{"id":8388,"date":"2025-11-28T10:03:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T10:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/example-of-literature-review\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T10:03:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T10:03:27","slug":"example-of-literature-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/example-of-literature-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Example of Literature Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh man, let me tell you about the time I tried to write my first literature review in grad school. Picture this: me at 2 AM, surrounded by 37 open browser tabs, highlighters bleeding through legal pad pages, and a lukewarm Dunkin\u2019 coffee that tasted like regret. I\u2019d mistaken \u201cliterature review\u201d for \u201cbook report buffet\u201d \u2013 just summarizing study after study like I was listing Netflix titles. My professor\u2019s feedback? \u201cThis reads like a robot narrating a library fire.\u201d Ouch.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I wish I\u2019d known then (after surviving 4 thesis committees and coaching undergrads):<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Your lit review isn\u2019t a shrine to other people\u2019s work \u2013 it\u2019s a conversation.<\/strong> That lightbulb moment hit me during my third attempt, when my advisor drew a Venn diagram on a Starbucks napkin. \u201cSee how Smith\u2019s 2018 study on sleep deprivation overlaps with Chen\u2019s 2020 telehealth research?\u201d she said. \u201cThat messy middle where they disagree? That\u2019s<\/em> your playground.\u201d I started hunting for those friction points like they were Target clearance stickers.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Color-coding saves souls.<\/strong> Seriously \u2013 grab those neon Post-its from CVS. I assigned colors:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Pink = \u201cThese findings support my thesis\u201d<\/li>\n
    • Green = \u201cContradicts everything I believe (thanks, Karen)\u201d<\/li>\n
    • Yellow = \u201cMethodology smells sketchy\u201d
      \nMy desk looked like a kindergarten art project, but suddenly patterns emerged. Turns out 80% of urban gardening studies relied on self-reported data (yellow alert!), which became a key critique in my paper.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
    • \n

      Embrace the \u201cSo what?\u201d monster.<\/strong> Early drafts kept getting shredded with that phrase in the margins. Now I imagine my Midwestern aunt reading it: \u201cThat\u2019s nice, dear\u2026but why should I care?\u201d If a study doesn\u2019t explain how pesticide policies affect her tomato plants or why Zoom therapy works better for Gen Z \u2013 cut it.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Real-talk tips from my disaster years:<\/strong><\/p>\n

        \n
      • Start with a trash draft.<\/strong> Mine looked like a mad lib: \u201c______ found ______, BUT ______ argues ______, HOWEVER nobody\u2019s considered ______.\u201d No complete sentences allowed.<\/li>\n
      • Use the \u201c5-year-old test.\u201d<\/strong> Can you explain the debate to a kindergartener? I once used LEGO blocks with my nephew to visualize research gaps. (Duplo towers > academic jargon.)<\/li>\n
      • Steal from TED Talks.<\/strong> Notice how they say \u201cResearchers at MIT\u201d instead of \u201cJohnson et al. (2022)\u201d? I started weaving in human details \u2013 like how the lead sociologist interviewed truckers at Iowa truck stops. Suddenly my review had pulse.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        The kicker?<\/strong> Your unique perspective matters. I once included a paragraph comparing vaccine hesitancy studies to my dad\u2019s obsession with Yelp reviews (\u201cToo many 1-star ratings scare him off\u201d). The committee ate it up. \u201cFinally,\u201d one said, \u201csomeone who doesn\u2019t write like a Wikipedia knockoff.\u201d<\/p>\n

        So grab that messy first draft \u2013 maybe with a fresh Dunkin\u2019 run this time \u2013 and remember: Every great literature review started as a confused jumble. Your job isn\u2019t to be flawless. It\u2019s to show how all these voices set the stage for your<\/em> big question. (And if all else fails? Those color-coded Post-its make great confetti when you finally hit \u201csubmit.\u201d)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Oh man, let me tell you about the time I tried to write my first literature review in grad school. Picture this: me at 2 AM, surrounded by 37 open browser tabs, highlighters bleeding through legal pad pages, and a lukewarm Dunkin\u2019 coffee that tasted like regret. I\u2019d mistaken \u201cliterature review\u201d for \u201cbook report buffet\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}