Writing Literature Review

Sanjaya Mishra

What is Literature Review?

What is Literature Review?It is a means of

demonstrating an author's knowledge and understanding about a particular filed of study, including the vocabulary, theories, key variables and phenomenon, and its methods and history.

Types of Literature Reviews• Systematic Review• Narrative Reviews• Conceptual Reviews• Rapid Reviews• Scoping Reviews• Critical Reviews• Expert Reviews• State-of-the-art Reviews

Cooper's Taxonomy of Literature ReviewCharactrerestics Category

Focus Research findingsResearch methodsTheoriesPractices or applications

Goal IntegrationCriticismIdentification of central issues

Perspectives NeutralEspousal of a position

Coverage ExhaustiveExhaustive with selective citationRepresentativeCentral or pivotal

Organization HistoricalConceptualMethodological

Audience Specialized scholarsGeneral scholarsPractitioners or policy makersGeneral public

How to Organize Your Literature Review?

• Historical• Conceptual• Methodological

• Historical• Conceptual• Methodological

You can also take either author-centric or concept centric approach

• Identify key concepts• Develop colour codes and

tables

Developing the Reading List/Bibliography• Find relevant references from

subject encycolpaedias, year books, advances, and reviews

• Search indexes and abstracts• Search library databases and

online databases• Use references cards or

computer to store records; use codes for sorting

• Read and take notes; do reverse tracking of references

• Read original/primary sources

Writing the Literature Review• Tone: constructively

inform the readers; do not be over critical

• Tense: past or present?• Thought: develop a

theoretical underpinning; build constructs and give meaning to the writing by weaving a logical story

Criteria for a Good Literature Reviews• Justify criteria for inclusion and exclusion• Distinguish what has been done in the field

from what needs to be done• Placed the topic/problem in the broader

scholarly context and in the historical context of its own

• Acquired and enhanced the subject vocabulary by articulating related variables and phenomenon

• Synthesized and developed a new perspective on the literature

• Identified the methodological issues, ideas and techniques related to the topic

• Rationalized the practical and scholarly significance of the study

• Written in a coherent and clear structure

Some Frequently Encountered Situations• Nothing has been written in my

research topic• There is too much• It's all been done• How many references do I need?• How much time will it take?• What reference pattern should I

follow?

Use and Abuse of ReferencesUse references to:• Justify and support your argument• Compare other researches• Express matters better than you could have

done• Show your familiarity with the field of study

Do not use references to:• Impress your readers just for the sake• Litter your writing with name and quotations• Replace the need to provide your own

thoughts• Mis-represent the authors

ACTIVITY• Use IGNOU's Library eResources such as

the EBSCO, ProQuest, JSTOR, J-Gate, ACM Digital Library, Emerald Insight, SpringerLINK, Taylor and Francis, etc. to find at least 25 relevant literature related to your identified topic of research.

• Store the same using a Word processor, and add your codes and notes to future use.