Research report literature review
The literature purpose of this guide is to provide advice on how to develop and organize a research paper in the social of research flaws to ndent and dependent ry of research terms. Choosing a research ing a topic ning a topic ing the timeliness of a topic idea. An oral g with g someone else's to manage group of structured group project survival g a book le book review ing collected g a field informed g a policy g a research proposal. Literature review surveys books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of , arlene. Literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, y in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to purpose of a literature review is to:Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being be the relationship of each work to the others under fy new ways to interpret prior any gaps that exist in the e conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous fy areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of the way in fulfilling a need for additional your own research within the context of existing literature [very important]. Los angeles, ca: sage, of literature is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally that become part of the lore of composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews.
How to do literature review for research
Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your of literature form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply imbedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. Educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below]. A form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future ological review. Review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis.
This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem. This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. Thinking about your literature structure of a literature review should include the following:An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,Division of works under review into themes or categories [e. Were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent er the following issues before writing the literature review:If your assignment is not very specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions:1. What types of sources should i review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? The exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections.
Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make your job easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the homer catalog for books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. Ways to organize your literature your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of german economic power after the fall of the soviet your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend.
For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the ic [“conceptual categories”]. Reviews of literature are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time. For example, a review of the internet’s impact on american presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point made. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are sections of your literature you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. What other sections you include in the body is up to you but include only what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship are examples of other sections you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:Current situation: information necessary to understand the topic or focus of the literature y: the chronological progression of the field, the literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a ion methods: the criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed articles and rds: the way in which you present your ons for further research: what questions about the field has the review sparked? Writing your literature you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review.
The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information but that are not key to understanding the research problem can be included in a list of further short quotes are okay if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for your own summary and interpretation of the ize and er to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. Common mistakes to are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research s in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;. Do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevent sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;. Accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;. Isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the , kathleen e. Interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective.
Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research an, robert. Conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. You begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research , chris. Are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've adequately reviewed the literature:Look for repeating patterns in the research findings. If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research the web of science [a. Web of knowledge] citation database and google scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the , anthea. Review examplesarticles (free for csuc users)additional how-to guides and ted on literature reviews in the meriam ting research literature reviews : from the internet to number: main collection - q180. M4 f56 ture reviews made easy: a quick guide to number: main collection - pn98. On research methodology in the meriam case study research : a practical guide for beginning number: main collection - lb1028 .
E9 g57 ok of research to do a research report: a guide for undergraduate number: main collection - lb2369 . Research methodology: new trends and tanding research methods: an overview of the number: main collection - q180. Many of these will contain published examples of literature st dissertations and theses: the humanities and social sciences nes over 2 million dissertations and theses with abstracts, 24 page free previews, and full-text pdf, if available, for dissertations and theses dating back to apa paper (lit. British journal of nursing, 17(1), aking a structured literature review or structuring a literature review: tales from the ge, a. Electronic journal of business research methods, 6(2), onal how-to guides and , chico office of graduate studies - thesis ctions, policies, and guidelines for graduate studies theses/, chico writing a one-on-one appointment with a writing tutor to help with your writing how to write a review of the sity of ture review: an overview for graduate overview by north carolina state university ture review: the what, why and how-to sity of connecticut university work literature review university online writing lab (owl). Library | csu, g advice home > specific types of writing > the literature review: a few tips on conducting ble pdf is a review of the literature? Literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate assignment (sometimes in the form of an annotated bibliography—see the bottom of the next page), but more often it is part of the introduction to an essay, research report, or thesis. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e. It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of s enlarging your knowledge about the topic, writing a literature review lets you gain and demonstrate skills in two ation seeking: the ability to scan the literature efficiently, using manual or computerized methods, to identify a set of useful articles and al appraisal: the ability to apply principles of analysis to identify unbiased and valid studies.
Literature review must do these organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question you are size results into a summary of what is and is not fy areas of controversy in the ate questions that need further yourself questions like these:What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my literature review helps to define? Literature review is a piece of discursive prose, not a list describing or summarizing one piece of literature after another. It’s usually a bad sign to see every paragraph beginning with the name of a researcher. Instead, organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory. You are not trying to list all the material published, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or research you are writing an annotated bibliography, you may need to summarize each item briefly, but should still follow through themes and concepts and do some critical assessment of material.
