How to Regain Control of Your Dissertation Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Process for Social Science Students
You’ve probably written up some of your literature review already, right?
You might have anything between a few hundred words and a few thousand words.
But, it’s a mess, isn’t it?
You want to tidy it up and improve the structure.
That might be what your supervisor has advised you to do too. They’ve seen a draft and they’re like, “Yes, this is good, but the structure needs some work”.
However, every time you go try to improve it, and put it into logical sections, you end up in even more of a mess than you started in.
You think about deleting a section, then think, “No, I don’t want to take that out, I might still need that. I think… Yes, I’m going to keep it. But, I need to move it somewhere else, where should it go?”.
Urgh. Nightmare.
I’ve been there, believe me.
In my dissertations as an undergrad, in my thesis as a doctoral student, and in the many peer reviewed articles and books I’ve published as a criminology professor.
It's a common problem, but there's hope!
I’m now going to introduce you to a process that can help you regain control of your literature review and move forward with confidence.
It’s something I developed to help me with my own research projects, and it’s something that I now always use with my own students.
Literature Review First Aid!
Here it is.
Step 1: Write out your dissertation title or topic
The first step is to write out your dissertation title or topic. This will serve as a guide for the rest of the process, helping you to stay focused and on track. It doesn’t matter if your title isn’t worded perfectly. It doesn’t matter if it sounds clumsy and the grammar is bad either! As long as it contains all of the key elements of your research, you’re all good.
Step 2: Pick out the nouns from your title or topic
Next, pick out the nouns from your title or topic. These are the words for people, places, or things.
For example, if your dissertation is about the impact of social media on mental health, the nouns might include "social media" and "mental health".
These can serve as your new provisional headings in your newly structured literature review.
Simple as that.
Step 3: Come up with questions for each noun
For each of your new headings, think about what you need the literature to tell you.
Think about what you would ask the researchers that have come before you. That’s essentially what a literature review is. It’s like a nice little meeting with the people who’ve done research in this area before. Imagine that you’re sitting in a room with the people who’ve done research around each of your headings.
What questions do you have for them?
What can you ask them?
Stay focused on your dissertation title and think about what these people might know, that will be valuable for your project.
Write down a series of questions for each noun.
For example, for "social media", you might ask:
What are the positive effects of social media?
What are the negative effects of social media?
How does social media use relate to addiction or compulsive behavior?
For "mental health", you might ask:
What are the risk factors for mental health issues in young adults?
What are the most effective interventions for treating anxiety disorders?
How do cultural and social factors impact mental health outcomes?
Step 4: Assess the literature you've already read
Now it's time to look at the literature you've already read.
Starting with one of your headings and the questions underneath it, look at the literature you've already read and anything you’ve already written up.
See if you can answer or partially answer each of these questions with what you’ve already got.
Underneath each one, indicate whether you can answer that question "to some extent", "to a large extent", or "not at all" with what you have.
This will help you identify gaps in your literature review and highlight the gaps that you need to do some more reading around.
Step 5: Create an action plan
Based on the gaps you've identified, create an action plan. Where are you going to start in filling in the gaps? Where will you begin? This might involve searching for new sources, re-reading existing sources, or revising your questions. The key is to break the task down into manageable steps.
Free PDF worksheet to keep this process organised!
By following this process, you can regain control of your literature review and move forward with confidence.
To make things even easier, I've created a PDF workshee that you can download to help you with each step of the process.
You’re welcome :-)
It’s 100% free when you sign up for my email list, and you can do that by clicking on the button below!
So, take heart. You can do this! Just take it one noun at a time, and before you know it, you'll have a clear and structured literature review that will form the foundation of your dissertation.