Chapter 3 – How to critically review literature

3.1 What is a literature review?

A literature review is a review in which one makes reasoned judgements about the value of pieces of
literature. When doing this, it is necessary to organize valuable ideas and findings.

There are two kinds of reviews.

The first kind of review goes along with the initial search for research ideas, because that’s when you browse
through pieces of work and judge which ones are relevant and which ones are not.

The second kind of reviews are referred to as critical reviews. To be able to show the significance of a research
project it is necessary to understand the subject field and its concepts, ideas and key theories. One is ‘critically
reviewing literature’ when one chooses those pieces of literature that are relevant to the research.

3.2 Critical review

A critical review should be a constructively analysis that critically develops a transparent argument about what
the chosen literature tells you about a research question. It should not simply summarize what a piece of
literature is about. Rather, it is necessary to evaluate what is significant to the research project and what is not.

The goal of a critical review

Reviewing literature critically enables you to generate the foundation on which a research is based. The exact
goal of reading literature depends on the approach one is wishing to use in a research.

A deductive approach is when you develop a theoretical or conceptual framework which you afterwards test
using data.

An inductive approach is when one analyses the collected data to subsequently develop theories from them
and relate them to the literature. The difference with an inductive approach is that you don’t start with
predetermined theories and conceptual frameworks. There are three ways of using literature:

1. Use literature in the initial stages of a research, when making research proposal
2. Use literature to provide the theoretical framework and context
3. To help place research findings within the wider body of knowledge

When a critical review is successful it will provide new insights about a subject area that no one has ever
thought about. It is necessary to show how the new findings and developed theories relate to other literature
about your subject to demonstrate that you are familiar with what has already been said about the subject.

Adopting a critical view of your reading

In order to read effectively it is necessary to master various skills, which include:

Previewing: Browsing the text to find out what its purpose

Annotating: Conducting an analogue with yourself, the author and the issues at stake

Summarizing: Be able to explain/state the text in your own words

Comparing and How has your thinking been altered by this reading?
contrasting:
 Use review questions: Questions which you ask yourself during reading which are linked to your
research questions.

Content of a critical review

The critical review will eventually have to appear in a project report. It has to include an evaluation of the
research that has already been done in the subject area, demonstrate and discuss the relationships between
published research findings and refer to the literature in which they were reported.

Moreover, a critical review must present the key points and trends in a structured way and show the
relationship with the research. By doing so the readers of a research project will have background knowledge
to the research questions. When considering the content of a critical review one needs to:

• Include the key academic theories within the chosen research area
• Demonstrate that your knowledge of the chosen area is up to date
• Through clear referencing, enable those reading your project report to find the original publications
which you cite

How to be ‘critical’

Being critical means that one needs to make reasoned judgments about a particular text, by evaluating a
problem with good use of language. This means that one ’s own critical stance needs to be based on clear
arguments and references to the literature. Being critical also means making a clear and justified analysis of
the key literature of a research project.

The structure of the critical literature review

A literature review is a critical analysis and a description of what other writers have written. It is helpful to
address to a literature review as a discussion of how far existing literature goes in answering the chosen
research questions. One should therefore point out the limitations of the existing literature. It is also helpful to
look at the way the review relates to the chosen research objectives. There are three common critical review
structures:

• One single chapter

• A series of chapters
• Throughout the project report while tackling various issues

Every project report should refer to the key issues from the literature in the discussion and conclusions. Don’t
let the review become an uncritical listing of previous research! It is easy to be critical when constantly tries to
compare or contrast different authors and their ideas. The review should be a funnel in which you:

1. Start at a general level and narrow it down to research questions and objectives
2. Provide a brief overview of key ideas and themes
3. Summarise, compare and contrast research of the key writers
4. Narrow down to highlight research most relevant to the research
5. Provide detailed findings and show how they are related to the literature
6. Highlight those aspects where your research is providing new insights
7. Lead the reader to subsequent sections of your project

3.3 Available literature sources

The available literature sources can be divided into three categories: primary, secondary and tertiary sources
(See Figure 3.3 on page 82).
Primary literature

First occurrence of a piece of work. Includes public sources as reports and documents, but also unpublished
work such as letters and memos. Most of the times this kind of literature is very detailed, but not easy to
access, therefore it is sometimes referred to as grey literature.

Secondary literature

Is aimed at a wider audience, easier to locate and better covered by tertiary literature. This includes books,
journals and newspapers.

Tertiary literature

Also called search tools, to locate primary and secondary literature. They include online search tools,
databases, and dictionaries.

Especially journals are a essential literature source for virtually any research, since they provide a researcher
with information which focused on his subject area. Nowadays it is easy to access journals via online
databases. Refereed academic journals only publish articles which are evaluated by academics before their
publication. These articles are therefore characterized by their quality and suitability. Professional journals
are made for their members by various organizations. Their articles are usually more of practical nature than
those of refereed academic journals.

3.4 Planning a literature search strategy

If one starts his search for literature, it is important to have clearly defined research questions, objectives and
outline proposal. This prevents information overload. One should make a search strategy which includes:

• The parameters of the search

• The key words and search terms
• The databases and search engines you’re going to use
• The criteria to select relevant and useful studies

Defining parameters
One way to start searching for parameters is to browse lecture notes and course textbooks and make notes
for research question.
Generating search terms
It is important to read articles from key authors as well as recent review articles in the area of research. This
will help generating key words. Recent review articles are sometimes also helpful to refine search terms, plus
they will sometime refer to other work which may be relevant to your project. The identification of search
terms is an essential part of planning a search for relevant literature. The definition of search terms is: basic
terms that describe research questions and objectives and shall be used to search the tertiary literature.
Different techniques for generating search terms are:

1. Discussion
2. Initial reading, dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks and thesauruses
3. Search on Google with ‘define: (enter term)’
4. Brainstorming
5. Relevance trees: constructed after brainstorming - see box 3.11 on page 96

3.5 Conducting literature search

While most it is very tempting to start a literature search with using a search engine such as Google, this must
be handled with care, as the research project should be an academic piece of work and hence must utilise
academic sources. Search should therefore be used to provide access to academic literature. Conducting
literature search can be done by:

1. Using Tertiary literature sources

2. Obtaining literature referenced in books and journal articles you already read
3. Using Internet: see Table 3.4 and figure 3.3
4. Scanning and browsing secondary literature in the library
5. Searching the Internet

3.6 Obtaining and evaluating the literature

Box 3.15 on page 108 displays a checklist of what should be done to evaluate the literature.

3.7 Recording literature

It is important to make notes of the literature one has read, because it will help thinking though the ideas in
the literature in relation to the research. When making notes there are three sets of information one needs to
record:

• Bibliographic details
• Brief summary of content
• Supplementary information