Literature Reviews

The content of a literature review is important, and all articles you mention should have some relevance to your paper's topic.

Key things to include in a literature review include:

1. The results of the article
   • Do these results expand on the literature? Does your proposal hypothesis align with the results? If your project is complete, do the results align with your results?
2. The methodology of the article
   • Are you using the same methodology as the article you're citing? Are there some aspects of the methodology you are changing to be more fitting for your project? Did how they go about the design and distribution of their study help you in creating your study?
3. Concept from the article
   • Is the concept or purpose of this article similar to yours?
4. Does the article address relevant knowledge on your paper's topic?
   • Another way to use literature reviews is to mention what other articles have covered in regard to the knowledge of your topic and how you plan to cover the gaps in knowledge. Or to use the knowledge covered in other articles to give the reader a quick review so they can better understand your topic?

It varies from paper to paper what aspects of an article you should focus on covering in your literature review. But the key thing is what is relevant and what will support the main purpose of your proposal or paper.

For an argumentative review you will want to focus on the arguments presented in your sources. This can be arguments that align with your stance or to present the side you are opposing. The arguments you should focus on in your sources should be either supporting or refuting your stance, be a deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. 

For a historical review you will want to focus on all relevant studies surrounding your topic, discussing what has been covered on your topic all the way from the start to present day. Outlining its evolution throughout its existence in the world of research and show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research for the readers.

For a methodological review the key thing to focus on is the results or how the study was design and conducted. Reason for this is you hypothesize your results will be similar to your sources, or you are using a similar if to exact design to the study you are citing. 

For a theoretical review your literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework used in the research. It might discuss theories definitions, models, or key concepts; it might argue in favor of a specific theoretical approach, or combine more than one theoretical concept to create the framework for your own research.

Sometimes, your instructor might ask you to write a literature review as a standalone assignment. A standalone literature review does all the same things that a literature review section in a larger academic paper does: it provides a foundation of knowledge on a topic, while collecting relevant, timely research to synthesize into a cohesive summary of existing knowledge in the field.