How To Write a Critical Literature Review For Your Dissertation

By Simon Ledger

Have you been asked to come up with critical literature review for you next assignment? Well if you genuinely enjoy reading books, then that would actually not be much of a problem with you, right? So let's assume that you are not interested in books at all - and your idea of reading literature is flipping through magazines like Vogue, then there are some simple tips to writing a critical literature review.

When it comes to tips to writing a critical literature review, students usually have two options - either they end up doing a critical literature review on just one book or they can have their own choice of book that they can do a critical review on. If it's the former, then non book lovers will surely have a hard time coping with literary titles that they are absolutely not interested in.

A critical literature review is a list of the existing research and literature which are related to your own work. This is where you will evaluate them, showing how they are not only related to your work, but also how your work differs from them. After all, you are writing something new and different from everything else that's been written beforehand, and you must be able to show this in your critical literature review.

Classify your sources based on author, subject, date of publication, or theme. Organize your sources so that when you write your critical literature review, you can easily break it down into subtopics. Classifying your sources can also help you better understand your research materials.

This way, even if a topic is totally boring, it's less likely for you to instantly lose interest as you have your peers with you. Truly, doing a critical review will certainly be a more pleasant experience if you have your peers with you.

Read and evaluate every source thoroughly. A well-written critical literature review shows how familiar the dissertation writer is with his or her research sources. Writing a critical literature review does not only involve summarizing the points of your sources. You also need to make a critical evaluation of the sources you use for your dissertation.

Be analytical and pay attention to details. You learn these from your many years of education. When analyzing your sources, try to look at them from various angles or perspectives. Analyzing information from different perspectives makes it easier for you to discover something new and significant for your dissertation.

In what ways have the previous researches and studies lacked? What are the things that were not taken up by previous researchers or, if any, what are their inconsistencies? Are there evidences which need to be tested further? Are there other perspectives or angles that can still be looked at? What was their research methodology? Is there anything to add or change?

Give your critical literature review a good structure so that it is easy to read and understand. Instead of writing your review as a long and undivided text, split it into several paragraphs.

Every point or idea must be placed in a new paragraph. If you follow these tips on writing a critical literature review, you will be able to analyze information from your sources and write them well. Writing a critical literature review is one of the most important things students need to do to complete their education.

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