2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Selected Definitions
1. Literature review: Review of literature is a summary of current theoretical
and scientific knowledge about a particular problem, which includes what is
known and not known about the problem.
2. CINAHL - Cumulative index to nursing and allied health literature.
3. Abstracts: These are summarized articles which have appeared in other
journals.
4. Gray Literature: Refers to studies with more limited distribution such as
conference papers, unpublished reports, dissertation
3. Introduction:
Review of literature is an essential step in research project.
It provides bases for further investigation ; justify the need for study
; throws light on the flexibility of study reveals constraints of data
collection and re- lates the findings, development from the study of
another with a hope to establish a comprehensive study of scientific
knowledge in a professional discipline, from which valid theories
developed
A literature review helps to lay the foundation for the study and also
inspire new research ideas. A literature review provide readers with the
background for understanding current knowledge on a topic and elucidate
the significance of new study.
It assists in interpreting study findings and on developing implication and
recommendation.
4. Key electronic data bases for nurse researcher
1. CINAHL – cumulative index to nursing and allied health literature
2. MEDLINE - (Medical literature on-line)
3. I.S.I. (Institute for Scientific Information)
4. AIDSEARCH - (Includes more than twenty aids research data base)
5. CANCER LIT (Cancer literature)
6. EMBASE – (The excerpty medical data base)
7. HAPI – (Health and psychosocial instruments database)
8. ERIC - (Education Resources Information Center database)
9. PSYCINFO – Psychology Information
10. Dissertation Abstracts online
11. Cochrane databse of systematic reviews
5. 1. DEFINITION
❖ A literature review is an assessment of a body
of research that addresses a research question.
❖ An organized written presentation of what has
been published on a topic by the scholars. (Burns
and Grove, 2005)
❖ An Account of what has been published by
accredited scholars and researchers. (Taylor, 2011)
6. Characteristics of a Good Quality Review of Literature
❖ A good review of literature must be comprehensive.
❖ It should include up-to-date references.
❖ It should be systemic.
❖ It should be reproducible.
❖ It should be free from bias.
❖ It should be well written.
❖ It should be in the form of sum of its parts.
❖ It should be clearly searched and selected.
❖ Accurate references should be given in the review.
7. Factors Affecting Review of Literature
❖Researcher’s Background
An experienced researcher finds it easy to prepare a review of literature than a
beginner.
❖Complexity of the research project
It is easy to collect review of literature for simple and easy research projects
complex ones.
❖Availability of resources
Availability of resources like computer, internet facility, online and offline
subscription makes it easy to prepare a good review of literature.
❖Study time frame
To conduct a relevant review of literature sufficient time is needed.
❖Availability of support system
If there are many research scholars involved in the research then a good review
literature can be gathered.
8. Purpose of Review of Literature
❖ It helps to identify what is already known about a research problem.
❖ It helps to build on previous knowledge.
❖ Many published research studies contain recommendation for future research, from
which we can get idea for a new research study.
❖ It makes researcher know what research has already been done in a particular area so
as to avoid duplication.
9. ❖ It is necessary to narrow the problem to be studied.
❖ Identify questions a body of research does not answer
❖ It helps researcher to get acquainted with the relevant theory, strategies, tools and
instruments for conducting the research.
❖ It helps to understand the different ways of conducting the research study.
❖ It helps to identify comparative data so helps in interpretation and discussion of
previous study.
10. Types of Review of Literature:
Traditional or Narrative Review of Literature
•This type Critique and summarize literature to draw conclusion about a topic.
Systemic Review of Literature
•This method uses more well defined approach, mainly used for making a complete
list of all published and unpublished studies relating to a particular topic.
Meta Analysis
• This type of review takes large quantitate findings and conducts a statistical
analysis to integrate those findings enhance understanding.
Meta Synthesis
• This is a non-statistical method used to integrate and evaluate and interpret the
findings of multiple similar quantitative studies, to identify the common elements.
11. Sources of the literature review:
Literature can be reviewed from two main sources, that is primary and secondary
sources; however, literature review mostly relies on primary source.
Primary Sources
Primary sources are original, peer-reviewed, and published research journal
articles reported by original researchers.
In other words, primary sources are the research reports, which are description
of studies written by researchers who conducted them.
A primary source is written ten by a person who developed the theory or
conducted the research,or is the description of an investigation written by the
person who conducted it.
Most primary sources are found in published literature; for example, a nursing
research article.
A credible literature review reflects the use of mainly primary sources.
12. Secondary Sources
Secondary source research documents are description of
studies prepared by someone other than the original
researcher. They are written by people other than the
individuals who developed the theory or conducted the
research.
The secondary sources include the comments and
summaries of multiple research studies on one topic, for
example, systemic reviews, metaanalysis, meta-
synthesis, etc.
13. Secondary sources are usually paraphrased and may be based
on the secondary author's interpretation of the primary
work; it is necessary then to review primary source whenever
possible to ensure accuracy
However, secondary sources may be used when primary
sources are not available or if researchers want external
opinions on an issue or problem or even the results of their
own research.
Example of a Secondary Source
A literature review on patient experiences in the ICU: Stein-
Parbury, J. & Mckinley, S. (2000).
Patient experiences of being in an intensive care unit: a select
literature review. American Journal of Critical Care, 9, 20-27.
14.
15. The main sources from where literature can be searched are as follows :
1. Electronic sources:
Computer-assisted literature search has revolutionized the review of literature. These
searches, however, for a variety of reasons may not provide the desired references.
Electronic literature search through web may be very useful, but sometimes it can be time
consuming and unpredictable because there are many websites and web pages that can lead
to information overload and confusion.
However, currently it is one of the most important sources of literature searches.
General literature search can be conducted through search engines, like Yahoo
(www.yahoosearch.com), Google (www.google.com), MSN search, Lycos, WebCrawler, Alta
Vista, or Excite; and scientific nursing literature may be located at several available database
sources.
It is appropriate to define the database and to indicate how it is different from a search
engine .
As mentioned above, Google is a search engine and MEDLINE is a database
16. A search engine is a collection of software programs that collect
information from the Web, index it and put it in a format that is
accessible visually on screen at an on-site library or in downloadable,
readable written format.
In contrast, a database is an organized body of related information
arranged for speed of access and retrieval.
In other words, a database is a storage location like a library, where
information is stored, catalogued, maintained, and uploaded
systematically.
17. The two main types of database that are available are bibliographic and full-text database.
Bibliographic database gives only direction on where to find the information, whereas full-text
database contains the information itself (full re search articles in downloadable format).
However , the most useful and relevant nursing databases are as follows :
• CINAHL ( Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature ) :
Accessible at http://www.cinahl.com , it contains citations of nursing literature published after
1988 It is an extremely important electronic database for nurses. It covers references to
virtually all English-language nursing and allied health journals, as well as to books, book
chapters, nursing dissertation and selected conference proceedings in nursing and allied
health fields
Even full-text articles are available on CINAHL Plus, a paid web page
18. MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieved System Online):
It is another electronic source of literature review commonly used by nurses.
The National Library of Medicine provides free access to MEDLINE through PubMed,
available at www. pubmed.com or http://www.ncbi.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi.
Generally, abstracts of research articles are provided free of cost; some of the full-text
copies are also freely available and some others are available for a fee
• PubMed: PubMed can be used to search research abstracts, available
at http://wwwpubmed.com.
• British Nursing Index: The British Nursing Index (BNI) is a leading UK nursing database
providing bibliographic references to journal articles from all the major British nursing and
midwifery journals, as well as a selection of English-language international journals. It is
available from the Royal College of Nursing Library e-library
database: http://www.proquest.com/products-services/bni.html.
19. • MedlinePlus: It is the National Library of Medicine's websites for consumer health information. It is
available at http://www.medlineplus.gov.
• Nursing and Health Science: It is a full-text collection of 24 journals published by Sage Publication.
Registry of Nursing Research:
Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing makes this database available through its Virginia
Henderson International Nursing Library.
Access to this database has been redesigned and made easier for users to obtain evidence and scientific
findings from more than 2200 research articles and conference abstracts.
The research abstracts are searched via key words, author, and title of the research study.
Free access to this database may be found at http://www.nursinglibrary.org
Cochrane database of system reviews:
Health care-related literature can be searched from this source, available at http://www.cochrane.org.
• PsycINFO:
The PsycINFO database belongs to the American Psychological Association, and covers literature from
psychological or related disciplines. It may be searched at http://wwwpsychinfo.com.
20. • Education Resource Information Center (ERIC):
It is a freely available database that is sponsored by the institute of education and the US
Department of Education, which has literature on education with about 600 journals, reference
books, conference papers and technical reports.
A free search may be carried out at https://eric.ed.gov.
ProQuest Dissertation and Theses Database:
It is an official repository for the US Library Congress developed by PQDT Global.
It is a single point access to more than 2 million full text dissertations. It may be searched
at http://www.proquest.com.
Web of Science:
It is a multidisciplinary database,which has a collection of more than 5600 journals across
disciplines.
It may be searched at https://login.webofknowledge.com
21. Online Journals:
Following are the website addresses for journals and magazines that are available online
http://www.nursefriendly.com/nursing/linksections/nursingjournal.html
http://www.nsna.org
http://www.healthweb.org
http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php
http : //www.healthweb.org.browse.cfm ? category 1727 =
http://www.juns.nursing.arizona.edu
http://www.medbioworld.com http://www.nursingworld.org/ojin
• http://www.eaa-knowledge.com/ojni/#
• http://www.nursingweek.com
22. Other online databases:
Many other online Databases can be searched for free by nurses from the following websites
( In Table also presents some of the free open online access for literature review ):
TAB:Free Online Access to the Scientific Nursing / Health Science Literature
Although complete open access to research results is not yet available, there are sources that nurses and
other health care professionals can use to access free evidence for practice.
In US, the National Institute for Health operates a website (www.guideline gov) that publishes a broad range
of practice guidelines.
Some of the international open access resources include the following websites, which provide free access to
many professional journals:
• The Alliance for Taxpayer Access: www.taxpayeraccess.org
• DOAJ (The Directory of Open Access Journals): www.doag.org
• PLOS: Public Library of Science: www.plos.org
• PubMed Central: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/
SciDev Net: www.scidev.net
• SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resource Coalition): www.arl.org/sparc
23. http://www.aidsinfo.nih.gov ( HIV / AIDS information )
• http: //www.hazmap.nlm.nih.gov ( information on hazardous agents )
http://www.child.nih.gov ( combined health information database )
• http://www.toxinet.nlm.nih.gov ( toxicology database network) Cancer Lit (Cancer literature)
• EMBASE (Excerpta Medica Database)
• ETOH (Alcohol and alcohol problems science database)
• HealthSTAR (Health services technology administration and research)
• Radix (Nursing and managed care database)
• CD-ROM (Compact disc - read only memory) with research database
24. 2. Printed sources:
Printed sources are also used for literature review.
Printed research summary may be located from published abstracts, such as
Nursing Research Abstract, Psychological Abstracts, Dissertation Abstract
International, Masters Abstract International, etc.
References to other printed sources may be located through indices, such as
Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Nursing Studies
Index, and Index Medicus.
Following are the main printed sources that can be used to review the relevant
literature:
Journals:
There are several national and international journals that can be used to review
the research-related literature.
25. Some of the main national and international nursing journals are as
follows:
Names of national nursing journals
Nursing and Midwifery Research Journal
Indian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery
The Nursing Journal of India
Indian Journal of Continuing Nursing Education
Nightingale Nursing Times
International Journal of Nursing Education
Indian Journal of Nursing Studies
International Journal of Nursing Care
26. Names of international journals
• Nursing Research
• Research in Nursing and Health
• Nursing Sciences Quarterly
• Western Journal of Nursing Research
• Applied Nursing Research
• Biological Research for Nursing
• Advances in Nursing Sciences
• Clinical Nursing Research
• Worldviews on Evidence - Based Nursing
Journal of Qualitative Research
• American Journal of Nursing
• International Journal of Nursing Studies
• Canadian Journal of Nursing Research
• Evidence-Based Nursing
• Journal of Nursing Measurement
• Journal of Nursing Scholarship .
• Oncology Nursing Forum
• Scholarly Inquiry of Nursing Practice
• Oncology Nursing Forum
• Scholarly Inquiry of Nursing Practice
• Research reports
• Unpublished dissertations and theses
• Magazines and newspapers
• Conference papers and proceedings
• Encyclopaedias and dictionaries
• Books
27. STEPS OF LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review is a systemic and orderly process, which is
undertaken for various reasons, such as a step of research process or
eliciting the information for developing policies and evidence-based
practices.
It is identified that nurses and nursing students found literature review
as a daunting task and frequently have many questions ranging from
where to start, how to select the themes, where to search the nursing
literature, how to search the literature, how many articles to include ,
how to synthesize and organize the literature , and how to write the
literature .
28. Steps of review of literature
Step 1
Understanding the
concepts of
research problem
and identifying the
key search terms
Step 2
Identifying the
relevant
sources
Step 3
Searching the
literature
Step 4
Analysing and
synthesizing the
literature
Step 5
Writing the
literature review
29. Step I. Understanding the concepts of research problem and identifying the
key search terms:
The journey of literature search begins with understanding and examining the
concepts of research problem so that essential key search terms may be
identified.
The key search terms serve as a foundation for the overall search of literature.
These search terms may be elements that are included in the problem statement
,variables that appear in the research questions,and characteristics of the
population of interest.
Boolean operators(AND,OR,NOT)are thrn used to combine search terms into
search statement.
A detailed discussion about the use of Boolean operators is given in the third
stage of literature review.An example of are search problem is broken into key
search terms in table.
30.
31. Research Problem Example of Relevant Key Search terms
A Descriptive study on metabolic complications of
traumatic brain injury in children admitted in JPN
Trauma centre,AIIMS,New Delhi
• Traumatic AND brain injury
•Metabolic response AND trauma Paediatric AND brain
injury
• Brain injury AND children
• Hypothermia AND brain injury
•Hypothermia AND paediatric
A comparative study on post-operative length of stay in
hospital among ambulatory vs. bedside peddler
patients admitted in surgical department of AIIMS ,
Jodhpur
•Bariatric surgery AND exercise
• Effects AND post - operative AND exercise
• Exercise AND length of post - op stay
•Ambulation AND length of stay in hospitaL
Tab:5.3Identifying the key search terms from research problems
32. 2.Step II. Identifying the relevant sources
After understanding the concepts of research problem and identification
of key search terms, we need to locate the relevant sources for literature
review.
The journals are considered as superior and up-to-date source
compared to books and other resources, because books are considered
outdated by the time they are published after a long process.
33. However, contribution of books can be ignored in literature review.
But in present scenario, electronic literature sources are most
commonly preferred resources for literature review because of easy
and quick access of vast amount of research database then manual
search.
Therefore, there are a vast variety of database available for the
research, thus it is very essential to judiciously decide the relevant
electronic database for literature search.
34. 3.Step III Searching the literature:
Having selected relevant sources of literature review, the next step is
to identify in a structured way the appropriate and related information.
The traditional method of literature search is manual search from
the hard copy of journals that are specially related to the topic of
interest or those that are likely to cover the topic.
In this method, initial reference to the journal is obtained from
indices developed for this purpose, such as Index Medicus and/or
from the reference/bibliography of the initially located articles of
related topic.
35. This is a slow and tedious task but often a rewarding way of searching articles.
However, this may be facilitated by identifying the initial related reference from the
electronic reference/abstract database, such as PubMed (www.pubmed.com) and
then searching full articles in hard copies of related published journals
Nowadays searches are undertaken most commonly using computer and
electronic da tabase or search engines. Therefore, identifying and using keywords
is the most critical act in literature search.
However, keywords need careful consideration in order to select terms that will
generate the data being sought. For American databases, such as CINAHL, the
keywords used to identify terms may differ from the British in spelling and meaning
(e.g. tumor / tumor, pediatric / pediatric, transcultural / multicultural).
36. It is a good idea to consider alternative keywords with similar meanings that
might elicit further information; for example, if you are undertaking a review in
an aspect of pressure ulcers, you would need to include terms, such as
pressure sores and decubitus ulcers, to access older material.
Some of these alternative keywords can be gleaned from the database
thesaurus.
Another strategy is 'Boolean operators' where keywords are combined to
facilitate the search.
37. The most commonly used Boolean operators are ' AND ' , ' OR ' , and ' NOT ‘
They are presented in Table 5.4 and Fig. 5.3 with their purposes and
relevant examples.
It is a common question at this stage how much old literature must one
review for a particular study.
Generally, 3-5 years old literature is ideally included in the literature
search, sometimes it may be extended up to 10 years, in case of limited
availability of the literature.
However, historical research may include even older literature based on
the purpose of particular historical research
38. Tab :5.4 Examples of Boolean Operators and their Purposes
Command Purpose Example
AND
OR
NOT
Look for articles that include all the identified
keywords .
Look for articles that include any of the identified
keywords.
Exclude articles that contain this specific
keyword.
Brain injury AND head injury
Corticosteroids OR steroids OR
glucocorticoids
Viral bronchitis NOT bacterial
bronchitis
40. 4.Step IV. Analyzing and synthesizing the literature:
After collecting the relevant literature, it is the stage to analyze and
synthesize the collected literature. There are several substages or
systems to achieve this purpose.
The most popular and simple method is referred to as the preview,
question, read, summarize (PQRS) system. This system not only
keeps reviewer focused and consistent but also ultimately facilitates
easy identification and retrieval of the relevant literature .
41. a . Preview / Overview :
This begins with an initial quick overview or preview of the
articles through an abstract or summary of articles given at
the beginning of each article to get a sense of what the article
is about and whether it is worthy of inclusion for further
reading .
42. b. Question, read and summarize:
In the question stage, questions are asked of each article under
review. Here, several writers have suggested using an indexing
or summary system (or a combination of both) to assist the
review process.
There are different criteria suggested for the indexing and
summarization but generally they include the author, year of
study, title of article, purpose and methodology of study, main
findings and outcome of study.
43. In addition, it is important to include the reviewer's key
comments and thoughts about reviewed article.
It is suggested to keep source and full reference to ensure
better record keeping and to avoid the problem of later
searching for references / source of information.
A review may include not only primary sources but also
secondary and non-research articles.
44.
45. Primary Source Secondary Source Non - Research Literature
Title :
Author ( year ) :
Full reference
Purpose of study
Type of study
Research settings
Methods of data collection
Main findings
Recommendations
Key thoughts / comments ( e.g. strengths
/ weaknesses )
Title :
Author ( year ) :
Full reference
Review question / purpose
Key definitions
Review boundaries
Appraisal criteria
Synthesis of studies
Summary / conclusions
Key thoughts / comments ( e.g.
strengths / weaknesses )
Title :
Author ( year ) :
Full reference
Purpose of paper
Credibility
Quality
Coherence
Recommendations
Key thoughts / comments ( e.g.
strengths / weaknesses )
TABLE 5.5 Summary of Information
46. APPROACHES DESCRIPTION
Thematic organization (Dividing the
literature into themes or categories)
Chronological organization
(Presenting literature chronologically)
Literature is organized under different themes identified from the
literature and brain storming. It is the most popular approach of
organizing the literature. It allows integration of theoretical and
empirical (research) literature. However, care must be taken in
ensuring that the themes are clearly related to the literature.
Literature is divided into time periods. It is useful when examining the
emergence of a phenomenon over time period.
47. APPROACHES DESCRIPTION
Theoretical vs, methodological
organization
(Exploring theoretical and
methodological literature)
Theoretical vs empirical
organization
(Examining theoretical
literature and empirical
literature in two sections)
Discussion of theoretical literature is followed by exploration of
methodological literature that would give some indication of why a
particular research design might be appropriate for investigating the
topic. It is useful when the body of literature is largely theoretical
with little or no empirical (research) literature.
Reviewer has both theoretical and empirical literature, and they are
discussed separately. The purpose of researcher is to describe
rather than critically review. with writing a short summary of each
article and may include key thoughts, comments, strengths, and
weaknesses of the article/publication. It should be written in own
words to facilitate understanding of the literature, and it also forms a
good basis for the writing of the review.
48. 5. Step V. Writing the literature review:
This is a final step of literature review after completing the
adequate appraisal of literature.
It is time to give a serious thought about how to write a draft of
literature review.
It is essential to avoid long and confusing words and jargon and
keep sentences short with one clear message.
The spelling and grammar must get due attention and
consistency must be maintained in English being used.
49. Good Literature Review Poor Literature Review
• It is a synthesis of available research
• It is a critical evaluation
• It has appropriate breadth and depth It has
clarity and conciseness
• It uses rigorous and consistent methods
• It is an annotated bibliography
• It is confined to description It is narrow and
shallow
• It is confusing and long - winded
• It is constructed in an arbitrary way
Tab:5.7 Characteristics of a Good and a Poor literature Review
50. EXAMPLE OF A BETTER REVIEW
The victims of domestic violence suffer a range of consequences,
from lowered self-esteem and loss of self-confidence to withdrawal
from social interaction, changed career goals, and depression
(Sharma, Saini and Arora, 2003; Rao and Bhai, 2004, Joshi and
Mathew, 2009).
For example, Sharma, Saini and Arora, (2003) noted that 26 per
cent of women said that they avoided going to social functions or
interacting openly with family members because of the risk of
domestic violence.
51. EXAMPLE OF A BAD REVIEW
Domestic violence has many consequences.
Sharma, Saini and Arora (2003) found that some women said that they
avoided going to social functions or interacting openly with family
members because of the risk of domestic tic violence.
They also found that rural and urban women reacted differently.
52. Their research was conducted through a survey of 2000 rural and
urban women dwellers.
Rao and Bhai's study in domestic violence among families (2004)
lists many problems created by domestic violence.
In their excellent book, Joshi and Mathew (2009) give a long list of
problems faced by victims of domestic violence.
53. a) Introduction:
While writing the introduction, following steps should be taken care of:
Initiate the introduction with definition of general topic, issues under
study, thus offering the background context to the literature.
Highlight the trends, similarities, contrasts, and gaps in facts,
mythologies, and procedures of available literature and identifying
importance of new topic under study.
Point out thoughts and comments of reviewer's view points and
explain criteria of critical appraisal and organization of literature
review.
54. B Bb) Body:
The body of literature includes the theoretical and empirical sections.
Following measures need to be undertaken while writing the body of the
literature.
Group research studies and other types of literature (reviews, theoretical
articles, case studies) according to common denominators, such as
qualitative versus quantitative approaches, conclusions of authors,
specific purposes or objectives, chronology, and so on.
Summarize individual studies or articles with as much as or as little detail
as each merit according to its comparative importance in the literature,
remembering that space denotes significance.
However, it is more relevant to summarize similar or contrasting studies
under a particular theme in a single paragraph.
55. Include most relevant studies in each paragraph that support the main idea
and the theme of the particular section of literature.
Furthermore, the end of each paragraph must include a sentence of evidence
summary and a concluding sentence that transitions to the next claim.
Use’ umbrella ' sentences at the beginning of paragraphs , signpost
throughout and add brief ' so what ' summary sentences at intermediate
points in the review to aid in understanding comparisons and analysis .
Avoid using direct paraphrasing and quotes from a particular literature; it
is considered as a breach in copyright regulations.
Therefore, always use the evidence facts from literature and construct own
sentences.
56. c) Conclusion:
The points to be taken care of in the conclusion are as follows:
Mention the main contribution of important studies to the body of
knowledge for a particular topic under study.
Specify the gaps, study findings, and inconsistencies in
methodologies, theories, and procedures of the literature.
Conclude by mentioning the most significant findings and relevant
issues related to the topic under study.
57. 6.StepVI. Referencing and reviewing final draft of literature:
It is the last step of the literature review where the final draft of literature is
reviewed for the completeness, accuracy and relevance of the content.
Furthermore, the reference citations and list of references should be checked
with author's name and year of publication to ensure the accuracy of in-text
citation and the reference list.
The creation of list of references with complete detail such as full names of
authors, year of publication, title of article, name of journal, volume, issues of
journal and page number of the particular article must be archived carefully
from the beginning of the literature , so that towards the end , reference
listing becomes easy .
58. The reference for electronic literature may be man aged through
reference management system or citation management software, which
formats and stores the citations/references, so that they are available for
electronic retrieval.
Zotero (https://www.zotero.org) is a free, easy-to-use software for
citation/reference management to collect, organize and cite the research
literature. There are (www.refworks.com). also paid software available
for this purpose such as EndNote (endnote.com)
Today, majority of us prefer electronic literature search, therefore, steps of
electronic literature search process are presented in Table 5.9.
59. POINTS TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LITERATURE REVIEW
The following points are to be considered when assessing,analysing,and
writing a literature review:
Be specific: It is always better to mention only specific features of
study methodology and the study. findings of the study, rather then in-
depth analysis of each point and a long description of study .
Be selective: Researcher should narrow down a lot of information into
a small space for literature review. Just the most important points (i.e.
those most relevant to the review's focus) must be mentioned in each
work of review.
60. Focus of current topics: Researcher needs to analyze some points,
such as if it is a current article, and if not, how old it is; has its claims,
evidence, or arguments been superseded by more recent work; if it is not
current , then if it is important for historical background ; etc...
Ensure evidence for claims:
Researcher should focus on what support is given for claims made in the
literature. What evidence and what type (experimental, statistical, anecdotal,
etc.) of evidences are offered? Is the evidence relevant and sufficient? What
arguments are given? What assumptions are made, and are they
warranted?
61. • Focus on sources of evidences:
Researchers should ensure the reliability of the sources of the evidence or other
information - if they are from author's own experiments, surveys, -- historical
records, government documents, etc. He or she should check how reliable those
sources are .
Account of contrary evidences:
Does the author take into account contrary or conflicting evidence and
arguments? How does the author address disagreements with other researchers?
62. Reference citations:
Any references cited in the literature review must be included in the
bibliography/reference list. The common practice is that the reviewer does not
list references in the bibliography that are not directly cited in the literature
review or elsewhere in the paper/thesis
Organization of literature review:
A literature review is organized by subtopic, not by individual reference.
In a typical literature review, the writers may cite several references in the
same paragraph and may cite the same reference in more than one
paragraph, if that source addresses more than one of the subtopics in the
literature review.
Typically, discussion of each source is quite brief. The contribution the present
reviewers make is organizing the ideas from the sources into a cogent
argument or narrative that includes their perspectives.
63. Referring original source:
The reviewer should focus on citing the material that originates with each
reference.
This may require a careful reading of the reference. If the reference author refers to
another source whose ideas are relevant or interesting, it is better to track and use
Write in own language:
It must be ensured by the researcher that the literature is written in own words and
paraphrasing must be avoided. However, the opinion of the original author must be
accurately presented in the writer's literature.
64. Simple and accurate sentence structure:
A researcher should use simple sentences and Ensure that all sentences have a
subject, verb, and object. must avoid errors of grammar and
punctuation. Express one idea in a simple sentence.
Ensure all the sentences have subject,verb,and object.
Group the ideas:
Group the sentences that express and develop one aspect of the particular
topic. Use a new paragraph for another aspect or another topic.
.
65. • Effective use of transition words:
Use words that link paragraphs and which show con trast and
development to the argument, for example hence, therefore, but,
thus, as a result, in contrast, etc.
• Avoid abbreviations: Avoid technical terms, jargons, and
abbreviations
66. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Annotated Bibliography is a descriptive account of the particular literature
source’s bibliographic information; it is generally provided in alphabetical
order (citation) with a brief description about the content of literature and
evaluative comments regarding the usefulness of the particular literature
(annotation).
In other words, annotated bibliography is a list of citations of books, research
articles and documents and each of these citations are followed by a brief
description about content and evaluation about its usefulness (about 150-200
words) as annotation.
67. The main purpose of annotated bibliography is
To inform readers about the relevance, accuracy and quality of
source cited in a particular paper.
It also serves as a guide for other researchers that this source of
cited literature is of use to them and what, why and how it is of their
use.
Furthermore, it helps the researchers to get a deeper and clear
understanding of the content of a particular source of literature,
which provides them better comprehension about what and how to
incorporate the particular literature in their paper
68. Components of Annotated Bibliography
Annotated bibliography consists of the following components:
1. Citation:
The first component of the annotated bibliography is to make citation of article,
book or document using prescribed style of bibliography writing such as
Vancouver's, American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language
Association (MLA), Chicago and so on.
2. Annotation:
The second component of the annotation bibliography is to briefly write the
summary of content in approximately 4-7 sentences or 150-200 words, which
could vary from university to university based on local policies.
69. The comprehensively written annual bibliography consists of the
following information:
a) Author's background and authority for content.
b) Central theme of article, book or document.
c) Methodology (if research paper).
d) Strengths, weaknesses and justification on usefulness of
content.
e) Comparison with other studies on the topic.
f) Conclusion about content and source.
70. Purposes of Annotated
Bibliography
A well written
annotated
bibliography serves
the following
purposes:
Provide information to
readers about the
relevance, accuracy and
quality of source cited in
particular paper.
Serves as a guide for other
researchers that the
source of cited literature
is of their use and what,
why and how it is of their
use.
Helps the researchers to get
deeper and clearer
understanding of the
content of a particular
source of the literature,
which provides them the
better understanding about
what and how to
incorporate the particular
literature in their paper.
Provides clear and
comprehensive
understanding of the
content of source of
literature and its
evaluative summary
about its usefulness
71. Process of Writing Annotated bibliography
Writing an annotated bibliography needs a variety of academic
and intellectual skills such as literature search strategies, ability
to critically appraise, succinct comprehension and concise
composition of content.
72. The process of writing annotated bibliography include the following steps :
1.Literature source identification:
Identify the literature relevant to particular topic under study such as
books, original research articles, periodicals , other documents and so
on .
2. Critical review and appraisal of content:
Review and critically appraise the content for the relevance, accuracy
and quality of particular content in the literature source.
73. 3. Choosing relevant content:
Choose the content, which is relevant to a particular topic from a variety of
domains and perspectives.
4. Citation of source:
Make citation of article, book or document using prescribed style of bibliography
writing such as Vancouver's, American Psychological Association (APA), Modern
Language Association (MLA), Chicago and so on.
5. Annotation writing:
Concisely write the annotation that briefly summarizes the content for its central
theme, strengths, weakness, conclusion and evaluative sentence about useful
ness of the topic (as brief as 4-7 sentences or 150-200 words).
74. Example of Annotated Bibliography
Sharma, S.K. , Walia , I. , Sen R. ( 2008 ) . Effect of Smoking
on Pin Site Infection Rate among Patients with External
Skeletal Fixation. Nursing and Midwifery Research Journal,
4(2), 68-72.
The authors are research scholars, nursing faculties at
National Institute of Nursing Education, PGIMER, Chandigarh
and they observed the effect of smoking on 321 pin sites in
patients with external fixation (Sharma, Walia, & Sen, 2008).
75. Both the groups were homogenous as per gender, age,
general health, haemoglobin, blood sugar level, use of anti-
microbials and other co-morbidities but it was a short
duration cohort study without much control on co founders.
The hypothesis of paper strongly supported that smokers
had significantly higher pin site infection as compared to
non-smokers.
Other available studies also reported similar results except
Ward et al. (1997), who found no significant difference among
the groups.
76. SUMMARY
• Literature review is defined as a broad, comprehensive, in depth, systematic
critique and materials and personal communications. synthesis of scholarly
published, unpublished, print and online materials, audiovisual ma
• The main types of literature review are: (i) traditional or narrative literature
review; (ii) systematic literature review; (iii) meta-analysis and (iv) meta-synthesis.
• Literature search may be done from primary or secondary source ; however,
nursing re search primarily depends on the primary sources.
The original research, peer-reviewed published research articles are categorized under
primary source and literature source written other than by original researcher is
categorized under secondary sources such as magazines, newspaper and so
on. systematic reviews, meta-analysis and meta-synthesis, books, encyclopaedia,
dictionaries
77. The Cinahl Database
The CINAHL database is an extremely important electronic database for nurses. It covers references to
virtually all English-language nursing and allied health journals, as well as to books, book chapters, nursing
dissertation and selected conference proceedings in nursing and allied health fields.
The CINAHL database includes materials dating from 1982 to the present and contains more than 1 million
records in addition to providing bibliographic information for locating references (i.e. the author, title,
journal, year of publications, volume and page numbers ), CINAHL provides abstracts of most citation,
supplementary information. Such as names of data collection instruments is available for many records in
the database.
Documents of interest can typically be ordered electronically. CINAHL can be accessed online or by CD-
ROM, either directly through CINAHL or through a commercial vendor.
At the outset, you might begin with a "basic search" by simply entering key words or phrase relevant to
your primary question (or the name of a known researcher/author). You may want to restrict your search in
a number of ways, for example, by limiting the records retrieved to a certain type of document (e.g. only
research reports) ; to
