WRITING A LITERATURE REVIEW PowerPoint Presentation
Mrs.Shaw
WRITINGALITERATUREREVIEW.pptxWRITING A LITERATURE REVIEW
Spring 2021
Goals of a Literature Review
Demonstrate a familiarity
You become the expert
Show the path of prior research
Integrate and summarize—Where does your research fit into the corpus of knowledge?
Learn from others
Six Types of Literature Reviews
Context review –
Most common type, begins the research project and situates it in the research area
Historical review
Tracks how a concept, theory or method has changed over time
Integrative review
Summarizes the current state of knowledge, typically a “stand alone” study
Methodological review
Compares and evaluates the relative strengths of different methodologies
Self-study review
Student paper where the purpose is to demonstrate mastery over a subject area (e.g., special area exams in graduate school)
Theoretical review
Almost an analogy to the methodological review, but here different theories are contrasted on the basis of their assumptions, logical consistency and scope of explanation
Literature Meta-Analysis
Locate all potential studies on a specific topic
Develop consistent criteria and screen studies for relevance and/or quality
Identify and record relevant information for each study
Synthesize and analyze the information into broad findings
Draw summary conclusions based on the findings
Where to Find Research Literature
Periodicals - serious or popular
Scholarly journals – Sociological Abstract is my favorite search engine
Books, including book chapters
Dissertations – difficult to get as a student
Government documents
Policy reports
Presented paper – also difficult to get access to as a student—you often need to contact the author for full text.
Citation formats
ASA Format
Järvinen, Margaretha & Ravn, Signe. 2014. Cannabis careers revisited: Applying Howard S. Becker's theory to present-day cannabis use. Social Science & Medicine: 100, 133-140.
APA Format
Järvinen, M., & Ravn, S. (2014). Cannabis careers revisited: Applying Howard S. Becker's theory to present-day cannabis use. Social Science & Medicine, 100, 133-140.
Conduct a Systematic Literature Review
Define and refine topic
Design search
Locate research reports
Articles
Scholarly books
Dissertation – I am not a fan of using dissertations unless you are exploring a new area of research.
Government documents
Policy reports and presentation papers
How to Evaluate Research Articles
Examine the title
Read the abstract
Read the article
How to take notes
What to record
Organize notes
Beginning to organize your notes
Do you want to store your notes electronically or as hard copy
Collect your citation
This is a good time to consider a citation manger (e.g., end notes, refworks, maybe Word has a citation manager
What information to collect?
At the top of your notes record the author and date
Record the keywords of the study
A brief description of the study
The hypothesis, describing what the author means by each concept
What is the theoretical frame of the
The methods
Who comprised the sample, or was it a population
Was the paper qualitative or quantitative?
How did the author(s) gather their data, with a little detail
The finding – A three sentence description of what the authors found
This might also simply be another literature review
Using the Internet for Social Research
Advantages
Easy, fast, and cheap
Links connect sources
“Democratizing” effect
Casts a wide net
Disadvantages
No quality control
Not complete source
Often time consuming
Difficult to document
Distinguishing a good literature Review from a bad
A good literature review defines the scope of the research included (e.g., time frame or where referenced)
A bad literature review stacks the work reviewed by author, rather than by title
A good literature synthesized the literature in a reasonable manner, by subtopic, method or theory.
