A literature review should be written in such a way as to avoid copying or pasting directly from the original text, or simply piling up various points of view! A literature review is not simply a cut and paste exercise, it requires comparative analysis, in-depth thinking and independent judgement, as well as refining the core points of the literature in one’s own words.
Some scholars only repeat the views of others, without their own views, or even copy the original text when writing a review. Other scholars just want to complete the task, spilling out several pages, but without in-depth analysis of the literature and thinking, and do not know what the problem is.
The main objective of a literature review is to review and summarise the relevant fields in order to have a comprehensive understanding of the current research. However, it is more crucial to reflect the latest progress and problems of the research and to provide personal insights.
When writing a literature review, one should avoid directly copying the original text or copying and pasting, and should engage in comparative analysis, in-depth thinking and independent judgement. The main goal is to review and summarise the relevant fields, reflect the latest progress and problems in research, and provide personal insights.
I would like to share my methodology and experience in writing literature review, hoping that it will be beneficial to those who need to write a review.
The literature review mainly covers the following aspects:
1. the importance of the study
2. the background and development history of the study
3. the current status, problems and possible causes of the current study
4. topics and trends for future research
The idea of writing literature review is as follows: firstly, to describe the current development of the research direction, secondly, to introduce the domestic and foreign related research review, and finally, to evaluate and analyse the above review.
The quick methods of literature review include:
1. find and cite the literature review section in the references written in the excellent master’s and doctoral dissertations
2. copy and paste directly
3. weighting down the copied and pasted content.
Although this method is speculative, but the effect is remarkable, saving the time and effort of looking for papers, and can automatically summarise the top articles in the industry, is a convenient and fast way.
The process of writing a literature review is:
1. screen the literature of high quality, within the last 1-5 years, including the views of different conclusions.
2. read the literature, starting with the review and dissertation, choosing to read intensively or skim according to relevance and time.
3. organise and categorise the literature, make a table highlighting the various parts of the topic, methodology, conclusions, etc. for easy comparison and analysis.
4. express the broad picture of the research area in personal terms, accompanied by personal analyses and conclusions.
