Does Anyone Enjoy Writing Literature Reviews? How?

It's midnight and you're in the library because you promised yourself today was the day you'd start writing the review. Coffee, Redbull, Sunkist (my go-to) the only thing keeping you awake. That, and you can't stop writing. You've finally found something in the literature that just clicks. For the first time, it's all starting to come together. Wait, all of these papers have the same lurking variable... you can predict waterborne illness by a little-known proxy. At least, that's why I'm up at night.

You have your first “this makes sense” moment when the gears start to turn, because it looks like you've stumbled upon a gap in the literature, or you realize that there could be a strong basis for new research. There's not always the “perfect paper” everyone is looking for that falls into your lap, but there's that feeling that you're onto something that should get your heart racing.

There are research tools that can make the work simpler and almost addictive. Tools like FoundThat are able to find similar papers to that “perfect paper” you stumbled onto and even search the abstracts for the search term you used when you found that paper. This feedback of narrowing down by similarity and exact phrases keeps you in control of the process as 50 similar papers becomes 20 qualified papers instantly. The more papers you save, the better the similar papers suggested until you have all the papers you need.

Alter your methodology, learn which variables have multiple names, and improve on the theories of others in the literature and you'll reap the rewards of a well-done literature review. If it's a matter of “this is taking too long,” there are tools that you need to check out to get over that hump. Read "How to Write a Literature Review Without Going Crazy" for software suggestions in your workflow.