3. • It discusses published information in a
particular subject area, and sometimes
information in a particular subject area within
a certain time period
• It can be just a simple summary of the
sources, but it usually has an organizational
pattern and combines both summary and
synthesis.
• A literature review is a list of books, journal
and conference articles, technical reports on
a specific topic grouped by theme and
evaluated with regard to research.
What is literature review?
3
4.
5.
6. The whole process of reviewing includes:
• Searching for literature
• Sorting and prioritizing the retrieved literature
• Analytical reading of papers
• Evaluative reading of papers
• Comparison across studies
• Organizing the content
• Writing the review
How to review …?
6
7. • Peer-reviewed scientific journal articles (research papers)
• Published books, thesis and dissertations
• Published international or governmental reports
• Conference papers
• Newspapers
• Websites and blogs
Sources of literature
7
8. Assessment
• Assess the quality of the information source:
• refereed journal article?
• conference proceedings?
• corporate report?
• Assess the standing of the author
• academic?
• journalist?
• government employee?
• is the work in their major field of research?
9. • Clarification of concepts
• Narrow your topic and its significance
• Develop conceptual understanding (terminologies)
• Find models, methodologies, techniques, datasets
• Find a focus
• Construct a problem statement
What should I do in the literature review?
9
10. • Case studies and applications
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort
• Point the way forward for further research
• Place one's original work (in the case of theses or dissertations) in
the context of existing literature
• FIND GAPS!!!
What should I do before writing the literature
review?
10
11.
12.
13.
14.
15. • Planning
• Reading and Research
• Analyzing
• Drafting
• Revising
Steps for writing a Literature Review
16. Process of Literature Review: 6 Step Approach
1. Select a Topic:
Being an offspring of interest in a specific problem.
2. Search the Literature:
Winnowing the information to the data that provides strongest evidence.
3. Develop the Argument:
a. Form a case b. Argue the case
4. Survey the Literature
Assemble, Organize & Analyze the data to present current knowledge on
the topic
5. Critiquethe Literature
Interpret the evidence found, arrange evidence logically to form argument
that justifies thesis
6. Write the Review
Produce a document that communicates the result of a project
17.
18. 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
19. Overview of the Process
Research and
Collect Information
Topic
Search databases
Find, evaluate, and select articles
20. RefWorks
Work with
Articles and Brain
Overview of the Process
Research and
Collect Information
Topic
Save your work in a
citation mgr.
Read, analyze,
synthesize
Develop your
conceptual framework
21. RefWorks
Work with
Articles and Brain
Overview of the Process
Research and
Collect Information
Topic
Refine topic?
Use your citation
manager to stay
organized
24. Feature map Classifies and categorises your thought in tabular form
Concept map
Links between concepts and processes, or shows relationship between
ideas and practice
Tree construction
Shows how topic branches out into subthemes and related questions or
represents stages in the development of a topic.
How to review …?
24
• Set out your thinking on paper through maps and
trees.
26. Finding Research Articles
• Focus on database that index scholarly literature
• Identify useful search terms
• Is “research” a document type or subject heading?
• What keywords might narrow your search?
• Follow citations
• Identify key authors
26
27. 27
How to Read a Research Paper
• Start with Title, Abstract, Headings
• Read Introduction- look for motivations, assumptions, relation to
other work, overview
• Browse Literature Review- how does it all fit in
• Read Conclusions to find results
• If relevant, go back to body of article, perhaps skipping equations
first time through.
28. • Web of Science
• https://www.webofknowledge.com/
• Scopus
• https://www.scopus.com/
• ScienceDirect
• http://sciencedirect.com/
• SpringerLink
• https://link.springer.com/
• Google Scholar
• https://scholar.google.com.pk/
Searching Databases
28
29. • These are individual words and phrases which describe the topic you
are studying.
• Selecting good key words is very important
• if too limited, you may overlook relevant literature;
• if too broad, you may spend time locating and reviewing literature with little
relation to your topic.
• The best advise is to start with broad keywords, then narrow to a more
confined list.
Key Words
29
31. • The Title of the article, review, proceeding, book, etc.
• The Abstract, which is the work's summary containing the key points discussed
such as research question, methodology, discussion and conclusion. This field is
supplied by the author(s) of the article or paper.
• The Keywords and Keywords Plus fields: The keywords field is the one supplied
by the author(s) and "tags" the main and sub topics of the paper's
content. The keywords plus field is an algorithm that provides expanded terms
stemming from the record's cited references or bibliography.
Topic
31
33. Four Analysis Tasks of the Literature Review
TASKS OF
LITERATURE
REVIEW
SUMMARIZE SYNTHESIZE CRITIQUE COMPARE
34. • In your own words, summarize and/or synthesize the key findings
relevant to your study.
• What do we know about the immediate area?
• What are the key arguments, key characteristics, key concepts or key
figures?
• What are the existing debates/theories?
• What common methodologies are used?
Summary and Synthesis
35. • Ali has demonstrated…
• Early work by Ahmed, John, and Fatima was concerned with…
• Rana and Bhatti compared algorithms for …
• Additional work by Tom et. al, and Jerry et. al deals with…
Sample Language for
Summary and Synthesis
37. Digging Into the Literature
A
= Major works
C
B
= Studies that rely on major works
38. Digging Into the Literature
A
= Major works
C
B
= Studies that rely on major works
New!
= Something new!
39.
40. • Evaluates the strength and weaknesses of the work:
• How do the different studies relate? What is new, different, or
controversial?
• What views need further testing?
• What evidence is lacking, inconclusive, contradicting, or too limited?
• What research designs or methods seem unsatisfactory?
Comparison and Critique
41. • In this ambitious but flawed study, Jones and Wang…
• These general results, reflecting the stochastic nature of the flow of
goods, are similar to those reported by Rosen and Roll…
• “The rationalist model has also received its share of criticism. One of
the most frequently cited shortcomings of this approach centers
around the assumption that perception is dependent on potential
gains …”
Sample Language for
Comparison and Critique
42. • Once you have summarized, synthesized, compared, and critiqued your chosen
material, you may consider whether these studies
• Demonstrate the topic’s chronological development.
• Show different approaches to the problem.
• Show an ongoing debate.
• Center on a “important” or “new direction” study or studies.
• Demonstrate a “paradigm shift.”
Analyzing: Putting It All Together
43. • What do researchers KNOW about this field?
• What do researchers NOT KNOW?
• Why should we (further) study this topic?
• What will my study contribute?
Analyzing: Putting It All Together
46. Literature Search
Becoming an expert
• understand all aspects of the topic
• find other work relevant to the topic
• find researchers who work in the area
• find the projects they work on
• discover/track research trends (ongoing)
• determine appropriate publishing venues
• build a collection of useful resources
47. Literature Search
Becoming an expert
• know the state-of-the-art
• who else is tackling the same problem
• how is their work different to yours
• build a bibliographic reference collection
• sources in “citable” form (metadata)
• basis for bibliography at end of thesis
• notes on each source, for literature review
48. Literature Search
The Process
• search: find relevant material (sources)
• evaluate: determine quality of material
• record: keep material in usable form
• use: cite/quote sources in your own work
49. Bibliographic Search (then)
• go to the library; search catalogue
• find journals/proceedings in the area
• go to shelves; scan through volume ToCs
• find a relevant paper; photocopy
• use references to find prior work
• use Citation Index to find later work
• and, of course, read the papers
50. Bibliographic Search (now)
• go to Google Scholar; type keywords
• scan results list; filter; search more
• download PDFs to your DropBox folder
• or, put them in your Mendeley/Endnote database
• type notes into Evernote ... on your phone
• and, of course, read the papers
51. On-line Search
• Requirements for effective on-line searching ..
• large collection of articles/papers/theses
• keyword searching with useful filters
• interlinking of information (paper/author/org/venue)
Best current resource (IMO): Google Scholar
52. Searching with GScholar
http://scholar.google.com.au/
• Google Scholar is useful
• but should not be your only search resource
• also use discipline-specific catalogues
• e.g. ACM Digital Library, IEEE Explore, ...
• e.g. NUST library, Scopus, PubMed, ...
• big advantage: easy to use interface
53. Searching with GScholar
Searching tips …
• do not stop after scanning first page
• do not stop after one query; try alternative terms
• double-quotes for more precise search terms
• + to include stop-words, - to exclude words
• qualifiers, e.g. author: ”j shepherd”
• make use of Advanced Scholar Search
54. • “Cited by” finds later work
• citation chains show development of area
• sources in chains show likely publication venues
• “Related Articles” finds other relevant work
• author name links give author statistics (if public)
Searching with GScholar
