One of the first things students ask me when we start working together is how long should literature review be — and my answer always starts with a question back: what is your total word count and what does your university guideline say? Because those two things anchor everything else. The 20–30% rule is your baseline but the real measure is whether your review is doing its actual job — contextualising your research, engaging critically with existing work, and making the gap your study addresses feel genuinely necessary.

A literature review that's the right length but the wrong depth will always score lower than one that's slightly shorter but surgically focused. Stop chasing a number and start asking whether every single paragraph is earning its place — if it is, you're probably already at the right length without even realising it