Expectations of graduate students

y Grad students have different backgrounds

◦ Not every grad student has done research
Researching & Writing ◦ Not everyone has experience reading the
a Literature Review literature

y No problem.
y You are learning to ask questions
y Do so! No one expects you to know
Tapas Bala everything.Your job is to learn to seek out
Assistant Professor answers
Dept. of Marketing y Knowing that information is out there can be
BSMRSTU empowering!

Talking about the

literature…
Talking about the literature…
y What it IS:
◦ “What does the literature show us?” ◦ Scholarly communication
◦ “Connect your ideas to the literature.” ◦ A published record of
◦ “Survey the literature on the topic.” research
◦ Challenging to read and
digest
◦ Indexed, searchable with
research databases

X
Talking about the
literature…
Talking about the literature…
y What it IS NOT:
◦ Common knowledge
◦ Let’s focus on “What are lit reviews?” and

X
x i.e.,
i e handily summarized in Wikipedia
◦ Easy to find “Why?” and the conceptual approach first…
x If you just Googled it, you
overlooked something.
◦ Follow-up workshops will tackle the “How?”
◦ Available freely online (mostly)
x But we’ll look at a examples as we go
x This distinction can be transparent
on campus: the “free” internet vs.
library subscriptions

1
What is a Literature Review?
A literature review
y Surveys scholarly sources relevant to a particular issue,
area of research, or theory
y Provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation
of each work
y Offers an overview of significant literature published on
a topic
y Gives future research context by telling the story of
work done so far

(adapted from http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/ literaturereview.html)

Functions of Literature Reviews Functions of Literature Reviews

‰ Establish research context ‰ Understand the structure of the problem

‰ Show why the question is significant ‰ Demonstrate your knowledge of the field

‰ Illustrate and describe previous research, including ‰ Synthesize

previous perspectives and develop your
gaps and flaws own perspective

‰ Ensure that research has not been done before ‰ Point the way to future research

Hey, did you notice that the bullets here are checkboxes?

Review article examples:

http://go.ncsu.edu/litrev1 Digging Into the Literature
http://go.ncsu.edu/litrev2
= Major works

C
A

2
 Digging Into the Literature Digging Into the Literature
= Major works = Major works = Something new!
= Studies that rely on major works = Studies that rely on major works

B B

C C
A A
New!

Prewriting Stages Organizing/Outlining

y Formulate the problem or primary research Methods for organizing the Lit Review
question —which topic or field is being y By subject (if lit review covers more than one
examined and what are its component issues? subject)
y Chronologically
y Choose literature —find materials relevant to y By theme
theme, idea
idea, trend
trend, theory
theory, or major research
the subject being explored and determine studies
which literature makes a significant y By author
contribution to the understanding of the topic. y By argumentative stance
In all methods, relationships between elements
y Analyze and interpret —note the findings and (e.g., subject, theme, author, etc.) must be
conclusions of pertinent literature, how each shown.
contributes to your field .

Writing the LR Beginning the Writing

Š Ongoing “housekeeping” strategies and tips
ƒ Immediately document and cite source you took
the information from.
ƒ Bookmark online sources.
ƒ Bookmark “hard copy.” Use post-it notes to
mark pages with relevant information.
information
ƒ Keep track of page numbers or online locations
of paraphrases and quotations.
ƒ Note any connections between sources in
separate notebook, electronic file or post-its on
pertinent pages.
ƒ If information comes from a class lecture,
interview, or conference, note details
immediately.
y Introduce your LR by
◦ Defining or explaining the primary problem addressed by the
lit review, or if the LR is part of a larger work like a thesis or
dissertation, explain the problem it addresses.
OR
◦ Explaining main conflict(s) in the literature
OR
◦ Explaining the time frame you will review
OR
◦ Offer a rationale for your choice of source material
OR
◦ Using all or some of the points above.
y A Lit Review must have its own thesis (e.g., More and
more cultural studies scholars are accepting popular
media as a subject worthy of academic consideration;
others scoff at the very idea).

3
 Body of the LR Digging Into the Literature – How?
y Use subheadings if dividing the LR topically,
thematically, according to argumentative Aspect How?
perspective, or according to time period. Major works •Literature databases
y Be sure to show relationships between sources. •Colleague recommendations
y Discuss source’s significant contributions. •Cited work
y Do not develop ideas or use sources that are
irrelevant to your thesis overall. Related works Citation searching:
y References to prior studies should be in past •Web of Science
tense; references to narrative or text other than •Google Scholar
studies should be in present tense.
New information •Articles alerts/RSS feeds
◦ Example: Smith’s study of composition students
included both male and female subjects. She •Tables of Contents
concludes that gender plays no significant role in the
writing process. She also suggests that further studies
should look at age as a contributing factor, a variable Put it all together, you have a literature review!
her study did not consider.

Overview of the Process Overview of the Process

Topic Research and Topic

Collect Information
ƒInitial topic won’t be your final topic!
ƒChoose, explore, focus
Writing RefWorks
ƒRefine as you go based on:
and ƒAvailability of research – too much? too
revision little?
Work with Articles
ƒDiscovering new ideas
and Brain
ƒWriting progress

Overview of the Process Overview of the Process

Topic Research and Topic Research and

Collect Information Collect Information

ƒSave
S your workk
in a citation mgr. RefWorks
ƒSearch databases ƒRead, analyze,
ƒFind, evaluate, and select articles synthesize
ƒDevelop your Work with Articles
conceptual and Brain
framework

4
 Overview of the Process Overview of the Process

Topic Research and Topic Research and

Collect Information Collect Information

RefWorks Writing RefWorks

ƒRefine topic?
ƒUse your citation and
manager to stay revision
Work with Articles Work with Articles
organized
and Brain and Brain

Concluding the LR Revising the LR: Questions to Ask Yourself

y Summarize ideas, conflicts, themes, or
historical (or chronological) periods.
y Contextualize your topic within theummary.
y Point out gap(s) in scholarship and, show how
your research helps fill the gap(s).
y Transition to your next chapter.
y Have I accurately represented the author’s views?
y Is source material research current and relevant to
thesis topic?
y Are all major theorists, scholars, or studies represented?
y Have I shown relationships between sources?
y Is there a clear connection between thesis topic and the
LR?
y Are all sources documented accurately?
y Have I used effective transitions from idea to idea,
source to source, paragraph to paragraph?
y Is my analysis of sources well developed?
t
y Have I represented all conflicts or argumentative sides
fairly?

Proceeding…(use worksheet handout) Proceeding…

Develop draft topic
x Discuss with advisor, colleagues
Find a literature review (or book/chapter)
x Identify key terms and concepts
x Use bibliography to find sources
Search the major disciplinary database
x Check with colleagues, a librarian
x Each will have different ideas of where to search!
x Determine scope and facets of topic
x Collect useful, current sources
Search other key databases (another
discipline?)
x Round out understanding of scope, facets, terms,
concepts
Search a Citation database
x Best ones: Web of Science, Google Scholar
x Web of Science has better tools
Scholar can complete picture
x
x Identify key/seminal papers/research
x Identify key researchers, research centers, journals
x Trace citations back and forward

5
Questions that come up… Housekeeping Tips
◦ How do I know I have the “right stuff”? y Use a citation management system
◦ Such as RefWorks, Zotero, Mendeley, etc.
◦ One word for these: invaluable. You are absolutely
◦ How do I know when I’m done? doing more work in NOT learning about these.
y Al
Always get the
h complete
l citation information
f
◦ Article title, journal title, author, year/volume, pages,
◦ How do know what’s important? abstract
y Keep track of searches, notes, ideas, etc. (back to
◦ No set answers…for each individual to the worksheets)
decide. y Fully citing sources = avoiding plagiarism

Read Synthetically: Pull it All Together The Synthesis Matrix

y Tool to aid in writing a document showing
y Look at all articles to identify relationships
synthesis
y Classify or group papers, or paper sections, by
topic, method, theme y Based on a grid
y C
Compare and contrast papers addressing similar Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3 Concept 4
questions
◦ Discover relationships between sources James, et xxxxx xxxxx
◦ Discover critical gaps and disagreements al.

y Fit within the generated outline, or adapt Chung xxxxx xxxxx

outline Levy xxxx xxxxx

Models of Paper Structures

“Stringing” Model:
Organization of a Simple
Summary Paper
y Introduction
• Paragraph 1: Summary or
description of article 1
• Paragraph 2: Summary or
description of article 2
• Paragraph 3: Summary or
description of article 3
y …and on…
y Summary and conclusions
Some Tips for Writing
“Synthesis” Model:
Paper showing Synthesis of Sources y Write as you go: don’t wait until you’ve finished
and Sequencing by Theme
searching the literature
Introduction--Introduce context, topic,
y
importance, research questions, overview y Set some times to write regularly, and do it!
Theme A: Introduce concept or theme,
•
discuss/compare the relevant parts of y Start with the easier sections (probably not the
papers 1,
1 3,
3 and
d4
• Theme B: Introduce concept or theme,
introduction)
discuss/compare the relevant parts of
y Jot down notes and ideas and keep them handy
papers 2,4, and 5
• Theme C: Introduce concept or theme,
discuss/compare the relevant parts of
y Get feedback, and don’t take it too personally
papers 5 and 6
y Final paragraphs --Summarize and
y Aim for a style that is clear, simple, and
highlight conclusions, unresolved issues, straightforward
identify possible next steps in research
and/or practice.

6
Moving forward
y Other library workshops on:

y Doing Literature Searching

◦ How to identify good databases
◦ Maximizing your use of them
y Citation management
◦ How to save all of this work