A Good Literature Review

1. Use proper references. Every time you use a source, you should include a citation and a full reference in the bibliography. The
reference should give enough information for someone else to find exactly what you have looked at. This means, for a book or journal
article, the authors name, title of book or article (and journal title), location of publication, publisher, edition number and page number. For
a website, you should include the author (if possible), the title of the article, the title of the website, the date of publication (if possible), the
date of access and the full url. Citations should be done using the name of the author, the date of publication, and the page number e.g.
(Hawking, 2010, p.10). You should include a citation whenever you have used a source, whether you have quoted from it or simply used
it for information.
2. Write a full bibliography. The list of references in your bibliography should include all the sources which are cited, but not sources you
have read and not used. If you have Word 2007 you can do citations by using the references toolbar, selecting insert citation, then
inputting details of your source (including author, date of publication, location of publication, page number. If you cannot find an author
name e.g. as it is a website, attribute it to the organisation which hosts the webpage e.g. BBC (2007). You should include page numbers
with the citations you will need to edit the citation to do this. For more guidance on references see
http://www.ecch.com/uploads/referencing.pdf
3. Build your bibliography as you go. Once you have begun inputting details of your sources, you can get Word to generate the
bibliography, just by clicking on the insert bibliography tab. You MUST keep track of sources as you go it is almost impossible to
recover this information at the end of the project.
4. Evaluate your sources. The first time you use a source, insert a footnote, and write a short commentary on the quality of the source. Is it
reliable? Can you check the information elsewhere? Is it biased in any way? Does it offer fact or opinion? You only need a few sentences
per source, but make this genuine. Dont just say it is Wikipedia, it is unreliable, or it is a national newspaper, it is reliable spend time
cross-checking. If you cant be sure of the quality of the source, ask yourself whether you should use it and if you decide to, be careful
about how you use it. A good thing to look at is the provenance where do the authors come from? Are they acknowledged authorities?
5. DO NOT CUT AND PASTE material from the internet, or lift material word for word from other sources. This counts as plagiarism and it is
unacceptable. Research involves reading, then selecting information, then expressing it in your own words. You may of course quote a
source. But if in your literature review there is material which comes straight from someone elses work, without citation, this would leave
you vulnerable to a charge of plagiarism, and that would have serious consequences. If you have a good reason for quoting the exact
words from a source (perhaps because it uses a particularly vivid phrase or soundbite or because you want to quote something said by
an expert) then you MUST use quote marks (or some other clear way to distinguish the quoted words from your own) and give a
reference to the source. But you should only use such direct quotes very sparingly perhaps just once in your whole literature review.
6. Use academically credible material. Newspaper articles, popular publications or non-specialist websites can be used but a top quality
literature review will address the academic literature. For most projects, a range of books, websites and journal articles should be used-
typically 20-25 sources in total, although your project may require more in depth research of a few texts.
7. Use several academic articles. If you have not already done so, log on to an academic database such as JSTOR (if your centre
subscribes to it) or INTUTE (http://www.intute.ac.uk/). On JSTOR, limit your search by using AND e.g. suppose you are researching the
ethics of euthanasia, seach for euthanasia AND ethics. Also, do author searches. If you have found a good book, use JSTOR, INTUTE or
Google Scholar to see if the author has written anything else that is worth reading. On JSTOR, you can do this by searching using au:
e.g. if you want to find articles by Einstein, use au:Einstein. On Google Scholar, you would use author: Einstein.
8. Follow the threads. Once you have found a really good article, use it to help find further good material. Check the bibliography of the
article for suggested further reading. On JSTOR, there are buttons which find further articles by the same author, either on JSTOR or on
Google Scholar. And there is a button which finds all the articles referred to in the article. It couldnt be easier! If you dont have access to
JSTOR, try doing Google searches for the authors listed in the bibliographies of articles you have read.
9. Organise your literature review thematically. You will have assembled information from your different sources. Now start to try to fit the
jigsaw pieces into a pattern. What are the main themes that you need to cover? Write a brief plan, with the headings for the different
sections, and start to slot your material in. This will help you see the gaps requiring further research.
10. Tell the story. The literature review should be a narrative a story of the key developments in the field you are researching, which tells
us about who did what, where, why and when. Organising your material into chronological order may make sense. Or you may have
several overlapping stories to tell.
11. Give the big picture, then zoom in. You should show that you know your research field really well, by doing a page or so in which you
sketch out, in broad brush terms, the whole field. Then zoom in to look in detail at the key points which are relevant to your research
question. Often, case studies work well here.
12. Focus on the topic, not the sources. So, instead of saying The first source I looked at (Smith and Jones, 2006) said that Einstein was
influenced by Hume, say something like this: Humes influence on Einstein has been noted (Smith and Jones, 2006).
13. Write in an academic style. The literature review should be objective, not subjective, and formal, not casual. You wont be expressing
your own opinion too much at this stage (apart from when evaluating sources); the place to do that is in the discussion section. It is worth
spending a few minutes looking at the style of writing used in the journal articles you are using. The best literature reviews are those
which have a scholarly feel.
14. Make sure you make sense. Have a look at the entire literature review and ask yourself if it is in a sensible order. Try to make it flow.
Think about the links between paragraphs. Would it make more sense in a different order? Are there missing sections you need to add to
help it make sense? Remember, good writing makes things as clear and simple as possible for the reader. You may know a lot about
your subject, so it may seem clear and obvious to you. But you are writing for people who dont know about your subject. Always keep
them in mind.