Skip to main content

The Literature Review

Why Should I Care?

A very common assignment in colleges and universities is to ask students to write a Literature Review. Once you learn how to prepare the work, write the paper, and format the text appropriately, you will be unstoppable on any campus.

This lesson has 4 parts

  • Pitfalls
  • Format
  • Section of Paper
  • Whole Article

What is a Literature Review?

In these assignments students are expected to write a paper which includes lots of sources, which are cited in the main body of text, and a list of sources, which is called Bibliography, Reference List, or Works Cited, depending on the style used.

Almost every scientific paper has a literature review. If the paper's aim is exploratory, the literature review section will be thin, as no prior research has been done. This is expected.

If, however, the project's aim is descriptive or explanatory, the literature review might be very long, up to 50 pages, since you are trying to advance research in a field where much has been done before you.

YOU MUST ATTRIBUTE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE TO ITS RESPECTFUL AUTHOR.

Citing past research is a question of honor, but also logic. Science hinges on the values of transparency, and cooperation. Without honest attribution of other people’s contributions, who would want put hard work in a scientific project? Why give away the credit to anyone else? Attributions are clunky, and long. But they are essential to the process of scientific advancements.

  • Pitfalls

NOT LITERARY
A literature review is not a review of exclusively literary works, such as fiction novels, and poetry. In English, the term literature refers to almost anything that's been published, such as academic journal articles, but also non-fiction books, newspapers, and popular magazines. Literature includes fiction and non-fiction works.

NOT BOOK REVIEW
Avoid presenting the paragraphs in the order of books or articles you consulted. This is not a succession of book reviews, where you would have a paragraph for each book. Rather, you should sort out the documents, and organize them by topics. Each paragraph of the literature review should present sources that have something in common.

NOT TOO LONG
To save on space, literature reviews are often very concise. Don't write out the whole names of the authors, and their affiliations, and the full titles of their publications. In Academic Voice, the last name of the authors, and date of publication are sufficient. Readers can find the full length references in the bibliography. To be short, write short.

  • Format

Start the section with a qualification of how much knowledge exists on this topic. Mention how detailed your review of the literature will be. Explain how the literature fits into the rest of the project. State your research question.

For example, if your work is a complete review of existing work, you should say that the review is exhaustive. If you are citing only a small share of the published articles, then your review is cursory, or maybe even superficial. Be honest about this.

Organize the paragraphs in order of ideas – or types of findings – you wish to discuss. Do not present the citations in the alphabetical order of the bibliography, or in the order in which you read them.

Cite the last name of the source every time you add a piece of information. Compare findings from sources in the same paragraph. They can oppose, or complement, each other. It’s more than OK to have 3-4 sources cited in the same paragraph.

More attention is given to sources that are closest to the topic the paper. Authors are pre-supposed to be academic. A mention should be added if citing non-academic (grey) work.

All of the citations are found in the bibliography. All of the references in the bibliography are cited in text.

  • Section of Paper

The Literature Review is the second part of the science paper, after the Introduction, and before the Methodology. Citations are sorted by themes, and their results are summarized.

A Brief History of Doing Time: The California Institution for Women in the 1960s and the 1990s


By Rosemary Gartner, and Candace Kruttschnitt,

Law & Society Review, Vol. 38, No. 2 (June 2004), pp. 267-304


http://www.jstor.org/stable/1555106


ABSTRACT – Recent scholarship on penality describes profound changes in the ideology, discourses, and policies shaping criminal punishment in the late-twentieth- century United States. To assess the implications of these changes for those subject to criminal punishment, we examine the experiences of women in prison at two key points in the recent history of penality. We compare how imprisonment (…)


INTRODUCTION – Punishment changed in the United States in the last third of the twentieth century. The indicators of this change are well- documented and widely agreed upon. Prison populations soared, correctional and rehabilitative goals were largely supplanted in official and popular discourse by concerns with public safety and victims' rights, penal policy became highly politicized, and public sentiment toward criminals hardened (…).


LITERATURE REVIEW –   A major theme in prison research is that the experience of imprisonment-the ways prisoners think about and relate to other 269 prisoners, to their keepers, and to the prison regime-is affected by prisons' external and internal environments. With shifts in the political, cultural, and economic climate of the larger society, the relationship of prisons to society as well as the relations of actors within the prison change (Jacobs, 1977; Clemmer, 1950; Sykes, 1958).


Similarly, official regimes, structures, and practices inside prisons shape the responses and adaptations of prisoners (Adams, 1992; Bottoms, 1999; Grusky, 1959; Sparks, Bottoms, & Hay, 1996; Street, Vinter, & Perrow, 1966). Men's prisons provide conspicuous and well-documented examples of differences over time and among prisons in the experience of imprisonment, such as ebbs and flows in prison riots, the expansion of prison gangs, and trends in prisoner litigation (e.g., Adler & Longhurst, 1994; Colvin, 1992; Cummins, 1994; Silberman, 1995).  (…)


METHODOLOGY – (…)


  • Whole Article

You may find articles whose whole intent is to be a literature review. The whole article has no original data, no method, no results. Just a literature review. Very useful for researchers new to a topic, or for sharing recent results in a quickly evolving research field.

The Introduction and Title should state that this is only a review of literature. There is no Methodology, no Findings. Citations are sorted by themes, and their results are summarized. Results can/should be grouped to identify divergences in empirical results. Often there are tables to visualize the groupings. There can be a Conclusion section, but only to summarize and discuss the over-all results of the existing literature.

All of the citations are found in the bibliography. All of the references in the bibliography are cited in text.

Evaluating Returns to Agricultural Research: A Review


By George W. Norton and Jeffrey S. Davis

American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Nov., 1981), pp. 685-699


http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1241211.pdf?acceptTC=true


ABSTRACT - This paper reviews and compares the most common approaches used to evaluate public agricultural research investment. Ex post studies fall into two major groups: (a) consumer and producer surplus analyses, estimating average rates of return to research, and (b) production function analyses, estimating marginal rates of return to research. Ex ante studies fall into four groups: (a) those using scoring models to rank research activities, (b) those employing benefit-cost analysis to establish rates of return to research, (c) those using simulation models, and (d) those using mathematical programming to select an optimal mix of research activities.


INTRODUCTION – As public investment in agricultural research has expanded, attention has focused on its productivity and the efficiency with which funds are allocated. Decision makers desire information on research payoffs in order to assess alternative uses for public funds. In addition, the public itself is increasingly concerned about the productivity of its tax dollars.


This paper reviews the major research techniques that have been developed to evaluate returns to agricultural research. It extends previous reviews of Peterson (1971), Shumway (1973, 1977), Easter and Norton, Peterson and Hayami, Sim and Gardner, Schuh and Tollini, and Scobie (1979). We follow the Schuh and Tollini procedure of categorizing returns to research studies into ex ante and ex post evaluations.


Major studies which illustrate each technique are discussed and compared to show (a) differences in assumptions made in studies using similar methods, (b) techniques appropriate to answer different questions, and (c) incomplete areas where methodology needs development or improvement. (…)


CONCLUSION – (…)


REFERENCES – (…)
LICENSES AND ATTRIBUTIONS


No Comments
Back to top