1. Louise Livesey Academic Skills Adviser
Reviewing Literature
This workshop will:
Explain what completing a review of literature involves
Offer tips on how to manage the reviewing process
Show you basic strategies for taking a critical approach to literature at degree-level.
Louise Livesey
Academic Skills Adviser
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

2. Academic Skills Advice
The Plan
Why review literature? What’s the point?
How to begin: tips for the first steps of reviewing
Managing your reviewing
Working critically with the literature.
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

3. Academic Skills Advice
1.Why review literature?
What’s the point?
Why you are asked to review literature.
TALKING POINT
Don’t waste your time
How to approach your research
Justifies your research
To have a full understanding of subject
Clear for me to add
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

4. Reviewing the literature gives you and your marker…
1.Why review literature?
What’s the point?
Reviewing the literature gives you and your marker…
The product…
Writing up a finished literature review
The process…
Doing the reviewing
It is 2 things (Ridley, 2008: 2):
A landscape of knowledge and key issues (Bell, 2005)
It ‘locates’ your topic within a much larger field of information (Blaxter et al., 2006):
It is “…a small piece in a complicated jigsaw puzzle; it does not stand alone.” (Ridley, 2008: 5).
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

5. the first steps of reviewing
2.How to begin: tips for
the first steps of reviewing
Where do I start?
Reading lists
Published literature reviews
Textbooks
Lecture materials
Dissertations & theses
Topic-specific databases
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

6. Academic Skills Advice
2.How to begin: tips for
the first steps of reviewing
Catalogues
Summon
Google Scholar
General web search
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

7. Academic Skills Advice
2.How to begin: tips for
the first steps of reviewing
Be efficient – longer pieces of work review more literature before selecting. Keep track of your searches.
The proposed topic of your research: plagiarism trends in higher education
Core search terms & searching criteria: plagiarism; HE; higher education; university; academic misconduct; academic malpractice.
Journals only / 2000 onwards / HE only / quantitative studies only
Searched:
Terms or combinations of terms searched for
Results of search (e.g. articles or books located)
Date of search
ERIC
plagiarism + HE
21 - Larkham & Manns (2002); Ercegovac & Richardson (2004)…
23/09/14
Summon
plagiarism + HE OR university
11 -
Google Scholar
trends+plagiarism
7 -
24/09/14
Be efficient – longer pieces of work review more literature before selecting the final pieces to include. Tracking your searches means you take a strategic approach and you don’t accidentally repeat yourself
Adapted from Ridley (2008: 43)
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

8. Reviewing is about more than just reading
3.Managing your reviewing
Reviewing is about more than just reading
Reviewing
Appraising
Analysing
Evaluating
Comparing
Selecting
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

9. Preliminary reading and analysis
3.Managing your reviewing
Preliminary reading and analysis
Once you have found potentially useful papers…
Scan all of the abstracts, executive summaries or chapter summaries first
Jot down your first impressions of each source – why might it be useful at this early stage?
Can you make any (early) rudimentary observations, comparisons or classifications? What are they?
Are there any patterns emerging? Are there any questions emerging?
Can you already discard some sources and follow-up on others?
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

10. Focused in-depth reading
3.Managing your reviewing
Focused in-depth reading
Look at:
- findings and their conclusions
- theory and its evidence
- documents and their supporting data…
asking questions to ‘interrogate’ them.
Go systematically through the sources you have decided to read.
Apply a set of questions or a process to the literature. Take notes.
Take bibliographic reference information as you go.
Aim to do your reviewing ‘little and often’.
Aim to do your reviewing little and often during the time you allocate to getting it done. i.e. do some once per day for four weeks, rather all day, every day for four days.
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

11. 4.Working critically with the literature
The difference between exploratory and focused (Ridley, 2008).
Take notes / map the text / annotate – TRANSFORM it (Cottrell, 2005).
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

12. 4.Working critically with the literature
Try ‘different’ readings of different groups of texts.
Eating Disorders
Men and Masculinity
Body Image
Experiments
Interviews
RCTs
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

13. Academic Skills Advice
4.Working critically with the literature
Abstract > conclusions > introduction > findings/results
Applying similar
steps to all/most
literature you find
What is the purpose of the study?
What is the scope of the study?
What is the focus of the study?
What are the units of analysis?
What is the sampling strategy?
What types of data were collected?
How were the data managed?
What analytical approach was used?
How is validity addressed in the study?
When did the study occur?
How is the study justified?
How are ethical issues handled?
How are logistics handled?
(Hart, 1998: 49)
Stimulate a discussion around critiquing tools and whether or not the participants have already heard of these? In which formats? Electronic or paper? Specialist or generic – if not it’s a chance to explain what one is.
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

14. Academic Skills Advice
4.Working critically with the literature
TALKING POINT
What do we think a critiquing tool is?
(Cottrell, 2005)
Activity 1: Using a critiquing tool
Stimulate a discussion around critiquing tools and whether or not the participants have already heard of these? In which formats? Electronic or paper? Specialist or generic – if not it’s a chance to explain what one is.
Click for visuals
What is the blank example’s strengths and weaknesses?
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

15. 4.Working critically with the literature
Create your own critiquing tool:
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

16. 5. Summary of the literature review process
Specifying title and section headings for the lit review
Writing and revisiting drafts of your written lit review
Developing your argument: identifying source texts to support each step in your argument
This is the subject of another
of our workshops
Note-taking, summaries, informal writing
Developing categories and themes for the reading
Identifying theories, terminology, concepts, policy and methodology
Exploring ideas around the topic
Locating previous research in the area
Formulating research questions
Justifying research problem or issue
to be investigated
Adapted from Ridley (2008: 81)
Reading
Writing
Searching
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

17. Academic Skills Advice
References:
Bell, J. (2005) Doing your research project. 4th ed. Maidenhead, Open University Press. Blaxter, L., Hughes, C. & Tight, M. (2006) How to research. 3rd ed. Buckingham, Open University Press. Cottrell, S. (2005) Critical thinking skills. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan. Hart, C. (1998) Doing a literature review: releasing the social science research imagination. London, SAGE Publications Ltd. Ridley, D. (2008) The literature review: a step-by-step guide for students. London, SAGE Publications Ltd. Student Services. (2014) Why do I have to have a literature review? Brisbane St. Lucia, University of Queensland. Accessed 16 October Thomas, G. (2013) How to do your research project. 2nd ed. London, SAGE Publications Ltd.
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Academic Skills Advice

18. Academic Skills Advice Service
Where are we? Chesham Building B0.23. Give us a call or come speak to us Monday-Thursday 10am-12pm and 1pm-4pm
Who am I? Louise, the dedicated workshop adviser.
Who can help me with study and writing skills? Lucy and Russell run Instant Study Skills Advice sessions Monday-Thursday and Writing Skills Clinics twice a week. You can also access self-help resources on our webpage.
Who can give me maths advice? Helen and Michael specialise in Maths support for students though clinics and pre-booked appointments.
How do I get in touch? Telephone:
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

19. Academic Skills Advice
Any questions?
17/09/2018
Academic Skills Advice

20. International Student Barometer (ISB)
Launches Monday 26 October 2015
Eligible students have been sent an with a survey link from
ISB helps the University to:
understand the international student experience;
make improvements for you as students and;
understand what we are doing well.
But! We need students to fill out the survey:
more students = better data = better experience
You could win an iPad Mini 2 or a year’s gym membership with Unique Fitness for filling it out.