there is a recurring pattern of ‘steps’ that often repeat themselves in individual paragraphs in a literature review:
- introducing a single study or a group of studies in connection to a claim – ‘opening’ statement (functions as a topic sentence)
- providing a positive and/ or negative evaluation of studies’ contributions through generalized statements (optional)
- narrowing the focus down to findings of single studies (from one to a few sentences per study)
- making a positive and/ or negative evaluation of (optional).