phd literature review unsw

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Academic Skills Support for Postgraduate Research Students

This page outlines the academic skills support available for postgraduate research students.

Academic skills workshops

Academic Skills at UNSW offers academic skills workshops that focus on, or explore, different tasks. Many are designed for postgraduate students, such as Writing a thesis proposal, Writing a literature review and Giving your first Conference paper. Workshop programs run throughout Terms 1, 2 and 3. Please see the  Workshop page for details.

Workshops can also be organised on request. Any group of five or more research students who would like a specific workshop or thesis writing program can contact Dominic Fitzsimmons ( [email protected] )  to discuss this.

Individual consultations

Make an appointment with an  Academic Learning Facilitator  for an individual consultation to discuss aspects of your writing.

Academic skills resources and links

Here you will find links to useful resources for Postgraduate research students.

UNSW academic skills guides

Information for current UNSW Research Students

UNSW Library services for students

Academic writing resources  - Useful links to other academic writing resources.

Writing your Thesis Proposal - A guide from Academic Skills at UNSW for students who are enrolled in a postgraduate research degree and who have been asked to submit a thesis proposal.

Getting Started on Your Literature Review - A short guide from Academic Skills at UNSW with a few suggestions to get you started.

How to write a PhD Thesis - Notes on preparing and writing thesis at UNSW from Associate Professor Joe Wolfe in the UNSW School of Physics.

From Finish to Start: Writing your thesis with the end in view (PDF) - Notes from Prof. Sue Starfield's presentation at the Thesis Submission Seminar 2006. For further details, visit the  Graduate Research School website .

Other thesis writing resources

Thesis writing sites.

Writing a research proposal   - Monash University.

Writing Dissertations: A Guide for Graduates - From the Royal Literary Fund, UK. This site offers writing skills advice for dissertation writers and thesis writers.

Writing and Presenting Your Thesis or Dissertation - by S. Joseph Levine, PhD., Michigan State University in East Lansing. A useful site with good links.

Re-envisioning the PhD   - from the University of Washington Graduate School. A great portal site with some good advice included.

The nuts and bolts of producing a thesis

Techniques for Managing Theses Using Microsoft Word - very helpful guide from the University of Waterloo.

EndNote and Zotero  - Bibliographic software that allows you to store, organise and manage your references to create in-text citations and bibliographies in the referencing style that you require.

Conference and research presentations resources

Ten tips for presenting a conference paper - Advice from a guide prepared by two academics will help you to impress a conference audience.

Conference papers - a guide from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Some very useful books on thesis writing and doing a research degree:

Bailey, S. (2006).  Academic Writing: A handbook for international students . Abingdon: Routledge.

Becker, H. (2007, 2nd edition).  Writing for social scientists: How to start and finish your thesis, book, or article . University of Chicago Press.

Betts, K. & Seitz, A. (1994).  Writing essays and research reports in the social sciences . Melbourne: Nelson.

Boddington, P. & Clanchy, J. (1999).  Reading for study and research . Australia: Longman.

Booth, W.C., Colomb. G.G. & Williams, J.M. (1995)  The craft of research . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Craswell, G. (2005).  Writing for Academic Success: A Postgraduate Guide . London: Sage.

While aimed at academic writing in general, this book has sections on thesis writing that covers a lot of key areas. There are also chapters on managing academic writing, the mechanics of academic writing, writing a literature review and other academic texts sch as journal articles and books.

Cryer, P. (1996).  The research student's guide to success . Open University press, Buckingham.

Dunleavy, P. (2003).  Authoring a PhD thesis: how to plan, draft, write and finish a doctoral dissertation . Palgrave Study Guides

Patrick Dunleavy shares his accumulated wisdom as an experienced doctoral supervisor and academic writer in the social sciences. Focussing on the links between writing and thinking, his book takes students through the process of planning, drafting, writing, revising and shaping the thesis in an engaging, insightful and sometimes amusing way.

Elphinstone, L. & Schweitzer, R. (1998).  How to get a research degree: A survival guide.  St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

This small but comprehensive volume should be required reading for all commencing postgraduate research students and their supervisors. It is one of the best there is.

Ely, M., Vinz, R., Downing, M & Anzul, M. (1997).  On writing qualitative research . London: The Falmer Press.

Evans, D & Gruba, P. (2002).  How to write a better thesis . Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

A highly-recommended, easily accessible and comprehensive guide that focuses on writing the various sections of the thesis based on the writers’ extensive experience of supervising and supporting students in Australia.

Evans, D., Gruba, P. & Zobel, J. (2011).  How to write a better thesis . Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Feak, C. & Swales, J. M. (2009).  Telling a research story: Writing a literature review . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Feak, C. & Swales, J. M. (2011).  Creating contexts: Writing introductions across genres . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Hart, C. (1998).  Doing a literature review. Releasing the social science research imagination . London: Sage.

A key text that all students in the social sciences should be familiar with before starting their literature review.

Hart, C. (2005).  Doing your Masters Dissertation . London: Sage.

A thorough and comprehensive handbook aimed at supporting students doing a master’s dissertation in the social sciences. It has sections on formulating a topic and finding a format, on research design and methodology, on ethics and a final section on writing.

Holliday, A. (2002).  Doing and writing qualitative research . London: Sage.

Although not specifically aimed at doctoral or masters students, this book is one of the few that helps qualitative researchers understand that the writing process is an integral part of doing qualitative research and becoming a qualitative researcher. It considers the particular challenges confronting qualitative writers as they attempt to ‘find their voice’.

Huff, A. H. (1999).  Writing for scholarly publication . Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Kearns, H & Gardiner, M. (2008).  The seven secrets of highly successful research students. The PhD experience: What they didn’t tell you at induction. Time for research: Time management for PhD students. Defeating self sabotage: Getting your PhD finished.  (4 booklets)

Lewins, F. (1993).  Writing a thesis: A guide to its nature and organization . Canberra: Bibliotech, ANUTECH.

Manalo, E. & Trafford, J. (2004).  Thinking to Thesis: A Guide to Graduate Success at all Levels . Auckland: Pearson.

This book covers many key issues for research students such as time and self-management and making the most of available resources. There is also a very useful chapter on writing a high-quality thesis.

Madsen, D. (1992).  Successful dissertations and theses: A guide to graduate student research from proposal to completion . San Fancisco: Jossey-Bass.

Murray, R. (2002).  How to write a thesis . Open University Press.

One of the few books that actually takes student writers through the process of writing a thesis at the various stages of the PhD. It cannot be recommended too highly. It is a book to be dipped into again and again depending on the particular problem encountered and will prove an invaluable source of inspiration and encouragement

Paltridge, B. & Starfield, S. (2007).  Thesis and dissertation writing in a second language.  London: Routledge.

Phillips, E., Pugh, D. (2004).  How to get a PhD: A handbook for students and their supervisors . Fourth edition. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Now in its fourth edition, this ‘classic’ covers issues such as the PhD process, the nature of the PhD, and what students expect from their supervisors, university and departmental responsibilities.

Punch, K.F. (2000).  Developing effective research proposals , London: Sage.

Ridley, D. (2008).  The literature review: A step-by-step guide for students . London: Sage.

Rugg, G. & Petre, M. (2004).  The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research . Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Well, they’ve now been written down and are worth reading!

Rudestam, K. E. & Newton, R. R. (2001).  Surviving your dissertation . Newbury Park: Sage.

Sides, C.H. (1999).  How to write and present technical information  (3rd ed.) Cambridge University Press, Melbourne.

Swales, J. & Feak, C. (2004).  Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential tasks and skills . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Swales, J. & Feak, C. (2000)  English in today's research world: A writing guide . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Swales, J. M. & Feak, C. (2009)  Abstracts and the writing of abstracts . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Thody, A. (2006).  Writing and presenting research . London: Sage.

The Sociology Writing Group. (1998).  A guide to writing sociology papers . New York: St Martin's Press.

Wallace, M. & Wray, A. (2006).  Critical Reading and Writing for Postgraduates , London: Sage.

Zerubavel, E. (1999).  The Clockwork Muse . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Advice and humour

Introduction to postgraduate study - From Massey University in NZ, this site discusses planning and writing and producing theses and conference papers.

The Thesis Whisperer - A blog dedicated to helping research students everywhere. It is edited by Dr Inger Mewburn of RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia and has contributors from around the world.

How To Write A Dissertation or Bedtime Reading For People Who Do Not Have Time To Sleep - Purdue University

Piled Higher and Deeper: Life (or the lack thereof) in Academia - A comic strip by Jorge Cham

Faculty-based Courses on Thesis Writing and Research Management

Credit bearing courses supported by Academic Skills

Engineering

All PHD and Masters by Research UNSW Engineering students in their second semester will automatically be enrolled in  GSOE9400: Engineering Postgraduate Research Essentials . This course is managed and coordinated by the  Graduate School of Engineering.  

Masters by coursework UNSW Engineering students can choose to enrol in  GSOE960: Academic Discourse in Engineering . Contact the  Graduate School of Engineering   for more information and to enrol in this course.

Postgrad Research

• Academic skills support
• Thesis proposals
• Literature review

Hexamester 3: Library 101 Webinar 8 May 2024

Scholarly Resources 4 Students | scite.ai 21 May 2024

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Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Economics

About the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Economics

UNSW’s Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Economics is offered by one of the world's top institutions in Economics (ranked 42nd in QS Subject Rankings - 2023) and will equip you with the expertise needed to become a globally focused and socially engaged researcher. 

You’ll be joining a cohort of high-achieving research students in tackling modern-day challenges at the forefront of economics, working alongside leaders in the field. This is your opportunity to become integrated into the UNSW Business School’s community of scholars.

The program is comprised of two components. You’ll begin by undertaking rigorous coursework covering microeconomic and macroeconomic theory, econometrics and applied economic analysis. As part of your doctoral program, you’ll also be involved in research projects even from an early stage. This research training will equip you with the skills required to identify, analyse and solve problems in the field. 

You’ll then pursue independent research under the supervision of high-profile UNSW academics, culminating in a doctoral thesis. Your PhD thesis will allow you to showcase your research skills and enable you to make an original contribution to the field of Economics. There will also be exciting opportunities throughout to interact with industry leaders, and to develop your teaching portfolio.

Our training is geared toward preparing you for a career in academia, although other career paths (e.g., consulting, government, industry, non-profit) are also enabled.

The vast majority of our higher degree research students are supported through a tuition waiver and stipend of around A$35-45K per year.

Before formally applying or contacting potential supervisors, you must complete an Expression of Interest (EOI) by sending the required material to [email protected] . Please read the "Instructions for Applicants" section below.

PhD program structure

Stream 1: 1-year of masters’ coursework + 3-year phd program (fully funded for coursework and phd).

Key Information:

• 1-year of Masters’ Coursework + 3-year PhD Program (fully funded both for coursework and PhD)
• The program starts in Term 1 (early February)
• No part-time option is available

Year One: Master of Pre-Doctoral Business Studies (MPDBS)

Year one will equip you with the skills required to identify, analyse and solve problems in the field, while helping you formulate your research agenda and identify potential thesis supervisors for the PhD component of the program. 

You will undertake coursework covering microeconomic and macroeconomic theory, econometrics and applied economic analysis. You’ll also have the opportunity to develop practical research skills by assisting in research projects. Upon successful completion of the first year, you’ll be awarded a Master of Pre-Doctoral Business Studies. 

A brief overview of the first year is presented below. Please visit the UNSW Handbook for full course structure details.

• Term 1:  COMM8100  + ECON7001  +  ECON7004
• Term 2:  COMM8102  +  ECON7002  + Research Assistance Work
• Term 3:  COMM8103  +  ECON7101  +  ECON7102

Year Two: Specialised Coursework and Identification of Thesis Topic

Year two will help you in further developing skills specialized towards dealing with the challenges relevant to your research topic. You’ll continue in the Economics stream with a further year of advanced coursework. 

You’ll choose up to eight additional research courses from a range of electives in consultation with your supervisor and PGRC, with the opportunity to take subjects outside of your specialised discipline. In year two, you’ll also be identifying your thesis topic with the aid of your supervisor. 

You’ll engage in literature review and research design and present your research proposal to the School of Economics at the end of the year.

Years Three – Four: Original Research and Your Doctoral Thesis

In the final three years of the program, you will be focused on conducting full-time research and completing your doctoral thesis. 

This is your opportunity to address some of the biggest challenges at the frontier of Economics and make a significant contribution to the field. Your research will offer new ways of critical thinking and withstand critical analysis from expert researchers in the area.

Stream 2: Direct Entry into the 3-year PhD Program

• Direct Entry into the 3-year PhD Program
• Note: it requires outside scholarship (or ARC Funding Support from your selected supervisor) AND a degree in Economics with research component (e.g., First-class Honours or Master’s in Economics) 
• You are expected to start in Term 1 (early February)
• A part-time option may be available (subject to approval)

Year One: Coursework and Identification of Thesis Topic

Year one will equip you with skills required to identify, analyse and solve problems relevant to your research topic.

You’ll choose up to eight research courses from a range of electives in consultation with your supervisor and PGRC, with an opportunity to take subjects outside of your specialised discipline.

These will include the four core courses listed below (unless you are exempted from taking them). You’ll also be identifying your thesis topic with the aid of your supervisor.

You’ll engage in literature review and research design and present your research proposal to the School of Economics at the end of the year. 

• Term 1:  ECON7001  +  ECON7004
• Term 2:  COMM8102  +  ECON7002

Years Two – Three: Original Research and Your Doctoral Thesis

In the final three years of the program, you will be focused on conducting full-time research and completing your doctoral thesis.

This is your opportunity to address some of the biggest challenges at the frontier of Economics and make a significant contribution to the field.

Your research will offer new ways of critical thinking and withstand critical analysis from expert researchers in the area.

Instructions for Applicants

Before formally applying or contacting potential supervisors, you need to complete the Expression of Interest (EOI) process by sending the following material to [email protected] . The EOI process opens 27 May  and closes 26 August . Only selected applicants will be invited to apply via the UNSW central portal.  

Important: make sure that you satisfy the UNSW academic and language entry requirements before submitting your EOI. Please read the Entry Requirements  section below. 

Subject: MPDBS Application

• Your name, citizenship, and whether you are a citizen or permanent resident of Australia.
• Your degree(s), institution(s) and year(s) of completion of previous studies.
• A list of advanced economics, mathematics and statistics courses taken and the grades you obtained for these courses.
• Names of two references (recommendation letter writers) and their contact details (e.g., affiliation, title, email).
• Names of two academics you wish to work with at UNSW.
• Three to five academic papers you have recently read that relevant for your research interest.

Attachments (in PDF):

• Your academic CV.
• Your official academic transcripts from previous degree(s).
• Your official GRE results.
• A research proposal or statement of purpose.
• If applicable, proof of your English Language requirement.

Subject: Direct Entry PhD Application

• A description of your Honours or Master’s thesis.
• Your funding source: outside scholarship, external grant, or support from potential supervisor.
• A copy of your Honours or Master’s thesis.

Academic Entry Requirement

The minimum academic entry requirement for Stream 1 is the equivalent of a four-year UNSW Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline (Economics, Finance, and related subjects) with first or upper second class honours. The minimum academic entry requirement for Stream 2 is the equivalent of a four-year UNSW Bachelor’s degree with an Honours year (research), or the equivalent of a UNSW Masters’ degree with substantial research component with first or upper second class honours.

Note: an upper second class honours is equivalent to a weighted average mark of at least 75/100 (i.e., a Distinction) at UNSW and is allocated to roughly the top 30% of students. Grading systems vary across countries. For more information, read this guide for grade equivalencies between countries .

If you are unsure if you satisfy the academic entry requirement, contact us at [email protected] and we will provide feedback.

English Language Requirement

UNSW recognises the follow countries as English-speaking: American Samoa, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Botswana, Canada, Fiji, Gibraltar, Ghana, Guyana, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, The Gambia, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland), United States of America, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

If you are not a citizen of an English-speaking country, then you will need to establish that you have sufficient English language fluency. There are four ways to establish sufficient English language fluency: English Tests (including IELTS, TOEFL, Pearson and Cambridge), UNSW Global English Course, Prior Study, or an English Waiver. For details on each of these, please review our English language requirements .

• University of Bologna, Department of Economics, Research Fellow
• The National University of Singapore, Asia Competitiveness Institute, Research Fellow
• Monash University, Centre for Global Business, Research Fellow
• University of Oxford, Magdalen College, Research Fellow, then ETH Zurich, Department of Management, Technology and Economics, Assistant Professor
• Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data, Research Fellow
• Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics, Research Fellow
• The University of Melbourne, School of Mathematics and Statistics (Lecturer)
• University of New South Wales, CEPAR, Research Fellow
• University of Sydney, School of Economics, Research Fellow
• Wuhan University, Economics and Management School, Assistant Professor
• Australian National University, ANU College of Business and Economics, Associate Lecturer
• East China University of Science and Technology, School of Business, Lecturer
• University of Toronto, Department of Economics, Research Fellow
• South China Normal University, School of Economics and Management, Lecturer
• University of Sydney, Research Fellow, then University of Technological Sydney, Economics Discipline, Chancellor's Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
• University of Geneva, Faculty of History, Economics and Society, Research Fellow, then South Mediterranean University, Mediterranean School of Business, Assistant Professor
• Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, School of Public Administration, Associate Professor
• International University of Japan, Graduate School of International Relations, Assistant Professor
• University of New South Wales, School of Economics, Research Fellow
• Shanghai Tech University, School of Entrepreneurship and Management, Assistant Professor
• University of Bath, Department of Economics, Lecturer
• Sun-yat Sen University, Department of Economics, Assistant Professor 
• University of Technology Sydney, Research Fellow, then Macquarie University, Centre for the Health Economy, Honorary Research Fellow
• Zurich University of Applied Sciences, ZHAW, Research Fellow
• Jinan University, Institute for Economic and Social Research, Assistant Professor
• University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, Research Fellow
• Curtin University, School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Lecturer, then Macquarie University, Macquarie Business School, Lecturer
• University of Technology Sydney, CHERE, Research Fellow
• University of Peradeniya, Department of Agricultural Economics and Business Management, Professor
• University of Technology Sydney, CHERE, Senior Research Fellow
• Monash University, Centre for Health Economics, Research Fellow
• Monash University, Monash Business School, Research Fellow
• UNSW, School of Economics, Research Fellow
• Durham University, Business School, Lecturer
• UCL Australia, Faculty of Engineering Science, Lecturer
• Shandong University, School of Economics, Assistant Professor
• University of Sydney, Charles Perkins Centre, Research Fellow
• University of Mannheim, Department of Economics, Research Fellow, then Monash University, School of Economics, Lecturer
• University of Tasmania, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, Lecturer
• City University of London, Department of Economics, Lecturer
• Shangdong University, School of Economics, Lecturer
• Fukushima University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Associate Professor

Your PhD will set you on the path to a career in a premier research institution, anywhere in the world. Throughout your research degree, you’ll also have many opportunities to develop your teaching portfolio.

Beyond academia, there’s also significant demand in the private and public sectors for people with deep knowledge and sound research and analytical skills*.

Whether you’re looking to pursue a career in academia, or take your research skills out to industry, a PhD in Economics from UNSW will get you there.

* Source:  2019 Advancing Australia’s Knowledge Economy Report

The UNSW Business School is ranked within the Top 50 worldwide for Economics and Econometrics.

An increasing number of PhD graduates find employment in business, government, and the non-profit sector. Nineteen of the largest ASX companies have PhD graduates on their senior executive teams.

Degree type

Postgraduate Research

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Term 1 – February

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Delivery mode, domestic / international.

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Accreditation

Research Progress Reviews and Confirmation of Candidature

UNSW recognises that a higher degree research (HDR) project is a long-term endeavour that you will need to sustain over 3 – 4 years if you’re a PhD candidate, or 1.5 – 2 years if you’re a Masters candidate. Research Progress Reviews are designed to help you stay on track with your research project and complete your candidature on time, while getting the most out of your candidature experience. 

Reviews are intended to be a positive and productive process where you can gain recognition of your current achievements and ask for feedback on your research project and future plans from an independent panel of experts in your field. They are a requirement for continued enrolment in your degree.

If you are a PhD candidate, you will need to complete a Confirmation Review within your first nine to twelve months of candidature. The purpose of this Review is to confirm that you are on track to complete your PhD on time, and that you have completed all of the preliminary tasks including:

• PhD research plan
• Draft literature review
• UNSW Research Integrity and Research Data Management training courses
• Attendance at the HDR Welcome and Orientation

The Graduate Research School (GRS) runs a Research Progress Review Seminar that outlines how to get the best out of your Reviews and Confirmation. For information on the next offering, please visit this page .

Can’t make it to the next Seminar? Watch a recording of the last session and download a copy of the slides here .

Additional Resources

All Faculties Your Progress  Research Progress Review and Confirmation of Research Candidatures Procedure Mastering Your PhD: Getting the Most Out of Progress Reviews – Science Magazine  

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• What Is a PhD Literature Review?
• Doing a PhD

A literature review is a critical analysis of published academic literature, mainly peer-reviewed papers and books, on a specific topic. This isn’t just a list of published studies but is a document summarising and critically appraising the main work by researchers in the field, the key findings, limitations and gaps identified in the knowledge.

• The aim of a literature review is to critically assess the literature in your chosen field of research and be able to present an overview of the current knowledge gained from previous work.
• By the conclusion of your literature review, you as a researcher should have identified the gaps in knowledge in your field; i.e. the unanswered research questions which your PhD project will help to answer.
• Quality not quantity is the approach to use when writing a literature review for a PhD but as a general rule of thumb, most are between 6,000 and 12,000 words.

What Is the Purpose of a Literature Review?

First, to be clear on what a PhD literature review is NOT: it is not a ‘paper by paper’ summary of what others have done in your field. All you’re doing here is listing out all the papers and book chapters you’ve found with some text joining things together. This is a common mistake made by PhD students early on in their research project. This is a sign of poor academic writing and if it’s not picked up by your supervisor, it’ll definitely be by your examiners.

The biggest issue your examiners will have here is that you won’t have demonstrated an application of critical thinking when examining existing knowledge from previous research. This is an important part of the research process as a PhD student. It’s needed to show where the gaps in knowledge were, and how then you were able to identify the novelty of each research question and subsequent work.

The five main outcomes from carrying out a good literature review should be:

• An understanding of what has been published in your subject area of research,
• An appreciation of the leading research groups and authors in your field and their key contributions to the research topic,
• Knowledge of the key theories in your field,
• Knowledge of the main research areas within your field of interest,
• A clear understanding of the research gap in knowledge that will help to motivate your PhD research questions .

When assessing the academic papers or books that you’ve come across, you must think about the strengths and weaknesses of them; what was novel about their work and what were the limitations? Are different sources of relevant literature coming to similar conclusions and complementing each other, or are you seeing different outcomes on the same topic by different researchers?

When Should I Write My Literature Review?

In the structure of your PhD thesis , your literature review is effectively your first main chapter. It’s at the start of your thesis and should, therefore, be a task you perform at the start of your research. After all, you need to have reviewed the literature to work out how your research can contribute novel findings to your area of research. Sometimes, however, in particular when you apply for a PhD project with a pre-defined research title and research questions, your supervisor may already know where the gaps in knowledge are.

You may be tempted to skip the literature review and dive straight into tackling the set questions (then completing the review at the end before thesis submission) but we strongly advise against this. Whilst your supervisor will be very familiar with the area, you as a doctoral student will not be and so it is essential that you gain this understanding before getting into the research.

How Long Should the Literature Review Be?

As your literature review will be one of your main thesis chapters, it needs to be a substantial body of work. It’s not a good strategy to have a thesis writing process here based on a specific word count, but know that most reviews are typically between 6,000 and 12,000 words. The length will depend on how much relevant material has previously been published in your field.

A point to remember though is that the review needs to be easy to read and avoid being filled with unnecessary information; in your search of selected literature, consider filtering out publications that don’t appear to add anything novel to the discussion – this might be useful in fields with hundreds of papers.

How Do I Write the Literature Review?

Before you start writing your literature review, you need to be clear on the topic you are researching.

1. Evaluating and Selecting the Publications

After completing your literature search and downloading all the papers you find, you may find that you have a lot of papers to read through ! You may find that you have so many papers that it’s unreasonable to read through all of them in their entirety, so you need to find a way to understand what they’re about and decide if they’re important quickly.

A good starting point is to read the abstract of the paper to gauge if it is useful and, as you do so, consider the following questions in your mind:

• What was the overarching aim of the paper?
• What was the methodology used by the authors?
• Was this an experimental study or was this more theoretical in its approach?
• What were the results and what did the authors conclude in their paper?
• How does the data presented in this paper relate to other publications within this field?
• Does it add new knowledge, does it raise more questions or does it confirm what is already known in your field? What is the key concept that the study described?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of this study, and in particular, what are the limitations?

2. Identifying Themes

To put together the structure of your literature review you need to identify the common themes that emerge from the collective papers and books that you have read. Key things to think about are:

• Are there common methodologies different authors have used or have these changed over time?
• Do the research questions change over time or are the key question’s still unanswered?
• Is there general agreement between different research groups in the main results and outcomes, or do different authors provide differing points of view and different conclusions?
• What are the key papers in your field that have had the biggest impact on the research?
• Have different publications identified similar weaknesses or limitations or gaps in the knowledge that still need to be addressed?

Structuring and Writing Your Literature Review

There are several ways in which you can structure a literature review and this may depend on if, for example, your project is a science or non-science based PhD.

One approach may be to tell a story about how your research area has developed over time. You need to be careful here that you don’t just describe the different papers published in chronological order but that you discuss how different studies have motivated subsequent studies, how the knowledge has developed over time in your field, concluding with what is currently known, and what is currently not understood.

Alternatively, you may find from reading your papers that common themes emerge and it may be easier to develop your review around these, i.e. a thematic review. For example, if you are writing up about bridge design, you may structure the review around the themes of regulation, analysis, and sustainability.

As another approach, you might want to talk about the different research methodologies that have been used. You could then compare and contrast the results and ultimate conclusions that have been drawn from each.

As with all your chapters in your thesis, your literature review will be broken up into three key headings, with the basic structure being the introduction, the main body and conclusion. Within the main body, you will use several subheadings to separate out the topics depending on if you’re structuring it by the time period, the methods used or the common themes that have emerged.

The important thing to think about as you write your main body of text is to summarise the key takeaway messages from each research paper and how they come together to give one or more conclusions. Don’t just stop at summarising the papers though, instead continue on to give your analysis and your opinion on how these previous publications fit into the wider research field and where they have an impact. Emphasise the strengths of the studies you have evaluated also be clear on the limitations of previous work how these may have influenced the results and conclusions of the studies.

In your concluding paragraphs focus your discussion on how your critical evaluation of literature has helped you identify unanswered research questions and how you plan to address these in your PhD project. State the research problem you’re going to address and end with the overarching aim and key objectives of your work .

When writing at a graduate level, you have to take a critical approach when reading existing literature in your field to determine if and how it added value to existing knowledge. You may find that a large number of the papers on your reference list have the right academic context but are essentially saying the same thing. As a graduate student, you’ll need to take a methodological approach to work through this existing research to identify what is relevant literature and what is not.

You then need to go one step further to interpret and articulate the current state of what is known, based on existing theories, and where the research gaps are. It is these gaps in the literature that you will address in your own research project.

• Decide on a research area and an associated research question.
• Decide on the extent of your scope and start looking for literature.
• Review and evaluate the literature.
• Plan an outline for your literature review and start writing it.

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Wrestling an elephant into a cupboard: how to write a PhD literature review in nine easy steps

Feb 10, 2019

When I was writing my PhD I hated the literature review. I was scared of it. One day, my supervisor took me to one side and told me that I had no choice: ‘It was going to have to be done before you start fieldwork’. I was terrified.

Sound familiar? According to Google, 5,000 people a month search for advice on how to conduct a literature review. And we know from the one-on-one PhD coaching we offer and from the theses we proofread that many students struggle with this part of their thesis. 

If you’re feeling lost, keep reading. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the nine steps involved in conducting and writing a PhD literature review.

You’ll realise what I eventually found out: C onducting a literature review is easy. Okay, perhaps that’s a bit much. Let me rephrase: Conducting a PhD literature review isn’t as hard as you think.

What a PhD literature review isn’t

Let us make one thing very clear. A PhD literature review isn’t just a summary of existing literature. That’s an annotated bibliography and that isn’t what a PhD literature review is about. This is the mistake I see most frequently in the PhDs I proofread.

Not only will your examiners send this back for corrections, but it may mean the whole PhD thesis is problematic because it isn’t grounded in a critical review of the literature.

What a PhD literature review is

A PhD literature review is a critical assessment of the literature in your field and related to your specific research topic. When discussing each relevant piece of literature, the review must highlight where the gaps are and what the strengths and weaknesses are of particular studies, papers, books, etc. Also, different pieces of literature are compared and contrasted with one another so that themes and relationships are highlighted.

The job of a literature review is to show five things (if you’re using our PhD Writing Template , you may recognise these):

1. What has been written on your topic 2. Who the key authors are and what the key works are 3. The main theories and hypotheses 4. The main themes that exist in the literature 5. Gaps and weaknesses that your study will then help fill

Who cares what other people have written and said, or what they haven’t said? Well, you should and your examiners definitely will. For your own study to make sense, it has to be situated in the literature. That means you must relate it to what others are talking about.

If you wanted to build a new mobile phone, you would have to research how other mobile phones are built, find out where they can be improved and then design one that makes those improvements.

The literature review is the same.

But where do I start? Here, we list nine steps. Follow each and you’ll be on your way to literature review greatness.

We’ve made the infographic below to help you on your way. Click the image to download it.

Step One: Pick a Broad Topic

You will be reviewing literature on a particular topic, so knowing what your topic is beforehand means you can narrow down your search. At this stage your topic is broad. You won’t be able to know the specifics until you do the review itself.

For my PhD, which looked at the contributions that local government made to climate change policy, my literature review started with a broad topic of ‘climate change policy’. I didn’t focus in on local government until I had read the literature on climate change policy and realized there was a gap.

So, having a clearly defined purpose is really important. Otherwise you are searching blind. If you refer to your PhD Writing Template, take a look at the box titled ‘Aims & Objectives’ – you’ll need to make sure you have established your aims, scope and research questions.

Step Two: Find the Way In

If you search for your broad topic in Google Scholar, you’ll be presented with millions of results. With my own PhD, a search for ‘climate change policy’ bought up over 3 million results.

  Obviously it’s unfeasible to read through all these.

So where do you start? Easy: choose the biggest names in your field.

There are three ways to find these:

1. Textbooks 2. Review articles 3. Most-cited articles

Read through these seminal texts and you’ll begin to get an idea of the broad topic.

Step Three: Who’s Saying What & When

Your job at this stage is to find out the key debates in the field. 

• Who is making the most significant contribution?
• What are they saying?
• How are they saying it?
• What aren’t they saying?

Step Four: Notes, Notes, Notes.

Whenever you read anything you should be taking notes. Detailed notes. These need to cover the following points: 

• What is the author saying?
• How is it relevant to your research?
• What are the gaps/weaknesses?
• What are the key references that you should read?

The more of these kind of standardised notes you have, the easier it will be when you write your literature review.

Step Five: Narrow Down the Field

As you read the key texts, you will begin to see what the key debates are in your field. There might be a number of ’schools’, for example. When you become aware of them, start to focus your literature review around them.

Step Six: Filter Through Your Growing List of References

Don’t just read everything. You need to find a way to filter through the articles or books that are relevant. For example, scan the abstracts, introduction, keywords, titles and references.

Filter the sources you come across into three separate categories:

• Probably won’t read

Step Seven: Use Snowball Sampling

As you read through these articles, look at their reference list. Collect articles that you think will be relevant and use them in your literature review. This is known as snowball sampling.

Step Eight: Think About the Questions that Haven’t Been Asked

You must be reading critically, which means asking what the weaknesses are and where particular articles or book could be improved.

In order to tease out your own specific research topic, you need to think of the questions that haven’t been asked.

Master your lit review & theory framework.

Learn what goes where (and why), and how it all fit together with this free, interactive guide to the PhD literature review and theory framework.

Step Nine: Writing Up Your Literature Review

  The review will broadly follow the key debates you have spotted in step five above. As you write, focus on putting in more detail about particular sources (i.e. flesh out steps six and seven). The focus when writing is to elaborate upon the key patterns and themes that have emerged.

However, you need to include your own synthesis of the material. I said earlier that you shouldn’t just summarize the literature. Instead you should write critically. You should clearly and precisely present your argument. The argument will focus around the questions that haven’t been asked – step nine above – and will ground the literature review. We’ve written a guide to being critical in your literature review . You should read it if you’re unsure what’s required.

So, write early and write that first draft quickly. The earlier you start writing your literature review the better. You must accept that your first draft is going to be just that: a draft. When you write the first draft, focus on the broad structure first. This means focus on the broad themes you want to discuss in the review.

Something you need to consider is how to structure the chapter. The simple answer is that you can either structure it chronologically or thematically.

The long answer is that chronological literature reviews are restrictive and over-simplify the field. They are useful for very early drafts of the review and can help you to arrange the literature and trace threads and connections within it. However, your supervisors and examiners are looking for thematic reviews (unless they have told you otherwise), where you discuss the literature with reference to the themes that have emerged.

Equally important is knowing when to stop reviewing the literature.

The sooner you go out and do your fieldwork, the better. The literature review is a cruel mistress; you’ll struggle to fully nail down its various components and fully understand how everything you have read is related. But don’t despair; aspects of the literature review will become clearer when you enter the field and start to collect data.

Don’t fall into the trap of spending too long in the library and too little time doing fieldwork.

  It’s natural to be scared of the literature review. To conduct one, you have to read, process and synthesise hundreds of thousands of words. But it’s not impossible. Keep this guide to hand and refer to it when you feel yourself getting lost. Share it with your colleagues so they too can conquer their fear of the literature review.

Now read our guide to being critical in the literature review and, if you haven’t already, download our PhD writing template .

And if you need a little extra support, check out our one-on-one PhD coaching . It’s like having a personal trainer, but for your PhD. 

Hello, Doctor…

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  Be able to call yourself Doctor sooner with our five-star rated How to Write A PhD email-course. Learn everything your supervisor should have taught you about planning and completing a PhD.

Now half price. Join hundreds of other students and become a better thesis writer, or your money back. 

Share this:

24 comments.

Good. Clear guidance

I have read the guidelines and noted numerous tricks of writing a thesis. My understanding of writing literature review has improved a lot. Thanks a lot

You’re welcome 🙂

Another Great piece.

It’s understandable and clearer now. I do appreciate you. Thanks so much

Many thanks for the kind words.

You are just brilliant. Outstanding piece for the literature review.

You’re too kind. Thanks!

Great insights! Thanks indeed.

Thank you very much for your clear advice. I am beginning to see where my early literature review drafts were lacking and my feelings of panic are reducing!

is the process the same a research paper?

Broadly speaking, yes. It’ll follow the same overall structure, but you won’t be going into as much detail.

This is very helpful. Thank you so much for sharing

Great advice. Thank you!

You’re welcome!

Thank you for this! I’m a first-year Ph.D. candidate, and I’m super nervous about writing my first literature review. I’ll be sure to use this for some more insight!

Thanks for the kind words. You’re welcome to join us on a PhD Masterclass. We’re currently putting together the Spring 24 calendar and we always run literature review sessions. You can bookmark this page to be the first to hear when our new programme is ready for bookings: https://www.thephdproofreaders.com/phd-workshops/

I cannot tell you how much more concise this makes everything for my ADHD brain. Thank you!

I’m so glad. Thanks for the kind words Kimberly.

I’m staring down the barrel of my literature review and this article made it much clearer what I’m trying to accomplish and actually feel more doable. Thank you!

You’re welcome. I’m glad it helped. Best of luck with it. If you need any support you can get me at max[at]thephdproofreaders.com

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• NATURE INDEX
• 01 May 2024

Plagiarism in peer-review reports could be the ‘tip of the iceberg’

• Jackson Ryan 0

Jackson Ryan is a freelance science journalist in Sydney, Australia.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Time pressures and a lack of confidence could be prompting reviewers to plagiarize text in their reports. Credit: Thomas Reimer/Zoonar via Alamy

Mikołaj Piniewski is a researcher to whom PhD students and collaborators turn when they need to revise or refine a manuscript. The hydrologist, at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, has a keen eye for problems in text — a skill that came in handy last year when he encountered some suspicious writing in peer-review reports of his own paper.

Last May, when Piniewski was reading the peer-review feedback that he and his co-authors had received for a manuscript they’d submitted to an environmental-science journal, alarm bells started ringing in his head. Comments by two of the three reviewers were vague and lacked substance, so Piniewski decided to run a Google search, looking at specific phrases and quotes the reviewers had used.

To his surprise, he found the comments were identical to those that were already available on the Internet, in multiple open-access review reports from publishers such as MDPI and PLOS. “I was speechless,” says Piniewski. The revelation caused him to go back to another manuscript that he had submitted a few months earlier, and dig out the peer-review reports he received for that. He found more plagiarized text. After e-mailing several collaborators, he assembled a team to dig deeper.

Meet this super-spotter of duplicated images in science papers

The team published the results of its investigation in Scientometrics in February 1 , examining dozens of cases of apparent plagiarism in peer-review reports, identifying the use of identical phrases across reports prepared for 19 journals. The team discovered exact quotes duplicated across 50 publications, saying that the findings are just “the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to misconduct in the peer-review system.

Dorothy Bishop, a former neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, UK, who has turned her attention to investigating research misconduct, was “favourably impressed” by the team’s analysis. “I felt the way they approached it was quite useful and might be a guide for other people trying to pin this stuff down,” she says.

Peer review under review

Piniewski and his colleagues conducted three analyses. First, they uploaded five peer-review reports from the two manuscripts that his laboratory had submitted to a rudimentary online plagiarism-detection tool . The reports had 44–100% similarity to previously published online content. Links were provided to the sources in which duplications were found.

The researchers drilled down further. They broke one of the suspicious peer-review reports down to fragments of one to three sentences each and searched for them on Google. In seconds, the search engine returned a number of hits: the exact phrases appeared in 22 open peer-review reports, published between 2021 and 2023.

The final analysis provided the most worrying results. They took a single quote — 43 words long and featuring multiple language errors, including incorrect capitalization — and pasted it into Google. The search revealed that the quote, or variants of it, had been used in 50 peer-review reports.

Predominantly, these reports were from journals published by MDPI, PLOS and Elsevier, and the team found that the amount of duplication increased year-on-year between 2021 and 2023. Whether this is because of an increase in the number of open-access peer-review reports during this time or an indication of a growing problem is unclear — but Piniewski thinks that it could be a little bit of both.

Why would a peer reviewer use plagiarized text in their report? The team says that some might be attempting to save time , whereas others could be motivated by a lack of confidence in their writing ability, for example, if they aren’t fluent in English.

The team notes that there are instances that might not represent misconduct. “A tolerable rephrasing of your own words from a different review? I think that’s fine,” says Piniewski. “But I imagine that most of these cases we found are actually something else.”

The source of the problem

Duplication and manipulation of peer-review reports is not a new phenomenon. “I think it’s now increasingly recognized that the manipulation of the peer-review process, which was recognized around 2010, was probably an indication of paper mills operating at that point,” says Jennifer Byrne, director of biobanking at New South Wales Health in Sydney, Australia, who also studies research integrity in scientific literature.

Paper mills — organizations that churn out fake research papers and sell authorships to turn a profit — have been known to tamper with reviews to push manuscripts through to publication, says Byrne.

The fight against fake-paper factories that churn out sham science

However, when Bishop looked at Piniewski’s case, she could not find any overt evidence of paper-mill activity. Rather, she suspects that journal editors might be involved in cases of peer-review-report duplication and suggests studying the track records of those who’ve allowed inadequate or plagiarized reports to proliferate.

Piniewski’s team is also concerned about the rise of duplications as generative artificial intelligence (AI) becomes easier to access . Although his team didn’t look for signs of AI use, its ability to quickly ingest and rephrase large swathes of text is seen as an emerging issue.

A preprint posted in March 2 showed evidence of researchers using AI chatbots to assist with peer review, identifying specific adjectives that could be hallmarks of AI-written text in peer-review reports .

Bishop isn’t as concerned as Piniewski about AI-generated reports, saying that it’s easy to distinguish between AI-generated text and legitimate reviewer commentary. “The beautiful thing about peer review,” she says, is that it is “one thing you couldn’t do a credible job with AI”.

Preventing plagiarism

Publishers seem to be taking action. Bethany Baker, a media-relations manager at PLOS, who is based in Cambridge, UK, told Nature Index that the PLOS Publication Ethics team “is investigating the concerns raised in the Scientometrics article about potential plagiarism in peer reviews”.

How big is science’s fake-paper problem?

An Elsevier representative told Nature Index that the publisher “can confirm that this matter has been brought to our attention and we are conducting an investigation”.

In a statement, the MDPI Research Integrity and Publication Ethics Team said that it has been made aware of potential misconduct by reviewers in its journals and is “actively addressing and investigating this issue”. It did not confirm whether this was related to the Scientometrics article.

One proposed solution to the problem is ensuring that all submitted reviews are checked using plagiarism-detection software. In 2022, exploratory work by Adam Day, a data scientist at Sage Publications, based in Thousand Oaks, California, identified duplicated text in peer-review reports that might be suggestive of paper-mill activity. Day offered a similar solution of using anti-plagiarism software , such as Turnitin.

Piniewski expects the problem to get worse in the coming years, but he hasn’t received any unusual peer-review reports since those that originally sparked his research. Still, he says that he’s now even more vigilant. “If something unusual occurs, I will spot it.”

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01312-0

Piniewski, M., Jarić, I., Koutsoyiannis, D. & Kundzewicz, Z. W. Scientometrics https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-04960-1 (2024).

Article   Google Scholar  

Liang, W. et al. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2403.07183 (2024).

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