Grad workshop lit review spr11

Researching & Writing
a Literature Review
NCSU Libraries


Expectations of graduate students


Grad students have different backgrounds
◦ Not every grad student has done research
◦ Not everyone has experience reading the
literature



No problem.
 You are learning to ask questions
 Do so! No one expects you to know
everything. Your job is to learn to seek out
answers
 Knowing that information is out there can be
empowering!


Talking about the literature…
◦ “What does the literature show us?”
◦ “Connect your ideas to the literature.”
◦ “Survey the literature on the topic.”


Talking about the

literature…
 What

it IS:
◦ Scholarly communication
◦ A published record of
research
◦ Challenging to read and
digest
◦ Indexed, searchable with
research databases


Talking about the
literature…


What it IS NOT:

◦ Common knowledge
 i.e., handily summarized in Wikipedia

◦ Easy to find
 If you just Googled it, you overlooked
something.

◦ Available freely online
(mostly)
 This distinction can be transparent on
campus: the “free” internet vs. library

subscriptions

X
X


Talking about the literature…
◦ Let’s focus on “What are lit reviews?” and
“Why?” and the conceptual approach first…
◦ Follow-up workshops will tackle the “How?”
 But we’ll look at a examples as we go


What is a Literature Review?





A literature review
Sur veys scholarly sources relevant to a
par ticular issue, area of research, or theor y
Provides a description, summar y, and critical
evaluation of each work
Offers an over view of significant literature
published on a topic
Gives future research context by telling the
stor y of work done so far

(adapted from

literaturereview.html )



Functions of Literature Reviews
 Establish
 Show

research context

why the question is significant

 Illustrate

and describe previous research,
including gaps and flaws

 Ensure

that research has not been done

before
Hey, did you notice that the bullets here are
checkboxes?


Functions of Literature Reviews
 Understand

the structure of the problem

 Demonstrate

your knowledge of the field

 Synthesize

previous perspectives and
develop your own perspective

 Point

the way to future research


Review article examples:
/>1
/>2


Digging Into the Literature
= Major works

B

A

C

Digging Into the Literature
= Major works
= Studies that rely on major works

B

A

C


Digging Into the Literature
= Major works

= Something new!

= Studies that rely on major works

B
C

A
New!


Digging Into the Literature – How?
Aspect
Major works

How?

•Literature databases
•Colleague recommendations
•Cited work

Related works

Citation searching:
•Web of Science
•Google Scholar

New information

•Articles alerts/RSS feeds
•Tables of Contents

Put it all together, you have a literature review!


Overview of the Process
Topic

Writing
and
revision

Research and
Collect Information

RefWorks
Work with Articles

and Brain


Overview of the Process
Topic
Initial topic won’t be your final topic!
Choose, explore, focus
Refine as you go based on:
Availability of research – too much? too
little?
Discovering new ideas
Writing progress


Overview of the Process
Topic

Research and
Collect Information

Search databases
Find, evaluate, and select articles


Overview of the Process
Topic
Save your work
in a citation mgr.
Read, analyze,
synthesize

Develop your
conceptual
framework

Research and
Collect Information

RefWorks
Work with Articles
and Brain


Overview of the Process
Topic

Refine topic?
Use your citation
manager to stay
organized

Research and
Collect Information

RefWorks
Work with Articles
and Brain


Overview of the Process
Topic

Writing
and
revision

Research and
Collect Information

RefWorks
Work with Articles
and Brain


Proceeding…(use worksheet handout)
Develop draft topic


Discuss with advisor, colleagues

Find a literature review (or book/chapter)



Identify key terms and concepts
Use bibliography to find sources

Search the major disciplinary database


Check with colleagues, a librarian






Each will have different ideas of where to search!

Determine scope and facets of topic
Collect useful, current sources


Proceeding…
Search other key databases (another
discipline?)


Round out understanding of scope, facets, terms,
concepts

Search a Citation database


Best ones: Web of Science, Google Scholar



Web of Science has better tools
Scholar can complete picture





Identify key/seminal papers/research
Identify key researchers, research centers, journals



Trace citations back and forward


Questions that come up…
◦ How do I know I have the “right stuff”?
◦ How do I know when I’m done?
◦ How do know what’s important?
◦ No set answers…for each individual to
decide.


Housekeeping Tips


Use a citation management system
◦ Such as RefWorks, Zotero, Mendeley, etc.
◦ One word for these: invaluable. You are absolutely
doing more work in NOT learning about these.



Always get the complete citation
information

◦ Article title, journal title, author, year/volume, pages,
abstract

Keep track of searches, notes, ideas, etc.
(back to the worksheets)
 Fully citing sources = avoiding plagiarism
