<commit_before>---

title: Writing a Literature Review
layout: page

---

A literature review is pretty crucial for a few reasons:

* It's expected that you produce one for your first year viva
* It's the only way to get up-to-speed on exactly what the state-of-the-art is in your field
* It teaches you as a researcher-in-training a fundamental skill: reading and assessing other people's work
* It gives you context for:
    * Thinking about viable hypotheses and experiments
    * Bringing insight into any discussion on your field

So while a literature review is quite an important part of your PhD, there's a lot to gain in doing it right, too.

## Practical advice

Some advice from [<NAME>'s advice document for new PHD students](https://github.com/twsswt/glasgow_socs_phd_bootstrap/blob/7809bee64b55ac714a8bee4d8e6de926776513ce/README.md):

 1. Create a chapter in your thesis called 'Literature Survey'.
 2. You forgot to do a commit of the new LaTeX file.  Go back and do that now.
 3. Decide on some initial search terms and try them out in Google Scholar, Elsevier, DBLP....  Write these down in your
   thesis (and commit). Be prepared to adjust your search terms as new related topics are discovered (and be disciplined
   about documenting your changes in your thesis).
 4. Conduct a search using your search terms and store the results in a management tool such as Mendeley.
 5. Decide on inclusion and exclusion criteria.  That's right, write them down and commit (you can always change them
   later).<commit_msg>Rephrased some of the literature review bits<commit_after>---

title: Writing a Literature Review
layout: page

---

A literature review is pretty crucial for a few reasons:

* It's expected that you produce one for your first year viva
* It teaches you as a researcher-in-training a fundamental skill: properly reading and assessing other people's work
* It gives you context for:
    * Thinking about viable hypotheses and experiments
    * Bringing insight into any discussion on your field
* It lowers the chances you'll repeat research which is already well documented
* It lets you identify what niches exist that you might be able to exploit for *exciting and new research*

So while a literature review is quite an important part of your PhD, there's a lot to gain in doing it right, too.

## Practical advice

Some advice from [<NAME>'s advice document for new PHD students](https://github.com/twsswt/glasgow_socs_phd_bootstrap/blob/7809bee64b55ac714a8bee4d8e6de926776513ce/README.md):

 1. Create a chapter in your thesis called 'Literature Survey'.
 2. You forgot to do a commit of the new LaTeX file.  Go back and do that now.
 3. Decide on some initial search terms and try them out in Google Scholar, Elsevier, DBLP....  Write these down in your
   thesis (and commit). Be prepared to adjust your search terms as new related topics are discovered (and be disciplined
   about documenting your changes in your thesis).
 4. Conduct a search using your search terms and store the results in a management tool such as Mendeley.
 5. Decide on inclusion and exclusion criteria.  That's right, write them down and commit (you can always change them
   later).
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