Ingredients of a
Literature Review
What LR is not
 Not a straightforward summary of everything you
have read on the topic and it is not a chronological
description of what was discovered in your field.
 Not a literary review describing and evaluating a
specific book, poem, play, etc.
 Not an annotated bibliography listing references
and adding brief notes about the value of each
source
What is a Literature Review
A true literature review is text that
Synthesizes & Analyzes all the
available current research from
Peer-reviewed Sources and shows
how it relates to your investigation.
 A longer literature review may have headings to help categorize the
relevant research into themes or topics.
 This gives a focus to your analysis, as you can group similar studies
together.
 Thereafter, you can critically analyze; compare and contrast their
approaches,
 Critical analyses involves any weaknesses or strengths in their methods,
and their findings.
 One common way to approach a literature review is to start out broad
and then become more specific.
 Think of it as an inverted triangle.
Why to Write a LR
A literature review demonstrates readers that you are able
to:
 Understand and critically analyze the background research
 Select and source the information that is necessary to
develop a context for your research
It also:
 Shows how your investigation relates to previous research
 Reveals the contribution that your investigation makes to
this field (fills a gap, or builds on existing research, for
instance)
 Provides evidence that may help explain your findings later
Things that the literature review
WILL or WILL NOT include
 Your literature review will not include
dissertations or theses—these documents
would not be considered peer reviewed.
 Your literature review will include sources that
have been published within the last 5 years.
The majority of these sources will be articles
retrieved from an online database.
Things that the literature review
WILL or WILL NOT include
 Your literature review will not be ordered
according to researcher or research study.
Your literature review will be ordered
according to major themes that emerge
from the research
Things that the literature review
WILL or WILL NOT include
 Third, your literature review will not have a
minimum or maximum page count.
 It will, however, have a suggested minimum
number of sources—for most schools the
minimum sources required in the literature
review is 75, 80% of which must come from a
peer-reviewed source.
How & Why to Synthesize your LR
Text without
synthesis
Text with synthesis
How & Why to Synthesize your LR
 If you’re looking at a portion of text that doesn’t quite fit
with the rest, ask yourself these questions as you read:
 Does this text logically follow from the sentence or
paragraph that comes before it?
 Does it contribute to and support my overall argument?
 Are its connections to the other ideas in my text clear?
Let’s try this with an example paragraph
taken from a literature review.
 Arter (2008) pointed out that, since the early twentieth
century, strain theories have been used to describe crime
and delinquency. In his study, Arter used general strain
theory as a theoretical framework to test the application of
the theory on a highly stressed adult population and to
determine how officers in different policing assignments
cope with stress and deviance. Arter also utilized
phenomenological methodology to mitigate one of the
criticisms of the general strain theory, the argument that
individuals experiencing the same or similar circumstances
often react differently to deviance or delinquency.
Observation
 Notice that this paragraph contains useful evidence and
analysis, and, if I asked myself the above questions with
regards to this text, my answer to the first one would have to
be “yes.” However, I’d answer “no” to the second and third
questions, because there’s nothing here that explicitly shows
the reader how Arter’s work relates to the overall thesis or to
the other ideas in the paper. This is a pretty strong indication,
then, that this paragraph would benefit from some additional
synthesis.
Proper Systhesis
 Arter (2008) pointed out that, since the early twentieth century,
strain theories have been used to describe crime and
delinquency. In his study, Arter used general strain theory as a
theoretical framework to test the application of the theory on a
highly stressed adult population and to determine how officers in
different policing assignments cope with stress and deviance. Arter
also utilized phenomenological methodology to mitigate one of the
criticisms of the general strain theory, the argument that individuals
experiencing the same or similar circumstances often react
differently to deviance or delinquency. The benefits of this
phenomenological approach make Arter’s study a more effective
model for my own research than Adams’s (2008) or Ilford’s (2010).
GAP in Literature Review
GAP in Literature Review
 A gap in the literature is a research question relevant to
a given domain that has not been answered adequately
or at all in existing peer-reviewed scholarship.
 To define a gap, a precise and exhaustive search is
needed to
 identify all the studies around—
 but not touching—your topic.
 Reporting what you did find, what is known (the
donut) implies what is not known (the hole in the
donut).
 The unknown is the gap, your topic.
What should we consider as GAP
 The question has not been addressed in a given domain,
although it may have been answered in a similar or related
area.
 The question has never been asked before, but it now
merits exploration due to changes in accepted theory, data
collection technology, or culture.
 The question has been asked and tested in peer-reviewed
research, but the methods were either of questionable
validity or had necessitated limited applicability of results.
Why is GAP considered relevant
 Practical implications: Answering the research question could
improve existing practice and/or inform professional decisionmaking.
 Example: A study investigating the effect of the incorporation
of a "threat condition" in computer-mediated communication
on users' long-term memorization of content could potentially
apply its findings to risk communication design (if threat
conditions were found to enhance long-term memory in CMC).
Why is GAP considered relevant
 Theoretical implications: Answering the research question
could revise, build upon, or create theory informing research
design and practice.
 Example: A study investigating how the use of verbal
expressed thanks plays a role in establishing and maintaining
relationships could contribute to existing theory of noninformational communication use in humans.
What is a 'critical' literature review?
1) To place your investigation in the context of
previous research and justify how you have
approached your investigation.
2) To provide evidence to help explain the
findings of your investigation
It is this second purpose that many people
forget!
Finding
95% of the students you surveyed have problems
managing their time at university.
What do you think about this?
I expected it to be less than that.
What makes you think that?
Research I read for my literature survey was putting the
figure at 60-70%.
What conclusions can you draw
from this?
There must be reasons why the figures are so different.
The sample I surveyed included a large number of mature
students, unlike the samples in the previous research.
That was because the brief was to look at time
management in a particular department which had a high
intake of post-experience students.
Finished paragraph for Discussion
section
The percentage of students surveyed who experienced
problems with time management was much higher at 95%
than the 60% reported in Jones (2006: 33) or the 70%
reported in Smith (2007a: 17). This may be due to the
large number of mature students recruited to this postexperience course. Taylor (2004: 16-21) has described the
additional time commitments reported by students with
young families, and the impact these may have on
effective management of study time. The department
recognises this, offering flexible seminar times. However
it may be that students would benefit from more advice
in this area.
Theoretical vs. Conceptual
Framework
 Framework is like a PATH




Why
How
Discovered PATH
Undiscovered PATH
• Help researchers understand other people’s
PATH
Theoretical vs. Conceptual
Framework
Considered as two different sets
of ideas used in academic writing
and research.
Theoretical Framework
 Collection of Related ideas and assumptions
 Provides guidance to research questions
 Academics refer to their theoretical frameworks when
publishing papers or experiments to explicitly identify the
assumptions that inform their work.
 This allows readers in the field immediate familiarity with the
ideas on which a study is based, and a beginning point for critical
analysis.
Conceptual Framework
 It is an organized way of thinking, why we are doing a
particular research, what is the process and activities
involved in it.
 conceptual framework refers to the specific ideas a
researcher uses in the study.
Basis
Theoretical
Framework
Conceptual
Framework
Idea
Big idea
Small Idea emerging out
of big idea
Leads to
Assumptions on which
the paper is based
Part of theoretical
framework, but is
addressed in the
research
Define
Many ideas that are not
explored within the
paper or experiment;
collection of related
ideas
Set of specific ideas that
can be used within the
larger theoretical
framework
Example
Talk about the views of
behaviorist which does
not cater to the dreams
in early childhood stage
Freudian psychologist is
likely to place a great
deal of importance on
aspects of early
childhood
Evaluation Criteria for the Sources
Questions to ask
Accuracy
Authority
•Is the information reliable?
•Is the information error-free?
•Is the information based on
proven facts?
•Can the information be
verified against other reliable
sources?
•Who is the author?
•Does he or she have the
qualifications to speak/write
on that topic?
•Is the author affiliated with a
reputable university or
organization in this subject
field?
Evaluation Criteria for the Sources
Objectivity
Currency
Coverage
•What is the intended purpose
of the information?
•Is the information facts or
opinions?
•Is the information biased?
•When was the information
published?
•Is the information current or
out-dated?
•Does currency matter in this
topic?
•Does the information
covered meet your
information needs?
•Does it provide basic or in
depth coverage?
The Making of a
Literature Review
Decide on a topic
The first step is to decide on a topic,
related to which you will undertake a
review of literature
Identify the literature that you will
review
 Identify the literature that you will review
 Such as Google Scholar; ResearchGate;
Academis.edu etc.
 If available you can also refer to EBSCOHOST
and ProQuest
Analyze the literature
 Overview the articles: create your
bibliography
 Group the articles into categories: themes
emerging from your research
 Check if all the topics are relevant to your
research area but not about the topic on
which you are researching
 Identify the GAP
Writing the Review
 Identify the broad problem area, but avoid global statements
 Early in the review, indicate why the topic being reviewed is
important
 Indicate why certain studies are important
 If you are commenting on the timeliness of a topic, be specific in
describing the time frame
 If citing a classic or landmark study, identify it as such
 If a landmark study was replicated, mention that and indicate the
results of the replication
Writing the Review
 Discuss other literature reviews on your topic
 Refer the reader to other reviews on issues that you will not
be discussing in details
 Justify comments such as, "no studies were found."
 Avoid long lists of nonspecific references
 If the results of previous studies are inconsistent or widely
varying, cite them separately
 Cite all relevant references in the review section of thesis,
dissertation, or journal article
Thank
You