Literature Reviews: A Blog for the Exasperated from Writing Works Consulting

 It is that time of year again. 🎄🎉 We are frantically getting those last things done, running around buying presents 🎁, writing cards, and doing all the other things we do to prepare for the holiday season. If, in amongst all that you are also one of those brave people writing a dissertation 📚, you might also be setting aside some precious undistracted time to work on your literature review. In honour of the season, I wanted to share with you my 12 most successful mistakes. Yes, you read that correctly  -- successful mistakes. Doing anything for the first time involves some stumbling around, and I certainly did my share of that. It was when I fell down and got back up that I learned the most, and in this blog that is what I want to share with you.  So, here it is -- my 12 most productive mistakes from 30 years of writing literature reviews and what they taught me. 1. Not understanding the role of description. If you read my blog regularly, you'll know your literature ...

 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 resear...

As I look back on my writing about writing, I realise there is something I sometimes say without much explanation: we need to know how to listen to our drafts. So in this blog, I am going to tell you a bit more about what I mean by that.  If you are currently working on your literature review, the practical examples I give here may help you develop your own listening process. If you are supporting other researchers with their literature reviews, these insights may help you when it comes to giving feedback, as this technique is useful whether we are listening to our own draft or someone else's.   First, let's quickly review Huff's (1983)* three phases of drafting. Phase 1 is the generative phase, when you get your ideas down on paper in whatever way works for you. This is a relatively unmonitored phase when you actively want to encourage your ideas to tumble out, one after the other. In this phase, you can give your stream of consciousness free reign without worrying about...

Hello Readers 😊 I am delighted to announce that I can now bring you this blog as an independent writing and language consultant and founder of Writing Works Consulting! My mission at Writing Works is to help you achieve your highest level of achievement and professional fulfilment through more effective writing and thinking.  For many years an academic at the University of Sunderland (UK), I had the opportunity to work with students and research staff in my capacity as a lecturer, associate professor, and research writing mentor. As I taught, mentored, and led seminars, I realised the work of greatest and lasting value – and most pressing need across a range of disciplines and subject areas – was all about writing, thinking, and drafting.  How do you take a pile of random notes and turn it into a persuasive argument?  How do you sort and sift through all your material to know what you should say first, and then next, and so on, until your conclusion? How do you evaluate ...

It is that time of year again. August has drawn to a close and we are now into September. The shops have their school stationary front and centre – pens of all kinds, piles of printer paper, shiny new notebooks in all manner of designs, just waiting for your brilliant ideas. Ah, yes – the start of the academic year.  If you’re an MA student or a doctoral candidate, these golden days on the cusp of autumn may find you embarking on your dissertation, which typically starts with your literature review. What’s out there on your topic? What do we already know, or think we know? What is the lay of the land in your subject? As the autumn sunshine streams through your window, you’ll be digging into a stack of research articles and filling up one of your shiny new notebooks or its electronic equivalent.  So what do you do with all this material you are collecting – all the findings, all the quotes, all the conclusions, and all the thoughts you have about these things? How do you turn t...

 Well, yes and no. It depends on what you mean by 'model'.  If you were looking for some sort of proforma into which you could just plug your text, that might appeal in the short term but, like most short cuts when it comes to deep and complex writing, it won't be helpful and in the long run it will only waste time. There are at least two reasons why this is:  1) Your literature review is yours. It makes the case for why your research question should be asked. This means that what you find in the literature as you set about building this case will be different to what anyone else finds -- they are researching their topic, not yours. And the argument you eventually construct as you grapple with your review will be based on what you find and, more importantly, what you make of what you find. Since neither of these things is predictable, neither of them can be reduced to any particular, one-size-fits all proforma.  2) Your literature review is not just a 'review'. In ...

 Yes it is. Writing is not easy, especially the kind of high-stakes persuasive writing you need to do in a literature review. For many of us, it can also be scary and this fear can be paralyzing.  The task looms before us – huge, terribly important, but somehow still not started. Instead of sitting down and just digging into the task, we anxiously hurl obstacles at it: But how do I start?! I can’t start if I don’t know how!! I’ve never done anything like this before, so I can’t do it now! This wasn’t really covered in the one session we had on literature reviews! My mind goes blank every time I try to start! Or: I have all these notes, but now what ?? They taught us how to search for articles, but what am I supposed to actually write?!! I have now been staring at this cursor for over an hour! I’ll never finish at this rate! and so on.  Many of us will have similar cascading thoughts when it comes to writing our literature review. I was just about to say there is...