“But there’s nothing written about it!”: An alternative to the conventional literature review

I sat in the resources centre of my department on the first day of my PhD. I was incredibly excited at the prospect of starting my research! I had it all planned out: do literature review, set objectives, plan methodology, choose case study, collect data, write it up, and voila! PhD done! It was all going to be smooth running. But of course, it was research, which … never goes to plan!