Literature Review Help: Narrowing Down The List Of Sources

Have you been charged with the task of writing a literature review for a book, novel, play, or other piece of writing that you have had to read for a class? Do you need help limiting the amount of sources that are available to you? There are ways to narrow down the vast amount of sources that you can use for various types of classic literature. Some of the best tips to selecting the best sources to use include:

  • While you are going to be able to find a ton of sources that reference the piece of literature that you are trying to write a quality review on, you do not need to use all of them
  • You are going to want to exclusively use the sources that are completely relevant to the topic of your review
  • You will select a main part of the piece of literature to focus on and then select your sources based on what sources support that argument the most
  • You will only need one or two sources at the most in regards to the author's biography; therefore, you can limit your biography resources based on what ones provide the most compelling information on the author's live events that are more relevant to your review

These are just a few of the best ways to limit down the amount of sources that you are going to have available to you in order to compose a quality review.

By narrowing down the amount of sources that you use for a review of a piece of literature, you are actually going to make your argument more solid and professional. A common misconception about writing that requires research of any kind is that the more sources that one uses and provides in a works cited page, and then the stronger the argument, it is actually the complete opposite. It is easier to bend truths and facts to fit an argument that is not naturally connected to the information when an excess of sources are cited. Therefore, you will be able to make your argument stand out if you only utilize and provide a reasonable amount of sources for your literary review. These tips are a great way to make your argument strong and compelling when it is being evaluated by your teacher or professor. Next time you are responsible for writing a review of a piece of literature, make sure that you only include sources that are completely relevant, and not extraneous.

 

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