Tame your PhD Literature Review Monster in 3 Simple Steps!

Why your PhD literature review feels overwhelming

Every PhD researcher hits the point where their literature review feels like an impossible monster. Too many articles, too many theories, and far too many open tabs. It’s not that you’re “bad” at writing a literature review - your brain simply can’t organise twenty complex tasks at once.

Most doctoral researchers unknowingly do everything at the same time: summarising, analysing, comparing, criticising, identifying gaps, and trying to sound academically polished. That’s a recipe for frustration.

A strong literature review isn’t a list of studies. It’s a structured conversation built around ideas. And once you understand that, everything becomes far more manageable.

So, let’s get into three steps to get this monster under control!

Step 1: Organise by themes

One of the biggest mistakes many people make is writing in a source-by-source format:

“Smith (2019) found this… Rahman (2020) found that…”

This creates a descriptive review - but not a critical one.

Instead, you need to group your reading into themes.

Imagine your project explores high school students’ experiences of volunteering on environmental projects. Once you’ve gathered your articles, you might develop themes like:

• Youth identity development

• Environmental justice and local context

• Community engagement

• Barriers to participation

• Motivation and personal meaning

Within each theme, you draw on multiple studies at once, comparing, contrasting, and linking them. This instantly upgrades your writing from “summary mode” to “analysis mode,” because you’re discussing relationships between ideas rather than reporting articles individually.

Step 2: Use a simple 3-sentence template for each theme

The easiest way to bring clarity to each theme is to use a short, repeatable structure:

1. Define the theme

2. Discuss what the literature says

3. Explain what it means for your study

For example, in the Los Angeles project, one theme might be “Environmental Volunteering as Identity Development.”

You’d explain how volunteering shapes young people’s sense of who they are, show what existing studies say about youth identity formation, and then connect this to your own participants - perhaps noting how local environmental challenges shaped their motivations in unique ways.

That link back to your study, is where criticality lives.

Step 3: Add roadmap sentences to keep your reader oriented

The most overlooked way to improve your literature review is to guide your reader with clear roadmap sentences. Before each major theme, introduce what’s coming. For example:

“This section explores three key debates around youth volunteering: identity development, community belonging, and barriers to participation.”

This instantly makes your review more readable and helps you stay focused. No more drifting paragraphs. No more wondering what the section is “meant to be doing.”

A messy literature review isn’t a sign you’re not good enough. It’s evidence that you’re engaging deeply with complex ideas. Once you apply structure - themes, 3-sentence paragraphs, and roadmap sentences - your chapter becomes clear, critical, and genuinely enjoyable to write.

Need more help with your literature review? Grab my free guide to fixing a messy lit review here!