Writing a literature review can be one of the most challenging and difficult parts of completing a dissertation or thesis. It requires an extensive analysis, synthesis, and interpretation of existing research in order to drive forward new knowledge. As such, it is often the most time consuming and intellectually demanding part of any project.
Why is the Literature Review–often the most difficult chapter to write?
The literature review involves reading extensively on a subject and synthesizing ideas from multiple sources into a single document that contributes to an argument or understanding. It is not just summarising what has been published previously; rather it requires forming opinions on where gaps exist in the field, why these gaps are important to address, how they will be addressed in the current work, and how this relates to previous work done in the area. This process can be extremely difficult as there may be conflicting information or data that needs to be reconciled with other findings before conclusions can be drawn.
Moreover, writing a good literature review takes more than just collecting relevant research articles; it also involves critically analyzing them for accuracy, clarity, relevance and usefulness for different purposes. This further complicates matters as it is highly time-intensive activity which can get overwhelming easily if not managed properly. Additionally, when attempting large-scale reviews involving hundreds of sources over multiple years’ worth of research material—it is quite common for various discrepancies between source materials (in terms of both content and formatting) to emerge during analysis which must then be rectified manually by hand before compilation into final documents begins. As expected this makes for slow progress due to its meticulous nature—which again puts additional strain on writers who may already feel overwhelmed by their workloads!
In addition to this difficulty inherent within traditional approaches (i.e., manual collection & analysis), newer technologies such as natural language processing algorithms used within textmining software have only added additional complexity–by enabling users with accesses large corpora datasets containing millions upon millions words/sentences at once–often necessitating more intense scrutiny during assessment stages (as each individual piece needs evaluation separately against others) whilst trying maintain consistency across whole body works being reviewed simultaneously making process even harder still! Consequently these advancements have made compiling comprehensive yet concise documents even more challenging than ever before–hence explaining why “literature reviews” considered amongst most difficult chapters write today!