ITEC0700/ NETE0501/ ISEC0502 Research Methodology#5 Suronapee Phoomvuthisarn, Ph.D.

Literature Review Suronapee Phoomvuthisarn, Ph.D.

Outline The literature review ◦ What is a literature review? ◦ Benefits of literature review Step to undertake a review of the literature Literature review checklist.

The literature review A literature review is a critical summary and assessment of the range of existing materials dealing with knowledge and understanding in a given field. How to undertake a review of the literature ◦ collect information and summarise it ◦ examine and evaluate the information in terms of its strengths and weaknesses ◦ compare the different sources and organise your review around focus points.

Literature review (Benefits) give you insights into aspects of your topic which might be worthy of detailed exploration. allow comparisons to be made and providing a framework for further research. place your work in the context of what has already been done prevent you from repeating previous errors or redoing work that has already been done

STEP 1: Analyse the task Make notes of the general topic and any key issues/questions you may be asked to address. Identify a set of keywords to search via Google or specialized database.

STEP 2: Search for information Start searching for relevant information. When searching for information, be sure that you collect the appropriate kind of sources ◦ Search for survey papers (or even books) that give a general overview of the topic ◦ Search for journal articles and conference papers ◦ Select a set of articles (says papers) to get you a first view of your topic

STEP 3: Read critically and efficiently Skim-read texts. Read the abstract, introduction, findings and conclusion Evaluate the source for relevancy – author’s credentials, date of publication, type of publication and bibliography. Make notes of any common themes/issues /ideas that present themselves.

STEP 4: Develop focus points Develop a set of guide questions/general points that need to be considered in relation to your topic. ◦ These may come directly from your hypothesis or they may be a more specific set of key issues/questions/points based on your first reading of the materials.

STEP 5: Second read for detail and make summary notes The next step is to start making notes of key ideas from each source for analysis and evaluation. At this stage it is important to: ◦ Thoroughly read through each source one at a time and make notes. ◦ Do this in simple table format or any format relevant. ◦ Avoid re-writing large paragraphs from the text. ◦ Put it into your own words. ◦ Stay focused on the question or issue you are trying to deal with. ◦ Once you have read an article, put it aside and ask yourself: ‘What was its main viewpoint/response in relation to that question/issue?’

STEP 5: Second read for detail and make summary notes(2) As sources are read for detail, critically analyse the content to understand the following: ◦ Arguments/points of view – are they logical ◦ Findings and evidence to support each finding ◦ Reliability and accuracy of information ◦ Limitations and weaknesses ◦ Refer to the section of critical reading checklist from last class When you have taken note of that source’s views on that issue - consider the next one. If that source does not deal with that issue, continue and move on to the next one until you have considered each source. Make sure that with each set of notes, you write the full referencing details (as you would use for a reference list) either at the top of the page/section or, if you are using a research table, in the first column ◦ Refer to the section of research table from last class

STEP 6: Compare and Evaluate Once you have completed the note-taking process of each literature, you then need to digest all collected ideas, concepts, findings into the key themes/points of discussion. ◦ Remember the task is not so much about presenting individual article critiques as it is about presenting the key themes/points of discussion you have found and how the viewpoints fit together in relation to each of these. Relate your work to the existing literature.

Example of a good synthesis?

Collate and develop a literature review section Structure your review in sections to reflect different approaches, interpretations, schools of thought or areas of the subject you are tackling. It should be written in paragraphs, so ideally you should organise your information according to key ideas and then present the major viewpoint(s) in relation to each of those ideas. ◦ Be aware that when presenting the information, the same source may be referred to in different sections as it becomes relevant. ◦ The way you structure/present this information will depend upon the task requirements and the information you have gathered.  To make a clear comparison of all sources of literature, you may use a table format to summarize your findings

Where to include it? – case of papers NETE0501 Research Methodology16

Where to include it? – case of Thesis NETE0501 Research Methodology17

Literature Review Checklist Shows a clear understanding of the topic and the major research to date ◦ Shows the variety approaches that have been made to the topic area ◦ Mentions (and discusses some of) all the key studies Shows a gap in the existing knowledge ◦ States clear conclusions about previous research which discuss the pros and cons in relation to the developing research question ◦ Is structured around themes, rather than source by source. Many students review each source one after the other, even when they cover the same issues. It is best to avoid this. ◦ Reaches well researched and argued recommendations for further research (i.e. that there is a gap in the existing research as a whole, that needs more research – this may be why you are going to do your project/dissertation) Develops paragraph by paragraph to a clear research problem (i.e. a question that can be researched – a small part of the gap in the existing research) By Andy Gould, Division of Learning Enhancement, Access and Partnership University of Greenwich 2008 (reorganized subheading by Lecturer)

Literature review checklist

Example 1. Select and read one of a single research paper or a thesis and evaluate their literature review sections based on the checklist provided. 2. Identify your structure of a literature review section.

Summary have a better idea of what is involved in producing a literature review. Understand steps to undertake a review of literature Know how to evaluate the literature review through a checklist

Exercises Take a short article or part of an article. Make a summary and critical assessment of such an article.

References Chapter 4 of L. Blaxter, C. Hughes, and M. Tight, How to Research, 4 th Edition, Open University Press, 2010 Literature review, CQU University, Australia Lecture 3 – research methodology course by Supakorn, Ph.D.

Questions By now, you may have a fairly clear answer to the following questions: ◦ How are you going to do the research? ◦ What is your strategy and approach? ◦ What techniques or methods are you going to use? ◦ Reading literature ◦ Literature review What ‘s next? ◦ Systematic literature review

Additional slides

Issues in reading Nothing has been written on my research topic. There ’s too much. It ’s all been done. How many references do I need?