There are some ways to arrange and structure a dissertation literature review. Two ordinary ways are thematically and chronologically.

In a thematic dissertation literature review, you will set and discuss the sources regarding the topics or themes that they cover. Often this method is a stronger organizationally, and it can aid you to resist the impulse to sum up your sources. By setting topics or themes of research together, you can show the kinds of topics, which are significant to your research. For instance, when the topic is alterations in popular music, there might be isolated parts on research engaging the creation of music, exploration on the diffusion of music, examination on the understanding of music, and historical learning of popular music.

Using chronological method, you will set and discuss the sources according to their publication, stressing the alterations in research in the branch and your particular theme over time. The method is helpful for papers concentrating on historicographical papers, research methodology, and some other writing where time grows a significant element. For instance, a review on theories of psychosis might represent how the realizing of psychosis has altered through many centuries, by catering a series of instances of major developments and finishing with present theories and the way that your research will take.

•    Firstly, writing a dissertation literature review demonstrates your analytical skills. You prove that you have not only found necessary sources, but also have been able to analyze them and found out the core facts.
•    Secondly, writing a dissertation literature review gives you a chance to try yourself at comparing and contrasting. You should work with several sources, and try to get only necessary ideas from them.
Each chapter in your dissertation should be written in a certain order. The dissertation literature review has its own rules in writing. Let us talk about them a bit:
•    Present the main idea of your writing. It presence is obvious all the time. It may be an interrogative sentence, as well as declarative one. Choose any way you find appropriate and present it to your readers.
•    Create a strong thesis statement. It will be a general sentence which you should start your evaluation from. Pick out one the strongest argument and present it!
•    Conduct research and start writing. The time to point out the sources comes. Right now you should write about the sources that you have discovered and prove that your choice is reasonable and correct!
•    Proofread! You cannot finish your dissertation literature review without thorough editing. Correct the mistakes that could be made!

This way the dissertation literature review should be prepared!

Very often the reason for the wrong made dissertation literature review is that a writer does not see a clear picture of what a good dissertation literature review should be like. That is why the tips given below can be useful for making your dissertation literature review successfully.

1.A dissertation literature review should be like an object you intend to examine under a microscope. You will have to consider all sources used from different angles, to analyze the gathered materials from different positions;

2.A dissertation literature review should contain any comparing issues of analysis. You will have to compare 2 or more sources and identify what was already said about the topic of your dissertation and what is missing;

3.A dissertation literature review should not include a research question. It relates to a bit different piece of task that you should accomplish following all rules of information analysis;

4.A dissertation literature review should include your SUBJECTIVE and critical point of view. Forget about objectivity when making your review. It is not the case when you have to be objective.

Perhaps, having got the idea of what a dissertation literature review should be like will help you create your own review correctly. Good luck!

Find the sources that may be helpful for you. Under “helpful” I mean the sources relating to the topic of your dissertation directly. You purpose number one is to cover the topic of your dissertation. This can be achieved by means of good relevant and up-to-date sources;

Read what you have found. I do not mean that you should read the whole collection of books of a certain author. Sometimes it can turn to be useless and absolutely unnecessary. Just fid the chapters containing the information you need and read it attentively;

Analyze the information read. What is necessary for making a good dissertation literature review is a good analysis of the sources found. Actually, your dissertation literature review will consist of the analysis made. So, try your best to catch the idea of each of the sources fund;

Make your dissertation literature review itself. Write down the title of the book, its author, and the main principles of the approach to the problem you are considering presented in the source.

It is not that difficult to write a dissertation literature review, especially with the help of the guidelines presented.

Dissertation literature review: structure

• An overview of the issues, which will be raised in this kind of work;
• The main body, where the division of the issues will be presented – the issues in support of the project and the issues against the project);
• The discussion, where you should describe at least 10 references of your project.
• The conclusion, where you identify the questions from your dissertation.

Dissertation literature review: purposes

• Point out the connection of your work to the others;
• Underline your understanding of the problems of your dissertation;
• Present the controversies, which appear in the work of each author;
• Prove the fact that all sources of your project are up-to-date and true;

Your dissertation should not be too long. If you try to imagine all your work as a simple circle, then this part of your work should take only about 20%.

As you may see the dissertation literature review takes a significant place in your work and you cannot skip it. You should recollect not only your skills at gathering the information, but also the abilities in analyzing and making necessary conclusions. Your task is to analyze your work as the research.

If you have to make a dissertation literature review, you have to make this first step. Nobody and will make the first step for you and write a literature review dissertation for the first time in his or her life. Nobody but you are given the chance to do it. Of course, a great fear will be seizing you, as doubts about whether you are doing everything correctly or not, will come up to your mind. Nevermind, you must overcome this fear, rally your thoughts together and take this step.

Thinking on your own…What can you say about the book? How it helped you in making your dissertation? Can your friend or mum answer these questions?
Hardly! This is exactly what I mean. If you decided to connect your future with research, you should take your first step, no matter how successful it will be.

Remember, independent work is your first step towards your personal improvement.

Here are some other types of academic writing, where you may be required to write a literature review:

You may be asked to present a literature review when you write a dissertation proposal;

You may be asked to present a literature review when you write a research proposal;

You may be asked to present a literature review when you want to take part in some scientific conference.

Hope that now you understand how useful a dissertation literature review is. More than that, you should practice writing it on the basis of some other type of academic writing, such as term paper, coursework, research paper, etc.

You should not consider this assignment to be easy, since you will have to briefly describe the essence of some scientific work (which may be hundreds of pages long), and you will have to make use of the most essential points.

As you may have already understood, this task requires a lot time and attention, so, you should not put off writing it and start working on your dissertation literature review as soon as you have received the task.

First of all, let us talk about the purposes… A dissertation literature review is written in order to:

put the concrete work in the list of the works, which should be written on the same subject according to its contribution into the subject development;

tell about the relation to the other works on the same subject;

underline the new line of researching, which are presented in this work;

present the possible ways of further development of the problem;

destroy possible misunderstandings with the previous works.

In your dissertation literature review you should not enumerate the literature sources, which you have used. It is one of the rudest mistakes, made by the students. You should understand that in this part of your work you should turn on all your analytical skills and present a thorough analysis of your work.

Your dissertation literature review you should pay attention to the next elements:

subject overview (make a kind of introductory to your work);

source categories (write about those, which support your topic and point out those, which offer the opposite position);

work evaluation (compare your work with other works and prove its uniqueness);

concluding part (present the results of your investigation – your literature investigation).

This information can help you any time. Now, you can surely say that you are aware of the process of your dissertation literature review writing.

There are several reasons according to which you should write this dissertation literature review:

First of all, a dissertation literature review will show how much material you have investigated for performing your dissertation;

Second, a dissertation literature review will present the degree of exploration of your dissertation project by other scholars;

Third, a dissertation literature review will be the so-called proof of your being too diligent and the committee will distinguish you from other applicants as being the best.

As you may have already understood dissertation literature review writing is an indispensable part of any dissertation writing if you want to be accepted. Thus, in your dissertation literature review you should try to provide as many sources, which you have used for conducting your dissertation, as possible, so that the committee will have a clear picture of all the amount of work, you have done. Apart from this, this will certainly increase your chances on being a success.

Remarkably, when writing a dissertation literature review, you should also give a brief description of every source, making use of the most essential points of this or that source.

In the long run, you may have already understood that dissertation literature review writing plays a very important role for completing the dissertation writing process.

So, wish you not to neglect it and to succeed.

No matter whether you know all these peculiarities or not, it would be useful for you to get more information about dissertation literature review. That is why we want to introduce you the frequently asked questions on a dissertation literature review.

What a literature review is about? To be short, literature review is a list of the materials and sources used for writing your work. However, it is not a mere list of the books and articles. Each item of your literature review should have some critical comments and a short description.

Why a literature review is required in a dissertation? 1) Literature review allows the reader to get a short and precise account of what is known upon the topic of your work or within the field of your study. 2) Literature review also introduces various controversies that different authors have on the problem. 3) Literature review allows understanding what remains unstudied on the topic and the answers to what questions will contribute to the progress of this particular field of study.

What is the critical analysis in a literature review? Critical analysis means an unbiased evaluation of the materials. Here you should mind the difference between critical and negative comments. Negative comments actually should not be presented in the literature review. While making critical analysis, you have to estimate the author’s authority (the qualifications, other publications) for making that kind of research. And you will have to evaluate his/her actual research (its originality, significance, methods used and so on).

So, your dissertation cannot go without a literature review and you should know what it is for and how to make it.