[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":103},["ShallowReactive",2],{"answers-\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review":3,"answers-cluster-literature-review":42,"answers-related-\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review":102},{"id":4,"title":5,"answer":6,"body":7,"cluster":23,"description":24,"extension":25,"faq":26,"heading":27,"intro":28,"kind":29,"meta":30,"navigation":31,"order":32,"outbound":33,"path":34,"primaryQuery":6,"product":35,"related":36,"seo":37,"sources":38,"stem":39,"updated":40,"__hash__":41},"answers\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review.md","Literature Review Questions, Answered Directly","",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":20},"minimark",[10,14,17],[11,12,13],"p",{},"The literature review is the chapter most often sent back for revision, and the feedback is almost always the same three words: too descriptive, no argument. The advice that follows is rarely specific enough to act on.",[11,15,16],{},"These pages take the specific problems instead. What a synthesized paragraph physically looks like next to a summarizing one. What to write when two well-designed studies reach opposite conclusions. How to organize by argument when your themes will not stay still. When the searching is allowed to stop, and how to defend that decision in your methods section.",[11,18,19],{},"The underlying move is the same in most of them. A literature review made of papers reads as a list, because papers are the unit you collected. A literature review made of claims reads as an argument, because claims are the unit you reason with. Almost every structural problem in a review chapter comes from working at the wrong unit, and almost every fix starts by breaking the sources apart and regrouping them around what they assert.",{"title":6,"searchDepth":21,"depth":21,"links":22},4,[],"literature-review","How to move from a pile of sources to a chapter that argues something: synthesis over summary, handling disagreement, stopping rules, and search strategy.","md",[],"Literature reviews and synthesis","Almost nobody is taught how to write a literature review. You are told to be critical, to synthesize rather than summarize, and to show the gap, and then left to work out what any of that means in practice.","cluster",{},true,0,[],"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review",null,[],{"title":5,"description":24},[],"answers\u002Fliterature-review","2026-08-06","m-siQgxznQ_UO5DQjtocoWWbL3whQCauR80vYBrQxDg",[43,48,53,58,62,67,72,77,82,87,92,97],{"path":44,"heading":45,"description":46,"order":47},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Fliterature-review-synthesis-or-summary","How do I know if my literature review is synthesis or just a summary?","How to tell a summarizing literature review from a synthesizing one, what a synthesis paragraph actually looks like, and how to rebuild a chapter that lists authors.",1,{"path":49,"heading":50,"description":51,"order":52},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Fstudies-with-opposite-conclusions","What do I write when two studies on the same question reach opposite conclusions?","What to write when the evidence contradicts itself, whether the disagreement belongs in the review or the discussion, and how to analyze it without picking a winner.",2,{"path":54,"heading":55,"description":56,"order":57},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Forganize-literature-review-by-argument","How do I organize a literature review by argument instead of by paper?","How to structure a review chapter around claims instead of sources, how to find the themes when every paper looks different, and whether to order it thematically.",3,{"path":59,"heading":60,"description":61,"order":21},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Fwhen-to-stop-searching-for-papers","How do I know when to stop searching for papers for a literature review?","How to know your literature search is finished, how many papers a review actually needs, and what stopping rule you can defend in a methods section.",{"path":63,"heading":64,"description":65,"order":66},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Fbuild-a-synthesis-matrix","How do I build a synthesis matrix when my themes keep changing as I read?","How to build a literature synthesis matrix when your themes keep changing, which way round the rows and columns go, and how much to write in each cell.",5,{"path":68,"heading":69,"description":70,"order":71},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Fsynthesis-matrix-into-paragraphs","How do I turn a synthesis matrix into literature review paragraphs?","How to get from a completed synthesis matrix to written literature review paragraphs, the shape of a good synthesis paragraph, and how many sources belong in one.",6,{"path":73,"heading":74,"description":75,"order":76},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Fliterature-review-too-descriptive","What does it mean when a supervisor says a literature review is too descriptive?","What supervisors mean when they call a literature review too descriptive, how to add critique without inserting opinion, and which sentences signal analysis.",7,{"path":78,"heading":79,"description":80,"order":81},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Fkeep-a-literature-review-current","How do I keep a literature review current over a multi-year PhD?","How to stop a review chapter going stale across a long PhD, how often to rerun searches, and how to update the chapter before submission without rewriting it.",8,{"path":83,"heading":84,"description":85,"order":86},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Fnarrative-scoping-or-systematic-review","What is the difference between a narrative literature review and a systematic review?","The real difference between a narrative literature review and a systematic review, when a scoping review fits better, and whether a thesis chapter needs PRISMA.",9,{"path":88,"heading":89,"description":90,"order":91},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Fsystematic-review-search-strategy","How do I build a search strategy for a systematic review?","How to build a systematic review search strategy, how to decide which databases to search, and how to document a search so another researcher could repeat it.",10,{"path":93,"heading":94,"description":95,"order":96},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Fscreening-abstracts-for-a-review","How do I screen hundreds of abstracts for a systematic review?","How to screen hundreds of abstracts for a review, what makes an inclusion criterion usable, and what to do when two screeners disagree about a paper.",11,{"path":98,"heading":99,"description":100,"order":101},"\u002Fanswers\u002Fliterature-review\u002Freview-that-leads-to-your-question","How do I write a literature review that leads logically to my research question?","How to write a literature review that arrives at your research question, how to show a gap without dismissing other people's work, and where the gap statement goes.",12,[],1786014765368]