Hi everybody,

I'm in the literature review stage for my PhD which is concerned with recovery from gambling addiction.

My supervisor told me aim for about 10,000 words for the lit review.

I'm about 2000 words in which covers one main theory.

But I'm not sure where to go next. For example, I could cover another 4 main books/theories and spend 2000 words on each, would that be acceptable?

I understand that literature reviews should support the student's 'eureka' argument, but I find with social science work the thesis often does what it is says on the tin - e.g. I'm researching how people go through recovery from gambling and so I feel my lit review shall really only be about a half-dozen or so current and dominant theories on treatment.

Thanks for your time, I'll look forward to any replies.

I wrote my lit review as an inverted pyramid start general and narrow it down with specific reference to your angle and contribution. In this sense the main theory should integrate nicely as you tell the "story" of your research and the previous research you have encountered, make it flow rather than having 1 blocks for each theory. I hope this makes sense :)

I am writing my lit review as I go along and I will link it more firmly a the end. My area is education, but not as you know it :$ and I am using the lit review to explain how I chose the material I am using, by following ideas in 'Doing a Literature Review' by Hart and why it has provided useful insight into areas I never even thought about before. It is well worth a read. Also, if you look at the back of the books/articles there are usually a load of refs, try looking up a few of those, you can then use these to justify your choices, and may even find some useful extra material. On my timeline I have factored in several points at which I will (in theory at least) review the lit so that anytihng that comes along later that might be useful  can be included.

There are many great ways to write your literature review (http://www.literaturereviewhq.com/3-great-methods-to-structure-your-literature-review/) and I think your idea sounds great.

However in my experience, the person who has the final say is you supervisor. If everyone thinks it's great but your supervisor doesn't, then it's not great :(

The trick is to get feedback as early as possible. Outline drafts of the other sections you want to write and schedule a time to go through them with your supervisor. Do this regularly and and you will end up with something great :)