What are the purposes and goals of a literature review?

• Focuses and clarifies a research question
• Provides context for the work that follows
• Allows for a better understanding of broader issues
• Helps position within theory and methods
• Highlights key authors, debates and concepts
• Identifies what has and has not been researched
• Indicates where current work “fits”

Source: Grix, J. & G. Watkins (2010)

Collecting information

Collecting Information

Demo 1:

Finding electronic resources

• Research guides
• Using Search+
• Finding databases
• Accessing articles
• Finding other theses
• Tracing sources
• Using Google Scholar

Collecting Information

Demo 2:

Finding print resources

• Finding books in the catalogue
• Finding books from other libraries
• Using RACER for inter-library loan

Selecting and narrowing your topic

Selecting and narrowing your topic

Step 1:

Select a broad topic

Examples:

• women and incarceration
• representation of gender in the media
• sexism in higher education

Selecting and narrowing your topic

Step 2:

Find background information

Use resources such as:

• The Canadian Encyclopedia
• SAGE Knowledge
• Oxford Reference Online
• Wikipedia

Selecting and narrowing your topic

Step 3:

Narrowing the topic

You can narrow by:

• Element or issue
• Geography
• Time period
• Population

Selecting and narrowing your topic

Examples of narrow topics:

• Element or issue
  Voilence against women and YouTube comments
• Geography
  Incarceration of women in Ontario
• Time period
  Abortion and health outcomes in the 19th Century
• Population
  Discrimination against racialized female faculty at Canadian universities

Preparing a search strategy

Preparing a search strategy

Step 1:

Identify key concepts

Your topic:

Representations of women in country music

Preparing a search strategy

Step 1:

Identify key concepts

Representations of women in country music

Key Concepts:

• women
• country music

Preparing a search strategy

Step 2:

Find synonyms

Women:

women

female

girl

Country music:

country music

country and western

folk

Preparing a search strategy

Step 3:

Use search operators

Group synonyms together using parentheses and OR

(woman OR female OR girl)

(country music OR country and western OR folk music)

Preparing a search strategy

Step 3:

Use search operators

Use quotation marks to search for exact expressions

(woman OR female OR girl)

("country music" OR "country and western" OR "folk music")

Preparing a search strategy

Step 3:

Use search operators

Use asterisks to truncate

(wom*n OR female* OR girl*)

("country music" OR "country*western" OR "folk music")

Preparing a search strategy

Step 3:

Use search operators

Use AND to tell the database that you want to search both concepts together:

(wom*n OR female* OR girl*)

AND

("country music" OR "country*western" OR "folk music")

Preparing a search strategy

Step 3:

Use search operators

Use NOT to exclude terms that are out of scope

(wom*n OR female* OR girl*)

AND

("country music" OR "country*western" OR "folk music")

NOT

medieval

Preparing a search strategy

String it all together:

(wom*n OR female* OR girl*) AND ("country music" OR "country*western" OR "folk music") NOT medieval

Conducting your search

Conducting your search

Step 1:

Select your databases

Find databases on:

• The Library's research guides
• Databases A-Z

Conducting your search

Step 2:

Perform your search

Conducting your search

Step 3:

Refine your results, tweak your search terms

Analyzing your search results

Analyzing your search results

Step 1:

Scan for key information

•Type of article (empirical, review, theoretical)

•Title, abstract, first paragraphs and one before methods

•Publication date

Analyzing your search results

Step 2:

Assessing the impact of the article

• Citation count
• Publication credibility
• Year of publication
• Seminal work?

Analyzing your search results

Step 3:

Looking at the journal or source

•Scope and purpose

•Intended audience

•Impact factor or other rankings

Analyzing your search results

Step 3:

Organize and synthesize

• Grouping articles by topic and date
• Organizing your reading and analysis
• Establishing relationships between studies
• Evaluating currency and coverage
• Identifying additional resources

Structuring Your Review

Structuring Your Review

Step 1:

Look at models in your discipline

• Use current or popular journals to find articles and meta-analyses
• Find out what structures are common

Structuring Your Review

Step 2:

Organize the review as a funnel

• Move from general to specifically related to your research
• End with research question to be addressed

Structuring Your Review

Step 3:

Determine your strategy for organization

• Organized by theme
• Organized by methodology

Structuring Your Review

Step 4:

Make an outline

• Helps to structure your argument
• Use themes or methodologies as headings or subjeadings

Writing tips

Writing Tips

The Introduction

• Describe the general problem area, avoiding global statements
• Provide an overview of the review
• Indicate why this topic is important

Writing Tips

The Body

• Critical synthesis of the literature
• How existing studies relate to each other
• How they relate to your research

Writing Tips

The Body

• Justify why we need new research
• Justify why it is significant
  • to test a current theory
  • to retest a hypothesis using new methodology
• Provide historical context for new concept
• Identify trends and themes
• Contrast different approaches

Writing Tips

The Body

• Point out inconsistent findings
• Speculate on reasons
• Cite works to illustrate your point or strengthen your argument
• Point out why studies are important
• Did it reverse previously widely held position?
• Did it present a new methodology?

Writing Tips

The Body

• Identify gaps in the literature

• Describe methodological quality of research

• Identify classic or landmark studies as such

• For multidisciplinary topics, review studies from each topic separately

• Use subheadings in long reviews

Writing Tips

Conclusion

How literature leads to or justifies your research question

Writing Tips

How much is enough?

• When you can't find new sources
• Repeating patterns in research findings

Writing Tips

Common Errors

• Trying to include everything on a topic
• Presenting annotations rather than a cohesive essay
• Too many quotations
• Using secondary sources when primary sources are available
• Switching back and forth from general to specific problem

Writing Tips

Good reviews...

• Use the funnel approach
• Are selective
• Identify relationships between studies
• Justify the importance of the research question

Cite and manage your sources

Cite your sources

APA? MLA? Chicago?

Managing sources

Zotero demonstration

• Downloading Zotero
• Adding resources
• Creating bibliogrphies
• Creating timelines

Cite your sources

Creating citations from the catalogue