1. Researching & Writing a Literature Review
NCSU Libraries

2. Expectations of graduate students
Grad students have different backgrounds
Not every grad student has done research
Not everyone has experience reading the literature
No problem.
You are learning to ask questions
Do so! No one expects you to know everything. Your job is to learn to seek out answers
Knowing that information is out there can be empowering!

3. Talking about the literature…
“What does the literature show us?”
“Connect your ideas to the literature.”
“Survey the literature on the topic.”

4. Talking about the literature…
What it IS:
Scholarly communication
A published record of research
Challenging to read and digest
Indexed, searchable with research databases

5. X X Talking about the literature… What it IS NOT: Common knowledge
i.e., handily summarized in Wikipedia
Easy to find
If you just Googled it, you overlooked something.
Available freely online (mostly)
This distinction can be transparent on campus: the “free” internet vs. library subscriptions X

6. Talking about the literature…
Let’s focus on “What are lit reviews?” and “Why?” and the conceptual approach first…
Follow-up workshops will tackle the “How?”
But we’ll look at a examples as we go

7. What is a Literature Review?
Surveys scholarly sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory
Provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work
Offers an overview of significant literature published on a topic
Gives future research context by telling the story of work done so far
(adapted from literaturereview.html)

9. Functions of Literature Reviews
Establish research context
Show why the question is significant
Illustrate and describe previous research, including gaps and flaws
Ensure that research has not been done before
Hey, did you notice that the bullets here are checkboxes?

10. Functions of Literature Reviews
Understand the structure of the problem
Demonstrate your knowledge of the field
Synthesize previous perspectives and develop your own perspective
Point the way to future research

11. Review article examples:

12. Digging Into the Literature
= Major works B C A

13. Digging Into the Literature
= Major works
= Studies that rely on major works B C A

14. Digging Into the Literature
= Major works
= Something new!
= Studies that rely on major works B C A
New!

15. Digging Into the Literature – How?
Aspect
How?
Major works
Literature databases
Colleague recommendations
Cited work
Related works
Citation searching:
Web of Science
Google Scholar
New information
Articles alerts/RSS feeds
Tables of Contents
Put it all together, you have a literature review!

16. Overview of the Process
Topic
Research and Collect Information
RefWorks
Writing and revision
Work with Articles and Brain

17. Overview of the Process
Topic
Initial topic won’t be your final topic!
Choose, explore, focus
Refine as you go based on:
Availability of research – too much? too little?
Discovering new ideas
Writing progress

18. Overview of the Process
Topic
Research and Collect Information
Search databases
Find, evaluate, and select articles

19. Overview of the Process
Topic
Research and Collect Information
Save your work in a citation mgr.
Read, analyze, synthesize
Develop your conceptual framework
RefWorks
Work with Articles and Brain

20. Overview of the Process
Topic
Research and Collect Information
RefWorks
Refine topic?
Use your citation manager to stay organized
Work with Articles and Brain

21. Overview of the Process
Topic
Research and Collect Information
RefWorks
Writing and revision
Work with Articles and Brain

22. Proceeding…(use worksheet handout)
Develop draft topic
Discuss with advisor, colleagues
Find a literature review (or book/chapter)
Identify key terms and concepts
Use bibliography to find sources
Search the major disciplinary database
Check with colleagues, a librarian
Each will have different ideas of where to search!
Determine scope and facets of topic
Collect useful, current sources

23. Search other key databases (another discipline?)
Proceeding…
Search other key databases (another discipline?)
Round out understanding of scope, facets, terms, concepts
Search a Citation database
Best ones: Web of Science, Google Scholar
Web of Science has better tools
Scholar can complete picture
Identify key/seminal papers/research
Identify key researchers, research centers, journals
Trace citations back and forward

24. Questions that come up…
How do I know I have the “right stuff”?
How do I know when I’m done?
How do know what’s important?
No set answers…for each individual to decide.

25. Housekeeping Tips Use a citation management system
Such as RefWorks, Zotero, Mendeley, etc.
One word for these: invaluable. You are absolutely doing more work in NOT learning about these.
Always get the complete citation information
Article title, journal title, author, year/volume, pages, abstract
Keep track of searches, notes, ideas, etc. (back to the worksheets)
Fully citing sources = avoiding plagiarism

26. Read Synthetically: Pull it All Together
Look at all articles to identify relationships
Classify or group papers, or paper sections, by topic, method, theme
Compare and contrast papers addressing similar questions
Discover relationships between sources
Discover critical gaps and disagreements
Fit within the generated outline, or adapt outline

27. The Synthesis Matrix
Tool to aid in writing a document showing synthesis
Based on a grid
Concept 1
Concept 2
Concept 3
Concept 4
James, et al.
xxxxx
Chung
Levy
xxxx

28. Models of Paper Structures
“Stringing” Model:
Organization of a Simple
Summary Paper
Introduction
Paragraph 1: Summary or
description of article 1
Paragraph 2: Summary or
description of article 2
Paragraph 3: Summary or
description of article 3
…and on…
Summary and conclusions
“Synthesis” Model:
Paper showing Synthesis of Sources and Sequencing by Theme
Introduction--Introduce context, topic, importance, research questions, overview
Theme A: Introduce concept or theme, discuss/compare the relevant parts of papers 1, 3, and 4
Theme B: Introduce concept or theme, discuss/compare the relevant parts of papers 2,4, and 5
Theme C: Introduce concept or theme, discuss/compare the relevant parts of papers 5 and 6
Final paragraphs --Summarize and highlight conclusions, unresolved issues, identify possible next steps in research and/or practice.

29. Some Tips for Writing
Write as you go: don’t wait until you’ve finished searching the literature
Set some times to write regularly, and do it!
Start with the easier sections (probably not the introduction)
Jot down notes and ideas and keep them handy
Get feedback, and don’t take it too personally
Aim for a style that is clear, simple, and straightforward

30. Moving forward Other library workshops on: Doing Literature Searching
How to identify good databases
Maximizing your use of them
Citation management
How to save all of this work