

The critical point here is that you should consider more than just a study's findings or research outputs when including research in your literature review. You can judge any particular study by many factors, including: Literature reviews are only as strong as the quality of the studies that the researcher collects. What counts as recent differs by field start by looking for research published within the last three years and gradually expand to older research when you need to collect more articles for your review. Older research is likely to have encountered challenges and critiques that may render their findings outdated or refuted. Recently published studies have greater value in determining the gaps in the current state of research. Journals tend to look favorably on systematic reviews that include articles they have published. Consider who the most prominent scholars in your field are and determine which journals publish their research or have them as editors or reviewers. The most significant research relevant to your field focuses on a narrow set of journals similar in aims and scope.
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Especially when writing for a peer-reviewed journal, it is essential to consider how to demonstrate research rigor in your literature review to persuade reviewers of its scholarly value. In that case, the researcher can argue that further study can address this research gap.Įvidence of a rigorous literature review is more important than the word count or the number of articles that undergo data analysis. For example, suppose the analysis makes it apparent that the published research on people's sleep patterns has not adequately explored the connection between sleep and a particular factor (e.g., television-watching habits, indoor air quality). The literature review allows the researcher to argue a particular point through the evidence provided by the analysis. This analysis allows the researcher to point out what the field has frequently explored or, on the other hand, overlooked. They can then analyze the collected studies by finding and identifying patterns or themes that occur frequently. With a focus in mind, a researcher can collect studies that provide relevant information for that focus. A literature review, then, should center the literature collection around that focus. This sort of inquiry typically targets a particular phenomenon, population, or even research method to examine how different studies have looked at the same thing differently. Similar to a typical study, a literature review should have a research question or questions that analysis can answer. From that analysis, a literature review can suggest new inquiries to pursue. The only significant difference with a literature review treats existing literature as the research data to collect and analyze. Consider a literature review as a typical research publication presenting a study, its results, and the salient points scholars can infer from the study.
