Themes

I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme.

Henry James

One of the most common struggles in writing a literature review seems to be determining what the themes should be. There are probably many ways to figure this out, but I am going to describe two of them.

1. Using what you want to know. Sometimes writers will use the questions they have about a topic to determine their themes. For example, when Sally decided that she was interested in using differentiation for her lit review topic, she had several questions she wanted to answer about differentiation: What are the benefits for students? What are the benefits for teachers? What are different ways that the curriculum can be differentiated? Are there some specific strategies that I could learn? She kept those questions in mind as she read through her research, marking things she found that were relevant to each question.

2. Letting the research determine the themes. What if Sally knew that she wanted to research differentiation, but wasn't sure what themes she should select? Well, then she should let her research help her decide what the themes are. As Sally reads, she finds that many articles discuss the need for differentiation, the benefits for students, and the different ways that content can be differentiated. Because she has seen these themes again and again in her research, she decides to use them as her lit review themes.

Another common question is how broad or narrow to make the themes. This is also a decision that you get to make. In the two examples above, Sally found enough research to write about three broad themes on her topic. She may decide in the end, however, that she is more interested in just one of those themes and wants to devote her lit review work only to the different ways that content can be differentiated. In this case, she would take that theme and subdivide it into more the more narrow themes: differentiating by process, differentiating by content, differentiating by product. She now has narrowed the topic of her paper from "Differentiation" to "Ways to Differentiate" and both the title and introduction of her lit review should reflect that.

Other examples could include taking the broad topic of "Reading Comprehension" where you might address why it is necessary, ways to assess, and strategies for improving and narrowing the focus to "Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension." In this narrower topic, your themes might each be a different strategy that you will describe and explain how to use in the classroom.

The long and short of it is that there is no one right depth at which to address your topic. If you are in love with your theme, then you will determine what you want to know - whether that is more of a broad overview or a narrower look at one aspect.