The literature review

3000 words
20% of module
 What is a literature review?
A literature review discusses published information in a particular
subject area over a certain time period. In other words, it is the
organization of published information in a retrospective manner and
combines both “summary” and “synthesis”.

• Summary is a recap of the important information of the source/s

• Synthesis is the re-organization of that information to show its
relationship. In other words builds arguments and draws
conclusions.
The review aims to do the following,

• give a new interpretation of old material and/or

combine new with old interpretations.

• trace the intellectual progression of the field,

including major milestones and debates

• evaluate the sources of information and advise the

reader on the most pertinent and relevant
publications.

• Indicate where the future of the research is heading.

 Conducting a literature review
will give you:

• Background knowledge of the field of inquiry

 Facts
 Eminent scholars
 Parameters of the field
 The most important ideas, theories, questions and
hypotheses.

• Knowledge of the methodologies common to the

field and a feeling for their usefulness and
appropriateness in various settings.
(Mauch & Birch, 2003)
 Literature review vs academic research paper:
What is the difference?
The main focus of an academic research paper is to present experimental
data and develop a new argument. A paper will contain a brief literature
review which is used as a foundation and support for a new insight that
you contribute. The focus of a literature review is to summarize
and synthesize the arguments and ideas of others without
adding new contributions.

Why do we write literature reviews?

• provide a handy up to date guide to a particular topic.
• provide a solid background for a research paper's investigation where
comprehensive knowledge of the literature of the field is essential.
• Provide and insight into where the field is heading and what future
work needs to be performed
 What should I do before writing the
literature review?
Your review should address a particular “issue” within the chosen subject
area. Consider the following before you start,

1. What is the particular “angle” or “focus” of your research project?

2. Decide on your “key words”. These will be used to find articles using
internet search engines e.g. PubMed, Ovid. The library have great
online services.
3. Decide what types and how many sources you should include (books,
journal articles, websites)
4. Evaluate your sources. Warning - not all websites are peer-reviewed
5. Produce a plan of your literature review using sub-headings and show
this to your project supervisor
6. IMPORTANT !! Find a model literature review.
Perform a preliminary search of the literature.

 Search lit to see what other work in the area of interest

has already been published.
− Gives a preview of the number of articles available on the topic.
− If your topic is already written about, select a slightly different topic or
modify the focus of the objective.

 Recent journal issues in areas central to the topic may

provide leads to content that should be in the review.
− Consult Web of Science’s Journal Citation Index for an idea of the
most important journals in the field

 Develop a list of subject headings that relate to themes of

interest
 Literature Search
 Search across multiple databases and information
resources.
− It’s not adequate to use Medline as your one and only resource

 Read the literature throughout the search process.

− What you read will guide your subsequent searches and refine
your topic.

 Your search should help refine the topic and objective of

the overview being written.
 Strategies for writing the literature review
Finding a focus. A literature review is usually organized
around ideas, not around the sources themselves. This
means that you will not just simply list your sources and go
into detail about each one of them, one at a time. Consider
instead what themes or issues connect your sources
together.
o Do they present the same or different ideas?
o Is there an aspect of the field that is missing?
o Do they reveal a trend in the field?
o Is there a raging debate?
Pick one or two of these themes to focus the
organization of your review.
The review statement: Construct a statement that
emphasises the relevance of the review and justifies why
the research that you are planning for your project is
necessary.
This statement is found in every review usually near the
end of the first introductory paragraph. This statement will
argue for a particular perspective on the current material
and knowledge.
Examples of review statements.
• The purpose of this review is to present recent evidence
supporting the current trend in treatment for congestive
heart failure that combines surgery and medicine.

• This review will provide an overview of several steps at

which insulin may potentially regulate its own delivery to
muscle.

• The present review addresses the evidence that

hyperfiltration is an independent predictor for diabetic
nephropathy.
 Organization of the review
So you've now got a “focus”, and you've narrowed it down with a “statement”,
what is the most effective way of presenting the information? What are the most
important topics, subtopics, etc., that your review needs to include? And in what
order should you present them? Construct an outline plan and show it to your
supervisor.

Literature reviews contain three basic elements:

1. Introduction: Gives a quick idea of the topic of the literature review, such as
the central theme or organizational pattern and includes your review
“statement”.

2. Body: Contains your discussion of sources and is best organized thematically

using several sub-headings. Each sub-section should be of a similar length.

3. Conclusions/Recommendations: Discuss what you have drawn from

reviewing literature so far. Where might the discussion proceed?
Organizing the body.

Once you have the basic categories in place, then you must consider how you will
present the sources themselves within the body of your paper. Create an
organizational method to focus this section even further. Literature reviews are best
organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time. However,
progression of time may still be an important factor in a review.

Sub-divide the review into sections which should follow a logical progression. Each
section should be related in someway to the previous section so there is a natural
flow to the text

Sometimes, you might need to add additional sections that are necessary for your
study, but that do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. Here are a few
other sections you might want to consider:
• Current Situation: Information necessary to understand the topic or focus
of the literature review.
• History or background section. The chronological progression of the field or
an idea or concept that is necessary to understand the literature review.
• Questions for Further Research: What questions about the field has the
review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the
review
References.
Vancouver or Harvard ?
How many ? 25+
Reference. The above information has been summarised from the following website. Please
refer to this website link for further details. The Writing Centre, Univeristy of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill. http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/literature_review.html
 Save your references
• Keep a record of the literature you collect

• Record where and when you retrieved the information

• Use a citation manager program like RefWorks

or EndNote

• Better to record too many references than

have to return a few weeks or months hence
and spend hours trying to relocate documents
• https://www.mendeley.com/
 Data Evaluation: Selecting literature
• Read widely
• When you read for your literature review, you are
actually doing two things at the same time:
1. Trying to define your research problem: finding a gap, asking a
question, continuing previous research, counter-claiming
2. Trying to read every source relevant to your research problem

• It is usually impossible to do the latter

− you will need to identify the most relevant and significant works and focus
on them.

(Asian Institute of Technology)

 How To Read the Material
• Reading for the big picture
 Read the easier works first

 Skim the document and identify major concepts

 After you have a broad understanding of the

10 to 15 papers, you can start to see
patterns:
− Groups of scientists argue or disagree with other groups. For
example, Some researchers think x causes y, others that x is only a
moderating variable
 Narrow your focus
• Start from new material to old, general to specific
 starting with general topic will provide leads to specific areas of interest and help
develop understanding for the interrelationships of research

 Note quality of journal, output of author

• As you read and become more informed on the topic, you will
probably need to go back and do more focused searches

• Think, analyze, and weed out

• Arrange to spend some review time with an experienced researcher

in the field of study to get feedback and to talk through any
problems encountered
 Read the Material Closer
• Step 1: read the abstract
 Decide whether to read the article in detail
• Step 2: read introduction
 It explains why the study is important
 It provides review and evaluation of relevant literature
• Step 3: read Method with a close, critical eye
 Focus on participants, measures, procedures
• Step 4: Evaluate results
 Do the conclusions seem logical
 Can you detect any bias on the part of the researcher?
• Step 5: Take discussion with a grain of salt
 Edges are smoothed out
 Pay attention to limitations
 Analyze the Literature
• Take notes as you read through each paper that will be included in the review

• In the notes include:

 purpose of study reviewed
 synopsis of content
 research design or methods used in study
 brief review of findings

• Once notes complete organize common themes together. Some people do this
in a word document, others use index cards so they can shuffle them.

• Some people construct a table of info to make it easier to organize their

thoughts.

• As you organize your review, integrate findings elicited from note taking or
table making process.
 Questions To Consider In Your Review

•What do we already know in the immediate area concerned?

•What are the characteristics of the key concepts or the main factors
or variables?
•What are the relationships between these key concepts, factors or
variables?
•What are the existing theories?
•Where are the inconsistencies or other shortcomings in our
knowledge and understanding?
•What views need to be (further) tested?
•What evidence is lacking, inconclusive, contradictory or too limited?
•Why study (further) the research problem?
•What contribution can the present study be expected to make?
•What research designs or methods seem unsatisfactory?
 Be accurate and thorough
• Your review acts as a guide of your topic for others.
• Take care to make your review:
 Accurate: e.g., Citations correct, findings attributed to authors correct.
− Make sure someone can track down
the article and that you have provided
a reliable representation
 Complete: i.e., include all important papers
(not every paper written on the topic).
Scientific tense
Getting the tense (past, present, future) correct is extremely important for writing a
polished and professional piece of scientific writing.
The quick rules of scientific tense (not 100% correct)
 The introduction is written in the present tense
 The methods is written in the past tense
 The results is written in the past tense
 The discussion is written in the present tense

The accurate rules of scientific tense

 Accurate scientific observations are considered timeless, and as such should be
written in the present tense. For example, “insulin regulates[present] blood glucose
levels”.
 Specific scientific experiments occurred in the past, and as such should be written
in the past tense. For example, “Diabetic mice were[past] injected with insulin and
blood glucose was[past] measured”.