A literature review - or more accurately, a review of the literature - is an integral part of every doctoral dissertation, and occasionally of a master's thesis (depending on the requirements of your department). It serves a distinct purpose in the context of the overall document ? namely, to survey and explain the available source materials on a narrowed topic. Occasionally you may be asked to write an annotated bibliography, listing references along with your relevant comments. But more generally, a review of the literature, as part of an extended research paper, compares published works on your topic, presents and discusses prevailing theories, and also discusses the specific contributions of various writers in your field.

Why write one, as part of your research project? For a number of excellent reasons! From your own point of view, a lit. review (the most common abbreviation) aids you in your survey of secondary sources, compelling you to sort through the mass of material before you and make some sense out of it all. Writing what is essentially an essay about who has gone before you in this research, and what they have discovered and contributed to the field, gives you a sense of wholeness about your project, allowing you to see quite accurately where your unique point of view fits into the whole. (In this way, people who enjoy genealogical research also grasp where they fit into the larger scheme of things.) Sometimes a lit. review can also suggest a new line of enquiry, a different angle, perhaps, than anything you might have considered before you began your research. In short, it tells you what has already been done so you will be assured that you're not providing old news.

From your reader's point of view, a lit. review provides assurance that you, the writer, have done the research necessary for a thorough understanding of the topic under examination. It alerts the reader to what has gone before, and permits the same situating of the topic as it has already done for the writer. And finally, should the reader want to know more about any given element of the topic, he or she will know what references to pursue.

All in all, a lit. review well serves both writer and reader.

There is only one problem: with rare exceptions, a lit. review is an amazingly dull document. Your challenge in writing one, therefore, is to minimize the dullness and maximize the interest. Here are several suggestions to accomplish this.

(A) It's often helpful to think of a lit. review as an informative conversation between colleagues. The conversation element encourages flow over stiffness. Imagine that your colleague is just as interested in the project as you are, and just as eager to know what has already been done.

(B) Decide in advance how you would prefer to organize your material. Your choice may depend in part on your field, as well as on your specific topic. Briefly, you could choose (1) chronological, which is simply a historical overview by date of previous research; (2) organizing the research by specific approaches to a question, noting perhaps that researchers A, B and C are in agreement on a positive view, while X, Y and Z tend to be negative (for example); a combination of the two, wherein you note chronological commentary but divide it into specific approaches. You may also discover other organizational schemes that will serve your purpose.

(C) Employ the same sentence structure variation that you use in your normal writing. Avoid using the same introductory style every time, and check your thesaurus for synonyms for the word "states" (as in critic Smith states that ...). Remember, in your imagination you are explaining all this to a colleague!