How to Write a Literature Review in 30 Minutes or Less

[Music]

hi everyone and welcome one thing that I

promise you today is that this

presentation is going to last less than

30 minutes but I also promise you that

if you've already done good research

you've read all of your sources that you

need to on this topic you have extracted

information from them and otherwise

summarized the sources and written them

up and your summaries are and those

source citations are now in a nice

alphabetical list if you've done that

what is called annotated bibliography

and you're ready to start on this

literature review I guarantee you and if

you follow these steps I'm about to give

you you can write the rough draft of

this literature review in 30 minutes or

less but first a couple of questions

question number one what the heck is a

literature review or what the bleep is a

literature review the second question

why the bleep should I care what a

literature review is you know it seems

like we've got these stodgy professors

out there who kind of revel in the fact

that they like to give these academic

sounding assignments that really had no

validity in the real world and the

literature review things would be one of

those examples but you know what nothing

could be further from the truth and let

me show you why let's say that you just

graduated with a BS degree in human

resources management congratulations on

that GPA by the way three point eight

three and also congratulations on having

landed your first job as an

administrative manager at caliber

systems a firm with over 1,800 employees

you've definitely got room for

advancement there so everything's

looking great right now one day your

supervisor comes back from a meeting in

the C suite and has a little assignment

for you here's the assignment should

caliber systems institute a cultural

diversity training program

and if so what should that program

consist of your report which is doing

the form of a presentation in two weeks

is going to determine the future of your

job and your career at caliper systems

okay hotshot what's your next move your

next move is to go find some answers to

some very real questions those questions

being what is cultural diversity

training is it something that's gaining

acceptance in this human resources world

or is is considered a waste of money

another question one of the various

types of cultural diversity training

offered today especially in companies of

my size caliber systems and in my sector

IT consultancy third question what has

been the impacts both positive and

negative of cultural diversity training

on companies in other words before you

make a recommendation you've got to have

answers to those questions guess what I

got some good news for you the experts

have already answered all those

questions before you there are people

who get paid to answer questions like

those and publish their results all you

need to do is go find those answers the

answers that you find in the published

results are called the literature and

whenever you go and look for them that's

called a review or looking for them

oMG a literature review you've got the

right one for your job as a human

resources manager and an IT company

that's right

and more good news you can do that

literature review and five easy steps so

here's the take away a literature review

is not something that stodgy professors

assign just because they like to torture

you

literature reviews whatever you want to

call them are important ways to gather

background information before you make a

decision before you write up your report

now let's take a look at those five easy

steps and once you know them and you've

seen them Illustrated I guarantee you

that you're going to be able to write

this literature review in 30 minutes or

less when you do background research you

record the source of the information to

allow others to validate what you say

along with the details of what you found

so after completing your research you'll

have a list that look something like

this for the purposes of demonstration

we're showing only the first three items

from a much longer list in step one

you're going to strip this list into two

parts one the citations by themselves to

the paragraphs containing information

from the sources the list of citations

will look like this the list of

paragraphs will look like this save the

list of references and use it as the

last page of your literature review will

use the paragraphs as the body of your

literature review let's note three

important things about these summary

paragraphs first each paragraph at its

beginning contains an in-text citation

to its source because we're using APA

style the in-text citation consists of

the author's last name plus the year

publication in parentheses the author's

last name is outside of the parentheses

because the name is being used as a noun

in the sentence second note that the

sentences in the paragraph find a way to

refer back to the source so that the

reader knows the information is from the

source and not your own box

some examples are the author's present

and the article then there's repetition

of the author's name in the second

paragraph for solely is repeated four

times finally notice that the year of

publication only has to be repeated once

per paragraph okay congratulations on

completing step one you've taken your

basic research and produced to list a

list of citations and a list of

paragraphs now your task in step two is

to reorder the paragraphs to do this

carefully reread them as you do find

similarities and differences that will

allow you to reorganize the paragraphs

in a logical order based on the

connections you find among them during

this step keep in mind there will be no

one universally correct sequence the

best sequence is the one that you find

and apply effectively for example in our

first paragraph the annotation says the

author's studied storytelling as a way

to increase communication in a

culturally diverse workplace so this

source is presenting a strategy or a

solution for a problem let's label that

solution next is a 1996 article by fine

that calls cultural diversity in the

u.s. workplace quote perhaps the most

pressing challenge of our times

obviously we'll label this paragraph a

description of the problem next for

solely describes interviews with a West

African man that were hindered because

the two men had different attitudes

toward technology and communication for

solely underscores the need for

flexibility and understanding and

accepting how someone can be culturally

different so let's label this one

problem plus need for understanding

so a clear pattern is starting to emerge

sources that we're finding on this topic

describe is the problem or solutions to

the problem thus to complete step 2 we

will rearrange the summaries according

to this problem solution pattern that

we're seeing here are seven of the

summaries rearranged now a real that

review would have far more sources in

order to be thorough but in any case

we've imposed a clear organizational

pattern on our summaries our next step

step 3 you decide which summaries should

stand alone as a body paragraph and

which could be combined your decision

will be based on two factors factor one

how closely related the summaries are

the closer their relationship the more

reason you have to combine them factor

two is they're linked try to limit your

body paragraphs to 10 to 14 lines the

fine article can stand alone as a body

paragraph because it offers an overview

of the problem that dates back to the

previous century the next three sources

each studied a different group of

culturally diverse workers and concluded

the same thing but the three summaries

together are too long for a single

paragraph so the first two can be

grouped on the basis of geography a man

in West Africa and non-native workers in

Australia thus presenting a worldwide

problem The Sweeney in Zoo study brings

us back to the US and is long enough and

important enough to merit its own

paragraph all three studies now combined

into two paragraphs are tied together by

one theme mastery of language by itself

is not enough preparedness to deal with

cultural differences is also necessary

this need to be prepared provides a

natural transition to the last three

summaries that all discuss solutions

so the body of this literature review

will have five paragraphs one the first

body paragraph will set the stage by

defining the problem the second body

paragraph will show that the problem is

worldwide and requires preparing workers

to deal with cultural differences in

communication the third body paragraph

brings the problem home to the US and

reinforces the need for workers to be

sensitive to cultural differences the

fourth body paragraph presents two minor

solutions to the problem and the fifth

body paragraph presents an overarching

solution diversity training they can

apply to virtually any organization the

order in combination of the paragraphs

are set and now we're ready for step

four which is all about turning the

summary paragraphs into real paragraphs

by adding topic sentences and

transitions here's an example of a plain

summary paragraph as we wrote it down

after research now here is the same

paragraph with the topic sentence and

transition added let's compare them the

topic sentence cultural diversity has

long been recognized as a potential

problem in the workplace it introduces

the topic that will be discussed by the

source that comes next but a transition

phrase as far back as 1996 find stated

links the topic sentence and the source

together with the concept of time

when there's more than one source in a

paragraph a new sentence or thought

bridge but sometimes be added between

them for example here are two summary

paragraphs that we want to combine into

one we first add a topic sentence for

the two summaries both study

geographically dispersed cultures next

four so Lee's findings are presented

then a thought bridge sentence is added

to lead to the second summary and blend

them both into a smooth flowing

narrative as you see at the end of step

four you should have a series of body

paragraphs that consist of strong topic

sentences followed by source some rays

and then transitions from one summoning

to the next this review is looking

really excellent now it's ready for step

5 in step 5 the body of the literature

review gets an introduction paragraph

with pieces and a conclusion paragraph

because a literature review summarizes

the published works of others the thesis

statement should bring together the

major points discussed by the sources

and a phrase such as the following

review of literature signals to the

readers that they will be reading a

literature review not your the author's

individual claims arguments or opinions

note that the thesis statement for the

lit review also reflects the

problem-solution organizational pattern

of the paragraphs to follow one common

strategy from the conclusion paragraph

is to open with a restatement of the

thesis which brings the reader back to

the overall point another common

strategy for the conclusion is to

comment on any gaps or flaws and the

research reviewed of course no

literature review would be complete

without a title and now's the perfect

time to write it because we now know

everything that is in our lit review

cultural diversity in the workplace

overcoming barriers to communication

definitely does the job

as a further aid organization don't

forget to add subtitles between the

major sections of your lit review after

the introduction of our sample lit

review come to paragraph that discuss

the problem so our first body section

subtitle is defining the problem the

next major section presents solutions

so it's subtitle is searching for

solutions when it comes to the

conclusion don't waste an opportunity to

provide a specific subtitle that helps

to reinforce your thesis instead of just

using the neutral word conclusion note

how descriptive this subtitle for the

conclusion paragraph is preparing for

tomorrow today that takes care of step 5

and now you have a solid will organized

lit review okay there they are the five

easy steps it probably takes about as

long to explain them in illustrate them

than it would be to actually do them

let's review them quickly step number

one separate those paragraph summaries

from the citations save the citations

for your reference page and then you're

going to turn those paragraph summaries

into your literature review and in doing

that the first thing you're going to do

is to rearrange those paragraph

summaries and a logical order that

presents itself to you as you reread

them the third step is then to combine

whatever summaries need to be combined

and then the fourth step is to add in

those really important topic sentences

and transitions so that they read

together smoothly and then add your

introduction and conclusion paragraphs

and you got yourself a literature review

one last thing I want you to keep in

mind about a literature review is that

the literature review is only a

preliminary step in other words it's

something that you do to gather

background knowledge to kind of bring

yourself up to date to the state of the

art so that you know exactly what is

going on before

and what's taking place right now you're

the expert so you use the literature

review to make yourself the expert on

that topic and once you've got all that

background knowledge then you can write

about it then you can write your thesis

then you can write your argument ative

report then you can do your presentation

because you have made yourself an expert

via the literature review okay thanks

very much for watching the presentation

and I wish you the very best of luck on

your literature review