Presentation by Prof Mark Reed

1. How to write a 3000 word
literature review in 3 days
Mark Reed

2. What is a literature review?
• A literature review is a type of essay
• Summarises the key literature written on a
subject (rarely exhaustive)
• A story that summarises material in a logical
order, composed of critical arguments,
concluding with your own reflections on the
most important insights that emerge
• Mainly based on peer-reviewed material (>50%)

3. Literature reviews are easy
• Learn how to speed read – you don’t need to
read every word of every paper you cite
• Stay focused on your question(s) so you can
extract the key points
• Organise what you’ve read efficiently
• Find a system to link key points together into
critical arguments as part of an overall story

4. Day 1

5. Day 1, 9.00-10.00: Scoping
• Google to expand list of search terms
• Search via Scopus/Web of Science/ScienceDirect
• Sort by relevance

6. Day 1, 10.00-17.00: Reading
• Screen your reading:
• Read titles only, skipping less relevant ones
• Scan read relevant abstracts
• Download relevant papers, speed read intro,
results, discussion and conclusion, read slowly
around key points
• Only read methods in detail for papers that are key
to your argument or controversial (e.g.
contradict mainstream view)

7. Day 1, 10.00-17.00: Reading
• Create a database in Excel
• Column A: topic/theme
• Column B: author/year
• Copy and paste relevant sentences/paragraphs
to cells in Column A
• Use speech marks to ensure you don’t confuse
quotes with material you paraphrase

8. Day 1, 10.00-17.00: Reading
• Create themes and sub-themes as you read
• Sub-divide and combine themes as necessary
• Sort themes/sub-themes into a coherent
structure
• Visual learners: mind-map
• Kinesthetic learners: post-it note spider diagram
• Read-write/auditory: copy and paste themes onto
a single page in Word and sort (reading
them aloud
for auditory learners)

9. Day 2

10. Day 2, 9.00-11.00: Create a map
• Take a step back from your mindmap branches,
spider legs or list of themes:
• Group into as few as possible major themes (3-6),
think what story you could tell to link these themes
coherently (these become sub-headings in review)
• Think about what sub-themes fit under each of
these major themes, and their order
• Number themes and sub-themes 1, 1a, 1b etc.

11. Day 2, 11.00-13.00: Walk & lunch
• Go for a walk, forget about work and let your
review gradually structure settle in your mind
• Try and get some distance from your work, so
you can come back and see a bird’s eye view of
your whole story in your mind, to check if it
really holds together coherently

12. Day 2, 13.00-14.00: Revisit structure
• Revisit your structure (mindmap, post-its, Word
file) and make any changes based on insights
from your morning’s reflections

13. Day 2, 14.00-17.00: Plug gaps
• Identify gaps in your story and arguments and
target additional reading to fill gaps

14. Day 3

15. Day 3: Write your review
• You now have a map you can follow to write
your literature review
• Create sub-headings, go to relevant section of
Excel file, re-read the material under that section
and put into your own words, citing the
literature it came from
• Add your own reflections to each section

16. Day 3: Write your review
• Conclude:
• Summarise your story, including key arguments
• Draw out your main personal reflections re: what it
all means and why it is important

17. More information

18. Contact me:
www.markreed.webeden.ac.uk