When any piece of literature contains several interlinking ideas and themes, there needs to be a logical flow between the ideas. There should be a clear theme around which related ideas are explored and developed.
A literature map achieves this by visually representing how the themes and ideas relate to one another. It’s a two-dimensional diagram composing the information and visually showing links between concepts (or information groups) by drawing arrows that can be annotated.
This practice can help:
- develop your understanding of the key issues and statements of the literature
- organize your own ideas and opinions
- quickly show which ideas are closely related, far apart, or directly opposing one another
