Students in their entire academic life have different phases to complete and each of those phases brings different interesting yet challenging responsibilities that the candidates are required to fulfil. Most of these prerequisites to have a degree are the material that measures the student’s adroitness and abilities against the practical world which is the next step after graduation.

Therefore, a student is it a graduate or post-graduate may pay someone to write literature review or a veteran student of PhD, have to undergo different evaluations like quizzes, assignments, viva, interviews and dissertations.

Professional Dissertation Help UK is the concluding and the most important crucial phase of a student’s life because is that stage that marks the graduation of the student once the submitted dissertation is approved and published. (Kela-Kahingo, 2023)

Crafting a Literature Review

Writing a literature review for a research proposal sample is a solid literature review is essential to getting good grades and creating a dissertation, thesis, or research project that is robust. However, it’s not an easy process.

Upon reviewing hundreds of literature reviews, we at Grad Coach have observed a common set of errors and problems that hinder students.

We’ll break down a guide to writing the systematic literature review example review errors in this piece so you can steer clear of them and turn in an impressive literature review.

Mistakes to avoid when writing your Literature Review

1.     Excessive Dependence On Inferior Sources

An over dependence on low-quality sources is one of the most prevalent problems we observe in literature reviews. This encompasses a wide range of non-scholarly resources, such as opinion pieces, blog entries, advocacy organisation publications, and everyday news stories.

Naturally, a piece of information isn’t always of poor quality just because it appears in the format of a blog post. It is, however, typically less likely to be as academically sound as a journal article (i.e., well researched, impartial, and scientific)

Therefore you should approach this information with much more scepticism and ensure that it is supported by solid, well-reasoned arguments. Generally speaking, you should utilise these kinds of information sparingly in your literature review rather than relying too much on them.

2. Absence of significant or outstanding literature

The lack of seminal literature on the study topic is another problem we observe in less strong literature evaluations.

The term “landmark literature,” which may also be used to describe seminal or crucial works, describes the early works in a field that introduced a concept that had a significant impact on the field. (Makrmyassignment, 2018)

Stated otherwise, these are the papers that, in a sense, “map” the particular field of study.

3.     Insufficiently recent literature

As I previously stated, it is crucial that your literature evaluation recognise the seminal studies and research.

But the most recent research should also be included in a well-written literature review. It should, ideally, include a concise analysis of the evolution as well as a comparison and contrast of the “classics” and more recent studies.

Unless it’s one of your research goals, of course, you don’t want to waste valuable word count giving a detailed historical overview of the topic’s progress, but you should at least note any significant distinctions between the old and the new. (China-Scholar, 2022)

4.     Instead of integration and synthesis, use description

This is a significant one. Sadly, it’s also a rather typical one. Actually, I think it’s the most frequent problem we run into while doing literature reviews.

Students frequently mistakenly believe that a literature review is only an overview of the findings of all the researchers.

A long, in-depth “he said, she said.” This is untrue. A thorough literature review must do more than merely list all the pertinent works. In order to demonstrate how everything works together, it must incorporate the current research.

A thorough literature evaluation should also point up any gaps and sections that don’t make sense. To put it another way, what do researchers differ on and maybe why? Since the “truth” is usually quite complex and nuanced in reality, it is rare that everyone agrees on everything.

A well-rounded literature review presents a clear picture of the current state of knowledge to the reader by including a variety of viewpoints and results.

5.     Unfocused or irrelevant content

The introduction of extraneous text is a typical error observed in literature review chapters. There are certain chapters that go on and on for pages at a time, leaving the reader wondering, “So what?”

You should thus review your research aims, objectives, and research questions to make sure you stay focused and on topic. Recall that the literature review’s goal is to provide the theoretical framework necessary for you to accomplish your study’s goals and find the answers to your questions.

The very small amount of material that directly links to those three elements is therefore considered relevant content.

6.     Inadequate Chapter Layout And Organisation

When the literature review chapter is badly organised, even the finest information may not receive the marks it deserves.

Regrettably, this is a quite prevalent problem that leads to fragmented, awkwardly flowing arguments that are hard for the reader (the marker) to understand.

The most frequent cause of students’ bad structure is that they begin writing their literature review chapter without any kind of outline or organisation.

Of all, writing is a type of thinking, as we’ve already covered, so you don’t have to outline every aspect of your work before you begin. But before you touch the keyboard, you need at least have an outline and framework written out.

7.     Inadequate citing and plagiarism

This is by far the most punishable error in a literature review since it carries one of the highest fines while being incredibly preventable.

We see book evaluations all too frequently that appear to be rather decent at first glance. Nevertheless, a cursory glance at a plagiarism detector soon makes it clear that the student has not completely understood and rephrased the text they have read.

Works Cited

Kela-Kahingo, C., 2023. 7 Common Mistakes in Literature Review. [Online]
Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-common-mistakes-literature-review-caroline-kela-kahingo-lpxzf/
[Accessed 29 February 2024].

Makrmyassignment, 2018. 7 COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY STUDENTS WHILE WRITING LITERATURE REVIEWS. [Online]
Available at: https://www.makemyassignments.com/blog/7-common-mistakes-made-by-students-while-writing-literature-reviews/
[Accessed 29 February 2024].

China-Scholar, 2022. 5 Literature Review Mistakes You Must Avoid. [Online]
Available at: https://www.china-scholar.com/5-literature-review-mistakes-you-must-avoid/
[Accessed 29 February 2024].