Reference no: EM13941523

1. Questions for analyzing individual works

- What is the argument? Is it logically developed? Is it well defended?

- What kind of research is presented? What are the methods used? Do they allow the author to address your research question effectively? Is each argument or point based on relevant research? If not, why? - What theoretical approach does the author adopt? Does it allow the researcher to make convincing points and draw convincing conclusions? Are the author's biases and presuppositions openly presented, or do you have to identify them indirectly? If so, why? - Overall, how convincing is the argument? Are the conclusions relevant to the field of study? Questions for comparing works

- What are the main arguments? Do the authors make similar or different arguments? Are some arguments more convincing than others?

- How has research been conducted in the literature? How extensive has it been? What kinds of data have been presented? How pertinent are they? Are there sufficient amounts of data? Do they adequately answer the questions?

- What are the different types of methodologies used? How well do they work? Is one methodology more effective than others? Why?

- What are the different theoretical frameworks or approaches used? What do they allow the authors to do? How well do they work? Is one approach more effective than others? Why?

- Overall, is one work more convincing than others? Why? Or are the works you have compared too different to evaluate against each other?

2. Identify the main ideas of the literature Once you have begun to synthesize your research, you will begin to identify some main ideas and trends that pervade the topic or that pertain to your research question. Use these main ideas to classify the information and sources that you have read. Later, these ideas can be used as the main topics of discussion in the literature review, and if you have already organized your literature on these topics, it will be easy to summarize the literature, find examples, etc.

3. Identify the main argument of the literature review Just like any academic paper, the literature review should have a main idea about the literature that you would like the readers to understand. This argument is closely related to your research question in that it presents a situation in the body of literature which motivates your research question. Example Argument from a literature review: "Although some historians make a correlation between the Ukrainian Catholic and Orthodox churches and the retention of Ukrainian culture and language by Ukrainian immigrants in Canada, little has been said of the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the development of Ukrainian communities in Canada." Research question: "How has the Roman Catholic Church shaped Ukrainian-Canadian identity?"

4. Organize the main points of the literature review after identifying the main ideas that need to be presented in the literature review; you will organize them in such a way as to support the main argument. A well-organized literature review presents the relevant aspects of the topic in a coherent order that leads readers to understand the context and significance of your research question and project. As you organize the ideas for writing, keep track of the supporting ideas, examples, and sources that you will be using for each point. 5. Write the literature review Once the main ideas of the literature review are in order, writing can flow much more smoothly. The following tips provide some strategies to make your literature review even stronger.