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How to Write a Literature Review Outline: Pro Tips for A-Grade Results

To graduate, students must submit a research thesis for evaluation, a demanding paper. One of the sections that cause trouble is the literature review example, which is also one of the essential parts. That’s why we have compiled useful information and sample on approaching your literature review to submit a superb paper.

After reading the literature, understanding the field, and knowing how your research fits into the existing one, it’s time to put it all down. But where do you start? How do you make it clear and easy to follow? You need an outline. This text describes the importance of drafting an outline and offers a literature review outline example to help ease your work.

Why You Need a Literature Review Outline Sample

Any paper you write in college has a structure you must follow. The proper structure example makes your work easy to read. To nail the structure of a literature review, you need a plan, and that’s where an outline and an example are important. The outline of your review is a general plan of how you’ll present your material in a paper.

You should view the outline example as the foundation of your literature review, whereby you list down all the main sections and major points you plan to present in the order you want them to appear. A literature review outline sample should guide you in creating an outline that helps you organize your thoughts and ideas. Here’s how an outline example will help.

Provides Better Focus on the Main Points

Your literature review outline example contains all the main ideas you’ll include in the work. Thus, you’ll have a focused approach to writing, only including the main points without drifting into unrelated topics.

Makes Writing Easier and Faster

An outline example makes you write faster. Once you have created your outline, all you need to do is expound on the already listed points and provide the relevant examples. It makes it simpler than just jumping into writing because you’ll be less likely to get stuck.

Smooth Transition

When you outline your literature review example, transitioning from one idea or paragraph to the next becomes easier. The review becomes smooth and easier to read, as evident in the sample literature review outline provided.

Improves the Quality of Your Literature Review

An outline example helps you filter what to write. While creating your outline, you’ll have a lot of points and ideas, but not all of them should be in the review. So, you only have to pick the best examples and include them in your outline, improving your work’s quality.

Definition and Examples of Literature Review Outlines

A literature review is not a common paper example among students because, most of the time, they only need to write it once in their dissertation. So, what is it? A literature review is a body of work that evaluates the existing literature on a specific topic, often within a particular timeframe.

A student should read and analyze different sources & examples related to the main subject and showcase their understanding of the material. Then, they summarize the important information and reorganize it to provide unique meaning.

Although a literature review is often part of a longer paper, sometimes students are asked to write one by itself as an assignment. Either way, having some good examples of literature review outlines should help.

Format of a Psychology Literature Review Example

As mentioned, the outline and an example are useful for organizing your thoughts and planning your literature review in thesis or any other paper. An outline also helps you determine how long every section of your literary review will be, which should be useful for the format restrictions.

It’s best to stick to the format and appropriate examples specified by your instructor when writing papers for college. Most institutions prefer the APA, which applies to sciences, education, and psychology. So, a psychology student should benefit from an APA psychology literature review example.

Literature Review Dissertation Example: Elements and Structure

A literature review outline is made up of three key elements. Each of them serves a purpose in making your work presentable. An outline example will show you these elements.

1. The Introduction

You need to introduce a reader to the general concept of the review. The intro should summarize the literature examples you aim to review and reveal both the general and specific focus of your work. It should also include some background information related to the topic in focus so that readers will better understand its importance, as you’ll see in a literature review example education.

2. Body Paragraphs

The body should break down the different sources & examples of literature. You should discuss only one literature source per paragraph, such that the number of sources determines the number of paragraphs. A lit review outline example can show you how to create this section from the outline.

Introduce a source example and then summarize what is found in it. From there, you can discuss how it relates to your hypothesis. Finally, like in our literature review outline examples APA, explain how the sources relate to each other and the hypothesis as a whole. Some areas to outline here include:

• Overview of literature
• Research problem under the scope of the literature
• Methods, gaps, and controversial observations/points
• Outcomes

3. Conclusion

A literature review outline example will show you that a conclusion summarizes everything discussed in the paper and ties it into a single argument that proves or disproves the main question or stated hypothesis. An example of a strong conclusion should contain the following:

• A summarized cumulative argument around the research question
• A connection to existing literature and how the paper fits with the current knowledge
• Highlights of areas & examples of future studies

Like how an outline example is written, you can choose between two approaches based on what the literature review is about when composing an outline. The first is a descriptive approach. Here, you explore the existing knowledge on a particular topic. It is a valid option when there is minimal research on your topic, but there are some theories related to your research subject. A literature review sociology example should provide a better understanding of this.

The second is the explanatory approach, where you explain what’s causing something to happen or why something exists. Such a hypothesis needs to be something that can be proven or disproven through science and real examples.

Writing a Literature Review Outline – Even More Useful Recommendations

The first thing to note when writing your literature review outline example is following the instructions. In some cases, instructors will provide custom guidelines on different aspects of a literature review, f.e. the length or number of sources. If there are none, use what best works for your literary review, but consult an outline example.

As the foundation, your outline example should dictate your literature review’s direction. It means choosing only the most concrete facts backed by enough evidence. Back any claim you make in your review example with published work. Don’t include any points to the literature review outline you cannot validate; it will be deemed speculation.

Here are some extra tips on how to write a literature review outline:

• Use bullet points to list the different ideas/points to include in your literature review example
• Start by stating the thesis statement of your literature review outline, which should be about one line
• Keep it concise; your outline should state what you’ll write and not go into details
• Arrange your points in the order you see fit, from strongest to weak or vice versa
• Write down any possible transitions between the different paragraphs

When it’s finally time to start writing, remember to use your outline and a review example as the main references to ensure you stay on track and that your work flows well.

A Literature Review Example will Help You Craft Yours Well

Composing an outline of a literature review is not easy and requires enough preparation and time. However, we have provided an example of steps you can follow to make the process easier and a literature review dissertation example you can use as a reference.

Identify Your Topic

The approach to this step depends on whether your literature review is a standalone paper or part of a research work. If this is a standalone task, pick a topic and a suitable case example for which you’ll collect literature. When it is a research work or other longer papers, pick a research question and then search for literature related to it. It’s best to choose a review example topic you are interested in and know more about.

Plan Your Structure

Note down all the main points you want to cover in your paper. An outline example comes in handy when planning the structure of the review. So feel free to consult an example of literature review outline.

Research & Use Ready-Made Examples

Finding relevant publications for your research isn’t that difficult once you know what you’re doing. To collect literature for your literature review outline example, start by compiling a list of keywords related to your topic and use them to search for sources online. Then, only select the trusted sources, f.e. from university libraries and other online scientific databases. Since going through this literature can be overwhelming, we recommend just reading the abstracts to find out whether a source sufficiently relates to your outline topic example.

Evaluate and Select Sources

During your research, you’ll encounter a lot of sources related to your literature review outline example. Many individuals make the blunder of trying to use all the sources. Instead, evaluate each source & example you have discovered and pick the best and most appropriate ones. Some of the characteristics to assess in a source include; credibility, relevance, key insights, and influence. Feel free to refer to an outline literature review example to identify some sample priority sources.

Ascertain the Association between Existing Studies

Analyze the current outlines and review the association between the already existing literature examples. It’ll help you organize the knowledge to suit your literature review. If possible, highlight the contributions that your research adds to the field.

Craft the Outline Example

As hinted earlier, any academic paper outline, including a literature review, is crucial because it makes writing easier and ensures you don’t miss anything when composing the paper. So you should know how to create a good one, even if it means consulting a literature review outline pdf or any example.

Start Writing

After compiling your sources and notes and drafting an outline example, it’s time to start writing. Follow your outline and stick to the format and structure instructions specified for your literature review.

Assess Your Work

After drafting the literature review outline example, go through the work and remove any mistakes, especially punctuation & grammar errors. You can use various tools to improve your grammar delivery and correct your spelling. Alternatively, have someone assess your outline example – a friend, a mentor, a counselor, or everyone else.

Add the Bibliographies Used

Cite all the sources you used in the literature review outline example. It provides a way for the reader to acquire more information on the subject should they need it. Furthermore, it gives the authors of the sources & literature examples the credit they deserve for their work.

Can I Use a Sample Literature Review Outline for All Subjects?

It’s okay for students to experience some trouble constructing the outline or the example of a literature analysis. Even with the above information, it might still feel like a foreign concept to some. That’s why we have compiled various examples you can use for different disciplines, including a political science literature review sample.

Get Outline Literature Review Example plus More

Our quality outline example aims to help you know what a good outline looks like so that you can create your own and compose top-class literature reviews. We also provide a literary review service to help students accomplish their tasks stress-freely. So whether you want an outline example or someone to compose your paper, here is the place to get them.