Tag: Literature Review

Bookmarked A Start-to-Finish Literature Review Workflow (Kimberly Hirsh)

I’ve been tweaking my literature review workflow for a while, but as I write up the current section and start planning the remaining sections, I’m finally feeling like I have a handle on things. Today I’m ready to share it with you, in hopes it will make your own writing go more smoothly.

Kimberly Hirsh provides her step-by-step guide to writing a literature review. Along with Ian O’Byrne’s process and Chris Aldrich’s discussion of Press Forward, these posts offer some useful tips to support academic writing.
Bookmarked Eight steps to write a literature review (W. Ian O'Byrne)

A literature review is not an annotated bibliography. An annotated bibliography is a document in which you briefly summarize briefly each article that you have reviewed. The literature review does contain a summary of your research, but it goes beyond the typical annotated bibliography by focusing on a specific topic of interest and includes a critical analysis of the relationship among different works, and relating this research to your work.

Ian O’Byrne summarises eight points to work through in thinking about literature review:

  • Define a topic and audience
  • Iteratively search and re-search the literature
  • Take notes as you read
  • Consider the type of review you’re writing
  • Keep your review focused, but also broad
  • Think critically and be consistent
  • Develop a logical structure to your argument
  • Use critical feedback as your guide

I never knew that literature reviews were so nuanced. Along with his post on annotated bibliographies, these resources are those to save for a later time.