This week we learned how to identify and test research topics. Developing a Literature review.
Thesis Process
- when selecting appropriate resources
- when using/reading those resources
- when making your own case.
Evaluating Information
Define your research scope
Over the next four weeks this is an opportunity to select foundations for a topic of interest that supports a potential thesis proposal, stimulates research development, encourages finding and loging sources and develop a draft literature review.
Explore materials and resources Research your topic options
Once you have a specific thesis for your work, write a list of keywords related to that thesis you can use to streamline your source-gathering process.
The purpose of writing a literature review is to present the sources you’ve used in your research to your work’s readers. By doing this, you’re communicating several things:
Relevant research methodology: Explaining the type of research you conducted, how you conducted your research and collected your data, your reasons for choosing the sources you chose, and how you analysed the data you collected.
Theoretical framework you established: Mapping your research showing where you started, which concepts you chose to focus on and where following those concepts brought you. Generally, these concepts are theories and models established by academics in your field.
Where your work fits into the bigger picture: Explain how your findings connect to the existing body of research on your topic and how it relates to other pieces of research, any existing gaps it fills, any debates to which it contributes.
Structuring a literature review
A literature review : states the research question and explains how you tackled it. Following are body paragraphs that explain your research in further detail. Then, it ends with a conclusion section that reiterates the research question while summarizing the insights you had through your research.
A literature review’s length depends largely on the type of research it’s being written for. For a short paper, it might only be a few pages long, but for a lengthy work like a thesis or dissertation, it’s often an entire chapter.
Style and writing approach
A literature review requires the same style as any other piece of academic writing . That means no contractions or colloquialisms, concise language, formal tone, and an objective perspective at all times.
To distinguish between your analysis and prior scholarly work in the field, use the past tense when discussing the previous research conducted on your topic and the present tense when discussing your point of view. For example, you might write that a specific author conducted research or that they had been influenced by earlier researchers in the field, but also that you are exploring different research methods and that you are posing certain questions.
Find relevant literature
Using the keywords you listed, search for relevant sources through your university library and/or databases like Google Scholar, JSTOR, EBSCO, and field-specific databases like Project Muse and EconLit.
As you find potential sources, read their abstracts to determine whether they are within your research’s scope. By reading a quick preview of each source (and taking note of recurring authors, contributors, and citations) you can pare down your list to a collection of works that provide the data, insights, and additional content you need to conduct your research.
Identify themes, patterns, and gaps within your body of sources
Read your pared-down body of sources. As you conduct your research, take note of the themes present in them and ask questions:
Do different authors agree with each other on these themes?
Where do they disagree?
How does each author support their position?
Examine the research methods each author used in their work. If your sources involve studies or experiments, note whether the results were replicated and where, if at all, the studies’ results varied from each other.
Write down your key insights and how each source you consult contributes to the existing pool of knowledge on its subject. Explore how the sources challenge and contradict each other and where they agree or expand upon each other.
Writing an outline is an important part of the proposal and consequently the thesis.
Once you’ve read your sources and you understand their themes, patterns, and connections to each other, it’s time to organize your strategy for writing about how you’ve used them in your research by creating an outline.
There are alternatives to organising an outline. You can organize it chronologically, listing and discussing the oldest sources you’ve consulted and working up to the latest pieces. You can also organize your sources according to their themes, creating a section for each shared theme you encountered and discussing it there. Another way to organize your sources in your outline is to group them according to the research methods used by their authors.
Create a literature review outline
The best way to organize your literature review often depends on your subject area. In the humanities, presenting your sources chronologically or according to their themes can effectively highlight how existing research on your subject has evolved, whereas in the hard sciences, organizing your sources according to their research methods can enable you to highlight why the current scholarly consensus (if there is one!) is what it is.
Writing a literature review
Once your outline is complete, it’s time to start writing. In nearly all cases, literature reviews are written in the third person. For example, you might discuss a scholarly article by stating “this paper argues . . .” or “in her work, the author elaborates on . . .” However, there are cases where first person is appropriate in a literature review, such as when you’re referencing your own research. For example, if you’re citing an earlier paper you’ve written or data collected from a study you conducted, you may use phrases like “I argue,” “I propose,” and “through my research, I found that . . .”
Writing a literature review
Remember to follow the Harvard reverencing system. Similarly, use the same objective academic tone you’ll use in your research paper. Don’t just list and describe the sources you’ve read; respond to them, interpret them, and critically evaluate them. Keep in mind that you don’t have to agree with every source you use—in fact, exploring where your findings diverge from a source’s findings can be a strong point in your literature review and your research as a whole.
Citing and referencing in the review
Using all research sites
Find and list at least two relevant sources to your topic
Write down your key insights and how each source you consult contributes to the existing pool of knowledge on its subject. Explore how the sources challenge and contradict each other and where they agree or expand upon each other.
Planning your thesis
Once you have a significant collection of notes you can begin to devise a plan. Some of the important points are
• Formulate a structure that develops an argument.
• Avoid relying on chronology to structure the thesis for you.
• Take charge of your notes; do not rely on them to tell you a plan.
• Edit out irrelevant material. This means you need a clear focus on objective.
• Identify the main sections/chapters and group the appropriate notes together.
• Consider visual illustrations to support your discussion/argument.