I am sometimes startled by the myths and misunderstandings that I find circulating about the literature review, so today’s blog is the first in a semi-regular series on busting these myths 💪 or, at the very least, unpicking them to get at some useful truths. To get us started, have a think about this claim, which pops up with annoying regularity: The literature review is all about other people’s work, so it won’t be original.
True or false? 🤔 The sharp-eyed amongst you will already have noticed that there are two claims here -- bad practice for a true-or-false item, to be sure, but a good place to begin our discussion. Let’s take each claim in turn.
The literature review is all about other people’s work. Is it? In one sense, this is true. The main purpose of a literature review is to analyse the body of previous work in a field to establish why a research question needs to be asked. So, yes -- a literature review in this narrow sense deals with other people’s research.
But is this all it is about, or even primarily what it is about? No. If the job is done right, the findings, insights, observations, and everything else discovered in the body of previous research should be treated as evidence in the unfolding case for why the research question needs to be asked. The literature review is not about what other people have found; it is about what you do with those findings as the writer of the literature review.
The literature review won’t be original. To tackle this claim, let’s stay with idea of discovery for a moment more. If the review gets stuck describing studies one after another instead of presenting an argument, this will be true. The literature review won’t be original since it will simply recount what already exists. What the literature review needs to do is put forward a view on why this material matters – that is what will be original. As we dig into the body of existing work in our field, that is what we should be seeking to discover – what we think about what everyone else has said. And how do we come up with that? By identifying patterns and trends in previous work and figuring out how they add up to the need to ask our question.
A concrete example might help. When I was writing my analysis of the character Gus in Harold Pinter’s play The Dumb Waiter, I found that there were many, many existing analyses on this play. Why did the world need one more? Why should anyone be interested in what I had to say about the play? When I dug into the existing studies, I noticed an interesting pattern – most of them were concerned with the same two or three scenes and as a result offered generally convergent analyses, variations on narrow set of similar themes. Bingo❗There it was. Why did the world need my analysis of The Dumb Waiter? Because I offered a careful look at neglected scenes and was able to put forward a new reading of Gus by doing so.
🔑 The key take away? Identifying patterns and trends in previous findings is a key skill in doing a literature review, a skill that will help lift the review out of description and into original analysis.
So how do you enable students to do this?
- Some of my previous blogs, which go over practical tips, might be of interest -- click through and have look: Your Literature Review Is an Argument; Your Literature Review is Like a Qualitative Research Project; Reverse Engineering a Review.
- If you like what you find, are UK-based and want to go further, contact me to discuss a workshop on How to Really Write Your Literature Review (available as 2-hour master classes; 4-hour in-depth sessions; 1 day intensives; and 2-day courses).
- Hop onto my website or connect on LinkedIn and drop me a message.
