Strengthening Your Literature Review
为《家族企业评论》编辑笔记，针对所有学术文章中的文献综述部分，提出如何增强其价值的具体建议，帮助作者在投稿前提升综述质量。
All articles, whether they are conceptual or empirical, contain a literature review. Knowledge is accumulated incrementally in scholarly fields, and a literature review is a key element in this process. The literature review frames an article by positioning it against past research. It is an important part of an article for all its readers: reviewers, Family Business Review (FBR) readers, and scholars who will follow in that research stream. A strong framing can be enormously influential in the review process by convincing reviewers that your scholarly field will benefit from knowing about your research. A clear framing makes it easy for readers to follow an author’s logic and understand the choices that have been made in conducting the research. Once an article is published, a thorough and articulate literature review provides a useful synopsis of a body of research for scholars working in that area and for scholars working in adjacent areas who want an accessible entry point into that body of work. In other words, it provides another reason— beyond the findings themselves—for an article to be read and used. Literature reviews are normally positioned at the start of an article and so not only are important in themselves but also are influential in setting expectations about what is to come. A literature review that is creative, thoughtful, and thorough leads to positive first impressions, and these are likely to influence how the remainder of the article is perceived. Conversely, a weak literature review sets initial expectations negatively, reducing the persuasiveness of later arguments and increasing skepticism of the author’s research skills. Despite the importance of a well-researched and wellwritten literature review, reviewers are frequently disappointed by those that cross their desk. Therefore, as part of FBR’s series of Editor’s Notes, we are providing some suggestions on ways in which authors can increase the value of their literature review before submitting their manuscript for publication. Outlined below are the attributes that characterize a strong literature review.