Session info

1. Purpose: ‘overview’ review
The literature Review allows your readers to make sense of
this particular area. This is more than just reporting, you
must shape the field:
• Show what is important
• Explain, highlight, subordinate, evaluate

2. Critical Thinking is the ‘Key’
Question, Analyse,
Evaluate, Compare,
Prioritise, Select…
Critical analysis is important in a
literature review, just as much as
in an assignment.

3. Triple perspective
Look critically at each source from three: points of view
Evaluate each
piece individually
Compare each
source to others
you have read
Relate each one to the
review as a whole:
•Your research project
•Your research question
•The issues you are
addressing

4. Your job is to select and shape
Literature
1. Gather,
analyse and
evaluate all your
source material
2. Select material,
identify key
themes/issues,
and organise it for
your reader:
connect, highlight,
subordinate.
3. Write it up, using
language that makes clear:
•the significance/importance
of the material
• links, similarities, contrasts
between sources
Your
‘commentary’

5. Step 1: Focus on the literature
• Find out what is out there
• Think about it critically. For example:
• Explore ideas, find relationships
• Identify the strengths of certain (key) studies, and assess the
contributions made by researchers
• Identify the limitations and weaknesses of particular studies
or whole lines of theory/enquiry/practice
• Identify key issues/themes/problems/gaps
• Use it to refine your thinking

6. Step 2: Take ownership
What do YOU want to say?
• What themes/issues/problems gaps do you intend to write
about? Why?
• What do you want to say about what you’ve read?
• What message do I want to present?
• What is my perspective on the issues?
• What new light can I shed on the topic?
• What do I see as most important?

7. Step 3: Bring it all together
• Organise your subject into different topics
• These will make different sections of your review
• Order them logically from the point of view of your
reader
• Everything should lead to your answer/conclusion
• What fits in where?
• How do your sources relate to each other?

8. Cumulative writing
• Points fit together like building blocks
• You are ‘telling the story’ of the subject-matter
• The references tend to be ‘supporting cast’

9. Don’t quote too often
So when should you quote?
• When you are using someone’s definition
• When you want to discuss exactly what someone said
• When the precise detail of what someone/thing says is
important – e.g. a law, policy document etc.
• When someone has phrased something effectively
and succinctly

10. Why paraphrase?
• So that we show we understand what the author is saying
• Because it is often easier to tailor the information so that it
fits into our own writing – for example:
• We use only what is relevant to what we want to say
• We can highlight a particular aspect of a longer piece
• It is easier to pull together data from different people
• We can shape the material so that it fits into the flow of
our own writing

11. Finally
Proof read your work carefully – eliminate typos, spelling errors,
grammatical errors!

12. Denscombe (2014) Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011) Newby (2014)
Blaxter, Hughes and Tight (2010) Bell (2010) Kumar (2014) [library]
How do you do research? (CCCU eBooks about research methods)
http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/cohen7e/