Writing Literature Review - Hope will get many useful responses (Jan/03/2009 )
HI aLL,
I know there is a bunch of scientists and almost everyone must have/in the process or will write literature review for their thesis.
I would like to invite all to share their experiences and the proper method/procedure/protocol for writing literature review of PhD level thesis.
Based on these responses, i will plan my literature reveiw chapter. I am sure you all will contribute and will help me.
Thanx
Hi
I am writing my thesis these days and one problem which I faced reading other people's thesis was that I had to always goto the internet or open papers if I was new to something in the thesis. I have tried to avoid that in my thesis and as a result the chapter covering the review of literature is the longest chapter in the thesis. My personal view is that the thesis should be self sufficient and explain what was known in the field and the contributions you made. Also, it helps you highlight the importance of yr work and thus makes the thesis interesting to read. 
TC
I am sorry, but I am new here. I am doing a thesis for my Final Year Project and I am currently stuck at the introduction. Is the review you two talking about the same as the Introduction?
Hi
Review of literature covers what is known in the field till now.
Introduction is more like the introduction to your work, as in how have you contributed to the field (in brief).
Thats what I understand
TC
Welcome here.
Yes i am talking about the 1st chapter of thesis which comprise of literature review as TC mentioned plus introduction of your own work.
Welcome here.
Yes i am talking about the 1st chapter of thesis which comprise of literature review as TC mentioned plus introduction of your own work.
hi!!
I am from Singapore, and I am not too sure if the format for thesis here and over in your country (are you from Australia?). My thesis consists of acknowledgement, table of content, abstract, introduction, materials & methods, results, discussion and conclusion. I have problems writing out the thesis because my project is a new project. Thus, I am unsure of how to get started on it. I think no one has done it before (due to confidentiality, I am unable to say out what the project is about. Sorry for this!!!).
regards,
jiajia1987
hi all and welcome to bioforum,
there are as many different styles as personalities when it comes to writing, as tc says, his/her literature review is the longest chapter in the whole phd thesis, which would make it seem like that was the most relevant part, rather than the work done. personally i consider the lit review must have relevant information to what you're doing, not excesively tho.
you should consider the people who are going to read it might be experts in the field and might (or not) know a lot more, the important is that you know enough to be able to formulate a project with firm statements and obviously not to repeat something that has been already published. if you have already finished your work then it is a lot easier to write the literature review, based on the things that were relevant to formulate your project in the first place. if you're writing your thesis i'd strongly recommend you to finish everything else before the literature review, otherwise you might spend a lot of time doing that part and then have to change it at the end.
I'd agree, it depends on your style and what your supervisor likes or wants. In my thesis there is no review at all and I know only a few theses that have an extra chapter for this.
IMO such reviews are more for master theses, to show that the student can collect the relevant literature and knows how to work with it (i.e. extracting the content out of it) and understood the topics.
In Phd theses the relevant literature is normally used and related to the own results in the discussion and in the introduction (to give the background and formulate the goals of the thesis). That should be enough.
Thank you so much for the replies. I started on my project one month ago (dec 08), but my institution only allows us to include work that has been started from Jan this year. Right now, my supervisor told me to get started on the introduction, and I found it hard to do so since I am still at the early stages of this project. I realized that I have a better idea of what I wanna write in my thesis as time pass. I guess I will just start reading up on some stuffs and start writing next month or so (though i seriously hardly have enough time to do any reading up due to my labwork!). 