How to Really Write Your Literature Review: A Workshop for You Coming up June 9th and June 12th

-


Summer is here. Teaching is over, the marking is finally finished, and there are no meetings in the diary. You’ve got what we all crave: two months, maybe even three, of clear writing time. Hurrah! You’ve got a rock-star question, an outline of your methods, and you sit down to write, committed, passionate about your subject, and eager to get into it and make some real progress. 

 But you hit a snag. Your literature review. 

 You’ve done the recommended reading in the how-to books, sat through the self-study tutorials, and studied the step-by-step guides. They tell you about the broad purpose of your review. It should:

  • Demonstrate professional mastery of your field
  • Identify tensions and debates
  • Position your work in the ongoing ‘conversation’ about your subject

 Excellent. But how do you do these things, exactly? The guidance documentation falls oddly silent here. You dig in and painstakingly start accounting for every study you’ve read, but is that what ‘demonstrating professional mastery’ is? When you find tensions and debates, what do you do with them? And what’s this ‘conversation’ business? 

 "But how do you position your work in the ongoing conversation in your field? The guidebooks fall oddly silent here."

How to Really Write Your Literature Review: A Workshop to Keep You on Track 

Here at Writing Works Consulting, I understand these frustrations. I’ve been there. There is plenty of advice on what to do, but very little on how. That’s why I’m delighted to announce that my workshop How to Really Write Your Literature Review, for researchers just like you, is available to take online. 

 “If you find this blog helpful, you can now get even more great advice in my workshop How to Really Write Your Literature Review.”

 In this workshop, I cut through all the confusion and show you what you really need to know to write your literature review. You’ll learn how to: 

  • Break out of the description trap 
  • Turn a pile of notes into a case for your research question 
  • Move from critiquing single studies to analysing a body of scholarship 
  • Identify patterns and trends in previous research (spotting that mysterious ‘gap’) 
  • Use these patterns and trends as evidence in your argument 
  • Organise and rhetorically craft your review 

 “Susan’s workshop was just what I needed.” – Jane Pickthall 

 Spaces are Limited and the Workshops are Coming up Soon: Book Your Place NOW

 Don’t let frustration derail your dissertation. Book your place now and keep your work on track with How to Really Write Your Literature Review. You can choose an evening session if you’re a night owl, or a morning session if you’re an early bird. 

Evening Session 

  • Date: 9 June 2026
  • Time: 5:00-8:00 pm (BST, UK Time) 

 Morning Session 

  • Date: 12 June 2026 
  • Time: 9:00 am-12:00 noon (BST, UK Time) 

 For Both Sessions 

  • Where: On-line via Zoom 
  • Cost: £85 per person 
  •  Register: Via Eventbrite

 Lasting Value 

 And for the price of the workshop, you also get a bundle of freebies to support you as you put what you've learned into practice. 

  • Access to up to 3 Zoom drop-in sessions with me for follow-up questions. 
  • A PDF with answers to FAQs, such as 'How do I know when I’m finished?' 
  • A learners’ pack outlining the techniques introduced for future reference. 

Know anyone else who might be interested? Please share this blog to your network. 😊

Your Workshop Deliverer 

Dr Susan Mandala is founding director of Writing Works Consulting. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and was for many years an academic at the University of Sunderland, where her favourite role was training PhD candidates to write literature reviews. A specialist in the study of language, writing, and style, she is a published academic author and has 30 years of experience as a lecturer, trainer, and workshop facilitator. 

“The approachable, informal delivery meant that we moved from basic concepts to tackling review ourselves without a bump in the road, and Susan was constantly guiding and provoking the group to take us further.” – Iain Rowan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

But Does My Literature Review Sound Clever Enough?

-
Image
✍This is a common worry, and a particularly pernicious one. You’ve just got absorbed into your work, you’re feeling motivated, you’ve started noticing interesting connections between sources, and then 💥BAM!💥 Am I doing it right? All the papers I read sound so clever! I don’t sound like that! How can I ever establish myself as an expert with this mess?!  Fear and doubt rear their ugly heads and then paralysis sets in. You’d set aside the whole morning to get some real work done, but now? Impossible. Your pen falters on the page and it feels like there's a weight crushing down on you. 🤫 I’m going to let you in on a secret.  All those papers you are reading 📚 -- the ones that sound so clever, the ones by the biggest and most established names in your field -- they all began as sloppy, messy drafts, every single one of them. And that is because drafts are supposed to be sloppy and messy. That’s their job.  ➡️ No one’s draft sounds clever.  That’s all very well for a ...
Read more

Your Literature Review Is An Argument

-
As you are preparing to do your literature review, you might be reading up on them.  Most research methodology textbooks have a chapter or two on the literature review, as do the many guides you can find on writing your dissertation or thesis project.  Such texts can be useful in many ways, and when it comes to the literature review they will typically tell you a host of things.  The literature review is where you demonstrate a sophisticated grasp of your field.  The literature review is where you critically appraise prior research relevant to your topic. The literature review is where you identify common themes, patterns, and issues in the existing body of research.  The literature review is where you assess previous findings in relation to methodological strengths and weaknesses.  The literature review is where you define what has been done in your field and delineate what has not been done. A good literature review will do all of these things.  Howe...
Read more

Can I Use an AI to Summarise Research Papers for Me?

-
Image
😞 This blog begins with a big sigh because, yes, these days, you can now use an AI to summarise papers for you.  ➡️ But should you? That is another question entirely.  You’ll make your own decision on this one as the glorious, sovereign individual you are. 😊 ⚠️ But speaking for myself, my decision on this one is a very firm NO and in this blog I outline three reasons why.  📚 If you get an AI to summarise a paper for you, you are not reading it for yourself. It doesn’t matter how good the summary is, or how thorough, or how shiny the new AI is.  If you yourself don’t read the original, you can’t really know what it said.  You remain ignorant of the paper’s actual premises and claims because you don’t have any real knowledge -- you only have what Shane Parrish (2023: 165)* calls the ‘illusion of knowledge’. Your job in your literature review is to evaluate previous work to make the case for why your research question should be asked, and you can’t make any goo...
Read more