Enough! As a general guideline, 8–10 substantial items (books and/or papers) for an 8,000 word dissertation, up to 20 significant pieces of work for 8,000 words, and so on. However, use your discretion! Examine the books and articles that have been recognized as potentially relevant. Then, using these sources as a guide, determine what others have done with similar data sets or questions. Read enough materials to be able to comment meaningfully on them all.
In addition to being aware of what has been published before, you should also be aware of what has not been published yet. Find out from colleagues or friends who are working on related projects what they are doing and why it is important. This information will help you choose topics that have not yet been thoroughly investigated, which can lead to new findings and ideas.
Finally, read widely outside of your field of study. Consider topics that may not seem relevant at first but that you might find interesting later. These studies could lead to new connections within your own research project or provide useful references for other researchers.
In conclusion, reading broadly helps you understand more about your topic and builds up your knowledge base generally. It is important to read both scholars in your field and those outside of it for the opportunity to learn about different perspectives on issues that concern your research.
If you're writing a Master's dissertation, your literature review should be between 2 and 3,000 words long, depending on a variety of circumstances. Consult your boss! If you're writing an undergraduate dissertation, your literature review will most likely be 2,000 words long, but the same idea applies: ask! Consult your advisor!
The purpose of the literature review is to summarize what has been previously published on your topic. You should not claim new information or make new claims based on the results of your search. Rather, you should describe the findings of previous research in your field of interest and explain how they relate to your own goals for the project. A good literature review will also help readers understand why your project is important and relevant.
In order to achieve these goals, a good literature review needs to be comprehensive. This means that you need to search for all relevant studies, not just those that support your own position. In addition, you should try to find out more about studies that were not included in the original analysis or discussion of the data because they weren't known at the time. This helps other researchers later come across interesting studies that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.
Finally, a good literature review requires you to be clear in your language and presentation. For example, if you are using statistics to analyze data, then you should include a statistical method section with clarity in its language. Also, avoid using jargon when discussing topics outside of your area of expertise!
Some will tell you that 2,500 words is the average, while others will tell you that chapters of 3,000 to 5,000 words are more likely to be the norm. Most people think that less than 1,000 words is too short, while more than 5,000 words is too lengthy. Chapters should be between 3,000 and 5,000 words in length as a general rule.
In terms of pages, some books are divided into two parts with a new chapter starting on each page number, so half of a book would have a page number followed by "a" then "b". Other books are split into several parts with no limit to how many can appear on one page. Some textbooks include chapter objectives lists at the beginning of each chapter, helping readers understand what they will learn from that chapter. These usually range from 25 to 100 items long. Other texts may have only one objective listed over several pages or even throughout the whole text.
Academic books tend to be longer and contain more detailed information than other genres. This is because they must provide sufficient detail for others to study and build upon their work. They must also be broad enough to cover a lot of ground related to their subject. For example, a history book will probably spend more time discussing different countries than a novel does!
Most books follow the format of introduction, body, conclusion. The introduction gives readers insight into why this book is important today and how it fits into the larger picture of knowledge.