How To Create A Doctoral Thesis Literature Review In 8 Steps

Writing a thesis can fill you with panic and dread. Your thoughts and ideas can get jumbled and leave you feeling overwhelmed and confused, but there are steps you can take to make this easier on yourself. You're not alone! All you have to do is get yourself organized and follow these steps.

1. Select a topic.

You can choose anything that strikes your fancy. You need to know what you're going to research before you can start. You should choose something you either have previous knowledge of or something you consider your speciality. This can make the process easier for you.

2. Problem formulation.

Now that you have your topic, you should know what problem you're going to explore. Figure out what question your review will answer and focus on that.

3. Begin your search.

You will need to find any literature (books, articles, etc) that relate to your topic. If you're doing a search online, be sure to print whatever information you need. Many times you can find everything you need in a library. This step shouldn't take long, just dedicate a few periods of time to it.

4. Find the information.

Now that you've gathered your literature, you need to look through everything you have and search for findings on your topic. Then you need to look for things like claims, conclusions and disagreement or gaps in the literature on your subject.

5. Organize the information.

As soon as you find anything relevant to your review, you should write it down, as well as the page number and author.

6. Evaluate the data.

You've collected everything you need for your review by now. With everything organized, you can find what you need with ease. Read everything you have, then decide how that data is relevant, where it belongs in your review and in what order it should be presented.

7. Data analysis.

You need to go over the information you've collected and have it make sense. You should come up with your own ideas and interpretation of your topic and what you have discovered.

8. Start writing.

You have the data at your disposal. Use the most important information you have and only what is relevant to your subject. If there are things you don't quite understand in your data, don't use it. Only write what makes sense to you. Focusing on quantity instead of quality can negatively impact your work.