Whether you’re an undergraduate, master’s, or PhD student, at one point, you’ll get to conduct research and write a research paper on a particular topic. The research is a comprehensive process that involves different key steps. At first, a topic is selected for research and its brief introduction is written. After the introduction, the literature review is added. But what are the purposes of a literature review in a research study?
As the introduction of a research paper covers a brief summary of the research, on the other hand, the literature review is concerned with the analysis of existing literature data on the research topic. The aim of the literature review is to develop the foundation, highlight key concepts, support your research study, and identify gaps in the existing research.
This blog thoroughly discusses what a literature review is, its purposes, types, and the essential steps to write it efficiently.
What is a Literature Review?
The literature review not only provides the analysis of existing literature sources but also helps researchers become familiar with the current literature on the research problem, its boundaries, and limitations. This also allows researchers to be familiar with their research field and examine how they can contribute to the existing literature.
Literature Review Definition:
According to Creswell (2005), a literature review “is a written summary of journal articles, books, and other documents that describes the past and current state of information, organises the literature into topics and documents a need for a proposed study.”
Literature review significantly allows the researchers to provide an extensive review of all the scholarly sources used in conducting their research. It helps researchers to explain what is in the current literature related to research study and what is not.
Literature Review Example:
Here is an example of a literature review:
A critical literature review on managing technological innovations in the hotel and tourism industry.
What are the Five Purposes of Literature Review?
A research paper is written efficiently when researchers can access reliable and credible literature sources. This helps them to know the essential elements and the requirements of research. It also helps them to understand what to consider, what not to, and what should be precautionary measures if things go south. Here are the purposes of the literature review:
- To Develop the Foundation for the Research Study
The primary purpose of the literature review is to develop the foundation of the research study. The literature review thoroughly analyses the data and information provided in the existing literature. It significantly allows researchers to contextualise their research in the light of existing literature. It shows how their research is relevant.
- To Highlight the Key Concepts and Theories
Another purpose of the literature review is to highlight the key concepts and theories generated from the previous research. Researchers all the previous concepts to help readers thoroughly understand the background of their research study. It also helps to highlight how and why research is significant.
- To Support Your Research Study
Supporting your research study is also a purpose of the literature review. As the literature review includes all the key concepts and theories concluded from the previous research studies, it helps researchers to relate their current research with them. It also allows researchers to show how their research contributes to the field.
- To Identify Gaps in the Existing Research
Literature reviews also allow researchers to identify gaps in existing research data and information. It also allows them to show researchers the key areas that previous research lacks to address. It ultimately provides them with sufficient margin to explain the contribution and relevance of their research study.
- To Demonstrate the Evolution of Research Methodologies
As previous researchers incorporated old and historical methodologies to conduct research, the literature review also helps to demonstrate to readers how the methodologies and different research methods have evolved significantly. Moreover, it also helps researchers to what didn’t work back then and what will work now.
Purposes of Literature Review in Different Fields
Above, the general purposes of the literature review are discussed; here are the purposes of literature review in different fields:
Purpose of Literature Review in Health Research
The purpose of literature review in healthcare research is that it allows healthcare professionals and patients to understand the available information regarding a particular medical condition and helps to make appropriate decisions to treat it.
For example, an argumentative literature review on “Examining the Relationship between Depression and Social Media Use”.
Purpose of Literature Review in Nursing Research
The purpose of a literature review in nursing research is to provide sufficient available information regarding the nursing practices and precautionary measures taken during a particular emergency. It helps readers and authors to understand how things have been and how they might be.
For example, a theoretical literature review on the topic, “Patient Safety and Quality Improvements”.
Purpose of Literature Review in Quantitative Research
The literature review in quantitative research provides all the necessary sources utilised in order to understand the research study. It helps researchers to analyse what has already been published related to their research study.
For example, a scoping literature review focusing on the “Relationship Between Unemployment and Inflation Rates”.
Purpose of Literature Review in Social Sciences Research
The purpose of the literature review in special sciences research is that it allows readers to understand how society has evolved within a particular duration and what were the key factors in deriving that change.
For example, a systematic literature review on the topic, “The Role of Political Parties in Promoting Bullying and Violence”.
Purpose of Literature Review in Arts Research
The objective of literature review in arts research is to provide necessary insights to readers to understand the previous art practices and movements led by prominent art figures within a particular time duration.
For example, an integrative literature review on the topic, “The History of Abstract Expressionism”.
What are the Types of Literature Review?
The objective of the literature review is not just to identify gaps and take inspiration from the previous data and information, but it also helps to avoid the duplication of the existing data. It helps to ensure the integrity of the research and writing of the research paper. A literature review can be written in various ways. Here are the types of literature reviews:
- Systematic Literature Review
A systematic literature review can be defined as the comprehensive details and the timeframe within which a particular research literature has been chosen to make it part of the literature review. It can be divided into two categories: meta-analysis and meta-syntheses.
Meta-analysis is to find the literature relevant to the research question and analyse it using statistical procedures. However, meta-synthesis is defined as finding and analysing relevant literature data using non-statistical techniques.
- Narrative Literature Review
A narrative literature review is defined as a comprehensive critique of the existing literature on a particular research topic. It allows researchers to summarise the body of the literature carefully. It also helps researchers to draw conclusions and identify gaps in the existing literature.
- Scoping Literature Review
As the name suggests, scoping literature review is defined as identifying the scope of the existing research literature on a particular topic. The scoping literature review aims to provide an overview of the research evidence and to map the extent, range, and nature of the literature, which also helps to identify several gaps.
- Theoretical Literature Review
A theoretical literature review is defined as the comprehensive analysis of multiple theories that have been derived from previous research literature. It helps researchers to showcase which theories already exist, their relationship, how many times they have been investigated, and how the hypothesis can be tested using these.
- Argumentative Literature Review
The argumentative literature review is associated with supporting or refuting an argument, a deeply embedded assumption, or a philosophical problem already established in the existing literature. It significantly aims to develop a literature body that helps to establish a contrarian viewpoint.
- Integrative Literature Review
The integrative literature review focuses on criticising and synthesising secondary data about a particular research topic. In other words, it is an integrated way to analyse data to serve new frameworks and perspectives on the topic. It is usually used when the primary data collection and analysis is not involved.
How to Write an Excellent Literature Review?
Want to know how to write an excellent literature review of your research? Here are the essential steps involved in writing it efficiently. By comprehensively understanding these steps, you can write an efficient literature review and enhance the quality of your research study.
Step 1: Define the Research Question
The first step to writing a literature review is to refine the research question. Provide a brief introduction of the problem that you’re addressing in your research study. Explain the purpose and scope of your research, and elaborate on the overview of all the significant sections in the research study.
Step 2: Conduct a Literature Research
The next step in writing a literature review is to conduct extensive literature research. You need to find all the literature sources relevant to your research study. Enlist all the related keywords and use them for literature research efficiently. There are various online journals and databases that include a wide range of research literature data, such as JSTOR, Google Scholar, and Project Muse.
Step 3: Select the Relevant Sources
After conducting the research, you’ll have a vast range of literature sources. But it will not be possible to study all of them due to time constraints. So, it is necessary to select only those literature sources that include data and information relevant to your research question. Also, ensure the credibility of literature sources by adding all the required citations. It significantly helps to avoid plagiarism.
Step 4: Identify Gaps in the Existing Data
The fourth step in writing a literature review is identifying gaps in the existing literature data. Organise all your selected data sources meticulously and understand the connections and relations among them. This will help you identify trends, gaps, similarities, and dissimilarities in the previous research findings. It will also guide you on how your research study will address the gaps and contribute to existing literature.
Step 5: Make Outline of Literature Review
After gathering literature sources and identifying gaps, it’s time to formulate an appropriate outline for your literature review. The outlines include all the major sections of the literature review, which will guide you to write it promptly. You can incorporate various strategies to make an outstanding outline considering the length of your literature review.
Step 6: Write the Literature Review
The last step is to write the literature review using all the gathered data and information. There are three sections of the literature review: Introduction, Body, and Conclusion. How you write them is entirely based on your research objectives.
- Introduction: Includes the restatement of the research topic and the objectives of the literature review.
- Body: Includes all the subsections required to write the literature review efficiently.
- Conclusion: Includes the summary of all the contents discussed in the literature review. Also, it includes the key findings and their significance.
Frequently Asked Questions
An overview of the previously published literature on a particular research topic is called a literature review. It doesn’t only involve the summary of all the literature sources but also includes their synthesis. The literature review helps researchers to identify gaps in the existing literature and allows them to research in order to fill those gaps.
Here are the purposes of a literature review:
- To develop the foundation for the research study
- To support your research study
- To identify gaps in the existing research
The ideal length of a literature review should be 20% of the entire research paper. If there are 10000 words in a dissertation, 2000 words should be of literature review.
