Write and Revise Your Literature Review

Writing your literature review begins with a draft, often of just one theme you’ve developed based on the literature you’ve read. Write a rough draft, then revise it, ensuring each piece of literature contributes to your understanding of the topic and the identified research gap. Revisions might involve adding or removing pieces of literature, refining your analysis, and improving the overall flow and coherence of your review. Don’t hesitate to seek feedback from peers, advisors, or writing experts to further refine your work.

Finally, Remember the Purpose

As you write your first, second, or third drafts, keep asking yourself: How does what I’m writing relate to the purpose of my study? Everything you write should be aligned to it. Do you find yourself going down a rabbit hole on one particular theme? Recognize it and change course. Stop writing on that theme if you must and turn to something else. To recap, your literature review is an analysis of the literature on the topic of your dissertation. It is aligned to your research questions and the purpose of your study. Use recent literature and connect the findings of one study to the findings of another study to help you build a robust literature review that will clearly show the gaps that your study will address. Do you need help with your literature review? With over 50 years of combined coaching experience our coaches are ready to help you finish your dissertation and graduate. Take a look at our program details here: Dissertation Success 1-On-1 Coaching.