St.

Matthew College
High School Department
SY 2017-2018
INQUIRIES, INVESTIGATIONS & IMMERSIONS

Name : ______________________________ Date: ___________ Section: _____________

The Review of Related Literature: Function, Types of Sources, Literature Search

The following are the functions of the review of related literature:

It provides the conceptual or theoretical framework of the planned research.
It provides you with the information about past researches related to the intended study.
It gives you a feeling of confidence since by means of the review of related literature you will have on hand all
constructs related to your study.
It gives you information about the research methods used, the population and sampling considered, the
instruments used in gathering the data, and the statistical computation in the previous research.
It provides findings and conclusions of past investigations which you may relate to your own findings and
conclusions.

The following are the different sources of related literature for review:
Related Legal Bases - is important to determine the relevance of the study to the government’s thrusts.
 The major sources of related legal bases are laws and department directives such as circulars, orders,
memoranda, and others which are related to the present study.
Related Literature - is a section in a research paper, thesis, dissertation, and research project in which the
sources are taken from books, journals, magazines, novels, poetry and many others.
Related Studies - Published and unpublished research studies are sources of materials that are included in
this section. The research studies which have direct bearing to the present study are segregated into foreign
and local studies.

The Card Catalogue:

A catalogue is an index of materials owned by a library.
It may take two forms:
 A set of cards arranged in drawers
 Entries in an electronic database
The main entry card is the author listing. Included in the category of authors are writers, editors, compilers and
translators.
The title card can lead you to a work when you know the title but not the name of the author.
Subject cards are important tools for locating sources relevant to your topic; they indicate all the works in the
library dealing with one subject.

Collecting Information
Bibliography cards - Books and articles that appear to be relevant to your topic should be listed systematically,
one to a card and in the bibliographic format that you will use for your final draft.
Critical evaluation of sources
As researchers select works to read and sources to use in their paper, they should continually evaluate the
materials with regard to the primary or secondary nature of the source, the objectivity of the source, the
qualifications of the author and the level of the source. Critical Evaluation of Sources:

 Primary and secondary sources

o Primary sources are basic materials with little or no alterations such as manuscripts, diaries, letters,
interviews and lab reports.
o Secondary sources derive from primary materials and include analysis, interpretations and commentary
on primary materials.
 Objectivity - The objectivity of a source is its lack of bias or prejudice.
 Qualifications of the author – an author’s qualification for writing a work, such as academic degrees,
professional credentials, and experience and status in the field, may influence the researcher’s choice of a
source.
 Level – The intended audience determines the level of a work in areas such as diction, sentence structure,
complexity, and assumed background knowledge.

Quotations
Quotations in a research paper, thesis, or dissertation are of two types:
 Indirect (paraphrased or summarized)

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  Direct (verbatim)
Plagiarism, the use of another person’s ideas or wording without giving appropriate credit, results from
inaccurate or incomplete attribution of material to its source. Ideas and the expression of ideas are considered
to belong to the individual who first puts them forward. The researcher should document in his/her paper any
fact or opinion that he/she has read in one of his//her sources whether he/she first discovered the idea there or
he/she has assimilated the idea so thoroughly that it seems to be his/her own.
Some exceptions to this rule are
 Common knowledge
 Facts that can be verified and do not differ from one source to another
 Well known sayings or proverbs
Documentation allows the reader to see the materials used to reach the conclusion the conclusions, to check
interpretations of sources, to place work in a tradition of inquiry, and to locate further information on the topic.
Indirect quotation(Paraphrase or summary)
 It calls less attention to itself than does direct quotation and thus concentrates the reader’s attention on
the development of your argument.
 A paraphrase restates the original source in approximately the same number of words.
 A summary condenses the original.
Direct Quotation
 Direct quotation presents material from a source verbatim(word for word)
 It is appropriate when you need to
 Provide an authority,
 Preserve the integrity of the source author’s original wording,
 Ensure the accuracy of the borrowing from the source.

Examples of Using Direct Quotes, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

Word for word quotation (direct quote):

Definition: Using an author’s language word for word (verbatim)
Ways to avoid plagiarism:
· Use quotation marks around the author’s words.
· Use a signal or identifying phrase that tells who and what you are quoting.
· Add an in-text (parenthetical) reference at the end of the passage.
· Include a citation at the end of your paper (Works Cited).
MLA Example:
Rodriguez and Bellanca observe, “In some urban classrooms, children arrive without any notion of sharing
behavior. If they have grown up as street survivors, without strong early mediation for sharing, they may come to
school ready to do battle to the death” (135).
Or
“In some urban classrooms, children arrive without any notion of sharing behavior. If they have grown up as
street survivors, without strong early mediation for sharing, they may come to school ready to do battle to the
death” (Rodriguez and Bellanca 135).

Include on your Works Cited page:

Rodriguez, Eleanor Renee, and James Bellanca. What Is It About Me You Can’t
Teach: An Instructional Guide for the Urban Educator. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Corwin, 2007.
Paraphrasing:
Definition: Putting an author’s ideas in your own words
Ways to avoid plagiarism:

· Use a signal or identifying phrase that tells who and what you are paraphrasing
· Use the same ideas as in the original text
· Use your own words when phrasing. In most cases, avoid using any of the same wording that the author used
unless you put a key term in quotation marks.

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 · Add an in-text (parenthetical) reference at the end of the paraphrase.
· Include a citation at the end of your paper (Works Cited).

MLA Example:
Original passage:
Annie Oakley's life spanned years of tremendous change for American women. By the time of her death in
1926, Americans were celebrating the liberated, urban focused, modern times of the Jazz Age. Women had won
the right to vote, wore less restrictive clothes, and followed a changing ideal that was loosening some of the
restrictions on women's roles and behavior that had reigned through the nineteenth century.

Incorrect paraphrasing:
Annie Oakley’s life spanned years of significant changes for American women. By the time she died in 1926,
women had the vote, wore looser clothing, and embraced the freedom from restrictive 19th century roles and
behaviors.
(Sounds too much like the original passage. Also the sentence structure is too similar to the original text.)
Correct paraphrasing:
As discussed in the biography on PBS’s American Experience web page, sharpshooter
Annie Oakley lived through a period of many liberating changes for women, from the Victorian era through the
first quarter of the 20th century. Examples include voting rights for women as well as the freedom to wear
comfortable and practical clothing (Annie Oakley).

Include on your Works Cited page:

“Annie Oakley: In a Man’s World.” American Experience. 2006. PBS Online. 19 May 2008.
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/oakley/sfeature/sf_excerpts.html>.
Summarizing:
Definition: Condensing an author’s ideas to a more succinct statement Ways to avoid
plagiarism:
· Use a signal or identifying phrase that tells who and what you are summarizing.
· Use a quick description of the main points of the passage.
· Use your own words and phrasing. In most cases, avoid using any of the same wording.
· Add an in-text (parenthetical) reference at the end of the summary.
· Include a citation at the end of your paper (Works Cited).

MLA Example:
Original passage:

By 1964, there were an estimated 33,500 restaurants in the United States calling themselves “drive ins,” but
only 24,500 offered hot food, the remainder being ice cream and soft drink stands primarily. Layout varied from
drive in to drive in, but three principal spaces could always be found: a canopy covered driveway adjacent to the
building, a kitchen, and a carhop station linking kitchen and parking lot. The smallest drive ins offered carhop
service only, but many also featured indoor lunch counters and booths, sometimes on the scale of the coffee shop.

Summary:
In the chapter “Quick Service Restaurants in the Age of Automobile Convenience,” The authors note that by
the mid-1960s, nearly 35,000 self proclaimed “drive in” restaurants in the United States existed. Most served hot
meals while others served just ice cream and soft drinks. No specific blueprint defined the typical drive in; however,
three characteristics describe this new type of casual eating establishment: a covered driveway, a kitchen, and a
carhop station (Jackle and Sculle 55).

Include on your Works Cited page:

Jackle, John A., and Keith A. Sculle. Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the

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 Automobile Age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999.
Common knowledge:
Definition: A fact that is so well known that it can be found in numerous sources and therefore does not need to be
cited.
Examples of common knowledge:
The state bird of California is the California Quail.
The Dodo has been extinct since the mid to late 17th century.
The red tailed hawk lives in the Livermore area.

Examples of detailed information that needs to be cited:

Adult quail begin to molt their plumage in mid-summer, while the chicks are being reared (Leopold 105).
The primary causes of the Dodo’s extinction were the destruction of the forest (which cut off the Dodo's food
supply), and the animals that the sailors brought with them, including cats, rats, and pigs, which destroyed Dodo
nests (Dodo).

Most of the Red tailed Hawk migration in the western United States occurs from early October to early
November (Liguori 42).

Include on your Works Cited page:

“Dodo.” American Museum of Natural History. 19 May 2008.
<http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/expeditions/treasure_fossil/Treasures/Dodo/ dodo.html?dinos>.
Leopold, A. Starker. The California Quail. Berkeley, CA: UC Press, 1977, 105.
Liguori, Jerry. Hawks from Every Angle. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2005, 42.

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