How to organize and synthesize literature for your literature review

For any study, the literature review is the first stage that any scholar needs to complete. This is also the stage that lays down the foundation of your research. Just like constructing a building requires strong foundations, the same is required from a review of the literature "essay writing service". A literature review has to be taken seriously and done justice to because this is the thing that propels your study forward. This is from where you draw any knowledge of your topic that you are going to gain. Even before you decide on a topic, you may have already begun a literature review.

You are as Strong as Your Literature Review

Your research is going to be as strong as the awareness that you have of all the intricacies of your topic. You need to learn how to navigate the entire study by reading what people before you have done. You get to know the hypotheses that your study is going to make only when you have studied the ones that have been made and tested by those who have been working before you. You will learn to introduce your topic and operationalize all the variables that are involved in your study. Offering operational definitions increases your understanding of the way that you will be defining your variables as well as getting an idea of the limitations of your study. Every study needs a different kind of definition, depending upon the theoretical framework you have chosen for it.

Theoretical framework is another one of the most basic factors that make up your research. It is the perspective through which you have decided to view your topic. Then, you will get an idea of the kind of methodology your study needs to effectively test the hypotheses you have developed. This methodology will include the type of sampling you want to do and why, the target population you want to conduct your study on, and the tests or analytical procedures that you will conduct on the data that has been acquired as a result of your study.

A literature review is whole secondary research in its own right. It needs to be properly planned, organized, and executed to avoid any issues later. This is the time to clear all the concepts, gain a profound understanding of everything you need to know, and the kind of aims that you want to accomplish for your own study.

No Shallow Efforts Can Suffice

Try to be mindful of the fact that a shallow understanding of the literature is not going to do much for you. It will very quickly culminate in you running into problems that you will not be able to fix because you did not really internalize the knowledge. At first, don’t assign yourself with any limitations regarding the number of articles, papers, reports, or books that you want to study. Read everything that seems relevant to you because you have to trust your instincts over here. As you move along, you will start to be able to develop a criterion for the kind of content you think you need. This will help you formulate some specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. It is important to have an idea of this so you know how to narrow the review down and also get an idea of when to stop studying. Reviewing is more than just reading. The most important prerequisite of how to write a literature review is to know how to be an active rather than a passive reader. Passive readers only absorb whatever is being offered to them whereas active readers ask questions, jot down notes, revisit some steps, and evaluate their comprehension of what they are reading constantly.

As you read, try to formulate some kind of a structure for your literature review to follow. The structure is extremely important. It is like a roadmap without which you may not know where to go or have any idea of where you are headed. This will come naturally to you if you have been doing this right all the way. Try to think of some headings to organize the content that will become a part of your written review. Move from simpler to more complex ideas so you don’t end making any jumps.

Know Your Sources

It is also necessary to know which sources are reliable and which are not. Not every source can be trusted. There is so much that can go wrong and you need to understand the factors that make a paper more reliable "essay writer". First of all, the said study must be published in a peer-reviewed article. Non-scholarly sources are a complete no-no because they will impact the reliability and validity of your own research. Secondly, the author and institutions to which these authors are affiliated need to have a good reputation. If you can see the same author appearing in a number of papers related to your topic, you can mark them as a reliable source.

You have to know when to stop. Although it is important to give yourself the time needed to make sure that you have everything right, you can’t waste precious time once you have all you need. Try to tell yourself a story of the literature review that you have carried out. If you are fluent and can think in an unobstructed way, you are ready to begin the rest of your study. Lingering on sources will only create more confusion. Some students tend to bite off more than they can chew and end up overdoing the whole thing. You can always get some help from online writing services which act as doors to expert writers who can assist you practically by offering learning aids. You don’t have to feel like you are clueless anymore!