Professionally Written Literature Review Map in No Time

A student’s ability to make sense of the academic sources they encounter in the process of studies or research is a fundamental educational skill. You need to master textual processing skills at the early stages of education so that you can compose any type of academic text based on the available evidence and body of knowledge.

To master this skill, you will be offered various exercises and home assignments in college or university. One such task is literature mapping – a systematic and rigorous academic exercise that requires students to identify and categorize relevant data sources on a subject. It is hard to overestimate the importance of this task, as it gives your analysis proper structure and organization. Here is a guide to making such a visual scheme and using it in your homework.

What Is a Literature Map?

As soon as you start researching a topic assigned for a literary analysis, you’re sure to come across varied data falling into different subcategories. The process may thus become messy and confusing, especially if you’re a newbie in this task.

A good way out is a literature map for a literature review. In a nutshell, this scheme represents a visual diagram with links between data sources sorted by themes. Researchers at all academic levels use such visual aids to reap a variety of benefits, such as:

• To showcase their understanding of the topic and subthemes related to it, as well as the nature of the relationship between concepts and theories within the chosen study area.
• Honing a new skill of data visualization, which is a completely new modality of data analysis and presentation compared to textual formats.
• Easier gap identification in the available body of academic evidence.
• Spotting of areas for potential further research.

Experts also note that such a scheme is a powerful reflexive tool, which gives you a unique opportunity to interact with the identified data and perform higher-order analyses and interpretations with it.

Literature Map vs. Literature Review Map: Spotting the Differences

While the two concepts seem very alike, they come with some intricate differences you should understand to perform the required task properly. When we talk about a literary scheme, the task refers to visualizing the relationships between various data sources and themes you have identified during your data research. When it comes to mapping literature review, you are already required to focus on specific elements, such as the strength of evidence, conflicting or mutually supporting data, and succession in research findings.

If you bear these differences in mind, you may perform both tasks successively. Start by categorizing your found sources to systematize your body of evidence and comprehend it in full. Next, you can proceed with literature review mapping, which will include more specific content evaluation aspects relevant to your task.

A Guide to Mapping Review of Literature: Best Practices

So, how is mapping review of literature done in practice? Here is a handy step-by-step guide that can help you perform this task with ease.

• Formulate a clear research focus that you will be pursuing. It should be a narrow topic that sets reasonable research limitations but, at the same time, allows you to explore various subthemes and ideas.
• Compile your set of literary sources across offline and online databases and libraries. Perform an extensive data search using a list of inclusion and exclusion variables. These may include the year, place, and language of publication, a specific methodology, and a particular study subject or population.
• Make a full list of collected sources that fit your inclusion criteria and inform your literature review exercise. Study them in depth to see what perspectives on the studied subject they offer to you.
• Divide the collected sources by themes and categories so that you can compile several data subsets and explore relationships and links between them.
• After the categorization stage is over, you can make a graphic representation of topics, ideas, and their relationships within the studied area of interest.

Yet, even tons of theory can’t be as useful as illustrative, hands-on literature map examples. Thus, we’ve decided to help master this academic skill and have prepared a sample scheme on the subject of animal testing ethics.

Use this literature review map example to excel in the educational process and complete your tasks faster. Such schemes are sure to give more clarity and structure to your collected dataset. As a result of applying this exercise, you will organize data easily and will always have a firm grasp of the body of evidence for your review.

Need a Literature Review Concept Map? Our Pros Are on Standby

Now, you’re much better versed with the visualization exercise and have a clear answer to the question, “What is a literature map?” Even if this information is still not enough for you to ace the task on your own, you’re in the right place.

Our vast team of professionals is available 24/7, ready to provide you with any kind of professional help with literary analysis and visualization tasks. We also render systematic literature review writing services for a more advanced level of study. Thus, you can turn to us at any moment, knowing your tasks are in safe, competent hands.