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Literature Reviews: Writing a Literature Review

How to locate literature reviews.

*How to tips:

  • When writing a literature review, ask yourself:
    1. What type of literature review are you doing? Theory, methodology, quantitative research, qualitative research?
    2. What type of publications did you include? Journal articles, books, government publications?
    3. What sources do you use to locate articles? Did you search all the databases that cover your topic? Was your search strategy too broad or too narrow to retrieve the relevant literature?
    4. Did you critically analyze the articles you found or did you just summarize each article? Did you create a list of concepts and questions and then compare how each is covered in each article?
    5. Did you cover articles that both prove and disprove your thesis statement?
       
  • When Reading an article: *
    1. Has the author formulated a problem/issue?
    2. Is it clearly defined? Is its significance (scope, severity, relevance) clearly established?
    3. Could the problem have been approached more effectively from another perspective?
    4. What is the author's research orientation (e.g., interpretive, critical science, combination)?
    5. What is the author's theoretical framework (e.g., psychological, developmental, feminist)?
    6. What is the relationship between the theoretical and research perspectives?
    7. Has the author evaluated the literature relevant to the problem/issue? Does the author include literature taking positions she or he does not agree with?
    8. In a research study, how good are the basic components of the study design (e.g., population, intervention, outcome)? How accurate and valid are the measurements? Is the analysis of the data accurate and releveant to the research question? Are the conclusions validly based upon the data and analysis?
    9. In material written for a popular readershiip, does the author use appeals to emotion, one-sided examples, or rhetorically-charged language and tone? Is there an objective basis to the reasoning, or is the author merely "proving" what he or she already believes?
    10. How does the author structure the aurgument? Can you "deconstruct" the flow of the argument to see whether or where it breaks down logically (e.g., in establishing cause-effect relationships)?
    11. In what ways does this book or article contribute to our understanding of the problem under study, and in what ways it is useful for practice? What are the strengths and limitations?
    12. How does this book or article relate to the specific thesis or question I am developing?

*Taken from Taylor, D. (2001). Writing a literature review in the health science and social work. Retrieved June
17, 2005, from University of Toronto, Health Sciences Writing Center web site at http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review

Tips:

  1. Make sure your review answers the questions above.
  2. Take GOOD NOTES. As you read, look for the major concepts, conclusions, theories, arguments etc. that underlie the work, and look for similarities and differences with closely related work and write these down.
  3. Make sure your document evaluates the articles and shows relationships between the research that has already been done.
  4. Write down the complete citation of any article you use in your paper. It will save you time and energy later on.

 

Bibliography

Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper / Arlene Fink
       Wilson 5W - Books (Q180.55.M4 F56 2010)
 

Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination.
       Wilson 3E - Books (H62 .H2566 1998)


Writing Literature Reviews: A Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences / Galvan, Jose L.
       Reference (H62.3 .G3 1999)

Writing Literature Reviews: A Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences / Galvan, Jose L.
       Ebook