Literature Review

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• Literature Review

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????? What is a review of the literature?

• A literature review discusses published
  information within defined parameters
• A particular subject area ????? ???
• A particular subject area within a certain time
  period
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• Literature reviews may be a simple summary of
  sources, but typically
• A literature review summarizes and synthesizes
  the sources in an organized fashion
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• The most complex reviews also evaluate the
  sources and point the reader in new directions
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• A literature review is an account of what has
  been published on a topic by accredited scholars
  and researchers. More often it is part of the
  introduction to an essay, research report, or
  thesis. In writing the literature review, your
  purpose is to convey to your reader what
  knowledge and ideas have been established on a
  topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses
  are. As a piece of writing, the literature review
  must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your
  research objective, the problem or issue you are
  discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is
  not just a descriptive list of the material
  available, or a set of summaries.

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• Not to be confused with a book review, a
  literature review surveys scholarly articles,
  books and other sources (e.g. dissertations,
  conference proceedings) relevant to a particular
  issue, area of research, or theory, providing a
  description, summary, and critical evaluation of
  each work.
• The purpose is to offer an overview of
  significant literature published on a topic.

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• The "literature" of a literature review refers to
  any collection of materials on a topic, not
  necessarily the Great Literary Texts of the
  World.
• "Literature" could be anything from a set of
  government pamphlets to scholarly articles.
• A review does not necessarily mean that your
  reader wants you to give your personal opinion on
  whether or not you liked these sources.

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• Be organized around and related directly to the
  thesis or research question you are developing
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• Synthesize results into a summary of what is and
  is not known ?????? ?? ? ??????? ?? ???? ???
• Identify areas of controversy in the literature
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• formulate questions that need further research

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• Place each work in the context of its
  contribution to the understanding of the subject
  under review
• Describe the relationship of each work to the
  others under consideration
• Identify new ways to interpret, and clarify any
  gaps in, previous research
• Resolve conflicts amongst apparently
  contradictory previous studies
• Identify areas of prior research to prevent
  duplication of effort
• Point the way forward for further research
• The literature review itself, however, does not
  present new primary study

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Literature Review Conceptual Development
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Language and Information Searching

• Language of searching is Boolean And, Or
  Not, Near or Adjacency.. Each database uses
  these concepts to unite sets of subject
  information and sort them for display
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• OR NOT AND

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Resources

• Library Catalog
• Library Subscription Databases
• Professors and other subject experts
• Appropriate, quality web pages
• evaluate the page for author, authority, bias,
  etc.