Preparing Literature Reviews

1
Preparing Literature Reviews

• Choosing Your Topic
• Research
• The Content of a Literature Review

2
Selecting Your Topic

• 1. Personal experience
• 2. Curiosity about something in media
• 3. State of knowledge in the field
• 4. Solving a problem
• 5. Social premiums
• 6. Personal values
• 7. Everyday life

3
When Selecting the Topic Also Keep in Mind

• -The audiences expectations and or requirements
• -What you need to tell them about your topic, not
  just want interests you

4
Hints for Developing Your Topic

• 1) Get feed back
• 2) Write it down
• 3) Brainstorm
• 4) Start with a broad topic and narrow it down
• 5) Consider the availability of literature
• 6) Define the terms and topics you are
  considering

5
Three Thinks can help you Decide What Is The Most
Effective Type of Study to Pursue for a Question

• Reading studies that others have conducted on a
  topic
• Grasping issues that operate in qualitative and
  quantitative approaches to research
• Understanding how to use various research
  techniques as well as their strengths and
  limitations

6
How do you get from a broad general topic to
something more specific?

• 1. Examine the literature
• 2. Talk to colleagues
• 3. Apply to a specific context
• 4. Define the aim or desire outcome of the study

7
Considering Limitations

• Time
• Expense
• Ethical Considerations
• IRB Approval/Professional Approval
• Access to Resources
• The Politics of Research

8
Your Literature Review

• A literature review is a synthesis of the
  literature on a topic.
• Writing a literature review involves
  interpreting, evaluating, and integrating
  individual pieces of literature to create a new,
  original written work.
• This means combining often varied and diverse
  ideas, forces or factors into one coherent or
  consistent complex

9
Consider the Goal of Your Report- Where do you
plan to present your findings?

• This will make your argument relevant to the
  reader.
• Your theory or research is a small part of a
  larger school of knowledge. You are developing
  and shaping knowledge in your field.
• Meeting the readers needs.

10
Goals of a Literature Review

• 1. To demonstrate familiarity with a body of
  knowledge and establish credibility.
• 2. To show the path of prior research and how a
  current project is linked to it. The direction
  of your research should be clear.
• 3. To integrate and summarize what is known is
  an area.
• 4. To learn from others and stimulate new ideas.
  

11
Finding Sources

• Research Level Journals
• Books
• Periodicals/Mass Media
• Data Clearinghouses
• World Wide Web

12
Debate-The Pros and Cons of Internet Research

• Break into Pairs.
• Play Rock/Paper/Scissors. The winner is pro
  internet research, the loser is con.
• Debate the pros and cons of internet research.
  Each side will have 2 minutes to make his/her
  case. This will be followed by a one minute
  rebuttal.
• Conclusions

13
How To Conduct a Systematic Literature Review

• Define and Refine Topic
• Design a Search
• Locate Research Reports
• Read Articles and Record Notes
• Organize Your Notes
• Write a first Draft
• Edit with Peer Review

14
When Reviewing Existing Literature, Keep in Mind

• 1. Read with a clear purpose or goal in mind.
• 2. Skim the article before reading it in depth.
  
• 3. Be self-reflexive about your own bias.
• 4. Marshal external knowledge.
• 5. Evaluate as you read.
• 6. Summarize information as an abstract with a
  topic, methods, and findings.
• 7. Note what things impressed you and what did
  not work.

15
Guidelines for Evaluating Literature

• Even the most prestigious sources sometimes
  publish seriously flawed material.
• Three reasons why methodologically weak articles
  are published.
• 1) The topic of the article is timely
• 2) The article might have important theoretical
  implications.
• 3) The editors may be striving for balance.

16
Guidelines for Evaluating Literature

• Consider the sponsors of a publication
• Check to see whether a journal has an independent
  editorial board
• Check to see whether a journal uses blind peer
  review process when selecting manuscripts for
  publication
• Consider the institutional affiliation of the
  author
• Consider the overall quality of a journal in
  which the article is published
• Journals that publish long articles are usually
  more important sources than those that publish
  short ones

17
Guidelines for Evaluating and Interpreting
Research Literature

• Be wary of any source claiming to offer proof.
• If the sample is no good, the project is no good.
• Research is always flawed when the measures are
  inadequate.
• Consider the reliability of measures used in
  research
• Consider the validity of measures used in
  research
• Consider the authors self critique of their own
  research methods
• Be cautious when a researcher refers to
  causality.
• Assess the strength of trends across studies when
  evaluating literature.
• Recognize the limitations of significance
  testing.

18
Taking Notes and Avoiding Unintentional Plagiarism

• You Do Not Have to Cite if
• The idea is original
• It is common knowledge
• You Must cite if
• It is someone elses idea or established fact.
• It is someone elses original interpretation of
  facts.

19
Regardless of Type, All Reviews Should

• 1) Introduce the topic and define key terms
• 2) Establish the importance of the topic
• 3) Provide an overview of the amount of available
  literature and its types
• 4) Describe how the person searched for the
  relevant literature
• 5) Discuss the selection of literature to include
  in the review
• 6) Point out gaps in the literature
• 7) Describe, and if possible, reconcile
  discrepancies in the literature
• 8) Arrive at a synthesis
• 9) Discuss possible implications and directions
  for future research

20
Qualitative versus Quantitative Reports
21
Qualitative Research Issues

• -The Language of Cases and Contexts
• Grounded Theory
• Context is Critical
• The Case and Process
• Interpretation

22
Quantitative Design Issues

• The Language of Variables and Hypotheses
• A hypothesis is a proposition to be tested or a
  tentative statement of a relationship between two
  variables. They are guesses about how the social
  world works they are stated in a value neutral
  form.

23
Five Characteristics of a Causal Hypothesis

• 1) It has at least two variables.
• 2) It expresses a causal or cause-effect
  relationship between the variables.
• 3) It can be expressed as a prediction or an
  expected future outcome.
• 4) It is logically linked to a research question
  and a theory.
• 5) It is falsifiable, that is, it is capable of
  being tested against empirical evidence and shown
  to be true or false.

24
Guidelines for Hypotheses

• 1) Hypotheses are linked to more abstract
  theories.
• 2) It is important that the independent and
  dependent variables be clearly specified.
• 3) It is important that the precise nature and
  direction of the relationship between variables
  be specified in the hypothesis.
• 4)Hypotheses must be stated so that they can be
  verified or refuted.
• 5) All Concepts and comparisons in hypotheses
  must be clearly stated.

25
How to Test a Hypothesis

• A hypothesis is never proved, it can only be
  disproved. But hypotheses are tested.
• Null hypothesis testing
• It is actually the null or the idea that there is
  no relationship, which is tested. If evidence
  leads the researcher to accept the null this
  implies that your alternative hypothesis is
  false.

26
A Hypothesis and the Null

• Hypothesis As urban density increases, crime
  rates increase.
• Null Hypothesis There is no relationship
  between urban density and crime.

27
Exercise

• Break into Groups of 4
• Define 3-4 hypotheses
• State the null hypothesis for each