THE RESEARCH

PROCESS
Literature Review
Definitions

“a critical evaluation of materials that have been

published (books, articles) or unpublished (theses) in
the area that is being research”

“an evaluative report of information found in the

literature related to your selected area of study. You
should describe, summarize, evaluate and clarify. It
should help you to determine the nature of your
research”

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Definitions

“as a broad, comprehensive, in-depth, systematic, and

critical review of scholarly publications, unpublished
scholarly print materials, audiovisual materials, and
personal communications”

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The Literature Review
• The review of the literature is traditionally considered a
systematic and critical review of the most important
published scholarly literature on a particular topic.
• Scholarly literature refer to published and unpublished
data based literature and conceptual literature materials
found in print and non print forms.

ØData based literature reports of completed research

ØConceptual literature reports of theories, concepts

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 Relationship of Review of Literature to Theory,
Research, Education & Practice

Research

Review of
Literature

Education Practice

Theory

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Reason for conducting a Literature Review
The overall reason of literature review is to discover knowledge

a) Research reasons of literature review:

1. Determines an appropriate research design/method
(instruments, data collection and analysis methods) for
answering the research question;
2. Determines the need for replication of a well designed
study or refinement of a study.

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Reason for conducting a Literature Review
b) Non Research reasons of literature review:
1. Determines what is known about a subject, concept or problem;
2. Determines gaps, consistencies & inconsistencies about a
subject, concept or problem;
3. Discovers unanswered questions about a subject, concept or
problem;
4. Describes strengths & weaknesses of designs, methods of
inquiry and instruments used in earlier works;
5. Discovers conceptual traditions used to examine problems;
6. Generates useful research questions or projects/activities for
the discipline;
7. Promotes development of protocols & policies related to
information field;

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 The Use of Literature Review in Research
1. Theoretical framework
The literature defines concepts and terms in relation to the
study

2. Problem statement and hypotheses

• The literature review helps to determine what is known
and not known; to uncover gaps, consistencies, or
inconsistencies, or to reveal unanswered questions about
a subject, concept or problem
• The literature review allows for refinement of research
problems and questions and/or hypotheses

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The Use of Literature Review in Research
3. Design and method
The literature review reveals strengths and weaknesses of
designs and methods of previous research studies

4. Outcome of the analysis (findings, implications, and

recommendations)
The literature review is used to discuss the results or
findings of a study. The discussion relates the study’s
findings to what was or was not found in the review of
literature

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Writing and Presenting
Literature Review

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Information Sources for Literature Review
• In academic literature, articles in peer-reviewed journals
are considered the best.

• As a student at UiTM, you have access to the PTAR

Library’s Databases.

• There are field-specific databases (e.g., Emerald, ProQuest,

Science Direct, Ebscohost) and general (e.g., Academic
Search Premier).

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 Some general guidelines…

• Start with the MOST RECENT and WORK BACKWARDS to

the oldest. Many books suggest using a five-year span
from the present for sufficient coverage.
• Read through abstracts to identify if an article would be
good.
• Believe it or not, some academicians (including me)
actually start with a GOOGLE search or even with
WIKIPEDIA to get a general idea about a field.
• Look for MAJOR figures in the field and MAJOR
studies/articles.

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 Some general guidelines…

• When writing a thesis or dissertation, it is important to

demonstrate how your research is integral to the field.
• Your study/paper/thesis performs at least one of the
following:
a) Closes gaps in the research;
b) Tests an aspect of a theory;
c) Replicates an important study;
d) Retests a hypothesis with a new or improved methodology;
e) Resolves conflicts in the field;
f) Creates original research (this is rare).

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 Creating the Outline
• The good literature will start with a good outline.
• At a minimum, you will have:
1. An introduction that establishes the importance of the topic, the
scope of the review, and the organization of the paper;
2. The major section headers and sub-sections that follow the same
organization as the organization established in the introduction;
3. Summary of findings, implications of findings, and discussion.

• A general organization looks like a funnel :

ØBroader topics
ØSubtopics
ØStudies like yours

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 Summary table
• It is useful to prepare.
• Such a table provides a quick overview that allows the
reviewer to make sense of a large mass of information.
• The tables could include columns with headings such as
• Author
• type of study
• Sample
• Design
• data collection approach
• key findings

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Summary table of literature Citation Sample Environment Method Conclusions

Atmospherics in service environments Colour

Bellizzi, Crowley and 125 Adults Furniture store Laboratory Warm and cool colours created different emotional
Hasty (1983) experiment responses. Customers view red retail environments as
Photographic more negative and unpleasant than blue.
slide
simulations
Bellizzi, & Hite 70 Adult women Televisions Laboratory Study based on PAD affect measures and approach-
(1992) 107 Students shown with experiments avoidance behaviours.
different colour Photographic More positive retail outcomes occurred in blue
backgrounds slide environments than red.
Furniture stores simulations

Music
Smith and Curnow 1100 Retail store Field Time in store reduced with loud music but level of sales
(1966) Supermarket experiment did not.
shoppers
Milliman (1982) 216 Shoppers Supermarket Field The tempo of background music influenced the pace at
experiment which customers shopped. Slow tempo music slowed
customers down but resulted in increased volume of
sales.
Hui, Dubé and Chebat 116 Students Bank branch Laboratory The positive impact of music on approach behaviours is
(1997) - waiting for experiment mediated by an emotional evaluation of the environment
service. Video and the emotional response to waiting. Pleasurable music
simulation produced longer perceived waiting times.

Lighting
Areni and Kim (1994) 171 Shoppers Wine store Field The investigation found that brighter in-store lighting
experiment influenced shoppers to examine and handle more of the
merchandise in the store
Summers and Hebert 2367 Customers Hardware store Field Confirmed Areni and Kims (1994) results. Increased
(2001) Apparel store experiment levels of lighting will produce arousal and pleasure and
increase the approach behaviours of customers.

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 Making links between studies
Agreements
• Similarly, author B points to…
• Likewise, author C makes the case that…
• Author D also makes this point…
• Again, it is possible to see how author E agrees with author D…

Disagreements
• However, author B points to…
• On the other hand, author C makes the case that…
• Conversely, Author D argues…
• Nevertheless, what author E suggests…

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 Citation styles
• Information prominent citation
Example:
Growing organism required library to employ actual creativity and
innovativeness to craft unique services and new systems, which make
use of the tools, the skills and the talents of the librarians and libraries
(Ranganathan, 1931).

• Author prominent citation

Examples:
• McGee and Prusak (1993) argued that information is more than
collected data; rather, information represents data that are organized,
ordered, and imbued with meaning and context.
• Information needs arise when an individual finds himself in a problem
situation, when he or she no longer can manage with the knowledge
that he or she already possess (Talja, 1996; Itoga, 1992).

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 Reporting verbs
• Argue • Note
• Assert • Object
• Assume • Observe
• Challenge • Persuade
• Claim • Propose
• Contend • Prove
• Contradict • Purport
• Describe • Recommend
• Dispute • Refute
• Emphasize • Reject
• Establish • Remark
• Examine • Suggest
• Find • Support
• Maintain

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 Verb tenses – Present

• A statement about what the thesis, chapter or section

does
Examples:
• This thesis presents a report of an investigation into …….
• This chapter thus provides a basis for the next.
• In this section, the results from the first set of experiments are
reported.
• A statement of a generally accepted academic fact
Examples:
• There are three different types of business information namely;
public information, propriety information and controlled
information.

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 Verb tenses – Present

• A review of current research work, or research work of

immediate relevance to your study.
Example:
• Nwankwo (1995) concludes, insufficient understanding of customer
orientation can lead to a problem.

• Comments, explanations and evaluative statements made

by you when you are reviewing previous studies.
Examples:
• Their application in the librarianship and information's field,
therefore, is consistent with the customer-focused philosophy.
• Therefore, the opinions and views of certain scholars and writers
was used as a guide in giving an operational definition.

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 Verb tenses – Past

• Report the contents, findings or conclusions of past research

Examples:
• This finding shows that the quality of business information remains
questionable and leaves a lot to be explored which they referred as
a serious gap between what providers delivered and what
customers expected (Okello-Obura et. al., 2007).
• Their findings show that business information providers must
creative in meeting this complex information needs.

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 Verb tenses – Present perfect
• In citations where the focus is on the research area of several authors
Examples:
• Recently, there is a lot of research focuses on the concerns and the
role of the customer in a products or service's creation and
promotes customer-oriented concepts in value creations (e.g.. Gault,
2012; Kuusisto & Mikko, 2011; von Hippel et al., 2011; Oliveira & von
Hippel, 2011; Schaan & Uhrbach, 2009).
• Systematic studies prove businesses that improve its customer-
driven will enhance its performance (Appiah-Adu & Singh, 1998;
Woodruff, 1997; Deshpande et al., 1993; Levitt, 1960).
• To generalize about the extent of the previous research
Examples:
• Many studies have been conducted in this field.
• Few researchers have examined this technique.
• There has been extensive research into.........

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 Thank You
zaidisahid@gmail.com

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