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begin by clearing up some misconceptions about what a literature review is and what it is not. Then, I will break the process down into a series of simple steps, looking at examples along the way. In the end, I hope you will have a simple, practical strategy to write an effective literature review.
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Jul 1, 2014 · Writing a literature review in the pre or post-qualification, will be required to undertake a literature review, either as part of a course of study, as a key step in the research process.
- Introduction
- Why Conduct a Literature Review?
- Road Map: How to Conduct a Literature Review
- About Sources
- What Are the Best Sources?
- Empirical Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
- Theoretical Journal Articles
- Literature Review Journal Articles
- Government Research and Reports and Policy Briefs
- Inappropriate Sources
- Finding Primary or Original Sources
- Search Using Boolean Operators and Filters
- Identify Initial Primary Sources
- The Anatomy of an Empirical Research Article
- Abstract—Dodge et al. (2005)
- Abstract—Brunson and Weitzer (2009)
- Writing the Literature Review
- Summarize Each Original Source
- Create a Summary Table
- Organizational Approaches
- Writing Strategy: MEAL
- Write the First Draft
- Edit, Proof, and Polish
- Common Pitfalls of Literature Reviews
- Failing to Focus on Themes
- Lack of Organization and Structure
- Quoting Problems
- Failure to Justify the Need for the Proposed Research
- Ethics and the Literature Review
- Plagiarism
- Accurate Portrayal of Existing Research
- Literature Review Expert— Sean McCandless, PhD
- Chapter Wrap-Up
- 3. Internet Applied Assignment: The Results of Plagiarism
- KEY POINTS
- REVIEW QUESTIONS
- CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS
With a research question in hand, you are ready to conduct a literature review. This chapter provides the information needed to write a quality academic literature review. Although it is widely recognized that many students fear statistics, less acknowledged is that the fear, loathing, and dread of writing a literature review is equally if not more...
A literature review is an important part of research that serves many purposes. Consider how our featured researchers responded to “Why is a literature review important?” Santos notes that “[t]he pur-pose of literature review is to tell the story of what is known about the topic and identify the strengths and weaknesses of that knowledge, including...
Literature reviews provide an opportunity to learn what research has to say about a selected research question and topic. This chapter describes the steps taken to conduct a literature review. Although the following sections provide detail on these steps, this initial section presents an overview, or a road map, of this process. As shown in Figure ...
A literature review is constructed using information from existing legitimate sources of knowledge. Identifying which sources are appropriate when writing a literature review can be puzzling. Furthermore, knowing where the sources can be found is sometimes challeng-ing. What to do with the sources once they are gathered is a common source of trepid...
The best sources of information for constructing an academic literature review are original sources or primary sources. These primarily come in the form of peer-reviewed journal articles. A peer-reviewed journal article means the research went through a rigorous review process by multiple experts in the field prior to being published in an academic...
Empirical peer-reviewed journal articles are the most commonly used type of primary source used in the construction of literature reviews. Empirical indicates that the research was based on systematic observations, experimentation, or experiences. Empirical journal articles are written using a predictable structure (which we describe later in this ...
Also valuable are peer-reviewed theoretical journal articles. A theoretical journal article does not present research (i.e., does not pose a research question, gather evidence, analyze it, and offer conclusions), but instead, it evaluates an existing theory, proposes revisions to an existing theory, or forwards a new theory. A theory comprises, mos...
Peer-reviewed literature review articles are also excellent primary sources to use when con-structing a literature review. A literature review journal article presents, organizes, and synthesizes existing understanding about a topic. This is exactly the purpose of the literature review section in a research manuscript. Although literature review ar...
Additional valuable sources to use when writing an academic literature review are govern-ment reports and publications and policy briefs. In the world of criminology and criminal justice, this includes reports and documents from the Department of Justice and its many offices (Bureau of Justice Statistics, the FBI, National Institute of Justice, etc...
Predatory publishers and predatory journals are not the only inappropriate sources for use when constructing a literature review. Another inappropriate source for an academic litera-ture review is Wikipedia. Wikipedia began in 2001 as an online encyclopedia that differed from traditional encyclopedia in that entries are written by a multitude of pe...
With an understanding about what is and is not an appropriate source of information, the next step in writing a literature review is to find the original sources. The best way to go about finding primary or original sources is using electronic search tools available at most libraries. With advances in technology, most anyone can access a library wi...
Boolean operators: Connect or exclude particular search terms or phrases used in an electronic search. Use of Boolean operators enables the searcher to narrow or broaden a search for material. Term: Single word used in an electronic search. Phrase: Particular series of terms or words. Phrases used in electronic searches are identified using quotati...
Using the search strategies described earlier should result in a list of initial primary sources on the topic of interest. At this point, you 3. Identify initial primary need to go through that list to determine which sources are irrele-sources on the topic vant and should be discarded, and which will be used to write the literature review. The ini...
Those new to research frequently find it impossible to read and comprehend all of the pri-mary sources gathered from a search. Fortunately, reading every word of every primary source is not necessary. As Dodge notes, a key to a successful literature review is “not to get caught up in the minutiae of each piece of research, especially the more sophi...
Reverse police prostitution stings, which target men by using female police officers as decoy prostitutes, are becoming a com-mon method in some United States cities for controlling the problem of solicitation for prostitution. The role of policewomen as decoys has received scant attention by scholars, though critics and traditional feminists view ...
Much of the research on police–citizen relations has focused on adults, not youth. Given that adolescents and particularly young males are more likely than adults to have involuntary and adversarial contacts with police officers, it is especially important to investigate their experiences with and perceptions of the police. This article examines th...
Using your final list of primary sources and your understanding of the anatomy of an empir-ical journal article makes you ready to summarize each primary source. The next sections describe strategies for doing so.
5. Summarize in paragraph form important information from each source; include citations key step in constructing a literature review is to summarize each primary source in paragraph form using complete sentences. The summary should include several pieces of information. Many of those elements are listed here along with the likely location of this ...
At this point, all primary sources have been summarized individ- 6. Create a thematically ually. Many new researchers make the terrible mistake of string-focused table of ing their summary paragraphs together and calling it a literature summarized information review. Simply stringing the summaries together does not make an appropriate literature ...
Recall that the purpose of a literature review is to give an overall view of the literature as it pertains to the proposed research. In addition, the literature review needs to make clear what addition to the literature the proposed research will make. Doing that is accomplished using one of two primary orga-nizational structures: descriptive organ...
You should also be guided by a writing strategy. An easy to use and effective writing strat-egy that is often widely used by researchers is summed up by the acronym MEAL.2 MEAL describes the strategy used not only for the entire literature review but also for each section in the literature review. M signifies the main point, which should describe t...
At this stage, you have all the skills, strategies, and information 8. Write the first draft needed to construct the first draft of your literature review. You have a table that has clearly identified main points and evidence (with citations) for each theme. You have selected the organization of the literature review as either descriptive or chrono...
9. Edit, proof, and You should not expect to have a completed literature review with polish (repeatedly) the construction of the first draft. Rather, a well-written literature review requires repeated edits, proofing, and polishing. When you feel you have completed the literature review, you should check it carefully to ensure you have included im...
Writing literature reviews takes time, focus, and patience. A part of the process is to verify that you have avoided some common errors. This section identifies several pitfalls that are found in literature reviews. These include not allowing enough time, constructing the review around authors and not themes, and a lack of organization and writing ...
Although we warned against it earlier, and although professors warn students in classes, it is exceedingly common for students to construct a literature review focused on authors instead of on themes. A literature review that describes the work of one author after another, after another, is not a literature review. When each paragraph focuses on on...
A third pitfall of writing literature reviews is to fail to organize and structure the material in a meaningful way. This chapter presented two useful formats for the review: descriptive and chronological. A well-constructed literature review will use one of these approaches. This chapter also presented information on the importance of MEAL as a wr...
Another student in your class is working on a literature review on sexual violence. He finds some literature in a journal but feels it does not cover the topic well. He decides to include information found in an article published in Playboy magazine because he argues it is better source for this topic. How would you advise him to proceed? Why would...
Another student in your class is working on a literature review on sexual violence. He finds some literature in a journal but feels it does not cover the topic well. He decides to include information found in an article published in Playboy magazine because he argues it is better source for this topic. How would you advise him to proceed? Why would...
Another student in your class is working on a literature review on sexual violence. He finds some literature in a journal but feels it does not cover the topic well. He decides to include information found in an article published in Playboy magazine because he argues it is better source for this topic. How would you advise him to proceed? Why would...
Another student in your class is working on a literature review on sexual violence. He finds some literature in a journal but feels it does not cover the topic well. He decides to include information found in an article published in Playboy magazine because he argues it is better source for this topic. How would you advise him to proceed? Why would...
Another student in your class is working on a literature review on sexual violence. He finds some literature in a journal but feels it does not cover the topic well. He decides to include information found in an article published in Playboy magazine because he argues it is better source for this topic. How would you advise him to proceed? Why would...
Another student in your class is working on a literature review on sexual violence. He finds some literature in a journal but feels it does not cover the topic well. He decides to include information found in an article published in Playboy magazine because he argues it is better source for this topic. How would you advise him to proceed? Why would...
Another student in your class is working on a literature review on sexual violence. He finds some literature in a journal but feels it does not cover the topic well. He decides to include information found in an article published in Playboy magazine because he argues it is better source for this topic. How would you advise him to proceed? Why would...
Another student in your class is working on a literature review on sexual violence. He finds some literature in a journal but feels it does not cover the topic well. He decides to include information found in an article published in Playboy magazine because he argues it is better source for this topic. How would you advise him to proceed? Why would...
Another student in your class is working on a literature review on sexual violence. He finds some literature in a journal but feels it does not cover the topic well. He decides to include information found in an article published in Playboy magazine because he argues it is better source for this topic. How would you advise him to proceed? Why would...
Another student in your class is working on a literature review on sexual violence. He finds some literature in a journal but feels it does not cover the topic well. He decides to include information found in an article published in Playboy magazine because he argues it is better source for this topic. How would you advise him to proceed? Why would...
Another student in your class is working on a literature review on sexual violence. He finds some literature in a journal but feels it does not cover the topic well. He decides to include information found in an article published in Playboy magazine because he argues it is better source for this topic. How would you advise him to proceed? Why would...
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What is a literature review? A literature review has three key components: 1. A search of the literature available on a given subject area. 2. An evaluation of the literature, including its scope. 3. A well-structured and argued written account of the literature that provides an overview and critique. Types of literature review 1. Coursework A ...
A GOOD LITERATURE REVIEW SHOULD… • Be organized around a thesis statement or research question(s) • Develop your understanding of the literature in a field(s) of study • Synthesize results into a narrative summary of what is known and not known on your topic • Identify areas of controversy • Formulate questions for future research
Introduction. Your introduction should give an outline of why you are writing the review, and why the topic is important. ü “the scope of the review — what aspects of the topic will be discussed. ü the criteria used for your literature selection (e.g. type of sources used, date range)
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What is a formal literature review?
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Feb 4, 2016 · A formal literature review is an evidence-based, in-depth analysis of a subject. There are many reasons for writing one and these will influence the length and style of your review, but in essence a literature review is a critical appraisal of the current collective knowledge on a subject.
