Even if you postpone your literature review until the last moment, you will need to finally face the truth and do this task. However, now that you’ve come across this article, you do not need to worry about your literature review format anymore. A few lines below, you will find miraculous solutions, which can save your papers even in the most miserable situations.
Literature review format: why you should care about it
What is a literature review? A literature review is a thorough and well-organized summary of the research that was previously conducted by experts in the field. When working on your literature review, you will need to find relevant articles, critically analyze them and divide them into categories, according to the positions and perspectives taken by different scholars.
After doing this, you may feel sick and tired. Still, there is one more important aspect deserving your consideration. It is the literature review format, the manner in which you should present your findings. The arrangement of data and the proper use of a citation style may influence your grade dramatically, and you should care about it.
Literature review format should not be confused with:
- a book review format (a book review summarizes only one book, whereas a literature review analyzes and synthesizes several or -even better- plenty of sources);
- an annotated bibliography format (an annotated bibliography contains separate entries for separate sources in an alphabetical order; a literature review requires combining data from different sources, comparing and contrasting findings of different scholars).
Before you think of literature review format
Before you think of literature review format, you might ask how to do a literature review. For example, if you are assigned a literature review on the influence of background music on shopping behavior, you might use the following strategy:
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