Literature Reviews

Set the context for your reader  - introduce the topic, scope and objectives of the literature review, i.e. the research question or focus; and give an overview of the structure.

The main body is where you provide a systematic synthesis of the main ideas, themes, and findings along with your critical analysis.

It is important that you guide your reader through your review of this literature - showing what is already known about the topic, along with the key findings, ideas, theories, and debates; and any gaps or under-researched areas. 

How you organise this will come from your reading and analysis (hence the importance of your notetaking system and synthesis matrix). You may find it useful to divide this up into categories highlighted by your notes e.g. organised thematically, chronologically, methodologically, or theoretically (who agrees or disagrees with whom, for example). 

You might find you take a historic perspective and look at how knowledge has developed, or look at how different theorists or researchers have approached the topic. Or you might focus more on the ideas, findings and evidence rather than the theorists and researchers.

The Manchester Academic Phrasebank suggests a number of functions of a literature review and provides examples of framing language and ways of referring to the literature within a literature review.

This is where you sum up the information, studies, theories and ideas discussed related to the aims of the literature review and the research question or focus; and highlight any gaps that your research might address.