A Methodical Approach to Writing Research Papers on Literature Reviews

Abstract

Writing a literature review in the pre- or post-qualification, will be required to undertake a literature review, as part of a course of study, as a key step in the research process. A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. It demands a range of skills, such as learning how to define topics for exploration, acquiring skills of literature searching and retrieval, developing the ability to analyse and synthesize data as well as becoming adept at writing and reporting, often within a limited time scale. The aim of this article is to present a step-by-step approach to writing a literature review research paper to facilitate student and novice reviewers’ understanding.