The Purpose Behind Writing A Literature Review

In writing a dissertation or research paper, a particular section is devoted to something called the literature review. Are you wondering as to why this separate section needs to be there? Why should a researcher take the time to write a review of the literature he or she has referred to? This section should not be skipped since it will help the readers of your research work understand that you have actually understood the topic fully and written it.

Identification of experts

When you do a literature review, you would stand to benefit, in that you would be easily able to identify the experts on a particular topic. It will quickly reveal the experts in your field of research. Besides, someone who has written 10 to 20 articles on a subject is much better than someone who has written one or two articles on it. In fact, you would end up finding that the same author is a reference for the most part of your research work. Make your dissertation a key access point for almost all the research works related to your subject.

Identification of key questions

A researcher may try to identify a new solution to an old problem or try to find out a new research question and add it to his work along with a solution to it. For example, a new research topic such as “the positive effect of music on animals” would have been written by a different author differently and you would also possibly write something unique on it. The literature review in your research work will help you identify the key questions by opening up the ideas given in the older research works.

Sealing the gaps

The main aim of a literature review is to seal the gaps between the existing literature and the one you are about to include by reviewing and comparing them.