Scientific Research Methods Dr. Engr.

Bien Maunahan

CHAPTER 3

LITERATURE REVIEW
MORE READING NOTES WRITING LITERATURE

This material teaches you how to work smart and get good grades. The discussion focuses on
how to write a literature review - and, more importantly, how to do so in three simple steps.

This is based on a different angle in the literature, and you can use any references for more
information. Now, before we get into how to write a literature review, it is critical to take a
step back and consider what is the function or what is the WHY of a literature review are.
When we understand the WHY, the HOW and WHAT become easier to understand. So, let
us go over some of the most important functions of a literature review.

WHY
1. Demonstrate your understanding (knowledge)
2. Justify the research gap
3. Framework for thought (Conceptual)
4. Input into the methodology

Function 1

The first purpose of the literature review is to demonstrate that you have a thorough
understanding of the literature and the current state of research on your research questions.
So, your research will be on a specific topic. The starting point for your discussion will be to
demonstrate that whatever your research questions are, whatever the aim of your research is,
you must demonstrate that you are aware of what has already been done.

Academic writing is about standing on the shoulders of giants, so you must demonstrate who
the giants were, who the previous researchers were, what they said, and where the argument
stands. That is function number one, and it is arguably the most important.

Function 2

The second WHY for conducting a literature review is to demonstrate a gap in the literature.
To illustrate the need for your specific research. So, regardless of the level, there is some
requirement for originality if you are doing master's research. In general, universities do not
want you to research something that has already been done a million times because what is
the point of doing so? So, the purpose of the literature review is for you to go out and do the
work of determining where the gaps in the literature are, where the gaps in the research are,
and how you can take a unique and previously unexplored angle. Hopefully not overdone, but
how can you take a unique perspective in context or a specific country, environment, etc.

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So, the second function of your literature review, and you are only reviewing the literature, is
to establish that distinct, clear, and specific need for your research.

Function 3

The third function may or may not apply to everyone. Still, if you intend to create a
theoretical or conceptual model, the conceptual framework of the literature review will serve
as the foundation. So, you would be taking the various theories and multiple pieces of
research that have been done in the past and developing some conceptual model that you
would then test and validate. Perhaps not for everyone, but this is an important function if
you do quantitative validation in testing.

Function 4

The fourth and most important function of the literature review is to provide a foundation for
the methodology. So, what happens when you review all of the literature in your field that is
relevant to your research question and objectives? You will naturally become acquainted with
all of the various studies that have been conducted and the methodologies that have been
employed. Did they employ qualitative or quantitative methods? If quantitative methods were
used, did they have well-validated, well-tested question sets, published questionnaires, and so
on?

As a result, the literature review allows you to investigate into what has already been done
and build on it. You can frequently find surveys through your literature review if you are
conducting surveys. You can find good question sets on the internet. A good set of scales
with good Cronbach's alphas can be found. The point is that one of the most important
functions of a literature review is to gain inspiration, insights, and possibly even useful,
practical tools and takeaways to inform your methodology.

So those are the four main purposes of a literature review. The first two are the most
important to remember. In other words, demonstrating that you understand what you are
talking about, showing that you are not just coming in and trying to reinvent the wheel,
indicating that you have read the literature relevant to your specific problem, and, of course,
showing that the angle you are going to take is original; somehow unique and somehow
warranted in terms of going out and doing the research.

THREE STEPS OF HOW TO WRITE YOUR LITERATURE REVIEW:

Step 1 Locate the Most Relevant Research

Step 2 Logging, Cataloging, and Synthesizing
Step 3 Outlining and writing up

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STEP 1 Find the Relevant Research

It is to go out and conduct the relevant research. This may appear obvious, but you would be
surprised how some people approach it. So, the first step is to get out there and start digging.
Get out there and look for the research. If you have already made and accepted your proposal,
you have some core literature foundation. Nonetheless, even if your proposal has been
accepted, the university and the Advisors will expect you to continue reviewing—a more in-
depth examination of the relevant literature.

So, in this step, it will go over four very useful strategies for going out and finding relevant
literature. This stage of the process can be time-consuming. You can waste a lot of time going
down dead ends if you do not have the right approach to going out and hunting, and no one
wants to do that. This is a large project, and you want to finish the literature as soon as
possible.

Four techniques/methods to find the literature / find the relevant research

Method 1 Google Scholar Url: https://scholargoogle.com

The technique is known as Google Scholar scrubbing. Google Scholar is most likely
already familiar to you. If you are not, you can learn more about it at
scholar.google.com. Google Scholar is simply a search engine for academic material,
similar to how Google searches the rest of the Internet. As a result, Google Scholar is
an extremely effective search engine. It uses Google's technology to find content that
is extremely relevant to the keywords or focal topic you are looking at.

Google Scholar is unbeatable. Google Scholar is excellent for getting a general sense
of the literature. Google Scholar is also awesome because it displays the citation data.
In other words, how frequently has a specific journal article been cited? This gives
you a good idea of an article's authority and credibility. Assume the university has
specific requirements for the credibility of your cited content. In that case, you should
keep track of how many times each of these articles has been cited.

So, the first step is to go to Google Scholar, search for any relevant keywords, and
read through all of the articles there. A good way to determine what is relevant is to
open the articles that appear relevant based on their title and read the abstract—a
quick read-through will give you a good idea of whether or not this suits you or fits
your research aims and objectives. When you use Google Scholar, you'll notice that
some articles are free to read - click the link and open sesame - and there you have it.
It is easily accessible.

However, many of them are behind some kind of paywall. As a result, you are going
to hit that wall a lot. You might get lucky and discover that everything you require is
free and readily available. But you will hit a lot of dead ends when it comes to hitting

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the journals where you have to pay, log in, and so on. Do not be concerned about it at
this time. You should write down the titles of all of these articles. If you can get
something for free, go ahead and get it, but you will remove these titles. Take notes
on them exactly as you see them, including the author's name, date, and so on, and
then proceed to method number two.

Method 2 University Online Library

A university database or your university library can be used for this method. Every
university will typically provide you with access to their licensed content set, which is
quite extensive. So, most of the time, you will find a lot of content from method
number one on Google Scholar, which you will bring to method number two. You
will go ahead and copy/paste that title exactly as it appeared in Google Scholar. You
copy/paste that into the university's search engine, and you will almost always find it
there. You will be able to get to it there. If you cannot, you should go over to the
institution and see if there's any way you can get access to that article.

When using method number two, or the university database, you must copy-paste
the article title exactly as you see it. The reason for this is that, unlike Google
Scholar, university databases and search engines are usually pretty basic, rudimentary
in terms of the technology they use; thus, if you do not enter the title exactly as it
appears in the article, there is a good chance that you will only get results that you
need to be completed. It will appear as if they do not exist. As a result, ensure that
you copy/paste what is displayed.
Method number one the Google Scholar and method
number two goes hand-in-hand.

Method 3 Snowballing

This is referred to as snowballing. Snowballing works well once you have identified a
few key articles that are extremely relevant to your topic. So, what exactly is
snowballing? Downloading two or three hyper-relevant articles to whatever your
research questions are? What are your research objectives? What is the focus of your
investigation? You get those three articles and read them all the way through. As with
any journal article, a list of references will be provided at the end. Students usually
ignore this or do not even print it out. However, that is the gold mine because it shows
you everything in that relevant article. It provides you with everything that is built on.
In other words, all the resources for you to go and unpack the article's foundations.

So, with those two or three core articles, you should pay close attention to the articles
they reference. You find them using Google Scholar or the university's database, and
you read them. You determine whether or not they are relevant. You do the same
thing if they are relevant. If you go to their reference list and dig through those
references, you will find a snowball effect where you are just picking up more and

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more and more and more. You will eventually have a plethora of highly relevant
articles.

As you snowball further and further, you will notice that the article references start
getting older and older and older because articles are naturally built on articles over
time. So, be aware that you may run into the very old territory, so keep that in mind.

Method 4 Review Related Theses/Dissertations

The final method for locating relevant resources and articles is straightforward. Look
at other people's dissertations on your topics. Ideally, it would help if you were
looking at university theses. Nonetheless, unless your institution is extremely large,
you are unlikely to find too many articles or theses about your exact topic or that link
to your topic. As a result, you will most likely have to look at other people's theses
from other universities or even other countries, and so on. The good news is that it
does not matter because all you are looking for right now are sources. You are not
looking for ideas on how they structured their thesis or linked various parts. All you
need are sources that are relevant to your research topic. So looking at other people's
theses is a good idea because they have been in a similar situation and have done the
work you are currently doing.

In addition to university's database, there are other databases you can look at.
EBSCO, ProQuest, Medline, Econlit, Open access, and other databases. There are a
plethora of them. Theses and dissertations are generally easy to obtain, and they are
free to get; no one charges a fee for them. As a result, that is a great way to quickly
look at other people's literature reviews in a similar field.

Keep in mind that you are dealing with student work through it all. So you do not
know whether or not that student received a good grade; you do not know if they
received a bad score. You only know that they passed. So, use caution when
employing this method. Use common sense and avoid relying too heavily on the
theses or dissertations of others. However, use it as a starting point for locating
relevant articles.

The first step is the most important. You cannot do anything until you have done the digging.
Many students try to avoid digging. It is difficult, painful, and time-consuming work.
However, the smart way to approach this is to use a combination of methods rather than
reading full articles; instead, read the abstract. If the abstract does not tell you enough, read
the introduction and conclusion of any given article, which should give you a sense of
whether it is relevant or not.

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Review of Step 1
1. Utilize Google Scholar to locate reputable sources
2. Utilize the university's database to locate fee-based resources
3. Snowball reference lists from journal articles
4. Review related Theses/dissertations

STEP 2 LOG, CATALOG, and SYNTHESIZE

The second step in conducting a literature review is to log, catalog, and synthesize the
literature, which are the three essential functions of this step.

Steps 1 and 2 are not always presented sequentially. In most cases, you will find a large
amount of literature in step one and begin logging, cataloging, and synthesizing it. Then new
ideas will arise, and you may return to step one and start looking for additional literature. As
a result, it could be a more iterative approach, and it should be a more iterative approach.
However, step two simplifies the process: archiving, cataloging, and synthesizing literature.

So, what exactly do we mean when we say we are logging, cataloging, and synthesizing the
literature? The first step is to record the reference information. Logging is a simple activity
that simply means you have gathered many articles, some of which are relevant but others are
not, and you can discard them. However, you have compiled all of these articles. The most
important thing to do right away is to enter that into your reference management software; if
you do not have one, use Microsoft Excel to create your format or use the format provided by
your instructor.

Assume you are not using a reference manager such as Mendeley or Zotero (can download).
In that case, now is the time to learn how to use one because you will never manage your
references in any other way for a good dissertation or thesis.

Function 1: LOGGING

Keep a record of everything. There is a lot of synchronizing and easy importing from
the likes of Google Scholar or the preferences of your university database with a lot of
software, specifically Mendeley. You can easily import those references directly into
Mendeley, so you do not have to type everything out if you are importing physically.
However, as a recommendation, you should simply run over it and check all of the
data that has been imported. Check to see if it makes sense. There may be minor
errors from time to time. There may be typos in the reference data from time to time,
but the import works fairly well overall.

So, the first step is to enter all of that information into your reference manager; even if
it does not appear to be particularly relevant right now, enter it anyway because it will
save you later. You do not have to go back and forth looking for content; just dump it

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into your reference manager, and it's there. When it comes time to cite, all you have to
do is enter the title and click drag and drop, and it is in your word document. So, the
first step is to enter all of your data, references, or journal articles into your reference
manager.

Function 2: CATALOGING ALL Relevant Articles

It is cataloging your data. This is extremely important, perhaps even more so than step
one. As you go through this process, you will build up a vast library of literature, and
it is tempting to believe that you will remember what everything was called. You will
recall that guy's point over there, that framework someone created that was either
super relevant or not so relevant. It is tempting to believe that you will remember
everything, but it does not. As you expand, it will become a haze of information, and
while you will begin to remember certain authors' names, surnames, and so on, there
is no way you will be able to navigate this.

If you are doing a good literature review, you are probably working with a hundred or
200 references or sources; who knows how many different references or sources you
will forget. As a result, it is critical to creating a catalog. It is recommended that a
catalog be created in Microsoft Excel. Whether you use it or not, you will need a
database of all of your articles, and the database does not have to be particularly
sophisticated. Still, it must include the following information for each article: the
author, the date, the title, their core information, and a summary of what the article is
about. Please use the provided sample template to overview your topic's main points
and key insights. Perhaps a summary of methodological components, suggestions, or
assets that you could use and any other observations about each article.

That should ideally be divided into as many columns as possible. In other words, you
have as much granular data as possible to sort and filter. So, you can sort by a specific
period, for example, if your literature review is in chronological order. You need the
ability to sort by key topics. As a result, it is usually advised to include some
keywords. You should be able to sort each article by key variables, such as if you are
conducting a quantitative study. You want to move quickly in Excel while testing the
relevance of certain variables. Filter out those who mentioned this variable affecting
X or Y.

So, you want to go into as much detail as possible so that when you get to the point
where you have 100, 200, or 300 different sources, you can just quickly run through
them. That becomes extremely important when it comes time to write your literature
review because you do not want to go back and say, "OK, who was it?" Who were all
the people who talked about it? You would like to open Excel. And say, okay, this
variable here, we discuss a specific variable contributing to trust.

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Let us suppose that competence is that variable. For example, who were all articles or
authors who talked about trust or competence being an antecedent of trust? Then
Excel will boom, and you will know who the five authors were. Then you can quickly
put together a lengthy piece in your literature review stating that these people, these
people, these people, these people spoke about it, and they had a slightly different
perspective. So, this is extremely important, and it is something that students tend to
rush through because it feels like you are doing double work, having to build a catalog
and include all of that detail, and then going and writing about it. Nonetheless,
literature reviews take time, and you will forget who said what.

So very importantly, use the catalog. As discussed earlier, if you do not want to build
your one, there is a look for a free one you can download from any website. Whatever
you do, build a catalog.

Function 3: DIGEST and SYNTHESIZE

Step three is to digest all of this information and synthesize it in your mind. So far,
you have entered all of your data into your reference manager. You have cataloged
everything in Excel, but it is tempting to think you have everything. Everything is
now in place. You can now write a report. But you need to take a step back and spend
some time in your head synthesizing all of this information and pondering how it all
fits together. This is a critical step that cannot be overstated. You must devote time to
your reading.

Ask yourself:
• Thinking about how the research questions you are asking are being
answered by the current theory, literature, or the current research.
• How do all of these pieces fit together?
• Who agrees about what? What do people disagree about? How does
everything fit together?
• What narrative are you going to write about? This is why it is really
important to think about how it all comes together and piece it together in
your mind. Start thinking about the arguments you want to develop in your
literature review.

Spend some time taking a step back because everything you have done up to this
point has been very focused on this article, then this article, then this article in this
article. When you do this, you begin to think in storage tower. So, you want to take a
step back from all of that and say, "Okay." How does everything fit together? If you
were to give a speech on everything said, how would you make it cohesive, and how
would you incorporate it into a narrative? That is exactly what you will do in your
literature review chapter.

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So, take a step back and consider what is going on. This will not be accomplished in a
single session. You will probably spread it out over a few days, if not a few weeks. It
is advised to use some sort of visual aid. Everyone is different, but it has been
discovered that visual aids are extremely beneficial. It entails mentally mapping all of
your bits and pieces. You can use mind mapping software like Freemind or any of
the hundreds of available apps, or you can use a nice big whiteboard and a marker and
just freehand it, connecting this idea to that idea and raising new questions. Others
find that putting it all down in a visual format and attempting to bring everything
together visually works well because they can simply keep track of everything being
said rather than keep it all in their mind.

Do whatever works best for you, whether simply sitting down and taking notes or
creating mind maps. Whatever you do, do not rush into writing up because that is
exactly what you will do. You will write a good literature review (because everything
is fresh in your mind), but you will not be able to see how everything fits together,
which means you will not synthesize everything. If you do not recognize this, you will
not have a strong piece of literature or a strong literature review because outsiders will
be able to step in, take a zoomed-out perspective, and ask, what about these
questions? Why did you not bring it up? You did not mention it because you were so
focused on these key variables that you did not take a step back and consider how
everything fits together. It is harping on this, but it takes time to take a step back and
digest, then synthesize, all of the information.

So, it is the literature review process to Log it, catalog it, and then step back and
synthesize all of this in your mind into some sort of big picture view.

Review of Step 2
1. Log all your sources into reference software
2. Build a literature catalog in Excel
3. Step back, zoom out and synthesize

STEP 3: OUTLINING AND WRITING UP

Finally, you will begin writing. Do not begin writing before you have completed your
outline. It is tempting to say, "I have gone through all of those steps before I have gone
through all of the processes," now that you have gone through them, "I am just itching to
start writing! I just want to scribble down my ideas! I just want to get something
tangible to give to my advisers!" Yes, it is appealing, but the first step is to outline.

Tip #1 Draw up your outline

Outlining can involve returning to your whiteboard and doing things visually again, or it can
simply be a Word document with a list of bullet points. Whatever your preference, the most
important thing is to plan out how you will structure your conversation ahead of time. If you

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do not put in the time, you will get a lot of writing done and say many things, but it will not
necessarily be the most effective way. It may not always present information in an easy-to-
understand manner for a first-time reader, and you must take the time to communicate
effectively because you have done all of this work. It is very easy for students who are well-
versed in their literature to communicate poorly on paper. That is unfortunate because they
did the work and effort, but they did not share well on paper.

Tip #2 An hour of planning can save you hours of doing! (Dale Carnegie)

The point is to spend some time outlining how you will approach your dissertation or how
you are going to approach your literature review first. There are two ways that you can
structure a literature review.

Two structural options you can structure a literature review.

Chronological (in date order). So, simply organize the literature review based on
how the narrative evolves. That is appropriate for some topics, research questions, and
so on.

Thematic (grouped theme). Suppose you look at antecedents, drivers, causes of X,

or contributors to X. A good way to structure it is by antecedent or group of drivers,
so there's driver number one, driver number two, driver number three, driver number
four, and how all of these things contribute to a specific outcome. How will you
divide your literature review into two sections for each person? Whatever structure
you choose, make sure you outline everything first.

Make a detailed outline on paper. You are not going to stick to it 100% of the time. When
you start writing, you might take a turn. That is all right. But have something, to begin with.
Before you start writing, you should have a clear idea of how you intend to develop a
narrative. Do not fall into the trap of rushing off and writing 5,000 or 10,000 words with a lot
of information but no clear narrative. It is because having a clear line of argument that builds
A plus B plus C plus D equals whatever outcome is what wins. That is the most crucial aspect
of communicating what you have.

Tip #3 So, consider the two steps. Step one is to outline, and then step two is time to
write it up.

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Writing Up

There is one very important thing to remember in terms of writing up. Perfection is not the
goal of your first draft of a literature review. But just getting something down on paper is
crucial. Do not strive for perfection. At this point, perfection is the wrong goal. "Done is
better than perfect" is a good mantra to live by. You're trying to get the rough content down
in your first draft of your literature review (really, your first draft of anything in your
dissertation or thesis).

Tip #4 First draft is for getting it all onto paper

You already have an outline, so whatever you write will be a decent story. Do not get too
caught up in conveying information in the most effective way possible. Do not get stuck
trying to create this perfectly smooth argument and smooth narrative on the first draft of the
literature review. Rather, get everything down on paper for version one.

Then, once you have completed that, you return. It implies that once you have scribbled
everything down on paper, you will walk away from it for a day or two. Clear your mind and
get away from the literature because your mind will be foggy at this point. Then go back over
it and make rough edits to improve the flow from one section to the next, strengthen certain
issues, and highlight certain components on which everything is dependent. Tighten it.

Tip #5 The second draft is for tightening up and improving the flow

Then, it is suggested that you give your literature review to a friend, family member, or
someone interested enough to read it. Request a read-through from them. Give them as little
information as possible. Request that they read through your work and provide feedback. Did
they comprehend it? Were they entertained by what they read? Did it make sense?

Asking them to explain the literature review is a good way to see if you got your main points
across. Not in great detail, but just ask them to summarize what happened. What you will
know when you get feedback from someone completely new, someone who has not been
immersed in all of this literature, your research topic, or a dissertation or thesis. You will get
a clear picture of what points stuck, what points were clear, and what points were not. So that
is really helpful feedback, and if you are going to have a friend look at your content, do not
give them all of the information upfronts. Give them no warm-ups. Simply hand over your
document. If you need to explain some technical jargon, you may want to explain your
research questions. That would be a good start, so they understand what you are trying to
accomplish. However, do not give them the mini-version. Give them your literature review
and request that they read it.

Tip # 6 Ask friends to explain it back.

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When you ask them to explain it, whatever they say in response will give you a good idea of
which points were strong, which were clear, and which arguments need some bolstering. As a
result, you must do so. After that, edit and perhaps have a few friends provide feedback. The
more, the better.

Once you have gotten that feedback and identified what is missing, tighten up your document
again, and then send it off to your advisers for feedback. Working with a professional
beforehand is advantageous because they will iron out all the obvious or fundamental issues.
This clears your advisers' plates, allowing them to focus on more important issues rather than
minor details. It is up to you how you work that out, but whatever you do, get that pretty
tightened up the document to your advisers and get their feedback before tightening it up.
That is critical; you may have multiple review sessions with your advisers or only have one.
You must determine how to utilize that resource of advice and feedback best. Do you pay
close attention to any feedback they give you because advisers are often the first examiners,
and you want to satisfy any requests they make?

Tip #7 Listen very carefully to your adviser and co-advisors feedback

So that is step three; outline first, then write but remember that done is better than perfect
when writing. Do not get stuck trying to get everything perfect the first time. Get your ideas
down on paper, then tighten them up, give them to a friend, someone, or your research
advisers, and tighten them up. But do not try to write the perfect literature review the first
time because you will get stuck, get writer’s block, and never finish this.

Review of Step 3:
1. Draw up ab outline/clear structure first
2. Do not fall into the trap of perfection
3. Ask a friend to read and explain back

So, there you have it. Those are the three steps of how to write a literature review. No rocket
science, this is all pretty straightforward stuff, but for sure, you have noticed there are some
key points to remember as you progress through this whole literature review process.

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SUMMARY

Start with why?

Begin by understanding what a literature review entails. What exactly is the goal of the
literature review? Then get to work on digging up the content using some effective
techniques. Locate your content.

Step two is to enter all of the information into your reference manager and catalog it in a
detailed Excel spreadsheet. If you remember, get a free one and spend some time
synthesizing everything in your head, perhaps on a whiteboard.

Step three is to begin writing, but before you start, outline your argument and how you intend
to structure this chapter, and then start writing without regard for perfection. Make a list of
your ideas.

Three pretty straightforward steps to writing a literature review.

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