Wrap-Up
How much reading is enough? Begin your process by realizing that you are a limited resource and you will never read enough. The goal is to create and execute a search plan. One of the easiest traps to fall into as you start searching the literature is the feeling that you need to know everything and that there is always “one more” article that you need to read to feel you have done enough. There is no set number of articles that you need to include to finish a literature review The process of summarizing, synthesizing and/or critiquing literature around a specific topic/idea. This work can help a researcher understand what has happened before and also how past research intersects and or diverges from other research. A literature review can be a full-length manuscript or a subsection within a larger research article., but there will be trends that indicate you have sufficient sources. At some point, you’ll start to see repetitive articles and researchers and recognize consistently cited arguments and study sites. Once you have enough material to establish a well-supported claim acknowledging the major variables of your research, you should feel confident that you have enough to complete your literature review.
In this lesson, we covered the following topics:
- The purpose of a literature review
- The elements of a literature review
- How to efficiently search for and organize research relevant to your work
We hope this lesson was useful in getting to better know how to complete a literature review and that you feel prepared to further explore your own writing. If you choose to move on to Course 4, Lesson 3: Writing Skills, you’ll learn more about research-based writing.
You may also be interested in the following lessons:
Further Learning
- “The Review Matrix.” Duquesne University. 2023. https://guides.library.duq.edu/matrix.
- “Literature Reviews.” The Writing Center at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/literature-reviews/
Fill out our post-lesson survey! This short feedback form is meant to assess the effectiveness of each lesson and its activities in the curriculum.
Wrap-Up
How much reading is enough? Begin your process by realizing that you are a limited resource and you will never read enough. The goal is to create and execute a search plan. One of the easiest traps to fall into as you start searching the literature is the feeling that you need to know everything and that there is always “one more” article that you need to read to feel you have done enough. There is no set number of articles that you need to include to finish a literature reviewLiterature Review The process of summarizing, synthesizing and/or critiquing literature around a specific topic/idea. This work can help a researcher understand what has happened before and also how past research intersects and or diverges from other research. A literature review can be a full-length manuscript or a subsection within a larger research article., but there will be trends that indicate you have sufficient sources. At some point, you’ll start to see repetitive articles and researchers and recognize consistently cited arguments and study sites. Once you have enough material to establish a well-supported claim acknowledging the major variables of your research, you should feel confident that you have enough to complete your literature review.
In this lesson, we covered the following topics:
We hope this lesson was useful in getting to better know how to complete a literature review and that you feel prepared to further explore your own writing. If you choose to move on to Course 4, Lesson 3: Writing Skills, you’ll learn more about research-based writing.
You may also be interested in the following lessons:
Further Learning
Fill out our post-lesson survey! This short feedback form is meant to assess the effectiveness of each lesson and its activities in the curriculum.