• Introduction

• Reading

• Conventions of presentation: referencing (in the section Writing in the Health and Biomedical Sciences)

• Conceptualising

• Shaping

Reading

A methodical approach to your review of literature begins with knowing what you wish to read and how it can be located and retrieved. These days we have many different ways of conducting a literature search, and it is certainly worth your while to become familiar with every means available. You will find your School's Liaison Librarian most helpful. Or you can go to the Library on your campus and ask at the information desk.

The planning sheets

For assistance on downloading planning sheets:

• downloading Netscape
• Configuring Netscape and downloading files

• The literature search
• Reading for meaning
• Booknotes
• Keeping notes and records
• Organising your resources

Conceptualising

You may well have been told by your supervisor or lecturer that a review of literature should not be a simple list describing one research study after another with no sense of cohesion and no clear links drawn between them. This is quite true, and there is a world of qualitative difference between such a review, and another in which the reviewer's underlying intention is made explicit - not only through the selection of items, but in the criteria for grouping items, their sequence for presentation, and in the depth of analytical and critical commentary accompanying each group. You may find it an overwhelming prospect to deal in such a way with all of the items of literature you have read so far.

What you need is a sound organising principle which will allow you to control the grouping and sequencing of items and commentary. This gives your reader the opportunity to 'read' the literature as if through your mind as the current researcher, and thereby to share your understanding of existing theory and practice in the field, as the setting for your research.

So this section offers you a series of planning sheets which help you to:

1. establish the most effective grouping, for your purpose, of items in the literature
2. make conceptual decisions for individual items which thereby establish the polarities and dichotomies existing between items, and so identify the notional parameters for each related group of items
3. find a framework for various levels of understanding, and a method for plotting academic authority amongst writers in your field

Your first task in drawing together the many items of literature you wish to write about is to think of each one as associated with a certain idea, model, theoretical perspective, historical thread or other specified feature. The planning sheet 'The literature mind-map' invites you to enter each item, identified by its simple author/date designation - for example, (Smith 1988) - within the framework of a series of related boxes or circles.

Next, you are asked to work through the 'Combination of ideas map' in order to identify the focus of several research studies relative to your own research design.

From these two maps you should begin to mesh together conceptually the grouping you have set up; you will be working on the whole 'big picture' while contemplating the shared and unique features of its parts.

The following planning sheets are a downloadable Word 6 file relplace:

• The literature mind-map
• Combination of ideas map

Once you have identified your field and its literature, you are asked in 'Polarity poles' to consider the extremities of thought in the area, and the authors who espouse opposing viewpoints. This can be done for any number of concepts, and then you can find the points of junction of several poles by drawing up a 'Polarity web'. Taking the idea even further, the 'Polarity features map' helps you to spatially organise groups of items relative to each other as the next step towards building up your final sequence ready for the writing up stage.

The following planning sheets are a downloadable Word 6 file fineline:

• Polarity poles
• Polarity web
• Polarity features map

You may frequently be asked to ‘respond critically’ to the academic writing of others, and even though you may form a critical opinion without difficulty, it is not always easy to write precisely about your thoughts. The following planning sheets may give you some new frameworks on which to base your thinking and your written responses at a critical level. The 'Critical analysis quadrant' helps you to analyse the comparative credibility of authors in your field, and the planning sheet 'Ways of seeing: literal, lateral, critical, speculative' makes very clear distinctions as to the depth of our interrogation of knowledge at any one time.

The following planning sheets are a downloadable Word 6 file critical:

• Critical analysis quadrant
• Ways of seeing: literal, lateral, critical, speculative

Shaping

Having identified the conceptual frameworks represented in the literature you have read, the next step is to 'shape' these into a review chapter which will fit meaningfully into your whole report or thesis.

As a starting point, you are shown three alternative structures which are commonly used, each displaying a certain logic for different purposes. You are invited to consider using these frameworks either alone or in combination. Depending on what you wish to achieve in your review of literature or any one section of it, you may like to consider some common structures for the presentation of your body of literature.

Depending on what you wish to achieve in your review of literature or any one section of it, you may like to consider some common structures for the presentation of your body of literature. You are invited to complete planning sheets which may help you to determine which of your readings would be best presented in terms of 'Historical development' and which as 'Consecutive approaches of equivalent weight'. A most useful structure is the 'Conceptual spiral: broad to narrow', in which you lead your reader from a broad brush appreciation of the topic, equivalent to background information, and move gradually in towards the heart of the problem which you wish to address in your research. It is most likely that you will wish to 'Create your own combination' of all these approaches, and the final planning sheet in this section, 'Sequencing chart', helps you to design a structure that is most likely to achieve your purpose in this chapter.

The following planning sheets are a downloadable Word 6 file altstr:

• Historical development
• Consecutive approaches of equivalent weight
• Conceptual spiral: broad to narrow
• Create your own combination

Planning the ‘shape’ of your review of literature

• Think of the major components in your research study (these should reflect your ‘Triad of major elements’ and will also appear in your title). (The 'Triad of major elements’ is a planning sheet as a downloadable Word file under 'Choosing your topic: What topic'.)
• Group together the readings that belong to each component. Using 'Booknotes' (a planning sheet in the downloadable Word file  'Reading' above) or an equivalent system for notemaking can be very helpful at this stage. Simply put the relevant 'Booknotes' sheets in appropriate piles.
• Draw a diagram of the theoretical frameworks represented by each group. This will probably look like a mind-map or flow chart for each component.
• Draw another diagram to show how you will synthesise the ideas emerging from each group. How will you make the connections and draw all the components together with your own voice?
• Work out your own logical sequence for the readings that you have so far. How will you use this sequence to argue why your research fills a certain gap in the field? A literature review usually homes in on the 'gap' by moving all the time from the broad to the specific. This is unless you have good reason to simply 'list' a variety of models or approaches, or to give a chronological outline. Remember that different sections of your review may by shaped differently for different reasons.
• Write a mock 'Table of contents' for your review in which the outline of your argument can plainly be seen to underlie your presentation of components.

The following are planning sheets, available as a downloadable Word 6 file planshap:

• Main thread of argument
• Purpose leads to structure leads to sequence

Steps to sequencing your review of literature

Sequencing choices can be applied equally well to the whole review of literature, or to any of its parts - that is, at whole text level, section level or even paragraph level.

1. From a mind-map or similar ‘overview’ technique, identify the main unifying theoretical or thematic factors which categorise each set of ten or less readings. Name these ‘ideas’ for use as headings or subheadings. (See the planning sheet as a downloadable Word file under 'Choosing your topic: What topic?: 'Topic mind-map' or above under 'Conceptualising: Relative placement of items read: 'Literature mind-map'),
2. Decide on the best sequence for the items within each set in order to best illustrate its theme. You may want to :

• relate a historical narrative or chronological sequence of ideas or events
• present a series of equivalent but different perspectives, models, approaches or methods
• move from the broad identification of a theme to an investigation of specific examples of it

3. Decide on essential points of comparison, points of departure, comments on validity, reliability, or any other features that you wish to point out, either in a single item, or in relation to several at once.
4. Write an introductory paragraph which allows the reader to form an overview of the main area you are investigating and the main points you are making. Remember, the reader may be coming across your ideas for the first time, so make them very clear and explicit. Mention each of the allied readings by author/date, or by number, grouped (in brackets) in the order in which you will write about them.
5. Proceed to devote one paragraph or section to each main theme identified in your introductory paragraph. Identify its essential feature(s) in the opening sentence, and reiterate the groups of writers associated with this idea. Begin to show which writers take which positions along certain binary dimensions (see above as a downloadable Word file under 'Conceptualising: Fine lines: 'Polarity poles').

• Who are the chief proponents of the extreme positions?
• Who has formed a schism group?
• Who has set the pendulum in reactive motion?
• Which relevant current theories and paradigms have influenced each writer’s perspective?
• Which research can be held in great authority, and which can be disputed? Why?

It is usual to build up each section towards those authors and previous research closest in some fashion to your own. For instance, you could conclude with an author whose work is in the same area, but falls short of your study’s intentions. Thus, you can show that you are following an existing line of inquiry. Or you could end with an author whose claims you wish to refute with your study.

6. Sequence this chapter with the whole text in mind, and gradually work to a point towards the end of the review where you can show the reader where the research gap exists that you now wish to meet with this study. Your concluding section of the review should again take up the topic presented in the introductory chapter, but now you have given the reader very much greater understanding of the issues, and so they should be in support of your decision to focus on your specific research topic.

The following is a planning sheet, available as a downloadable Word 6 file sequc:

• Sequencing chart

The preparation of materials for this site was funded by a DEETYA Quality Round 3 Grant awarded to Helen Johnston, Associate Professor Margaret Sharpe and Dr Esther May, and is a result of collaboration between the Flexible Learning Centre and the Faculty of Health and Biomedical Sciences.

Project Coordinator  Helen Johnston
Writer  Trish McLaine
Online developers   Moya Costello, Loene Doube and Rebecca Miller
Designer   Kelly Martin
Produced by the FLC

Copyright ©1998 University of South Australia
Last update August 1998
URL: http://www-i.unisa.edu.au/flc/sls/publictns/researchwrite/organising.htm