How To Title Your Literature Review

A well presented title for your literature review should be straight to be the point, this is a major difference when it comes to writing your dissertation and in particular for readability. Checking your grammar and punctuation is also important for clarity and coherence.



A carefully thought out title can make a huge difference when it comes to writing a literature review, particularly when the piece is intended for reading outside of the author's collective. A title should be sharp, well presented and to the point. One word titles cannot often provide the reader with the information that they require to proceed whereas using too many words can over-complicate things.

For example, if you were writing a literature review based on your theological findings, a poor choice in title would be 'My Thoughts' because of the overly personal and uninformative statement. An even poorer choice would be 'These Are My Theological Findings and How I Got There' due to the sheer length of the title. The correct title would be 'An Evaluation of My Theological Findings'. This neat, to the point title provides the reader with knowledge on what may lay within the text, information on the document itself and what they can expect from it.

When titling your dissertation, it is also important to include sub-headings where applicable. In a document written using computer software, it is entirely possible to add links to your review to enable the reader to visit specific locations within your work at the click of a button. These different titles are known as Priority Headings and Sub Headings.

For Priority Headings, such as the title of the literature review and important titles within the dissertation, you can select 'Heading 1' within your writing software. This will make sure that all titles with this task are considered Priority Headings when titling.

For Sub Headings, select 'Heading 2' within your writing software. This will display all Sub Headings as further indented than the Priority Headings, marking them clearly within the document.