[Article] Don't Write a Lit Review

Me, The Candidate
I remember sitting at my keyboard, attempting to write my Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 with no success: I was drawing dead (as they say in the poker world). There was no hope in finishing — because I was trying to build something for which I had never seen the blueprints; I was trying to build something without having the materials to actually build it.Do It — Don’t Write It
A “literature review,” in all actuality, is far more a verb (action) than a noun (thing). How often does someone say “Do you have a literature review?” Personally, I’ve never heard those words.People, most often, ask, “Have you DONE your literature review?”A literature review is a verb. You DO one; you don’t have one. The day I made the most progress in my literature review was the day I stopped trying to write it. Instead, I decided to actually get on the library’s website and find the books, dissertations, and journal articles that would be required to complete this thing.