The Purpose of a Lit Review

They can be extensive and meticulous but are an essential part of any research project. Anyone who is writing research paper knows how much of a pain writing a literature review can be.

Now you may be wondering why anyone would put themselves through such a painful and grueling process. Do all researchers hate themselves? No...well most of them at least! Literature reviews do much more than just summarize and familiarize the reader with the topic. They give the researcher an opportunity to establish credibility and identify weak sources and areas for future research.

However, there is one major difference between a report and literature review. A literature review creates a foundation for the research project but creating a link between the question and evidence, whereas a report solely focuses on delivering information.

For example, in my project, my question was how is grit related to academic achievement and how can we change the way we teach to foster grit in the classroom. Then in my literature review, I used sources to show the relationship between grit and academic achievement, moved on to show how we are able to teach it in schools.

Hopefully, this was informative and maybe you learned something new!