The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success

This book is rated 4 only because I have not read it as yet. I fully expect it to be an excellent addition to the Dissertation Guidebook by Rudestam and Newton. Students who are going through the process of obtaining a doctoral degree need all the help they can get to fulfill the requirements with gusto and expertise.

I had been working on a dissertation literature review for about a month and a half before purchasing this book, hoping it would help me with some of the final steps of the review. I did not find the information that I was really looking for, including, when to know if my review was thorough enough and knowing if I really had learned all there is to know about my topic. I also wonder sometimes when to stop looking at the literature, because I could honestly spend all day long for weeks on end and still find more literature written on my topic. I didn't see any specific recommendations in the book to help with this.

I also thought that some of the steps were too intense if you want to have your literature review written in a reasonable amount of time. I'm guessing that if you were to follow all that it recommended that you could be spending up to a year working on the lit review. I don't have that kind of patience or time. I would have appreciated some information on what to do if you were in a situation like me: wanting to get the literature review done as quickly as possible, and what to do if you are already more than halfway through with it and had skipped some of the authors' earlier recommendations.

One more thing, I think that it leaves out an important fact about your literature review, as far as it pertains to doing a graduate thesis or dissertation: it's all about meeting the requirements that are set forth by your committee, particularly your committee chair. Consult with them often to determine what it is they are looking for with a literature review.

I decided to give the book 4 stars instead of 3, because I think the book would have been more helpful if I had not already started my lit review.

If this is not required textbook, I'll definitely not buy it.
Everything in this book is right, or you can hardly say they are wrong. Only because they are straightforward.
Even though, the concepts in literature review are clear and maybe helpful.

I had to purchase this for class. How is it possible you don't know how to do a literature review? Can you tie your own shoes? If yes, you can look up articles online at your school library. This would be ideal if I were in high school. Other than that, I can't recommend.

This book is a much-needed life raft for graduate students lost amid the sea of literature on his/her topic. Straightforward, logical, and concise, it's an easy-to-use "calm-down pill" for those working through (and freaking-out over) the literature review stage of their thesis or dissertation.

Ok, gently rub your sweaty palms together, take a deep breath, and open this book and read and/or skim-it from cover to cover; (it's only 154 pages). Then, take a legal pad to take notes and and begin using the book as a workbook to work through your own topic. Start with the Introduction -- read this section again very carefully, it's the template for the whole process.

Then, when you're ready to begin, say to yourself five-times, "I can do this," and take another deep breath. You're about to embark on a most interesting journey; when you arrive, you'll know more about your topic than you ever imagined!

Now, begin working your topic through the whole step-by-step process as outlined by each chapter in the book:

Step 1: Select your topic (if you haven't already) -- follow Machi and McEvoy's guidelines as to how to specify a research interest.

Step 2: Search the literature, following their suggestions.

Step 3: Develop the argument-- build your case and evaluate the various parts of your argument.

Step 4: Survey the literature -- assemble your collected data, synthesize it and look for patterns.

Step 5: Critique the literature -- look for logical interpretations of evidence to produce propositions that signal a specific conclusion.

Step 6: Write your review -- write it to understand, that is, to develop and understand your topic and to be understood as well. If necessary, redraft the content; you want to make sure your work accurately and adequately communicates the ideas to your readers.

The author's closing words are excellent advice: "The act of writing is not necessarily a joy, reading a well-written piece that you have worked through carefully is a joy. To have written is. For that reason, Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. Seize the day, and put no trust in the morrow! Get on with the writing, and tenaciously follow it wherever it takes you. Craft it well. Experience the joy of completing a good work, to understand and be understood."

Highly recommended for college and university library collections and individuals writing a thesis or dissertation.

R. Neil Scott
Middle Tennessee State University

The literature review is an issue that is always left to the end or given no importance from the beginning. A good review is not easy to make, and for some time I wanted to read a book to improve my skills to write good literature reviews, although I haven't had many problems with peer-reviewers on this issue in particular.

As always, I use the books I review for my own papers, in this case to perform the literature review of my next article. So I find very useful the structure provided for the review writing, indeed basic, simple and reasonable, which provides a methodology that could help you to complete your ideas, thesis, analyzed documentation and its evaluation.

Though the book is a bit theoretical, it has a practical approach in 6 steps that contributes to help you not to forget these basic steps of the literature review and its writing.

A detailed review of this book is available in my blog howtopublishinjournals.com

I was assigned this book for a doctoral-level class on how to write a literature review. The book is superb, chapter one on questions offers an excellent start, the chapter on logic is very helpful, and pages 145-150 tie it all together. I know I am short-sheeting the section on mapping, which was very good. However, for me, my second sentence is the heart of what I found extremely helpful. I highly recommend this clear and concise read. You will want to refer to it, as a new student to literature reviews, again and again.

There is newer edition available at the store. Significant revision has been made by the authors. For couple more dollars I should recommend it over this editon. The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success

I needed this book for a college class. Saved money by purchasing on the store and getting the kindle book for only $9 more is awesome. The kindle version works much better than cafe scribe or brightwave.

i have a number of LR books but this one stands out. it is logical, simple and clear. i have atlas.ti that i'm using to code the papers and it fits very well with layout of this book. especially, how to generate the categories from the codes, themes and concepts. also, i like the argument parts of the book.

i will highly recommend this for all my fellow phd students and grads students generally.

The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success
The unique strength of this book above other similar kind is that it features with lots of illustration and research data. At the same time those strength can easily become weakness when they are dated. However, now these authors put out the second edition in the market. I do not know why the store does not say it, though. Please get the second edition in order to get most out of this book. Especially when the used copy of this old edition is about the same price with the brand new second edition.

Whether you are a skilled and experienced writer, or you struggle with every paper, grab a copy of this book. Useful for graduate students and ambitious undergraduates. A valuable tool to help organize and write your next paper or professional report. Keep it on the shelf next to your dictionary, thesaurus, and grammatical guide. I wish I had a copy when I STARTED graduate school, not one year into it.

I found this book to be of help with writing a lit review. I was a bit stuck, and this book helped me get past the block. I would recommend this book to anyone who is having a difficult time with their lit review. The step by step delineation of the tasks required were clear and made the task of writing the review less daunting.