I have been writing my Literature Review for over two weeks now. I have penned down over 5000 words. But, guess what? I deleted them all. I kept writing and erasing and finally ended up writing nothing at all. You know the biggest blunder I made here? To rewrite! How I wish I had learnt this from other’s mistakes and not from my own experience. This would have saves me a lot of time and effort wastage in addition to the mental torture.
All those books in the market that teach you how to write, insist and I also patronize it now, pen down your first draft with all mistakes and weaknesses. If you apply this trick and only focus on writing at the first draft stage you would not get hung up on each sentence. Leave the rewriting task for stage two.
Another important suggestion that I would like to give to all writers is that when you sit to write, do not strain your mind over writing in sequence. It is not necessary to write the beginnings and ends in the same order. If you split your literature Review into 3 sections, it is not necessary to start with the first section first. It is a mistake that a lot of doctoral students do so and it is because they have been so conditioned to do so from their initial academic years. We all have always learnt to write step wise, whether reports or experiments but that order and approach may not be successful here. Write the section you feel most enthusiastic about first. A good flow of words and a constructive outcome would have a knock off effect on the subsequent sections.
Lastly, I would like to say that do not stay at war with your Literature review. Give a better understanding to each other and with a more balanced mind see the results coming in. It is just some self-training and you would be victorious.