Guide for students who need to write a first class literature review but are short on time

1. How to write a 3000 word
literature review in 3 days
Mark Reed

2. What is a literature review?
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A literature review is a type of essay
Summarises the key literature written on a
subject (rarely exhaustive)
A story that summarises material in a logical
order, composed of critical arguments,
concluding with your own reflections on the
most important insights that emerge
Mainly based on peer-reviewed material (>50%)

3. Literature reviews are easy
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Learn how to speed read – you don’t need to
read every word of every paper you cite
Stay focused on your question(s) so you can
extract the key points
Organise what you’ve read efficiently
Find a system to link key points together into
critical arguments as part of an overall story

4. Day 1

5. Day 1, 9.00-10.00: Scoping
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Google to expand list of search terms
Search via Scopus/Web of Science/ScienceDirect
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Sort by relevance

6. Day 1, 10.00-17.00: Reading
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Screen your reading:
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Read titles only, skipping less relevant ones
Scan read relevant abstracts
Download relevant papers, speed read intro,
results, discussion and conclusion, read slowly
around key points
Only read methods in detail for papers that are key
to your argument or controversial (e.g.
contradict mainstream view)

7. Day 1, 10.00-17.00: Reading
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Create a database in Excel
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Column A: topic/theme
Column B: author/year
Copy and paste relevant sentences/paragraphs
to cells in Column A
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Use speech marks to ensure you don’t confuse
quotes with material you paraphrase

8. Day 1, 10.00-17.00: Reading
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Create themes and sub-themes as you read
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Sub-divide and combine themes as necessary
Sort themes/sub-themes into a coherent
structure
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Visual learners: mind-map
Kinesthetic learners: post-it note spider diagram
Read-write/auditory: copy and paste themes onto
a
single page in Word and sort (reading
them aloud
for auditory learners)

9. Day 2

10. Day 2, 9.00-11.00: Create a map
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Take a step back from your mindmap branches,
spider legs or list of themes:
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Group into as few as possible major themes (3-6),
think what story you could tell to link these themes
coherently (these become sub-headings in review)
Think about what sub-themes fit under each of
these major themes, and their order
Number themes and sub-themes 1, 1a, 1b etc.

11. Day 2, 11.00-13.00: Walk & lunch
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Go for a walk, forget about work and let your
review gradually structure settle in your mind
Try and get some distance from your work, so
you can come back and see a bird’s eye view of
your whole story in your mind, to check if it
really holds together coherently

12. Day 2, 13.00-14.00: Revisit structure
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Revisit your structure (mindmap, post-its, Word
file) and make any changes based on insights
from your morning’s reflections

13. Day 2, 14.00-17.00: Plug gaps
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Identify gaps in your story and arguments and
target additional reading to fill gaps

14. Day 3

15. Day 3: Write your review
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You now have a map you can follow to write
your literature review
Create sub-headings, go to relevant section of
Excel file, re-read the material under that section
and put into your own words, citing the
literature it came from
Add your own reflections to each section

16. Day 3: Write your review
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Conclude:
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Summarise your story, including key arguments
Draw out your main personal reflections re: what it
all means and why it is important

17. More information

18. Contact me:
www.markreed.webeden.ac.uk