They think that it is a requisite in a dissertation or thesis to write something from books or journals, before they can do what they would like to do in their projects.
The first thing I tell my students to do is to read. And continue reading. And write about what you read.
You might have a clear idea of you want to do. But you need to acknowledge that there have been others before you. And that there are others like you who do research, and do it better.
A literature review is a process of positioning you and your research within a larger community of research. It is about finding out what has been done and said, and finding out where you fit.
The literature review is a public good, because it draws on public knowledge. So you are producing something public, and by doing it you also show your competence to propose something innovative.
So it is a balancing act. Reviewing the current state of things about your topic, and bringing someone new to it. This new could be a different perspective, something that other people have not done (maybe they want to do it as further research) plus something new like a rethinking of established knowledge, a different type of analysis on the subject, the use of alternative theories or methodologies, or their application in an untried context or setting, etc.
There should be a guiding question or set of questions that should guide your reading. These can be formulated before you start your review, and they can also change as you read. Because your mindset keeps changing and should keep changing. And because every day there are new articles and books on the topics of your interest.
Your review should cover two or three areas. Otherwise you run the risk of talking about everything and nothing at the same time. If you think that your research questions can be answered from the perspective of many disciplines, you need reformulate your questions. And I order to do this you need to read a bit more. It might be that researchers are already tackling the questions that you are interested in, only that they use a different terminology. For instance, if you want to know why is it that organisations invest too much in information technology and do not seem to get immediate benefits, you might like to look at research related to the information technology productivity paradox. Alternatively you might like to look at the literature on information technology evaluation.
Here is another example: if you want to understand how organisations become more competitive, you can tackle this issue from a marketing perspective or from an innovation perspective. The literature in both of these areas will suggest ways in which competitiveness can be enhanced. You might find similarities and differences on what they define as a problem of competitiveness as well as on how they go about solving it.
Longer research efforts (PhD) could take you to explore more than two areas of the literature. This is because inevitably you will come across philosophical theories, sociological theories, learning theories, etc. Even within one particular area or topic (learning), you are required to present several perspectives.
Two more aspects characterise a literature review. The first one is that is should be critical. This means that you not only describe the work of others but you also analyse it in terms of its suitability for your own research question or set of questions. Again, your analysis is not only opinionated or descriptive, you also need to find literature that would support your views.
The second aspect is that you declare explicitly in which area or areas your own research contributions are going to be. You might not know this by the time that you do your literature review. However, if you narrow the review appropriately, you will be able to show that in one or two particular areas there are research gaps that your work has the potential to fill.
A good literature review is like a good scaffolding. It is well structured. It allows you to build on. And it is pleasant to read, so that the reader gets on board your own research project.
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