1. The literature review needs to based on between 5 and 10 papers
2. Number of words should be between 2 000 – 4 000 (OBS! Do not exceed 4 000 words)
3. You need to present the result using a thematic review organization of the literature (see page 102 in Creswell (2012)) also called concept centric review (see table 1 in Webster & Watson (2012)). You should NOT use an author-centric review organization
4. You need to discuss how to transform your literature review to become a research contribution
5. You need to use end-of-text-references as well as within-text references (see page 98-99 in Creswell (2012)
6. For each section in the literature review there are requirements as well
Abstract – An abstract is a short summary of the literature review. It should include at least the research problem, the research question and result/findings.
Background – This part introduces the topic to the reader.
Problem discussion – This part provides the context to the problem statement, including justifying the problem by presenting researchers stating that the problem exists and is of importance.
Problem statement – This part presents the problem statement. The problem should be expressed in ONE sentence and start with: The problem addressed in this literature review is
Research question – This part presents the research question. The research question should be expressed in ONE sentence and start with: The research question answered in this literature review is . The research question also needs to be expressed as a question.
Research method – This part describes the method for carrying out the literature review. Tip: Use Creswell’s five-steps method as the base for describing how the literature review has been carried out, and present how each step has been carried out.
Result – In this part, you need to present the result using a thematic review organization of the literature (see page 102 in Creswell (2012)) also called concept centric review (see table 1 in Webster & Watson (2012)). That is, you should NOT use an author-centric review organization.
How to transform your literature review to a real scientific contribution – In this part, you need to describe what you need to do in order for this literature review to be transformed to a real research contribution
Conclusion:
Research question revisited In this part, you need to repeat the research question and answer it based on your literature review
Discuss the findings – Discuss the most interesting results/findings, for example, by discussing possible research gaps identified in the literature review, contradictions in the literature, or surprising findings
Future research – This part should present some possible future research projects based on the literature review and discuss their possible contribution to research
