PhD Education

1. How to Write a Literature
Review
Summarizing Relevant
Readings in Your Research

5. What is a Good RRL
A lit review is not a report
that summarizes relevant
articles and books one by
one sequentially.
Rather, a lit review is a
cohesive account of important
bodies of works and
arguments in your discipline,
and the articles and books
that are a part of these bodies
of work and arguments. The
trick is to choose the bodies
of work that are most relevant
to your project.

6. Literature reviews don’t
have to be necessarily
long
A good literature review
must be comprehensive.

7. As you summarize the
literature, be careful that
you're not just discussing
each piece of writing in a
vacuum
Relate each piece of
research to the broader
research question, and
relate individual pieces
of research to each other

8. Be careful not to make
your lit review too broad
On the other hand, don't
make your lit review too
narrow
For example, if you're
writing about the effects
of squash seeds on the
growth of chickens
there's no need to
include a background
discussion of how
squash are grown.

9. How to write a Literature
Review:
• Step 1: Read a lot.
 Read with care and purpose
Look carefully at the references
Read from tangentially related
fields

10. • Step 2: Define the area.
It is important to know what that body
of knowledge says so that we know
where our own work should go, and,
ultimately, does go.
Keep in mind that when you are
reviewing the literature, typically you
are looking at the literature that deals
with your particular area.

11. • Step 3: Keep track of all of this
information.
Copy articles.
Write down all bibliographic
information on the copy of the article.
Write note cards and bibliog. cards

12. • Step 4: Write it up.
When writing a literature review, keep in
mind that you are reviewing the literature,
not summarizing it.
EXAMPLE
Your research has something to do with
the effects of squash seeds on the growth
of chickens
A similar study:The effects of organic
feeds on the growth of squirrels

13. • You do not want to do this:
• Smith (1978) conducted a 3x3x3 factorial
design to study squirrels. He concentrated
on brown squirrels, stating “flying squirrels
are just too damn unpredictable to study”
(page 54). 1000 squirrels were broken
into six groups and given the choice of
nuts to eat. 1 group was given nothing but
pecans, the other nothing but acorns, and
then allowed to switch, BLAH, BLAH,
BLAH, BLAH......

14. You may write this instead:
• Smith (1978) found that squirrels fed
with acorn nuts had a higher mean
growth than squirrels fed with pecan
nuts.
• Then relate this information to your
own research.

15. REMEMBER!!!!
• The most common mistakes students
make are that they don’t do enough
literature, or they do too much literature, or
they summarize the literature rather than
review it.
• Remember that you are trying to set the
stage for your own work and therefore
your discussions about it is important.