document should include these major components/elements:

• First basic component: the objective/goal of a written literature review document

The objective/goal of a literature review describes the purpose/goals to write your literature review document.

And also, state clearly the goals and objective of your written literature review document.

• Second basic component: an overview of subject in a written literature review document

In the second component of written literature review document, you have to provide an overview of the subject/topic. Topics that you consider in your written literature review document.

So, give an overview for a topic of research and what prompted it.

• Third basic component: sources categorization

Here in the third component, you have to categorize your sources in a written literature review document. These sources can be categorized and grouped according to three or many ways which are historical, chronological or thematically approaches.  

• Fourth basic component: an organization of subtopics

Organize your subtopics in your written literature review by starting with the most significant topic and going to the least significant topic. That’s mean you should group your topic in logical order. That’s in order to make your written literature review document more reliable and understandable by others.

• Fifth basic component: discussion

Discussion is the fifth basic component of literature review written document. What you should to do is to provide an analysis of each source uniqueness and each source similarities with the other sources.

• Sixth basic component: conclusion

Conclusion is the sixth and last basic component of the written literature review document.

And in the conclusion part, you provide a summary of your analysis and evaluation of the reviewed work in your topic of research.

 Elements of a written literature review document 

The major elements for a written literature review are:

1. Identification the existing gap in the current researches and studies on a particular topic.
2. Discovering the available information in studies and researches on a particular topic.
3. Identification the relationship between the sources of the researches and theories on a particular topic.
4. Making literature review provide you with a context of your research on a particular topic.
5. Noting the main methodologies and techniques in researches and studies on a particular topic.
6. Finding differences and similarities in researches and studies on a particular topic.
7. Located the formative works in the field of researches and studies on a particular topic.  

 Steps to good assessment of a written literature reviews document 

Usually, the assessment process done by supervisors or teachers to evaluate their students writing literature review documents. To make a good assessment of written literature review documents, follow these steps to ensure you assets literature reviews correctly:

1. Be sure that the students exactly know the primary objective of writing a literature review document.
2. Determine as a supervisor or a teacher the number of words (length of literature review) should a literature reviews contain.
3. Explain for your students that a literature review in not just a summary of collected sources.
4. Ensure that you provide for your students a clear assessment criteria and how correcting the scheme. Which the correcting scheme include grammar, spelling and other related issues.
5. Be sure that your students know how to reference a piece of text and they understand the meaning of plagiarism.
6. Teachers and supervisors should determine if they assets the quality of sources used in writing literature review documents.
7. Teachers and supervisors know that writing literature review documents need practice. According to this point, they can give their students small subjects to review and then give them larger subject to review.

How it is benefits to conduct a literature review?

It is very important to conduct a written literature review document. Conducting a written literature review document can get these goals:

• First goal of conducting written literature review documents:

Conducting written literature reviews will provide you with an estimation about the current state about a specific topic.

• Second goal of conducting written literature review documents

Another goal to conduct written literature review documents is to enable you to identify the experts on a particular topic. That’s happen when making literature about a particular topic and search for source. In this case you will know what writers write more than others on a particular topic. Those writers are almost the experts for writing in a particular topic.

• Third goal of conducting written literature review documents

Goal three is about the topics that need more further of research.

So, with this goal you will identify the significant questions on a topic that need more research. When you write a literature document, you may discover new subjects that did not cover by other researchers. This done by review what is already exists in the current written literature review documents.

• Fourth goal of conducting written literature review documents

Final and fourth goal of written literature review documents is about methodologies. By reviewing many literature documents, you can determine which methodologies used in previous studies for a particular topic or studies documents in similar topics.  

 Video :The Purpose of the Literature Review