3 common literature review mistakes - and how to avoid them
I’ve been marking – or grading – literature reviews for the last 20 years, and there are some common mistakes I see all the time. In this post, I’m going to tell you about them, and how you can avoid them!
1) Over-reliance on one source
You’ve read this one thing, it might be a book, a journal article, whatever, and you’re obsessed with it. Well, that’s what it looks like from reading your literature review!
If you are over-relying on one source, this could mean one of two things.
Either, that source is great, its really relevant to what you’re doing your thesis on, it covers lots of your key areas and, well, you can’t help mention it all the time! But, its not the only source. It’s one piece of literature, and by focusing so heavily on it, you’re missing a trick. There will be other items of useful literature out there. They might be using slightly different keywords, or ways of describing the topic.
On the other hand, over relying on one source could mean that you haven’t read enough literature, you’re trying to squeeze everything you can out of that one item because you’ve not got a lot to go on!
Either way, you need to bring some other literature in – how do you do that? Do a citation search on that piece of literature you’re somewhat fixated with – this will lead you to newer literature that has referenced that item. Do some bibliographic mining – look at the reference list of the item and find the older literature that it draws upon. Check out my other post on these search strategies.
2) Using too many direct quotes
It can be quite tempting when you’ve done a lot of reading to use direct quotes as a way of almost proving that you’ve read something!
The person marking or grading your dissertation doesn’t need convincing that you’ve read something. They need convincing that you’ve understood it! Simply parroting lines from a source isn’t going to convince the grader that you really get what it means. But when you paraphrase in your own words, that does reassure the grader that you understand.
I’m not saying never use direct quotes, I’m saying use them strategically and selectively. So, save them for things that are really compelling and impactful, such as …
… a powerful quote to open your lit review, or a section of it, that evokes really interesting questions. The criteria I use to judge this is a bit simplistic! I always think if a quote would awesome on a t-shirt, it’s a contender for an opener!
… a quote that helps us zoom out and consider the bigger picture. We can get quite in depth in our literature reviews. If you find something that someone has written that helps you come back up to the surface and ask the ‘So what?’ question, it might be worth quoting.
… a quote that captures someone’s lived experience. If you’re reading an item that’s reporting on a research study and it cites something one of the participants has said. You might want to directly quote that if its going to help focus the reader’s attention.
3) Going off-topic
It is very easy to go off on a tangent. You get really into what you’re reading in the lit review and you want to include all of it. ALL of it! Even the stuff that’s not relevant!
You need to remind yourself of the purpose of the lit review here. It’s to produce a critical synthesis of the literature around your topic. It’s not to write everything you know about the topic.
Some tips to avoid this: Keep a copy of your dissertation question or title close to hand when you’re writing up your lit review. Write it on a sticky note and stick it to your laptop. Have it as a screensaver on your phone. Stick in on the fridge. Keep it at the forefront of your mind! For every paragraph you write, ask yourself these questions:
Is this helping me address my dissertation question?
How is it helping me address the question?
What specifically does this contribute to the literature review?
Is it central to the literature review?
Is it more of a side note?
Do I need to go into as much detail as I have?
Have I explained how it is relevant?
Also, have some tools at your disposal, some actual phrases you can use. These are helpful to check with yourself if something is relevant and to demonstrate to the grader that it’s relevant, For example.
It is important to consider this because…
Whilst this would not appear to be immediately relevant, there are multiple ways in which this impacts upon …
To return to the title … , this is of clear significance because …”
Whilst it is not necessary to explore Z in detail, it is pertinent to explain it’s impact on x”
And there you have it, three very common mistakes, with some straightforward, hands on, practical ways to avoid them. So, go apply them to your writing up, and let me know how you’re getting on!
Make use of the PDF resources in my Free Student Resource Zone to help you as you’re doing your lit review - they’re 100% free so go check them out!
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