Literature Reviews: Common Errors Made When Conducting a Literature Review

Main ideas / lessons

• A literature review is not an end in itself; it is a tool to achieve a larger purpose.
• The central purpose of a literature review is to help you understand your “intellectual heritage” (intellectual genealogy)—i.e., how your research connects to prior concepts, methods, measures, and scholarly traditions.
• Your literature review should show how your work fits into a tradition of knowledge building, including where you align with and depart from earlier scholars.
• Students commonly make errors that weaken this purpose; the talk highlights key mistakes and what to do instead.

Common errors to avoid (with what to focus on instead)

Error 1: “Internet search for as many articles/citations as possible.”

Mistaken belief: The literature review is a counting exercise (quantity of sources/citations).

What to do instead:

• Prioritize the quality of sources.
• Demonstrate engagement with the sources.
• Use sources to determine what is relevant vs. irrelevant to your specific inquiry.
• Properly position your work within existing traditions rather than merely accumulating references.

Error 2: Claiming your work is unique because “nobody else has studied X.”

Mistaken belief: Uniqueness comes from finding no direct prior study.

What to do instead:

• Understand that even if your exact topic is novel, it still draws from larger intellectual traditions.

Example idea from the talk (penguins / homosexual behavior):

• Even if a narrow claim seems unstudied, there is extensive related literature on:
  • animal behavior adaptations,
  • comparisons of animals vs. humans,
  • anthropomorphism (imposing human perspectives on animals),
  • long-standing philosophical discussions (dating back to Greek thought),
  • broader traditions in medical and social research about what counts as relevant animal/human behaviors.

More generally: Most disciplines have “burning questions” that structure their fields, and your topic likely relates to those foundations (not just to one isolated niche study).

Error 3: Relying only on “secondhand” or “thirdhand” accounts of classic works.

Mistaken belief: You only need summaries of canonical authors.

What to do instead:

• Read classics because they teach you how scholars think, not just what they concluded.
• Learn to connect:
  • findings ↔ methods (how results arise from particular methods),
  • the development of methods over time,
  • the inquiry style and reasoning process of key thinkers.

What you should learn from classics / what the review should capture

• Literature review learning should include two intertwined streams:

  1. Theoretical stream
     • What findings and constructs have been inherited.
     • What concepts you’re building on.
  2. Methodological stream
     • What methods of inquiry are used.
     • What measures, instrumentation, and observation/recording practices exist and how they developed.

• The outcome you should aim for:

  • Be able to articulate a complete intellectual genealogy:
    • who you stand on the shoulders of,
    • what traditions are part of your “intellectual DNA,”
    • where you will depart from others,
    • and what your contribution will be.

Examples used to illustrate the guidance

Sociology example

• Sociology traces back to foundational “burning questions,” such as what holds society together.
• Major sociology articles often cite foundational figures (e.g., Hobbes, Durkheim, Weber, Marx) who asked original questions.

Psychology example

• Foundational questions include why we behave as we do, how we think/feel, and how we engage the world.
• Early theorists highlighted include Freud and Adler, and notions like the unconscious shaping modern psychology.

Marx example (method + inquiry)

• Even if people critique Marx’s broader predictions, the talk emphasizes his empirical investigation of industrial England:
  • factory visits,
  • attention to working conditions,
  • use of government documents and neighborhood inquiries.

Freud and Jung examples (methodological dedication)

• Don’t just dismiss Freud’s theories; examine his case notes and the clinical case method.
• Jung is presented as developing a detailed recording method for dreams (including his own), showing how meticulous documentation underpins scholarly value.

Final takeaway (overall message)

• A strong literature review positions your work within a historical, conceptual, and methodological lineage.
• It should produce a clear statement of your intellectual inheritance and your planned contribution, rather than just demonstrating that you collected many sources.

Speakers / sources featured

• Dr Patton (speaker; explains the purpose of literature reviews and common errors)
• Cited or referenced figures/traditions mentioned in the subtitles:
  • Hobbes
  • Durkheim
  • Weber
  • Marx (Carl Marx)
  • Freud
  • Adler
  • Jung
  • Greek philosophy (as a tradition)
  • National Institutes of Health (NIH)
  • National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH)
  • Major foundations (funding bodies referenced generally)
• Journal examples mentioned:
  • American Sociological Review
  • American Journal of Sociology