Literature Review Information

What is a Review of the Literature?

Imagine yourself having come from a meeting in which a complex debate took place. You want to tell a group of friends about the meeting, and to do so you need to describe the conversation. You will explain the important ideas that got covered, who made various points, and why they made them. When you're finished, your friends will have a good sense of how the conversation went, and they'll feel able to jump into the same discussion and make their own points.

This is exactly what reviews of literature do. They appear, in one form or another, in virtually every academic article, recounting what has already been said in the conversation as well as what has been left out of the conversation, so that readers can understand where the writer is going to jump in. Lit reviews describe what is considered known and unknown about a given issue. They synthesize the arguments that have already taken place, and create a space or a "niche" for the current writer to make her argument by demonstrating that no one has made it and why it needs to be made to carry on the conversation.

A review of the literature is a step up in complexity from the annotated bib. The annotated bib separately summarized each source. The review of the literature is a synthesis of those sources, comparing and contrasting relevant points. An important distinction between the annotated bib and the lit review is that annotations are arranged by *author* whereas the lit review is arranged by *points.* Thus, the lit review will explain what is known about important aspects of your topic, focusing mainly on points rather than researchers. For example a main sentence in a lit review would put emphasis on the topic this way:

"Rhetorical reading is an important skill for college-level students (Haas; Flower; Jones)."

Note that the researchers' names generally come last, while the main point is stressed first. After this sentence you might briefly describe the studies undertaken by these three authors and explain how the studies found similar or different things, but the focus should be on the main point that all three share-or on a point about which they disagree.

At the end of the review of the literature, you will need to establish a niche for your own research. Here is where you say, "That is what we know about topic X. What we don't know is..." You can establish a niche for yourself in four ways: counter-claiming ("Jones says X is true, but I disagree"), indicating a gap ("We know about X, but we do not know about Y), question-raising ("We know X is true, but why is it true?"), or continuing a tradition ("Jones and Smith did excellent work and I would like to build on it by...")

What are the Characteristics of a Good Lit Review?

Your literature review will become the first part of your research paper. Thus, it should do three things:

1. Include a short introduction that defines or identifies the general topic, issue, or area of concern, thus providing an appropriate context for reviewing the literature (this is called establishing a territory).

2. Synthesize other research on the topic, explaining what is known about it.

3. Conclude by stating what is missing, what is controversial, what is not yet known, or what needs to be resolved in the discussion. This will provide the transition later to your own study and your research questions (this is called establishing a niche).

In addition, a good lit review will:

• Be driven by and related directly to the thesis or research question you are developing.

• Include only sources related to your topic, and discuss only relevant points from those sources.

• Identify areas of controversy or discrepancy, if those are relevant to your study.

• Group sources according to common denominators such as conclusions of authors, findings, etc.

• Summarize individual studies or articles with as much or as little detail as each merits according to its comparative importance in the literature, remembering that space (length) denotes significance.

You can use headings as necessary.