The literature review is a fundamentally important component of your thesis. Your thesis has to show that you:

Understand the body of knowledge.
Understand the relevant research techniques – both those you chose to use and those you didn’t.
Can conceive, implement and, where appropriate, modify a plan of research.

Therefore your literature review has to show:

What the body of knowledge in your area is.
What the relevant research techniques are – both those you chose to use and those you didn’t.
Why you conceived, implemented and, where appropriate, modified the plan of research that you made – i.e. headed for something achievable that hadn’t been done before.

Tips on writing a literature review

You need to start working on this at the beginning of your work to justify the originality of what you propose to do.
You need to keep looking at the literature all the way through your project – otherwise there is a risk of your review becoming outdated.
By the time you finish your thesis you will probably have chosen to omit 75% of the references you have looked at!
What you leave out is almost more important as what you include – it shows you have judgement as to what is relevant to your argument.

There may be relevant information on our Literature Review for Dissertations page which is primarily aimed at undergraduate students but may still prove useful.