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.

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

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:

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

1. Document your process

Concept Mapping

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

You can login using your Swarthmore Google account.

See an example concept map

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:

• Zotero    (see Zotero & Organizing on SOAN 98 Guide)

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.

Lit Review Tip #4