Reducing your 50-75 pages of Chapter
2 to a couple pages of literature review in an article is a very daunting
prospect! I suggest beginning by thinking through your key concepts/ variables.
What does your reader absolutely have to know about to understand your study?
Then write these down as the beginning of an outline for your article. My guess
is it will look something like this:
Intro
Theory
Variable 1
Variable 2
Gap in the literature
With your outline
as a map, now take each section individually and think about what is the most
important literature you need to include? You do not have to do an exhaustive
review, but you do need to show you understand the literature. You may find it
helpful to treat each section as a summary of your literature on the topic in
c. 2. Remember, you should not have more than five pages or so of literature,
so keep to the essentials. Do a first draft and let it set for a day or two,
then go back and see if you can eliminate any nonessential sentences. Have
someone else read it for coherence, does it make sense to him or her, and make
an argument for your study? Be sure you end the literature review sections with
a couple of sentences emphasizing the gap you are addressing and why your study
is needed. Mentioning your research questions helps the reader know where you
are going.
The next section is
your methodology, and we will discuss in a future post.
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