A literature review refers to a concise overview of theoretical findings that have been done in a specific research area. When you need to provide a literature review, you are required to investigate the theoretical sources that refer to your given topic. The purpose of literature review as such is to come up with a comprehensible summary of the existing findings on your topic. Depending on whether a literature review is a separate assignment or a chapter of a research paper, it may range from 3,000 to almost 10,000 words in length. When a student is reviewing literature, he/ she is expected to provide a thorough comparison and contrast of the main findings.
Despite the fact that at first sight the literature review requirements do not sound challenging, this writing type may be one of the most complicated for students. First of all, it requires a thorough and careful prewriting stage, where you need to find sources and then process them. Second, apart from excellent writing skills, a student must possess analytical and critical thinking skills, which will allow him/ her conduct the necessary comparison and contrast part. When processing the sources, it is needed to identify the possible gaps in research as well as come up with ideas how the gaps may be bridged. Furthermore, critical analysis will help you formulate the contributions of the theorists to the research field. So, overall, the task may take up from days to even months to complete.
A literature review is an inescapable assignment when it comes to acquiring an academic degree since a student will definitely have to work on it within the realm of the research project or a dissertation. A successful literature review presents a comprehensive analysis of the scholarly sources, their evaluation, and comparison and contrast within a larger scope of theoretical background.
Types of Literature Review Writing
The type of literature review you need to write is actually dependent on whether you need to present it as a separate task or as a constituent part within a larger academic paper. In the latter case, you also need to adjust the review to the type of paper you are working on. If this assignment falls really hard on you, it is recommended to seek professional assistance from expert custom writers. Our company’s professionals fully realize how pressing the literature review writing process may be as a student has to read plenty of resources, classify them, extract large massive of information from them, and analyze it afterwards. So, if you need assistance, do not hesitate to contact our professional writers for help. They will also provide you with comprehensive guidelines on the different types of literature review.
- Historical review. This literature review focuses on the analysis of a specific historical event as it is presented in a variety of different sources. As it may be inferred from the name, the review is mainly assigned when a student has to write a paper on history topic. The events given to analyze may refer to the past, present or even future – when it relates to some kind of a prognosis.
- Argumentative review. This type of literature review intends to deliver an argument either for or against the given topic. It is also required to provide a personal evaluation on the topic where you mention your opinion. Some of the popular topics that are assigned to be explored and reviewed in literature are: driving rules, reforms on education, and control of immigration.
- Conceptual review. When working on this literature review type, you need to focus on a specific concept, category or theme. The main purpose of writing this review is to show your understanding of the given concept after you have explored literature.
- Qualitative or quantitative meta-analysis literature review. This review is assigned to you as a part of a dissertation project. To provide a comprehensive review, you will have to conduct an in-depth statistical analysis and then interpret the findings.
- Narrative review. This review is also inherent in thesis or dissertation writing since it is aimed at investigating the main research questions across different sources and then commenting on how the research was conducted and what contribution it will make for the further research.
- Integrative review. In this literature review, you need not only to analyze the sources but also present your personal viewpoint in a brand-new manner. Frameworks may also be applied here.
- Systematic review. In this literature review type, you have to demonstrate the proofs that could answer the main research queries. There is a whole procedure that you have to go through: to collect the required data, to comment on all the details, and then analyze the acquired data.
Where to Start with Your Literature Review?
Even though a literature review is predominantly a constituent part of the academic paper, it has its own structure and mode of organization. Before you start working on the writing part, you will have to conduct an in-depth research of the topic and highlight the main findings. If you need professional writing help or you do not know how long should a literature review be, you can fully rely on our writers’ team for help. They will help you go through each of these steps consistently:
- Investigate the topic and become familiar with the background information about the research.
- Collect credible and up-to-date sources relevant to the assigned topic.
- Pick the most important information from the sources that you could use in your materials.
- Come up with a bibliography list while you are writing the review.
- Revise, edit, and proofread the literature review part in order to make it free from grammatical, spelling or punctuation mistakes.
While working on the literature review, pay attention to the structure. Specifically, even though it is often a separate section, it should have its literature review introduction, main body, and the closing paragraph.
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Introduction
In the field of research, there has been continued argument on the importance of education for the organizational leaders. Different scholars and researchers have made their contributions supporting either side of the argument. However, one can only conclude on whether educational qualifications are vital for the decision making abilities of the leaders through conducting research and reviewing the findings of other researchers. For instance, Barker & Mueller states that various studies have suggested that top corporate leaders who have high educational qualifications possess greater capacity to process information, and they are also innovative than their counterparts with low educational qualifications. In addition, such leaders are believed to focus the organizational resources towards research and development. It is also suggested that the leaders who have high education qualifications are also able to create and maintain close ties with other business, and government leaders, which may also boost the performance of the corporate. The qualifications of the managers and their major in education are vital factors to understand when analyzing the impact that leaders have on the performance of their organizations. Researchers have stated that some of the majors, such as, law and engineering are vital for leaders that are in given fields of business. In order to understand the views of other scholars and researchers, this chapter will review several scholarly works related to the research topic.
Education and Leader Quality
Historical Trends of Leaders’ Educational Background
Koyuncu, states that the trends of the preferred managers and CEOs’ functional backgrounds have varied significantly in the past years. It has been due to the contingencies that have existed in the environment that different firms operate. The managers and CEOs who possess operational background experience were more preferred for these positions between 1925 and 1950, than their counterparts who possessed law, finance or marketing backgrounds. It is during this period that majority of the CEOs had backgrounds in operational related educational courses. Priest & Rothman conducted a study in which they focused on the preference of CEOs with given educational backgrounds. Their study focused on the time period between the 1940s and 1955, and they concluded that there was a reduction in the predilection towards the CEOs who possessed educational qualifications in law. However, this changed and their umbers began rising between 1955 and 1970. Priest & and Rothman explained this change through the use of the organizational theory because at the time firms were facing problems relating to securing their markets, coordination, and other issues of litigation, and the CEOs who possessed legal background were qualified to handle these issues. This view had been earlier reflected by Perrow, stating that at the time, the corporations were entangled in a sophisticated web of legal issues.
Fligstein also conducted a research on the preference of the CEOs and top management members, and stated that the educational backgrounds of these individuals related to the fields that the companies envisioned to pursue. At the time, corporations were transforming fast from being single operating units into numerous outlets and offices throughout the world, and this required a leadership team that could adapt and adopt these changes swiftly. Ocasio also added to the discussion by stating that the leaders with educational background in finance gained popularity in the USA in the 1970s, and this was due to the increased attention to control and strategy, which are common skills among individuals with finance background. The focus of the firms at the time was to ensure that they made short-term term profits, and they also focused on possible merger and acquisition opportunities...
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How We Can Assist You with Literature Review Writing
Our custom writing company has a team of professional writers who can assist you with literature review writing of any type and complexity. To help you out with the task and to provide you with guarantees that you will get a premium-quality piece of writing, we assign the most skilled and experienced writers to work on your task.
The writer assigned to work on your review will match your qualifications since we cooperate only with qualified writers who hold Master’s or PhD academic degrees. If needed, your assigned writer will even help you identify the purpose of literature review.
with the following reviews:
- Narrative review (also known as a traditional one). This is a general overview of literature sources where one is not required to follow any methodology. This review resembles a subjective overview of literature findings.
- Systematic literature review. When working on this review, you have to pick a specific methodology that you will use for topic identification, critical analysis of sources, and classification of the main ideas extracted from them.
- Meta-analysis. This review appeals to the statistical analysis and it provides comprehensive results of a numerical study.
- Meta-synthesis. Unlike the former type, this one focuses on the qualitative studies and it aims to interpret the gathered evidence.
Our literature review writing service can successfully tackle any type of literature review assignment regardless of its academic complexity or the purpose of literature review. So, whether you are an undergraduate, Master’s or PhD-level student, you are welcome to contact our company for expert assistance. Each literature review provided by our company is composed in a custom-oriented approach, so be sure the paper you get will suit your needs. It can be informative, argumentative, or analytical depending on the area of research.
Challenges You May Face When Writing Your Literature Review
If you have decided to work on the literature review on your own, be ready to encounter difficulties in the writing process. First, it is a time-consuming assignment as it requires thorough preparation on the stage of gathering sources. Second, there may be some complexities in writing depending on whether you need to provide a review as a part of a research paper or as a stand-alone assignment. Third, writing a review may require more skills that you have been aware of. Specifically, apart from excellent writing skills, you need to possess organization, time-management, and critical thinking skills. Moreover, you may need to investigate the topic from different angles, so you may come across some existing gaps in the research.
The first thing you will have to do is to identify the area of your interest. If you have decided on the area of studies, you will have to narrow down the topic to make it more specific. Most importantly, you need to organize the research so that it presents a logical flow of ideas. Last but not least, all sources that you use should be structured in a concise manner.