How to Write a Literary Review

A literary review is a discussion and description of certain pieces of literature in relevance to a particular topic or field. Just like any other forms of writing, it is made of an introduction, body, and conclusion, and has a logical structure. It gives an overview of what has been established, argued, and studied about a certain issue. And when you do a literary review, your goal is to show your readers that you have read and fully understood the published works based on your chosen field. So, read the following steps below on how to a write a literary review before attempting to make your own review.

How To: Literary Review Writing

Step 1

The first step in writing a literary review is defining a topic. Once done, find materials for your chosen field, such as bibliographies and databases, and evaluate what you have researched.

Step 2

In evaluating your materials, you should consider the following: Provenance – whether the author’s arguments are being supported with evidences; Objectivity - whether the author is fair enough or prejudicial; Persuasiveness - whether the author’s theses are convincing or not; and value – whether the author’s conclusion and arguments have contributed any significance.

Step 3

In writing your introduction, define the nature of your topic, issue, or concern. Then establish the author’s point of view, and give an overview of its impact on the literature. Do not make it sound like a book review. A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources providing critical evaluation, description, and summary. State the parameter of your topic and the reason for your selection.

Step 4

In the body of your review, group your materials according to different categories such as chronology, specific objective, purpose, the author’s conclusion, and approaches. Then summarize each material in relevance to your topic. Provide your readers with a clear understanding of your analyses and comparisons. Include the historical background of your topic, current mainstream or researches, usually asked questions regarding the issue, as well as the possible approaches to these queries.

Step 5

In the conclusion, summarize the signifincane of each material in contribution to your particular issue or topic. Evaluate each published work, pointing out both pros and cons of each research. Also include some insights and whether there are any recommendations for future studies. And of course, the summary of where your thesis statement stands in the field of literature.

A literary review is usually written in a form of an essay. But keep in mind that when you do a review, you shouldn’t just simply describe what you have read in certain published pieces of work. It must be a critical discussion, combining both summary and synthesis. And aside from simply recapping the source, you should also reorganize the information. So for you to learn how to write a literary review, just simply follow the above mentioned steps.