The purpose of writing a dissertation literature review is to familiarize the reader with existing content and research available on the topic you have chosen. Or if the reader already is familiar (in case it is a common topic) then the purpose is to show your familiarity with the previous works. Whatever the reason be, it is important that you choose the right pattern to write the literature review. Although there will be a specific set of rules that your professor must have told you, but considering a few guidelines will not hurt. To make your literature review writing easier, have a look at the guidelines below:

  • The first thing anyone will suggest you is to understand the main idea of dissertation literature review writing. Along with many other purposes, in a dissertation literature research, you put light on the previous researches on the same topic as yours and you tell the reader how those ideas are inferior and how yours is better. Then begin the research and find out points that can be laid out parallel to yours to make it easy for the reader to compare.
  • Next is to divide the research and your findings, i.e. other researchers in categories to cite them properly in your review. Those categories are ‘against’ or ‘in favour with’.
  • Relate and describe the relationship of each work with the others under consideration, this step is important so that you show the reader a transparent analysis by keeping both works parallel.
  • Explain and determine which of the works performs the task of helping in understanding your topic. There must be some researchers that perform the task effectively out of the many others you have selected to do analysis on, in your literature review writing.
  • Your literature review must include an overview of the topic of your research as well. Tell the reader about the topic, introduce them so that they know where the work is heading at and are able to relate the forthcoming work with the topic effectively.
  • Do not appear biased, be neutral and state only what is apparent and obvious. Let the reader decide and be the judge at some point. Even though it is advised that you do it all for them to read, the factor of biases should not be there as it will give a negative impact on you.
  • Resolve conflicts among the contradictions in previous studies through necessary work wherever possible. In case if you are unable to resolve the conflicts, get help from dissertation writing services to resolve all the writing issues.
  • Understand that you can’t simply pick up researchers and put them parallel to others directly without considering several points. You must consider the following points before including the work in the comparison or analysis: 1- Qualification of the author, what are his credentials? Is he qualified enough to make a comment or judgment about a certain topic? 2- Is the author being neutral or is he being biased towards the topic? 3- Can the author be trusted in terms of his credibility? 4- Does the author’s contribution towards the topic is of any importance or value to yours?
  • Your job while writing the dissertation literature review must stick to the analysis from the start until the end of the literature review. You should refrain from summarizing other’s works and keep from analyzing their works.
  • The way you use content in your literature review must show that you are using only the selected material that is by all means relevant to yours.
  • The work that you put together, the way you use other valid researchers in your literature must make sense within the context of your own argument and must not be something picked randomly.
  • You must stick to keeping only the filtered material that is reliable, valid and not repetitive. There is all kind of researchers available. Some of them have been done the same way multiple times. Refrain from using very similar textual quotes and only go for a variety of different material instead of picking all of the same types.
  • Focus on the writing style and the language used. You must not add anything of your own while citing a quote from someone else’s work in your dissertation literature review writing.

The guidelines provided above are technical details you must stay aware of in order to write a logically sound literature review. Apart from keeping these guidelines in mind in shaping the dissertation literature review, you should also keep your writing style simple and focus on providing the reader sound evidence and unbiased comparison.