Literature Reviews

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Literature Reviews
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Searching the Literature

• A literature search has three main purposes
• to summarize prior research in a specific area,
• to evaluate prior research,
• to define/refine your research project.
• Conducting a literature review helps you avoid
  naiveté, repetition or unnecessary work. Before
  you begin your own project, you must know
  something about what has been done in that area
  already.

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Writing a Lit Review

• Written literature reviews typically serve one of
  two purposes
• Synthesize (and evaluate) research in an area for
  interested professionals (informative)
• Demonstrate your credibility and the need for
  your proposed project to clients/funders
  (persuasive)
• Think of a lit review as an orchestrated
  conversation with you as the conductor.

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FOUR STEPS TO THE LITERATURE REVIEW

• 1. Research Primary Sources
• Focus on timeliness and comprehensiveness
• 2. Analyze And Select Studies
• Evaluate articles and locate major findings
• 3. Synthesize And Integrate Findings
• Group and cluster prior work to present trends
  and patterns across studies
• 4. Discuss General Conclusions
• Outline future implications and influences on
  field
• Clear space for your own work

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Tips for Literature Reviews

• Brainstorm topics related to your project look
  at the edges of your project to determine what
  you need to know
• Use academic/government databases, professional
  society web sites, and selective internet
  searches to examine the literature before you
  start to write. Focus on peer-reviewed, archival
  sources.
• Assess work to determine research questions,
  methods, materials, and findings to get a feel
  for what you can say about the literature
• Learn to skim (abstracts, introductions,
  conclusions)
• Use other peoples bibliographies to lead to
  important prior work.

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Tips for Literature Reviews

• Dont get bogged down dont spend time with
  irrelevant articles and dont think that you can
  review every possible relevant source
• Record all references with annotations begin a
  bibliography
• Practice good note taking, abstracting skills
• Thematize the literature into coherent
  subheadings based on your goals
• Develop a working thesis what can you say about
  the state of the art?
• Find an order for presenting the material based
  on your goals
• Set a stopping point (then return to the review
  later)

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Questions for Evaluating Sources

• What problem/issue does the work address?
• What methods does the author use?
• What are the major findings?
• What are the major gaps or next steps?
• How does this work relate to your project? What
  can you use? What elements are important to build
  on?

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A Few Library Databases

• SciFinder
• ANTE
• Engineered Materials Abstracts
• Engineering and Technology
• Materials Research Society Online