Writing a Literature Review Research Paper: A step-by-step approach

Writing a literature review in the pre or post-qualification, will be required to undertake a literature review, either as part of a course of study, as a key step in the research process. A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. It demands a range of skills, such as learning how to define topics for exploration, acquiring skills of literature searching and retrieval, developing the ability to analyze and synthesize data as well as becoming adept at writing and reporting, often within a limited time scale. The aim of this article is to present a step-by-step approach to writing a literature review research paper to facilitate student and novice reviewers’ understanding