Sequencing your Literature Review

A Literature Review is an informative overview of what is already known about the topic you are investigating in your Dissertation - a balanced yet critical evaluation of what previous studies have already uncovered, organised into a coherent. logical, well-organised narrative.

It is the evaluative "story" of what is known about your subject prior to your own investigation.

I recently posted about how to acquire and assess relevant sources for your Literature Review. Your next task to to try and organise all of the information that you have found into one coherent narrative.

There are a number of ways that you can do this...:

• Chronologically / historically
• "Funnel Fashion" (ie moving from general information about the topic through to increasingly specific instances or examples)
• By established School of Thought
• By any themes or trends that you identify.

Your aim is to satisfactorily weave each source into the (sub-)categories that you devise (you might use these sections as sub-headings within the chapter - don't forget the cascading number system ... 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.3.1, 2.3.2, 2.4, etc, assuming that the Literature Review is Chapter 2 of your Dissertation).

Importantly, you need to make connections between the sources that you critically discuss - perhaps saying how one compares with another; differs from / disputes another; uses a different methodological approach to another; builds on the findings of another, etc.

Strike a balance between direct quotations (copied word-for-work) and paraphrasing (writing things in your own words), but make sure that you scrutinise the information, don't just string together a series of sources.

End by summing up the main points, then outlining how your work will develop the findings of this earlier research.

More information and guidance for writing extended projects is available in the "Dissertations" folder here.