module 6 and feedback

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LITERATURE REVIEW

Why are literature reviews important when doing a scholarly or business-related research project?

According to this article, “A literature review gives the summary of a subject field supporting the identification of specific research questions” (Rowley, & Slack, 2004). Therefore, this is a written summary of articles and other documents that help in describing both the past and the current state of information thus making it easier to identify some of the areas that require further research. A Literature review helps to support the identification of the research topic, the questions, and the hypothesis in a study. Similarly, one will get insights regarding policies, legal frameworks and technological advances in the area of study. It is not possible to research without having a good literature review related to the intended area of study. This is because one may end up not achieving anything useful in the area of study.

Another importance of literature review is that it helps the researcher to understand the current state of the intended area of study. This prevents duplication of what other researchers had earlier done. A researcher will look at another area of the intended research study instead of doing what others have already done. Similarly, a researcher gets useful ideas on how to develop the appropriate research topic, research questions, research objectives, and the hypothesis more so, for the research model. The researcher will also be able to develop an understanding of the theoretical concepts and terminologies used in this area of study.

Lastly, scholarly and research journals consist of a review of recent works in the area of study. These reviews normally consist of important bibliographies that may be a very helpful source of reference to other work in this area of study. This, therefore, is an illustration that this is an imperative step in the research process that must be done critically and with greater expectations as the success of the research study greatly depends on it.

Talk about the various ways one can find sources that relate to one's research question, and which sources you have found to be the most useful?

There are various ways that one can get sources that relate to the research question. Some of these ways include:

Library catalogs: these tools list the materials that are held by a library indicating where each item is located and a brief description of the items (Rowley, & Slack, 2004). Therefore, one will be able to easily locate materials that a library holds that will help in the area of study by looking at their title, authors, imprints, collation, subject headings, and location.

Search engines- this is a very important tool that is used in locating web pages that will help in the research topic. Knowing where to look for academic journals or articles on online platforms can be a very daunting task. However, classic academic databases are very helpful when searching for research topics. One is just required to key in simple keyword-based searches and be able to locate as many resources as possible.

Indexing and abstracting services –abstracting services normally provides abstracts of journals on a subject or various related subjects at a fee. On the other hand, indexing services assign descriptors to documents. In these services, documents are shortened or summarized and then assigned descriptors for referencing the documents. The product is normally abstract journals.

The source that I have found to be more useful is the use of Search engines. Most of these search engines are readily available and free of charge. They file the full content of research writing over various academic interests. There are scholastic peer-reviewed journals, books, meeting papers, abstracts, and specialized reports among very many other important materials. Tools like Google Scholar are a very essential tool for this purpose. Searching for information using these tools is easier and quicker.

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