Nursing Literature Review Writing

A literature review is a written approach to examining published information on a particular topic or field. Authors use this review of literature to create a foundation and justification for their research or to demonstrate knowledge on the current state of a field. This review can take the form of a course assignment or a section of a longer capstone project. Read on for more information about writing a strong literature review!

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Students often misinterpret the term literature review to mean merely a collection of source summaries, similar to annotations or article abstracts. Although summarizing is an element of a literature review, you will want to approach this assignment as a comprehensive representation of your understanding of a topic or field, such as what has already been done or what has been found. Then, also using these sources, you can demonstrate the need for future research, specifically, your future research.

There is usually no required format or template for Nursing Literature Review Writing. However, there are some actions to keep in mind when constructing your review:

1. Include an introduction and conclusion. Even if the literature review will be part of a longer document, these paragraphs can act as bookends to your material. Provide background information for your reader, such as including references to the pioneers in the field in the beginning and offering closure in the end by discussing the implications of future research to the field.
2. Avoid direct quotations. Just like in an annotated bibliography, you will want to paraphrase all of the material you present in a literature review.  A successful paraphrase is your own explanation or interpretation of another person’s ideas. Paraphrasing in academic writing is an effective way to restate, condense, or clarify another author’s ideas while also providing credibility to your own argument or analysis. While successful paraphrasing is essential for strong academic writing, unsuccessful paraphrasing can result in unintentional plagiarism. This assignment is a chance for you to demonstrate your knowledge on a topic, and putting ideas into your own words will ensure that you are interpreting the found material for your reader. Paraphrasing will also ensure your Nursing Literature Review Writing is in your authorial voice.
3. Organize by topic or theme rather than by author. When compiling multiple sources, our tendency as writers can be to summarize each source and then compare and contrast the sources at the end. Instead, organize your sources by your identified themes and patterns. This organization helps demonstrate your synthesis of the material and inhibits you from creating a series of book reports.
4.  Use headings. APA encourages the use of headings within longer pieces of text to display a shift in topic and create a visual break for the reader. Headings in Nursing Literature Review Writing can also help you as the writer organize your material by theme and note any layers, or subtopics, within the field.Headings clarify your logic and organization for the reader by establishing a hierarchy of sections in the paper. The most important thing to keep in mind is that “all topics of equal importance have the same level of heading throughout a manuscript” (APA, 2010, p. 62). Nursing Literature Review Writing. Note that title case means only the first letters of words with four or more letters are capitalized, while all other letters are left lower case. Sentence case means that only the first word of a title is capitalized, while all other letters are left lower case.Use Level 0 heading (or title heading) formatting for the References heading of your reference list. Here is the formatting for all APA heading levels.
5. Use comparative terms. A literature review can be lengthy and dense, so you will want to make your text appealing to your reader. Transitions and comparison terms will allow you to demonstrate where authors agree or disagree on a topic and highlight your interpretation of the literature. Nursing Literature Review Writing. The strength of any argument largely hinges on the writer’s ability to make clear connections between his or her assessments, assertions, and research. This means that every sentence needs to rely on the previous sentence and contribute to the next using transitions. After all, this sort of logic-based linking is what ultimately guides your reader from one idea to the next and explains the relationships between your research and assessments. Nursing Literature Review Writing.