{"id":3033,"date":"2021-08-01T13:39:09","date_gmt":"2021-08-01T07:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/?p=3033"},"modified":"2022-02-07T21:50:12","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T15:50:12","slug":"strategy-to-plan-a-dissertation-literature-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/strategy-to-plan-a-dissertation-literature-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategies for Planning a Dissertation Literature Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is a Dissertation Literature Review?<\/h2>\n

A dissertation literature review<\/a> is a critical assessment of pertinent literature that has been read and collated by the researcher. \u00a0The purpose of a literature review for dissertation is to identify a \u201cgap\u201d in the existing literature that your research will attempt to address.<\/p>\n

In simpler terms, a dissertation literature review can be used as a summary of important sources that are referred to while conducting research. Furthermore, it also requires a researcher to engage with the literature, and provide critiques on the same.<\/p>\n

A dissertation literature review answers the following questions:<\/p>\n

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  1. Does the literature address specific problems, hypotheses, or questions?<\/li>\n
  2. Is the scope, severity, and relevance of research clearly defined?<\/li>\n
  3. What is the author\u2019s research orientation? How is it different or similar to yours?<\/li>\n
  4. Could the problem be approached in a different way?<\/li>\n
  5. What are the interpretations of original sources? How are they different from your research design?<\/li>\n
  6. How does the author structure his\/her argument?<\/li>\n
  7. How does the literature relate to your research question?<\/li>\n
  8. Will the reader be benefitted from your dissertation literature review?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    How to Plan a Dissertation Literature Review?<\/h2>\n

    Staying updated with new research sometimes gets difficult for researchers. Therefore, strategizing your way to dissertation literature completion is imperative.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Dissertation literature review<\/a> forms the basis of the research and highlights any research gaps as support for a new argument, so you must follow well planned strategies to formulate an impactful one.<\/p>\n

    Develop a Strategy<\/h2>\n

    Unless you are struggling to find a research topic and have decided to cast a wide net to see what you can find that might interest you, your literature search should have a purpose.<\/p>\n

    If you fall into the former category, you should talk to your supervisor and schedule a research consultation with a librarian to prevent yourself from wasting hundreds of hours of fruitless \u2018database diving.\u2019<\/p>\n

    If you fall into the latter category, you probably already have a topic selected, and your strategy should be to build a literature review for dissertation<\/a> that is comprehensive enough to establish your expertise in the topic. Despite having a research topic ready, researchers often do not understand as to how much literature research is too much? If not everything, make sure to cover the significance! When you zero down on a research topic- jot down the main ideas, concepts, and related theories. Identify keywords and phrases specific to your research question. Use Boolean operators to optimize your search results. Use search tricks such as Phrase searching, truncation, and proximity searching to optimize your search results. Keep a track of your searches and set up alerts for any new research relevant to your topic! Collate all the required data by using keywords on multiple databases, and summarize the collated data in different sections, or under different headings. Identify any gaps in your searched data, and make sure that your systematic review warrants scope for further research.<\/p>\n

    It should also justify the need for the area of focus that you are pursuing, whether that is an identified gap in the research, or the potential for an extrapolation of an existing study.<\/p>\n

    To Replicate or Not to Replicate<\/h2>\n

    If you think you have identified a gap in the research, your primary concern will be to make sure that no one else identified that gap and conducted the same study that you are proposing to do. If you are looking to\u00a0replicate a study\u00a0<\/a>that was done ten years ago or because the results from that study were counterintuitive, replication becomes less of an issue (unless someone decides to replicate the study as well).<\/p>\n

    In either event, the last thing you want to be facing in your oral\u00a0defense of your dissertation<\/a>\u00a0is for the examiner to ask you what you thought of Smith and Jones\u2019 2015 study on the same topic that you didn\u2019t include in your literature review for dissertation.<\/p>\n

    A good review of the relevant literature for your proposed study has to have depth and breadth to establish your expertise and to validate the gap that you think you have identified, but it must also be as current as is physically possible. In other words, you should be checking databases right up to the day you complete your draft submission.<\/p>\n

    Focus on Filling the Gaps<\/h2>\n

    Identifying the gaps in research is the most essential aspect of conducting literature review<\/a> for dissertation, especially when the review forms part of your research proposal.\u00a0 It confirms that your research is designed to fill this gap in the pertinent literature which adds to the existing knowledge of the research field and gives scope for future research. Furthermore, identification of gap in research indicates that the researcher has conducted the review with good critical analysis.<\/p>\n

    Use the Power of Automation<\/h2>\n

    If you\u2019re immersed in a particularly broad topic, the problem of staying current with the literature can be solved by the use of automation tools that your\u00a0academic librarian can help<\/a>\u00a0you to set up:<\/p>\n