Effective Literature

Review in Research

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Literature review - Definition
 A body of text that aims to review the critical points of
current knowledge on a particular topic
 A comprehensive survey of publications in a specific field
of study or related to a particular line of research
 A summary of existing published literature made by
experts who select and weigh findings available from the
literature
 A summary and interpretation of research findings
reported in the literature
 A process and documentation of the current relevant
research literature regarding a particular topic or subject
of interest
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Purposes of literature review
 Define and limit problem
 Develop familiarity with topic

 Limit research to a subtopic within larger body of knowledge

 Place study in historical perspective
 Analysis of way in which study relates to existing knowledge
 Avoid unintentional and unnecessary replication
 Awareness of prior studies so as to avoid unneeded replication
 Replication is reasonable if it is needed to verify prior results,
investigate results that failed to be significant, or relate
problem to a specific site

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Purposes of literature review…
 Select promising methods and measures
 Knowledge of and insight into specific research designs for
investigating a problem
 Awareness of specific instruments, sampling procedures, and
data analyses
 Relate findings to previous knowledge and suggest future
research needs
 Relating prior research to what is known places current study in
perspective
 This knowledge allows researcher to focus problem on what is
not known
 Develop research hypotheses
 Suggestions for specific research hypotheses

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Literature review designs
Narrative review Selective review of the literature that broadly
covers a specific topic.
Does not follow strict systematic methods to
locate and synthesize articles.
Systematic review Utilizes exacting search strategies to make
certain that the maximum extent of relevant
research has been considered.
Original articles are methodologically appraised
and synthesized.
Meta-analysis Quantitatively combines the results of studies that
are the result of a systematic literature review.
Capable of performing a statistical analysis of
the pooled results of relevant studies.
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When we need to do a
literature review
 At the beginning of the research project
 ProposalChapter 2, 1 & 3


 Constantly update during research

 When writing discussion and conclusion

chapters

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What is literature
 Books  Audio-visual material
 Journals  CDs/DVDs
 Conference papers  Electronic databases
 Theses and  Government reports
dissertations  Magazines
 Bibliographies  Newspapers
 Maps  Grey literature
 Internet  Interviews and other
 Indexes/Abstracts unpublished research
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Three types of literature

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Steps in narrative review
 Identifying a topic
 Searching and finding literature
 Evaluating literature
 Reading literature critically
 Analyzing literature
 Synthesizing literature
 Writing and presenting literature review

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Searching and finding literature

 Bibliographic information, abstract and full

text
 Formal and informal sources of literature
 Print and online literature

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Evaluating literature
 Evaluation for relevance
 Index of a book, chapter or section headings,
abstract of an article, introduction and
conclusion, references or bibliography
 Evaluation for reliability
 Audience, authority, bias, currency, scope

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Critical reading
 Passive vs. active reading
 Previewing
 Reading
 Taking notes
 Responding critically

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Analyzing literature
 Varying definitions of key terms
 Methodology used
 Enough evidence for claims? Findings
 consistent with those of similar studies?

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Synthesizing literature
 How does each reading relate to your topic
and purpose?
 Define your argument/thesis.
 Identify major trends or patterns emerging
from the readings.
 Reassemble your notes based on the results
of readings, using organizational aids such as
post-its, flags, etc.
 Create a detailed topic outline

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 Sample topic outline
Psychological Aspects of Organ Donation: Individual and Next-of-
Kin Donation Decisions
I. Introduction
A. Establish importance of topic (cite
statistics on scarcity of organs).
B. Delimit the review to psychological
components of decisions.
C. Describe organization of the paper,
indicating that the remaining topics in
the outline will be discussed.
II. Individual decisions regarding posthumous
organ donation
A. Beliefs about organ donation
B. Attitudes toward donating
C. Stated willingness to donate
D. Summary of research on individual
decisions
III. Next-of-kin consent decisions
A. Beliefs about donating others’ organs.
B. Attitudes toward next-of-kin donations.
C. Summary of research on next-of-kin
consent decisions
IV. Methodological issues and directions for
future research
A. Improvement in attitude measures and
measurement strategy.
B. Greater differentiation by type of
donation.
C. Stronger theoretical emphasis.
D. Greater interdisciplinary focus.
V. Summary, Conclusions, and Implications
A. Summary of points I-IV.
B. Need well-developed theoretical
models of attitudes and decision
making.
C. Current survey data limited in scope
and application points to need for
more sophisticated research in
the future.
D. Need more use of sophisticated data
analytic techniques.
E. Conclusion: Psychology can draw from
various subdisciplines for an understanding
of donation decisions so intervention
strategies can be identifiable. Desperately
need to increase the available supply of
donor organs.
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Synthesizing literature…
 Note on your topic outline relationships among studies:
which researchers, what page, etc. support each point?
 Note consistency of results from study to study.
 Note discrepancies among studies and provide possible
explanations such as dates of studies, different
methodologies.
 Note landmark studies and if replicated.
 Note how individual studies help illustrate or advance
theoretical beliefs.
 Note gaps or areas needing more research.
 Make sure your detailed outline follows a logical
sequence of topics and subtopics. This will give your
literature review the coherence it needs.
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Writing and presenting literature review

 A general organization looks like a funnel

 Broader topics
 Subtopics
 Studies like yours

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How to organize studies
 Chronological
 By publication date
 By trend
 Thematic
 A structure which considers different themes
 Methodological
 Focuses on the methods of the researcher, e.g.,
qualitative versus quantitative approaches

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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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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 emotiona
differentenviron
Hasty (1983) experiment responses. Customers view red retail ments la
Photographic more negative and unpleasant than s
slide blue.
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
backgrounds slide blue 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
experiment at 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
(1997) - waiting for experiment is mediated by an emotional evaluation of the
service. Video environment and the emotional response to waiting.
simulation Pleasurable music produced longer perceived waiting
times.
Lighting
Areni and Kim (1994) 171 Shoppers Wine store Field The investigation found that brighter in-store
experiment lighting 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.
(2001) Apparel store experiment Increased levels of lighting will produce arousal and
pleasure and
increase the approach behaviours of customers.
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Citation styles
 Information prominent citation
Example:
 For viscoelastic fluids, the behaviour of the time-dependent
stresses in the transient shear flows is also very important
(Boger et al., 1974).

 Author prominent citation

Examples:
 Close (1983) developed a simplified theory using an
analogy between heat and mass transfer and the
equivalent heat transfer only case.
 Several authors have suggested that automated testing
should be more readily accepted (Balcer, 1989; Stahl,
1989; Carver & Tai, 1991).
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Reporting verbs
 Argue
 Assert  Note
 Assume  Object
 Challenge  Observe
 Claim  Persuade
 Contend  Propose
 Contradict  Prove
 Describe  Purport
 Dispute  Recommend
 Emphasize  Refute
 Establish  Reject
 Examine  Remark
 Find  Suggest
 Maintain  Support

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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 scientific fact
Examples:
 There are three factors that control the concentration of
aluminum in seawater.
 The finite rate coefficients have an effect on heat transfer through
a horizontal porous layer.
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Verb tenses – Present
 A review of current research work, or research work
of immediate relevance to your study.
Example:
 Schulze (2016) concludes that hydraulic rate has a significant
effect on future performance.
 Comments, explanations and evaluative statements
made by you when you are reviewing previous
studies.
Examples:
 Therefore, this sequential approach is impractical in the real
world where projects are typically large and the activities
from one stage may be carried out in parallel with the
activities of another stage.
 The reason for this anomalous result is that the tests were done
at low hydraulic rates at which the plastic packing was not
completely wetted.
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Verb tenses – Past
 Report the contents, findings or
conclusions of past research
Examples:
 Haberfield (1998) showed that the velocity of many
enzyme reactions was slowed down if the end product
had an increased paramagnetism.
 Allington (1999) found that the temperatures varied
significantly over time.

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Verb tenses – Present perfect
 In citations where the focus is on the research area
of several authors
Examples:
 Several studies have provided support for the suggestion that
the amount of phonological recoding that is carried out
depends on orthographic depth (Frost, 1994; Smart et al, 1997;
Katz & Feldman, 2001, 2002).
 Joint roughness has been characterized by a number of authors
(Renger, 1990; Feker & Rengers, 1997; Wu & Ali, 2000).
 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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A good literature review is…
 Focused - The topic should be narrow. You should only present
ideas and only report on studies that are closely related to topic.
 Concise - Ideas should be presented economically. Don’t take any
more space than you need to present your ideas.
 Logical - The flow within and among paragraphs should be a
smooth, logical progression from one idea to the next
 Developed - Don’t leave the story half told.
 Integrative - Your paper should stress how the ideas in the studies
are related. Focus on the big picture. What commonality do all the
studies share? How are some studies different than others? Your
paper should stress how all the studies reviewed contribute to your
topic.
 Current - Your review should focus on work being done on the
cutting edge of your topic.
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 Best of luck for your
research endeavors!

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