Title: How Many Sources Should You Have In A Literature Review?

Crafting a literature review is no small feat. It requires meticulous research, critical analysis, and a
comprehensive understanding of your topic. One of the most common questions that arises during
this process is: how many sources should you include in your literature review?

The answer to this question isn't a straightforward one-size-fits-all solution. The number of sources
you should include depends on various factors such as the scope of your research, the depth of
analysis required, and the expectations of your audience or academic institution.

While there's no magic number that applies universally, there are some general guidelines to consider:

1. Quality Over Quantity: It's essential to prioritize the quality of your sources over sheer
quantity. Including a large number of sources without proper evaluation can dilute the
effectiveness of your literature review.
2. Depth of Analysis: Instead of focusing solely on the number of sources, emphasize the depth
of your analysis. A literature review should demonstrate your understanding of the existing
research, highlight key themes, identify gaps, and offer critical insights.
3. Scope and Objectives: Consider the scope and objectives of your research. If you're
conducting a comprehensive literature review on a broad topic, you may need to include a
larger number of sources to provide a comprehensive overview. However, if your focus is
narrow and specific, a smaller number of highly relevant sources might suffice.
4. Variety of Sources: Aim for a balanced mix of primary research articles, scholarly reviews,
books, and other reputable sources. Diversifying your sources can strengthen the credibility
and validity of your literature review.
5. Relevance and Currency: Prioritize recent and relevant sources that contribute directly to
your research objectives. While older sources can provide valuable historical context, newer
publications often reflect the most current advancements and debates in the field.

Ultimately, the ideal number of sources for your literature review will vary depending on the unique
requirements of your research project. Striking the right balance between quantity and quality is key
to crafting a compelling and informative literature review.

If you find yourself overwhelmed by the complexity of writing a literature review or struggling to
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Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach. In stand-alone
reviews, there may be significantly more texts and more concepts. Specialized magazines may be
more useful (for example business magazines for management students) but usually magazines are
not useful for your research except as a starting point by providing news or general information
about new discoveries, policies, etc. By the end, you'll know how to create a compelling literature
review and add your own ideas to the mix. While analyzing the sources, you should look to find out
answers to questions like: What question or problem has the author been describing and debating.
Try to analyse patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field.
Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions. This is
probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. In addition to choosing
your topic, you should also select a target audience. Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor
has given you. The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific
research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way. Make referring sources
super easy To ensure you don't lose track of your sources, you must start noting down your
references when doing the literature review. Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. I wish
everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature. Roles of the literature in research (Fig.
6.1). The entire basis of the research Source of: ideas on topics for research information on research
already done by others methodological or theoretical ideas. Quite often, you’d cite these types of
sources in your introduction chapter rather than your literature review chapter, but you may still have
use for them in the latter. A literature review summarises and synthesises what is known about your
topic in relation to your objectives. To help you develop a big-picture view and synthesise all the
information, you might find mind mapping software such as Freemind useful. Unleashing the Power
of AI Tools for Enhancing Research, International FDP on. Now, let's explore some examples of
literature reviews that can assist you in crafting your own. And then based on doing a citation tracing
exercise, I will go to those younger scholars who are citing these key authors. You’ll invariably end
up wasting huge amounts of time re-writing and re-shaping, or you’ll just land up with a disjointed,
hard-to-digest mess. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure
to seek them out. Additionally, it is important to balance quality and quantity when selecting sources.
For example, you’ll likely find “review of the literature” type journal articles which provide an
overview of the current state of the research (at the time of publication, of course). Dr. Mark
Matthews Student Learning Development Workshop Overview. Specific theoretical approaches may
be used alone or in combinations in order to structure your research. The most interesting literature
reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is
discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Make sure your research question is not too
broad or too narrow. Where has significant research taken place, and who has done it.
Literature review preparation: Creating a summary table. Some important questions to ask yourself
are: What answers does the existing research provide to my own research questions. Knowledge
gaps: What exactly does it fail to address, and how to bridge them with further research. Your
literature review should be guided by your central research question. They can differ in their scope,
length, and specific purpose. A conclusion, which summarizes the key findings, the main agreements
and disagreements in the literature, your overall perspective, and any gaps or areas for further
research. ?? If your literature review is part of a longer paper, visit our guide on what is a research
paper for additional tips. ?? UNC writing center: Literature reviews. The Cornell Method The outline
method, the mapping method, the charting method, the sentence method. See how this publication
links up with what's already out there. This is completely a question that has arbitrary answers and a
broad range of parameters to work around. Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be
sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. Specify the
time frame, key themes, and relevant studies to focus your research. If External Media cookies are
accepted, access to those contents no longer requires manual consent. When printing this page, you
must include the entire legal notice. Talk to your professor, brainstorm, and read lecture notes and
recent issues of periodicals in the ?eld. Source: uclalibrary.github.io A scientific literature review is
an important part of academic research as it narrows the current knowledge in a field to examine the
latest publications' strengths and weaknesses. The victims of sexual harassment suffer a range of
consequences, from lowered. These three components should be tightly aligned to form the focus of
your research. On the low end are sources like newspapers, blog posts and social media posts. Here,
the researcher has the freedom of expressing his or her own opinion. The page linked above provides
some note taking tips, ways to avoid plagiarism, and 5 different note taking styles (also described
below). You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. Here are
some key tips to help you create an exceptional literary analysis: Define Your Scope Clearly outline
the boundaries of your literature review. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for: Trends
and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over
time. The research justification for HIV prevention programming for lesbian and bis. Wiser workshop
27 th January 2010. Overview. What is a literature review. It is very important in any research
because it gives direction to the research. To put it bluntly, if you don’t understand the function and
purpose of the literature review process, there’s no way you can pull it off well. Organize your notes
using a table, mind map, or other technique. A good literature review should critically evaluate the
quality and findings of the research. Really helpful, Thank you for the effort in showing such
information This is super helpful thank you very much.
Not all research articles contain an explicit review of the literature, but most do, whether it is a
discrete section or indistinguishable from the rest of the Introduction. Apart from this
differentiation, it is also important to be aware of which types of sources in general should be chosen
for the literature review paper. We often don’t think of literature reviews in terms of arguments. The
page linked above provides some note taking tips, ways to avoid plagiarism, and 5 different note
taking styles (also described below). You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical
approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research. Book an
appointment Consider your specific area of study. Theoretical Approach This approach focuses on
organizing your review around different theoretical frameworks or perspectives relevant to your
topic. However, a literature review can also be published as a standalone article. RaedMusili1 Lec13
Scientific Papers and Communications Lec13 Scientific Papers and Communications Janet
Stemwedel Managing Anorexia As An Illness And An Identity By Emma Rich Managing Anorexia
As An Illness And An Identity By Emma Rich Kara Liu Conducting A Literature Review
Conducting A Literature Review abutton1 Similar to Literature review in research ( 20 ) Review of
literature Review of literature 4. Thomson’s study in social Problem (1982) lists many problems
created by sexual. The analysis will explore relationships, major themes, and any critical gaps in the
research expressed in the work. Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular
summaries of the recent literature. Some topics are really easier to write than the others, so make sure
you have sufficient time for ample preparation and writing process. Alternatively, if you’d like
hands-on help with your literature review, be sure to check out our 1-on-1 private coaching services
here. This is, after all, one of the main purposes of the literature review process (i.e. to familiarise
yourself with the current state of research in your field). We want to keep things simple and provide
support if your systems experience any of these disruptions. Conclusion: Summarize what you
discovered, highlight any important contributions, and suggest areas for future research. You can give
your consent to whole categories or display further information and select certain cookies. If you are
employing a thesis statement, place it toward the end of your introductory paragraph. Literature
review forms the nucleus of all scientific research. Dr. P.B.Dharmasena Cascade Tank Village System
and identification of novel post graduate researc. HE LIVED IN AN APARTMENT IN NYC
DURING THE LATE 1940s AND 1950s. They are frequently used in literature reviews because
they offer a relatively concise, up-to-date format for research, and because all reputable journals are
refereed (i.e. editors publish only the most relevant and reliable research). It covers the materials
needed for the main objects of research. Also, keep a note of the: authors' names page numbers
Keeping track of the bibliographic information for each source will save you time when you’re ready
to create citations. But again, this requires you to know the field already. It also helps in development
of research instruments. Aside from the purpose of knowing how much you know, literature review
writing is primarily aimed at researching and synthesizing previous works and researches done which
are related to the field that. Think about what interests you and what interests other researchers in
your field. An annotated bibliography is a list of source references that has a short description
(called an annotation ) for each of the sources.
Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. Literature
Reviews as Ways of Hearing the Conversation. Journal citation reports ISI ( Web of Science )
Google scholar Google books. In an RRL, you discuss knowledge and findings from existing
literature relevant to your study topic. Unleashing the Power of AI Tools for Enhancing Research,
International FDP on. Do you agree with this statement by a PhD student. When starting from
scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. Does the author take into
account contrary or conflicting. The idea of the literature review is not to provide a summary of all
the published work that relates to your research, but a survey of the most relevant and significant
work. If you are uncertain which style to use, ask your professor. Introduce the literature review by
pointing out the major research topic that will be discussed. Other online databases: Many other
online database can be. SciSpace Discover is a one-stop solution to do an effective literature search
and get barrier-free access to scientific knowledge. When searching the literature for pertinent papers
and reviews, the usual rules apply: be thorough, use different keywords and database sources (e.g.,
DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters. Briefly state specific findings listed in
an article. If you have no experience of writing a dissertation, follow the example on. A literature
review is organized by subtopic, not by. Some articles will be free to access, while others will require
an account, which brings us to the next method. There's just so much out there, and it's easy to feel
lost. You’ll quickly find out which ones are useful, and which aren’t when you start searching. Do
you need to provide background information, such as definitions or histories, to aid in your
audience's understanding. You must be able to the answer below questions before you start: How
many sources do I need to include. Student B: After studying residents and staff from two
intermediate care facilities in Calgary, Alberta, Smith (2000) came to the conclusion that except for
the amount of personal privacy available to residents, the physical environment of these institutions
had minimal if any effect on their perceptions of control (autonomy). Literature Review Literature
Review is a detailed account of relevant materials being investigated in order to know what
researchers had done and what has not been done. You can argue for the relevance of a specific
theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.
Quick tips on how to write a literature review To know how to write a literature review, you must
clearly understand its impact and role in establishing your work as substantive research material.
Seven Steps to Writing a Literature Review If you are uncertain which style to use, ask your
professor. Here are some of the events we've hosted to show you how much we appreciate our
customers and show you some of the fun new products coming out on the market. Magazines:
magazines intended for a general audience (e.g. Time) are unlikely to be useful in providing the sort
of information you need. A description of the literature relevant to a particular field or topic.