Literature reviewing, some available technology tools to make your literature reviewing better. Planning a literature review, searching for optimal results, use the right resources, fast reading trick for articles, fighting procrastination. Do more in a shorter time with more comprehension and efficiency.

1. Leveraging technology for theoretical
and empirical review of the Literature
WEBINAR
YOUNGSCIENTIFICMINDS

2. Presented by
Nchanji T. Gordon
Enuh Blaise M.

3. Outline
What is a review?
Purpose of a review?
Structure of a review?
Literature Review
Recognize and define a problem
Key words
• What if I am starting from zero?
Selecting topic
Choose search strategy
Search, databases
Collecting and organizing information
Search
Survey the literature
Discovering evidence and building findings
Critique the literature
Review
Write the review
Grammar, paragraphing rules, optimization, choice of words, plagiarism, e.t.c.
Write the review
Presenting
Take home
Discussions
Conclusion
3

4. 4

5. 1. Literature review: the 5 W’s
• What is a review?
• Purpose of a review?
• Structure of a review?
5

6. Review structure
What kind
of
structure?
Narrative
Argumentative
Methodological (qualitative Vs quantitative)
Chronology
Systematic 6

7. 2. Select a topic
Recognize and Define a problem
• Course work hypothesis
• From your supervisor or peer
• Focus on the interest
7
What if I am
starting from zero?

8. Develop the tools for argument
• Build a case
• Evaluate quality,
• Relevance,
• Claim Vs Evidence,
• Theoretical vs conceptual frameworks
8

9. 3. Literature search
Define keywords (COVID-19, Africa, mental health,
obesity, )
• Note synonyms for your keywords as well.
Identify relevant databases (ask or try all)
• Navigating databases, to help specify your search results
• Booleans (and, or, not)
• Punctuations
• Brackets 9

10. Why
databases?
Arrange
information in a
consistent way
Easy
referencing
Availability of
metrics (journal,
authors, kws)
Sort (Author,
type of output,
cross citations,
summaries,
collaborators)
alert options,
feed
10
Why use Databases?

11. Which tools can help me
Google scholar
Web of science
Microsoft academic
Scopus
Pubmed, NCBI
Others……
JSTOR
EBSCO
Project Muse (humanities and
social sciences)
Medline (life sciences and
biomedicine)
EconLit (economics)
Inspec (physics, engineering
and computer science)
11

12. 12

13. Search proper
Managing the
data
Scanning the
literature
Skimming the
literature
Mapping your
materials
Create a
subject
memoranda
13
The search proper

14. Quality of papers, relevance
• Paper and Journal
• Number of times cited, impact factor and Journal name
• Authors
• H-index, collaborators,
14

15. Get the most out of abstracts, discussion and
conclusions
• Have a plan before going for literature search
• “Never” read an article without first skimming (3 pass method)
• Carefully read the title, abstract, and introduction
• Read the section and sub-section headings, but ignore everything else
• Read the conclusions
• Glance over the references, mentally ticking off the ones you’ve already read
• You will generally find information that can help finding a gap in the discussions and
conclusions.
• Use word clouds, summarizers, keyword extractors etc.
15

16. 4. Recap
• Assemble information
• Organize information
• Find patterns, theories, recurrencies, themes, debates,
arguments, authors, etc.
• Methods used (You are not redoing the experiment)
• Map out or highlight relevant areas
• Rate your resources (5 star framework can help) 16

17. Finding the research Gap : Example
• Most research has focused on Adults above 30
• There is an increasing interest in mind manipulation through
social media.
• There is a lack of research on the effects of mind control in
children below 20 years using social media.
17

18. Gap analysis
• Scope
• population demographics (age groups, gender, minorities etc)
• Geography
• Methods or technology used etc.
• Relevance to humanity
• Cost to research
• Time to research
18

19. 5. The writing process
• Review your notes and memos
• Hone writing skills, grammar, paragraph structure, flow
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic
sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts. (phrase
bank)
• Start with a skeleton draft
• Revision
• The final.docx, final_final.docx, final_final_final.docx dilemma
19

20. Paragraph structure

21. Critique the literature
• It is not an issue of copy and paste
• It is a discussion with existing literature to achieve your goal
21

22. Avoiding plagiarism
• Summarize and synthesize
• Analyze the information, evaluate and interpret
• Paraphrase
• Using similarity check platforms
• Plagiarism checker e.g Turnitin
22

23. Avoiding procrastination
• Check list
• Fragment into tasks, each doable in one hour
• Keep a checklist
• This is a project, u may as well learn some project management
skills
• Parkinson’s law and pareto principle
• Track your progress
• No matter how ugly or empty get a first draft
• Its never complete until submitted
23

24. •Softwares
○ Endnote, Atlas.ti
• Frameworks
○ PICO, Cochrane,
24
Other options

25. 25
Summary

26. Reminder
• This information is purely for educational purposes.
• This is not a panacea to all fields but a framework which
you can modify to suit your field and learning preferences
• You may be your best teacher
26

27. Thank you for listening
27

28. •https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/ , iterative process flow diagram demo
•
•https://books.google.com.tr/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d3uzDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=what+is+a+literature+review&ots=Jr8f4qDQeH&sig=KvwwE4M5
adEfk5qy6R5USX2pJcM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=what%20is%20a%20literature%20review&f=false
•https://libguides.asu.edu/c.php?g=264095&p=1763442
•https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Co_aDc9oagAUX6BMRVDO4iOUmRnMmTWE/view?usp=sharing
•
•http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/keshav/home/Papers/data/07/paper-reading.pdf
•https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283271278_A_Framework_for_Rigorously_Identifying_Research_Gaps_in_Qualitative_Literature_Reviews
•
•https://libguides.oulu.fi/evaluatingpublications/articles
•
•http://eprints.rclis.org/24817/1/R4.3Article%20and%20Author%20Level%20Measurements.pdf
•https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249673870_Literature_Reviews_Conceptual_Frameworks_and_Theoretical_Frameworks_Terms_Functions_an
d_Distinctions/link/0046351f3ddd378baa000000/download
•
•http://amandaszapkiw.com/artifacts/resources/tutorials/research-process/Step-2-Build-a-Literature-Review-and-Identify-a-Theoretical-or-Conceptual-
Framework.pdf
•
•https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Literature-Reviews%2C-Conceptual-Frameworks%2C-and-and-Rocco-
Plakhotnik/603876bc2afd7cb4a290bc7560339c6c6d18237b
•
•https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK481583/
•
•https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969719318972
•https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0194262X.2016.1244503
•
•http://sites.psu.edu/pubhub/wp-content/uploads/sites/36309/2016/04/Speed-Reading-Academic-Articles.pdf