Literature Review Advice

for Thesis Writers

SOAN 98 / Fall 2020

Simon Elichko

Social Sciences & Data Librarian

What you'll learn:

  • How to find scholarly research that's relevant to your topic

  • Tips for managing your search process and staying organized

Use review articles and bibliographies to situate
your work
in the
literature

Lit Review Tip #1

Let's say that I'm writing about communities being relocated due to environmental contamination.

I've found this article:
Thomas E. Shriver and Dennis K. Kennedy. Contested Environmental Hazards and Community Conflict Over Relocation. Rural Sociology. 70(4), 2005, pp. 491–513.

Key Questions:

  • Who else has studied communities like this?
     
  • What larger conversations within sociology could inform my research?

How to Find
Review Articles & Bibliographies

Recommended:

  • Annual Reviews (Anthropology, Sociology)
  • Oxford Bibliographies (Anthropology, Sociology)

You can find links to these resources on the SOAN 98 Research Guide.

(Look under Scholarly Conversations & Overviews.)

Experiment with different research tools and strategies

Lit Review Tip #2

Comparing Research Tools

Google Scholar

(medical journal)

(medical journal)

(sociology journal)

(anthropology journal)

Sociological Abstracts (database)

Use these research tools to find relevant scholarship:

Recommended:

  • Anthropology Plus

  • Sociological Abstracts

You can find links to these resources on the SOAN 98 Research Guide.

(Look under Find Articles: Anthropology and Sociology.)

Explain everything to your future self


(i.e. how to stay organized)

Lit Review Tip #3

Document your process

Save consistently

Annotate sources

How to stay organized while researching:

{ ideas, searches, sources }

{ done & to-do }

{ while you still remember }

Keep a research journal

Write down:

  • Today's date
  • What work you did on your thesis
  • Questions that came up
  • What your next steps are

More Tools:

1. Document your process

Concept Mapping

Free tool for creating concept maps:  https://coggle.it 
 

You can login using your Swarthmore Google account.

2. Save consistently
 

      Be predictable. Use a system you can stick to.

Help your future self:

  • Label your links
  • Save citation information
  • Use descriptive filenames (e.g. johnson-2018.pdf)

Tool:

3. Annotate sources

When you're saving a source, write down
why it seems relevant.

 

Some ways to do this:

  • Folders / Collections  (sort sources by topic, purpose, etc.)

  • Tags  (add tags for topics)

Tool:

  • Zotero - Save sources directly to Collections.
    Add tags and notes.

Some purposes that an article/book/etc.
can serve in your writing:

BEAM Model


Background • provide contextual 

   information, help introduce a topic


Exhibit • something to analyze and  

   interpret, evidence for your argument


Argument • claims you can respond to,

  build on, or challenge

Method • suggest an approach to studying

  or understanding something

You'll cite different sources for different reasons.

 

Joseph Bizup's BEAM model offers one way to categorize your sources: by purpose.

You can get help with research.

Quick questions?  Chat in Tripod
Librarians & RIAs available: M-Th 9am-10pm • F 9-5 • Weekends 12-2 (ET)

Talk with Sarah: Sign up

Lit Review Tip #4