Review

1. Good Afternoon and welcome to
lecture units 3
Unit 3: Review of Literature

2. Lecture Outcomes
• Definition LR
• Purpose of LR
• Steps of LR
• Styles of citations/Referencing
• Ethical considerations in LR

3. Definition of Literature Review
• Literature review is the systematic study of all existing work
that are relevant to the research work. It is concerned with
locating, reading, evaluating and citing reports of related
research (Nkpa,1997)
• Ali (1996) described literature review as the careful and
systematic identification and or location, documentation,
analysis and reporting of information which are relevant,
related and useful to the present study.
• In other words, it means making an extensive searching,
reading and assessment of all available materials written
and related to the problem of investigation.

4. Purpose and Value of Literature Review
• Nisbet and Entwistle (1979) and Nwana (1981)
stressed that literature has so much that has
been discovered by scholars all around the world.
Almost every problem in the world has been
researched and there are answers available in the
literature.
• Thus it is of importance to consult the literature
to gain knowledge of how someone or some
people had solved such type of problem that you
may want to do your research.

5. Purpose of Literature Review
• It can reveal to you sources of data that you may not have known about their
existence;
• It can describe methods of dealing with problem situations that may be similar to
your own;
• It can reveal to you how other researchers have handled methodological and
design issues similar to yours;
• It can introduce you to important research personalities whose works and findings
you may not have come across;
• It can help you to evaluate your own research efforts comparing your work with
similar efforts of others;
• It can provide you with new ideas and approaches that may not have occurred to
you;
• It can increase your confidence in selected topic if you find that others have
interest in the topic or have found value in investing time, effort and resources into
its study; and
• It can help you determine the sampling strategies that should be used in order to
avoid sampling problems encountered by other researchers.

6. Cont.…
• Olaitan & Nwoke (1988) summarised the purposes as:
1. uncover, discover and evaluate information;
2. establish new relationships by analyzing and synthesizing
established evidence or discovering new ones;
3. replace an existing concept or completely create a new concept in
an attempt to translate them into practical use; and
4. verify existing concepts by re-examining the premises on which
the concepts were created.

7. Cont.…
• Tuckman (1978) also summarised the purposes saying
that Literature review uncovers:
1. ideas about variables that have been proven
important and unimportant in a given field of study;
2. information about work that had already been done
and which can be meaningfully extended or applied;
3. the status of work in a field in terms of conclusion and
application; and
4. meanings and relationships between variables that a
researcher has chosen to study and wish to
hypothesise about.

8. Sources of Literature
• Physical Libraries – encyclopedia, dictionaries,
textbooks, journals & periodicals, magazines,
newspapers, projects, thesis, dissertations,
etc..
• E-Libraries – computers ( cd rom, floppy disc,
flash drives, SD cards, etc.)

9. Steps in Reviewing Related Literature
1. Identify, select and list the key words or concepts
which are associated with the topic of investigation.
2. Use the selected key words or concepts to access
relevant references from such preliminary sources of
information as the catalogue, the index and
dissertation abstracts or computerized referencing
services.
3. When you have obtained the list of useful references
you can now consult libraries and other information
depositories in order to access reference materials.
You can also make use of the internet to access the
materials.

10. Cont.
4. Before you start reading, you should be able
to get index cards on which to record the
information, prepare a note card or index
card for each reference material consulted,
such that at the end you arrange them
sequentially according to subheadings in the
literature review.
5. Read the reference materials and as you read
make brief notes and pay attention to the
problem, procedure, design, result or just the
summary for theoretical opinions.

11. Cont….
6 For quick identification, each entry on an index card should be
clearly coded at the top using the key words for the broad topic. After
this, the author’s names and date of publication come next, followed
by the title of the work and the full citation of the work and the ideas
which you find useful.
7 In writing out the references in the index cards, you have to
choose a referencing style and be consistent with it. You will learn
more on this in the section on citation.
8 Ensure that you review or dwell more on the primary sources
of information than the secondary sources. This will enhance the
authenticity of your work, and provide you with comprehensive,
unadulterated and un-mutilated first hand information.

12. Cont.…
9 Consult the most recent references first. This will help
you to save time, get the most recent materials and avoid
redundant and unnecessary materials.
10 You will save a lot of time by first reading through the
abstract and/or summary of any referenced material. This will
enable you to quickly ascertain the relevance of the materials.
11 Lastly, organise and write-up all the insights you
received while reading. This should be a critical appraisal of
the state of the art in the area of investigation. You have to
ensure that you understand all the related issues. The ideas
must flow in accordance with the trend of thought.

13. Citations
• For all literature information that you use it is a
MUST to acknowledge the source.
• Sources can be acknowledge through citations
and the UOG prefers APA style.
• A) Paraphrasing: In the middle of the
sentence, at the end of the sentence, at the
beginning of the sentence.
• (Please refer to examples given in the C/Hand
book page 32-33)

14. Cont.…
• B) For Quotations:
If the quotation is verbatim, it is enclosed in a double inverted commas
or quotation marks. You have to insert the source with the page
number from where the statement is lifted.
Indent beyond 40 words verbatim quotations.
Attempts made to adjust verbatim citations - enclose in brackets
immediately after the attempt of underline or italics and indicative
note.
Please read through pages 32-34 for other information on citations.

15. Ethical Considerations
• Attitudes required in research literature review
• Openness: - especially in the areas of data collection,
treatment of findings and literature review.
• Honesty:- especially in the areas of data collection,
treatment and interpretation.
• Humility:- especially in the areas of validation of
instrument.
• Objectivity: - especially in drawing conclusions from
the research findings.

16. Cont.…
• Plagiarism – coping of work without acknowledgement
• Arm-chair Researching – pretending to conduct
empirical research by manipulating data to reach
findings.
• Faking – false information documentation
• Over-citation of a popular – Over citing/use of a
particular source.

17. Summary
• In this unit, you have worked through the concept of
literature in which you learnt that literature review is the
careful systematic identification and/or location,
documentation, analysis and reporting of information,
which are relevant, related and useful to the present study.
• You have seen the purposes of literature review as
summarised by different authors. The steps in reviewing
literature have also been presented in the unit. Different
ways of citations have been also been presented. Again,
some ethical considerations have been discussed. Read
more from your course guide.

18. The End!
Please attend to your respective tutorials to
extract more from the staff.
In the next lecture we will look at Population
and Samples and Research proposals.