Writing a literature review (style)
In this section, you will learn about the conventions (or ‘style’) common to all literature reviews. All literature reviews aim to establish the researcher’s voice and present a critical stance on the topic being investigated.
Developing a researcher voice
When you write your literature review, you are synthesising and expressing your understanding of existing research, and indicating to the reader how much you accept, question or reject the claims your sources make. The writing therefore needs to show the position you are taking towards the sources you are citing in your literature review.
Writing with authority
Writing with authority is important in all academic writing because you are trying to persuade your reader to accept your argument/s or position in regards to the topic. In a literature review, you are wanting to show confidence in your stance on the existing research as well as in the argument you are developing regarding the gap you have identified in the literature and the need for your research to fill this gap.
In short, your writing needs to:
- be very clear about the message you want to convey
- convince others that you are ‘right’ or that your reasoning is sound and that your ideas ‘make sense’
- predict how your audience will receive your message, or which parts of your claims may be contested
Expressing a critical stance
A literature review is CRITICAL in stance, not purely descriptive. Your choice of words will:
- reveal to the reader your attitude towards the research you are citing
- indicate whether or not you consider their claims to be substantiated
- position your work in relation to the literature
- develop an ‘authoritative’ or a ‘researcher’ voice
Activity
Consider the language that expresses authority in the following passage:
The value of skills and attributes often identified as ‘generic’ or ‘transferable’ is that they are believed to be readily deployable in new contexts, such as the workplace. However, how transfer occurs or even whether it occurs is a contentious issue within the research literature (Blume, Ford, Baldwin & Huang, 2010; Detterman, 1993; Jackson, 2015; Oates, 1992). It is particularly elusive in psychological research which has attempted to demonstrate how skills or abilities developed in one context are deployed in another, quite different context. As Schoenfeld (1999 cited in Hager, 2006) argues transfer, “seems to vanish when experiments try to pin it down” (p 20). Despite the difficulty of demonstrating that transfer occurs, it does appear that certain conditions may indeed make transfer more likely. Conditions which have been suggested include directing attention to transfer by making it explicit, providing multiple examples and opportunities for practice, ensuring similarity between contexts (Anderson, Reder & Simon, 1996) as well as ensuring that opportunities for transfer are authentic not contrived, and that a supportive environment exists (Tennant, 1999). In addition, it is also important to train learners to learn by facilitating an awareness to the cues for transfer (Anderson et al, 1996) thereby facilitating lifelong learning. Most importantly a positive ‘transfer climate’ is necessary with supportive supervisors and adequate peer support (Holton, Bates, Seyler, Carvalho, 1997).
To convey authority, your writing will need to make claims about the literature you are reviewing and the key arguments and ideas related to your area of research. To do this you need to understand the difference between a claim and a regular sentence. A ‘claim’ in academic writing will provoke, analyse or interpret rather than merely describe or present facts. Claims can (and should be) supported or refuted by logic and/or evidence, data and argument. Claims will often appear in topic sentences, thesis statements, and introductory and concluding sentences. See the example given below:
Activity
Reporting verbs
One way of signalling your critical stance on a source is through the use of attributive or reporting verbs. Reporting verbs refer to, or report on, a particular piece or body of literature. Their effective use helps in not only signalling the relevance of the sources to your writing but also strengthening your argument and indicating your stance towards a piece or body of literature.
The table below lists some common attributive/reporting verbs and indicates the stance they usually convey. This can be a neutral stance, a distancing or disagreeing stance, or a stance that implies agreement with the ideas or findings from a source.
| Verbs that typically express a neutral, distancing or agreement critical stance | ||
|---|---|---|
| Neutral | Distancing | Agreement |
| Suggest | Allege | Argue |
| Indicate | Declare | Establishe |
| Describe | Speculate | Affirm |
| Observe | Contend | Confirm |
| Comment | Claim | Show* |
| Maintain | Assert | Convince |
| Report | Postulate | Demonstrate |
| Show* | Emphasise | |
*Note that the verb ‘show’ can indicate either a neutral or agreement stance, depending on the context in which it is used in a sentence.
Using tense in reporting verbs
Indicating your critical stance can be achieved through not only your choice of reporting verb (as suggested above) but also the tense you use on that verb. This is because the tense used in reporting verbs signals more than simply when something happened: It can show if you think the ideas of the reported research are current or still relevant today.
Here are some general patterns of tense use in reporting verbs. However, remember, reporting verb tense is complex and can vary, so check the literature in your field for guidance. Also remember that the patterns of tense use described here apply only to reporting verbs and not to all verbs that may be found in your literature review.
