Many students have difficulties in conducting literature review in dissertation work. Very often, the dissertation report chapter on literature review reads like lecture notes, being mainly explanatory and descriptive in nature. Literature review is about reviewing (e.g. discussing, evaluating, contrasting, and synthesizing) literature (e.g. academic journal articles, textbooks, and professional journal articles, etc). [For this discussion, I have in mind mainly literature reviews on theories rather than background literature on specific markets or companies.] Such an effort is a "means" to an end (i.e. meeting dissertation project objectives). This "means" is also critical as it drives research design and, subsequently, the analysis exercise. I identify the following 4 elements as constituting the critical success factors in literature review. I call them STEM in literature review:
(S) stands for a competent academic supervisor. Some supervisors only request students to clone academic articles, including the literature review exercise and they have little knowlege of research methods, other than a few primitive positivist approaches.
(T) stands for time management. Try to read around the subject areas before you enroll for the degree programme. Try to develop a genuine interest in the subject matter and do the reading as a hobby. It also takes time to polish your writing skill.
(E) stands for e-library. You need to access a e-library that provides a wide choice of academic journals.
(M) stands for an intellectually curious mindset. You can only write a dissertation report that has good academic value and practical value if you are genuinely interested in the topic area and sincere with your learning attitude. This is mainly due to the requirement of literature review to be conceptual, critical, evaluative and goal-directed.
Most of the difficulties of doing literature review arise from the absence of STEM; this is my personal observation as a dissertation supervisor.
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