How to deal with "too descriptive" comment in dissertation proposal feedback? I am writing a University Dissertation proposal on Big Data. I have recently received my feedback and while there are good, constructive points one of the main issues in the marking is it is "too descriptive". I do not understand what this means really, when we are talking about a literature review how can it not be descriptive - you are talking about what has already been found.

The exact feedback is:


  Your literature review is overwhelmingly descriptive in character and its needs more of a critical edge, evaluating the main contributions to the literature. Having a critical edge is essential, if you want to achieve a high mark in the final dissertation. 


So the question is: What is descriptive writing and what is critical writing, preferably with examples?
The difference between descriptive writing and critical writing is much like the difference between a newspaper report and an opinion column. 

Descriptive writing is the act of reporting on what's in the literature: 


  Smith found that when X occurred Y and Z also happened.


Critical writing analyzes what has been done, and takes note of trends, as well as possibly offering feedback on the overall quality of the research: 


  Smith found X occurred in the presence of Y and Z, as did Jones. However, Doe has demonstrated that Y and Z normally occur in conjunction with one another, so it is not clear if X actually influences Y and Z, or if it is an independent effect.


What you can see from the above is that critical writing does require some descriptive writing, but it goes well beyond it in terms of the depth of analysis.