I have just finished the draft of my literature review. Even though it was a small assignment in terms of the length, it has been the most challenging to do. For a 2000 word document, it has taken me a whole month to do.  The style of writing of the sources took me a long time to understand. When I had mostly figured the sources out, I could write a draft. But when I thought I was almost done, I discovered I had got the review procedure wrong, so I had to restart it.    

I don’t remember ever encountering this assignment in my undergraduate education. I remember writing a few critical reviews, but not a literature review. We did read some literature reviews but we were not asked to write them. I learned how different a literature review is from other academic writing because you don’t use your own voice until the conclusion. The experts need to be heard first, and then you can give your own piece to move the debate forward. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a model like this where you have to be very careful about how to insert your own voice. That was the hardest part because I am a person who likes to have my voice heard.

Overall I have enjoyed writing a literature review because I think it’s going to be one of the most valuable for my thesis. A thesis covers dozens of pages and sources, and you can’t go into detail on everything, so you can use a literature review model to indicate to your readers what the issue is, where the debate lies, and what is recommended to move forward.