The Scientista Foundation
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Team
  • My Campus
    • Find My Campus
    • Start A Chapter >
      • Chapter Application
      • Chapter Application (In Progress)
  • The Periodical
    • Career Blog
    • Plan Your Education
    • Lifestyle Blog
    • Women in Science News
    • DiscovHER Science
    • Get Inspired
  • Events
    • Events
    • Symposium 2019
    • Symposium Testimonials
  • Join
    • Subscribe!
    • Internships
    • Test Membership
  • Sponsorship
    • Our Sponsors
    • Sponsor Scientista!
    • University Membership
    • Donate
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Team
  • My Campus
    • Find My Campus
    • Start A Chapter >
      • Chapter Application
      • Chapter Application (In Progress)
  • The Periodical
    • Career Blog
    • Plan Your Education
    • Lifestyle Blog
    • Women in Science News
    • DiscovHER Science
    • Get Inspired
  • Events
    • Events
    • Symposium 2019
    • Symposium Testimonials
  • Join
    • Subscribe!
    • Internships
    • Test Membership
  • Sponsorship
    • Our Sponsors
    • Sponsor Scientista!
    • University Membership
    • Donate
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

5/3/2016 0 Comments

The Literature Review: What It Is and Why You Should Write One

By Julie F. Charbonnier

When researching a new topic, you may one day come across a literature review. Or, perhaps you will need to write your own review, as part of a senior thesis project or as a chapter of your dissertation. Either way, you can use literature reviews as an important tool for understanding the research in an unfamiliar field and for developing your own writing skills.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a summary of the current, scientific literature on a particular topic or a specialized critique of an individual article. Literature reviews require you to find, collect, and organize past studies on a scientific topic or question. With this background material in hand, you will identify the emerging ideas in a very specific area, as well as important theories and questions that still need to be answered.

Why should I write a literature review?
There are hundreds of studies being published every week, and scientists are inundated by a deluge of information. A review is a great way to immerse yourself in the literature and gain valuable research skills without having to first collect data. Scientists typically publish the results of individual studies in peer-reviewed journals (the primary literature), where articles are independently evaluated by other scientists in the field. Because literature reviews often encompass multiple studies, they allow you to step back and take in an overview of the important work in a given area. Since literature reviews provide the history of a given field, you can use them to become more familiar with a new field of research and determine how your research can build upon a previous foundation. 

How can literature reviews help to develop my writing skills?
Writing a review will require you to search the literature, to read and determine the relevance of scientific articles, and to organize previous research in the field, while communicating your own ideas. This process will require you to identify relevant keywords for your literature search and sift through the current literature, making you more proficient at "skimming" scientific articles and understanding complex research topics. Once you have the articles, you will need to interpret the results for yourself and evaluate the conclusions the authors make, improving your ability to discern a high-quality paper from a weak one. Finally, you will have to integrate the information and find points of coherence.
Many of these skills are also highly transferable to non-academic careers. The ability to gather and systematically organize information and effectively synthesize this data into a coherent whole will increase your employability in any field. For example, in an industry position you may have to analyze large amounts of company or customer data and identify the key points of interest. By writing a literature review, you will also improve your editing skills, enabling you to refine your written communication skills. Your literature review will be a valuable writing sample that you can present to potential employers and discuss during interviews for your entire career.
 
Now that you want to write a literature review, do you need to know how? Julie Charbonnier also wrote "How to write a literature review". Find it here!


Picture
About the Author
Julie F. Charbonnier
is a 4th-year PhD candidate in Integrative Life Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research focuses on amphibian and population ecology. She is also interested in scientific writing and science policy. You can follow Julie on Twitter @modernecologist





Comments? Leave them below!

].com/" data-width="630" data-num-posts="10">
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Education Blog

    Picture

    RSS Feed

    About Scientista

    scientista women in STEM
    about the scientista foundation

    Subscribe!

    scientista women in STEM

    NEW!

    scientista women in STEM
    Scientista Homework Help Center

    New Posts

    scientista women in STEM
    surfing-waves.comget this widget

    What's Hot

    scientista women in science
    Click to set custom HTML

    You Might Like...

    scientista women in science


    Connect With Us

    scientista women in STEM

    Latest tweets

    Tweets by @Scientista_Talk

About

Mission  
Team


Connect

E-Newsletter
Facebook
Twitter
​
Instagram
Contact 


Press

All Press
Harvard Crimson
Harvard Gazette
Bostinnovation.com

Partner

Our Sponsors
Sponsorship Inquiries
​Partnership Inquiries
The Scientista Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved © 2011-2021 | Based in NY | contact@scientistafoundation.org
The Network for Pre-Professional Women in Science and Engineering
The Scientista Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) -- Donate!

Photos used under Creative Commons from Dr.Farouk, geezycreezy | www.glennorion.com, couragextoxlive, Walt Stoneburner, redstamp.com, Walt Stoneburner