Here, you can get relevant ideas on how to make an effective review of related literature in academic writing and theses. It is prepared to train young learners.

1. Literature review in Academic Writing
A workshop on Academic Writing
@
Guru Prasad Poudel
Assistant Professor
Department of English Education, T.U., Kirtipur
sharmagokul061@gmail.com
May-17, 2024

2. Let’s begin with a brief interaction:
 Do you think literature review is a
component of AW?
 Why do we need to review the
literature?
 Can you share your experiences of
the processes that you followed
while reviewing the literature?

3. Literature in AW
A “written document that presents a logically argued
case founded on a comprehensive understanding of the
current state of knowledge about a topic of study.
This case establishes a convincing thesis to answer the
study’s question”. (Machi & McEvoy, 2016)

4. Con…
• A literature review is a description, critical analysis and evaluation of works-
both print and digital and both current and seminal- that relate to your
research question or topic (Daymon & Holloway,2005).

5. Literature review in AW:
• Demonstrates author’s knowledge and understanding about a particular field of study,
including the vocabulary, theories, key variables and phenomenon, and its methods and
the major findings.
Literature review has specific roles in the sense that it:
• Gives justification
• Develops a common thread of arguments
• Clarifies the RQs
• Determines positionality
• Conceptualizes methodological and theoretical framework (Bryman, 2008)

6. Sources for the review
• Abstracts
• Bibliographies
• Reviews
• Conference proceedings,
• Dictionaries/encyclopedias
• Database index
• Data base statistics
• Internet search engines

7. Con…
• Books
• Websites
• Journals
• Reports
• Government documents
• E-books
• Encyclopedia
• Theses/dissertations

8. Styles of literature review:
• Systematic
• Narrative
• Interpretative
• Critical
• Argumentative
• Annotated
• Thematic
(Ernest, 2003; Luitel & Taylor, 2012)

9. Sample 1 Annotated

10. Sample 2: Thematic

11. I prefer concept centric, method centric, and
result centric approach

12. Types/areas
• Theoretical reviews
• • Policy reviews
• • Empirical reviews
• • Thematic reviews
• • Methodological reviews

13. The process of review in AW:
• Set a topic
• Search and re-search the literature
• Find relevant references from subject encyclopedias and reviews
• Take notes while reading
• Choose the type of review you wish to write
• Keep the review focused
• Be critical and consistent
• Develop a theoretical underpinning, build constructs and give meaning to the writing
by weaving a logical story.

14. Whatever the type or style you follow,
• Summarize
• Critique, and
• Explore gaps

15. Theoretical Literature: What?
Theoretical literature review involves:
• assessing the theories, methods and materials available on a research
problem or topic;
• identify existing theories and relate them to the specific study;
• assess and measure the status of the state of knowledge on a topic or
research problem and frameworks for study and analysis.

16. Empirical Review: What?
Empirical review is:
• the review of articles, theses or research reports based on
anecdotal evidence and
• reports on professional practices and standards.

17. Quick Ideas:
• Step I: Identify key terms
• Step II: See articles, books and theses
• Step III: Locate literature
• Step III: Read, evaluate and select
• Step IV: Organize literature
• Step V: Write

18. Resources: where? Click on google
scholar
Click on the
library
catelogue

19. Read
Related
Books

20. • Plan:Create a mind map or outline
before you start drafting.
• Identify: key terms from the title
• Locate: utilize all available resources
• Read: critically, evaluate and select the
literature for your review.
• Refine: as you write – give yourself
time to write many drafts, and refine
the writing and structure of your
argument.

21. Good Review
• Organized around a coherent set of questions.
• Includes the major landmarks guiding the study.
• Acknowledges the author’s biases as well as the limitations of the
review process.
• Critically evaluates.
• Uses quotes, illustrations, graphs, and/or tables to present and justify
the critical analysis of the literature.

22. Example

23. Takes the form of a logical argument that concludes
with a clear rationale for additional research. …

24. Bad Review
• Rambles from topic to topic without a clear focus.
• Omits landmarks.
• Simply summarizes research findings without critical evaluation.
• Simply lists studies without presenting any critical evidence in the form of qu
otes, illustrations, graphs, and/or tables.

25. Title:
EDUCATIONALATTAINMENT OF PARENTS AND ITS IMPACT UPON
INSTRUCTED SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (SLA)
The term ‘educational attainment’ is related to literacy in the sense that it is one of the important variables
for a person to be literate. Educational attainment is frequently noted in the field of learning. Literacy
refers to some sort of educational awareness and its achievement by the citizen of the world in general and
the nation in particular. In simple words, literacy refers to the knowledge or education obtained by the
general people. Parent literacy signifies the access of education of those people who are married and have
one or more children and educational attainment refers to the level of education they have achieved.
According to the CBS report " literacy is the most significant indicator of human development and it is the
ladder of socio- cultural and economic development ". Relating the social dimension to literacy UNESCO
defines that "literacy is for generating peace and welfare in the nation." The ability to read and write in any
languages are literate and those who have the ability to calculate general mathematical problems are
literate". To sum up the above definitions, literacy can be taken as the indicator of human development,
source of prestige in society and the ability to perform general educational and mathematical problems.

26. Activity:
• See the article/s
• Make a brief review
• Share with your colleagues
• Get feedback

27. An example of empirical review
Classroom diversity:
• We come to see some research works undertaken in the filed of classroom and
learning diversity. Benzamin (2014) studied learner differences in English
achievement because of diversity. His study shows that learners posses different
abilities and if their abilities are not handled well then there could be differences in
their learning achievement which may invite some challenges in learners’ learning
achievement. Similarly, the study of Bolano (2017) shows that diversity has been one
of the determinants of learning success. In a heterogeneous class different forms
of diversities exist. This study points linguistic and cultural diversity as the major
one including the others.

28. Challenges:
can be challenging because:
• You need to coordinate many sources and ideas into a logical argument.
• You may be dealing with language and ideas you haven't fully mastered yet.
• There are no fixed rules for what to include or how to organize your writing.
• There is a wide gap between reviewing, writing an appropriate literature and the
practical process and contextual needs of same, especially among academics.

29. Literature review is particularly significant:
• To integrate and synthesize work from different research areas (Daymon &
Holloway,2005; Nunan,1993; Paltridge & Starfield,2007, Hartley, 2008; APA,
2010 ).

30. Record following information for each work:
• Author’s surnames and initials, all authors if there are several
• Name of publisher/date and place of publication
• Title of book/chapter/article
• Volume, issue and page no
• Source from which the book was obtained

31. 5/20/2024

32. Use of Authentic materials in teaching
vocabulary
• Vocabulary is a word that gives meaning. It is a lexical item (Richards, 2001).
Vocabulary is one of the component of teaching. In my experience, I started
learning English from vocabulary. The first word that I heard from my
teacher was discipline which means obedience in class. At that time, my
teacher taught me without using materials but these days we find many
materials. I believe that teachers may use different materials and they can be
authentic or non-authentic. However, in this study I want to explore only
authentic material. According to Hedge (2008), …….