Writing the literature review
A literature review is not a summary of "what you've learnt from what you've read". Rather, consider the challenge to be writing a 'problem oriented narrative'. A simple problem-oriented narrative has three parts.
Beginning, middle, end.
Problem, framing literature, resolution.
Identify an overall issue and gradually introduce scholarly works, develop an integrated framework, arrive at a clearly focused question.
Search for related prior research that would inspire and inform your next steps. Select and refine relevant keywords for this search. The following databases index academic (peer-reviewed research) publications.
- The DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) (link) - a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
- Google Scholar* (link)
- Scopus* (link)
- Web of Science* (link)
- Elsevier* - also hosts some open access journals (link)
- SAGE Publishing* - also hosts some open access journals (link)
- Springer* - also hosts some open access journals (link)
- Routledge* - also hosts some open access journals (link)
- JSTOR* - also hosts some open access journals (link)
- Project MUSE* - a public index/catalogue (link)
If you find (potentially) interesting articles but cannot access them freely you should consider contacting the author(s) directly by email. Introduce yourself and reason for seeking access to a copy. Many authors will respond generously to such requests from students and share drafts or pre-press copies.
Another tack to take. Assuming that the article/chapter/section/publication sought is not the only relevant research dealing with this topic in the research world, you can conduct a forward citation search, that is, search for articles that cite this one. Searching forward ("cited by") approach is also a good way of the paper's impact and of identifying similar current research publications.
