THE LITERATURE REVIEW:
A FEW TIPS ON CONDUCTING IT
What is a review of
the literature?
A literature review is an account of what has been published
on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Occasionally you will be
asked to write one as a separate assignment (sometimes in the form of an
annotated bibliography- see bottom of the this document), but more than often
it is part of the introduction to an essay, research report, or thesis. In
writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what
knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths
and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be
defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or
issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a
descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries.
Besides enlarging your knowledge about the topic, writing a
literature review lets you gain and demonstrate skills in two areas:
- information seeking: the ability
to scan literature efficiently, using manual or computerized methods, to
identify a set of useful articles and books
- critical appraisal: the ability to
apply principles of analysis to identify unbiased and valid studies.
A literature review
must do these things:
a)
be organized around and related directly to the thesis or
research question you are developing
b)
synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
c)
identify areas of controversy in the literature
d)
formulate questions that need further research
Ask yourself
questions like these:
- What
is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my literature
review helps to define?
- What
type of literature review am I conducting? Am I looking at issues of
theory? methodology? policy? quantitative research (e.g., on the
effectiveness of a new procedure)? qualitative research (e.g., studies)?
- What
is the scope of my literature review? What types of publications am I
using (e.g., journals, books, government documents, popular media)? What
discipline am I working in (e.g., education, psychology, sociology,
medicine)?
- How
good was my information seeking? Has my search been wide enough to ensure
I’ve found all the relevant material? Has it been narrow enough to exclude
irrelevant material? Is the number of sources I’ve used appropriate for
the length of my paper?
- Have I
critically analyzed the literature I use? Do I follow through a set of
concepts and questions, comparing items to each other in the ways they
deal with them? Instead of just listing and summarizing items, do I assess
them, discussing strengths and weaknesses?
- Have I
cited and discussed studies contrary to my perspective?
- Will
the reader find my literature review relevant, appropriate, and useful?
Ask yourself
questions like these about each book or article you include:
- Has
the author formulated a problem/issue/
- Is it
clearly defined? Is its significance (scope, severity, relevance) clearly
established?
- Could
the problem have been approached more effectively from another
perspective?
- What
is the author’s research orientation (e.g., interpretive, critical
science, combination)?
- What
is the author’s theoretical framework (e.g., psychological,
developmental)?
- What
is the relationship between the theoretical and research perspectives?
- Has
the author evaluated the literature relevant to the problem/issue? Does
the author look at literature taking positions he/she does not agree with?
- In a
research study, how good are the basic components of the study design
(e.g., population, intervention, outcome)? How accurate and valid are the
measurements? Is the analysis of the data accurate and relevant to the
research question? Are the conclusions validly based upon the data and
analysis?
- In
material written for the popular readership, does the author use appeals
to emotion, one-sided examples, or rhetorically charged language and tone?
Is there an objective basis to the reasoning, or is the author merely
“proving” what he or she already believes?
- How
does the author structure the argument? Can you “deconstruct” the flow of
the argument to see whether or where it breaks down logically (e.g., in
establishing cause-effect relationships)?
- In
what ways does this book or article contribute to our understanding of the
problem under study, and in what ways is it useful for practice? What are
the strengths and limitations?
- How
does this book or article relate to the specific thesis or question I am
developing?
Final Notes:
A literature review is a piece of discursive prose, not a
list describing or summarizing one piece of literature after another. It’s
usually a bad sign to see every paragraph beginning with the name of a
researcher. Instead, organize the literature review into sections that present
themes or identify trends, including relevant theory. You are not trying to
list all the material published, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to
the guiding concept of your thesis or research question.
If you are writing an annotated bibliography, you may need
to summarize each item briefly, but should still follow through themes and
concepts and do some critical assessment of the material. Use an overall
introduction and conclusion to state the scope of your coverage and to
formulate the question, problem, or concept your chosen material illuminates.
Usually you will have the option of grouping items into sections – this helps
you indicate comparisons and relationships. You may be able to write a
paragraph or so to introduce the focus of each section.
Material prepared by Dena Taylor, Health
Sciences Writing Centre, and Margaret Proctor, Coordinator, Writing Support,
for use at the University of Toronto