#MLA TO BIBDESK HOW TO#

In a literature review, you MUST show the examiners or reviewers or readers that you have a good understanding of the relevant literature, that you are вЂњ not reinventing the wheelвЂќ and that you have summarised, analysed, categorised, classified, and interpreted the literature on the topic or research problem in question in order to draw needed insights and conclusions. Students usually say to themselves: Waw! Damn!!! we have spent all this time on reading those papers and books so that they do not end up in the literature review, we do not like that at all!!!! so let us try to shove them in despite the fact that they are either weakly relevant or do not add anything to the argument that the literature review is trying to get across. It is simple really and the urge is unconscious not conscious: it has to do with an extremely common and tacit logical fallacy that the absolute majority of people fell into easily which is called the Sunken-Cost fallacy. ДЄs a side note: do you know why many students and researchers think that they are urged to put a lot of references of papers/books/articles that they invested so much time reading and summarising. The Literature review is considered the вЂlitmus testвЂ™ or вЂacid testвЂ™ of the quality of a thesis. It is not quantity that makes a literature review good, it is quality. A lot of students actually think that this is a good thing.

ДЄ literature review is NOTmeant to show us how much academic papers and books you can read or cite. A literature review dedicated for a PhD or for an academic paper MUST show that the work conducted has contributed to the knowledge of the field.

It can also aim to show that your work makes a contribution to the knowledge of the topic or the field. The main aim of a literature review or related work section or chapter is to defend your work and to justify your research questions and build your research design.

By the way, вЂњ the critical engagement with the literature requirementвЂњ you read in the article, is an essential requirement checked by examiners for literature reviews in Masters dissertations and PhD theses.

#MLA TO BIBDESK HOW TO#

Please check out also a recent article I am writing on PhD requirements, and Viva preparation titled вЂњ How to write a PhD thesis the way examiners want? & Viva Voce essential preparationsвЂњ. Please write a comment only if you have any tangible skill, technique or advice that is germane to writing high quality literature review chapters and sections. You can not imagine how much I hate praise. All comments are welcomed although I mediate all comments and do not publish comments that are just praising me or praising the article or the comments that do not add much. Please finish reading this article, you will learn a lot! I promise you! Many colleagues, staffs and supervisors from the University of St Andrews and several others Scottish universities such as the University of Dundee, University of Edinburgh among others are very happy with the advice given in this article and they are suggesting it to their students. One of the basic requirements for a good literature review is that it should engages critically and scholarly with ideas and works of other researchers. Nothing impressive from the point of the view of a marker or a paper reviewer. All students are showingВ to a marker,В a reviewer or an examiner, is the fact that they know how to read, how to summarise and rephrase and how to cite sources. I used to write literature reviews as laundry lists of relevant works so I was not an exception in any way. A Literature Review is also called вЂњ Related WorkвЂќ and вЂњ Literature SearchвЂњ.ДЄll these terms highlights the main aim of a literature review which is to critique, analyse, contrast and compare relevant works in the literature.ДЄ lot of literature reviews that Masters students and PhD candidates normally write end up being laundry or shopping lists of research that they think is related to their work. This article is mainly written for Masters and PhD students who are writing literature reviews for their dissertations and PhD theses.ДЄ good literature review is a considerable undertaking.В You should call your Literature Review (LR) by three words: вЂ Critical Literature ReviewвЂ™ and not by two words and this is because what you call it makes a difference! It ingrains in your subconscious what a literature review really is.

Mla to bibdesk