Q: How do I write a literature review for a research dissertation?

You have actually asked about writing two documents, a research proposal and a research dissertation. We shall respond to both separately. Also, as you have asked about “plenty of support,” we shall provide relevant links to help you in both the tasks.

Writing a research proposal

A research proposal is an outline of the key aspects of your research written with the intention of receiving approval for conducting the research. It includes aspects such as the aim, topic, target group(s), methodology, and limitations of the research. The proposal allows the reviewer(s) to assess whether or not you are familiar with the various aspects of the topic and therefore either to provide the approval or recommend researching another topic. The proposal basically lays the ground for the research.

A key activity that will help in the groundwork is the literature search. This involves identifying and going through various kinds of literature (such as other studies, expert articles, and even theoretical or conceptual pieces) on and around the topic. Doing this may also help identify gaps in existing studies that you may seek to address through your research. Note that you may not need to go through the literature in tremendous detail at this stage; that will come during the literature review. Here, you mainly need to make a note of key points and concepts in other literature that may help provide information and insights for your own research.

For more information, you may go through the following resources:

• How do I develop an outline for a Masters thesis proposal?
• How to write the introduction of a research proposal?
• 10 Tips to write an effective research grant proposal
• Tips for effective literature searching and keeping up with new publications

Writing the literature review for a research dissertation

The literature review is a section in your dissertation in which you review all the literature you have studied related to your topic. Before writing the literature review, you need to determine how to organize the review, whether thematically, methodologically, chronologically, or simply alphabetically. When writing the review, you need to mention the title, author, and publication and then explain the key points and concepts of relevance from each article. At the end, you need to list all the reviewed articles in the References section.

For more information on writing a literature review, you may go through the following resources:

• How to write the literature review of your research paper
• How should my literature review be structured?
• What are the basics of writing a literature review?
• Understand the differences between references and citations in a research paper

For further information, you may search through the site using relevant keywords. All the best!