A Literature Review involves reading and noting exactly what other people have written about a said area of interest, from which information is gathered to support and refute the necessary arguments included in the thesis.
Ranging from 2000 to 3000 words, the literature review need not be a definitive account of the state of existing research in the selected topic, however, it must provide a critical review of the literature written on, and about the topic or thesis.
How to Write a Literature Review
Much reading and analytical research must occur before the literature review can be written. Reading as much as possible about the relevant topic is essential, as it will also allow for ideas and approaches on how to present the data to occur.
It is not enough to just collect concrete facts in a saturated, exhaustive list. Rather, the information garnered must be organized and classified to form a readable and coherent pattern.
The literature review can be put after the introduction and introduced as an extensive study of the literature written on the topic produced in the final thesis.
What to Include in the Literature Review
It is important to remember that only the works, which are relevant to the topic, should be mentioned and that the review is more than a list of what has been read.
An example of a good literature review could be as follows:
'When seeking to analyse the state of the NHS and how efficiently it operates, many have examined it. Bloggs (1975) found this, Smith (1976) found that. On the other hand, Jones (1977) argued the opposite.'
As demonstrated, a high quality literature review will undoubtedly demonstrate that the writer has studied existing work in the field with profound insight. But the main point to bear in mind is that a review should provide the reader/marker with a picture of the state of knowledge, and of the major questions in the subject area being investigated.
A Further Example of a Good Literature Review
'Green and Ward (2004) in Great Britain wrote extensively on a range of disciplines concerning state crime, governments, violence, corruption and international law and they are quick to acknowledge that a single definition of genocide is complicated and cannot always be universally agreed upon.'
'Andreopoulous, (1994) found similar evidence to suggest that any definition of genocide is subject to debate. Similar findings have been made by Rosenbaum (1996) who wrote in great detail on the Holocaust as well as on perspectives on comparative genocide.'
Again, as shown above, the literature review compares the writings of previous writers and what they have to say about the topic, which in this case is Genocide and State Crime.
From this, the marker is able to form a pellucid picture and some sound understanding of what work has already been done in the aforementioned field.
Let it be noted that all source material, categories, groupings and research included in the literature review also needs to be included in the Bibliography as well.
References:
Bell, J. (1999) (Third Edition) Doing Your Research Project (Open University Press: Buckingham).
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