Writing the literature review

· Purpose · Common misconceptions · Important considerations · The process · Constructing the literature

· Problematising the literature · Structuring the literature review · Questions · Conclusion

Purpose

The literature review:

· familiarizes the reader with the depth, breadth and scope of the research topic;

· defines key concepts;

· establishes the body of knowledge that the research will contribute to.

The purpose of a literature review is not simply to describe or summarise the literature in the field. That would be an annotated bibliography. The literature review is an active process of construction. It involves defining and problematising the field within which you will situate your own research. A literature review involves providing a rationale for your selection of literature, drawing points of comparison or conflict between texts, and providing critical commentary on the selected literature. The aim of the literature review is to persuade the reader that your research is informed, coherent, necessary and innovative.

Common misconceptions

The literature review does not simply:

· show that nothing has been written on the topic;

· show your awareness of the big names in the field;

· provide a summary of all the literature on the topic;

· introduce the reader to a pre-given field of research;

· occur at the beginning of the research process;

· occur once all relevant material has been searched and copied.

Important considerations

· Original research does not mean being the first to examine a topic, but making a meaningful and useful contribution within a research community. If nothing has been written on the topic, it is your job to locate your research within a body of relevant literature. If you cannot find a relevant body of literature, it may be because the topic is not worth investigating.

· While it is important to know which authors are important in your field, the literature review should be organized around concepts and issues, not authors.

· The literature review is a critical discussion, not a summary. It evaluates concepts, theories, methodologies.

· The literature review does not simply fit into an existing field of research. It actively constructs the existing research in order to highlight your contribution.

· The rationale informing your construction of the literature should be coherent and explicit.

· The literature review, like the other chapters in the thesis, develops the central argument.

· The literature review occurs throughout the writing process as you redefine you ‘field’, keep abreast of current developments, and reflect on your research.

· Your reading of the literature will guide your search. You should start reading, analyzing and drafting your literature review in the very early stages of searching.

The Process

There are several steps to developing a literature review, but they are not necessarily sequential. You will probably find yourself moving backwards and forwards between them. The stages are:

· Identify · Record · Ensure Relevance · Retrieve · Review · Write

Identify

1. Start by compiling a list of references. Think about the kind of ‘filing’ system that we will use – hard copy (one of those A4 books with alphabetical tabs), an index system, a software referencing system such as EndNote (which is supported by UniSA), or a combination.

2. Then, keeping our topic and questions in mind, we need to speak with our supervisor and other staff and students working in a similar area and ask them what they consider to be key readings relating to your topic.

3. It is a good idea to make an appointment with the liaison librarian and speak with them about the best retrieval systems and databases relating to our topic. Ask if there are any courses that we can attend on improving your effectiveness at online retrieval.

4. In addition, we can use the library’s search strategies on-line tutorial to focus on the appropriate keywords and data sources. There are also a number of virtual libraries that may be useful.

5. Work through the key catalogues, databases, indexes, bibliographies and web-sites for relevant resources.

6. Check the references used in the articles we read. Are there some that are recurring? If so, they could be worth looking at. This process is also good for finding references that may be marginal to the article being reviewed, but central to our topic.

7. Locate and use research reviews – most journals dedicate a section to reviews and these are worth looking at to see what other people think of a piece of research (although we do not have to agree with them).

Record

1. Make a record of any literature that relates to our topic. At the very least we should have the citation details and where it is located (catalogue number, database, book shop). It is also a good idea to write a couple of sentences that will help us remember what the article is about.

2. A tool that has been found to be useful is the reading log. Feel free to photocopy these so that there is one for every citation and then systematically file them in a folder. See below for more information.

Ensure Relevance

1. From reading the titles and abstracts, prioritise the literature that we have identified and make a note of why it has a high, medium or low priority (at this stage).

2. Develop the habit of screening the literature for relevance before we download it, print it out or order a hard copy. This way we will not become overwhelmed with all of the reading that we have to do.

3. For our proposal we are likely to focus on the literature that we have identified as being the most important, the key theories/research in your area, the most recent developments, and the most accessible (there is not always time to wait six weeks to get in a book – keep it for the thesis)

4. Differentiate between textbooks, research articles and books, and books written for a non-academic audience. They contain different kinds of information that will be more or less relevant to our research proposal, or will be relevant in particular ways. For example, we might be researching the time lapse between key research developments and their incorporation into the professional literature. In which case both types of literature will be relevant. However, if we are researching the impact of a particular drug on hypertension we will probably refer mainly to the research-based literature.

5. When using a referencing software tool such as EndNote where we can import databases, try not to get swept away by the technology. There is no advantage to having 2000 references in our database if we don’t know what they are or their direct relationship to our topic. Being selective at every stage of the literature review process will help us avoid becoming overwhelmed with irrelevant information.

Retrieve

1. Make hard copies of the most important literature and work through this first. Print off relevant journal articles from the databases, photocopy articles (making sure you comply with copyright regulations) and borrow books. At this stage try to limit the number of books you buy – especially if you are on a budget.

2. Most of the literature we require will be available through the University. In addition to the online resources and direct lending facilities, we can also access inter-library loans and apply for reciprocal borrowing rights with the University of Adelaide and Flinders University.

Review

1. As discussed above it is useful to develop a systematic method for reviewing the literature. We can make up your own or use the reading log which allows us to record different kinds of information: the bibliographic details, a description, the relationship to other readings, our critical analysis, and any questions that it raises in terms of your own research. We can also record where the literature is located in our filing system or where we can access it.

2. When taking notes be sure to be clear about when we are quoting and when we are paraphrasing. We cannot risk unintentionally plagiarizing ideas and information, the penalties are harsh and the damage to our reputation could be irreparable. Always keep the page numbers with anything taken from the literature so that we can easily check back to the quote or idea paraphrased when editing.

Write

1. The literature review has its own internal structure. It starts with an introductory paragraph; discusses the literature in a logical and coherent way; and concludes with a paragraph that relates the literature to the research project.

2. Remember to abide by academic conventions.

Constructing the literature

The literature review actively constructs the field of your research. Golden-Biddle and Lock (1997:26-35) researched the major ways that researchers construct their research fields. These are listed below.

Synthesised coherence brings previously unrelated work together highlighting points of agreement in order to demonstrate the need for further investigation. In this mode the review highlights common concepts, methodologies, perspectives within apparently disparate fields of research.

Progressive coherence depicts the literature in terms of cumulative knowledge growth, consensus of perspectives and methods, and a well developed and focused line of inquiry. The current research is constructed as the next logical step in this collective and growing understanding of the topic.

Noncoherence constructs the literature in terms of points of disagreement within a research program whose importance is commonly accepted. This approach emphasises both the continuous nature of the field, but also competing explanations, disputes, debates, or contradictions in the methodological approaches, findings of concepts adopted. The research situates itself within a contested field, and states its aims in terms of resolving or shedding light upon the debate.

Problematising the literature

Golden-Biddle and Lock (1997:35-36) also summarise the key ways that researchers problematise the literature. These are as follows.

Incomplete

Here the literature is portrayed as not fully finished in some specific area. The research seeks to augment the field or fill a gap, rather than question its reigning paradigms in any significant way.

Inadequate

Here the literature is portrayed as excluding alternative perspectives. The research aims to contribute by bringing this oversight into view and introducing different views and frameworks. Existing paradigms are not so much questioned as extended and improved.

Incommensurate

Here existing research is portrayed as not simply incomplete, but wrong, or misguided in some way. The existing research seeks to overthrow existing views or paradigms in the field and to posit an alternative.

How does your own review of the literature problematise and construct the ‘field’ of your research?

Structuring the literature review

You can avoid an approach that is purely descriptive, or one that simply passes judgment on the literature, by reading for major under currents and themes within the literature. Some potential themes include:

· historical evolutions in the pattern of ideas;

· conceptual threads (issues, questions, themes);

· theoretical and methodological positions;

· disciplinary perspectives;

· positions of different groups (practitioners, academics, policy makers, general public).

These themes can then be used to form section headings to organize the structure of your literature review.

Questions

When reading relevant texts and writing the literature review you should ask yourself the following questions.

· How will I organize my discussion of the literature? What headings will I use?

· What are the grounds for including and excluding literature?

· How will my research contribute to the knowledge community within which I have situated my research?

· What are the main perspectives and methodological approaches adopted in relation to the problem?

· What is my point of view in relation to these perspectives and approaches?

When you have solid answers to these questions you can be confident that your literature review and your research proposal are on firm ground.

Conclusion

Writing a literature review is an active, critical and constructive exercise that forms an important part of mobilizing your central thesis. You are not so much fitting yourself into an existing picture as painting a new picture. That is, the task is not simply one of locating yourself within an existing research community. Rather, the task is one of organising, reframing, and reconceptualising existing approaches in order to establish the importance of your own research.

Reference

Golden-Biddle, K and Locke, K. 1997. Composing Qualitative Research. Sage: Thousand Oaks.