Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review

Book excerpt: This dynamic guide to doing literature reviews demystifies the process in seven steps to show researchers how to produce a comprehensive literature review. Teaching techniques to bring systematic thoroughness and reflexivity to research, the authors show how to achieve a rich, ethical and reflexive review. What makes this book unique: Focuses on multimodal texts and settings such as observations, documents, social media, experts in the field and secondary data so that your review covers the full research environment Puts mixed methods at the centre of the process Shows you how to synthesize information thematically, rather than merely summarize the existing literature and findings Brings culture into the process to help you address bias and understand the role of knowledge interpretation, guiding you through Teaches the CORE of the literature review – Critical thinking, Organization, Reflections and Evaluation – and provides a guide for reflexivity at the end of each of the seven steps Visualizes the steps with roadmaps so you can track progress and self-evaluate as you learn the steps This book is the essential best practices guide for students and researchers, providing the understanding and tools to approach both the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of a rigorous, comprehensive, literature review.