Dr Rosamund Oates' PowerPoint for the Research Training Programme (RTP) 2018-19 Core Skills session. This session will look at the process of writing a literature review, often the first piece of writing you will do for your PhD. The session will show you what a literature review is, what you should be trying to write and how to go about doing it. Tom McGrath (History, Politics and Philosophy), in the second year of his PhD, will talk about his experience of writing a literature review.

1. Writing a Literature
Review: PAHC
Dr Rosamund Oates
r.oates@mmu.ac.uk @drrosamundoates
Thomas McGrath
t.mcgrath@mmu.ac.uk

2. Our Research
Dr Rosamund Oates
Reader in History
• Communities of Print
• Puritan Culture
• Origins of Sign Language in
Early Modern Europe.

3. Our Research…
• Tom
• Second year history PhD student
• www.ifthosewallscouldtalk.wordpress.com

4. Your Research
• What are you working on?

5. What is a literature review?
• It gives some background and context to your own work. You
need to show how your research fits into the big picture,
relating it to what has been done before.
It surveys the existing work on the topic of your
research. Its purpose is to provide the reader
with the current state of your research field and
to critically evaluate existing literature.
It can become a project in itself. It is an important showcase of
your talents of: understanding, interpretation, analysis, clarity of
thought, synthesis, and development of argument. The process of
conducting and reporting your literature review can help you
clarify your own thoughts about your study. It can also establish a
framework within which to present and analyse the findings.

6. What does a good literature
review look like?
• situates your research focus within the context
of the wider academic community in your field;
• reports your critical review of the relevant
literature;
• identifies a gap within that literature that your
research will attempt to address;
• Identifies sources that will be helpful to your
research and, depending on the project, provide
background context or frameworks for your
analysis

7. A literature review is NOT:
• A compilation of all material related to your research field,
regardless of its relevance to your project
• An annotated list of books and articles
• A summary of material without critical commentary
• A narrative about how your field developed
• A book review…

8. Where to start?
First of all..
Read a few general introductions to your topic and you’ll start to
get an overview of the key ideas and theories, who developed
them, and when.
Find the world-changing literature
• Once you know who the world changers were, you can go in
search of their papers.
• understand these key concepts, as they will help you decipher
other papers which built upon these ideas.
• Sometimes, those world-changing papers can be tough to
read, but as long as you know roughly what they did and
understand the key principle, that’s enough.

9. Getting in deeper….
Get Specific
• You have probably identified your main themes, so build your
reading (and your chapter) around these
Filter
• Look at the number of citations as an indication of quality
• Scan the abstract and make a quick decision as to whether it
will be relevant or not
• Don’t be afraid to reject papers. You can always come back to
them later, but you have to start with something manageable.

10. Tips for finding those books
and articles
• Search, search and search
• Read Bibliographies
• Ask your supervisor
• Try using the library search engine for articles, books and book
reviews
• Find books in the library that are relevant and check them
out.
• Read the abstracts online and download and/or print those
articles that relate to your area of research
• Set a specific time frame for how long you will search. It
should not take more than two or three dedicated time
sessions
How do you find
material?

11. Help! I’m overwhelmed by
material….
• You won’t be able to read everything.
• Make sure you’ve read the key texts – if necessary check
with your tutor
Filter again
• You might not be able to read everything in depth
immediately. From the papers you selected, give them a
ranking A, B, or C.
• A = must read, highly relevant, high quality
• B = unsure, probably relevant, but not yet sure how
• C = probably irrelevant, not what you thought it was
when you read the title

12. Reading and taking notes
Note-taking is an important skill
Ros:
• Summarise an argument
• Page numbers
• Careful with quotations
Tom:
• Page by page
• Handwritten vs. typed
• Keep them safe
What do you
do?

13. How to store your information
• Endnote
• Zotero
• Menderly
• Refworks
• Readcube
• A running bibliography
• Index cards
Any other suggestions?

14. Endnote
• https://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/endnote

15. What am I looking for?
After you have immersed yourself in the material through
introductions, the most important texts and (perhaps) text
books, you can do more ‘focussed’ reading.
Skim books and article and look specifically for these five things:
• Claims, conclusions, and findings about the constructs you are
investigating
• Definitions of terms
• Calls for follow-up studies relevant to your project
• Gaps you notice in the literature
• Disagreement about the constructs you are investigating

16. Writing the Literature Review
• Main themes and arguments
• Write, re-write and write again

17. Dos and Don’ts of the literature
review
• Dos
• Write little – write
often
• Who, What, When,
Why and How
• Keep a running
bibliography
• Take critical notes
• Ask your supervisory
team
(esp. practice based)
Don’ts
• Feel the need to read
EVERYTHING on your
subject
• Have broad topics or
keywords
• Get bored
• Take feedback personally
• Forget you will be an
expert in your field
• Think it is all over

18. Now I’ve written it, it’s done for
good, right?
• No
• RD2
• As your ideas and thoughts
evolve so will your argument;
your sources; and your reading.