ETI 321 READING AND
WRITING SCIENTIFIC
TEXTS
LAST WEEK WE
Listened to your research procedure,
 Saw whether you applied MLA style or not in
your bibliography,
 Talked about hypothesis,
 Talked about sampling techniques and basic
statistics
 Discussed some concepts like ‘variable’,
‘operationalization’, ‘testing hypothesis’, ‘data’,
‘representativeness’, ‘sampling’.

YOU WROTE A PAPER INCLUDING THE
FOLLOWING
Title of your study
 Introduction
 Aim and scope, research questions
 Method
 Bibliography

YOUR RESEARCH
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
IS SOMETHING LIKE THIS:
Introduction
Aim and scope of the research
Theoretical background
Literature Review
Method
Analysis
Conclusion
References
THIS WEEK WE WILL TALK ABOUT:

Literature review,
what is literature review?
what is relevant in your literature review
chapter,
how to keep track of your readings,
organizing the relevant literature,
LITERATURE REVIEW
DEFINITION 1


A literature review discusses published information in a
particular subject area, and sometimes information in a
particular subject area within a certain time period.
A literature review can be just a simple summary of the
sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and
combines both summary and synthesis. A summary is a
recap of the important information of the source, but a
synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that
information. It might give a new interpretation of old
material or combine new with old interpretations. Or it
might trace the intellectual progression of the field,
including major debates. And depending on the situation,
the literature review may evaluate the sources and advise
the reader on the most pertinent or relevant.
From
http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/literature_revie
w.html
LITERATURE REVIEW
DEFINITION 2
A literature review is an account of what has been published
on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers.
Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate
assignment (sometimes in the form of an annotated
bibliography—see the bottom of the next page), but more
often it is part of the introduction to an essay, research
report, or thesis. In writing the literature review, your
purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and
ideas have been established on a topic, and what their
strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the
literature review must be defined by a guiding concept
(e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are
discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a
descriptive list of the material available, or a set of
summaries.
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-ofwriting/literature-review
LITERATURE REVIEW
DEFINITION 3
Not to be confused with a book review, a literature
review surveys scholarly articles, books and other
sources (e.g. dissertations, conference
proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area
of research, or theory, providing a description,
summary, and critical evaluation of each work.
The purpose is to offer an overview of significant
literature published on a topic.
http://library.ucsc.edu/help/howto/write-aliterature-review
LITERATURE REVIEW
DEFINITION 4
The aim of a literature review is to show your reader
(your tutor) that you have read, and have a good
grasp of, the main published work concerning a
particular topic or question in your field. This work
may be in any format, including online sources. It
may be a separate assignment, or one of the
introductory sections of a report, dissertation or
thesis. In the latter cases in particular, the review
will be guided by your research objective or by the
issue or thesis you are arguing and will provide the
framework for your further work.
 It is very important to note that your review should
not be simply a description of what others have
published in the form of a set of summaries, but
should take the form of a critical discussion, showing
insight and an awareness of differing arguments.
http://www.ssdd.uce.ac.uk/learner/New%20page.htm

LITERATURE REVIEW
Besides enlarging your knowledge about the topic, writing a
literature review lets you gain and demonstrate skills in
two areas
 information seeking: the ability to scan the literature
efficiently, using manual or computerized methods, to
identify a set of useful articles and books
 critical appraisal: the ability to apply principles of
analysis to identify unbiased and valid studies.
 A literature review must do these things
be organized around and related directly to the thesis
or research question you are developing
synthesize results into a summary of what is and is
not known
identify areas of controversy in the literature
formulate questions that need further research
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-ofwriting/literature-review
THE PURPOSES OF THE REVIEW ARE:
to define and limit the problem you are working
on
 to place your study in an historical perspective
 to avoid unnecessary duplication
 to evaluate promising research methods
 to relate your findings to previous knowledge and
suggest further research

http://www.ssdd.uce.ac.uk/learner/New%20page.ht
m
WARNING!!
A literature review is a piece of discursive prose,
not a list describing or summarizing one piece of
literature after another. It's usually a bad sign to
see every paragraph beginning with the name of
a researcher. Instead, organize the literature
review into sections that present themes or
identify trends, including relevant theory. You
are not trying to list all the material published,
but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the
guiding concept of your thesis or research
question
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specifictypes-of-writing/literature-review.
LITERATURE REVIEWS SHOULD COMPRISE
THE FOLLOWING ELEMENTS:
An overview of the subject, issue or theory under
consideration, along with the objectives of the
literature review
 Division of works under review into categories (e.g.
those in support of a particular position, those
against, and those offering alternative theses
entirely)
 Explanation of how each work is similar to and how it
varies from the others
 Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in
their argument, are most convincing of their opinions,
and make the greatest contribution to the
understanding and development of their area of
research
http://library.ucsc.edu/help/howto/write-a-literaturereview

THE LITERATURE REVIEW SHOULD
compare and contrast different authors' views on an
issue
 group authors who draw similar conclusions
 criticise aspects of methodology
 note areas in which authors are in disagreement
 highlight exemplary studies
 highlight gaps in research
 show how your study relates to previous studies
 show how your study relates to the literature in
general
 conclude by summarising what the literature says
Caulley (1992)

LITERATURE REVIEW
ASK YOURSELF QUESTIONS LIKE THESE:
What is the specific thesis, problem, or
research question that my literature review
helps to define?
 What type of literature review am I conducting?
Am I looking at issues of theory? methodology?
policy? quantitative research (e.g. on the
effectiveness of a new procedure)? qualitative
research (e.g., studies )?
 What is the scope of my literature review? What
types of publications am I using (e.g., journals,
books, government documents, popular media)?

LITERATURE REVIEW
ASK YOURSELF QUESTIONS LIKE THESE:
How good was my information seeking? Has
my search been wide enough to ensure I've found
all the relevant material? Has it been narrow
enough to exclude irrelevant material? Is the
number of sources I've used appropriate for the
length of my paper?
 Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to
my perspective?
 Will the reader find my literature review
relevant, appropriate, and useful?

http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specifictypes-of-writing/literature-review
TEXTUAL FEATURES OF LITERATURE
REVIEW

Linking words are important. If you are grouping
together writers with similar opinions, you would
use words or phrases such as:
similarly, in addition, also, again

More importantly, if there is disagreement, you
need to indicate clearly that you are aware of this
by the use of linkers such as:
however, on the other hand, conversely, nevertheless

At the end of the review you should include a
summary of what the literature implies, which
again links to your hypothesis or main question.
TEXTUAL FEATURES OF LITERATURE
REVIEW

Cohesive ties make your research intelligible and
orderly. Try to use the following cohesive ties as
well as others:
As outlined above...
As we saw in section 1.3...
See below...
Before proceeding further...
At this point, let us summarize the main steps of the
argument so far...
On the other hand, consider now a rather different
interpretation...
DOCUMENTATION CONVENTIONS IN THE
TEXT: REFERENCES
“You need to document all your sources unless
the idea is general public knowledge or
something that you have thought of yourself.”
(Williams and Chesterman 2002: 103)
 In the following you will find the means to give
reference:

Toury (1995: 134) describes this as...
In a later paper, however, Herman argues (1999)
that...
In Laviosa (1998) the evidence discussed is ...
DOCUMENTATION CONVENTIONS IN THE
TEXT: REFERENCES
Several authors have made this point (see e.g. Gile
1995, Gillham 2000a, Yin 1994).
Snell-Hornby (1989: 45-69) suggests that...
Yet, there remain a number of problems with this
approach. (See further Catford 1965, Nida 1964, and
especially Hatim 2001)

If you refer to A via a reference to B, you should
refer to your source in the following way:
Hempel (1952, as cited in Toury 1995: 9) claims that...
QUOTATIONS
Baker claims (1995: 13) that “......”
 Baker (1995: 13) makes the following claim:
“...”
This is presumably what Baker is implying when
she argues (1995: 13) that “....”

KISS YOUR READERS!!!

KISS is an acronym used for a favorable style:
Keep It Short and Simple
HOMEWORK!
You are supposed to write the literature review
chapter of your research.
Kolay gelsin!