In simple terms, your literature review section is an overview of what is already known about your topic. It provides the academic context for your research project and your overall aims and objectives.

Williams (2018) argues that it is important to view your literature review section as telling a story rather than providing a list of sources. You should ensure that your ideas are linked and discussed in terms of specific topic areas and sub-themes to break up the chapter into more manageable chunks while Biggam (2021) highlights the need to demonstrate your critical thinking and referencing skills within this section.

Please refer to our Critical Thinking guide and Referencing guide for further guidance on both.

The rest of this guide will consider how you may wish to write up the literature review section of your dissertation however for more in-depth information about a literature review, please follow the link below to our dedicated literature review guide.

Your literature review section should be structured with an introduction, conclusion, and main body which is broken down into further subsections based on how you have chosen to group or synthesise your literature.

There are three commonly used structures you may wish you consider:

Synthesising common ideas from your literature is a key aspect of writing a successful literature review.  One way to ensure you can fully synthesise your literature is to organise your notes so you can easily group the information (University of New England, 2024).

Please use the links and resources below to help with conducting your literature search.