Literature reviews and reading lists A beginner’s guide

The perfect pizza ? One way to think about what a literature review for a research project involves is to imagine you have been asked to find the perfect pizza outlet in Wolverhampton. How would you go about this task ? One way to think about it is that it’s similar to writing a single review of, say, four or five local pizza restaurants in order to find out what they have in common and how they’re different from each other, and then arriving at some kind of appraisal about pizza places in Wolverhampton. You need to be able to use the same critical thinking skills in the academic literature review as in other types of reviews in order to arrive at your conclusions, and your overall purpose of providing readers with important information in order to help them understand and make sound decisions remains the same for this type of review.  you would need to establish criteria Cheapest Biggest range Best offers Tastiest Also you need to think about your own preferences You would need to do exactly the same with texts in an academic literature review

Why review anything ? An academic literature review is similar to other types of reviews in that it offers a way of critiquing or evaluating any subject or area of interest. Instead of reviewing pizza outlets an educational research project will require you to look at several texts related to the same subject or research topic.

When do you need to do a Literature Review ? Next year you will asked to put a research proposal together for your final year dissertation- both will include a literature review . Even preparing for a module assignment requires you to complete a kind of ‘mini literature review’ as you look at the different sources that you are going to use for the assignment and ‘review’ their usefulness for inclusion (or not).

Academic literature reviews Academic literature reviews use critical thinking skills of comparison, contrast and evaluation. They require a more formal voice. You need to look critically at academic sources (books, journal articles and web sources) and use then to contrast or substantiate the point you are trying to make. An academic literature review is written in essay form and tends to group related works together. It is does more than merely summarise what the sources said; rather, it evaluates the research already done in relation to how useful it is and how it relates to studying your subject.

Putting a literature review together Look for other literature reviews in your area of interest or in the discipline and read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or ways to organize your final review. You can simply put the word "review" in your search engine along with your other topic terms to find articles of this type on the Internet or in an electronic database. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read are also excellent entry points into your own research.

Keep your sources current Check you’ve got the latest edition of any key texts in the field, some may be quite old but they will be often be updated as new development some on line Try not to use books that are more than 10 years old as they may not longer be relevant or correct Use the library electronic resources and staff to help you locate relevant texts. Don’t forget if we don’t have the book that you are looking on campus they will be able to order it in from City Campus or another library.

Narrow your topic There are hundreds or even thousands of articles and books on most areas of study. The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to get a good survey of the material. You will not be expected you to read everything that's out there on the topic, so make life easier for your self and limit the scope of your research project.

What does a good literature review do ? demonstrates your knowledge other work carried out in your chosen research area shows prior research and how a current project is linked to it pulls together and synthesises different results helps you to learn from others and stimulate new ideas stops you "reinventing the wheel”

What does a literature review contain? • Introduction – gives outline of the review and a rationale for doing it. • Methodology –Why did you choose to read the work you did? Why did you reject some authors? Where did you look for information? Why? • Organise the review in a logical way. For instance, present authors who come to similar conclusions together. Be logical in your presentation of ideas. This would be decided in the planning stage. • Link your own arguments and the evidence uncovered in your reading. Use quotations if needed. Do remember to reference your work correctly. • What is your conclusion? – after doing all the research what do you conclude? Are there authors who you think are more scientific than others, more relevant to your objectives ? What is the current thinking? Avoid plagiarism – remember to reference properly and include a bibliography. Any problems ask your tutor or one of the librarians

Need more information ? Checkout this Handout on writing literature reviews Most of the recommended study skills and research books in the module guide will have a section on literature reviews.

Reading Lists A reading list should be included for all your summative assignments It should be correctly referenced and contain all the texts you have cited in your assignment. It is not the same as a bibliography which included all the texts you might have used to reach a subject as well as those directly cited. WE DO NOT USE BIBILOGRAPHIES IN APPS

Reading list activity #1 You are not going to produce a Literature Review for your formative but you are going to review some secondary sources to be included in your summative. Think about the area you would like to use for your poster. Go to the Learning Centre and use SUMMON to find some texts that cover the issue/area you are interested in.

Reading list activity #2 Choose three sources : include at least 1 journal and 1 book Correctly reference the source write a brief description about it including : Who do you think it is aimed at? What is it about? Why might it be useful to your suggested research area? Is there anything that you don’t like about it Send your reading list to your tutor for comment.