Literature Review
Pam Harris
pharris1@swarthmore.edu
Andrea Baruzzi
abaruzz1@swarthmore.edu
What is the"Literature"?
A collection of all the scholarly writings on a particular topic
What is a Literature Review?
A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other.
The scholarly conversation
"Communities of scholars, researchers, or professionals engage in sustained discourse with new insights and discoveries occurring over time as a result of varied perspectives and interpretations. Research in scholarly and professional fields is a discursive practice in which ideas are formulated, debated, and weighed against one another over extended periods of time."
Research Paper
What the Lit Review is NOT!
Annotated Bibliography
Only a Summary
A book review
+Integrated analysis of scholarly writing
What the Lit Review is...
+Arranged thematically, chronologically or by questions
- A summary + an analysis
+Makes judgements on the literature
- Identifies inconsistencies, gaps and contradictions
+Is guided by your perspective
- i.e. If you write a lit review chronologically, you might be emphasizing how your topic has changed over time
- Highlights key findings
What the Lit Review is...
+Demonstrates why the topic is significant to education
+Discovers relationships between ideas/research
+Provides clues for future research
- Ensures that researchers do not duplicate work that has already been done
- Areas to focus on
+Demonstrates you are familiar with the topic
From: https://guides.library.vcu.edu/lit-review by Sergio Chaparro
Select reliable information sources from multiple perspectives
Synthesize: compare themes, methods, controversies, and conclusions; make clear how the studies relate to one another.
Theme 1
Theme 2
Theme 3
Article 7
Article 8
Article 5
Article 6
Article 3
Article 4
Article 1
Article 2
Article 1
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Article 3
Article 4
Article 4
Article 5
Article 6
Article 7
Article 7
Article 7
Article 8
Content of the articles included in your review may relate to one or all of your themes
INTRO
Why is it important?
How is it Organized?
How does it relate to other work?
Methods
Body
Headings/Subheadings
Critically analyze the research
Important trends
Present your connections
Conclusion
Indicate any further research
Summarize evidence
See the Purdue OWL Guide to Writing a Literature Review
for more information about the structure of reviews
The Structure
To think about....
"... how many sources do you need to establish the importance of a theme? Twenty?... in a database containing millions of sentences, full-text search can turn up twenty examples of anything... this might strengthen confirmation bias."
-Ted Underwood,
Theorizing Research Practices We Forgot to Theorize Twenty Years Ago
Questions?
Pam Harris
pharris1@swarthmore.edu
Andrea Baruzzi
abaruzz1@swarthmore.edu
Big thanks to the following libguides:
http://guides.library.vcu.edu/lit-review
http://libguides.uwf.edu/c.php?g=215199&p=1420475
https://laverne.libguides.com/c.php?g=34942&p=222060