The Literature Review:

1. The Literature Review: Building a Foundation for Your Research

2. The review of literature • The research process usually begins with a research question. • The researcher will conduct a literature review to identify other research that relates to the research question. • A literature review entails examining sources like scholarly books, journal articles, conference proceedings, and dissertations. • The researcher identifies what is already known about his or her research question in order to build upon existing knowledge.

3. What is a literature review? The literature review or review of the literature is an important component of research papers written in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. It contains an overview of previous research, theories, and methodologies that apply to the researcher’s main question. Once the literature review foundation is built, a researcher decides how he or she will study the subject, designs a research method, collects and analyzes the data, and reflects on what has been learned.

4. Ways of thinking about the literature review • It is not an annotated bibliography with brief summaries of the literature reviewed. It goes well beyond merely summarizing. • You are reviewing previous research on your topic before carving out the niche where your research fits. • You are mapping the previous research territory before claiming your space in it or expanding it.

5. What a literature review accomplishes • Overview: contains an overviewof previous research, theories, and methodologies that apply to the researcher’s main question • Summary and synthesis: summarizes individual sources consulted and draws connections between them, noting larger patterns or trends • Foundation and support: provides foundation and support for the new insight the researcher’s work will contribute

6. The basic outline of many articles, theses, and dissertations • Introduction • Review of the Literature • Research Design and Methodology • Presentation of Findings • Summary, Discussion, and Recommendations

7. Variations in the structure of research writing • Students can be asked to include a literature review in a variety of papers and assignments, or as part of the rationale for a research study (thesis or dissertation). • The length, amount of detail, and number of sources cited in your literature review may also depend on the type of research writing you are doing (article, thesis, or dissertation), your topic, and field. • A typical literature review in a scholarly article is only about 3, 4, or 5 of the 20 pages, and it must contain a lot of information. Authors typically feel they could write at least twice that much. Therefore, it is necessary and helpful to learn how to succinctly write a literature review.

8. Organizing your literature review Introduction • Provide a concise definition of the topic under consideration, as well as the scope of the literature being investigated. • If the topic under consideration is women’s wartime diaries, the scope of the review may be limited to published or unpublished works, works in English, works from a particular location, time period, conflict, etc. • Note intentional exclusions. • This review will not explore the diaries of adolescent girls. • State the general findings of the review and comment on the availability of sources in the subject area.

9. Organizing your literature review Main body • Organize the review using a chronological, thematic, or methodological approach. • Summarize and evaluate each source consulted for its contribution to the ongoing research conversation about your topic. • Synthesize your findings by comparing and contrasting; critically evaluating and interpreting; and addressing inconsistencies, omissions, gaps, and errors.

10. Organizing your literature review Conclusion • Summarize the key findings of the review in general terms. Note commonalities and disparities between works. • Justify the research proposal. Demonstrate where your research fits and how it provides a valuable contribution to an ongoing conversation related to your topic and research question. • In other words, what gap did you find in the previous literature, and how does your research fill that gap?

11. Bringing your sources into conversation with each other • Use logical transitions to connect sources. • On the other hand, Watson contended… • Use signal phrases to introduce sources. • Another implication of Foucault’s theory of social constructionism is… • On the contrary, Chomsky argued … • Smith also explored the concept of…

12. In the literature review… • Focus on summarizing and synthesizing. Summarizing means highlighting the main ideas of a source. Synthesizing means putting your sources into conversation with each other. • Do not “over-quote.”  Use quotes very sparingly. Reserve quotes for when you want to convey a concept or term found in a source that you cannot possibly restate more clearly in your own words. If you need to zoom in on one part of a source, always try to paraphrase it first. • Give credit to sources using in-text and end citations. Whether you are quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, or synthesizing, you always need to cite your sources.

13. Summary and Synthesis • Summary: providing the main idea and main points of a source in a concise form • Cantu’s quantitative study of low- SES college-bound students revealed that this group is more likely than high-SES college-bound students to attend college within one 100 miles of home. • Synthesis: creating original insights, perspectives, and understandings by reflecting on how the sources consulted fit together • Levin’s research on low-SES non-college-bound high school students contains insights that answer questions generated by Cantu’s study, such as what factors influence some low-SES high school students’ decisions not to go to college.

14. Quotation v. Paraphrase • Quotation: words or passages you take directly from the source and place in quotation marks • Paraphrase: your rewording of a passage written or spoken by someone else • You must cite both quotations and paraphrases

15. Examples • Take 15-20 minutes to analyze the three examples from the guidelines handout. • What choices might have to be made when converting multiple sources into a single statement? • How have these authors integrated all of their sources into the progression of their literature reviews and to what effect? • How have these authors used transitions and signal phrases? • Is there anything else that you find particularly effective? Why? Is there anything else that needs improvement? How?

16. Resources • If you would like a copy of this PowerPoint, please visit https://tgs.unt.edu/workshop-resources-0. • Handouts: • Guidelines for Writing a Literature Review • Paraphrase, Quotation, Summary, and Synthesis • Transitions and Templates • Full theses and dissertations are available in the following databases on the Willis Library website: • Dissertations and Theses @ University of North Texas • Dissertations and Theses Full Text • Dissertations Via Firstsearch