Sometimes we have problems writing a literature review. There are different styles of review which complicates matters.
Some reviews are a critical analysis of key papers in the area, another type of review known as a review paper actually gathers literature over a period (of say 5 or 10 years) and then classifies it and determines research trends and gaps. However, the most common, and the one you are likely to use in your thesis is to analyse the literature related to your particular research questions. Note that I mention research questions!
Building a literature review around your research questions gives your literature review immediate structure. You don't have to use the questions themselves as sub-heading but you can use the major themes of each question as a sub-heading. The point is, a literature review should be focused and not just a review of background articles related to your topic.
The major trap is to try to include everything that you have read. You need to read widely related to your topic at first so you have a good understanding of the domain and related domain for your area of study. Then you need to focus on the specific areas and articles of relevance to your research focus, which just happens to be expressed in your research questions.
The aim with a literature review is not to have 25,000 words of background material but to have a focused analysis of the work closely related to your topic. This will clearly indicate to the examiner that you understand the background material but are focusing on the important issues.
What do you do if you haven't got research questions yet? Well, you probably need to conduct a broad review of the area as mentioned above and pick out the trends and broad research gaps. Then you can do a more focused review once you have your questions.
You can structure your data findings according to your research questions and even your discussion chapter. That way it is consistent to the reader throughout the thesis
www.CompletePhD.com
Some reviews are a critical analysis of key papers in the area, another type of review known as a review paper actually gathers literature over a period (of say 5 or 10 years) and then classifies it and determines research trends and gaps. However, the most common, and the one you are likely to use in your thesis is to analyse the literature related to your particular research questions. Note that I mention research questions!
Building a literature review around your research questions gives your literature review immediate structure. You don't have to use the questions themselves as sub-heading but you can use the major themes of each question as a sub-heading. The point is, a literature review should be focused and not just a review of background articles related to your topic.
The major trap is to try to include everything that you have read. You need to read widely related to your topic at first so you have a good understanding of the domain and related domain for your area of study. Then you need to focus on the specific areas and articles of relevance to your research focus, which just happens to be expressed in your research questions.
The aim with a literature review is not to have 25,000 words of background material but to have a focused analysis of the work closely related to your topic. This will clearly indicate to the examiner that you understand the background material but are focusing on the important issues.
What do you do if you haven't got research questions yet? Well, you probably need to conduct a broad review of the area as mentioned above and pick out the trends and broad research gaps. Then you can do a more focused review once you have your questions.
You can structure your data findings according to your research questions and even your discussion chapter. That way it is consistent to the reader throughout the thesis
www.CompletePhD.com
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Hi Craig, good on you for setting this up, it's really helpful and user friendly well done! I am a member of the QUALRS list, so found out about it from your post! I am in the final throes of writing up and this is a great link!
ReplyDeleteRuth
Ruth
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. If there's any topic that comes up while you are writing your thesis just make a suggestion and I will write something on it and we can see if others comment on it.
Craig
Prof Standing,
ReplyDeleteMy name is faiz rasool. I am a Blind student of Sociology In University of karachi, Karachi, Pakistan. I am writing a thesis presently, and in Pakistan it is not easy to find goood good suggestions. So thank you for setting this blog.
My question is that sometimes I find the notion of research question, research objectives, and theoretical review questions confusing. Can you write someting something to that can help in distinguishing between these three different yet related ideas?
i think my question is very basic. But I want to learn, and i have to learn somewehre somewhere.
Regards,
faiz.
Dear Faiz
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. I will certainly write something on this topic. See my next post. Thanks for raising this as an issue.
Best wishes and good luck with your research.
Craig
rof standing,
ReplyDeleteYour post on literature reviews is very helpful.
After reading it, three questions came to my mind. As a student who is in a process of writing a literature review, and is not receiving good suggestions on how to organize, and how to write literature reviews.
My question is that most of the books describe literature reviews as summarizing what prior scholars have said about a given topic. I found the usage of the word analyse by you interesting. As a student how much trust you can or you should place in your analitical abilities? I mean is this correct to write that scholars have failed generally not found any strong relationship between values and pro-environmental behavior? This is not because values do not injluance behavior but authors have operationalised values diferently. To my knowledge you cannot write a statement like this without having a citation to support your conclusion.
My second question is about citations. As a student when I read articles published in leading journals, i am confused by the fact that writers always cite many names in one set of brackets after writing few lines. For example, The field of environmental behavioor research is growing (ABC, 2000; XYZ, 2005; John, 2007). Yet in Asia few scholars have researched environmental actions in the home (ABC, 2002; XYZ, 2006). The confusion is that are authors saying what all of the names mentioned in the brackets have said before him? So my question is how authors decide to give these many citations in brackets.
As a writer of literature reviews I am worried about getting as many citations in my review, as i think this makes my review stronger. How much correct or incorrect I am
So to summarise my questions in this post, how much a student can be trust his or her own conclusions while writing literature reviews. What is the yardstick for mentioning a citation in when using APA style? and
Best regards,
Faiz,
department of Sociology,
University of karachi,
Pakistan.
Hi to all the readers of this blog,
ReplyDeleteaiz Here from Karachi, Pakistan.
I am writing this post to offer my apologies as my only two posts to the blog have been full of speling mistakes. Actually due to my blindness I use a screen reader to type my questions. Unfortunately my screen reader does not allow me to edit what i have just written. So if I miss spell a word, I am unable to go back to that word and fix it.
I will try to be very careful in my next posts.
Again sorry to all
Regards,
faiz.
Dear Faiz
ReplyDeleteI use the word analyse intentially in relation to literature reviews since they are more than a summary. You understand that it seems. You are correct in assuming that you have to classify and analyse the literature and come to some conclusion about it.
Rather than stating that previous authors are incorract, or wrong, it is better to say things such as the literature is yet inconclusive in terms of the relationship between values and pro-environmental behaviour. It is less personal to do it this way.
Hwoever, you are correct in assuming that you must come to some position on the literature. So for example, you may say things such for example as:
There are three main areas within the environmental literature;
There is no clear relationship between values and the pro-environmental literature.
On the point of the number of references used. Yes, you will use many references to substantiate your claims. Although you can still make your own conclusions without a reference as stated above. How many to use? It is a matter of taste. Some list too many after a sentence and this reduces readability. Use the most important reference or the most recent one.
Although I am a student in MIS, I have found your blog very interesting. I too am in the process of writing a literature review and I have found the following article helpful, "Analyzing the Past to Prepare for the Future: Writing a Liturature Review" by Jane Weber and Richard Watson in Management Information Systems Quarterly. This should be easily accessible through your school's library or through google scholar. I hope my comment can help others, even though we are in different fields.
ReplyDeleteResearcher