The First 6 Months - Tackling the Literature Review

#1 Decide on your review style early on

Your literature review can be systematic or narrative. A narrative review is the way most people think to approach a literature review: you start with a few key words and then grow your search organically by following the citations of key papers. You can keep changing your search words to find more articles and can decide which papers you want to use with minimal justification. The alternative is a systematic review. As the name suggests this style has a stricter system with defined search terms and exclusion/inclusion criteria. This helps you find all the possible articles which you then narrow down the ones to review using detailed criteria. Which style of review is appropriate will depend on your topic and research question. Talk to your supervisor about which type of review you are aiming for.

#2 Find an organisation method that works for you

The key challenge with the literature review is managing the sheer volume of papers you read. As I have advised before, write EVERYTHING down. You will never remember exactly what you read or where you found it. A sure sign of a PhD student is that we have a billion tabs open – all papers that we intend to read at some point but will probably never get round to! This means that the icon for each tab is so small that even keeping the article open isn’t a sure-fire way to find it again! Deciding on a notetaking system that works for you is really important; the earlier into your reading journey you do this, the easier it will be. I personally use a spreadsheet with the article name, first author, year, key words (which I can use to filter for relevant paragraphs when writing) and key notes about the paper. This system also means I can check that I haven’t read a paper before (trust me, it happens!!). People record their notes differently - my trusty spreadsheet might not work for you. Find what suits you and then stick to it. It's also important to decide on a reference management system early on so you can add your articles in as your read them and keep an accurate bibliography. This will make it easier when you need to import citations into your literature review and means you can make your reference list automatically through systems like EndNote or Mendeley.

#3 Know when to start writing

Obviously, you can’t start writing straight away – you have to read the literature to be able to review it! However, it’s hard to know when to stop reading and put pen to paper. This is a personal decision, but I started writing as soon as I felt I had a good understanding of a mini topic. I divided my literature review into key sections and then researched and wrote a draft for each in turn. This broke up the tasks into smaller chunks and made it feel more achievable. Starting writing can also show you areas where you’re missing references to support your point. This creates a feedback cycle of more reading and more writing to strength your review.

Start writing whichever section you feel most confident in. This doesn’t have to be the first section. My background is in Biomedical Sciences so I was more confident on those sections than the topics which were newer to me. Writing these paragraphs first helped me build confidence and develop my writing style. Send this first section to your supervisors so they can get a feel for your writing voice early on. The first time you send your work off is really daunting but remember they are there to help and support you, not assess you. Their feedback will help grow your literature review to the standard of your future thesis.

#4 Keep updating and refreshing articles

The nature of literature is that it keeps growing. This means you can’t do one search and assume that 6 months later you still have all the relevant articles. New research is being published every day so make sure to keep checking for any key developments. The library team at your university may be able to help you set up alerts for key words so that you never miss a crucial paper. If there are a few key players in your area, follow them on social media so you’ll see if they publish anything new. Accepting that you will miss papers the first-time round is all part of the process of reviewing and it can be exciting to see how the field has changed in the 6 months since you last checked results.

#5 Trust that you are the right person to write the review

I felt very strange about summarising (and sometimes criticising) the work of established researchers. However, over the course of writing your literature review you will start to better understand the field and be able to critically analyse the work that has gone before you. Imposter syndrome has a huge effect on review authors but trust that you are the right person to write this review and by the end you’ll know enough to summarise the work completed. All PhD students struggle with this feeling so talk to other researchers; there may also be some university provided courses on imposter syndrome to help you see your abilities more clearly.

Doing my literature review in the last six months has increased my confidence when discussing my project with others. Taking the time to do your review well will stand you in better stead when you start collecting research presenting results. Plus, it’s satisfying to see all the progress you’ve made when you look at your 10,000-word document. You can do it!!