Reviewing the Literature

an introduction to the lighthouse

A literature review…
“[I]s an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers”
(Dena Taylor, Director, Health Sciences Writing Centre, and Margaret Procter, Coordinator, Writing Support, University of
Toronto)

“[D]iscusses published information in a particular subject area, and sometimes information in a

particular subject area within a certain time period” (University of North Carolina website)

“[I]s a body of text that aims to review the critical points of current knowledge on a particular topic”
(Wikipedia 3-19-07)

“A Literature Review Surveys scholarly articles, books, and other sources (e.g., dissertations,
conference proceedings) relevant to a topic… Its purpose is to demonstrate that the writer has
insightfully and critically surveyed relevant literature on his or her topic in order to convince an
intended audience that the topic is worth addressing” (Irene L. Clark, Writing the Successful Thesis and Dissertation:
Entering the Discussion, 105)
A literature review is not…
• An annotated bibliography
• A list of seemingly unrelated sources
• A literary survey containing author’s bio, lists of works,
summaries of sources
• Background information or explanations of concepts
• An argument for the importance of your research (although
the LR can and often does support your position)
What is the purpose of a literature
review?
• To describe, summarise, evaluate, clarify and/or integrate the
content of primary reports.
• Not to report new primary data.
• Not only academic exercise for students
• A scholarly activity leading to reviews published in prestigious
journals.
Why should a research student write a
literature review?
• Mandated requirement at FEB UGM for research students
• Essential to know what has been done before starting a research project
• A thorough knowledge of the literature will enable you to point to gaps
and controversies in the field and to plan future work to fill those gaps
and settle controversies
• Essential to be able to put your work in a larger context to write
introductions and discussions in your thesis.
• Demonstrated ability to assimilate and interpret the literature is essential
to academic credibility.
Who needs to write a literature review?
• All students starting a research higher degree, or undertaking
“qualifying” courses prior to starting a research degree
• Some students doing coursework higher degrees
• Typically prepared in conjunction with a research proposal as
the substantive written work for the Confirmation of
Candidature
The most important skills are…
• The capacity to evaluate what you read
• The capacity to relate what you read to other information
Wallace and Wray (2006)

• Demonstrate that you have read, understood and evaluated your

material
• Link the different ideas to form a cohesive and coherent argument
• Make clear connections to your research objectives and the
subsequent empirical material
Saunders et al. (2009)
Types of literature review
e.g., part of larger work
introduction to e.g., thesis/
a journal dissertation
article

selective comprehensive

e.g., course e.g., review

assignment article
stand alone work
Steps in conducting a literature review
1. Begin by identifying key words
2. With these keywords begin searching books, journals, online databases etc.
3. Initially try to locate as many as you can, reports of research articles or books related
to your topic
4. Skim this initial group of articles or chapters and duplicate those that are central to
your topic
5. As you identify useful literature, begin designing a conceptual map. This is a visual
picture of groupings of literature on the topic
6. As you put together the conceptual map, begin to draft summaries of the most
relevant articles, so that they can be combined into the final literature review
7. After summarizing the literature, assemble the literature review, structuring it
thematically or organizing it by important concepts
What is expected at this level?
• Demonstrate your command of the literature
• Clearly cross-examine the literature, bringing out the arguments for and against or
the controversy
• Distinguish between varying schools of thought and authoritative perspectives
• You should be able to reveal the gaps in the existing literature
• At the end you should be a ‘Samurai’ in your particular subject matter
• Use a good range of high level authoritative sources
• You should get to the original work or theory and not rely on the account of other
• Remember that the literature review is ongoing
Types of literature
• Peer reviewed literature
• Primary literature -articles published in reputable journals
• Secondary literature- advanced textbooks and review articles
• Non-peer-reviewed literature
• Tertiary literature- undergraduate textbooks
• Grey literature – reports and unpublished documents
• Internet
• Be discriminating
Identifying sources (Saunders et al., 2009)
Where to start your search
• Electronic databases
“Any idiot can type a search term into an • www.jstor.org
internet search engine, and many idiots do.” • Search.epnet.com (EBSCO)
• www.nber.com
Rugg & Petre (2007)
• www.econpapers.repec.org
• University pages
• You can search for: • Library
• Title • Social media for researchers
• Author • academia.edu
• Keyword • researchgate.net
• JEL classification • ssrn.com
• In text: abstract or full • scholar.google.com
Never-ending process of research
Concepts Deductive
theory

Data Research
analysis question

Empirical
Inductive data

Where is the place of literature reviewing?

Paradox of
literature review
(Saunders et al., 2003)

You read to know, but

You have to know what to read
(and you have to have some
knowledge to understand)

Solution: iterative process of

research reviewing
Digging into the literature
= Major works
B

A C
 Major works
=
Studies that rely on
= the major works

A C

D
 Major works
=
Studies that build on
= Ideas in major works

= New major work B

A C

D
 Indirect effects influence
Extrinsic factors maternal strategies
Environmental variability

Intrinsic factors
(i.e. local and global fators)
Predation
Individual fitness
Density-dependence Sex differences
(i.e competition) Indirect effects influence Body mass
Age structure individual fitness Body condition
Direct effects
Early development
induce variation
in demographic
rates Maternal investment
determines

Demographic traits individual fitness

(i.e. the fitness components) Maternal factors

Sex ratio at birth (i.e costs of reproduction)
Juvenile survival Trivers Willard hypothesis
Age/Size at weaning
Age/Size at maturity
Adult survival
Fecundity
Selection pressures on mean demographic Effect of variation in demographic rates
rates influence population fitness on variation in population fitness

Population fitness Interaction Temporal variability in

Elasticity/sensitivity of population growth
rate to demographic traits
demographic rates
Life Table Response Experiment
Covariation between rates
Expectations for life history strategy given
elasticity and temporal variability of rates Variation in demographic rates
causes population fluctuations

Patterns of variability in Population dynamics

P. assimilis life history Fluctuations in population density
Evolution of demographic traits in variable
environments determine life history strategy
Comparison with ungulate herbivores

Prepared by Steven Delean

Critical evaluation of the literature
• Logically organize your material according to issues
• Ensure that the amount of detail included on an issue relates to its
importance
• Be appropriately critical of design and methodological issues – don’t be
afraid to criticize or emotive in your criticism
• Indicate when results were conflicting or inconclusive and discussed
possible reasons
• Indicate the relevance of each reference to your research
• Don’t write a list, write a synthesis and a critique
Four analysis tasks of the literature
review
TASKS OF
LITERATURE
REVIEW

SUMMARIZE SYNTHESIZE CRITIQUE COMPARE

Summary and synthesis
In your own words, summarize and/or synthesize the key
findings relevant to your study.
• What do we know about the immediate area?
• What are the key arguments, key characteristics, key concepts
or key figures?
• What are the existing debates/theories?
• What common methodologies are used?
Sample language for summary and
synthesis
• Normadin (1978) has demonstrated…
• Early work by Hausman, Schwarz, and Graves (2000) was
concerned with…
• Elsayed and Stern (1999) compared algorithms for
handling…
• Additional work by Karasawa et al. (2000), Azadivar (1989),
and Parry et al. (2010) deals with…
Under the restriction of small populations, four possible ways [to avoid premature convergence]
were presented. The first one is to revise the gene operators. . . .Griffiths and Miles (1978) applied
advanced two-dimensional gene operators to search the optimal cross-section of a beam and
significantly improve results. The second way is to adjust gene probability. Leite and Topping (1989)
adopted a variable mutation probability and obtained an outperformed result.

Piaget’s theory of stages of cognitive development and Erikson’s stages of psychosocial

development are commonly used for educational psychology courses (Borich & Tombari, 1997;
LeFrancois, 1997; Slavin, 1997). Piaget described characteristic behaviors, including artistic ones
such as drawing, as evidence of how children think and what children do as they progress beyond
developmental milestones into and through stages of development.
Comparison and critique
Evaluates the strength and weaknesses of the work:
• How do the different studies relate? What is new, different, or
controversial?
• What views need further testing?
• What evidence is lacking, inconclusive, contradicting, or too
limited?
• What research designs or methods seem unsatisfactory?
Sample language for comparison and
critique
• In this ambitious but questionably flawed study, Jones and
Wang (1995) …
• These general results, reflecting the stochastic nature of the
flow of goods, are similar to those reported by Rosenblatt
and Roll (2001)…
The situationist model has also received its share of criticism. One of the most frequently
cited shortcomings of this approach centers around the assumption that individuals enter
into the work context tabula rasa.

The critical response to the poetry of Phillis Wheatley often registers disappointment or
surprise. Some critics have complained that the verse of this African American slave is
insecure (Collins 1975, 78), imitative (Richmond 1974, 54-66), and incapacitated (Burke
1991, 33, 38)——at worst, the product of a “White mind” (Jameson 1974, 414-15). Others,
in contrast, have applauded Wheatley’s critique of Anglo-American discourse (Kendrick
1993,222-23), her revision of literary models…
Evaluative adjectives
• Unusual • Complex
• Small • Competent
• Simple • Important
• Exploratory • Innovative
• Limited • Impressive
• Restricted • Useful
• Flawed • Careful
Common faults
• No theme connecting all the elements together
• Too narrow a view of the topic area
• Only a justification for the research idea is given
• Repeating the same materials several times
• Too few sources used
• A narrow range of sources is used i.e. only internet sources
• Poor use of citations
• No student content and the work relies entirely on the quotation or paraphrase, etc.
• The student has no idea whether they are quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing,
analyzing, etc.
• Plagiarism
Major pitfall
• Presenting a mere summary of the articles and books read
• Each article or book being given one paragraph
• Arrange paragraphs alphabetically in author order
• No link or theme between ideas presented by various authors

DO NOT DO THIS, IT WILL NOT CONSTITUE BEING CRTICAL

Smith (1970) reported that bilbies come out at night and eat chocolates.
Jones (1972) described the variety of beetles eaten by bilbies on their
daytime trips. Wheeler (1974) claimed that bilbies eat only apples.

There has been considerable disagreement over the diurnal activity rhythms and food
of bilbies. For instance, Smith (1970) found them to be nocturnal whereas Jones (1972)
reported that they are daytime foragers. Smith (1970) also reported a fondness for
chocolate, a finding rejected by Jones (1972) and Wheeler (1974) who disagreed with
each other, Jones describing beetles and Wheeler apples as the preferred food.

Given findings from related animals it is hard to believe that either daytime foraging or
feeding on chocolates or apples (neither of which is indigenous to the area) could be
correct interpretations. The questions of foraging times and the food sought thus
remain to be adequately investigated.
Plagiarism
• Plagiarism is the use of another person’s work without acknowledgment
• direct duplication, by copying (or allowing to be copied) another’s work
• paraphrasing another person’s work with minor changes, but keeping the meaning,
form and/or progression of ideas of the original
• piecing together sections of the work of others into a new whole
• Whenever you make a statement or present a fact or idea that you have
obtained from the literature, you should cite the relevant paper(s)
Writing literature review
In the introduction, you should:
• Define or identify the general topic, issue, or area of concern, thus providing an appropriate context for reviewing the literature.
• Point out overall trends in what has been published about the topic; or conflicts in theory, methodology, evidence, and conclusions; or
gaps in research
• Establish the writer's reason (point of view) for reviewing the literature; explain the criteria to be used in analyzing and comparing
literature
In the body, you should:
• Group research studies and other types of literature (reviews, theoretical articles, case studies, etc.) according to common
denominators such as qualitative versus quantitative approaches, conclusions of authors, specific purpose or objective, etc.
• Summarize individual studies
• Make comparisons and analyses.
In the conclusion, you should:
• Summarize major contributions of significant studies and articles to the body of knowledge under review, maintaining the focus
established in the introduction.
• Evaluate the current "state of the art" pointing out major methodological flaws or gaps in research, inconsistencies in theory and
findings, and areas or issues pertinent to future study.
• Conclude by providing some insight into the relationship between the central topic of the literature review and a larger area of study
(rationale - justification of your work, an explanation of the fundamental reasons for your research)
Writing
• Consider your audience
• Use active voice where possible
• Don’t be afraid of the first person – but check with your
supervisor
• Use present tense for published work of others unless it is
time specific
• Use past tense for your unpublished work (which is probably
not relevant in the literature review)
• Avoid jargon
Make clear what is important
• Identify your take home message
• Cross-reference the various sections
• If part of your thesis – link to your research objectives
• Don’t leave the reader thinking why do I need to know this
• Make appropriate use of tables to summarise information
• Use figures to develop conceptual models or to make illustrate difficult
to describe material

David Blair
Homework assignment
• Identify your research scope and scale
• Focus on your problem definition
• Formulate a research question
• Define your research aim
• Specify your research objectives
• Identify key relevant literatures
• Write your literature review
Thank you
“There are no short cuts. Don’t expect anyone else to do this work for you.”
Kurt Levin