Introduction: as a general rule, researchers should first investigate previous research to see whether or not others may have already addressed similar research problems and must acquaint themselves with the relevant literature. Literature review is used to help the researcher link concepts from other sources to his or her research, a good literature review require a balance. A literature review often forms part of a larger research project, such as within a thesis (or major research paper), or it may be an independent written work, such as a synthesis paper.
While it should the format of a review of literature may vary from discipline to discipline and from assignment to assignment. A review may be a self-contained unit -- an end in itself -- or a preface to and rationale for engaging in primary research. Literature Review: Provides an overview and a critical evaluation of a body of literature relating to a research topic or a research problem, analyzes a body of literature in order to classify it by themes or categories, rather than simply discussing individual works one after another; presents the research and ideas of the field rather than each individual work or author by itself. 2. . Literature Review shows what previous researchers have discovered. It is usually quite long and primarily depends upon how much research has previously been done in the area you are planning to investigate. If researcher is planning to explore a relatively new area, the literature review should cite similar areas of study or studies that lead up to the current research. (Paris Graduate School of Management (guidelines and strategies for proposal and thesis completion)
3. According to (William Zikmund © South Western Cengage Learning 2010) literature review is a direct search of published works, including periodicals and books, that discuses theory and presents empirical results that are relevant to the