According to John Creswell, the research method guru, a literature review is “a written summary of journal articles, books, and other documents that describes the past and current state of information on the topic of your research study.”
Two things stand out from Creswell’s definition: Familiarity and summary.

• In academic writing, your literature review should demonstrate not only to your supervisory board but also to your readers that you’re conversant with your research area, and you’ve deep knowledge about your topic. It should demonstrate that you’re familiar with the ongoing debates in your chosen area and that you know the big, popular voices in your research niche.

• Only when you understand the ongoing conversation around the social problem that you’re about to write (information about your topic) you can be able to summarize that information. In doing the summary, your task is to synthesize the literature—examine the main argument of the individual researchers, and report the most relevant arguments related to your topic.

Understanding how to do these is vital because it will help you design a framework for crafting an original piece of research. If you don’t take literature review more seriously, you’re on your own…