A bibliographic review is a bibliographic guide that is a coherent narrative about dissertations – objects of bibliography. A coherent narrative about dissertations, the purpose of which is the bibliographic study of a particular topic or branch of knowledge, or the state of book publishing.
Separate descriptions or brief mentions of printed works are united in it by a bridging text, usually containing a comparative or critical assessment of sources in terms of significance. The review is usually used in scientific literature, as it allows you to highlight literary sources in more detail than a regular list or even an annotated one. At the same time, the literature review is purely bibliographic in nature, its task is to present the sources, and not the problem as such.
Separate descriptions or brief mentions of printed works are united in it by a bridging text, usually containing a comparative or critical assessment of sources in terms of significance. The review is usually used in scientific literature, as it allows you to highlight literary sources in more detail than a regular list or even an annotated one. At the same time, the literature review is purely bibliographic in nature, its task is to present the sources, and not the problem as such.
A bibliographic review is always based on a specific set of dissertations
In order to write a Bibliographic Review, one must know the purpose of review as they differ in purpose (informational, recommendatory) and in content (universal, industry, thematic, personal).
In bibliographic reviews, the characteristics of the works are supplemented with the necessary explanations and factual information. Purpose and readership, the content of the topic and other features determine the number of works about which information is given in the review.
Typically, the dissertations in the review are grouped according to the principle “from general to specific”, “from simple to complex”. This arrangement allows the reader to gain a certain amount of knowledge. Sometimes the dissertations in the overview are grouped by specific aspect of the topic, by the importance of the dissertations, or by genre.
Making a bibliographic review can seem like a tiring and challenging job, but it will depend on it to sustain the relevance of your dissertation. A work whose bibliography is restricted to recent dissertation and which converge with the researcher’s conclusions, for example, denotes weakness and may indicate that the researcher is merely attesting to his opinion. For this reason, the dissertation review must be done with care and at the beginning – being gradually deepened as it unfolds. Here are four tips for putting together a bibliographic review that is really useful for your research and dissertation writing.
- Objective to write a Bibliographic Review – Making a bibliographic review is laborious and takes time, especially for long works – the case of the dissertation bibliography – but it is also a fundamental base work to ensure the final quality of the results achieved. A poorly done research review can even ruin your chances of achieving relevant results, so whenever you are unmotivated to carry out this type of work, remember its importance and the negative impact that a poor bibliographic review can have on your work end and reputation as a researcher.If the dissertation you’re defending is founded on gaps left by other studies, poorly mapped places in your field of knowledge, or the immediate continuation of other studies, the review is even more important. Remember that in order to criticize the work of others or poorly mapped places in your field of expertise, you must first have a thorough understanding of the terrain you wish to explore, as more critical and inventive research is more likely to be condemned.
- Map out key research points – Start by analysing the general context in which your dissertation fits within your broad area of expertise. After that, identify key concepts and important variables and correlate them to your dissertation. Finally, point out ways to deepen the development of the study and indicate alternative methodologies that relate to the theme of the work. At the end of this work, you will have an outline of the major themes and details covered by your dissertation, and you will then be able to start mapping the bibliography that best addresses the issues you are working with. The last point, about ways to deepen the dissertation later, should gather bibliography to be used in the unfolding of your research, but whose issues addressed will not necessarily be explored in your work. This bibliography can even serve as a source for the development of future projects.
- Demonstrate authority in your area of expertise – It is critical that your research review demonstrates your authority on the topic, especially if it is a dissertation bibliography. In this aspect, the quantity of sources surveyed is not so important, but their quality and scope. Try to focus on relevant works with greater impact in the area over a significant temporal scope, but without necessarily worrying about mapping “everything” that has been written about the topic. Build a logical framework for the evolution of the discussion on the subject, relating the contributions given by the authors based on what is most widespread and accepted in their area of knowledge. The best way to organise a literature review is based on the evolution of theoretical lines over time, in this way it will be easier to distinguish in a wide bibliographic universe what is most relevant from current or outdated trends.
- The necessity of consistency to write a Bibliographic Review – By the end of your bibliographic review, your reader should have managed to understand what you are proposing to dissertation, placing your work in relation to what was done in your area of knowledge in this line previously. For this reason, it is important to make it clear, argumentatively, the role of your work in this broader research panorama, whether it is filling a gap in this area, revisiting research that has inconclusive results, challenging an already known theory, deepening a particular study, etc. Whatever your purpose, it should be clear from the way you align your dissertation with previous studies, which gives your bibliographic review a unique character.
Therefore, this work cannot be copied from the dissertation of others or delegated to third parties, since for it to have quality, it is necessary that you read the researched bibliography and critically evaluate it in light of the particularities of your dissertation project. In addition, not mastering the bibliography will negatively interfere in the writing of the dissertation.
