Literature Review: Why?

Set’s the scene for your research

Provide the reader with information on:• Main theories and ideas within the area• Previous research findings within the area• Criticisms, limitations, missing information• Justification for your research

Literature Review : Good / Bad

G ood L iterature review P oor L iterature review

It is a synthes is of available research It is an annotated bibliography

It is a critical evaluation It is s imply descriptive

It is up to date It is not up to date

It has clarity and conciseness It is confus ing and longwinded

It uses a clear and cons is tent s tructure It is constructed in an arbitrary way

It locates your own research It does not locate your own research

• At the beginning of your research project (very important for the deductive approach)

• When you have your first results (very important for the inductive approach)

Literature Review: When?

• Literature search – mechanics of finding, sorting, managing the material

• Literature review (reading and writing aspects) – understanding, critical evaluation, conceptualisation and presentation of the material

• Integration into your report: (i) single section, (ii) distributed.

Three Stages

• Searching

• Reading

• Note taking, highlighting and summarising

• Critical evaluation and creating links

• Draught structure

• Write it !

Literature Review: How to!

• Search peer-reviewed journals, academic books, refereed conference papers (2ndary)

• Login to SOLE and use

– Library catalogue for books

– Library e-Resources for online journals and databases, e.g.,

• ACM Digital Library

• Academic Search Premier

• Cambridge Journals

How to find Sources

• Highlight chunks of text and label

• Write key points / words

• Maintain a global list of key points / words (to synthesize)

Summarising

• What is new in this piece of work? How does it contribute to the body of knowledge?

• What is good / bad about this piece of work?

• Does it link in with other pieces of work I have read?

• Does it cite significant other works I have read

• Does it cite other works which are often cited?

Critical Evaluation

Making Links

Feature map Table which groups your thoughts into categories

Concepts map Links between concepts or ideas

Trees Shows how topic branches into sub- topic and related questions.

Can show stages in a topic’s development.

• If you are interested in attending a workshop on using e-resources and electronic data base searching and/or using referencing software, please contact:

• Stephanie Allen, s.allen@worc.ac.uk

Help from ILS