What is literature review ?
In terms of literature review, " the literature " means the works you consulted in order to understand and investigate your research problem. So, definition of
Literature review is a body of text that aims to review the critical points of current knowledge and or methodological approaches on a particular topic. Literature review usually precedes a research proposal and result section. Its ultimate goal is to bring the reader up to date with current literature on a topic and forms the basis for another goal, such as future research that may be needed in the area. There are some source for make literature review as following :
- journal articles
- books
- conference
- government/ corporate reports
- newspapers
- theses
- internet
- CD-Room
- Magazine
Purpose of literature review ?
There are several purposes to writing a literature review as following as ?
- To provide the reader with up to date account and discussion of the research findings in a particular topic. This might sound pretty esoteric but you will find that in writing a literature review we learn about the ways other people have constructed their own research projects. Seeing what others have done might help you understand your own assignment. You might be able to see the methods that other more experienced researchers have used and you might decide to follow on their footsteps and copy their methodological approach.
- we might also be able to detect conflicting points of view expressed by different authors. These conflicting point of view might be the indicator of diverging theories within the same topic. You need to be aware of these conflicting theories as well as of the arguments supporting these theory in other for you to assess their value and make up your own mind on the topic. Being aware of the theories will help you later in your life as a student when you will have to design a larger research project like your dissertation
- you might also be able to discuss relevant research carried out in the same topic. It is important to be able to discuss relevant research because very often it is very difficult (as student and as researcher) to keep abreast of everything that is published every year in a topic..
? Mechanics of writing a literature review
there are four mechanics of writing the literature review as following
- where to read
- what to read
- whom to read
- how to find what you need to read
. Why do we write literature review?
Literature reviews provide you with a handy guide to particular topic. If have limited time to conduct research, literature review can give you an overview or act as a stepping stone. For professionals, they are useful reports that keep them up to date with what current in the field. For scholar, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the writer in his or her field. Literature reviews also provide a solid background for research paper's investigation. Comprehensive knowledge of the literature of the field is essential to most research papers.
How can to write a good literature review ?
The are three point how to write good literature review :
o Remember the purpose :it should answer the questions . Looked at how published writer review the literature. You will see that should use the literature to explain your research –after all, you are not writing a literature review just to tell your reader what out, how you came to choose certain methodologies or theories to work with, how your work adds to research already carried out etc.
o Read with a purpose : you need to summarize the work you read but you must also decide which ideas or information are important to your research ( so you can emphasize them), and which are less important and can be covered briefly or left out of your left out of your review. You should also look for major concepts, conclusion, theories, arguments etc .underline the work, and look for similarities and differences with closely related work. This is difficult when you first start reading, but should became easier the more your read in your in your area.
o Write with a purpose : your aim should be to evaluate and show relationships between the work already done..
The character good literature review as following as :
Characteristics of Well Written Literature Reviews
1. Organization: In most cases the literature review should flow from general to specific. This means that the writer should present information that is only generally related to the topic of the paper first, and as the literature review is used to build a case for the specific research questions or hypotheses in the study, the literature becomes more focused on the specific questions or hypotheses of the study. Writing the review in the form of general first and more specifically focused on the topic of the study later helps to focus the reader's attention to the importance of the questions or hypotheses addressed in the study.
2. Relevance: This is a simple and easy to understand characteristic, but one that is often overlooked by writers. Anything cited in the literature review should be relevant to the study.
3. Omissions: As a writer, one should take care to provide all points of view on a given topic. This does not mean that a writer must include in the review every study conducted on a given topic; rather, this means that one makes an honest attempt not to conceal points of view on a topic that may not support the writer's position. Honesty and integrity are important in research, and not all researchers share these human characteristics.
4. Citations: Citations are the references a writer uses in the text. Below are a few characteristics to guide one when considering which studies to include in a review.
1. Primary vs. secondary citations: A primary source of a citation is a study in which the author(s) are the ones who collected and analyzed the data or developed the idea, hypothesis, or theory. A secondary source is one that is removed from the primary author. For example, secondary sources often include general reviews of research in a given topic (like meta-analyses), general summaries of research (like encyclopedia entries), or one paraphrasing or quoting another's work. It is best to use primary sources for citations simply because the primary author is less likely explain or report inaccurately his or her own work.
2. Empirical research based citations: Empirical studies are those in which the authors collected data to address a question. Non-empirical sources include essays or position papers (author explains stance on something but without supporting data), theoretical papers, and non-empirical literature reviews. A meta-analysis would typically be considered an empirical source for a citation. One easy method for determining whether a given source is empirical is to determine whether data were collected and presented. If, for example, there is a Methods section to the paper (with subsections for Participants, Procedures, etc.), then that source is most likely empirical.
3. Recency of citations: To provide as complete picture of the current state of research in a given topic, it is necessary to ensure that citations cover a wide range of time periods. Most writers focus on the most recent research when creating a literature review. Unfortunately, many tend to exclude older research, especially research published in the 1920, 30, 40, 50, and 60's. Surprising to many, researchers during these decades often sought answers to the same questions addressed today.
4. Agreement between citations and reference section: This characteristic appears to be relatively unimportant when consider against the other characteristics of a good literature review, but it is important. It is not uncommon to find a published study that fails to include in the reference section all sources cited, and this can be quite frustrating to a researcher interested in finding the cited source.
5. Summary: This is typically a short paragraph or few sentences that summarize the literature review. In most written reports of research, the writer will provide a transition from literature review to research questions or hypotheses. The purpose of the transition is to help the reader see the connection between the literature review and the research questions or hypotheses. An example of a summary is provided below. The first two sentences provide the transition/summary.
