R E

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F
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V I
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PROF. SR .THERESE JOSE S.H. MSc.(N),MBA.
VICE-PRINCIPAL
HOLY FAMILY COLLEGE OF NURSING
THODUPUZHA.
Review
Means a formal assessment something
with the intention of instituting change
if necessary. Content review is the
process of identifying all content
currently live on your web site,
reviewing each piece of content.
LITERATURE 
refers to the collection of scholarly writings on a
topic. This includes peer-reviewed articles, books,
dissertations and conference papers.
When reviewing the literature, be sure to include
major works as well as studies that respond to major
works. You will want to focus on primary sources,
though secondary sources can be valuable as well.
 Definition

 It is an evaluative report of information found in

the literature related to selected area of study. The
review describes, summarizes, evaluates, clarifies this
literature . It gives a theoretical base for the research
and helps to determine the nature of research.
(Queensland University 1999).
 literature review

 Literature Review is the base for any  Whereas, a review of literature is a

research done by a scholar. critical analysis of a particular piece of
 It is the justification and focus on a work.
particular topic or the area of study.  It is more of an article or a research in
Literature review can also be understood
itself, provided the work taken for
as the thematic statement. difference
review must bebetween
done good literature
justice.
 A researcher must defend his views review and review of may
thematically with the help of any relevant  A person's understanding of a text
literary review
theory of
like post colonialism, new
literature vary but theliterature in of
real content research
that text
historicism, post modernism, etc. remains the same.
 Secondly, he/she must follow the  That content must be analyzed promptly.
methodology. Supporting sources can be used as well.
 Overall, it is the crux of the complete
research along with the solutions or
findings by the researcher
• Problem identification and Importance of R L
development of research
questions.
• Generation of RQ for
discipline
• Determination of gaps or
inconsistencies in a body of
knowledge.
• Discovery of unanswered
question.
• Determination of a need to
replication
• Identification of relevant
framework.
• Development of new clinical
intervention
 Importance of R L

•Description of strength and weaknesses of

design/methods
• Development of hypothesis.
• Planning methodology
• Development of instruments .
• Identification of suitable design/tool
• Interpreting study findings
Understand of subject
under review
Understand relationship
with other studies
Point a way forward for
further research
Identify what has and has
not been investigated Purposes
Develop general
explanations for observed
variations.
Identify relationship
between concepts.
Identify researchable
hypothesis.
 Identify data sources
 Identification of
variables
 Formulations of
operational definition
 Identify experts in the
field . Purposes
 Assistance in
interpreting study
findings
 Developing
implications and
recommendations
Purposes
 Provide foundation of knowledge on topic
 Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent
duplication and give credit to other researchers
 Identify inconstancies: gaps in research, conflicts in
previous studies, open questions left from other
research
 Identify need for additional research (justifying your
research)
 Identify the relationship of works in context of its
contribution to the topic and to other works
 Place your own research within the context of
existing literature making a case for why further
study is needed.
 Non Research
Research
• Educational
Uses
• Qualitative • Clinical
• Quantitative practice
Research RL search is done by
 Development of the Literature Review
Four Stages
1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being
examined and what are its component issues?
2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the
subject being explored.
3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a
significant contribution to the understanding of the topic.
4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and
conclusions of pertinent literature.
 TYPES OF LITERATURE
Secondary Tertiary
Primary
Literature Literature
Literature
Review articles, systematic Textbooks,
Original research results in
reviews, meta-analysis, encyclopedias,
journals,
practice guidelines, handbooks, newspapers
dissertations, conference
monographs on a specific
proceedings, correspondence
subject
Sources:  Gale
Sources: PubMed, CINAHL,
Encyclopedia of Genetic
Cochrane Library, Web of
Sources: NEJM, JAMA Disorders, Oxford
Science, Williams Obstetrics,
Handbook of Internal
Hurst's The Heart
Medicine
TYPES OF LITERATURE REVIEWS
Argumentative Review
Integrative Review
Historical Review
Methodological Review
Systematic Review
Theoretical Review
Meta-analysis
Meta-synthesis
Narrative Review
Argumentative Review
This form examines literature selectively in order to
support or refute an argument, deeply imbedded
assumption, or philosophical problem already established
in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of
literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. [e.g.,
educational reform; immigration control], argumentative
approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate
and important form of discourse.
Integrative Review
. The body of literature includes all studies
that address related or identical hypotheses. A
well-done integrative review meets the same
standards as primary research in regard to
clarity, rigor, and replication.
Historical Review 
. Historical reviews are focused on examining
research throughout a period of time, often starting
with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena
emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution
within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to
place research in a historical context to show
familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to
identify the likely directions for future research.
Methodological Review 
This approach provides a framework of
understanding at different levels (i.e. those of theory,
substantive fields, research approaches and data
collection and analysis techniques), enables researchers
to draw on a wide variety of knowledge ranging from
the conceptual level to practical documents for use in
fieldwork, quantitative and qualitative integration,
sampling, interviewing, data collection and data
analysis, and helps highlight many ethical issues which
we should be aware of and consider as we go through
our study.
Systematic Review
 This form consists of an overview of existing
evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research
question, which uses pre-specified and standardized
methods to identify and critically appraise relevant
research, and to collect, report, and analyze data
from the studies that are included in the review.
Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to
concretely examine the corpus of theory that has
accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory,
phenomena. The theoretical literature review help
establish what theories already exist, the
relationships between them, to what degree the
existing theories have been investigated, and to
develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this
form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate
theories or reveal that current .
Narrative Review.

A narrative or traditional literature review is a

comprehensive, critical and objective analysis of the
current knowledge on a topic. They are an essential
part of the research process and help to establish a
theoretical framework and focus or context for
your research.
 Meta-synthesis
A meta-synthesis is bringing together qualitative data to
form a new interpretation of the research field.  It helps
to build new theories and is not to be confused with a
meta-analysis which tests a hypothesis using
quantitative data.  It primarily generates theory such as
program theory, implementation theory, or an
explanatory theory of why the intervention works or
not, hypothesis for future testing or comparison with
trial outcomes.
Meta-analysis
A quantitative statistical analysis of several separate but
similar experiments or studies in order to test the pooled
data for statistical significance

A process that analyzes data from different studies

done about the same subject. The results of a
meta-analysis are usually stronger than the results
of any study by itself.
Types of sources for a review
TYPES OF SOURCES
 Primary
 Secondary
 Tertiary
 PRIMARY SOURCE is used broadly to embody all
sources that are original.
Primary sources provide first-hand information that is
closest to the object of study.
Primary sources vary by discipline.
In the natural and social sciences, original reports of
research found in academic journals detailing the
methodology used in the research, in-depth
descriptions, and discussions of the findings are
considered primary sources of information.

Other common examples of primary sources include

speeches, letters, diaries, autobiographies, interviews,
official reports, court records, artifacts, photographs,
and drawings. 
SECONDARY SOURCES
A secondary source is a source that provides
non-original or secondhand data or information. 

Secondary sources are written about primary

sources.
Research summaries reported in textbooks,
magazines, and newspapers are considered
secondary sources.
They typically provide global descriptions of
results with few details on the methodology.
Other examples of secondary sources include
biographies and critical studies of an author's
work.
Tertiary sources are those used to organize and locate
secondary and primary sources.
Indexes – provide citations that fully identify a work
with information such as author, titles of a book,
article, and/or journal, publisher and publication date,
volume and issue number and page numbers.
Abstracts – summarize the primary or secondary
sources,
Databases – are online indexes that usually include
abstracts for each primary or secondary resource, and
may also include a digital copy of the resource.
 Electronic
data base
Magazine
and news Books
papers

Sources of LR
Research Sources Journal
Reports of LR s

Encyclopedia Conference
and dictionary papers

Thesis
 Considerations for R LS
 Be specific and be succinct(concise)
 Be selective
 Focus of current topics.

 Ensure evidence for claims.

 Focus on sources of evidences
 Account of contrary evidence.
 Reference citation.
 Organization of R L
 Referring original source
 Avoid abbreviations.
 Simple and accurate sentence structure.
 Annotated Bibliography
Stages
Thematic organization
Literature
Review More reading

Write individual sections

Integrate sections
Method-literature review is a
scholarly paper that presents the
current knowledge including
substantive findings as well as
theoretical and methodological
contributions to a particular topic.
 Literature reviews are secondary
sources and do not report new or
original experimental work.
 Elements of RL

Introduction

Body

Conclusion
 Approaches to organizing
the body of a literature review.
 Chronological
 Thematic
 Methodological
 Theoretical
PROCESS /STEPS OF
REVIEW
OF LITERATURE
 Process -literature
review is a process and product of
examining published material. It is
typically the second section in a
research article or project. It involves
locating articles and information
relevant to your topic and then
summarizing what you've found.
Step 1: Select a topic
Select a topic you can manage in the time frame you have to
complete your project.
Establish your research questions and organize your
literature into logical categories around the subject/ topic
areas of your questions. Your research questions must
be specific enough to guide you to the relevant literature.
Make sure you understand the concept
of ‘broader’ and ‘narrower’ terms.  The narrower your topic,
the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need
to read in order to get a good survey of the literature.
Step 2: Identify the most relevant sources on your
topic
Use a variety of resources - locate books, journals, and
documents that contain useful information and ideas
on your topic. Internet sites, theses &
dissertations, conference papers, e -
Prints and government or industry reports can also be
included. Do not rely solely on electronic full-text
material which is more easily available. Reference
sources such as dictionaries can assist in defining
terminology, and encyclopedias may provide useful
introductions to your topic by experts in the field and
will list key references.
Step 3 : Search and refine

Unisia has a number of databases that provide full

text access to articles, that allow you to refine your
search to ‘peer reviewed’ journals.  These are
scholarly journals which go through a rigorous
process of quality assessment by several researchers
or subject specialists in the academic community
before they are accepted for publication. 
 
Step 4: Read and analyses
Group the sources into the themes and sub-
themes of your topic.  As you read widely but
selectively in your topic area, consider what themes
or issues connect your sources together.
Do they present one or different solutions?
Is there an aspect of the field that is missing?
How well do they present the material and do they
portray it according to an appropriate theory?
Do they reveal a trend in the field?
A raging debate?
Step 5: Write the literature review
You can organize the review in many ways; for example, you can
center the review historically (how the topic has been dealt with
over time); or center it on the theoretical positions surrounding
your topic (those for a position vs. those against, for example); or
you can focus on how each of your sources contributes to your
understanding of your project.
Your literature review should include:
an introduction which explains how your review is organized.
a body which contains the headings and subheadings that
provide a map to show the various perspectives of your
argument. In other words the body contains the evaluation of the
materials you want to include on your topic.
Nine steps to writing a literature review
1. Find a Working Topic
2. Review the Literature
3. Focus Your Topic Narrowly and Select Papers
Accordingly
4. Read the Selected Articles Thoroughly and Evaluate
Them
5. Organize the Selected Papers by Looking For Patterns
and By Developing Subtopics
6. Develop a Working Thesis
7. Organize Your Own Paper Based on the Findings from
Steps 4 & 5
8. Write the Body of the Paper.
9. Look at What You Have Written; Focus On Analysis,
Not Description