Literature review Lit. review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Mostly it is part of a thesis or report. Purpose is to convey the readers: what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic What their strengths and weaknesses are

Literature review Lit. review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g. your research objective, problem or issue in hand, or your hypothesis) Lit. review is NOT just a descriptive list of material available, or a set of summaries.

Literature review Lit. review lets you gain and demonstrate skills in two areas: Information seeking Ability to scan the lit. efficiently, using manual or computerised methods, to identify useful articles and books Critical appraisal Ability to apply principles of analysis to identify unbiased and valid studies

Literature review Lit. review should: be organised around and related directly to the thesis or research question synthesise results into a summary of what is and is not known identify areas of controversy in the literature formulate questions that need further research

Literature review Ask yourself questions: What is the specific thesis, problem or research question that my lit. review helps to define? What type of literature review am I doing? Am I looking at issues of theory? methodology? Policy? quantitative research? qualitative research? What is the scope of my lit. review? What type of publications am I using?

Literature review Ask yourself questions: How good was my information seeking? Has it been wide enough to ensure I have found enough relevant material? Has it been narrow enough to exclude irrelevant material?

Literature review Ask yourself questions: Have I critically analysed the literature I use? Have I assessed them for their strengths and weaknesses? Have I cited studies contrary to my perspective? Will the reader find my lit. review relevant, appropriate and useful?

Literature review For each article/book, ask yourself: Has the author formulated a problem/issue? Is it clearly defined? Is its significance clearly established? Could the problem have been approached more effectively from another perspective?

Literature review For each article/book, ask yourself: What is authors’ research orientation (e.g. interpretive, criticism …) What is authors’ theoretical framework (psychological, developmental …) What is the relationship between theoretical and research perspectives? Has the author done lit. review? Are the contrary perspective papers included?

Literature review For each article/book, ask yourself: How accurate and valid are the measurements? Is the analysis accurate and relevant? Are the conclusions justified? How does the author structure the argument? In what way does this article/book contribute to our understanding of the problem?

Literature review Lit. review is not a list describing or summarising one piece of literature after another. It’s usually a bad sign to see every paragraph started with the name of a researcher. Organise the lit. review into sections based on themes or identified trends. Do not try to list all the material ever published, rather synthesise and evaluate.

How to find the literature? Start from the library -> journals, books, magazines, databases -> talk to library staff, if needed! Search on the Internet: http://www.altavista.com http://www.google.com/ http://www.ask.com/

How to prepare literature review The purpose of the lit. review is to document the state of the art with respect to the problem in the hand. This will provide a foundation for the research you will carry out in your project. If you do not conduct a thorough lit. review, there is a danger you will be re-inventing the wheel, or overlooking an important approach.

How to prepare literature review Do not hand out your first draft! Get it checked with someone (your supervisor, knowledgeable friend …) and revise it so that it is a polished document. Consider using headings to separate different aspects. Examples include introduction, background, theories, methodologies, frameworks, discussions, results, conclusions, synopsis, references etc.

How to write references? Use a consistent style (such as APA) http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocAPA.html http://ldl.net/~bill/aparev.htm Do not use old references (not too many any way) Be consistent both in citing and listing.