Analyzing Literature Reviews: Criteria, Examples, and Evaluation

This essay delves into the essential criteria for constructing a robust literature review, a critical component of academic research. It begins by defining a literature review and explaining its significance in the research process, emphasizing its role in synthesizing existing knowledge, identifying research gaps, and establishing a theoretical framework. The essay then outlines the key attributes of a good literature review, including a clear theoretical framework, historical context, definition of key concepts, organized structure, proper citation of sources, and ethical treatment of previous research. Two research papers are then evaluated based on these criteria. The first example demonstrates limitations in scope and critical analysis, while the second paper is praised for its well-defined research questions, comprehensive search strategy, and critical evaluation of existing literature. The essay concludes by reinforcing the importance of adhering to these criteria for producing impactful and credible literature reviews, essential for academic writing and research endeavors.

What is the criteria required to write a good literature review: A Case study of two
Literature review papers

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Definition and meaning of literature review....................................................................................3
Criteria for writing a good literature review....................................................................................5
Evaluation of two research works....................................................................................................7
Example 1....................................................................................................................................7
Example 2....................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12
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Introduction
“Literature Reviews”, is the name very commonly heard from people who proceed to carry any
research or from students undergoing their courses. They are in great demand almost in every
field of scientific research. Their need comes from the regularly expanding yield of logical
productions. Literature reviews are usually executed at the time of writing a research paper,
thesis, dissertations and sometimes in a form of short assignments, feasibly setting up the casing
for the extensive paper, presenting students and professionals to the broadness of data accessible
on a point region, or showing aptitudes in basic reasoning and composing capacity. It is
impossible to conduct a good literature review without studying and synthesizing the gathered
sources. It is not an easy task rather it is very time consuming and demands genuine efforts. One
has to focus on the information which is relevant and useful according to the research topic and
area concerned. Literature review composing presents the level of its significance focuses on
qualities and shortcomings of the issue being under examination (Mongan-Rallis, 2018). The aim
of this essay writing is to understand the meaning and significance of literature review in
building up the individual research skill. Also, it aims to summarize the criteria for writing a
good and impactful literature review. The main objective of this writing is to evaluate two
different research papers and analyze whether they both fulfil the criteria for writing a good
literature review prescribed in the initial phase of the essay.
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Definition and meaning of literature review
The word literature in the “literature review” implies to refer the set of information or material
on any specific topic from the sources like articles, magazines, books, news, brochures,
government reports, proceedings etc or it can be said that it is a weighted comparison of different
pieces of past research. It briefly outlines the readers about what has been done in past and helps
them to identify the research gap so that further research can be progressed (Virginia
Commonwealth University, 2019).
A literature review aims to discuss the previously published information pertaining to a specific
topic within a period of the specified time. It is very important to find out what has been already
written on a specific topic; understand the relation amid different contributions; recognize and
solve contradictions and get answers to unanswered queries; this is the point where literature
review comes into rescue (Skene, 2016).
It can be considered as the summary of the sources gathered, but mostly it is an organizational
pattern including both summary and synthesis of information sources in context to the research
problem being explored. Here synthesis means to re-organize the information retrieved from the
source. A literature review might give the new perception to old information or combine new
perception with the old perception. Or on the other hand, it may follow the scholarly movement
of the field, including real discussions. Also, contingent upon the circumstance, the writing audit
may assess the sources and prompt the user on the most appropriate. It is imperative to consider
the given information comprised of three layers. Firstly, there are primary researches or studies
which are carried and published by scholars or researchers. The second layer is comprised of the
studies which summarize and present new perceptions created and often stretching ahead of the
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Types of literature review
Theoretical
Review
Systematic
Review
Methodological
Review Historical
Review
Integrative
Review
Argumentative
Review
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primary study and research of the first layer. Thirdly, there are interpretations, recommendations,
conclusions and views that are shared generally that become piece of the legend of field. While
writing a literature review, it is essential to note that usually this third layer of information that is
referred to as "genuine" despite the fact that it regularly has just a free relationship to the first
layer (primary) and secondary reviews. There are varieties of methodologies which can be
adopted leaning on the type of analysis based on the study (Paré & Kitsiou, 2018).
Figure1: Types of literature review
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Criteria for writing a good literature review
Academic writers or an individual who conducts literature review generally carry along with
certain deficiencies in some areas such as elimination of landmark studies, more attention on the
outdated information and material and adopting a conservative mindset. Here conservative
mindset implies that the writer is not able to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant
information or does not evaluate the sources critically or the review lacks synthesis. One should
pursue the literature review in a way that, the writer and the reader enjoy and find it interesting
rather than finding it just a boring summarization. There are some basic attributes which the
experts, professionals and examiners check to evaluate the quality of the literature review. These
basic attributes are explained in this part of the essay (Pautasso, 2013).
Initially, the researcher is required to set a theoretical framework along with a well-defined set of
goals. One should be able to present the fellow scholars that he or she is also an expert in the
field of investigation. Discussion of historical background and any controversies involved related
to the topic are essential. Clarification of basic definitions and concept is very important.
Structuring of the relevant information or the flow of the review presentation grabs the attention
of the readers. This can be also said in the other way round that organization of main academic
debates and key findings in the same topic plays crucial role in the review to talk about these in
an intelligent and significant structure, for example, one that has a particular reason it steers
towards and a theoretical string that ties the segments together. Of course, all the sources used in
the literature review must be cited properly (Hayward, 2017).
A well-constructed piece of review, clearly demonstrates that the writer is able to identify the
main context of work, major developments & phases, key challenges, problems, texts,
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personalities, approaches and methodologies pertaining to the field of research. The review
should cover the primary parts of the examination and be ethical in its treatment of other writers.
The review ought to do equity to the writer's contentions before investigating them. One should
not just agree or make different opinion against something which you are not sure about (Bak,
2018). It ought to be topical. It shouldn't be limited to Internet sources. It ought to be efficient
around the exploration questions and key ideas as opposed to being outlines of what you have
perused. Keep in mind the authenticity and reliability of the research work conducted by eminent
scholars. An individual carrying the review must sensitively create a balance between what has
been discussed and found by others and what is his/her own voice. It is neither about listening to
other messages or findings nor about telling the self-acquired results or findings (Ramdhani &
Ramdhani, 2014). On the basis of the discussion done above, a diagram is drawn which well
explains the essential attributes required to fulfil the criteria of writing a good literature work.
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Figure2: Criteria defined
Evaluation of two research works
Example 1
Here the first example of a research paper is undertaken to discuss the extent up to which the
authors fulfilled the criteria of writing a good review. The authors conducted research on the
topic "What is the role of HR in organizational performance and how does it help to retain the
employees". To address the topic undertaken and answer the raised questions in the research
authors proceeded to review the previous literature related to the field of management and human
resources discipline (Leghari, et al., 2014).
A good literature review starts with the purpose of information search and brief background or
introduction to the topic. This has been taken care of by the authors of this article. Firstly, it is
clearly evident from the paper that the review of literature done for the work is very restricted
and narrow in approach.
Very few studies are quoted in the literature review presented in this piece of work. The study
contains few statements such as Collins and Smith (2006) tested the relationship between Human
resources and performance of the organization, such statements take away the attention of the
readers towards Collins and Smith instead of the writer of the literature review.
As per the criteria of good literature review, the writer must be able to present his or her piece of
research work by maintaining a proper balance between the previous work and his own work but
the authors of this article have not given much importance to the work carried by previous
eminent scholars rather they have tried to emphasize more on portraying their own work. The
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significance of conducting a literature review while carrying any research writing or project
work is that the literature review constructs a theoretical framework which connects the readers
with the background of the topic, helps to understand the concept and to gain an insight about the
objective of studying that particular topic. The literature review done by the authors of this
article has simply summarized the work done by other authors in different paragraphs which
means that the critical analysis of the past work is missing in their literature review section.
Otherwise, the authors have maintained the authenticity of the previous researches as they have
clearly cited the work where they have used the previous work and also appropriate referencing
is done to keep the dignity of the other scholars. Although, the small segment of review done in
this article is relevant to the research problem and questions of the research work the elaborative
analysis could have improved the quality of existing literature work.
Example 2
The authors Kannan & Li carried their research in the field of management and discussed the
framework, review and agenda of Digital marketing and got their work published in the peer-
reviewed journal in 2017 (Kannan & Li, 2017).
A well-framed theme is presented and then studies from previous publications are presented
which is adding butter on the top of arguments presented by the author of this work. The authors
have clearly outlined the research question in the initial phase of their research work. Moreover,
they have also defined in their work; how they proceeded to collect the articles, what keywords
they adapted to search the relevant information in context to the topic, how many research
articles they searched altogether and how did they further segmented their information collected.
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As per the criteria of a good review, the authors rejected the non relevant data and also added
recent works in their database to complement their initial phase of information collection. In this
way, the review of surviving exploration isn't intended to be comprehensive yet rather agent so
as to cover the issues with adequate profundity and spotlight on future research issues properly.
In this paper, the review of the literature was carried around three to four sections of the paper
for discussing the open areas of inquiry. When a reader goes through the presented work, he or
she does not lose interest or feel distracted while discussing various theories and general
framework pertinent to the digital marketing concept. A critical review of the information
collected from past researches has been presented in an appropriate manner in the paper. Readers
cannot find any criticism or judgment made by the authors on the work done by the authors of
literature. Each and every argument collected from the previous publications are well cited and
referenced in the paper in order to maintain authenticity and ethics. All the concepts or theories
related to the objective of the work are briefly discussed and explained with supported arguments
provided from the literature review. The language used to explain the complex methodologies
and confusing concepts is very simple and is self-made. It is not just copied theoretical terms and
words used by other authors or books published. After the complete discussion on the issues
which the authors wanted to address; an agenda for future research has been presented based on
the literature review carried for the work. The authors of this article have comprehensively
demonstrated their work through their literature review. The creativity and critical analysis
enhances the efficiency and quality of the literature review which further helps the researcher to
achieve the desired objectives of the research problem. Although every author or researcher
explores the topic of research in his own way, but the literature review done for this particular
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piece of research work followed many of the aspects required to fulfil the criteria of writing a
good review.
Conclusion
This essay clearly states the meaning and importance of the literature review in the field of
research and academic writing. Also, the main objective of this writing has been accomplished as
the criteria for writing a good literature review has been explained and also based on the defined
criteria; two research articles are evaluated. It can be concluded that literature review is required
to be specific, latest, lucid, compelling, well structured and correlated with the research
questions, problem identified, and key concept instead of just a summary of what has been read.
A literature review is considered as one of the key columns on which an individual's research
thought relies on since it gives setting, significance, and foundation to the examination issue
being investigating. The most essential thing is that the review should be critically discussion of
the pertinent data and information from various sources. It is recommended that one should be
selective about the matter which is to be reported in the review rather than tempting to report
each and everything known. Each and every reference used must be based on the evidence the
author is introducing to help the undertaken “case”. To support the arguments presented in this
essay pertaining to criteria of writing a good literature review; two examples are undertaken and
discussed. These examples are the two articles written by eminent management professionals.
The first example depicts that the authors have not carried the review according to the criteria
required to write a good literature review. Some essential requirements were found missing such
as the critical analysis, elaborative review, construction of theoretical framework etc. Whereas,
the second example undertaken demonstrates the quality work in which almost all of the
components of the literature review criteria are followed. The criteria required for the review
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might differ a bit depending on the type of literature review to be done among the types
mentioned in the essay but the criteria presented in this document is the general criteria and is the
basic one which is applicable to all the types of literature review. Writing a literature review is an
art that needs to be learned. By conducting a review of literature, students and eminent
researchers can be engaged in enhancing their knowledge through evidence equipped practice.
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