Writing a dissertation literature review is one of many ways to derail a dissertation. This article summarizes some pivotal information on how to write a high-quality dissertation literature review. It begins with a discussion of the purposes of a review, presents taxonomy of literature reviews, and then discusses the steps in conducting a quantitative or qualitative literature review. The article concludes with a discussion of common mistakes and a framework for the self-evaluation of a literature review.
Writing a faulty literature review is one of many ways to derail a dissertation. If the literature review is flawed, the remainder of the dissertation may also be viewed as flawed, because “a researcher cannot perform significant research without first understanding the literature in the field” (Boote & Beile, 2005, p. 3). Experienced thesis examiners know this. In a study of the practices of Australian dissertation examiners, Mullins and Kiley (2002) found that, Examiners typically started reviewing a dissertation with the expectation that it would pass; but a poorly conceptualized or written literature review often indicated for them that the rest of the dissertation might have problems. On encountering an inadequate literature review, examiners would proceed to look at the methods of data collection, the analysis, and the conclusions more carefully. (Boote & Beile, 2005, p. 6) Given the importance of literature reviews in both dissertations and journal articles, it may be surprising that so many of them are faulty. Boote and Beile (2005) claim that “the dirty secret known by those who sit on dissertation committees is that most literature reviews are poorly conceptualized and written” (p. 4). Further, dissertations and theses are not the only types of publications that suffer from poor literature reviews. Many literature reviews in manuscripts submitted for
publication in journals are also flawed—see Alton-Lee (1998), Grante and Graue (1999), and LeCompte, Klinger, Campbell, and Menck (2003). Given that so many literature reviews are poorly done, it is surprising there is not more published information on how to write a literature review. Boot and Beile (2005) write, Doctoral students seeking advice on how to improve their literature reviews will find little published guidance worth heeding. . . . Most graduate students receive little or no formal training in how to analyze and synthesize the research literature in their field, and they are unlikely to find it elsewhere. (p. 5) Not only is there a lack of published information to guide writers of literature reviews, the labor intensive process of writing one compounds the problem. Gall, Borg, and Gall (1996) estimate that completion of an acceptable dissertation literature review will take between three and six months of effort. The purpose of this guide is to collect and summarize the most relevant information on how to write a dissertation literature review. I begin with a discussion of the purposes of a review, present Cooper’s (1988) Taxonomy of Literature Reviews, and discuss the steps in conducting a quantitative or qualitative literature review. A discussion of common mistakes and a framework for the self-evaluation of literature reviews concludes the article.
Purposes for Writing a Dissertation Literature Review
Conducting a literature review is a means of demonstrating an author’s knowledge about a particular field of study, including vocabulary, theories, key variables and phenomena, and its methods and history. Conducting a literature review also informs the student of the influential researchers and research groups in the field. Finally, with some modification, the literature review is a “legitimate and publishable scholarly document” (LeCompte & colleagues, 2003, p. 124). Apart from the above reasons for writing a review (i.e., proof of knowledge, a publishable document, and the identification of a research family), the scientific reasons for conducting a literature review are many. Gall, Borg, and Gall (1996) argue that the literature review plays a role in:- • delimiting the research problem,
- • seeking new lines of inquiry,
- • avoiding fruitless approaches,
- • gaining methodological insights,
- • identifying recommendations for further research, and
- • seeking support for grounded theory.
- • distinguishing what has been done from what needs to be done,
- • discovering important variables relevant to the topic,
- • synthesizing and gaining a new perspective,
- • identifying relationships between ideas and practices,
- • establishing the context of the topic or problem,
- • rationalizing the significance of the problem,
- • enhancing and acquiring the subject vocabulary,
- • understanding the structure of the subject,
- • relating ideas and theory to applications,
- • identifying the main methodologies and research techniques that have been used, and
- • placing the research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments. (p. 27)
