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Writing the literature review. Annotation Key. (1) Hayward, K. (2004) City Limits: Crime, Consumer Culture and the Urban Experience. London: Routledge-Cavendish.
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Writing the literature review
Writing a literature review is an iterative process – you will find yourself going back to the literature many times. It is important, however, to begin with a plan setting out the progression of your literature review and indicating the depth of content required for each section in accordance with the overall word limit you have assigned to it. The following guidance is focused on how to write a narrative review, as opposed to the more specialized techniques and purpose of a systematic review. The literature review should be written in such a way that no expert knowledge is assumed on the part of the reader. As with any essay or research paper, it needs to start with a clear introduction, outlining the structure of the review. The introduc-
tion may also give a general outline of the key features of the literature.
BOX 3. 6 WHAT DOES AN ANNOTATION LOOK LIKE?
Annotation Key
(1) Hayward, K. (2004) City Limits: Crime, Consumer Culture and the Urban Experience. London: Routledge-Cavendish.
(2) This book explores the ‘crime–city nexus’ within a cultural criminology framework. (3) Its aim is identifying the myriad forms of relationships that exist between the contemporary “urban experience”, certain forms of criminal behaviour, and the particular social forces and cultural dynamics that one associates with ‘late modern consumer culture’ (p. 1, emphasis in original), drawing on a multidisciplinary range of theoretical and cultural sources, including art and literature. (4) The article is useful to my
research because of its application of theory to contemporary youth crime in the city.
(5) Hayward builds on strain theory and the relative deprivation thesis to create a picture of the distinctive needs and desires of late modern youth, focusing on the insatiability of contemporary consumption, the risk-taking behaviours characteristic of today’s urban lifestyles (from binge- drinking to adventure holidaying), and the construction of crime in popular culture as cool and exciting. (6) Criminologists will debate whether Hayward’s thesis really offers important new insights or simply a synthesis of old perspectives on crime, but it is useful in its application of established sociological perspectives to the analysis of late- modern social change and urban crime. (7) The cultural criminological framework used by Hayward will help inform the theoretical framework I plan to develop in my study.
1. Citation
2. Introduction
3. Aims and research methods
4. Usefulness to your research
5. Summary
6. Evaluation
7. Reflection (how the work illuminates your topic or will add to your research)
Source: Based on guidance provided by the University of New South Wales (2018); extracts from Wakefield (2005: 671–3)
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Your literature review should follow a coherent structure, engaging analytically with the assembled sources to group related items together and draw out key issues and trends. You may find it useful to consult others’ work for examples as to how this can be done. Some make the mistake of doing little more than an annotated bibliography, which focuses on one source at a time. The most common ways of organizing the literature are as follows:
· thematically, grouped according to the main trends and categories in the field of scholarship, as shown in Newburn’s (1999) corruption study (see Box 3. 4)
· chronologically or historically, divided into historical or developmental phases, if the topic has a historical background or there have been discernable shifts in thinking over time
· methodologically, organized according to the research methods used across the field of literature, if the field is characterized by several main methodological approaches.
It may sometimes be appropriate to use more than one of these strategies, for exam- ple dividing the literature by themes and then chronologically within each section. Such groupings will help you move from reading and note-taking to producing a structured analysis of the literature, making it easier to compare and contrast differ- ent theoretical approaches, findings and methodologies, and to analyse the strengths and weaknesses as well as the gaps in previous research.
In the process of writing, your literature review ought to engage critically with the literature, rather than simply summarizing what others have said. The research ques- tion and sub-questions should frame the review and, in a thematic structure, the sections into which the literature review is divided are likely to be based on the research sub-questions. Your task is to show how the literature addresses your research question and sub-questions, supporting or extending existing knowledge. It is also important to ensure that your ‘voice’ or position is clearly identifiable and to use language that clarifies your position or that of others on a particular issue. Some examples relating to the subject of policing are provided in Box 3. 7, drawn from Wakefield (2003).
The literature review should end with a conclusion, summarizing the main points, identifying the limitations and gaps in the literature, and making recommendations for future research (your empirical research). It should be noted that the review will only be finalized when your whole project is close to completion, because new research is constantly being published and any relevant studies will need to be added to the literature review throughout the research process.
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