Notes: Writing Review of Related Literature

As stated by the U.S. Council on Library and Information Services (2019), a literature review
may consist of simply a summary of main points from related sources, but in the social sciences,
it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis within
specific conceptual categories.

Purposes of a literature review aside from giving support to the topic, according to Baraceros
(2016), the purposes of a literature review are as follows:
➢ To know the different concepts, ideas, theories that are related to your study and learn from
them through connecting them with your own research paper.
➢ To have more basis in proving that your research topic is correct and relevant.
➢ To learn more terms, especially the unfamiliar ones, that are related to your study.
➢ To connect the past researches, thesis or dissertation to your current research study.
➢ To know the connectedness of your paper to the current situation of the country and of the
world.

SELECTING RELEVANT LITERATURE

Once you have found the articles, books, or information, you need to examine
the materials. To help you in choosing the right reference, check out these guidelines:
1. Examine the title – A good title should be specific and contains the major variables of the
study.
2. Screening for inclusion – This includes the applicability of the studies previously identified and
selecting or excluding them.
3. Extracting data – This involves gathering applicable information from each primary study
included in the review.
4. Analyzing and synthesizing data – This last step requires the authors to organize, compare,
collate, summarize, aggregate, or interpret the information previously extracted to suggest a
new contribution to the body of knowledge.

In doing the guidelines above, you must be selective in choosing the right context.
With this, you do not have to write or copy everything, you should only choose the
words, terms, or phrases that are highly relevant and helpful to your topic. Never to
omit important ones.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MATERIALS CITED

Samo (2017) identified the different characteristics of the literature and studies to be
acknowledged in the present studies.
1. Materials must be relevant to the research topic.
2. Materials must be as objective and unbiased as possible.
3. Materials must be as recent as possible, up to 10 years back.
CITING RELATED LITERATURE USING STANDARD STYLES
In taking down notes for your review of related literature, you should also include where you get
those details so that you can acknowledge the creator. There are different formats in citing
sources for the research paper. Here are some of the most common citation styles:

✓ APA (American Psychological Association). It is an author/date-based citation style. This

means the emphasis is placed on the author and the date of a piece of work to uniquely identify
it. (Author, date) Author (Date)
✓ MLA (Modern Language Association). It is the most often used in arts and humanities papers
particularly in the USA. It is probably the most used of all citation styles. Unlike in APA, MLA
emphasizes on the author and page of the article/source used. (Author page), Author (page)
✓ AMA (American Medical Association) or Vancouver. The Vancouver system is mainly used in
medical and scientific papers.
✓ Chicago Manual of Style. It includes two systems for in-text citation such as author-date
system and notes-bibliography system. The NB system is mostly used in historical papers. It is
almost similar to that of the APA in-text citation style.

Examples:
• APA – (Reyes, 2012) or Reyes (2012)
• MLA – (Reyes p917)
• AMA/Vancouver – numbering with either square [ ] or curved brackets ( ) can
be used as long as it is consistent (i.e. Research is exciting! [1])
• Chicago – (Reyes 2012) or Reyes (2012)
In writing the research paper, for this matter, you will need to use the Chicago
Manual of Style (CMOS) 17th edition format. With the mentioned two systems of CMOS above,
you will only use the author-date system. Remember that you should always align your
parenthetical citations to that of your reference list. And since you are to use the author-date
system, the term to be used for the complete list of sources is ‘References’ rather than
‘Bibliography’.

How to Use Proper CMOS Citation

Not all the time that author is only one. There are instances that authors are
multiples and/or if the date is not available.
✓ When citing multiple authors (this refers to 2-3 authors) in a parenthetical
citation, use the word “and” instead of ampersand “&”.
✓ When citing multiple authors (this refers to 4 to 10 authors) in a parenthetical
citation, write out the last name of the first author plus “et al.” without a
comma after the last name.
✓ If there is no available date of publication, you can use the access date or use
the abbreviation “n.d.”
✓ If there is no author, cite by its title. But make sure to make it shorten (up to
four keywords).
Two Authors: (Ramsay and Dawson 2009) or Ramsay and Dawson (2009)
Four to ten authors: Gadzinski et al. (2019) …
ETHICS IN LITERATURE REVIEW
A literature review is sometimes the center of plagiarism especially on the lower school levels as
the students are not fond of searching the correct articles and reading the whole literature.
Students nowadays are more tempted to copy everything from the internet (with no citation) and
submit it to the teacher. These principles in writing would help the students to realize how
important it is to give credits and to be original.

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, to "plagiarize" means:

✓ to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
✓ to use (another's production) without crediting the source
✓ to commit literary theft
✓ to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

Remember that if there is word-for-word copying beyond a short phrase of someone else’s text,
that selection should be enclosed in quotation marks and referenced at the location of the
article.