It's Not Always Sexy, But It's Strategic
Building a Literature Review (Part 3)
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If you’re wondering why I’ve devoted the last three weeks to writing about literature reviews, there are actually two reasons:
They’re one of the biggest barriers to publishing. When editors pass on someone’s work, it’s often because the author hasn’t spent enough time immersing themselves themselves in the ongoing conversation around their topic.
They’re a misunderstood genre convention. There’s nothing “sexy” about a literature review. Even people who know how to write them underestimate their strategic utility.
As I explained last week, the literature review is the Swiss Army knife of long-form argument. It has various rhetorical functions, including:
Drawing limits around your topic
Setting up your argument
Highlighting the stakes of your project
However, the main purpose of the literature review is to introduce and explain what other folks have said about your topic. It provides context for your argument.
For rhetoricians, context is everything. Something can only be considered “strategic” or “rhetorically effective” according to its context. That’s why rhetoricians spend so much time discussing what Lloyd Bitzer calls the rhetorical situation, the event or set of circumstances that elicits and shapes communication between speakers and audiences.
Structuring a Literature Review
Since literature reviews are both produced by and presenting context, they’re always going to look a little different depending on who you’re writing for and what you’re writing about.
Every discourse community has different standards of evidence, so a literature review can be an entire section of your article, a paragraph, or a single line. But it always has strategic and rhetorical value as a place where you can connect your work to the discourse around your topic.
There are many different ways to structure a literature review, each with its own advantages. You can organize a literature review:
Chronologically, to illustrate how an idea has changed or been influenced by subsequent generations of thinkers.
Thematically, to discover unexpected similarities between texts from different genres, disciplines, and schools of thought.
Canonically, to identify or acknowledge the texts that serve as common points of reference for a specific discourse community.
Dialogically, to highlight areas of consensus and disagreement between individuals and groups with a common interest in the topic.
Persuasively, to build your case and explain how the existing literature base supports your argument.
Methodologically, to compare different ways of approaching the topic and emphasize the strengths of your own approach.
Situating Your Sources
When it comes to actually writing the literature review, you’ll be quoting, summarizing, paraphrasing, or listing as needed. But you’ll also want to identify the relationship between your sources.
This could mean flagging when someone is leaning heavily on someone else’s work, or explaining why two of your sources disagree. It could also mean:
Making comparisons
Summarizing common assumptions
Paraphrasing debates between individuals or factions
Introducing conflicting interpretations
Explaining why specific thinkers or texts are important or relevant
However you decide to do it, your audience will need some way to distinguish between your ideas and the ideas you’re presenting.
Establishing a Throughline
It’s often a good idea to use your literature review to establish a “throughline” in your writing. A throughline is a recurring claim or idea that ties the different perspectives of your literature review together, providing the context for your argument.
The throughline is the “spine” of your argument. It provides structure and support for the body of text. It also keeps the argument aligned and functional. By occasionally circling back to reintroduce the throughline, you remind and reassure your reader that everything you’re introducing connects back to your main point.
In longer literature reviews, the thoughline can be the path the reader takes through your research to get to your argument. In shorter ones, it can be something that demonstrates what your sources have in common or explains why they need to be considered alongside one another in the context of your topic.
Throughlines are something of a genre convention in their own right, so I’ll cover them in more detail in a future post. For now, good luck with your writing!