Authors of peer reviewed articles should not assume the reader is an expert in the topic discussed.
The purpose of literature review is to help the reader understand and expand prior knowledge on the
topic. Previous studies and review literature help to better understand the building blocks of the
research discussed. It provides a foundation to better understand the new study being conducted. It
provides the audience a review and synthesis analysis of the background literature needed to fully
grasp the result of the study published. "Alink has been identified between the quality of a literature
review in a doctoral dissertation and both the quality of the ensuing methodology and the doctoral
candidates' ability to conduct substantive, defensible research (Onwuegbuzie, 2018, pg. 178)." The
goal is to also help the audience understand the result of the new research while understanding prior
knowledge and research already conducted. Lack of a proper literature review can hinder the
understanding of the study and the results through vagueness. "it is essential for researchers to
maximize communication in their literature review narratives. Indeed, it might be expected that
communication vagueness—particularly, the vagueness of words written to some degree, represents a
feature of poorly written literature reviews (Onwuegbuzie, 2018, pg. 179)."
