Business & Finance Literature Review Fusion and Examining Assignment
Serenity3203
Chapter9forHtdylr1.pptx
PowerPoint 9 Synthesising: storyline and theory
Chapter 9 from
How to do your literature review
This is PowerPoint 9 for Chapter 9 …
We will look at
The importance of narrative to constructing a good literature review
The importance of using words that connect different ideas in a narrative
The nature of theory and its significance in writing up a literature review
All of this is discussed in much more detail in Chapter 9 of How to Do Your Literature Review
All reviews need narrative
Narrative – in other words, providing a coherent account that makes sense – is an essential ingredient in any literature review, whatever its type.
A narrative is not a list. It is more than that: it’s an account of linked findings, events and characters and the strands of interconnection between and among them.
Bruner’s elements of narrative
| Bruner’s label | What Bruner meant (without the jargon) |
| Composability | How does it all fit together? What appears to depend on what? What contradicts? Where are there paradoxes? |
| Diachronicity | ‘Diachronic’ means changing over time. So, narrative diachronicity means ‘a story that changes over time’. |
| Intentional state entailment | Bruner notes that we should observe not just what people do (ie in our case, researchers and writers), but what they think and feel. It is their beliefs, intentions, hopes, desires and values that are important. |
| Breaching the canon | The ‘canon’ is the usual state of affairs, and by breaching it, Bruner means asking ‘What if?’ |
| Context sensitivity and negotiability | Interpretation of a text is embedded in the inquirer’s (in other words, the reader’s) own experiences. |
All of these can be thought about when constructing a discussion and writing up
Connecting ideas
Do authors concentrate on a particular theme?
Do they disagree?
Are there areas of controversy?
Are there surprising areas of agreement or similar findings?
Are there gaps that no one seems to be looking at?
Use words that connect ideas
| When there is a difference | When there is agreement | When one idea leads to another |
| however; but; notwithstanding this; although; yet; conversely; in spite of this; nevertheless; on the other hand; despite; then again; besides | moreover; indeed; further; furthermore; additionally; likewise; also; similarly; equally; and; what is more; again | hence; because of this; thus; for example; as a result; consequently; therefore; accordingly; so; for this reason; this is why; otherwise; then; finally |
Connecting words to use in different chapters
| Place in the review | Purpose | Typical words and phrases |
| Introduction | Tell the reader what you are trying to do | explore, investigate, examine, illuminate, look at, research into |
| Main body | Questions and arguments: your own and others’ | ask, posit, argue, aver, suggest, assume, put forward, note, highlight, draw attention to, believe, assess |
| Main body | What have you found? | disclose, reveal, uncover, suggest that, point to |
| Main body | Has it affirmed? | affirm, agree, verify, legitimate, validate, support, confirm, establish, uphold, sustain, corroborate, endorse |
| Main body | Has it contradicted? | contradict, disagree with, oppose, deny, challenge, conflict with |
| Conclusion | Remind the reader of the issues, briefly | recap, summarise, revisit, reiterate |
| Conclusion | How have your ideas developed or changed? | develop, redevelop, formulate, reformulate, deduce, speculate, construe, conclude, conjecture, guess, hypothesise |
Try to develop theory in your write up
Theory has different meanings
| Theory can mean … | |
| A generalising or explanatory model | Theory tries to distil a range of specific findings or observations into general propositions that explain these findings. |
| The ‘thinking side’ of practice | Especially in the applied side of the social sciences (such as teaching, nursing and social work), theory or ‘theorising’ means thinking and reflecting on practice. |
| A developing body of explanation | This is often the meaning used in published literature reviews. Here theory means the broadening bodies of knowledge developing in particular field. |
| A thinking tool | Here, theory is seen as a way of helping to explain something that you are currently researching. It is created with the goal of explaining or illuminating a particular phenomenon. |
Theory is about
seeing links;
generalising;
abstracting ideas from your data (i.e. from the sources you have identified) and offering explanations;
connecting your own thoughts with those of others;
having insights.
Summary
‘Storyness’ is central to any kind of literature review.
That storyness is about connection between one part and another.
To have integrity and meaning, the parts of a literature review – the words, sentences, paragraphs and sections – have to connect with each other: they have to tell a story, to offer a narrative.
There are various ways that narrative is constructed to be meaningful. All are in some way about connecting ideas.
One of the features of a literature review that gives it coherence is theory.
‘Theory’ has different meanings in academic literature, but the essence of the idea is that links are being sought and made, explanations offered and connections drawn between different pieces of work.
Drawing out theory enables insights to be made and explanations to be offered about a topic.
Activity
Using connecting words and phrases, try to convert the following passage from a list to a narrative.
Brown (2022) found that most nurses believed that nursing research is important for advancing clinical care. Patel (2021) found that few nurses applied research findings to practice. Jones (2022) discovered that most nurses felt that understanding research was important to developing clinical practice. Smith (2023) found that there were no differences attributable to educational background to account for the importance assigned by nurses to keeping up with research.
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