Reference no: EM132531231 , Length: word count:1300

Literature Review

If you have to write an undergraduate dissertation, you may be required to begin by writing a literature review. A literature review is a search and evaluation of the available literature in your given subject or chosen topic area. It documents the state of the art with respect to the subject or topic you are writing about.
A literature review has four main objectives:
• It surveys the literature in your chosen area of study
• It synthesises the information in that literature into a summary
• It critically analyses the information gathered by identifying gaps in current knowledge; by showing limitations of theories and points of view; and by formulating areas for further research and reviewing areas of controversy
• It presents the literature in an organised way

A literature review shows your readers that you have an in-depth grasp of your subject; and that you understand where your own research fits into and adds to an existing body of agreed knowledge.
Here's another way of describing those four main tasks. A literature review:
1. demonstrates a familiarity with a body of knowledge and establishes the credibility of your work;
2. summarises prior research and says how your project is linked to it;
3. integrates and summarises what is known about a subject;
4. demonstrates that you have learnt from others and that your research is a starting point for new ideas.

Why write a literature review?
The first step of any research project is to review the field. So let's think about surveying, synthesising, critically analysing and presenting in more detail. A literature review does the following.
1. Identifies gaps in current knowledge.
2. Avoids reinventing the wheel - i.e. it saves you wasting time researching something that's already been done.
3. Allows you to show that you are building on a foundation of existing knowledge and ideas - i.e. carrying on from where others have already reached.
4. Identifies other people working in the same field. Knowing who's already working in your area and getting in touch with them can be an invaluable source of knowledge and support.
5. Demonstrates the depth of your knowledge about your research.
6. Identifies the important works in your area and shows that you've read them.
7. Provides an intellectual context for your own work, and enables you to position your project in relation to others in the field.
8. Identifies opposing views.
9. Puts your own work in perspective - are you doing something completely new, revisiting an old controversy in the light of new evidence, etc?
10. Demonstrates your research skills - i.e. you not only know about work in your area, you also know how to access it.
11. Identifies information and ideas that may be relevant to your project.
12. Identifies methods that may be relevant to your project.

Attachment:- Literature Review Guide.rar