A step by step approach to writing the perfect Literature Review

Writing a Literature Review is by far the most daunting part of writing the thesis. The available content is huge and if the writer does not follow a systematic approach in creating the Literature Review, it can become an extremely herculean job to complete. You must work towards creating the Literature Review in the following sequence:

1) Narrow down your research area: The internet and libraries are flooded with content and so much material can actually boggle you down and leave you all perplexed. The way out is to know exactly what to look for. Before searching for literature, you must know the specific area you are going to look for. This will help you to find more focused material and not get loaded with the plethora of content available online.

2) Collect all the relevant content: Once you are sure of your research area, you must conduct a comprehensive search and save or print all relevant articles and abstracts that fall in your zone of study. In this time window, you must only strive towards compiling the content at one place. Skimming and extraction should be taken care of in the subsequent stages.

3) Skim the content for excerpts: Read thoroughly the content of each article/paper or book that you have put aside as relevant matter. You must necessarily find out the follows details from each article:
Objectives of the study
Literature gaps
Methodology of research
Conclusions and findings of the research

You must extract out this information for each article and book that you have put aside for the Literature Review.

4) Create a structure of your Literature Review: Sequence the different excerpts that you have created in the way that the entire Literature Review is developed in a flow and the ideas that you put down, go forward with each other. Make sure that you don’t put two contradicting ideas together. Leave the connectivity and paraphrasing as the last stage.

5) Paraphrase and connect: Never use the language that is already used by the original author. You must paraphrase the content in your own language to avoid plagiarism. Further on, use connectors to develop the logical flow and link within the content so that the reader can feel that he is graduating in understanding the concept and ideas in a flow and in the process the gaps are getting surfaced out in a way that the objectives of your own research have their base ready by this time.