Any advice for how to do the literature review section? I'm struggling with organizing the actually reading then writing elements and what I'm getting as a result feels messy.
My original plan was to keep a book and every time I read a journal or book I would write its title, a summary of it and some key quotes with the idea that I would do all my research, then move onto the writing. I was also hoping that by physically writing the info down I would remember it better. Quickly found this was taking a lot of time and maybe wasn't the best approach, also I was drawing links from one part to another and realized this will be awkward to do when I will have to flick through the book searching for the page I need in order to draw links between different sources.
New plan was to layout the main headings in my lit review, try to plan out the "story" I want to tell and when I found information to sort it under the heading. Ended up just copying and pasting loads then taking each heading on its own, selecting the relevant parts and making my key points/arguments and writing it up from this summary. So far its working better, but I still just feel like its a bit disjointed or the process could be better. I'm also worried about plagiarizing with this method due to the copying and pasting going on in the early stages. I'm worried that by skipping the physical writing stage that I may be using other peoples words far too much. I am taking care to reference everything and its probably just a touch of paranoia as I've never had issues brought up with previous essays but its still a minor concern I'm having with this method.
Does anyone have any other ideas on how to organise and write the lit review? Do people tend to break research and writing into 2 separate processes? Any advice for balancing the two and getting the most out of your research? Is my concern about using other peoples words too exactly justified or as long as everything is referenced is it ok?
Thanks!