How to conduct an effective

Literature Review

TEQIP Short Term Course on

Research Skills and Methods
19th - 21st February 2016

Ashish Garg
IIT Kanpur
ashishg@iitk.ac.in
Bibliography
•  “A Gentle Guide to Research Methods” by
Gordon Rugg and Marian Petre, McGraw Hill

•  Many other on-line articles

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What is “Literature Review”?
•  C. Hart (1998) “Doing a literature review:
Releasing the social science research
imagination”, London, UK, Sage Publications.
–  The use of knowledge/ideas/approaches in the
literature
•  To correctly iden8fy the problem (if vaguely known
beforehand)
•  To jus8fy the par8cular approach taken to the topic
•  To assess the selec8on of methods used, and
•  To understand that the research to be done contributes
something new
–  Quality of the review means appropriate breadth and
depth, rigor and consistency, clarity and brevity, and
effec8ve analysis and synthesis
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What is “Literature Review”?
•  J. Shaw, System, 23(3), 325-335 (1995).
–  Process of the review should “explain how one piece
of research builds on another”.
•  Webster and Watson, MIS Quarterly, 26 (2),
13-23 (2002)
–  An effec8ve literature review creates a firm
founda8on for advancing knowledge. It facilitates
theory development, closes areas where a plethora of
research exists, and uncovers areas where research is
needed.

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Literature Review
•  An effective literature review should include
the following characteristics:
a)  Methodologically analyze and synthesize quality
literature,
b)  Provide a firm founda8on to a research topic
c)  Provide a firm founda8on to the selec8on of research
methodology
d)  Demonstrate that the proposed research contributes
something new to the overall body of knowledge or
advances the research field’s knowledge-base.
•  Helps you to create a good impression on the
supervisor that you do understand the state
of the art in your chosen field J
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Stages of Literature Review

2. PROCESSING

i. Knowledge of the Literature

ii. Understanding of the Literature

1. INPUT iii. Applica8on 3. OUTPUT

iv. Analysis
v. Synthesis
vi. Evalua8on
Quality of input
(Source and
Search tools)

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Knowing and Understanding the Literature

Example: One is doing a literature review on “CO2 emission and

global warming”
Case-I
It has been showed in various studies that CO2 emission leads to increase in
the global mean earth temperature (ABC et al, DEF et al…).

Case - II
It has been showed in various studies that CO2 emission leads to increase in the
global mean earth temperature. For example, ABC et al. conducted a detailed
study and found that CO2 emissions lead to an increased of 2-5 degrees in the
mean temperatures depending on the loca8on and level of pollu8on. In another
study, BEF et al. showed that the increase in the mean temperature was
between 1-2 degrees and the devia8on was also dependent on the local mean
temperatures at a specific loca8on.

BETTER 7
Application
•  Typically a two step two-step process
–  Iden8fy the major concepts or topics or subtopics
relevant to the subject under considera8on, and
–  Place the cita8on in the correct category of concept.

Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3 Concept M

ArKcle 1 X
ArKcle 2 X X
ArKcle 3 X

ArKcle N X X

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Analysis
•  Analyze the data
–  Understand hypotheses
–  Understand models used or experimental condi8ons used
–  Make connec8ons
–  Compare and contrast
–  Find out strong points and loopholes
–  …..

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Analysis: An Example
Informing Science Journal, 9, 181 (2006)

Case – I
Data mining is the analyzing and interpreta8on of large amounts of informa8on.
Through analyzing vast amounts of data it is possible to find paeerns, rela8onships
and from these discoveries it is possible to make correla8ons (Chen & Liu, 2005).

Why it would be of any interest or value to find paeerns and rela8onships in order
to make correla8ons?

Case II
Data mining is a process of discovering new knowledge by using sta8s8cal analysis
to iden8fy previously unsuspected paeerns and clustering in large data sets (Chen
& Liu, 2005).

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Synthesis and Evaluation
•  Bringing out something new out of the
literature review
–  Iden8fica8on of unsolved problems or issues
–  Problems in the models or experimental designs used
in past
–  A new idea
–  Provide recommenda8ons and conclusions

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Synthesis: Example
Example
CO2 emission is believed to be responsible for increase in the global mean
temperatures. The problem is associated with emissions due to coal burning, biomass
burning, vehicular pollu8on and other human ac8vi8es. However there are studies
which contradict this view and suggest that global warming has no rela8on to the
atmospheric CO2 levels.

Example √Beeer
Various human ac8vi8es related to burning of hydrocarbons lead to CO2 emissions in
the atmosphere which are widely believed to be responsible for increase in the global
mean temperatures. At the same 8me, there are studies which contradict this view
and suggest that global warming has no rela8on to the atmospheric CO2 levels. It
would thus be interes8ng to examine this in detail by modeling the data as well as by
carrying out experiments as well as data collec8on in areas which have experienced
large increase in the CO2 levels due to industrializa8on and find out why these
discrepancies occur.

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How do you actually do it?
•  Exploit the power of web in a positive way

•  Rely on refereed articles published in

scholarly journals, not just on some news
items or random articles

•  There is a method to it.

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Method
•  Specify your research question.
–  It is tricky, should not be too narrow or too broad
–  Learn by experience
–  Example: How to search for informa8on related to
global warming by using key words
•  Global warming
•  Global warming and pollu8on
•  Global warming and air pollu8on
•  Global warming and air pollu8on and carbon di-oxide
•  ……………

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Use of Bibliographic Databases
•  Identify ones which are of your use
–  Web of Science (or ISI web of knowledge)
–  Scopus
–  Google Scholar

•  Build a tentative list of terms that you would

use for search

•  Narrow your search

•  Refine your search

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Further work
•  Thorough reading of the papers/articles
–  Forward and backward search

•  Read critically, make observations of the salient points

and create summaries

•  Compile the information, compare and contrast

•  Go back to step-1 if needed

•  Determine what is done, what is the relevance and the

importance of the work done, what are the missing
links and the remaining challenges on the topic you
have chosen.

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Important aspects
•  An effective and quality literature review is
based upon a concept-centric approach rather
than chronological or author-centric approach
–  J. Webster & R.T. Watson, MIS Quarterly, 26(2), 13-23,
2002.

•  Authors of literature reviews are at risk for

producing mind-numbing lists of citations and
findings that resemble a phone book –
impressive case, lots of numbers, but not much
plot.
–  D.J. Bem, Psychological Bulle8n, 118(2), 172- 177, 1995.
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Output of a literature review

Structure of an argument

Hart, C. (1998). Doing a literature review: Releasing the social science research
imagina5on. London, UK: Sage Publica8ons.
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Key points
•  Literature review is not a one time thing.
–  It is a con8nuous and cyclic process that one may need to
go back and forth 8ll the end.
•  Important to comment upon the comparisons
between numerical and experimental studies.
•  Reasons/arguments must be constructed to
explain the disagreements/discrepancies like
some of the assumptions made in numerical/
theoretical studies are not at all only partly met
in experiments.
•  Conversely, experimental error analysis must be
performed to ascertain whether the differences
are significant or well within the error band.
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Writing a literature review
•  A difficult task to write a good review

•  Unlike an introductory chapter in a thesis or

report, a literature review is usually more
comprehensive and elaborate and is well-
supported by the evidence. 

•  Topics are usually covered in substantial

detail and supported by references to research

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Structure of a literature review
•  Various methods of writing a literature
review

•  One can either go by the authors or by the

topic
–  Usually, second approach is beeer than the first

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Process of writing the literature review
•  Read and understand the articles
–  Understand the purpose, assump8ons & hypotheses
made and the claims made in the form of results and
analysis

•  Organization of the topics

–  Synthesize the informa8on in the form of notes, take
references
•  Create a set of topics and sub-topics
•  Iden8fy key references for each topic
–  Create a story in the mind

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Process of writing the literature review
•  Jot down a framework in the document
–  For example, make a list of various sec8ons
•  Introduc8on of the area
•  Statement of the problem
•  Topic and sub-topic wise list of sec8ons
•  Provide a discussion
•  Provide an account of what needs to be done
•  Summary and outlook
•  References
•  Fill in the details
•  Read it thoroughly and get rid of the mistakes
–  Pay special aeen8on to factual mistakes, spelling
mistakes, assump8ons and claims
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Reading the articles

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How to read a scientific article
•  A complex task
•  Try not to read it like a text book
•  Identify its structure and features
•  Look for author’s main points
•  Ask questions before, during and after
reading the article
•  Draw inferences based on your own
knowledge and experience

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Structure of an article
•  Most article follow a conventional structure:
–  Abstract
–  Introduc8on/Literature Review
–  Methods/Experimental Design/Calcula8on Details
–  Results
–  Discussion
–  Summary/Conclusions
–  Acknowledgement and References

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Abstract
•  Purpose of the study
•  Very brief account of Methodology
•  Key results
•  Most important message(s)

What next: You may move to figures to get a feel of the contents! 27
Introduction Section
•  What is the purpose of introduction section?

–  Provide background Informa8on

–  Expose the lacunas or gaps in the exis8ng body of

knowledge and state the problem undertaken

–  Show mo8va8on of the study

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Introduction
Roy et al., Am. J. Phys. 75 8, August 2007

Introducing the topic

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Introduction

Build up to
the problem
with
examples of
works done
in past

Roy et al., Am. J. Phys. 75 8, August 2007 30

Introduction

Highligh8ng the problem

Roy et al., Am. J. Phys. 75 8, August 2007

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Introduction

Analyzing the Problem

Roy et al., Am. J. Phys. 75 8, August 2007 32

Introduction
Analysis of the
problem

How the authors

have tackled the
problem exis8ng in
the literature

Roy et al., Am. J. Phys. 75 8, August 2007 33

Experimental/Calculation Details
•  Experimental Details:
–  Design of Experiments
–  Explana8on of the type of experiments conducted and
their details for one to be able to reproduce the
results

•  Explain the calculation approach

–  What kind of soqwares or algorithms were used, what
were the assump8ons made etc

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Details of the Experiment

Need to be enough
to allow repeKKon
of the work

Roy et al., Am. J. Phys. 75 8, August 2007 35

Results and Discussion
•  Results
–  Repor8ng of various kinds of data in the form of
figures/graphs and tables
–  Observa8ons made with appropriate references to the
figures and tables
•  Discussion
–  Comparison of the findings with the literature
–  Explana8on of any new finding and propose possible
reasons by means of either or all of analy8cal/
schema8c/textual methods
–  Inferences drawn in a broader context
–  Answers to the ques8ons posed in the introduc8on

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Results and Discussion

Roy et al., Am. J. Phys. 75 8, August 2007 37

Results and Discussion
Source of error

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Results

Analysis of the data

Roy et al., Am. J. Phys. 75 8, August 2007 39

Results

Analysis and
Novelty

Roy et al., Am. J. Phys. 75 8, August 2007 40

Discussion

HighlighKng the
important features

LimitaKons

Possibility of further
studies

Roy et al., Am. J. Phys. 75 8, August 2007 41

What are your critical observations?
•  On Page 1, why should the drag force consist
of a damping like behaviour?
•  How correct is the assumption about
dependence of damping coefficient k on
permeability of vacuum, magnetic moment,
conductivity and inner radius?
•  What will this happen if the magnet was not a
good metal?
•  What if the magnet is not cylindrical?
•  What is magnet gets titled?
•  What if the gap between magnet and the tube
wall is tiny?
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What else?
•  Extension of this idea to some other problem
–  For example how do shock absorbers work?
–  Can there be any applica8on of this experiment or
Lenz’s Law?

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Summary
•  Have some idea of the topic in mind.
•  Choose right sources and be methodical.
•  Get enough literature relevant to your
problem.
•  Read thoroughly and be critical.
•  Ask questions at every stage.
•  Make notes.
•  Remember it is a continuous process even you
have found your problem and have started
experiments/calculations/modelling.
•  Have fun while doing all this J
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