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Crafting a Literature Review: Unveiling the Complexity

Navigating the intricate landscape of academic literature can be a daunting task, especially when it
comes to composing a literature review. This foundational element of scholarly research requires a
meticulous approach, adept critical analysis, and comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.
As researchers delve into the process, they often encounter numerous challenges that can impede
their progress and compromise the quality of their work.

One of the primary hurdles in writing a literature review is the sheer volume of available literature.
Sorting through vast amounts of academic texts, articles, and studies to identify relevant sources
demands substantial time and effort. Moreover, synthesizing diverse perspectives and findings into a
coherent narrative requires a keen analytical eye and strong organizational skills.

Another challenge lies in maintaining objectivity and impartiality throughout the review process.
Researchers must critically evaluate each source, assess its credibility, and discern its relevance to the
research topic. Balancing multiple viewpoints while avoiding bias is a delicate task that demands
careful attention and scrutiny.

Additionally, ensuring the coherence and flow of the literature review presents its own set of
difficulties. Integrating various sources seamlessly, articulating connections between different
studies, and constructing a logical argument require a nuanced understanding of the subject matter
and effective communication skills.

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This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without
permission. MA made substantial contributions to the design of the rapid review. If you do a
thorough review of the relevant literature (as you must!), you’re going to read many, many articles,
and it’s simply impossible to remember who said what, when, and in what context. We reviewed
existing literature to identify indicators for measuring structural, process, and outcome metrics and
analyze their utility in care settings. After this first exploration, you will conduct a deeper dive into
the literature to learn everything you can about the topic and its related issues. Summarise the key
points evaluated in the discussion section. The wider a research question is, the larger number of
search hits it tends to generate. As a study of the research on a particular topic, it is arranged by key
themes or findings, which may lead up to or link to the research question. The search strategy is often
presented in the form of a table. Here are some tips to help you structure your literature review
effectively: A. Finally, tighten it up and send it off to your supervisor for comment. The right choice
depends on your topic, research objectives and research questions, which we discuss in this article.
Read not only for information, but also to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look
for in your own research review. Data extraction produced a total of 229 quality indicators that were
sorted into three indicator categories using the Donabedian model: structure, process, and outcome.
For example qualitative studies can suggest reasons. Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established
knowledge. Questions for Further Research: What questions about the field has the review sparked.
Sometimes also referred to as a traditional literature review. Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant
Research, but Be Objective In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies
relevant to the review they are writing. View all journals Explore content About the journal Publish
with us Sign up for alerts CAREER FEATURE 04 December 2020 Correction 09 December 2020
How to write a superb literature review Andy Tay is a freelance writer based in Singapore. Your
professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll
make your job easier if you first limit the scope of your research problem. Are there challenges,
controversies, and contradictions. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript. The
impact of covid-19 pandemic on temporal trends of workplace violence against healthcare workers
in the emergency department. For the purpose of this review, WPV is defined as an act or attempt of
physical or verbal abuse or the use of threatening behaviour by a patient, caregiver, chosen family
member or visitor towards a worker in their workplace. While a systematic literature review is
usually grounded in a clearly delimited and structured question, a scoping review may, for instance,
feature a wider problem formulation. Our literature review top tips suggest some specific things you
can do to help you submit a successful review. This square may be circled by discussing the wider
implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines. A good way of achieving a structured final
search query is to arrange your search terms into search blocks; these blocks should arise from the
key concepts of your research question. To write a strong stand-alone literature review, you should
approach the research using a step-by-step process.
Data charting process Data charting was facilitated through the Covidence platform which allowed
custom entry fields to be included in charts. Charted data was continuously and iteratively updated
as each reviewer completed their screening of studies. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current
Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. Find subject
headings for PubMed with the help of the US National Library of Medicine's MeSH database. State
the research questions or objectives that you aim to address through your literature review. B.
Identify the relevant literature Conduct a comprehensive search of the literature using academic
databases, such as Google Scholar, PubMed, and JSTOR. In a larger piece of written work, such as a
dissertation or project, a literature review is usually one of the first tasks carried out after deciding
on a topic. Web sources are searched via Scirus, and include author homepages, university sites and
resources such as the preprint servers CogPrints and ArXiv.org, and OAI compliant resources.
However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main
points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. Which points do the
researchers agree (and disagree) on. You can also try to explain your literature review structure to
someone who knows little about the field, to test whether it is clear and logical. Provides the
framework for reporting the results and indicates what is probably necessary to conduct the study
and explain how the findings will present this information. Steps to searching ebooks are covered in
the Finding Ebooks tutorial. News Production Workflows in Data- driven, Algorithmic Journalism: A
Systema. Instead, it should be organised by topic (normally, from general background to specific
aspects of the subject your dissertation is dealing with). This work was supported by the UHN
Quality Improvement Physicians Grant. The final 43 studies were reviewed for data extraction and
analysis. A chronological literature review presents the literature in form of publication, highlighting
the historical perspective of the research field. D. Critically evaluate the literature Analyse the
literature critically by comparing and contrasting different studies, highlighting their strengths and
weaknesses, and identifying significant flaws, themes or gaps in existing knowledge. The 84
indicators related to structural components primarily focused on evaluating objective and subjective
measures of organizational preparedness for WPV incidents. Usually you will need to synthesize
research rather than just summarizing it. When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a
quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. Time constraints of this review meant that each study
was reviewed expeditiously, and quality appraisal of included studies were limited, increasing the
risk of bias and reduced confidence in findings. This use of specific indicators allows for deeper
understanding and resource allocation efficient compared to general indicators that may have less
utility, broader resource focus, and lack fulsome understanding. There is an increasing interest in the
visual aspects of social media. OR cross organisation OR cross organization OR cross organizational
OR. Perhaps you need to remove one of your search blocks, add one or several synonyms within a
search block, or search for parts of words by truncating one or several of your free-text search terms,
in order to broaden your search. Appreciate and good reference in guiding me in my research journey.
What type of literature review do you think this study is and why. Stand-alone literature reviews are
the most common type of literature review and are frequently assigned by professors. It is often
written as part of a dissertation, thesis, research paper, or proposal. After the introduction, it grounds
your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology.
Communications of the Association of Information Systems, 37 (43), 879-910. Web sources are
searched via Scirus, and include author homepages, university sites and resources such as the
preprint servers CogPrints and ArXiv.org, and OAI compliant resources. What are some strategies or
tips I can use while writing my lit review. Three conceptual approaches to health disparity were
given particular attention during the review process: (I) trauma-informed approach, (II) intersectional
identities theory, and (III) minority stress theory. At its core, a concept map consists of nodes, which
represent individual concepts or ideas, and links, which depict the relationships between these
concepts. WPV incidents are stressful, acute situations where the impact of unconscious biases can
result in unwanted outcomes. CSQ reviewed the rapid review manuscript critically for important
intellectual content, provided final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be
accountable for all aspects of the work. It will increase the readability score as well as the reader’s
eagerness. Start your evaluation from the general subject area and move on to specify it to your
research question. Search methods Precise searches were designed by an experienced health sciences
librarian in Ovid databases, Medline, Embase, and Emcare based on two target papers and input
from the research team. Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an
introduction, a main body, and a conclusion. Although consensus was ultimately achieved for each
individual indicator, the reviewers were aware that certain indicators may be susceptible to
alternative categorizations owing to inherent ambivalence. The content will look slightly different in
each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. This article has
been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature
review. You need to make a very clear connection with your study. For example, some scholars have
examined the social aspects of a topic while others have explored its economic aspects. For example,
an indicator measuring the incidence of WPV related to care of psychiatric patients may suggest
interventions that target patients with mental health issues regardless of their actual risk. A logging
system is needed to make sure all relevant studies. What's important is that your search strategy is
able to retrieve the type of articles that you are looking for, and that you are not overwhelmed by the
total number of hits (given the time frame of your thesis project). Ten Simple Rules for Writing a
Literature Review Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience How to choose which topic to review. Social
media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok Body image, self-perception, self-esteem,
mental health Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth Search for relevant sources Use your
keywords to begin searching for sources. Depending on the field, the literature review might be a
stand-alone piece or part of a larger research article. Use Quotes Sparingly: Some short quotes are
okay if you want to emphasize a point, or if what the author said just cannot be rewritten in your
own words. Video Link: Writing the Literature Review: A Banquet Hall Analogy Structure of a
literature review A literature review should have an introduction, main body and a conclusion. BS
provided substantial contributions to the conception of the rapid review, reviewed the rapid review
manuscript critically for important intellectual content, provided final approval of the version to be
published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work. Methodologies, findings and
limits of the existing body of knowledge are discussed in narrative form. How to do a structured
search in PubMed Step 4: narrowing or broadening your search. Hence, when searching a free-text
database, you can only use free-text search terms. Find subject headings An effective way to increase
the structure of your final search strategy is to arrange your search terms in so-called search blocks.
If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. All
of the elements come together to form a coherent look (synthesis).
Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously,
this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
The process of performing a systematic literature review must be transparent and. Furthermore,
studies that were inaccessible publicly or through our institution could not be included in the review.
One way to define and structure your question is to break it down into different parts. The literature
review gives you a chance to: Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research Position yourself in relation to
other researchers and theorists Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a
debate You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. This technique
will give you a strong indication of which points were clearly communicated and which weren’t. A
literature review also includes a critical evaluation of the material; this is why it is called a literature
review rather than a literature report. I am doing two papers on my final year thesis, and I must stay
I feel very confident to face both headlong after reading this article. Instantly correct all language
mistakes in your text Be assured that you'll submit flawless writing. Be sure to meet with a reference
librarian if you are unsure how to create an effective search strategy. It is a tool for organizing and
representing information in a hierarchical and interconnected manner. The population of interest is
children enrolled in early childhood education programs between the ages of 0 and 5 and their
control-group counterparts. The 24 outcome indicators focused on adverse events affecting
stakeholders involved in WPV incidents. Print Friendly Organizing and Creating Information
Citation and Attribution What Is a Literature Review. Make sure the sources you use are credible,
and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research. There are
many different ways of searching databases. A methodological scope will influence either the types
of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed. Springer Nature
remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
SCOPUS Covering the life, physical, health, and social sciences, Scopus is a large abstract and
citation database of research literature and web sources. My advice is, while reading, to start writing
down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on
what to write. A research paper may receive critical feedback from reviewers or journal editors if
there is ambiguity in the way it is written. Subject headings are subject-related words that an article
is tagged with when the article is added to the database. Additional Resources References Appendix
Answer Key Literature Review Example for Education Literature Review Example for Nursing
References (By Chapter) Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7
Chapter 8 Image Attributions (By Chapter) Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5
Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 About the Authors Accessibility Assessment A note from the Rebus
Community Webbook Checklist Review Statement Version History. State the research questions or
objectives that you aim to address through your literature review. B. Identify the relevant literature
Conduct a comprehensive search of the literature using academic databases, such as Google Scholar,
PubMed, and JSTOR. For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant
health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes,
legal status, and economic access. Well, there are (at least) four core functions: For you to gain an
understanding (and demonstrate this understanding) of where the research is at currently, what the
key arguments and disagreements are. It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where
you compile full reference information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each
source. Most students understand the first point but don’t give any thought to the rest. In the fourth
stage, the ?nal sample passed a ?rst categorization. This landscape informs the reader that the author
has indeed assimilated all (or the vast majority of) previous, significant works in the field into her or
his research.
What other sections you include in the body is up to you but include only what is necessary for the
reader to locate your study within the larger scholarly framework. Very comprehensive and eye
opener for me as beginner in postgraduate study. Delineation of these indicators into
operationalizable categories has the potential to assist in developing practical approaches to WPV.
Read more about the most frequently used databases at KI. After you have combined all your search
terms and made your very first database search, you should examine the search results and analyse
whether your search query is able to generate the type of search hits that you are looking for. There
are five key steps to writing a literature review: Search for relevant literature Evaluate sources
Identify themes, debates, and gaps Outline the structure Write your literature review A good
literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes, and critically evaluates to
give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject. Try to place your current work and
research within this wider discussion by considering how your research supports, contradicts, or
departs from other scholars’ research. One strategy is to review bibliographies for sources that relate
to your interest. Workplace Violence against Healthcare professionals: a systematic review. In some
cases, the research question will drive the type of literature review that is undertaken. Additionally,
there may be paradoxically higher rates of WPV reported following successful interventions due to
improvements to incident detection, reporting systems, modernized characterization of WPV, and
fostering a reporting culture. Writing a Literature Review What are the parts of a lit review. You
decide on the relevancy of a study primarily by reading through the title and abstract. What is the
less well known literature that my study relates to. A focused literature review generally will
describe the implications of choosing a particular element of past research, such as methodology in
terms of data collection, analysis and interpretation. For example, scholars who published in the
1960s interpreted a historical event differently than those who published in the early 2000s. When
starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. In writing
historically, your intention is to show how your research either adds logically to what has gone
before, or to show how your research challenges a taken for granted assumption in the field, or how
it advances a particular body of work in the field. To retrieve as many relevant studies as possible,
you will need to include free-text search terms as well as subject headings in your final search
strategy. Look for patterns and find ways to tie the pieces together. You can look up and browse
MeSH terms in the US National Library of Medicine's MeSH database. Checklist for search
strategies Here is a checklist to help you review your own or someone else's search strategy. The
process may be subject to bias that supports the researcher’s own work. Related items that provide
additional information but that are not key to understanding the research problem can be included in
a list of further readings. Copenhagen, Denmark: WHO Regional Office for Europe; 2019. In the
method section of your literature review you should describe how you searched different databases.
Some articles will be free to access, while others will require an account, which brings us to the next
method. Using comprehensive and exhaustive searching of the published and unpublished literature,
searching various databases, reports, and grey literature. In this case, devote most of your space to
explaining the connections between sources, but you must also include a thesis and a conclusion,
even though they will be brief. The chances are high that someone will already have published a
literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a
related topic.
CSQ made substantial contributions to the conception and design of the rapid review, the
acquisition, analysis and interpretation of the data for the rapid review. All relevant studies, that is,
those studies that correspond to your research question and your previously set inclusion criteria,
should be included. The structure will help you to clearly express your ideas and demonstrate how
your sources are connected. Mention the literature gap that is still left to be filled. We’ve written a
step-by-step guide that you can follow below. Having an argument about the literature is vital; the
absence of an argument means that you'll simply be summarising what others have said about your
research topic uncritically. Value -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing. You
structure the thematic review through either an examination of the kinds of questions that have been
asked and the topics that have been studied, or a look at the key concepts and categories that have
been developed and used, or even a look at methodological and methods that are used. Working
with Zotero to capture the citations, you build the structure for writing your literature review.
Organizations looking to introduce WPV-related quality indicators should adapt and mold indicators
to fit the unique needs of their care settings, ideally through systematic consultation with key
stakeholders, including clinicians, quality researchers, and administrators. Essay Guide Alex Essay
Writing Tool Dissertation Guide Ask The Elephant The structure of a literature review A literature
review should be structured like any other essay: it should have an introduction, a middle or main
body, and a conclusion. PICO ( P opulation, I ntervention, C omparison, O utcome) is primarily used
for quantitative research questions. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for: Trends and
patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time.
You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly
interchangeably. Find subject headings for PubMed with the help of the US National Library of
Medicine's MeSH database. A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic.
Understanding, distilling and organising the literature. Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the
findings and conclusions of pertinent literature. In recent decades, health systems have increasingly
relied on data-driven systematic approaches to facilitate the continual improvement of their services.
Create your search blocks based on the key concepts of your research question. This means drawing
connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time.
Evaluation metrics for WPV are often limited to quantitative measures of incident rates or formal
emergency responses. Furthermore, we noted a limited amount literature defining comprehensive and
pertinent sets of indicators for measuring WPV in healthcare. Codes related to the iterative and
incremental design and development principle. That is why researchers who have spent their career
working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. For example,
some scholars have examined the social aspects of a topic while others have explored its economic
aspects. What evidence has led to a particular claim being made. A literature review is a piece of
academic writing demonstrating knowledge and understanding of the academic literature on a
specific topic placed in context. Prepare yourself for having to modify and redo your search query
several times, before deciding on your final search strategy. Methodology -- were the techniques
used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem.
Study skills guides Have a language expert improve your writing Run a free plagiarism check in 10
minutes, automatically generate references for free. You are often asked to write it for three
purposes: To review a book or an article, also known as a critical review. When you begin to write
your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and
constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation
of the research problem. A literature review also includes a critical evaluation of the material; this is
why it is called a literature review rather than a literature report. Ethics declarations Ethics approval
and consent to participate. SLRs differ from stand-alone literature reviews because they follow a
rigorous review protocol that is objective and comprehensive so other researchers may replicate the
work. Use key articles to gather additional search terms for your final search strategy. Reading
combined with critical analysis can help to refine a topic and frame research questions. It helps plan
and specify how you will navigate the systematic review process and stay on course. Some
databases to search for journals and articles include: Your university’s library catalogue Google
Scholar Project Muse (humanities and social sciences) Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
EconLit (economics) Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science) You can use boolean
operators to help narrow down your search: Read the abstract to find out whether an article is
relevant to your question. Qualitative research articles are often reviewed with a focus on
authenticity, credibility, and validity. Limitations This rapid review had several limitations. It will
take time to read, reread, annotate, and start to see connections beween sources. The Editing and
proofreading page includes tips on how to do this and strategies for standing back and thinking
about your structure and checking the flow of your argument. For example, a review of the
Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online
political satire. Figma is the main design tool, and FigJam is their virtual whiteboard: Figma is a
comprehensive design tool that enables designers to create and prototype high-fidelity designs
FigJam focuses on collaboration and brainstorming, providing a virtual whiteboard-like experience,
best for concept maps Explore FigJam concept maps here. OR Agile, scrum, extreme programming,
lean, crystal clear, feature driven development, dynamic software development. Nonetheless,
healthcare organizations continue to develop interventions that attempt to mitigate the effects of
WPV on staff and patient safety, with varying efficacy that can be attributed to their attentiveness to
these gaps. The trauma-informed approach recognizes that a patient’s individual circumstances can
influence how they interact with healthcare services. BMC Health Serv Res. 2007;7. Wirth T, Peters
C, Nienhaus A, Schablon A. Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature. A
literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related
to a specific topic or research question. As mentioned above, writing your literature review is a
process, which I’ll break down into three steps: Finding the most suitable literature Understanding,
distilling and organising the literature Planning and writing up your literature review chapter
Importantly, you must complete steps one and two before you start writing up your chapter.
Standards: the way in which you present your information. However, when writing a review in the
social sciences and humanities, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. Address
how your approach to the topic reinforces or rejects previous approaches as well as how your work
contributes to the larger body of knowledge on your topic. Qualitative versus quantitative research
Empirical versus theoretical scholarship Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural
sources Theoretical: In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the
theoretical framework. Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transitions and topic sentences to
draw connections, comparisons and contrasts. Essay Guide Alex Essay Writing Tool Dissertation
Guide Ask The Elephant The structure of a literature review A literature review should be structured
like any other essay: it should have an introduction, a middle or main body, and a conclusion. This
may lead to findings not being fully generalizable to the existing state of literature.

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