Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students (2009)

Summary

This script offers a comprehensive guide to graduate students on the significance and process of writing a literature review. It underscores the literature review's role in understanding research topics, developing perspectives, and showcasing knowledge to instructors. The script outlines the literature as a dynamic network of scholarly works and emphasizes the importance of identifying relationships within this network to formulate a cohesive review. It also provides insights into different types of literature reviews, from selective course assignments to comprehensive theses, and offers practical advice on researching, organizing, and writing a literature review, including the use of citation management tools and seeking assistance from advisors and librarians.

Takeaways

• 🎓 A literature review is a crucial part of graduate studies, often required for assignments, capstone projects, theses, or dissertations.
• 🔍 It serves to understand research topics, develop perspectives, and demonstrate knowledge to instructors or thesis committees.
• 📚 'The literature' refers to a collection of scholarly writings including articles, books, conference proceedings, and dissertations.
• 🌐 The literature is a dynamic network of scholarly works that interact and evolve over time.
• 🏫 John Classen emphasizes that research is storytelling, where each new work builds upon previous ones, requiring an understanding of the existing narrative.
• 🔑 The literature review's purpose is to identify gaps, understand connections, and determine the next steps in the research field.
• 📈 Literature reviews can vary from selective to comprehensive and can be part of a larger work or stand alone.
• 📝 The process of writing a literature review involves choosing a topic, conducting research, evaluating sources, organizing information, and writing with a critical perspective.
• 🔄 The literature review process is not always linear; it may require revisiting previous steps as new information is discovered.
• 🤝 It's important to synthesize the literature into a cohesive narrative rather than simply summarizing sources.
• 💼 Seek assistance when writing a literature review, utilizing resources like advisors, writing centers, and librarians with subject expertise.

Q & A

What is the primary purpose of a literature review in academic research?

The primary purpose of a literature review is to understand a research topic, develop a personal perspective on a problem, and demonstrate knowledge to instructors or thesis committees.

In what contexts might a graduate student be required to conduct a literature review?

A graduate student might need to conduct a literature review as part of a course assignment, a capstone project, or for a master's thesis or dissertation.

What does the term 'the literature' refer to in the context of academic research?

In academic research, 'the literature' refers to a collection of all scholarly writings on a topic, including peer-reviewed articles, books, conference proceedings, and dissertations.

How is the literature described in terms of its structure and evolution?

The literature is described as a continuously evolving network of scholarly works that interact with each other, often with later works extending or responding to earlier, major works.

What is the role of the literature review in the research process according to John Classen?

According to John Classen, the literature review is essential for understanding the existing story in the field, identifying loose ends in related fields, and determining what needs to be done next in one's research.

What are the different types of literature reviews a graduate student may encounter?

Graduate students may encounter selective reviews, comprehensive reviews, reviews that are part of a larger work, or stand-alone reviews that are entirely devoted to reviewing the literature.

How does the process of reviewing the literature help in formulating a response or contribution to the field?

Reviewing the literature helps by discovering relationships between articles, understanding how they form the story the authors are telling, and then formulating one's own response or contribution based on that understanding.

What are the key steps involved in writing a literature review?

The key steps in writing a literature review include choosing and focusing a topic, conducting research using various sources, evaluating and selecting relevant literature, reading and analyzing the articles, organizing information, writing and revising the paper, and creating a final bibliography.

Why is it important to not treat a literature review as a simple annotated bibliography?

A literature review should not be a simple annotated bibliography because it requires going beyond summarizing to integrating and synthesizing the literature into something new, presenting one's own organization and understanding of the literature.

How can graduate students get assistance with writing a literature review?

Graduate students can seek assistance from their adviser or instructor, campus writing centers, or librarians, especially those with subject specialties who can help identify valuable resources and show how to obtain relevant information.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Understanding the Literature Review Process

This paragraph introduces the literature review as an essential component of graduate studies, emphasizing its role in course assignments, capstone projects, theses, and dissertations. It highlights the literature review's function in understanding research topics, developing perspectives, and demonstrating knowledge to instructors or committees. The literature is defined as a collection of scholarly writings, including peer-reviewed articles, books, conference proceedings, and dissertations. The paragraph also explains the literature as an evolving network of scholarly works and the importance of understanding these relationships for research. The speaker, John Classen, an Associate Professor, likens research to a story where each author builds upon previous works, and the literature review helps in understanding the existing narrative and identifying areas for further exploration.

05:01

🔍 Steps and Strategies for Writing a Literature Review

This paragraph delves into the process of writing a literature review, outlining the key steps involved. It begins with choosing and focusing a topic, which may require adjustments as research progresses. The process includes conducting research using databases and other sources to gather scholarly information, evaluating and selecting relevant articles and publications. The paragraph emphasizes the importance of reading, analyzing, and critiquing the literature, as well as using citation management software to stay organized. It also acknowledges that the literature review process is not always linear, with research and reading potentially leading back to earlier steps. The paragraph concludes by discussing how to review the literature effectively, which involves not only summarizing articles but also making connections, evaluating arguments, and synthesizing information into a new conceptual framework that includes the researcher's own thoughts and ideas.

Keywords

💡Literature Review

A literature review is a systematic and comprehensive examination of existing scholarly articles, books, and other documents on a specific topic. It serves as a means to summarize, synthesize, and critically evaluate prior research to provide a foundation for new research. In the context of the video, a literature review is essential for graduate students as it helps them understand their research topic, develop a perspective, and demonstrate their knowledge to instructors or thesis committees. The video emphasizes that a literature review is not just a summary but an analysis that shows how new research builds upon or responds to existing work.

💡Research Topic

A research topic is the subject or problem area that a researcher chooses to investigate. It is the focal point around which a literature review is conducted. The video script mentions that a literature review helps students understand a research topic and develop their own perspective on a problem, indicating that the research topic is central to the graduate student's work and the literature review process.

💡Scholarly Writings

Scholarly writings refer to academic works that are peer-reviewed and contribute to a field of study. These include articles, books, conference proceedings, and dissertations. The video describes the literature as a collection of all scholarly writings on a topic, emphasizing that these works form the basis for a literature review and are crucial for understanding the state of knowledge in a field.

💡Peer Reviewed Articles

Peer-reviewed articles are scholarly works that have been evaluated and approved by experts in the same field before publication. They are considered reliable sources of information and are often the backbone of a literature review. The video mentions that peer-reviewed articles, among other scholarly writings, constitute the literature that graduate students must review to understand their research topics.

💡Conceptual Map

A conceptual map is a visual representation that organizes and interrelates concepts, showing how they connect to each other within a body of knowledge. In the video, the concept of creating a conceptual map is introduced as a way for students to organize their literature review by identifying major concepts and how individual articles relate to these concepts, thus providing a structured approach to understanding the literature.

💡Critical Evaluation

Critical evaluation involves assessing the quality, validity, and relevance of research findings within the literature. It is a key component of a literature review, where students must not only summarize but also critique the sources they review. The video script highlights the importance of evaluating, analyzing, and organizing information from the literature to form a coherent review.

💡Citation Management Software

Citation management software, such as Refworks, EndNote, or Zotero, is a tool used to organize and manage references and citations during research and writing. The video mentions these tools as a way to help students stay organized while collecting information from various sources for their literature review.

💡Comprehensive Review

A comprehensive review is an extensive analysis of all relevant literature on a topic. It aims to cover the full breadth of research in a field. The video contrasts selective reviews, which focus on a small segment of literature, with comprehensive reviews, which are part of larger works like theses or dissertations, highlighting the depth and scope required for different types of literature reviews.

💡Stand-Alone Review

A stand-alone review is a literature review that is an entire work in itself, not part of a larger research project. The video provides an example of a stand-alone literature review article, which is devoted entirely to reviewing the literature on a specific topic, showcasing the self-contained nature of such reviews.

💡Conceptual Framework

A conceptual framework is a structure that outlines the concepts and their interrelationships within a particular domain of knowledge. The video suggests that graduate students should develop their own conceptual framework or outline based on their reading and thinking, which will guide how they organize and present their literature review.

Highlights

Writing a literature review is an essential part of being a graduate student.

A literature review helps you understand a research topic and develop your own perspective.

It demonstrates to instructors or thesis committees your knowledge about the topic.

The literature is defined as a collection of all scholarly writings on a topic.

The literature includes peer-reviewed articles, books, conference proceedings, and dissertations.

The literature is a continuously evolving network of scholarly works.

Research is like a chain story where each writer builds on the work of others.

Your job in the literature review is to identify loose ends and determine what needs to be done next.

A literature review can range from selective to comprehensive and can be part of a larger work or stand alone.

A literature review in a thesis or dissertation is an example of a comprehensive review.

Reviewing the literature is like participating in a conversation, understanding how articles are connected.

The process of writing a literature review involves choosing, exploring, and focusing a topic.

Use article databases, library catalogs, and Google Scholar to find scholarly information.

Evaluate, analyze, and critique the articles and books you read.

Use citation management software like Refworks, EndNote, or Zotero to stay organized.

A literature review is not a linear process; it may require revisiting earlier steps as you learn more.

When reviewing literature, collect and read all relevant papers and provide an overview while highlighting key concepts.

Avoid making your review a laundry list of summaries; instead, integrate and synthesize what you find.

Create your own conceptual map or outline of the literature to develop and present your own organization and understanding.

Seek assistance from your adviser, instructor, campus writing center, or librarian when writing a literature review.

Transcripts

Writing a literature review is an inevitable part of being a graduate student.

So, before spending hours of your time working on a project involving a literature review,

it helps to understand what a "literature review" is, and why it is important.

You may need to do a literature review as a part of a course assignment, a capstone project,

or a master's thesis or dissertation.

No matter the context, a literature review is an essential part of the research process.

Some important functions of a literature review are that it helps you

to understand a research topic and develop your own perspective on a problem.

Not only that, it lets you show your instructor

or thesis committee what you know about the topic.

Your instructor or advisor may assume you know what a literature review is

and that you understand what they are expecting from you.

You might hear phrases like: "What does the literature show us?"

"Connect your ideas to the literature."

"Survey the literature on the topic."

Well, before you can review the literature,

you need to make sure you know what is meant by "the literature."

A good definition of the literature is that it is a collection

of all the scholarly writings on a topic.

These writings can be in the form of scholarly, peer reviewed articles, books,

and other sources like conference proceedings.

These may be called annual meetings or conventions.

The literature also includes dissertations written by other graduate students.

Collectively, these make up the literature.

Visually, the literature might look like this.

Often there are major works that have been written on a topic,

and then other, later, works that build on them.

These later works tend to be extending or responding to the original papers in some way.

Basically, the literature is a continuously evolving network

of scholarly works that interact with each other.

As you do your own research, you'll begin to understand the relationships

in this evolving web and how your own ideas connect to it.

I'm John Classen, Associate Professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering

at North Carolina State University.

Research is about telling a story, kind of like a chain story where each writer starts

with a partial story created by others and takes it where the imagination leads.

The existing literature is the story so far.

You have to know where you are before you can go forward.

But research is not just one linear story; many different lines of study contribute

to the story you are trying to write.

Your job in the literature review is to see where all the loose ends are

in the various fields that are most closely related to what you want to do

and to figure out what needs to be done next.

The background to any good story has to be explained carefully

or the reader doesn't know why one thing is important and something else is not;

the reader has to understand what's going on.

In the same way, researchers need the background in the literature of their discipline

to know what's going on in their field of study."

So, how do you turn a network of articles into a cohesive review of the literature?

How do you find and tell the "story" behind your research topic?

Reviewing the literature is like participating in a conversation.

As you read and evaluate articles you begin to understand how they are connected

and how they form the story that the authors are telling.

Then you start to formulate your own response or contribution.

This process - discovering relationships in the literature and developing

and connecting your own ideas to it - is what helps you turn a network of articles

into a coherent review of the literature.

So what does a literature review look like?

There are different types of literature reviews that you may encounter,

or be required to write, while in graduate school.

Literature reviews can range from being selective to comprehensive.

They can also be part of a larger work or stand alone.

A course assignment is an example of a selective review.

It focuses on a small segment of the literature on a topic and makes up the entire work.

The literature review in a thesis or dissertation is an example

of a comprehensive review that is part of a larger work.

Most research articles begin with a selective literature review to establish the context

for the research reported in the paper.

Often this is part of the introduction.

Other literature reviews are meant to be fairly comprehensive and also to stand alone.

This means that the entire article is devoted to reviewing the literature.

A literature review that introduces an article can look like this.

Here is an article about cognitive behavioral therapy.

Here is the literature review, in this article it is part of the introduction.

You can tell that the introduction includes a literature review

because it discusses important research that has already been published on this topic.

Here is an example of a stand alone literature review article, in this case, about employment.

The article's title states that this is a review of the literature on the topic.

However, not all review articles will have the term 'literature review' in their title.

In-depth review articles like this are an excellent starting place

for research on a topic.

So, at this point, you may be asking yourself just what's involved

in writing a literature review?

And how do I get started?

Writing a literature review is a process with several key steps.

Let's look at each part of this process in more detail.

Your first step involves choosing, exploring, and focusing a topic.

At this stage you might discover that you need to tweak your topic or the scope

of your research as you learn more about the topic in the literature.

Then, of course, you'll need to do some research using article databases, the library catalog,

Google Scholar, and other sources to find scholarly information.

All along you'll be using your brain.

You'll want to evaluate what you find and select articles, books,

and other publications that will be the most useful.

Then, you will need to read through these articles and try to understand,

analyze, and critique what you read.

While researching and organizing your paper, you'll collect a lot

of information from many different sources.

You can use citation management software like Refworks, EndNote,

or Zotero to help you stay organized.

Then, of course, you'll need to write and revise your paper and create your final bibliography.

One more thing: Writing a literature review is a process, but it is not always a linear process.

One step does lead to another, but sometimes your research or reading will point you back

to earlier steps as you learn more about your topic and the literature.

At this point you might be wondering how do I actually review the literature I find?

Let's look at what it means to review the literature.

In the most general sense it means that you collect and read all the relevant papers

and other literature on your topic.

You want to provide an overview but also highlight key concepts and important papers.

As you read you may start by describing and summarizing each article.

Then you can start to make connections by comparing and contrasting those papers.

You will also need to evaluate, analyze, and organize the information from your reading.

When you work with the literature you will read and critically examine articles and books

to see what's important or out of scope and analyze arguments for strengths and weaknesses.

When working with the literature it is important to look for relationships between publications.

Some of the important relationships between publications

that you discover might include major themes and important concepts,

as well as critical gaps and disagreements.

But don't fall into the trap of making your review a laundry list

of summaries of the works you read.

A literature review is not an annotated bibliography.

Your goal should be to go one step further and integrate and synthesize what you find

in the literature into something new.

Ideally, you will create your own conceptual map or outline of the literature on your topic.

For example, let's say as you read you discover three major concepts that are important

in the literature and relevant to your research.

You should then identify how the literature - that is, the content in individual articles,

books, and other publications - relates to the concepts you discovered.

Some publications may be relevant to several concepts; others may apply to only one concept.

What's important is that you develop and present your own organization

and understanding of the literature.

Then, when you write your literature review you will end up with a document that is organized

by the concepts and relationships you found and developed based on your reading and thinking.

Your review will not only cover what's been published on your topic,

but will include your own thoughts and ideas.

You will be telling the specific story that sets the background

and shows the significance of your research.

Researching and writing a good literature review is a challenging

and sometimes intimidating process.

Don't be afraid to seek assistance, whether from your adviser or instructor,

campus writing center, or your librarian.

Many librarians have subject specialties and can be especially helpful

in identifying valuable resources and showing you how to obtain relevant information.