Question

What are the steps in conducting a systematic review of the literature?

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) A literature review is generally between the sizes of 3 to 4 paragraphs. The review would briefly talk about the hypothesis and the research questions that you are going to explore.

After this, you would generally mention all of the scholarly papers that you would have to review when you explore the topic. In one or two lines you would have to talk about the similarity between them or the common theme.

In the paragraph after that, you would talk about the papers you have found that are in disagreement with the papers above and with your thinking. When this is done, you would have to conclude the review.

The paragraphs should:

Highlight key points.

Talk about gaps in the research.

Mention agreements and disagreements.

The purpose:

To ensure that the work of researchers is not duplicated.

To ensure that something more is possibly added to the topic.

To constructively analyse the pros and cons of other researchers.

Also, to speculate where the topic is going.