background literature review difference

How to write the background of your study

Study Background & Introduction

Dr. Rishibha Sachdev

How to write the background of your study

While the findings of your study form the foreground of your research, it is equally important to establish the background of your study. A well-written background will provide your study with a context and prompt the readers to read the rest of your paper.

However, most authors struggle with writing the background of the study. Another common problem authors encounter is distinguishing between the background and the literature review, which are critical aspects of any research paper. The two terms are often used interchangeably; however, they have clearly defined roles. So in this article, I will cover the basics of writing the background and explain how it is different from the literature review.

The background of the study establishes the context of the research. This section explains why this particular research topic is important and essential to understanding the main aspects of the study. Usually, the background forms the first section of a research article/thesis and justifies the need for conducting the study and summarizes what the study aims to achieve.

How to structure the background

In this section, the author usually outlines the historical developments in the literature that led to the current topic of research concisely. If the study is interdisciplinary, it should describe how different disciplines are connected and what aspects of each discipline will be studied.

Additionally, authors should briefly highlight the main developments of their research topic and identify the main gaps that need to be addressed. In other words, this section should give an overview of your study. The section should be organized as:

What is known about the broad topic?
What are the gaps or missing links that need to be addressed?
What is the significance of addressing those gaps?
What are the rationale and hypothesis of your study?

The background section, therefore, should provide general information about the topic of your research and emphasize the main aims of the study. Please ensure that you only discuss the main and relevant aspects of the studies that have led to your aims. Do not elaborate on them as this should be done in the literature review section. The background section should discuss your findings in a chronological manner to accentuate the progress in the field and the missing points that need to be addressed. The background should be written as a summary of your interpretation of previous research and what your study proposes to accomplish.

How to make the background engaging

As the background includes a lot of information, it can become a long drag, causing the readers to lose interest. To ensure that your background is engaging, you should try to build a story around the central theme of your research.

Ensure that the story adheres to the core idea and does not digress into a broad literature review. Each idea should lead to the next so that readers are able to grasp the story and themselves identify the gaps that your study is going to address.

How to avoid common mistakes in writing the background

While writing an effective background, you ought to steer clear of some mistakes. The most common mistakes in writing the background include the following:

Don’t write a background that is too long or too short. Focus on including all the important details but write concisely.
Don’t be ambiguous. Writing in a way that does not convey the message to the readers defeats the purpose of the background, so express yourself keeping in mind that the reader does not know your research intimately.
Don’t discuss unrelated themes. Try and center your discussion around the pivotal aspects of your research topic i.e. highlight the gaps in the literature, state the novelty of the study, and the need to conduct the study.
Don’t be disorganized. Not discussing the themes in a chronological manner can confuse the reader about the progress in the field, so try and organize your writing carefully.

How is the background different from the literature review

Many authors find it difficult to discern the difference between the literature review and the study background. The literature review section should follow the background section, as the second section of your manuscript/thesis. This section basically supports the background section by providing evidence for the proposed hypothesis. This section should be more comprehensive and thoroughly describe all the studies that you have mentioned in the background section. It should also elaborate on all studies that form evidence for the present study and discuss the current trends.

To write this section, you will need to do a thorough literature search on different studies that relate to the broad topic of your research. This will introduce the readers to the area of your research. Following this, you should present a more focused survey of the specific studies that are associated with the precise objective of your study. It would be ideal to organize them thematically and discuss them chronologically so that readers are aware of the evolution and progress in the field. In other words, separate themes should be discussed chronologically to highlight how research in those fields has progressed over time. This will highlight what has been done and what are the future directions that need to be worked upon.

To learn in depth how to write a persuasive study background take this course: How to write an engaging background of the study for your research paper .

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An important thing to consider is that the literature review should be organized to highlight what research has been done and point out what has been missed. There might be other studies that have tried to fill the gaps in the literature and have been unsuccessful or there might be better ways to address the gaps. Covering these points in the literature review gives the readers a perspective on the significance and the novelty of the study. This can be accomplished by comparing and contrasting previous similar studies to abreast the reader with all the knowledge about the field.

For research papers, it is usual for the background and literature review to be combined and presented together without separate headings. For dissertations, the background and literature review may be presented as separate sections. Ultimately, it is best to check your target journal’s instructions before writing the background of your study.

For more helpful resources, check out the following:

How to write the background to the study in a research paper?
What comprises the background to a study in a research paper?
INFOGRAPHIC: 6 Differences between study background and literature review
INFOGRAPHIC: 8 Dos and 8 don'ts of writing an engaging study background

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Published on: Nov 27, 2018

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Following the INTRODUCTION section which introduces the problem the study works on, the BACKGROUND or LITERATURE REVIEW section provides full context of the problem. This section should establish the necessity of the current study by identifying a gap in field or showing what has been understudied so as to create a research space for the present study.

The BACKGROUND is sometimes included in the INTRODUCTION section or sometimes stands out as being a separate chapter. Some researchers may use the BACKGROUND section interchangeably with the LITERATURE REVIEW. However, other writers treat these two sections differently. The similarities and differences between the BACKGROUND and LITERATURE REVIEW sections are listed below:

B) Oranisation :

Extensive study of published work in one’s field is a must. Students should look up relevant material, synthesise information from various sources, and evaluate the information critically.

Information presented in this section can be organized in two ways:

Chronologically- from oldest to newest
Topically- most relevant themes to the current study to the less relevant ones

Information can be taken from the following sources:

Journal articles
Computerized databases
Conferences proceedings
Dissertations
Empirical studies
Government reports and reports from other bodies
Historical records
Statistical handbooks

(Source: www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/ writing /.../lit- reviews /print-section.doc )

(II) In-text Citation

Information taken from previous studies should be acknowledged properly to avoid plagiarism problems. References cited within the text should be organised in numerical order according to their order of appearance and enclosed in square brackets [ ]. For example

a) When two references are cited, the numbers should be separated by a comma [3, 4]. b) When there are more than two reference citations, the numbers should be separated by a dash [11-14].

(Source: https://www.asme.org/shop/proceedins/conference-publications/references)

Direct quotations may be sparingly used in writing the literature review. However end-of-text references are commonly used.

(III) Verb tense in writing LITERATURE REVIEW

Use PRESENT SIMPLE TENSE when
Giving an overview, a statement made by the writer

e.g. This study to aims investigate …

e.g. Since the proposed antenna may consist of some 15 dimensional parameters, it is not easy to obtain an optimal set of these parameters. [4]

e.g. Microstrip patch antenna is a popular choice in wireless communication, because of its well-known advantages, including light weight, small size, low profile and low cost [4].

Describing a generally accepted scientific truth

e.g. The dual-band design of patch antenna using two U-slots on the patch antenna structure is one of its kind to achieve multiple resonances [4].

Use PAST SIMPLE TENSE when referring to or describing the findings of past studies:

e.g. Zhang and Chen [5] demonstrated the dual-band branch-line coupler with stubs placed at the center of each branch line.

Use PRESENT PERFECT TENSE when the study referred to is still going on or still has relevance today :

e.g. A number of patch antenna designs have been proposed to achieve a range of design requirements, including wide impedance bandwidth and multiple operational band [4].

The quadrature hybrid coupler have been one of the most popular passive circuits used in microwave and millimeter-wave applications for the past decade [6].

References:

[1] M. J. Page and S. R. Judah, “A flexible design procedure for microstrip planar 3-dB quadrature hybrid,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 38, no. 11, pp. 1733–1736, Nov. 1990.

[2] T. Kawai and I. Ohta, “Planar-circuit-type 3-dB quadrature hybrids,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 42, no. 12, pp. 2462–2467, Dec. 1994.

[3] B. Carrion Schafer and A. Mahapatra,"S2CBench: Synthesizable SystemC Benchmark Suite for High-Level Synthesis ", IEEE Embedded Systems Letters, Vol. 6(3), pp. 53-56, 2014.

[4] S.H. Yeung, K.F. Man and W.S. Chan, "Optimised design of an ISM band antenna using a jumping genes methodology," IET Microwave Antennas Propagation, Vol. 2, No. 3, February 2008, pp. 259-267

[5] H. Zhang and K. J. Chen, “A stub tapped branch-line coupler for dualband operations,” IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 106–108, Feb. 2007.

[6] S.Y. Zheng, S.H. Yeung, W.S. Chan, K.F. Man, S.H. Leung, and Q.XUE, "Dual-band rectangular patch hybrid coupler," IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 56, no. 7, July 2008, pp 1721-1728.

Web Sources:

[6] http://mars.uta.edu/mae3183/manuals/ieee_ug_report_writing.pdf

[7] https://www.academia.edu/9133305/The_Difference_between_Having_Literature_in_the_Background_of_Study_and_the_Literature_Review

[8] https://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/literature%20review%20guidelines.pdf)

[9] https://www.asme.org/shop/proceedins/conference-publications/references

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Writing the parts of scientific reports

19 Writing the literature review or background chapter

The more advanced you are in your studies, the more important it will be to make the connection between your own research and the research of others. Therefore, when you begin a project or have identified a research question, you usually go and search for relevant work done by others.

The literature review consists of two parts (Ridely, 2012): the finished product which is part of a thesis and the process which is searching and critically reading the work done by others, which is often called literature search or in this book literature – based research . So, the purpose of what is called literature review is initially often to read around the subject, to explore the field and gain a thorough understanding of current work and perspectives. However, this reviewing of literature is an ongoing activity and lasts until the day you complete the final draft because understanding and comparing with existing literature can help you to analyse and interpret your results.

Purpose of the literature review

The purposes of a literature review can be summarized as follows:

To provide a historical background for your research.
To explore the current context in which your research is situated by referring to debates, issues or questions in the field, which helps to show the significance of a problem for research.
To identify a discussion of relevant theories and concepts, which you then will probably draw on.
To gain an overview of relevant methodology or methods used to collect and analyse data in a particular field.
To clarify and introduce relevant terminology to be used in your research.
To identify relevant research and to show how your work extends or challenges it.
To establish a gap in the work in the field.
To provide supporting evidence for a problem or claim.

When is a specific literature review chapter required?

Even though no research can be done without knowledge of and referring to relevant research of others, your (primary) purposes and whether you will write a dedicated chapter with the title Literature review depends on the kind of research project and the conventions within your discipline. There is for example a significant difference between applied and theoretical research, where more extensive and critical literature reviews are expected. There are further significant differences between research done at the beginning of your university studies or for a BA, BSc, MA, MSc or PhD thesis. For a Master or PhD thesis a high level of awareness of the research done in your field and deep and broad discussion of it is expected.

However, the insights from your literature review will strongly influence the content of other chapters, such as the Background (if you include such a section in your study) or the Methodology section . As already mentioned, you very often refer to theory (i.e. literature) when analysing and interpreting data in the Discussion section .

Overall structure

If you include a separate chapter with the title literature review, you can follow the principle below. As always organize your writing along a general-to-specific pattern:

IQP Research Guide: Background Chapter / Literature Review

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Literature Reviews

A literature review is a survey of information found in scholarly articles, books, and other literature related to your area of study. The goal of a literature review is to describe, summarize, evaluate and clarify the prior research on your topic. A literature review goes beyond summing up the research of others and explores the relationships within the literature. It determines what has already been investigated, identifies potential relationships between concepts, defines and measures key concepts and relates to research already completed in the field of study.

A literature review:

Describes, summarizes, evaluates, clarifies and integrates information on your project
Surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources relevant to your area of research
Provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of significant works

Why do a literature review?

To identify methods, information, and/or ideas that could be relevant to your project
To identify seminal works in your area
To place your project into the context of established work

What types of questions will help guide your literature review?

Facts about your sponsor
Facts about your topic
Information about your geographic area - culture, demographics, language, economy, climate, etc.
What research has already been done on your topic?
What solutions or ideas have already been tried?
How do the previous solutions, ideas, and research relate to each other?

Websites & Guides

Literature Reviews (Australian National University) Goes over the purpose, structure and language of a literature review, as well as the different types of reviews.
Literature Reviews University of North Carolina Writing Center
Literature Review Tutorial (American University) This tutorial provides a comprehensive discussion of literature reviews, and includes numerous links to additional resources.
Review of Literature UW Madison
Learn How to Write a Review of Literature (Univ. of Wisconsin) This brief guide includes several examples of literature reviews.
10 Simple Rules for Literature Reviews
How do I write my literature review? (Sage ResearchMethods)
The Literature Review (Sage ResearchMethods)
Literature Reviews (Sage ResearchMethods)
Reviewing the Literature (Sage ResearchMethods)
Strategies for Literature Reviews (Sage ResearchMethods)
What is a Literature Review? A short guide created by the WPI librarians.

Research Tip

When completing a literature review it is important to consider how your project may be considered within different disciplines. For example, if you are attempting to create an effective children's program for a museum, within your literature review you would want to consider research in museum studies, early childhood education, marketing, and cultural studies in the locale where you will be working.

RELATED GUIDES

Writing a Literature Review (RMIT) Tips and guidelines for researching and writing a literature review.
Background Chapter This is the Background Chapter section from the IQP Writing Guide.

Books about Literature Reviews

Books at WPI:

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The Difference between Having Literature in the Background of Study and the Literature Review

As it has been known that the working of writing literature on the research is paramount since the existence of literature on research is obligatory (Emilia, 2009: 157).

Related papers

• Learning outcomes • The nature of a literature review • Identifying the main subject and themes • Reviewing previous research • Emphasizing leading research studies • Exploring trends in the literature • Summarizing key ideas in a subject area • Summary A literature review is usually regarded as being an essential part of student projects, research studies and dissertations. This chapter examines the reasons for the importance of the literature review, and the things which it tries to achieve. It also explores the main strategies which you can use to write a good literature review.

research proposal as a problem to investigate, it usually has to be fairly narrow and focused, and because of this it can be difficult to appreciate how one's research subject is connected to other related areas. Therefore, the overall purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate this, and to help the reader to understand how your study fits into a broader context. This paper seeks to examine this topic of literature review, its significance and role in research proposal and report. It will start by explaining in detail what literature is; by citation of different scholars and its constituent components, such as the theoretical framework. Thereafter, it will look at the importance of literature review and its role in research proposals and reports. Finally, a conclusion will be written based on this topic. A Literature Review is a critical review of existing knowledge on areas such as theories, critiques, methodologies, research findings, assessment and evaluations on a particular topic. A literature review involves a critical evaluation identifying similarities and differences between existing literatures and the work being undertaken. It reviews what have already been done in the context of a topic. Therefore, on the basis of the existing knowledge, people can build up innovative idea and concept for further research purpose (Cooper, 1998). In doing empirical literature review is reading reports of other relevant studies conducted by different researchers. In doing so, a researcher gets knowledge and experiences that were established by other researchers when conducting their studies. While Conceptual framework is a set of coherent ideas or concepts organised in a manner that makes them easy to communicate to others. It represents less formal structure and used for specific concepts and propositions derived from empirical observation and intuition (ibid). According Aveyard, H. (2010) Theoretical framework is a theoretical perspective. It can be simply a theory, but can also be more general a basic approach to understanding something. Typically, a theoretical framework consists of concepts, together with their definitions, and existing framework must demonstrate an understanding of theories, and existing framework demonstrate an understanding of theories and concepts that are relevant to the topic of your research proposal and that will relate it to the broader fields of knowledge in the class you are taking.

Research has over time played a pivotal role in mankind’s quest for knowledge and technological advancement. In all spheres of human existence, research and its further application have over time been able to show the obvious, and yet sometimes hidden unity of science and the philosophical and sociological settings in which everything operates. Essentially, research has helped man to explore once thought of as bizarre phenomena and afforded man the opportunity to draw a fine line between opinions and facts towards gaining maximum benefits from the research’s orientation (Williams, 2007). Too frequently, research is viewed as a formalized process of applying a rigid sequence of steps to the solution to a problem but in actual fact, research in itself entails flexibility in order to maximize scientific methods. This paper explains the concept of literature review in research and how a literature review is done in other to enhance the quality of the research work produced.

With a view to examining the entire proposed structure for an empirical article, this editorial focuses on the Literature Review, also known as the Theoretical Framework. The literature review may be defined as “a documented review of published or unpublished works (articles, books, etc.) in specific fields of interest to the work of the researcher” (Ferreira, 2015: 36). It is to be found in conceptual articles such as empirical articles, whether qualitative or quantitative. It has a clear link to the article as a whole and provides support for the section on the development of the concept and the hypotheses/propositions that follow it in the structure of an empirical article.

Review of literature is an integral part of any research. However, the scope and purpose of review of literature vary with the context. The most common contexts in which review of literature is demanded are - - (1) A course assignment, (2) A short review for a research article, (3) A review for research proposal, (4) A stand alone review article and (5) A chapter-length review for thesis/dissertation. There are seven important steps in the task of review of literature. They are - - (1) How to search for studies? (2) How to select studies? (3) How to analyze studies? (4) Which scheme is appropriate for analysis? (5) How to compose/organize review of literature? (6) Scheme of presentation of review and (7) Conclusion.

Aare 2004 Doing the Public Good Positioning Educational Research International Education Research Conference Proceedings, 2004

Doing a literature review www.le.ac.uk/succeedinyourstudies This Study Guide explains why literature reviews are needed, and how they can be conducted and reported. Related Study Guides are: Referencing and bibliographies, Avoiding plagiarism, Writing a dissertation, What is critical reading? What is critical writing? The focus of the Study Guide is the literature review within a dissertation or a thesis, but many of the ideas are transferable to other kinds of writing, such as an extended essay, or a report. What is a literature review? The ability to review, and to report on relevant literature is a key academic skill. A literature review:  situates your research focus within the context of the wider academic community in your field;  reports your critical review of the relevant literature; and  identifies a gap within that literature that your research will attempt to address. To some extent, particularly with postgraduate research, the literature review can become a project in itself. It is an important showcase of your talents of: understanding, interpretation, analysis, clarity of thought, synthesis, and development of argument. The process of conducting and reporting your literature review can help you clarify your own thoughts about your study. It can also establish a framework within which to present and analyse the findings. After reading your literature review, it should be clear to the reader that you have up-to-date awareness of the relevant work of others, and that the research question you are asking is relevant. However, don't promise too much! Be wary of saying that your research will solve a problem, or that it will change practice. It would be safer and probably more realistic to say that your research will 'address a gap', rather than that it will 'fill a gap'. Why do I need a literature review? When readers come to your assignment, dissertation, or thesis, they will not just assume that your research or analysis is a good idea; they will want to be persuaded that it is relevant and that it was worth doing. They will ask questions such as: Q What research question(s) are you asking? Q Why are you asking it/them?

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