Practical Research 1

Quarter 3: Week 7-8-Module 4

Writing Related Literature

Directions: Read the following paragraphs to help you understand more about ethical
standards in conducting research.

Ethics are broadly the set of rules, written and unwritten, that governs our expectations of
our own and others’ behavior. Effectively, they set out how we expect others to behave, and why.
While there is broad agreement on some ethical va

lues (for example, that murder is bad), there is also wide variation on how
exactly these values should be interpreted in practice.
Research ethics are the set of ethics that govern how scien
isseminated.

Research ethics are important for a number of reasons.

• They promote the aims of research, such as expanding knowledge.
• They support the values required for collaborative work, such as mutual respect and fairness.
This is essential because scientific research depends on collaboration between researchers and
groups.
• They mean that researchers can be held accountable for their actions. Many researchers are
supported by public money, and regulations on conflicts of interest, misconduct, and research
involving humans or animals are necessary to ensure that money is spent appropriately.
• They ensure that the public can trust research. For people to support and fund research, they
have to be confident in it.
• They support important social and moral values, such as the principle of doing no harm to
others.

Lesson 1: Following Ethical Standard in

Writing Literature

In writing the literature review, researchers must follow a set of ethical

standards or guidelines. Following the guidelines ensures credibility, academic
honesty, and integrity among researchers. As you write your literature, be aware of the
following guidelines;

1. Always acknowledge the source of information whether it is a primary source or secondary

source.
Make certain that you cite your sources by creating a reference list and in-text
citation. Avoid plagiarism. Do not just copy tables, figures, data, ideas, images, and
words of other authors, making it appear that such works are yours. Always give credit
to the authors of studies you have cited in your review.

2. Recognize the ideas, theories, and original conceptualizations of others.

People who have contributed to your topic or helped you shape your topic should
be properly acknowledged.
3. Be critical in the studies you will include in the literature review.
Make sure that major and milestone studies are well reviewed. Also include
minor studies that have significant contributions to your topic. Do not underscore a
study that runs contrary to your problem statement This is a set of standardized rules
and regulation that serves as a guide inconducting a research and writing of literature
review. What is right and wrong is defined as ethics.
Think of the following conduct, reflect if you are doing it or not.
1. You are fabricating data or results and recording written in your literature. Then,
you are doing “Fabrication”.
2. You are editing research equipment, materials, or changing ideas or removing a
result with inaccuracy. Then, you are “Falsifying Documents”.
3. You are claiming someone else idea, concepts, processes, results, phrases or words.
Then, you are doing “Plagiarism”.

If you are doing the above-mentioned conduct, then I am strongly saying that you
should stop now. Those are research misconduct and it is unethical.

Here is the ethical way of doing a literature review:

1. Discuss intellectual property frankly.
2. Be conscious of multiple roles.
3. Follow informed consent rules.
4. Respect privacy and confidentiality.
5. Tap into ethics resources.

How can we avoid plagiarism?

✓ Paraphrasing - stating someone else’s ideas, theories, or processes in your own
words.
- Ensure to capture the main idea behind the literature. Don’t forget to
cite sources.
✓ Summarizing - providing the gist of the literature.
- Consider the WH’s questions in capturing the key concepts. Don’t
forget to cite sources.
✓Direct Quotations - adopting necessary text.
- Use ellipsis points (…) to shorten a quote. Use it for impact in
your literature. Don’t forget to cite sources.

Integrating sources into a paper can be challenging. How much of a source do

you use? When should you use quotation marks? It is important to remember that you
are the author of a paper, so sources are properly used to back up your own
arguments, not state an argument in themselves, so how you use them depends on the
structure of your paper and your argument.

Here is a paragraph from a scholarly article:

These results suggest that morning people, or early chronotypes—as measured
on the morningness–eveningness continuum are more proactive than are evening
types. Additionally, the misalignment of social and biological time, as assessed by the
difference between rise times on weekdays and on free days, correlated with proactivity,
suggesting that people with a high misalignment of social and biological time may be
less able to act in a proactive manner, probably because of sleep delay.

There is an important idea that you need to know. Please take time
to read it!
Their biological schedules seem not to fit neatly into social demands (e.g.,
school, university, work schedules) as do those of less misaligned people. Randler, C.
(2009). Proactive people are morning people. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39(12),
2787-2797.

See examples of how to quote, paraphrase and summarize this paragraph below:
Quoting
• Use Quotation when you are repeating something from a source exactly word for word.
• You should use quotation marks even if you are only taking just a few words from a source.
• Quotes can help lend authority to an initial argument, but should not be relied upon
too heavily in a paper. If you find yourself quoting an entire paragraph, a paraphrase or
summary of that content may often be more appropriate.
• Quotes can and should be used when the original author’s wording is unusual,
unique, or memorably states a point.
Examples using the paragraph above:
Randler (2009) states that late risers have “a high misalignment of social and
biological time” which results in a mismatch between their natural schedules and the
normal workday (p. 2793).
or
“People with a high misalignment of social and biological time may be less able
to act in a proactive manner, probably because of sleep delay” (Randler, 2009, p.
2793).

Notice that there are two ways to incorporate a source:

Singal phrase – using the author’s name in your own narrative, and then incorporating
their idea or words into a sentence, like the first example above.
Direct quotation – Using the words or ideas of the source independently and adding the
author’s name in the in-text citation, like in the second example.

Paraphrasing
• Paraphrasing is taking the idea of a sentence or passage, and putting it into your own
words.
• Paraphrasing is NOT copying the sentence and replacing or changing a few words to
be different from the original. (This is called “patch writing” and may trigger plagiarism-
detecting programs.)
• You should paraphrase when the idea or point is more important than the actual
words used.
• You should paraphrase when the words are complex but the point is simple.
• Paraphrasing should remain faithful to the original meaning of the material.

Examples using the paragraph above:

Randler (2009) states that people who are naturally morning people often also display
traits that are considered proactive. He also suggests that late risers may not show as
many proactive traits because they naturally operate on a different sleep schedule (p.
2793).

People who are naturally morning people have been shown to also display traits that
are considered proactive, and late risers display fewer of these traits because they don’t
get enough sleep on days when they have to go to work or school. (Randler, 2009, p.
2793).

Summarizing
• As with paraphrasing, summarize when the idea or point is more important than the
actual words used.
• However, summary can also condense much more material – even an entire book or
article.
• Summary can often lead into your own points on the material.

Examples using the paragraph above:

Recent research shows that people who are not naturally early risers often have
persistent issues adjusting themselves to the morning-oriented schedule of most
schools and workplaces, and because of this may be less proactive in their behaviors
(Randler, 2009).

The natural alignment of sleep schedules to work and school schedules allows
early risers to have more energy and display proactive traits, while people who are
natural late risers, and thus often combating sleep delay in adhering to regular
schedules, display fewer of these traits (Randler, 2009).

Notice that with a Summary we do not always have to include the page number as we are
summarizing the findings from the whole study, rather than just a small part of it

Activity 1. Try it! Do it in an Ethical Way!

Directions: In the materials that you have already reviewed for your literature,
try to practice paraphrasing, summarizing, and direct quoting. Follow the template
below.
“Applying the Ethical Standards!”

Action to use Source Outcome

Quoting

Paraphrasing

Summarizing
Lesson 2: Presenting Written Review of
Literature

READ ME AND UNDERSTAND ME

Directions: Read the following paragraphs to help you understand literature review.

Finally, you are now at the last lesson of this module. This time you will learn
how to present the written review of literature. It is significant to know what
considerations you must take in order to present your literature review credible and
reliable. In the end, readers must look for focused, concise, logical, developed,
integrative, and current literature review. A literature review is a summary of studies
related to a particular area of research. It identifies and summarizes all the relevant
research conducted on a particular topic. It is important that your literature review is
focused. Therefore, you should choose a limited number of studies that are central to
your topic rather than trying to collect a wide range of studies that might not be closely
connected.

Presenting Literature Review in the Introduction and Discussion Sections

There are many benefits to presenting literature reviews in the introduction and
discussion sections of your manuscripts. However, there are differences in how you can
present literature reviews in each section.

The Introduction Section

The literature reviewed in the introduction should:
• Introduce the topic
• Establish the significance of the study
• Provide an overview of the relevant literature
• Establish a context for the study using the literature
• Identify knowledge gaps
• Illustrate how the study will advance knowledge on the topic

As you can see, literature review plays a significant role in the introduction section.
However, there are some things that you should avoid doing in this section. These
include:
• Elaborating on the studies mentioned in the literature review
• Using studies from the literature review to aggressively support your research
• Directly quoting studies from the literature review
It is important to know how to integrate the literature review into the
introduction in an effective way. Although you can mention other studies, they should
not be the focus. Instead, focus on using the literature review to aid in setting a
foundation for the manuscript.
The Discussion Section
Literature reviews play an important role in the discussion section of a
manuscript. In this section, your findings should be the focus, rather than those of
other researchers. Therefore, you should only use the studies mentioned in the
literature review as support and evidence for your study.

There are three ways in which you can use literature reviews in the discussion section:
• To Provide Context for Your Study
Using studies from the literature review helps to set the foundation for how you
will reveal your findings and develop your ideas.
• Compare your Findings to Other Studies
You can use previous literature as a backdrop to compare your new findings.
This helps describe and also advance your ideas.
• State the Contribution of Your Study
In addition to developing your ideas, you can use literature reviews to explain
how your study contributes to the field of study. However, there are three
common mistakes that researchers make when including literature reviews in
the discussion section. First, they mention all sorts of studies, some of which are
not even relevant to the topic under investigation. Second, instead of citing the
original article, they cite a related article that mentions the original article.
Lastly, some authors cite previous work solely based on the abstract, without
even going through the entire paper.

As you’ve learned previously, there are sections of literature review namely

introduction, body and conclusion. But, how can we develop an organized and a well
presented literature review? There are ways to present and organize a literature review:

Chronology of Events
•You can present your materials according to when they are published.
•When a research follows clear path of research building then this is a possible presentation.

By Publication
•You can present your materials by publication to demonstrate a vital trend.
•This is a great presentation when showing a progress of a significant concept, event, idea, or phenomena .

Thematic
•You can present your materials around the topic or issue rather than progression of time.
• A review presented in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to point made.

Methodological
•You can present based on methodological approach used by the researcher.
•This may influence either the type of materials in the review or the way documents are presented .

COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID

1. Hurrying, you might miss something that is vital in improving your study.
2. Focusing on secondary materials rather than primary ones.
3. Converging on findings rather than methodologies.
4. Resources are not relevant to the research problem.
5. Uncritically accepts another researcher’s findings.

Source: McCombes, Shona 2019, How to write a literature review retrieved at

scribbr.com

Presenting and the Writing Process

1. Rough Draft-this involves a strategy on how you are going to present and write
your literature review. By this time, you have already a synthesis or an outline.
This will help you organize your literature review. Finally, you should write your
2. Final Draft-this refers to a piece of writing that is handed as a final form of
literature review. Consisting a final work for the introduction, body and
conclusion.

3. Edit-this involves the process of proofreading. You may also ask for feedback
on your draft allowing you to create a better paper and become a stronger
researcher and writer.

4. Edit Again-this involves editing and revising of paper free from grammatical
errors, relevancy, language, and other technical aspects.

Source: McCombes, Shona 2019, How to write a literature review retrieved at scribbr.com