- Author: Dr. Daveena Tauber
- URL: https://www.udemy.com/course/write-a-killer-literature-review
- Web of sciences: find traces of literature https://webofknowledge.com
- They say / I say :Book on academic writing https://www.amazon.com/They-Say-Matter-Academic-Writing/dp/039393361X
- Process of writing the intellectual history of the past that has led up to this project
- Not only what led up to this, but also what is missing that calls for our research project
- Rhetorcial approach at the sentence level with the grammatical structures necessary to articulate what's going on in a body of lit review
- Exercise during coursework
- Thesis / dissertation
- Part of work (publication)
- Freestanding lit review papers that's a synthesis of previous works
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A lit review is a narrative or story requiring active narration much like an introduction or conclusion
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Lit review is hard because it demands high levels of metacognition (thinking about thinking)
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You're seeing exisitng relationships and patterns in the data and more importantly you're connecting all of that in your own research
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First step is to discern, which literally means to notice. You need to be an active reader of lit review.
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This is challenging because you're dealing with stacks upon stacks of very complex material
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So the more you read actively, the easier that writing process will be
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The process does not look like:
- Read
- Read
- Read
- Read
- Write
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Ideally it is:
- Read
- Write
- Read
- Write
- Read
- Write
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Writing is put off to the end, as its the scary part and we keep reading and reading and reading
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Writing in response to the stuff you read is the best cognitive strategy for absorbing, culling, synthesising as you go along
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Evaluation in a Lit review means that you're weighing the merits and credibility of a piece and at it's overall influence in your field and how important it is with relationship to your own research
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There are differnt kinds of lit review
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Biggest differences:
- Requires evaluation or not
- Voice markers: active voice vs passive voice
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These are different in humanities vs sciences
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Biggest tip: Read and reread assignment and lit reviews. Ask for samples from clients
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Ask for favourites or role models from prof/client
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Dont write individual summaries for each paper and cram them together. Instead, create a narrative and articulate the history and what's missing
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Analogy: If lit reviews were a sandwich, summary is the meat in the middle. Narrative is the bread that holds it together
- Narrative
- Summary, summary, summary
- Narrative
- Summary, summary, summary
- Maybe some evaluation
- Narrative
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Necesary ingredient but not an organizing principle
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When summarizing a scholarly work
- Who did the study
- What was the research question/objective
- Where/when was the study conducted
- Who/what was studied
- what was the samplesize
- what was the methodology
- what were the findings
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Accurately represent the work even if you disagree with them
Understand your methodology and general research design (?) before you start the lit rev
- Its not a one pass process. You might have to come back and add papers
- You need to do exhaustive research, but you don't have to write about everything
- You need to pick representative material from a bulk of material that deals makes the same argument
- Lit rev should be a process of active deliberaton and not choosing enough articles
- these are foundational thinkers who laid groundwork in the field
- This is for your own edification
- No need for strict chronology but present vital pieces
- Helps you see the big picture and patterns
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Title: Recidivism in juvenile drug users: a drug treatement approach to crime reduction
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Subfields:
- Juvenile drug users
- Recidivism
- Drug treatment approac
- Crime reduction
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Secret fear of every researcher: The moment they finish their work, they're going to find one article that articulates everything they have done
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At that moment, there's no longer a gap in the literature
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This is why exhaustive research is required in the beginning
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Even if this happens to you there's almost always a way out. So there's almost always an angle from which your research is important and unique
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Examples
- While the lit covers the larger issues of recidivism amongs the adult population, theres relatively little research on the issue of recidivism among juvenile offenders. This study looks specifically at ____________.
- There is relatively little data on the relationship between drug treatment and recidivism. This study will add quantitive data to the existing research by _______________.
- Current scholarly consensus is that incarcerations is the most effective resposne to juv offenders. This case study challenges this theory by poresenting data on drug treatement in a large metropolitan area.
- What we know from the larger body of lit is that _____. Although the lit deals with only adult population, it is (safe / not safe) to assume that would be applicable to the juv population.
- The lit on _____ has limited applicability to my study because ___.
- The literature on _____ is useful to my study even though _____ because _____.
- We can apply current research on ____ to ____ by accounting for ____
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Contrast
- In contrast
- Despite / In spite of
- However
- Though
- Still
- Nevertheless
- Nonetheless
- Conversely
- In contrast to
- On the other hand
- Whereas
- Not only
- Yet
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Similarity
- In addition
- Similarly
- As in ____, ____ also ____.
- Also
- Moreover
- Further
- Analogous
- Parallel
- Comparable
- Like
- Including
- Equally
- Likewise
- My results exemplify the idea that _____ because ____.
- The reuslts of this project illustrate X's concept that _____ in gthe sense that ____.
- My project asks whether X's theory of ____ is applicable to _____.
- X's theory of ____ speaks to my hypothesis that ____.
- X's idea that ____ cannot explain ____.
- My finding that ____ suggests that X is right in claiming ____.
Lit revs should sound analytical, not editorial
- Applicability of the lit to your project
- Methodology
- Strength of argument
- Strength / persuasiveness of data and analysis (you can have separate thoughts about data from analysis)
- Overall influence of work in the field
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Evaluative language
- Useful
- Applicable
- Impressive / Unimpressive
- Lacking in
- Significant
- Important
- Sound / Unsound
- Seminal
- Persuasive
- Suspect
- Definitive , Foundational
- Elegant
- Valuable
- Credible
- Flawed
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Opinion Language
- Like / dislike
- Great / Cool / Wonderful
- Awful / Bad / Terrible
- Useless
- Forgettable
- Insignificant
- Pitch Perfect / Perfect
- Trivial
- Nice
- Should / Must / Ought to
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Signposting (In intros and transitions.)
- This chapter reviews the relevant literature on ____ beginnng with ____ moving on to ___ and concluding with ____
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Topic / Synthesis statement
- While most of the studies on ____ a few of them ___
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Conclusion / Implication statement
- What a review of the lit suggests is that ___
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If you give evidence first and then the argument, the reader doesnt understand why they're reading.
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Practical tip: Just move the sentences at the bottom to the top and you'll be fine.
- After you identify the gap and articulate what you're going to do about it, it also means you're talking about the larger social issues that militate in favour of your project
- Who are the stakeholders involved? Is it going to be useful to scholars, or practitioners. In other words, who is going to be using your research
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Templates
- I find ____
- We notice that ____ / One notices that ____
- The researcher finds that ____ (awkward)
- This project finds that ____
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Note that some science fields prefer the use of passive voice
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Whatever you pick, maintain consistency
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Present tense is often used to describe ideas even from work from the past
- Eg. X argues that _____
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Often past tense is used when describing specific research projects
- Eg. Smith found that 50% of students ____
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General
- Critics, scholars, researchers, plant geneticists
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By position
- Proponents, supporters, opponents, skeptics
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By methodology
- Constructivists, historicists, empiricists
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Lit reviews offer much larger cast than the rest of the project. So this can be a burden for readers
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Outside reviewer from a diff department is kept so as to ensure that the lit review makes sense even for people who have not read all the papers youve read
- Use the words always, never, all only when you can substantiate that there are no exceptions
- Its safest to use qualified assertions that indicate the strength or general percentage of something
- Eg, many, most, some, the majority, the minority, a few
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Never use never. Never use always.
- Begining , middle and end
- Templates
- While the previous section looks at ____ this section will look at ____
- While similar to _____ (prev section), in some ways ___ is differnt in that ____
- In the prev section I showed how the lit rev on ____ appplies to my work. In this section, I look at ____.
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What if I find a foundational paper and its only been cited about 5 times in google scholar?
- Keep in mind the technology that indexed the citations
- If you go though bibliograohies you'll know what is important
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On interdisciplinary work
- greater burden of narration
- tie it together and articulate them
- mehodological , cultural differences
- make connections
- do you use a specific mehtodology over other?
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Where do you do the contextualization of the project?
- Evidence for the problem wrt concrete lit
- Show need for an exisitng crisis
- All contextualization need not be in just in lit rev
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What to do when many of your sources arent peer reviewed scholarly articles?
- Talk the utility of it
- Mostly, you cant review it if it isnt peer reviewed
- Industry specific sources: check with authority
- Each source may have a different status
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If citing news sources that are not peer reviewed
- State it not in the lit review but in the place where you state the urgency and necessity of your project
- These are anecdotal evidence supporting the need for your project or the viability