Lecture 4 Review of Relevant Literature

The purpose of literature review Major sources of related literature Major strategies of literature review Evaluating materials Writing literature review Note-taking

1. The purpose of literature review

Once the area or topic of the research paper has been chosen and defined, it needs to be placed in a broader context by reviewing related literature. There are a number of reasons for reviewing related literature.

On the one hand, it helps you broaden the view and perspective of the topic for your graduation thesis; on the other hand it helps you narrow down the topic and arrive at a focused research question. These two purposes, which seem to be contradictory, are actually complementary, because only when you are broadened can you narrow it down so that you can arrive at a well- focused topic for your thesis.

Reviewing related literature will help you also to learn what has been done and what is going on so that you can (1) benefit from previous research findings, and (2) make your analysis or contributions either in contents or methods. It is clear that reviewing related literature should not take place once for all. It is a back and forth, or to and fro process in the process of research and process of writing graduation thesis.

It is closely intermingled with most of your stages of writing and research. When you write your graduation thesis in English as a foreign language, reviewing related literature in English is not only useful with contents but also helpful with language. You will learn how to express the ideas and viewpoints in English in the area of your thesis. It is suggested that more than half of your reference should be in English so that the quality of your language could be guaranteed.

In reviewing related literature you may encounter research studies similar to the topics, which you are planning to write about. These will provide useful ideas on how to design your thesis. You need read and see how you can benefit from theirs and shape differently yours.

2. Major sources of related literature

When you are in the library or bookstores, there are shelves and shelves books and journals. How can we locate the materials relevant to our topics better and faster? Basically speaking, all these materials could be conveniently classified into four major kinds of sources.

They are background sources ---basic information,usually can be found in dictionaries and encyclopedia. e.g. major scholars, founders of the field, definition, masterpieces, classic works, approaches, autobiography, collection of letters, biography, etc. ; original sources--- works of scholars of the field; critical sources--- articles, book reviews, essays, journal articles about the issue; and WEB sources.

Background sources refer to general or specialized reference works. General reference works include encyclopedias, almanacs, atlases, and biographical references. Three very good and commonly recommended encyclopedias are encyclopedias ABC. They are: (1) Encyclopedia Americana (30 vols.), (2) Encyclopedia Britannica (30 vols.), and (3) Collier’s Encyclopedia (24 vols.).

There are also specialized reference works, such as The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, for linguistics and TEFL studies, Master Plots for literature studies and other encyclopedias, dictionaries and handbooks. There are also encyclopedias in the form of computer database or on the web. You may have a try and enjoy.

Original sources are the books in libraries and bookstores. You can search the catalogue by author, title or subject. Most of the time you should search by subject, using what is called a key search. When a first search yields too few results, try searching by a broader topic. When a search yields too many results, refine your search by narrowing your search or restricting your search.

At the moment, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press in Beijing and Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press have published several series on literature, linguistics, language teaching and translation studies, which provide very good sources for writing our graduation thesis. Please make a better use of books reviews and survey reviews in journals to select and evaluate original sources when you are doing literature review.

Critical sources refer to journal articles, which are quality and scholarly sources for research. There are numerous articles in different research areas published by different journals in different issues. To have a quick search of critical sources, make a better use of index and abstract services which will provide information about the title of the article, name of the writer, name of the journal, year of publication, issue number, and page number.

Most of these index and abstract services are usually accessed through computer database for articles after the 1990s. If you want to search for articles published earlier, you need to turn to a print index. For articles written in Chinese, An Index to the Articles on Foreign Language Studies (3 vols.) published by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press ( 上海外语教育出版社 ) offers the index of all the articles published in China between 1949 and 1999.

For articles in English, there are specific databases that focus on a particular subject area, such as LLBA (Linguistic and Language Behavior Abstracts), Psychology Abstracts, ERIC (Educational Resources Information Clearinghouse) an education database, and MLA (Modern Language Association) Bibliography a database of literary criticism. To find articles on your topic in a database, you can start with a keyword search. When you locate and read these articles, please remember there are opinion articles, review articles and research reports.

WEB sources are the sources or information from websites. For many topics, the WEB is an excellent resource. However, as you probably know that WEB sources lack quality control, you need to select and evaluate WEB sources with special care. You may start with search engines. Search engines take your search terms and seek matches among millions of Web pages.

It is a good idea to try more than one search engine, since each locates sources in its own way. For current information about search engines, visit the following Web site: When using a search engine, focus your search as narrowly as possible to prevent getting unmanageable number of matches.

Many search engines such as Google, offer a directory as an alternative means of conducting research. Directories are put together by information specialists, who arrange sites by topic: education, health, public issues, and so on. They are more selective and therefore more useful for scholarly research.

When you use websites for information, be sure to take care for the authorship and sponsorship. If they are both unclear, be critical and suspicious when you read and use the information. Please also check the currency of the website information. If the links no longer work, the site may be too outdated for your purpose.

3. Major strategies of literature review

Scan the sources on your working bibliography to decide which ones you will use in writing your paper. The most important criterion for selecting a source is its relevance to your research plan. This, above all, should direct your choices of original, background and critical sources. If you find several sources that contain similar information, you want to choose the best one or two. There is no point in using lots of sources that cover the same material. In that case use these guidelines:

1. Choose primary sources rather than secondary sources. If you have two sources, one of them summarizing or explaining a work and the other the work itself, choose the work itself. Never attempt to write a paper on a topic without reading the original source. 2. Choose sources that give a variety of viewpoints on your thesis. Remember that good argument essays take into account counter arguments. Do not reject a source because it makes an argument against your thesis. 3. Choose sources that cover the topic in depth. Probably most books on Communicative Language Teaching mention William Littlewood, but if this is your topic, you will find that few sources cover the topic in depth. Choose those.

4. Choose sources written by acknowledged experts. If you have a choice between an article written by a freelance journalist on Task- based Teaching and one written by a recognized expert like David Nunan, choose the article by the expert. 5. Choose the most current sources. If your topic involves a current issue or social problem or developments in a scientific field, it is essential to find the latest possible information. If all the books on these topics are rather old, you probably need to look for information in periodicals.

4. Evaluating materials

Editors and librarians have already evaluated the materials in a library. You will evaluate them from your point of view. You can make evaluations at three stages: (1) Before You Read While you are reading with a purpose or a topic, you collect facts and opinions that support your thesis. When you are collecting the information, you should preview first.

Don’t try to take notes as soon as you open a book or turn to a newspaper article. Instead, begin by getting familiar with the subject you are going to read about. Take time to preview your sources and be able to know: 1) Authorship and Authority, 2) Accuracy and Verifiability, and 3) Currency.

(2) When You Read Read the tables of contents of several books to see what this subject you are researching is all about. Look through the indexes of several books to discover the specifics that might be included in your subjects. When you are ready to start detailed reading, you can use previewing techniques to find out what to focus on so you can take notes most effectively. Read over the table of contents of each book before you start to work with it.

Look at prefaces, forewords, glossaries, indexes, and appendices before examining the content of a book. In short, know the structure of the work you are going to read. Pay attention to chapter titles, headings, and subheadings before reading selections so you will know what is coming. Discover the organization of what you are about to read. You can follow a train of thought or a line of reasoning if you are able to anticipate by understanding the structure an author has used in a work. Look at beginnings and endings, at introductions and conclusions of whole works and units within them.

(3) After You Read As you read sources for your thesis, you should continually evaluate the materials. At this moment, you value relevance over convenience. Some questions for you to consider when evaluate your sources after you read them.

–How does the source relate to your thesis? –Which authors are outstanding in the field of your interest? –What about the objectivity of the sources? –What is the date and form of the publication? –Who are the intended audience of the book or the article? –How credible does a source seem? –How did the critics receive a book or an article? –What does the language of a source tell you? –Which sources seem to give you the most information? –What facts keep reappearing in your reading?

5. Writing literature review

In your graduation thesis, you may write a very small portion about the previous research findings in the area of your topic. However, reviewing the literature on a topic provide an academically enriching experience, but only if it is done properly. To achieve this the review should be regarded as a process fundamental to any worthwhile research in any subject irrespective of the discipline. Students’ responsibility is to find out what already exists in the area in which they propose to do research before doing the research itself

They need to know about the contributions others have made to the knowledge pool relevant to their topic. It is the ideas and work of others that will provide the researcher with the framework for their own work; this includes methodological assumptions, data-collection techniques, key concepts and structuring the research into a conventional academic thesis. There are different kinds of reviews, e.g. book review, review chapter in a thesis, review article, and review of a general area of interest or discipline.

When you review related literature, the major review focuses should be: –The prevailing and current theories which underlie the research problem –The main controversies about the issue, and about the problem –The major findings in the area, by whom, and when –The studies which can be considered the better ones, and why –Description of the types of research studies which can provide the basis for the current theories and controversies –Criticism of the work in the area –The rationale and purpose of the proposed study.

When you write literature review, the two major principles to follow are: (1) Review the sources that are most relevant to your thesis; (2) Describe or write your review as clear and objective as you can. In doing so you may approach or structure your review from chronological perspective; or from the perspective of specific variables; or from the theoretical to the empirical; or from the general to the specific.

Define key terms or concepts clearly and be relevant to your topic. Discuss the least-related references to your question first and the most related references last. Conclude your review with a brief summary. Start writing your review early. It is often a foolish temptation to shuffle endlessly, to delay, and unduly avoid the final step of completing a draft.

6. Literature Review: A second look

6.1 The Nature of a Literature Review Reviewing previous studies is to create the fundamental basis for your entire study. It shows your readers that you are familiar with the previous work done in your field. It draws together different strands or aspects related to your study. Through it, you clarify the current state of knowledge and justify the research being conducted.

Literature review has at least three major and quite different functions: (1) it is valuable as a source of knowledge, (2) it demonstrates to others that you have an expert knowledge of the field, an essential element in qualifying as a postgraduate, and (3) it induces the research gaps implying that your study is valuable, original, and significant.

6.2 Key Features of a Literature Review (1). The Literature review needs to be relevant and focused. In most fields it is impossible to cover all that has been written within the field. Once those directly relevant studies need to be included. Hence, it is important to be selective in the works cited.

(2) The review need to organized thematically. It may be necessary in some disciplines to give a brief history of the developments in the research area under study. However, the main body of the literature review should be organized around themes which related to the overall study, rather than chronologically.

(3) The organization should be signaled in an introductory paragraph. You should not leap into reviewing the first study of relevance to your work.

(4) The literature review should be up to date. How far back one goes depends very much on the area under investigation and on the extent of the field. However, it is essential to consider the most recent findings even if they are reported just before you are about to hand in your thesis.

(5) The literature review needs to be critical. It is not sufficient for you to say “who said what’ and expect your readers to make the judgments as to the value of works you are citing. You need to indicate the relative importance of works you cite and where conflicts are reported. You also need to adjudicate on whose findings you consider the most important.

(6) The literature review needs to be brought to a close. It is not sufficient to stop at the last work that is cited. You need to summarize the main points of the literature review at the end, drawing together the different themes that you have introduced. In fact, you need to summarize at fairly regular intervals, generally when you have completed the review of one theme.

(7) The research gap(s) should arise from the literature review. From your analysis of the literature, it should have become apparent that there are certain limitations in previous research or certain areas that have not yet studied, or fully studied. When you have finished your review, you need to explicitly state what is missing from the previous studies to explain what your study intends to do to fill the gap.

6.3 Points to Remind : The purpose of referring to the work of others at the introductory stage is only to inform readers of the situation that led to the research being undertaken. The purpose of reviewing the literature in the section of literature review is to analyze and evaluate what they have said and done to create the fundamental basis for your entire study.

Don’t forget the need of adequate referencing to avoid the charge of plagiarism. If you reproduce someone else's work, you must acknowledge it, and if you cannot remember the source, you might have to spend days trying to locate the reference.

It is a good idea to start writing this section early, and add to it as you go. This reduces the amount of writing you have to do later when you edit it with the benefit of all your recently acquired knowledge. The proper length of your literature review usually takes up a quarter or a third of your thesis.

6.4 A Brief Summary Avoiding abruptness Exhausting while relevant and focused Comprehensive with themes Updated Critical Enough referencing Proper length