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The language that you use in a literature review is important for informing readers where you stand on relevant debates on your topic or issue. In a writer-responsible academic culture, it is your job to lead readers to the meanings and conclusions that you want them to make. Since literature reviews can involve complex ideas and various bodies of literature, it is necessary to be explicit about how the the studies that you cite are connected to each other and are relevant for your own research, and how the ideas introduced are relevant for developing your argument. You can achieve this by using language that clearly indicates your position and strengthens your voice in relation to others'.

In your introduction, you should make it clear what the purpose of the literature review is, as in the following.

Note how the author explains the purpose of the literature review ("The aim of the chapter is to define the kinds of intervention that will have the most beneficial impact"). The author also generally identifies the literature review's key message ("Answers to these questions are found in accounts of both cause and action"). In your own introduction, you could go into more detail about your argument. For example, consider the introduction below, which explains the key points more directly.

To see how other people in your field write literature reviews in a thesis, check out the ANU Digital Thesis Collection to find other theses, and ask your supervisor to show you some past samples.

Within paragraphs, your choice of language can help you to explain connections between the literature's concepts. Take a look at the words in bold in the sample text below, and note how they help the author to guide you through the ideas.

Critically evaluating the literature

A key role of your literature review is to show your critical interpretation and evaluation of the literature. When taking notes and researching, you can develop this critical evaluation by asking yourself questions such as:

• what are the strengths and weaknesses/limitations of the different bodies of literature/studies you are reviewing?
• what accounts for authors' different findings-how can these be explained (e.g. theory or methodology adopted etc.)? (Hold your sources in relation)
• to which issues, gaps, ambiguities, unresolved problems, etc. in the literature do you wish to particularly draw attention and why?
• what are the implications of your discussions? (Don't leave your reader thinking: "This is an interesting piece of critical analysis, but what's the point of it all?" "So what?")

When it comes to writing up your literature review, you can use language to show your critical interpretation and evaluation. For example, take a look at the words in bold in the sample text below. How do they show interpretation and evaluation?

Positioning your research in relation to the literature

It could be that you are expected to reserve detailed discussion of your own research for a distinct section within or following your literature review. More likely though, you will be expected to situate your own research in relation to the literature during the review. The examples below shows how the authors relate their own research to the literature they review. Note how they tell you what they are doing, why they are doing it, where they are going, and where you can find more detailed information within other areas of the thesis.

Sociology