The document outlines six steps for conducting a literature review:
1. Decide the areas of research before beginning to search literature.
2. Conduct a comprehensive search of books and articles on the topic, downloading relevant sources.
3. Find excerpts from the sources that are relevant to the research areas and code them by topic.
4. Organize the coded excerpts into a conceptual schema that groups related ideas.
5. Begin writing the literature review by using the conceptual schema to structure sections.
6. Cite sources as the review is written to attribute ideas and claims.
3. Argumentative literature review
• Argumentative literature review, as the name
implies, examines literature selectively in order
to support or refute an argument, deeply
imbedded assumption, or philosophical
problem already established in the literature. It
should be noted that a potential for bias is a
major shortcoming associated with
argumentative literature review.
4. Integrative literature review
• Integrative literature review, critiques, and
synthesizes secondary data about research
topic in an integrated way such that new
frameworks and perspectives on the topic are
generated. If your research does not involve
primary data collection and data analysis, then
using integrative literature review will be your
only option.
5. Historical review
• Historical review: This type of literature
review focuses on examining research
throughout time, often starting with the first
time the topic emerged in the literature and
then examining how approaches to that topic
have changed over time.
6. Theoretical literature review
• Theoretical literature review focuses on a
pool of theory that has accumulated in regard
to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena.
Theoretical literature reviews play an
instrumental role in establishing what theories
already exist, the relationships between them,
to what degree existing theories have been
investigated, and to develop new hypotheses
to be tested
7. Methodological review
• A methodological review is a type of
systematic secondary research (i.e., research
synthesis) which focuses on summarising the
state-of-the-art methodological practices of
research in a substantive field or topic"
8. Systematic literature review
• Systematic literature review requires more rigorous and well-
defined approach compared to most other types of literature
review. Systematic literature review is comprehensive and details
the timeframe within which the literature was selected. Systematic
literature review can be divided into two categories: meta-analysis
and meta-synthesis.
• When you conduct meta-analysis you take findings from several
studies on the same subject and analyze these using standardized
statistical procedures. In meta-analysis patterns and relationships
are detected and conclusions are drawn. Meta-analysis is associated
with deductive research approach.
• Meta-synthesis, on the other hand, is based on non-statistical
techniques. This technique integrates, evaluates and interprets
findings of multiple qualitative research studies. Meta-synthesis
literature review is conducted usually when following inductive
research approach
9. • Before you begin to search
for articles or books, decide
beforehand what areas you
are going to research.
Decide on your areas of research
STEP
10. STEP
2
STEP
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STEP
2
Search for the literature
• Conduct a comprehensive bibliographic search of
books and articles, read abstracts online, download
and print articles that pertain to your area of
research
11. Find relevant excerpts in your
books and articles
• Look for claims, conclusions and
findings about the constructs you are
investigating. Study definitions of
terms, read follow-up studies, note
gaps In the literature or disagreement
about the constructs you are
investigating. Type the excerpts and
don't summarize, as summarizing
takes longer. Note the name of the
author and page numbers. When you
are done, print out your excerpts
STEP
3
12. Code the literature
• Use scissors and cut each
excerpt out sorting them
into similar topics. If there
are excerpts that you can't
figure out where they
belong, separate those and
go over them again at the
end to see if you need new
categories.Place each stack
of notes into an envelope
labeled with the name of
the theme.
13. Create Your
conceptual Schema
• Print the name of each of
your coded themes onto
individuals slips of paper
and organize them.Are
there ideas that go
together or that
contradict each other?
Move around the slips of
paper until you come up
with away of organizing
the codes that makes
sense. Write the
conceptual schema down
14. Begin to Write Your
Literature Review
• Choose any section of your
conceptual schema and lay the
envelopes with the excerpts in
them on the table. Figure out a
mini-conceptual schema based on
that theme by grouping together
those excerpts that say the
samething. Use that mini-
conceptual schema to write up
your literature review. Include
citations as you write, so as not to
lose track of who said what. Repeat
this for each section.