Writing a Literature

Review

Higher Education Language & Presentation Support

David Sotir - Advisor

HELPS

(Higher Education Language & Presentation Support)

• Location: CB01.03.08

• Telephone: 9514 9733

• Email: helps@uts.edu.au

• Website: ssu.uts.edu.au/helps

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Learning Objectives

• To understand the purpose, necessary requirements and elements for writing a literature review

• To ensure “voice” is clearly expressed through the use of certain linguistic structures

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What is a Literature

Review?

A literature review is a description of the literature relevant to a particular field or topic. It is a critical assessment of the relevant literature and the effective evaluation of these documents in relation to the research being proposed.

http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/writing/literature

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What is 'literature'?

‘Literature’ covers everything relevant that is written on a topic:

• books

• journal articles

• newspaper articles

• historical records

• government reports

•theses and dissertations, etc.

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What is a Literature

Review?

• Presents the theory of the research

• Presents the research methodology

• Outlines what is missing the gap that your research intends to fill

• It has an introduction, body and conclusion, well-formed paragraphs, and a logical structure.

• In essays you use relevant literature to support your argument and ideas. In a literature review, the literature itself is the subject of discussion.

•

Purpose

• To demonstrate your scholarly ability to identify relevant information and to outline existing knowledge.

• To identify the 'gap' in the research that your study is attempting to address, positioning your work in the context of previous research and creating a 'research space' for your work.

• To evaluate and synthesise the information in line with the concepts that you have set yourself for the research.

• To produce a rationale or justification for your study.

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Getting started

• Always keep in mind that the literature review needs to relate to and explain your research question.

• Once you have your question you will be able to refine and narrow down the scope of your reading

The literature search

Find out what has been written on your subject. Use as many bibliographical sources as you can to find relevant titles.

The following are likely sources:

Bibliographies and references in key textbooks and recent journal articles. Your supervisor or tutor should tell you which are the key texts and relevant journals.

Abstracting databases, such as Proquest, Sage etc.

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The literature search

Use the library search function

Online Tutorials

http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/research/finding-and-managing-information

Reading

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Reading with and for a purpose helps you to quickly locate, evaluate and read relevant research. Step 1 - Look at the Table of Contents, the Abstract, headings and sub-headings, to see if the text is relevant. Learn to use efficient scanning and skimming reading techniques. Step 2 If relevant read it thoroughly to find specific research to support your review.

Probe Further

• What are the author’s credentials?

• area of expertise; number of citations; institutional connections

• When was the text published? How recent is it? When was the website updated?

• How much of the content is fact and how much opinion?

Is the language objective or emotive?

• Is the argument supported by evidence? What kind of

evidence? How is the argument developed?

• Do you agree with the opinions stated?

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Useful questions

• What definitions does it use?

• What is its general methodological approach? What methods are used?

• What type of study is it? Is it an empirical report, a theoretical study, a sociological or political account, historical overview, etc?

• What is the author's stated or implied purpose?

• What conclusions has the author made?

• What points kinds of data back up the conclusions

• Does it follow a particular school of thought?

• Is it related to other researchers school of thought?

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Your thoughts

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Summarise your notes for each reading. Remember to write down the full bibliographical details This will save you an enormous amount of time later on. It is also useful to write down your own thoughts on / about the readings. These are useful when you revisit the notes and / or use them in your writings to create your own academic voice.

Your voice

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Your ‘voice’, - your perspective, position or standpoint, should be clearly identifiable in the literature review Because you are writing about other people’s work it is easy for your own ‘voice’ to be lost and reads like a mixture of different tones and arguments. Your theoretical position is clearly and strongly stated and that your critical evaluations are an integral part of this. It is important that your language indicates your own or other writers’ attitudes to the question or issues

Think Critically

• Presenting a point of view in a structured, clear & rational way

• Reflecting on issues in a methodical way, using logic & insight

• Drawing conclusions about arguments based on evidence

• Identifying others’ positions, assertions & claims

• Evaluating evidence from alternative points of view

• Weighing up arguments & evidence in a balanced way

• Recognising false logic & other persuasive devices

• Reading between the lines – understanding subtext

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Remember

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Literature reviews : • integrate the research of various authors • show similarities and differences of ideas • show wide reading • show analysis and critical evaluation of what the student has

read

Organising, analysing and

planning your summaries

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Review notes: • what authors agree and disagree? • cluster similar research together, e.g. what information is

similar or different. • what major questions remain unanswered? • what are the possible directions for future research? To organise your research you can draw a mind map and organise the research into major points

Mind maps

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https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/lsu/content/2_assessmenttasks/assess_tuts/lit_review_LL/example1.html

Writing the Introduction

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Introduction should include: •the nature of the topic under discussion (the topic of your thesis) • the parameters of the topic (what does it include and exclude)? • the basis for your selection of the literature It must tell the reader the following: • what you are going to cover in the review • the scope of your research • how the review ties in with your own research topic

Writing the Introduction

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https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/lsu/content/2_assessmenttasks/assess_tuts/lit_review_LL/conclusion.html

The body

A literature review synthesises many texts in one paragraph. Each paragraph (or section if it is a long thesis) of the literature review should classify and evaluate the themes of the texts that are relevant to your thesis; each paragraph or section of your review should deal with a different aspect of the literature.

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Structure

• Chronological organisation

• The discussion of the research/articles is ordered according to an historical or developmental context.

• The 'Classic' studies organisation

• A discussion or outline of the major writings regarded as significant in your area of study. (Remember that in nearly all research there are 'benchmark' studies or articles that should be acknowledged).

• Topical or thematic organisation

• The research is divided into sections representing the categories or conceptual subjects for your topic. The discussion is organised into these categories or subjects.

• Inverted pyramid organisation

• The literature review begins with a discussion of the related literature from a broad perspective. It then deals with more and more specific or localised studies which focus increasingly on the specific question at hand.

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Paragraphs

• A main statement / idea that you are putting forward, ie topic sentence

• definitions in use;

• evidence from current/ previous research studies to support / argue your idea, showing where the writers agree and / or disagree

• current discoveries about the topic;

• principal questions that are being asked;

• current mainstream versus alternative differing theoretical assumptions, differing political outlooks, and other conflicts

• general conclusions that are being drawn;

• summing up and linking to the next idea (paragraph).

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Verbs for referencing

To incorporate quotations / references into a literature

review, you can use a variety of verbs. Verbs also allow the

writer to indicate the degree to which they support the

author of the research,

e.g. claims that versus argues that.

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Verbs for referencing

Suggest

Argue

Contend

Outline

Focus on

Defines

Concludes

States

Maintains

Found that

Promotes

Established

Asserts

Shows

Claims

Reports

Mentions

Address

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https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/lsu/content/2_assessmenttasks/assess_tuts/lit_review_LL/verbs.html

Example

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https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/lsu/content/2_assessmenttasks/assess_tuts/lit_review_LL/conclusion.html

Your voice

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There are numerous resources at the Independent Learning Centre and in the library that can help

support you in the writing of your literature review. Please remember that there is no one way of

writing a literature review and that it is essential that you discuss your chosen approach with your

supervisor.

Every effort has been made to locate and acknowledge sources of information. Please let us know if we have inadvertently

plagiarised material.

Written and compiled by T. Ferfolja and L. Burnett, © The Learning Centre, UNSW, 2002.

NB: Technically emphatic expressions, attitude markers and relational markers are also hedging expressions,

but they are described here in terms of their primary function.

In 1984, Jenny Cushman, in her perceptive article, ‘The Chinese

community in Australian historiography’ made a passionate plea for

historians to move away from studies of Australian attitudes to “relocate

the Chinese experience within the Chinese community itself”. She further

urged researchers to investigate the way Chinese customs, legal notions

and kinship relations were adapted to the Australian physical and social

environment. It is tempting to credit many of the succeeding changes

to Cushman’s appeal. However, the new approaches must be viewed

within the context of the changing tide of historiography and the impact

of ‘multiculturalism’.

…

But to say this is to point to wider implications for history making in

Australia. The Eurocentric histories of the past cannot simply be

corrected by including the ‘Chinese’, especially if clear ethnic separations

based on assumed single identities are maintained. It is necessary to

go beyond Orientalist contrasts between us and them, Australian and

Chinese, and to engage in a re-examination of sites of difference and

dialogue. These sites will show the need to envisage multiple identities.

They may also sometimes point to shared experiences of a shared

world. Separate histories of ethnic peoples are not enough, especially if

they serve to contain and exclude these peoples. Instead there is a need

for a new synthesis in Australian history. The crucial need for historians

is to personally engage with the contemporary politics of difference.

Attitude marker: words or

phrases that indicate a

writer’s assessment of or

attitude to an issue

Emphatic expressions: Words or

phrases which relate to the strength of

the claim or to your degree of confidence

in what is said.

Hedging expression:

word or phrases which

make statements about

the degree of certainty,

possibility or probability

of a question

Relational marker (underlined): words orphrases that indicate, explicitly or implicitly, the

writer ’s relationship to the audience or the

scholarly community in which they are writing.Text source: Ryan, J. (1997). Chinese Australian history. In W.

Hudson & G. Bolton (eds) Creating Australia: Changing Australian

history. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.(pp. 75, 77)

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Conclusion

A summary of major agreements and disagreements in the literature

A summary of general conclusions that are being drawn.

A summary of where your thesis sits in the literature (Remember! Your thesis could become one of the future texts on the subject—how will later research students describe your thesis in their literature reviews?)

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In summary

• Identify your research question

• Identify and locate appropriate information

• Read and critically evaluate the information that you locate

• File and store your readings and notes

• Plan, organise and write critically about the literature that you have located

• Use paragraphs - Introduction, body and Conclusion

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Always remember

• Critically examine the literature

• Make your “voice” clear

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References

• Hart, C. (1998). Doing a literature review: Releasing the social science research imagination. London, Sage.

• The Learning Centre, UNSW, Getting started on your literature review.

• Hyland, K. (1999). Disciplinary discourses: Writer stance in research articles. In C. Candlin & K. Hyland (eds) Writing: Texts, processes and practices. London: Longman.

• Phillips, E., Pugh, D. (1996). How to get a Ph.D: A handbook for students and their supervisors. Open University press, Buckingham.

• Ryan, J. (1997). Chinese Australian history. In W. Hudson & G. Bolton (eds) Creating Australia: Changing Australian history. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

• https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/lsu/content/2_assessmenttasks/assess_tuts/lit_review_LL/conclusion.html

• http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/writing/literature

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Having Trouble?

What can you do if you don’t understand what the assignment question is asking you?

• Ask in class

• Go see your lecturer personally (take a draft)

• Go see another member of faculty

• Ask peers/classmates

• Email your lecturer for help

• See a HELPS advisor (drop-in or 1:1 consultation)

• ALWAYS seek help if you need it!!

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ssu.uts.edu.au/helps

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