examiner comment on the literature review in phd. thesis

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Examiners’ Comments on the Introduction Chapter in Theses ( a presentation)

Related Papers

Australian Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology

Terence Lovat

Vernon Trafford

This paper contains accounts of what transpired in one doctoral viva by the five participants ~ candoidate, supervisor, internal and external examiner plus the independent Chair. It presents an analysis of the questions asked, the answers given and the interperonal transactions.

International Journal of Social Science and Human Research

JOSEPH BENJAMIN ARCHIBALD AFFUL

The thesis examiner’s report is an evaluation of a thesis, which includes dialogic and evaluative elements. The purpose of the study was to investigate the roles that examiners adopt for themselves and the language use in examiners’ reports on MPhil theses submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, University of Cape Coast. The study purposively selected 100 theses examiners reports from four disciplines. The study revealed that examiners adopted eight different roles in the reports. Another key finding of the study was that evaluator role was most frequent, and the least frequently occurring role was Institutional role. Again, examiners employed imperatives, personal pronouns, and adjectives in their adopted roles. The findings of the study serve to create an awareness for explicit guidelines for both fresh and experienced examiners in the task of postgraduate thesis examination.

The Australian Universities' review

Kerry Dally

Doctoral thesis examination is the litmus test for doctoral quality. Of those candidates who reach examination, most are notified they have more work to do on their thesis. Receiving and responding to feedback are integral parts of a formal learning process that continues until the final thesis is submitted. However, little is known about what happens after examiner reports are received by an institution, how recommendations and feedback are filtered through institutional processes to influence thesis outcomes, or about the roles that candidates and supervisors play in determining and giving action to thesis revisions. This article reports the findings from a desktop review of institutional protocols and policies governing doctoral thesis examination in Australian universities. Given that the PhD Viva, or oral examination, is rare in Australian universities, the authors question whether current examination processes allow adequate opportunities for candidates to actively engage with...

Journal of English for Academic Purposes

Elke Stracke

This paper outlines the procedures used in the textual analysis of examiner reports for 101 PhD candidates across disciplines in one Australian University. The method involves the use of QSR software2. Three levels of findings are outlined. The first level is the coding categories that emerged out of reading the report text. There are five broad categories of codes that capture: the structure of the reports, the ways in which examiners communicate, the subject matter of the thesis, the characteristics of examiners' evaluative comment and their comments on their role and the examination process. The second level of findings concerns the frequency of different categories of comment and the prevalence of comment on the analysis and interpretation of the candidate's results. The third extends beyond the individual categories to what we can learn about the utilization of the report. One key finding is that the examiners took on specific roles: mentor-colleague, supervisor-instr...

Sue Starfield

Melbourne Studies in Education

Ansie Lessing

Clive Palmer (National Teaching Fellow)

Introduction This workshop is intended for supervisors preparing their students for viva-voce examination. Practical issues such as timing in the lead up to submission, selecting examiners, thesis preparation and mock viva, will inform discussions about managing the viva-voce on the day. Informing this workshop also are aspects of examiner expectations of a doctoral thesis, setting assessment/modification outcomes, understanding the Independent Chair role. Please be prepared to discuss and contribute example to the workshop.

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Reviewer comments: examples for common peer review decisions

Peer-reviewing an academic manuscript is not an easy task. Especially if you are unsure about how to formulate your feedback. Examples of reviewer comment s can help! Here you can find an overview of sample comments and examples for the most common review decisions: ‘minor revisions’, ‘major revisions’, ‘revise and resubmit’ and ‘reject’ decisions.

Examples of ‘minor revisions’ reviewer comments

Examples of ‘major revisions’ reviewer comments, examples of ‘revise and resubmit’ reviewer comments, examples of ‘reject’ reviewer comments.

• “This is a well-written manuscript that only needs to undergo a few minor changes. First, …”
• “The manuscript is based on impressive empirical evidence and makes an original contribution. Only minor revisions are needed before it can be published.”
• “I thoroughly enjoyed reviewing this manuscript and only have some minor requests for revision.”
• “The authors develop a unique theoretical framework, and I believe that they should highlight their originality much more.”
• “The authors conduct very relevant research, but fail to emphasise the relevance in their introduction.”
• “The authors draw on extensive empirical evidence. I believe that they can put forward their arguments much more confidently.”
• “The authors adequately addressed my feedback from the first round of peer review. I only have some minor comments for final improvements.”
• “To improve the readability of the paper, I suggest dividing the analysis into several subsections.”
• “Figure 3 is difficult to read and should be adjusted.”
• “Table 1 and 2 can be combined to create a better overview.”
• “The abstract is too long and should be shortened.”
• “I had difficulties understanding the first paragraph on page 5, and suggest that the authors reformulate and simplify it.”
• “The manuscript contains an elaborate literature review, but definitions of the key concepts are needed in the introduction.”
• “Throughout the manuscript, there are several language mistakes. Therefore, I recommend a professional round of language editing before the paper is published.”
• “The paper should undergo professional language editing before it can be published.”

If you want to learn more about common reasons for a ‘minor revisions’ decision and see examples of how an actual peer review might look like, check out this post on ‘minor revisions’ .

• “The manuscript shows a lot of promise, but some major issues need to be addressed before it can be published.”
• “This manuscript addresses a timely topic and makes a relevant contribution to the field. However, some major revisions are needed before it can be published.”
• “I enjoyed reading this manuscript, and believe that it is very promising. At the same time, I identified several issues that require the authors’ attention.”
• “The manuscript sheds light on an interesting phenomenon. However, it also has several shortcomings. I strongly encourage the authors to address the following points.”
• “The authors of this manuscript have an ambitious objective and draw on an interesting dataset. However, their main argument is unclear.”
• “The key argument needs to be worked out and formulated much more clearly.”
• “The theoretical framework is promising but incomplete. In my opinion, the authors cannot make their current claims without considering writings on… “
• “The literature review is promising, but disregards recent publications in the field of…”
• “The empirical evidence is at times insufficient to support the authors’ claims. For instance, in section…”
• “I encourage the authors to provide more in-depth evidence. For instance, I would like to see more interview quotes and a more transparent statistical analysis.”
• “The authors work with an interesting dataset. However, I was missing more detailed insights in the actual results. I believe that several additional tables and figures can improve the authors’ argumentation. “
• “I believe that the manuscript addresses a relevant topic and includes a timely discussion. However, I struggled to understand section 3.1.”
• “I think that the manuscript can be improved by removing section 4 and integrating it into section 5.”
• “The discussion and conclusions are difficult to follow and need to be rewritten to highlight the key contributions of this manuscript.”
• “The line of argumentation should be improved by dividing the manuscript into clear sections with subheadings.”

If you want to learn more about common reasons for a ‘major revisions’ decision and see examples of how an actual peer review might look like, check out this post on ‘major revisions’ .

• “I encourage the authors to revise their manuscript and to resubmit it to the journal.”
• “In its current form, this paper cannot be considered for publication. However, I see value in the research approach and encourage the authors to revise and resubmit their manuscript.”
• “ With the right changes, I believe that this manuscript can make a valuable contribution to the field of …”
• “The paper addresses a valuable topic and raises interesting questions. However, the logic of the argument is difficult to follow. “
• “The manuscript tries to achieve too many things at the same time. The authors need to narrow down their research focus.”
• “The authors raise many interesting points, which makes it difficult for the reader to follow their main argument. I recommend that the authors determine what their main argument is, and structure their manuscript accordingly.”
• “The literature review raises interesting theoretical debates. However, in its current form, it does not provide a good framework for the empirical analysis.”
• “A clearer theoretical stance will increase the quality of the paper.”
• “The manuscript draws on impressive data, as described in the methodology. However, the wealth of data does not come across in the analysis. My recommendation is to increase the number of interview quotes, figures and statistics in the empirical analysis.”
• “The authors draw several conclusions which are hard to connect to their empirical findings. “
• The authors are advised to critically reflect on the generalizability of their research findings.”
• “The manuscript needs to better emphasise the research relevance and its practical implications.”
• “It is unclear what the authors consider their main contribution to the academic literature, and what they envisage in terms of recommendations for further research.”

If you want to learn more about common reasons for a ‘revise and resubmit’ decision and see examples of how an actual peer review might look like, check out this post on ‘revise and resubmit’ .

• “I do not believe that this journal is a good fit for this paper.”
• “While the paper addresses an interesting issue, it is not publishable in its current form.”
• “In its current state, I do not recommend accepting this paper.”
• “Unfortunately, the literature review is inadequate. It lacks..”
• “The paper lacks a convincing theoretical framework ,  which is necessary to be considered for publication.”
• “Unfortunately, the empirical data does not meet disciplinary standards.”
• “While I applaud the authors’ efforts, the paper does not provide sufficient empirical evidence.”
• “The empirical material is too underdeveloped to consider this paper for publication.”
• “The paper has too many structural issues, which makes it hard to follow the argument.”
• “There is a strong mismatch between the literature review and the empirical analysis.”
• “The main contribution of this paper is unclear.”
• “It is unclear what the paper contributes to the existing academic literature.”
• “The originality of this paper needs to be worked out before it can be considered for publication.”
• “Unfortunately, the language and sentence structures of this manuscript are at times incomprehensible. The paper needs rewriting and thorough language editing to allow for a proper peer review.”

If you want to learn more about common reasons for a ‘reject’ decision and see examples of how an actual peer review might look like, check out this post on ‘reject’ decisions .

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Minor revisions: Sample peer review comments and examples

5 proven ways to become an academic peer reviewer, related articles.

The different stages in the manuscript publication process

How to write a literature review introduction (+ examples)

How to write effective cover letters for a paper submission

Dealing with failure as a PhD student

What the examiners said

Wrestling an elephant into a cupboard: how to write a PhD literature review in nine easy steps

Feb 10, 2019

When I was writing my PhD I hated the literature review. I was scared of it. One day, my supervisor took me to one side and told me that I had no choice: ‘It was going to have to be done before you start fieldwork’. I was terrified.

Sound familiar? According to Google, 5,000 people a month search for advice on how to conduct a literature review. And we know from the one-on-one PhD coaching we offer and from the theses we proofread that many students struggle with this part of their thesis. 

If you’re feeling lost, keep reading. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the nine steps involved in conducting and writing a PhD literature review.

You’ll realise what I eventually found out: C onducting a literature review is easy. Okay, perhaps that’s a bit much. Let me rephrase: Conducting a PhD literature review isn’t as hard as you think.

What a PhD literature review isn’t

Let us make one thing very clear. A PhD literature review isn’t just a summary of existing literature. That’s an annotated bibliography and that isn’t what a PhD literature review is about. This is the mistake I see most frequently in the PhDs I proofread.

Not only will your examiners send this back for corrections, but it may mean the whole PhD thesis is problematic because it isn’t grounded in a critical review of the literature.

What a PhD literature review is

A PhD literature review is a critical assessment of the literature in your field and related to your specific research topic. When discussing each relevant piece of literature, the review must highlight where the gaps are and what the strengths and weaknesses are of particular studies, papers, books, etc. Also, different pieces of literature are compared and contrasted with one another so that themes and relationships are highlighted.

The job of a literature review is to show five things (if you’re using our PhD Writing Template , you may recognise these):

1. What has been written on your topic 2. Who the key authors are and what the key works are 3. The main theories and hypotheses 4. The main themes that exist in the literature 5. Gaps and weaknesses that your study will then help fill

Who cares what other people have written and said, or what they haven’t said? Well, you should and your examiners definitely will. For your own study to make sense, it has to be situated in the literature. That means you must relate it to what others are talking about.

If you wanted to build a new mobile phone, you would have to research how other mobile phones are built, find out where they can be improved and then design one that makes those improvements.

The literature review is the same.

But where do I start? Here, we list nine steps. Follow each and you’ll be on your way to literature review greatness.

We’ve made the infographic below to help you on your way. Click the image to download it.

Step One: Pick a Broad Topic

You will be reviewing literature on a particular topic, so knowing what your topic is beforehand means you can narrow down your search. At this stage your topic is broad. You won’t be able to know the specifics until you do the review itself.

For my PhD, which looked at the contributions that local government made to climate change policy, my literature review started with a broad topic of ‘climate change policy’. I didn’t focus in on local government until I had read the literature on climate change policy and realized there was a gap.

So, having a clearly defined purpose is really important. Otherwise you are searching blind. If you refer to your PhD Writing Template, take a look at the box titled ‘Aims & Objectives’ – you’ll need to make sure you have established your aims, scope and research questions.

Step Two: Find the Way In

If you search for your broad topic in Google Scholar, you’ll be presented with millions of results. With my own PhD, a search for ‘climate change policy’ bought up over 3 million results.

  Obviously it’s unfeasible to read through all these.

So where do you start? Easy: choose the biggest names in your field.

There are three ways to find these:

1. Textbooks 2. Review articles 3. Most-cited articles

Read through these seminal texts and you’ll begin to get an idea of the broad topic.

Step Three: Who’s Saying What & When

Your job at this stage is to find out the key debates in the field. 

• Who is making the most significant contribution?
• What are they saying?
• How are they saying it?
• What aren’t they saying?

Step Four: Notes, Notes, Notes.

Whenever you read anything you should be taking notes. Detailed notes. These need to cover the following points: 

• What is the author saying?
• How is it relevant to your research?
• What are the gaps/weaknesses?
• What are the key references that you should read?

The more of these kind of standardised notes you have, the easier it will be when you write your literature review.

Step Five: Narrow Down the Field

As you read the key texts, you will begin to see what the key debates are in your field. There might be a number of ’schools’, for example. When you become aware of them, start to focus your literature review around them.

Step Six: Filter Through Your Growing List of References

Don’t just read everything. You need to find a way to filter through the articles or books that are relevant. For example, scan the abstracts, introduction, keywords, titles and references.

Filter the sources you come across into three separate categories:

• Probably won’t read

Step Seven: Use Snowball Sampling

As you read through these articles, look at their reference list. Collect articles that you think will be relevant and use them in your literature review. This is known as snowball sampling.

Step Eight: Think About the Questions that Haven’t Been Asked

You must be reading critically, which means asking what the weaknesses are and where particular articles or book could be improved.

In order to tease out your own specific research topic, you need to think of the questions that haven’t been asked.

Master your lit review & theory framework.

Learn what goes where (and why), and how it all fit together with this free, interactive guide to the PhD literature review and theory framework.

Step Nine: Writing Up Your Literature Review

  The review will broadly follow the key debates you have spotted in step five above. As you write, focus on putting in more detail about particular sources (i.e. flesh out steps six and seven). The focus when writing is to elaborate upon the key patterns and themes that have emerged.

However, you need to include your own synthesis of the material. I said earlier that you shouldn’t just summarize the literature. Instead you should write critically. You should clearly and precisely present your argument. The argument will focus around the questions that haven’t been asked – step nine above – and will ground the literature review. We’ve written a guide to being critical in your literature review . You should read it if you’re unsure what’s required.

So, write early and write that first draft quickly. The earlier you start writing your literature review the better. You must accept that your first draft is going to be just that: a draft. When you write the first draft, focus on the broad structure first. This means focus on the broad themes you want to discuss in the review.

Something you need to consider is how to structure the chapter. The simple answer is that you can either structure it chronologically or thematically.

The long answer is that chronological literature reviews are restrictive and over-simplify the field. They are useful for very early drafts of the review and can help you to arrange the literature and trace threads and connections within it. However, your supervisors and examiners are looking for thematic reviews (unless they have told you otherwise), where you discuss the literature with reference to the themes that have emerged.

Equally important is knowing when to stop reviewing the literature.

The sooner you go out and do your fieldwork, the better. The literature review is a cruel mistress; you’ll struggle to fully nail down its various components and fully understand how everything you have read is related. But don’t despair; aspects of the literature review will become clearer when you enter the field and start to collect data.

Don’t fall into the trap of spending too long in the library and too little time doing fieldwork.

  It’s natural to be scared of the literature review. To conduct one, you have to read, process and synthesise hundreds of thousands of words. But it’s not impossible. Keep this guide to hand and refer to it when you feel yourself getting lost. Share it with your colleagues so they too can conquer their fear of the literature review.

Now read our guide to being critical in the literature review and, if you haven’t already, download our PhD writing template .

And if you need a little extra support, check out our one-on-one PhD coaching . It’s like having a personal trainer, but for your PhD. 

Hello, Doctor…

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  Be able to call yourself Doctor sooner with our five-star rated How to Write A PhD email-course. Learn everything your supervisor should have taught you about planning and completing a PhD.

Now half price. Join hundreds of other students and become a better thesis writer, or your money back. 

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24 comments.

Good. Clear guidance

I have read the guidelines and noted numerous tricks of writing a thesis. My understanding of writing literature review has improved a lot. Thanks a lot

You’re welcome 🙂

Another Great piece.

It’s understandable and clearer now. I do appreciate you. Thanks so much

Many thanks for the kind words.

You are just brilliant. Outstanding piece for the literature review.

You’re too kind. Thanks!

Great insights! Thanks indeed.

Thank you very much for your clear advice. I am beginning to see where my early literature review drafts were lacking and my feelings of panic are reducing!

is the process the same a research paper?

Broadly speaking, yes. It’ll follow the same overall structure, but you won’t be going into as much detail.

This is very helpful. Thank you so much for sharing

Great advice. Thank you!

You’re welcome!

Thank you for this! I’m a first-year Ph.D. candidate, and I’m super nervous about writing my first literature review. I’ll be sure to use this for some more insight!

Thanks for the kind words. You’re welcome to join us on a PhD Masterclass. We’re currently putting together the Spring 24 calendar and we always run literature review sessions. You can bookmark this page to be the first to hear when our new programme is ready for bookings: https://www.thephdproofreaders.com/phd-workshops/

I cannot tell you how much more concise this makes everything for my ADHD brain. Thank you!

I’m so glad. Thanks for the kind words Kimberly.

I’m staring down the barrel of my literature review and this article made it much clearer what I’m trying to accomplish and actually feel more doable. Thank you!

You’re welcome. I’m glad it helped. Best of luck with it. If you need any support you can get me at max[at]thephdproofreaders.com

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