Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices. Part 1: Introduction to research 5. Writing your literature reviewChapter outline. - Reading results (16 minute read)
- Synthesizing information (16 minute read)
- Writing a literature review (18 minute read)
Content warning: examples in this chapter contain references to domestic violence and details on types of abuse, drug use, poverty, mental health, sexual harassment and details on harassing behaviors, children’s mental health, LGBTQ+ oppression and suicide, obesity, anti-poverty stigma, and psychotic disorders. 5.1 Reading resultsLearning objectives. Learners will be able to… - Describe how statistical significance and confidence intervals demonstrate which results are most important
- Differentiate between qualitative and quantitative results in an empirical journal article
If you recall from section 3.1 , empirical journal articles are those that report the results of quantitative or qualitative data analyzed by the author. They follow a set structure—introduction, methods, results, discussion/conclusions. This section is about reading the most challenging section: results. Read beyond the abstractAt this point, I have read hundreds of literature reviews written by students. One of the challenges I have noted is that students will report the results as summarized in the abstract, rather than the detailed findings laid out in the results section of the article. This poses a problem when you are writing a literature review because you need to provide specific and clear facts that support your reading of the literature. The abstract may say something like: “we found that poverty is associated with mental health status.” For your literature review, you want the details, not the summary. In the results section of the article, you may find a sentence that states: “children living in households experiencing poverty are three times more likely to have a mental health diagnosis.” This more specific statistical information provides a stronger basis on which to build the arguments in your literature review. Using the summarized results in an abstract is an understandable mistake to make. The results section often contains figures and tables that may be challenging to understand. Often, without having completed more advanced coursework on statistical or qualitative analysis, some of the terminology, symbols, or diagrams may be difficult to comprehend. This section is all about how to read and interpret the results of an empirical (quantitative or qualitative) journal article. Our discussion here will be basic, and in parts three and four of the textbook, you will learn more about how to interpret results from statistical tests and qualitative data analysis. Remember, this section only addresses empirical articles. Non-empirical articles (e.g., theoretical articles, literature reviews) don’t have results. They cite the analysis of raw data completed by other authors, not the person writing the journal article who is merely summarizing others’ work. Quantitative resultsQuantitative articles often contain tables, and scanning them is a good way to begin reading the results. A table usually provides a quick, condensed summary of the report’s key findings. Tables are a concise way to report large amounts of data. Some tables present descriptive information about a researcher’s sample (often the first table in a results section). These tables will likely contain frequencies (N) and percentages (%). For example, if gender happened to be an important variable for the researcher’s analysis, a descriptive table would show how many and what percent of all study participants are of a particular gender. Frequencies or “how many” will probably be listed as N, while the percent symbol (%) might be used to indicate percentages. In a table presenting a causal relationship, two sets of variables are represented. The independent variable , or cause, and the dependent variable , the effect. We’ll go into more detail on variables in Chapter 8 . Independent variable attributes are typically presented in the table’s columns, while dependent variable attributes are presented in rows. This allows the reader to scan a table’s rows to see how values on the dependent variable change as the independent variable values change. Tables displaying results of quantitative analysis will also likely include some information about which relationships are significant or not. We will discuss the details of significance and p-values later in this section. Let’s look at a specific example: Table 5.1. It presents the causal relationship between gender and experiencing harassing behaviors at work. In this example, gender is the independent variable (the cause) and the harassing behaviors listed are the dependent variables (the effects). [1] Therefore, we place gender in the table’s columns and harassing behaviors in the table’s rows. Reading across the table’s top row, we see that 2.9% of women in the sample reported experiencing subtle or obvious threats to their safety at work, while 4.7% of men in the sample reported the same. We can read across each of the rows of the table in this way. Reading across the bottom row, we see that 9.4% of women in the sample reported experiencing staring or invasion of their personal space at work while just 2.3% of men in the sample reported having the same experience. We’ll discuss p values later in this section. Table 5.1 Percentage reporting harassing behaviors at work | | | | Subtle or obvious threats to your safety | 2.9% | 4.7% | 0.623 | Being hit, pushed, or grabbed | 2.2% | 4.7% | 0.480 | Comments or behaviors that demean your gender | 6.5% | 2.3% | 0.184 | Comments or behaviors that demean your age | 13.8% | 9.3% | 0.407 | Staring or invasion of your personal space | 9.4% | 2.3% | 0.039 | Note: Sample size was 138 for women and 43 for men. | While you can certainly scan tables for key results, they are often difficult to understand without reading the text of the article. The article and table were meant to complement each other, and the text should provide information on how the authors interpret their findings. The table is not redundant with the text of the results section. Additionally, the first table in most results sections is a summary of the study’s sample, which provides more background information on the study than information about hypotheses and findings. It is also a good idea to look back at the methods section of the article as the data analysis plan the authors outline should walk you through the steps they took to analyze their data which will inform how they report them in the results section. Statistical significanceThe statistics reported in Table 5.1 represent what the researchers found in their sample. The purpose of statistical analysis is usually to generalize from a the small number of people in a study’s sample to a larger population of people. Thus, the researchers intend to make causal arguments about harassing behaviors at workplaces beyond those covered in the sample. Generalizing is key to understanding statistical significance . According to Cassidy and colleagues, (2019) [2] 89% of research methods textbooks in psychology define statistical significance incorrectly. This includes an early draft of this textbook which defined statistical significance as “the likelihood that the relationships we observe could be caused by something other than chance.” If you have previously had a research methods class, this might sound familiar to you. It certainly did to me! But statistical significance is less about “random chance” than more about the null hypothesis . Basically, at the beginning of a study a researcher develops a hypothesis about what they expect to find, usually that there is a statistical relationship between two or more variables . The null hypothesis is the opposite. It is the hypothesis that there is no relationship between the variables in a research study. Researchers then can hopefully reject the null hypothesis because they find a relationship between the variables. For example, in Table 5.1 researchers were examining whether gender impacts harassment. Of course, researchers assumed that women were more likely to experience harassment than men. The null hypothesis, then, would be that gender has no impact on harassment. Once we conduct the study, our results will hopefully lead us to reject the null hypothesis because we find that gender impacts harassment. We would then generalize from our study’s sample to the larger population of people in the workplace. Statistical significance is calculated using a p-value which is obtained by comparing the statistical results with a hypothetical set of results if the researchers re-ran their study a large number of times. Keeping with our example, imagine we re-ran our study with different men and women from different workplaces hundreds and hundred of times and we assume that the null hypothesis is true that gender has no impact on harassment. If results like ours come up pretty often when the null hypothesis is true, our results probably don’t mean much. “The smaller the p-value, the greater the statistical incompatibility with the null hypothesis” (Wasserstein & Lazar, 2016, p. 131). [3] Generally, researchers in the social sciences have used 0.05 as the value at which a result is significant (p is less than 0.05) or not significant (p is greater than 0.05). The p-value 0.05 refers to if 5% of those hypothetical results from re-running our study show the same or more extreme relationships when the null hypothesis is true. Researchers, however, may choose a stricter standard such as 0.01 in which only 1% of those hypothetical results are more extreme or a more lenient standard like 0.1 in which 10% of those hypothetical results are more extreme than what was found in the study. Let’s look back at Table 5.1. Which one of the relationships between gender and harassing behaviors is statistically significant? It’s the last one in the table, “staring or invasion of personal space,” whose p-value is 0.039 (under the p<0.05 standard to establish statistical significance). Again, this indicates that if we re-ran our study over and over again and gender did not impact staring/invasion of space (i.e., the null hypothesis was true), only 3.9% of the time would we find similar or more extreme differences between men and women than what we observed in our study. Thus, we conclude that for staring or invasion of space only , there is a statistically significant relationship. For contrast, let’s look at “being pushed, hit, or grabbed” and run through the same analysis to see if it is statistically significant. If we re-ran our study over and over again and the null hypothesis was true, 48% of the time (p=.48) we would find similar or more extreme differences between men and women. That means these results are not statistically significant. This discussion should also highlight a point we discussed previously: that it is important to read the full results section, rather than simply relying on the summary in the abstract. If the abstract stated that most tests revealed no statistically significant relationships between gender and harassment, you would have missed the detail on which behaviors were and were not associated with gender. Read the full results section! And don’t be afraid to ask for help from a professor in understanding what you are reading, as results sections are often not written to be easily understood. Statistical significance and p-values have been critiqued recently for a number of reasons, including that they are misused and misinterpreted (Wasserstein & Lazar, 2016) [4] , that researchers deliberately manipulate their analyses to have significant results (Head et al., 2015) [5] , and factor into the difficulty scientists have today in reproducing many of the results of previous social science studies (Peng, 2015). [6] For this reason, we share these principles, adapted from those put forth by the American Statistical Association, [7] for understanding and using p-values in social science: - P-values provide evidence against a null hypothesis.
- P-values do not indicate whether the results were produced by random chance alone or if the researcher’s hypothesis is true, though both are common misconceptions.
- Statistical significance can be detected in minuscule differences that have very little effect on the real world.
- Nuance is needed to interpret scientific findings, as a conclusion does not become true or false when the p-value passes from p=0.051 to p=0.049.
- Real-world decision-making must use more than reported p-values. It’s easy to run analyses of large datasets and only report the significant findings.
- Greater confidence can be placed in studies that pre-register their hypotheses and share their data and methods openly with the public.
- “By itself, a p-value does not provide a good measure of evidence regarding a model or hypothesis. For example, a p-value near 0.05 taken by itself offers only weak evidence against the null hypothesis. Likewise, a relatively large p-value does not imply evidence in favor of the null hypothesis; many other hypotheses may be equally or more consistent with the observed data” (Wasserstein & Lazar, 2016, p. 132).
Confidence intervalsBecause of the limitations of p-values, scientists can use other methods to determine whether their models of the world are true. One common approach is to use a confidence interval , or a range of values in which the true value is likely to be found. Confidence intervals are helpful because, as principal #5 above points out, p-values do not measure the size of an effect (Greenland et al., 2016). [8] Remember, something that has very little impact on the world can be statistically significant, and the values in a confidence interval would be helpful. In our example from Table 5.1, imagine our analysis produced a confidence interval that women are 1.2-3.4x more likely to experience “staring or invasion of personal space” than men. As with p-values, calculation for a confidence interval compares what was found in one study with a hypothetical set of results if we repeated the study over and over again. If we calculated 95% confidence intervals for all of the hypothetical set of hundreds and hundreds of studies, that would be our confidence interval. Confidence intervals are pretty intuitive. As of this writing, my wife and are expecting our second child. The doctor told us our due date was December 11th. But the doctor also told us that December 11th was only their best estimate. They were actually 95% sure our baby might be born any time in the 30-day period between November 27th and December 25th. Confidence intervals are often listed with a percentage, like 90% or 95%, and a range of values, such as between November 27th and December 25th. You can read that as: “we are 95% sure your baby will be born between November 27th and December 25th because we’ve studied hundreds of thousands of fetuses and mothers, and we’re 95% sure your baby will be within these two dates.” Notice that we’re hedging our bets here by using words like “best estimate.” When testing hypotheses, social scientists generally phrase their findings in a tentative way, talking about what results “indicate” or “support,” rather than making bold statements about what their results “prove.” Social scientists have humility because they understand the limitations of their knowledge. In a literature review, using a single study or fact to “prove” an argument right or wrong is often a signal to the person reading your literature review (usually your professor) that you may not have appreciated the limitations of that study or its place in the broader literature on the topic. Strong arguments in a literature review include multiple facts and ideas that span across multiple studies. You can learn more about creating tables, reading tables, and tests of statistical significance in a class focused exclusively on statistical analysis. We provide links to many free and openly licensed resources on statistics in Chapter 16 . For now, we hope this brief introduction to reading tables will improve your confidence in reading and understanding the results sections in quantitative empirical articles. Qualitative resultsQuantitative articles will contain a lot of numbers and the results of statistical tests demonstrating associations between those numbers. Qualitative articles, on the other hand, will consist mostly of quotations from participants. For most qualitative articles, the authors want to put their results in the words of their participants, as they are the experts. Articles that lack quotations make it difficult to assess whether the researcher interpreted the data in a trustworthy, unbiased manner. These types of articles may also indicate how often particular themes or ideas came up in the data, potentially reflective of how important they were to participants. Authors often organize qualitative results by themes and subthemes. For example, see this snippet from the results section in Bonanno and Veselak (2019) [9] discussion parents’ attitudes towards child mental health information sources. Data analysis revealed four themes related to participants’ abilities to access mental health help and information for their children, and parents’ levels of trust in these sources. These themes are: others’ firsthand experiences family and friends with professional experience, protecting privacy, and uncertainty about schools as information sources. Trust emerged as an overarching and unifying concept for all of these themes. Others’ firsthand experiences. Several participants reported seeking information from other parents who had experienced mental health struggles similar to their own children. They often referenced friends or family members who had been or would be good sources of information due to their own personal experiences. The following quote from Adrienne demonstrates the importance of firsthand experience: [I would only feel comfortable sharing concerns or asking for advice] if I knew that they had been in the same situation. (Adrienne) Similarly, Michelle said: And I talked to a friend of mine who has kids who have IEPs in the district to see, kind of, how did she go about it. (Michelle) … Friends/family with professional experience . Several respondents referred to friends or family members who had professional experience with or knowledge of child mental health and suggested that these individuals would be good sources of information. For example, Hannah said: Well, what happened with me was I have an uncle who’s a psychiatrist. Sometimes if he’s up in (a city to the north), he’s retired, I can call him sometimes and get information. (Hannah) Michelle, who was in nursing school, echoed this sentiment: At this point, [if my child’s behavioral difficulties continued], I would probably call one of my [nursing] professors. That’s what I’ve done in the past when I’ve needed help with certain things…I have a professor who I would probably consider a friend who I would probably talk to first. She has a big adolescent practice. (Michelle) (p. 402-403) The terms in bold above refer to the key themes (i.e., qualitative results) that were present in the data. Researchers will state the process by which they interpret each theme, providing a definition and usually some quotations from research participants. Researchers will also draw connections between themes, note consensus or conflict over themes, and situate the themes within the study context. Qualitative results are specific to the time, place, and culture in which they arise, so you will have to use your best judgment to determine whether these results are relevant to your study. For example, students in my class at Radford University in Southwest Virginia may be studying rural populations. Would a study on group homes in a large urban city transfer well to group homes in a rural area? Maybe. But even if you were using data from a qualitative study in another rural area, are all rural areas the same? How is the client population and sociocultural context in the article similar or different to the one in your study? Qualitative studies have tremendous depth, but researchers must be intentional about drawing conclusions about one context based on a study in another context. Key Takeaways- The results section of empirical articles are often the most difficult to understand.
- To understand a quantitative results section, look for results that were statistically significant and examine the confidence interval, if provided.
- To understand a qualitative results section, look for definitions of themes or codes and use the quotations provided to understand the participants’ perspective.
Select a quantitative empirical article related to your topic. - Write down the results the authors identify as statistically significant in the results section.
- How do the authors interpret their results in the discussion section?
- Do the authors provide enough information in the introduction for you to understand their results?
Select a qualitative empirical article relevant to your topic. - Write down the key themes the authors identify and how they were defined by the participants.
5.2 Organizing information- Describe how to use summary tables to organize information from empirical articles
- Describe how to use topical outlines to organize information from the literature reviews of articles you read
- Create a concept map that visualizes the key concepts and relationships relevant to your working question
- Use what you learn in the literature search to revise your working question
This section will introduce you to three tools scholars use to organize and synthesize (i.e., weave together) information from multiple sources. First, we will discuss how to build a summary table containing information from empirical articles that are highly relevant—from literature review, to methods and results—to your entire research proposal. These are articles you will need to know the details of back-to-front because they are so highly related to your proposed study. Second, we’ll discuss what to do with the other articles you’ve downloaded. As we’ve discussed previously, you’re not going to read most of the sources you download from start-to-finish. Instead, you’ll look at the author’s literature review, key ideas, and skim for any relevant passages for your project. As you do so, you should create a topical outline that organizes all relevant facts you might use in your literature that you’ve collected from the abstract, literature review, and conclusion of the articles you’ve found. Of course, it is important to note the original source of the information you are citing. Finally, we will revisit concept mapping as a technique for visualizing the concepts in your study. Altogether, these techniques should help you create intermediary products—documents you are not likely to show to anyone or turn in for a grade—but that are vital steps to a final research proposal. Organizing empirical articles using a summary tableYour research proposal is an empirical project. You will collect raw data and analyze it to answer your question. Over the next few weeks, identify about 10 articles that are empirically similar to the study you want to conduct. If you plan on conducting surveys of practitioners, it’s a good idea for you to read in detail other articles that have used similar methods (sampling, measures, data analysis) and asked similar questions to your proposal. A summary table can help you organize these Top 10 articles: empirical articles that are highly relevant to your proposal and working question. Using the annotations in Section 4.2 as a guide, create a spreadsheet or Word table with your annotation categories as columns and each source as new row. For example, I was searching for articles on using a specific educational technique in the literature. I wanted to know whether other researchers found positive results, how big their samples were, and whether they were conducted at a single school or across multiple schools. I looked through each empirical article on the topic and filled in a summary table. At the end, I could do an easy visual analysis and state that most studies revealed no significant results and that there were few multi-site studies. These arguments were then included in my literature review. These tables are similar to those you will find in a systematic review article. A basic summary table is provided in Figure 5.1. A more detailed example is available from Elaine Gregersen’s blog , and you can download an Excel template from Raul Pacheco-Vega’s blog . Remember, although “the means of summarizing can vary, the key at this point is to make sure you understand what you’ve found and how it relates to your topic and research question” (Bennard et al., 2014, para. 10). [10] As you revisit and revise your working question over the next few weeks, think about those sources that are so relevant you need to understand every detail about them. A good summary table will also ensure that when you cite these articles in your literature review, you are able to provide the necessary detail and context for readers to properly understand the results. For example, one of the common errors I see in student literature reviews is using a small, exploratory study to represent the truth about a larger population. You will also notice important differences in how variables are measured or how people are sampled, for instance, and these details are often the source of a good critical review of the literature. - Using your folder of article PDFs from you’ve downloaded in previous exercises, identify which articles are likely to be most relevant to your proposed study. This may change as you revise your working question and study design over the next few weeks. Create a list of 10 articles that are highly relevant to the extent that you will need to remember key details from each section of the article.
- Create a spreadsheet for your summary table and save it in your project folder on your hard drive. Using one of the templates linked in this chapter, fill in the columns of your spreadsheet. Enter the information from one of the articles you’ve read so far. As you finalize your research question over the next few weeks, fill in your summary table with the 5 most relevant empirical articles on your topic.
Synthesizing facts using a topical outlineIf we’re only reading 10 articles in detail, what do we do with the others? Raul Pacheco-Vega recommends using the AIC approach : read the abstract, introduction, and conclusion (and the discussion section, in empirical articles). For non-empirical articles, it’s a little less clear but the first few pages and last few pages of an article usually contain the author’s reading of the relevant literature and their principal conclusions. You may also want to skim the first and last sentence of each paragraph. Only read paragraphs in which you are likely to find information relevant to your working question. Skimming like this gives you the general point of the article, though you should read in detail the most valuable resource of all—another author’s literature review. It’s impossible to read all of the literature about your topic. You will read about 10 articles in detail. For a few dozen more (there is no magic number), you will read the abstract, introduction, and conclusion, skim the rest of the article, but ultimately never read everything. Make the most out of the articles you do read by extracting as many facts as possible from each. You are starting your research project without a lot of knowledge of the topic you want to study, and by using the literature reviews provided in academic journal articles, you can gain a lot of knowledge about a topic in a short period of time. This way, by reading only a small number of articles, you are also reading their citations and synthesis of dozens of other articles as well. As you read an article in detail, we suggest copying any facts you find relevant in a separate word processing document. Another idea is to copy anything you’ve annotated as background information in Section 4.2 into an outline. Copying and pasting from PDF to Word can be difficult because PDFs are image files, not documents. To make that easier, use the HTML version of the article, convert the PDF to Word in Adobe Acrobat or another PDF reader, or use the “paste special” command to paste the content into Word without formatting. If it’s an old PDF, you may have to simply type out the information you need. It can be a messy job, but having all of your facts in one place is very helpful when drafting your literature review. You should copy and paste any fact or argument you consider important. Some good examples include definitions of concepts, statistics about the size of the social problem, and empirical evidence about the key variables in the research question, among countless others. It’s a good idea to consult with your professor and the course syllabus to understand what they are looking for when reading your literature review. Facts for your literature review are principally found in the introduction, results, and discussion section of an empirical article or at any point in a non-empirical article. Copy and paste into your notes anything you may want to use in your literature review. Importantly, you must make sure you note the original source of each bit of information you copy. Nothing is worse than needing to track down a source for fact you read who-knows-where. If you found a statistic that the author used in the introduction, it almost certainly came from another source that the author cited in a footnote or internal citation. You will want to check the original source to make sure the author represented the information correctly. Moreover, you may want to read the original study to learn more about your topic and discover other sources relevant to your inquiry. Assuming you have pulled all of the facts out of multiple articles, it’s time to start thinking about how these pieces of information relate to each other. Start grouping each fact into categories and subcategories as shown in Table 5.2. For example, a statistic stating that single adults who are homeless are more likely to be male may fit into a category of gender and homelessness. For each topic or subtopic you identify during your critical analysis of each paper, determine what those papers have in common. Likewise, determine which differ. If there are contradictory findings, you may be able to identify methodological or theoretical differences that could account for these contradictions. For example, one study may sample only high-income earners or those living in a rural area. Determine what general conclusions you can report about the topic or subtopic, based on all of the information you’ve found. Create a separate document containing a topical outline that combines your facts from each source and organizes them by topic or category. As you include more facts and more sources in your topical outline, you will begin to see how each fact fits into a category and how categories are related to one another. Keep in mind that your category names may change over time, as may their definitions. This is a natural reflection of the learning you are doing. Table 5.2 Topical outline | | | | A complete topical outline is a long list of facts arranged by category. As you step back from the outline, you should assess which topic areas for which you have enough research support to allow you to draw strong conclusions. You should also assess which areas you need to do more research in before you can write a robust literature review. The topical outline should serve as a transitional document between the notes you write on each source and the literature review you submit to your professor. It is important to note that they contain plagiarized information that is copied and pasted directly from the primary sources. In this case, it is not problematic because these are just notes and are not meant to be turned in as your own ideas. For your final literature review, you must paraphrase these sources to avoid plagiarism. More importantly, you should keep your voice and ideas front-and-center in what you write as this is your analysis of the literature. Make strong claims and support them thoroughly using facts you found in the literature. We will pick up the task of writing your literature review in section 5.3. - In your folder full of article PDFs, look for the most relevant review articles. If you don’t have any, try to look for some. If there are none in your topic area, you can also use other non-empirical articles or empirical articles with long literature reviews (in the introduction and discussion sections).
- Create a word processing document for your topical outline and save it in your project folder on your hard drive. Using a review article, start copying facts you identified as Background Information or Results into your topical outline. Try to organize each fact by topic or theme. Make sure to copy the internal citation for the original source of each fact. For articles that do not use internal citations, create one using the information in the footnotes and references. As you finalize your research question over the next few weeks, skim the literature reviews of the articles you download for key facts and copy them into your topical outline.
Putting the pieces together: Building a concept mapDeveloping a concept map or mind map around your topic can be helpful in figuring out how the facts fit together. We talked about concept mapping briefly in Chapter 2 , when we were first thinking about your topic and sketching out what you already know about it. Concept mapping during the literature review stage of a research project builds on this foundation of knowledge and aims to improve the “description of the breadth and depth of literature in a domain of inquiry. It also facilitates identification of the number and nature of studies underpinning mapped relationships among concepts, thus laying the groundwork for systematic research reviews and meta-analyses” (Lesley, Floyd, & Oermann, 2002, p. 229). [11] Its purpose, like other question refinement methods, is to help you organize, prioritize, and integrate material into a workable research area—one that is interesting, answerable, feasible, objective, scholarly, original, and clear. Think about the topics you created in your topic outline. How do they relate to one another? Within each topic, how do facts relate to one another? As you write down what you have, think about what you already know. What other related concepts do you not yet have information about? What relationships do you need to investigate further? Building a conceptual map should help you understand what you already know, what you need to learn next, and how you can organize a literature review. This technique is illustrated in this YouTube video about concept mapping . You may want to indicate which concepts and relationships you’ve already found in your review and which ones you think might be true but haven’t found evidence of yet. Once you get a sense of how your concepts are related and which relationships are important to you, it’s time to revise your working question. - Create a concept map using a pencil and paper.
- Identify the key ideas inside the literature, how they relate to one another, and the facts you know about them.
- Reflect on those areas you need to learn more about prior to writing your literature review.
- As you finalize your research question over the next few weeks, update your concept map and think about how you might organize it into a written literature review.
- Refer to the topics and headings you use in your topical outline and think about what literature you have that helps you understand each concept and relationship between them in your concept map.
Revising your working questionYou should be revisiting your working question throughout the literature review process. As you continue to learn more about your topic, your question will become more specific and clearly worded. This is normal, and there is no way to shorten this process. Keep revising your question in order to ensure it will contribute something new to the literature on your topic, is relevant to your target population, and is feasible for you to conduct as a student project. For example, perhaps your initial idea or interest is how to prevent obesity. After an initial search of the relevant literature, you realize the topic of obesity is too broad to adequately cover in the time you have to do your project. You decide to narrow your focus to causes of childhood obesity. After reading some articles on childhood obesity, you further narrow your search to the influence of family risk factors on overweight children. A potential research question might then be, “What maternal factors are associated with toddler obesity in the United States?” You would then need to return to the literature to find more specific studies related to the variables in this question (e.g. maternal factors, toddler, obesity, toddler obesity). Similarly, after an initial literature search for a broad topic such as school performance or grades, examples of a narrow research question might be: - “To what extent does parental involvement in children’s education relate to school performance over the course of the early grades?”
- “Do parental involvement levels differ by family social, demographic, and contextual characteristics?”
- “What forms of parent involvement are most highly correlated with children’s outcomes? What factors might influence the extent of parental involvement?” (Early Childhood Longitudinal Program, 2011). [12]
In either case, your literature search, working question, and understanding of the topic are constantly changing as your knowledge of the topic deepens. A literature review is an iterative process, one that stops, starts, and loops back on itself multiple times before completion. As research is a practice behavior of social workers, you should apply the same type of critical reflection to your inquiry as you would to your clinical or macro practice. There are many ways to approach synthesizing literature. We’ve reviewed the following: summary tables, topical outlines, and concept maps. Other examples you may encounter include annotated bibliographies and synthesis matrices. As you are learning how to conduct research, find a method that works for you. Reviewing the literature is a core component of evidence-based practice in social work. See the resources below if you need some additional help: Literature Reviews: Using a Matrix to Organize Research / Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota Literature Review: Synthesizing Multiple Sources / Indiana University Writing a Literature Review and Using a Synthesis Matrix / Florida International University Sample Literature Reviews Grid / Complied by Lindsay Roberts Literature review preparation: Creating a summary table . (Includes transcript) / Laura Killam - You won’t read every article all the way through. For most articles, reading the abstract, introduction, and conclusion are enough to determine its relevance. It’s expected that you skim or search for relevant sections of each article without reading the whole thing.
- For articles where everything seems relevant, use a summary table to keep track of details. These are particularly helpful with empirical articles.
- For articles with literature review content relevant to your topic, copy any relevant information into a topical outline, along with the original source of that information.
- Use a concept map to help you visualize the key concepts in your topic area and the relationships between them.
- Revise your working question regularly. As you do, you will likely need to revise your search queries and include new articles.
- Look back at the working question for your topic and consider any necessary revisions. It is important that questions become clearer and more specific over time. It is also common that your working question shift over time, sometimes drastically, as you explore new lines of inquiry in the literature. Return to your working question regularly and make sure it reflects the focus of your inquiry. You will continue to revise your working question until we formalize it into a research question at the end of Part 2 of this textbook.
5.3 Writing your literature review- Describe the components of a literature review
- Begin to write your literature review
- Identify the purpose of a problem statement
- Apply the components of a formal argument to your topic
- Use elements of formal writing style, including signposting and transitions
- Recognize commons errors in literature reviews
Congratulations! By now, you should have discovered, retrieved, evaluated, synthesized, and organized the information you need for your literature review. It’s now time to turn that stack of articles, papers, and notes into a literature review–it’s time to start writing! Writing about research is different than other types of writing. Research writing is not like a journal entry or opinion paper. The goal here is not to apply your research question to your life or growth as a practitioner. Research writing is about the provision and interpretation of facts. The tone should be objective and unbiased, and personal experiences and opinions are excluded. Particularly for students who are used to writing case notes, research writing can be a challenge. That’s why its important to normalize getting help! If your professor has not built in peer review, consider setting up a peer review group among your peers. You should also reach out to your academic advisor to see if there are writing services on your campus available to graduate students. No one should feel bad for needing help with something they haven’t done before, haven’t done in a while, or were never taught how to do. If you’ve followed the steps in this chapter, you likely have an outline, summary table, and concept map from which you can begin the writing process. But what do you need to include in your literature review? We’ve mentioned it before, but to summarize, a literature review should: - Introduce the topic and define its key terms.
- Establish the importance of the topic.
- Provide an overview of the important literature related to the concepts found in the research question.
- Identify gaps or controversies in the literature.
- Point out consistent findings across studies.
- Synthesize that which is known about a topic, rather than just provide a summary of the articles you read.
- Discuss possible implications and directions for future research.
Do you have enough facts and sources to accomplish these tasks? It’s a good time to consult your outlines and notes on each article you plan to include in your literature review. You may also want to consult with your professor on what is expected of you. If there is something you are missing, you may want to jump back to section 2.3 where we discussed how to search for literature. While you can always fill in material, there is the danger that you will start writing without really knowing what you are talking about or what you want to say. For example, if you don’t have a solid definition of your key concepts or a sense of how the literature has developed over time, it will be difficult to make coherent scholarly claims about your topic. There is no magical point at which one is ready to write. As you consider whether you are ready, it may be useful to ask yourself these questions: - How will my literature review be organized?
- What section headings will I be using?
- How do the various studies relate to each other?
- What contributions do they make to the field?
- Where are the gaps or limitations in existing research?
- And finally, but most importantly, how does my own research fit into what has already been done?
The problem statementScholarly works often begin with a problem statement, which serves two functions. First, it establishes why your topic is a social problem worth studying. Second, it pulls your reader into the literature review. Who would want to read about something unimportant? A problem statement generally answers the following questions, though these are far from exhaustive: - Why is this an important problem to study?
- How many people are affected by this problem?
- How does this problem impact other social issues relevant to social work?
- Why is your target population an important one to study?
A strong problem statement, like the rest of your literature review, should be filled with empirical results, theory, and arguments based on the extant literature. A research proposal differs significantly from other more reflective essays you’ve likely completed during your social work studies. If your topic were domestic violence in rural Appalachia, I’m sure you could come up with answers to the above questions without looking at a single source. However, the purpose of the literature review is not to test your intuition, personal experience, or empathy. Instead, research methods are about gaining specific and articulable knowledge to inform action. With a problem statement, you can take a “boring” topic like the color of rooms used in an inpatient psychiatric facility, transportation patterns in major cities, or the materials used to manufacture baby bottles, and help others see the topic as you see it—an important part of the social world that impacts social work practice. The structure of a literature reviewIn general, the problem statement belongs at the beginning of the literature review. We usually advise students to spend no more than a paragraph or two for a problem statement. For the rest of your literature review, there is no set formula by which it needs to be organized. However, a literature review generally follows the format of any other essay—Introduction, Body, and Conclusion. The introduction to the literature review contains a statement or statements about the overall topic. At a minimum, the introduction should define or identify the general topic, issue, or area of concern. You might consider presenting historical background, mentioning the results of a seminal study, and providing definitions of important terms. The introduction may also point to overall trends in what has been previously published on the topic or on conflicts in theory, methodology, evidence, conclusions, or gaps in research and scholarship. We also suggest putting in a few sentences that walk the reader through the rest of the literature review. Highlight your main arguments from the body of the literature review and preview your conclusion. An introduction should let the reader know what to expect from the rest of your review. The body of your literature review is where you demonstrate your synthesis and analysis of the literature. Again, do not just summarize the literature. We would also caution against organizing your literature review by source—that is, one paragraph for source A, one paragraph for source B, etc. That structure will likely provide an adequate summary of the literature you’ve found, but it would give you almost no synthesis of the literature. That approach doesn’t tell your reader how to put those facts together, it doesn’t highlight points of agreement or contention, or how each study builds on the work of others. In short, it does not demonstrate critical thinking. Organize your review by argumentInstead, use your outlines and notes as a guide what you have to say about the important topics you need to cover. Literature reviews are written from the perspective of an expert in that field. After an exhaustive literature review, you should feel as though you are able to make strong claims about what is true—so make them! There is no need to hide behind “I believe” or “I think.” Put your voice out in front, loud and proud! But make sure you have facts and sources that back up your claims. I’ve used the term “ argument ” here in a specific way. An argument in writing means more than simply disagreeing with what someone else said, as this classic Monty Python sketch demonstrates. Toulman, Rieke, and Janik (1984) identify six elements of an argument: - Claim: the thesis statement—what you are trying to prove
- Grounds: theoretical or empirical evidence that supports your claim
- Warrant: your reasoning (rule or principle) connecting the claim and its grounds
- Backing: further facts used to support or legitimize the warrant
- Qualifier: acknowledging that the argument may not be true for all cases
- Rebuttal: considering both sides (as cited in Burnette, 2012) [13]
Let’s walk through an example. If I were writing a literature review on a negative income tax, a policy in which people in poverty receive an unconditional cash stipend from the government each month equal to the federal poverty level, I would want to lay out the following: - Claim: the negative income tax is superior to other forms of anti-poverty assistance.
- Grounds: data comparing negative income tax recipients to people receiving anti-poverty assistance in existing programs, theory supporting a negative income tax, data from evaluations of existing anti-poverty programs, etc.
- Warrant: cash-based programs like the negative income tax are superior to existing anti-poverty programs because they allow the recipient greater self-determination over how to spend their money.
- Backing: data demonstrating the beneficial effects of self-determination on people in poverty.
- Qualifier: the negative income tax does not provide taxpayers and voters with enough control to make sure people in poverty are not wasting financial assistance on frivolous items.
- Rebuttal: policy should be about empowering the oppressed, not protecting the taxpayer, and there are ways of addressing taxpayer spending concerns through policy design.
Like any effective argument, your literature review must have some kind of structure. For example, it might begin by describing a phenomenon in a general way along with several studies that provide some detail, then describing two or more competing theories of the phenomenon, and finally presenting a hypothesis to test one or more of the theories. Or, it might describe one phenomenon, then describe another that seems inconsistent with the first, then propose a theory that resolves the inconsistency, and finally present a hypothesis to test that theory. In applied research, it might describe a phenomenon or theory, then describe how that phenomenon or theory applies to some important real-world situation, and finally, may suggest a way to test whether it does, in fact, apply to that situation. Use signpostsAnother important issue is signposting . It may not be a term you are familiar with, but you are likely familiar with the concept. Signposting refers to the words used to identify the organization and structure of your literature review to your reader. The most basic form of signposting is using a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph. A topic sentence introduces the argument you plan to make in that paragraph. For example, you might start a paragraph stating, “There is strong disagreement in the literature as to whether psychedelic drugs cause people to develop psychotic disorders, or whether psychotic disorders cause people to use psychedelic drugs.” Within that paragraph, your reader would likely assume you will present evidence for both arguments. The concluding sentence of your paragraph should address the topic sentence, discussing how the facts and arguments from the paragraph you’ve written support a specific conclusion. To continue with our example, I might say, “There is likely a reciprocal effect in which both the use of psychedelic drugs worsens pre-psychotic symptoms and worsening psychosis increases the desire to use psychedelic drugs.” Signposting also involves using headings and subheadings. Your literature review will use APA formatting, which means you need to follow their rules for bolding, capitalization, italicization, and indentation of headings. Headings help your reader understand the structure of your literature review. They can also help if the reader gets lost and needs to re-orient themselves within the document. We often tell our students to assume we know nothing (they don’t mind) and need to be shown exactly where they are addressing each part of the literature review. It’s like walking a small child around, telling them “First we’ll do this, then we’ll do that, and when we’re done, we’ll know this!” Another way to use signposting is to open each paragraph with a sentence that links the topic of the paragraph with the one before it. Alternatively, one could end each paragraph with a sentence that links it with the next paragraph. For example, imagine we wanted to link a paragraph about barriers to accessing healthcare with one about the relationship between the patient and physician. We could use a transition sentence like this: “Even if patients overcome these barriers to accessing care, the physician-patient relationship can create new barriers to positive health outcomes.” A transition sentence like this builds a connection between two distinct topics. Transition sentences are also useful within paragraphs. They tell the reader how to consider one piece of information in light of previous information. Even simple transitional words like ‘however’ and ‘similarly’ can help demonstrate critical thinking and link each building block of your argument together. Many beginning researchers have difficulty incorporating transitions into their writing. Let’s look at an example. Instead of beginning a sentence or paragraph by launching into a description of a study, such as “Williams (2004) found that…,” it is better to start by indicating something about why you are describing this particular study. Here are some simple examples: - Another example of this phenomenon comes from the work of Williams (2004)…
- Williams (2004) offers one explanation of this phenomenon…
- An alternative perspective has been provided by Williams (2004)…
Now that we know to use signposts, the natural question is “What goes on the signposts?” First, it is important to start with an outline of the main points that you want to make, organized in the order you want to make them. The basic structure of your argument should then be apparent from the outline itself. Unfortunately, there is no formula we can give you that will work for everyone, but we can provide some general pointers on structuring your literature review. The literature review tends to move from general to more specific ideas. You can build a review by identifying areas of consensus and areas of disagreement. You may choose to present historical studies—preferably seminal studies that are of significant importance—and close with the most recent research. Another approach is to start with the most distantly related facts and literature and then report on those most closely related to your research question. You could also compare and contrast valid approaches, features, characteristics, theories – that is, one approach, then a second approach, followed by a third approach. Here are some additional tips for writing the body of your literature review: - Start broad and then narrow down to more specific information.
- When appropriate, cite two or more sources for a single point, but avoid long strings of references for a single idea.
- Use quotes sparingly. Quotations for definitions are okay, but reserve quotes for when something is said so well you couldn’t possible phrase it differently. Never use quotes for statistics.
- Paraphrase when you need to relay the specific details within an article
- Include only the aspects of the study that are relevant to your literature review. Don’t insert extra facts about a study just to take up space.
- Avoid reflective, personal writing. It is traditional to avoid using first-person language (I, we, us, etc.).
- Avoid informal language like contractions, idioms, and rhetorical questions.
- Note any sections of your review that lack citations from the literature. Your arguments need to be based in empirical or theoretical facts. Do not approach this like a reflective journal entry.
- Point out consistent findings and emphasize stronger studies over weaker ones.
- Point out important strengths and weaknesses of research studies, as well as contradictions and inconsistent findings.
- Implications and suggestions for further research (where there are gaps in the current literature) should be specific.
The conclusion should summarize your literature review, discuss implications, and create a space for further research needed in this area. Your conclusion, like the rest of your literature review, should make a point. What are the important implications of your literature review? How do they inform the question you are trying to answer? You should consult with your professor and the course syllabus about the final structure your literature review should take. Here is an example of one possible structure: - Establish the importance of the topic
- Number and type of people affected
- Seriousness of the impact
- Physical, psychological, economic, social, or spiritual consequences of the problem
- Definitions of key terms
- Supporting evidence
- Common findings across studies, gaps in the literature
- Research question(s) and hypothesis(es)
Editing your literature reviewLiterature reviews are more than a summary of the publications you find on a topic. As you have seen in this brief introduction, literature reviews represent a very specific type of research, analysis, and writing. We will explore these topics further in upcoming chapters. As you begin your literature review, here are some common errors to avoid: - Accepting a researcher’s finding as valid without evaluating methodology and data
- Ignoring contrary findings and alternative interpretations
- Using findings that are not clearly related to your own study or using findings that are too general
- Dedicating insufficient time to literature searching
- Reporting statistical results from a single study, rather than synthesizing the results of multiple studies to provide a comprehensive view of the literature on a topic
- Relying too heavily on secondary sources
- Overusing quotations
- Not justifying arguments using specific facts or theories from the literature
For your literature review, remember that your goal is to construct an argument for the importance of your research question. As you start editing your literature review, make sure it is balanced. Accurately report common findings, areas where studies contradict each other, new theories or perspectives, and how studies cause us to reaffirm or challenge our understanding of your topic. It is acceptable to argue that the balance of the research supports the existence of a phenomenon or is consistent with a theory (and that is usually the best that researchers in social work can hope for), but it is not acceptable to ignore contradictory evidence. A large part of what makes a research question interesting is uncertainty about its answer (University of Minnesota, 2016). [14] In addition to subjectivity and bias, writer’s block can obstruct the completion of your literature review. Often times, writer’s block can stem from confusing the creating and editing parts of the writing process. Many writers often start by simply trying to type out what they want to say, regardless of how good it is. Author Anne Lamott (1995) [15] terms these “shitty first drafts,” and we all write them. They are a natural and important part of the writing process. Even if you have a detailed outline from which to work, the words are not going to fall into place perfectly the first time you start writing. You should consider turning off the editing and critiquing part of your brain for a while and allow your thoughts to flow. Don’t worry about putting a correctly formatted internal citation (as long as you know which source you used there) when you first write. Just get the information out. Only after you’ve reached a natural stopping point might you go back and edit your draft for grammar, APA style, organization, flow, and more. Divorcing the writing and editing process can go a long way to addressing writer’s block—as can picking a topic about which you have something to say! As you are editing, keep in mind these questions adapted from Green (2012): [16] - Content: Have I clearly stated the main idea or purpose of the paper? Is the thesis or focus clearly presented and appropriate for the reader?
- Organization: How well is it structured? Is the organization spelled out and easy to follow for the reader ?
- Flow: Is there a logical flow from section to section, paragraph to paragraph, sentence to sentence? Are there transitions between and within paragraphs that link ideas together?
- Development: Have I validated the main idea with supporting material? Are supporting data sufficient? Does the conclusion match the introduction?
- Form: Are there any APA style issues, redundancy, problematic wording and terminology (always know the definition of any word you use!), flawed sentence constructions and selection, spelling, and punctuation?
Social workers use the APA style guide to format and structure their literature reviews. Most students know APA style only as it relates to internal and external citations. If you are confused about them, consult this amazing APA style guide from the University of Texas-Arlington library. Your university’s library likely has resources they created to help you with APA style, and you can meet with a librarian or your professor to talk about formatting questions you have. Make sure you budget in a few hours at the end of each project to build a correctly formatted references page and check your internal citations. Of course, APA style is about much more than knowing there is a period after “et al.” or citing the location a book was published. APA style is also about what the profession considers to be good writing. If you haven’t picked up an APA publication manual because you use citation generators, know that I did the same thing when I was in school. Purchasing the APA manual can help you with a common problem we hear about from students. Every professor (and every website about APA style) seems to have their own peculiar idea of “correct” APA style that you can, if needed, demonstrate is not accurate. Here are some additional resources, if you would like more guidance on writing your literature review. Doing a literature review / University of Leicester Get lit: The literature review / Texas A&M Writing Centre Guidebook for social work literature reviews / by Rebecca Mauldin and Matthew DeCarlo - A literature review is not a book report. Do not organize it by article, with one paragraph for each source in your references. Instead, organize it based on the key ideas and arguments.
- The problem statement draws the reader into your topic by highlighting the importance of the topic to social work and to society overall.
- Signposting is an important component of academic writing that helps your reader follow the structure of your argument and of your literature review.
- Transitions demonstrate critical thinking and help guide your reader through your arguments.
- Editing and writing are separate processes.
- Consult with an APA style guide or a librarian to help you format your paper.
Look at your professor’s prompt for the literature review component of your research proposal (or if you don’t have one, use the example question provided in this section). - Write 2-3 facts you would use to address each question or component in the prompt.
- Reflect on which questions you have a lot of information about and which you need to gather more information about in order to answer adequately.
Outline the structure of your literature review using your concept map from Section 5.2 as a guide. - Identify the key arguments you will make and how they are related to each other.
- Reflect on topic sentences and concluding sentences you would use for each argument.
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- It wouldn’t make any sense to say that people’s workplace experiences cause their gender, so in this example, the question of which is the independent variable and which are the dependent variables has a pretty obvious answer. ↵
- Cassidy, S. A., Dimova, R., Giguère, B., Spence, J. R., & Stanley, D. J. (2019). Failing grade: 89% of introduction-to-psychology textbooks that define or explain statistical significance do so incorrectly. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science , 2 (3), 233-239. ↵
- Wasserstein, R. L., & Lazar, N. A. (2016). The ASA statement on p-values: context, process, and purpose. The American Statistician, 70 , p. 129-133. ↵
- Head, M. L., Holman, L., Lanfear, R., Kahn, A. T., & Jennions, M. D. (2015). The extent and consequences of p-hacking in science. PLoS biology, 13 (3). ↵
- Peng, R. (2015), The reproducibility crisis in science: A statistical counterattack. Significance , 12 , 30–32. ↵
- Greenland, S., Senn, S. J., Rothman, K. J., Carlin, J. B., Poole, C., Goodman, S. N., & Altman, D. G. (2016). Statistical tests, P values, confidence intervals, and power: a guide to misinterpretations. European journal of epidemiology , 31 (4), 337-350. ↵
- Bonanno, R., & Veselak, K. (2019). A matter of trust: Parents attitudes towards child mental health information sources. Advances in Social Work , 19 (2), 397-415. ↵
- Bernnard, D., Bobish, G., Hecker, J., Holden, I., Hosier, A., Jacobson, T., Loney, T., & Bullis, D. (2014). Presenting: Sharing what you’ve learned. In Bobish, G., & Jacobson, T. (eds.) The information literacy users guide: An open online textbook . https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/the-information-literacy-users-guide-an-open-online-textbook/chapter/present-sharing-what-youve-learned/ ↵
- Leslie, M., Floyd, J., & Oermann, M. (2002). Use of MindMapper software for research domain mapping. Computers, informatics, nursing, 20(6), 229-235. ↵
- Early Childhood Longitudinal Program. (2011). Example research questions . https://nces.ed.gov/ecls/researchquestions2011.asp ↵
- Burnett, D. (2012). Inscribing knowledge: Writing research in social work. In W. Green & B. L. Simon (Eds.), The Columbia guide to social work writing (pp. 65-82). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. ↵
- University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. (2016). This is a derivative of Research Methods in Psychology by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution, which was originally released and is used under CC BY-NC-SA. This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License ↵
- Lamott, A. (1995). Bird by bird: Some instructions on writing and life . New York, NY: Penguin. ↵
- Green, W. Writing strategies for academic papers. In W. Green & B. L. Simon (Eds.), The Columbia guide to social work writing (pp. 25-47). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. ↵
report the results of a quantitative or qualitative data analysis conducted by the author a quick, condensed summary of the report’s key findings arranged by row and column causes a change in the dependent variable a variable that depends on changes in the independent variable (as in generalization) to make claims about a large population based on a smaller sample of people or items "Assuming that the null hypothesis is true and the study is repeated an infinite number times by drawing random samples from the same populations(s), less than 5% of these results will be more extreme than the current result" (Cassidy et al., 2019, p. 233). the assumption that no relationship exists between the variables in question “a logical grouping of attributes that can be observed and measured and is expected to vary from person to person in a population” (Gillespie & Wagner, 2018, p. 9) summarizes the incompatibility between a particular set of data and a proposed model for the data, usually the null hypothesis. The lower the p-value, the more inconsistent the data are with the null hypothesis, indicating that the relationship is statistically significant. a range of values in which the true value is likely to be, to provide a more accurate description of their data a statement about what you think is true backed up by evidence and critical thinking the words used to identify the organization and structure of your literature review to your reader what a researcher hopes to accomplish with their study Graduate research methods in social work Copyright © 2021 by Matthew DeCarlo, Cory Cummings, Kate Agnelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted. Share This BookHow to Write a Successful Literature ReviewOne type of a proposal focus is a literature review/trend analysis . This type of a proposal is somewhat different from the other proposal foci. A sample literature/trend analysis is posted at the bottom of this guide. 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, and provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works.The goal of this form of a proposal is to provide an overview of the significant trends in the literature that is published on this topic. The topics and references you include in your proposal should be purposeful and represent the key authors and arguments in that particular area of study. This necessitates that the review be consistently up to date and include the newest findings/discussions in that particular area of study or debate. Definition and use/purposeIn a literature review you may highlight a critical area of a thesis, or it may be a focused, selected review of writings on a subject with the following purposes. Each work should: - Relate to the context of its contribution to the understanding of the subject under review
- Describe / compare each work in relationship to the others in your proposal
- Identify new ways to interpret, and shed light on any gaps in, previous research
- Resolve conflicts among what is deemed as contradictory previous studies
- Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort
- Illustrate how this work can be a starting point for further research
- Highlight the relevancy of the work in the context of existing literature
The literature review itself, however, does not present new primary scholarship. What to include- An overview of the subject, issue or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review
- Division of works under review into categories (e.g. those supporting a particular position, those who have the opposite view, and those who give alternative theses entirely)
- An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others
- A conclusion . Determine which aspects are key in the debates on the topic, are most convincing, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of this particular research area.
Evaluating the data- Authority — What are the author's credentials? Is there evidence to support the author's arguments (e.g., primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings)?
- Objectivity — Does the author have a bias in the writing, or is the perspective even-handed? Does the author consider contrasting or opposing data or does he or she ignore other pertinent information in order to prove the author's point?
- Persuasiveness — Which of the author's theses are most/least convincing?
- Value — Does the author provide enough context to make the case that this is a relevant discussion in the current state of the field? Does this work make a significant contribution to create a stronger understanding of the subject?
A sample of a well-written literature review/trend analysis is available below. If you have questions, please email Cindy Winter or call her at 612-759-8580. You may also contact one of the section chairs . Family Science is a vibrant and growing discipline. Visit Family.Science to learn more and see how Family Scientists make a difference. NCFR is a nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose members support all families through research, teaching, practice, and advocacy. Get the latest updates on NCFR & Family Science in our weekly email newsletter: Connect with Us National Council on Family Relations 661 LaSalle Street, Suite 200 Saint Paul, MN 55114 Phone: (888) 781-9331 [email protected] Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy © Copyright 2023 NCFR How to Prepare a Research Proposal and Literature ReviewAll HDR candidates are required to prepare a research proposal and literature review for their first Research Progress Review. If you are a PhD candidate, this will be your Confirmation Review. Your research proposal and literature review should be a comprehensive outline of your research topic and show how you will make an original contribution to knowledge in your field. Your Review panel will use your research proposal and literature review to assess the viability of your research project, and to provide you with valuable feedback on your topic, methodology, research design, timeline and milestones. UNSW Academic Skills provides a detailed description of how to develop and structure your research proposal. Your Faculty and/or School may have particular requirements, and you should contact your Postgraduate Coordinator or your supervisor if you’re unsure of what is required. Additional ResourcesAll disciplinary areas A guide for writing thesis proposals - UNSW Academic Skills Confirmation – not as big a deal as you think it is? - the Thesis Whisperer Humanities and Social Sciences Essential ingredients of a good research proposal for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the social sciences – Raymond Talinbe Abdulai and Anthony Owusu-Ansah, SAGE Open, Jul-Sep 2014 Template for writing your PhD Confirmation document in Sociology and Anthropology - S A Hamed Hosseini Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine How to prepare a research proposal – Asya Al-Riyami, Oman Medical Journal Writing a scientific research proposal – author unknown - Find a degree
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Graduate Research School, Level 2, Rupert Myers Building (South Wing), UNSW Sydney NSW 2052 Australia Telephone +61 2 93855500 Dean of Graduate Research, Professor Jonathan Morris. UNSW CRICOS Provider Code: 00098G TEQSA Provider ID : PRV12055 ABN: 57 195 873 179 How to Write a Literature Review for a Research ProposalHannah richardson. The purpose of a literature review is to highlight a void in the research that your study will fill. The literature review answers why you should conduct your research. To answer the why behind your study, find and analyze other studies that address similar research questions, or studies that address your research question on a different level. Discuss and present your research question and how the answer you discover will fill in another piece of the puzzle in your field. Explore this article- Search: Cast a Wide Net
- Introduction: Define Your Research Question
- Body: Summarize Published Studies
- Conclusion: Present Your Why
- References: Provide Thorough Citations
1 Search: Cast a Wide NetWhether you have clearly defined your research question or not, begin your search using academic databases such as JSTOR, EBSCOhost, or ERIC. Your university library system should provide you with a login that may give you free access to articles you would normally have to pay for through these databases. Use the search feature in the academic database to search only for studies published in peer-reviewed journals. Peer-reviewed journals ensure that these studies underwent extensive scrutiny and were combed for best practices. Skim article abstracts to find studies that relate to your topic before downloading and organizing your findings. 2 Introduction: Define Your Research QuestionOnce you have combed through studies related to your topic and found a question that has yet to be answered, clearly define it in your introduction. Lead your review with this question and explain to your readers that you will demonstrate how the studies you summarize and analyze in the review do not address your specific question. Your question should address a specific population in a specific academic focus using a specific research method. For example, you could look at the effects of a reading intervention on eighth-grade students using quantitative research methods. Clearly defining your question helps define the focus of your review. 3 Body: Summarize Published StudiesThe body of your review should be organized methodically to summarize and present the findings of other studies in the field you are addressing. You could organize your findings by date, addressing older studies first and ending with the most recent. You could organize the review by topic, highlighting studies in your specific population, then academic focus, then research method. You could also move from broad studies to more specific, smaller studies, or vice versa. The findings of your search guide how you organize the literature based on the focus and volume of the studies in your chosen field. 4 Conclusion: Present Your WhyIn the conclusion of your review, restate your research question and point to how other studies addressed similar or related questions but did not answer your question for your chosen population, topic and research method. For example, point to studies that addressed the effects of your reading intervention on elementary school students but not on eighth-grade students. Or point out that a qualitative study was conducted using one subject, but your focus is a quantitative study using a much larger population sample. Convince your reader that your study will fill a void in the research that already exists. 5 References: Provide Thorough CitationsOnce you have composed the body of your review, ensure all of your citations are correctly formatted and write your references pages. APA style has clearly defined guidelines for formatting in-text citations and references. Use your APA manual for all referencing questions. However, allot extensive time to organizing all articles and building your reference pages. Ensure you have listed all authors, know the journal source for each article, and have accurate page numbers for each article. - 1 University of Wisconsin at Madison Writing Center: Learn How to Write a Review of Literature
- 2 California State University, Dominguez Hills: Sample Literature Review
- 3 Sam Houston State University: Writing a Literature Review and Proposal
About the AuthorHannah Richardson has a Master's degree in Special Education from Vanderbilt University and a Bacheor of Arts in English. She has been a writer since 2004 and wrote regularly for the sports and features sections of "The Technician" newspaper, as well as "Coastwach" magazine. Richardson also served as the co-editor-in-chief of "Windhover," an award-winning literary and arts magazine. She is currently teaching at a middle school. Related ArticlesHow to Write the Abstract for a Sociology PaperDefinition of a Background Literature SearchHow to Organize a Literature ReviewHow to Write the Introduction and Literature Review...How to Write a Topic ReportHow to Write Limitations in a ReportHow to Write a Review ReportHow to Write a Rationale for Your DissertationHow to Write a Research MethodologyHow to Come Up With a Dissertation TitleHow to Write Academic Literature ReviewsWhat is a Dissertation?How to Write a Policy AnalysisHow to Write an Evidence-Based Practice Article Review...How to Write a Critical Response EssayCharacteristics of a Comparative Research DesignHow to Form a Theoretical Study of a DissertationHow to Write a Bible Study OutlineHow to Write a Case Study EssayHow to Do a Thesis Proposal PresentationRegardless of how old we are, we never stop learning. Classroom is the educational resource for people of all ages. Whether you’re studying times tables or applying to college, Classroom has the answers. - Accessibility
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© 2020 Leaf Group Ltd. / Leaf Group Media, All Rights Reserved. Based on the Word Net lexical database for the English Language. See disclaimer . Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Writing a Research Proposal- Purpose of Guide
- Writing a Research Proposal
- Design Flaws to Avoid
- Independent and Dependent Variables
- Narrowing a Topic Idea
- Broadening a Topic Idea
- The Research Problem/Question
- Academic Writing Style
- Choosing a Title
- Making an Outline
- Paragraph Development
- The C.A.R.S. Model
- Background Information
- Theoretical Framework
- Citation Tracking
- Evaluating Sources
- Reading Research Effectively
- Primary Sources
- Secondary Sources
- What Is Scholarly vs. Popular?
- Is it Peer-Reviewed?
- Qualitative Methods
- Quantitative Methods
- Common Grammar Mistakes
- Writing Concisely
- Avoiding Plagiarism [linked guide]
- Annotated Bibliography
- Grading Someone Else's Paper
The goal of a research proposal is to present and justify the need to study a research problem and to present the practical ways in which the proposed study should be conducted. The design elements and procedures for conducting the research are governed by standards within the predominant discipline in which the problem resides, so guidelines for research proposals are more exacting and less formal than a general project proposal. Research proposals contain extensive literature reviews. They must provide persuasive evidence that a need exists for the proposed study. In addition to providing a rationale, a proposal describes detailed methodology for conducting the research consistent with requirements of the professional or academic field and a statement on anticipated outcomes and/or benefits derived from the study's completion. Krathwohl, David R. How to Prepare a Dissertation Proposal: Suggestions for Students in Education and the Social and Behavioral Sciences . Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005. How to Approach Writing a Research ProposalYour professor may assign the task of writing a research proposal for the following reasons: - Develop your skills in thinking about and designing a comprehensive research study;
- Learn how to conduct a comprehensive review of the literature to ensure a research problem has not already been answered [or you may determine the problem has been answered ineffectively] and, in so doing, become better at locating scholarship related to your topic;
- Improve your general research and writing skills;
- Practice identifying the logical steps that must be taken to accomplish one's research goals;
- Critically review, examine, and consider the use of different methods for gathering and analyzing data related to the research problem; and,
- Nurture a sense of inquisitiveness within yourself and to help see yourself as an active participant in the process of doing scholarly research.
A proposal should contain all the key elements involved in designing a completed research study, with sufficient information that allows readers to assess the validity and usefulness of your proposed study. The only elements missing from a research proposal are the findings of the study and your analysis of those results. Finally, an effective proposal is judged on the quality of your writing and, therefore, it is important that your writing is coherent, clear, and compelling. Regardless of the research problem you are investigating and the methodology you choose, all research proposals must address the following questions: - What do you plan to accomplish? Be clear and succinct in defining the research problem and what it is you are proposing to research.
- Why do you want to do it? In addition to detailing your research design, you also must conduct a thorough review of the literature and provide convincing evidence that it is a topic worthy of study. Be sure to answer the "So What?" question.
- How are you going to do it? Be sure that what you propose is doable. If you're having trouble formulating a research problem to propose investigating, go here .
Common Mistakes to Avoid - Failure to be concise; being "all over the map" without a clear sense of purpose.
- Failure to cite landmark works in your literature review.
- Failure to delimit the contextual boundaries of your research [e.g., time, place, people, etc.].
- Failure to develop a coherent and persuasive argument for the proposed research.
- Failure to stay focused on the research problem; going off on unrelated tangents.
- Sloppy or imprecise writing, or poor grammar.
- Too much detail on minor issues, but not enough detail on major issues.
Procter, Margaret. The Academic Proposal . The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Sanford, Keith. Information for Students: Writing a Research Proposal . Baylor University; Wong, Paul T. P. How to Write a Research Proposal . International Network on Personal Meaning. Trinity Western University; Writing Academic Proposals: Conferences, Articles, and Books . The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Writing a Research Proposal . University Library. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Structure and Writing StyleBeginning the Proposal Process As with writing a regular academic paper, research proposals are generally organized the same way throughout most social science disciplines. Proposals vary between ten and twenty-five pages in length. However, before you begin, read the assignment carefully and, if anything seems unclear, ask your professor whether there are any specific requirements for organizing and writing the proposal. A good place to begin is to ask yourself a series of questions: - What do I want to study?
- Why is the topic important?
- How is it significant within the subject areas covered in my class?
- What problems will it help solve?
- How does it build upon [and hopefully go beyond] research already conducted on the topic?
- What exactly should I plan to do, and can I get it done in the time available?
In general, a compelling research proposal should document your knowledge of the topic and demonstrate your enthusiasm for conducting the study. Approach it with the intention of leaving your readers feeling like--"Wow, that's an exciting idea and I can’t wait to see how it turns out!" In general your proposal should include the following sections: I. Introduction In the real world of higher education, a research proposal is most often written by scholars seeking grant funding for a research project or it's the first step in getting approval to write a doctoral dissertation. Even if this is just a course assignment, treat your introduction as the initial pitch of an idea or a thorough examination of the significance of a research problem. After reading the introduction, your readers should not only have an understanding of what you want to do, but they should also be able to gain a sense of your passion for the topic and be excited about the study's possible outcomes. Note that most proposals do not include an abstract [summary] before the introduction. Think about your introduction as a narrative written in one to three paragraphs that succinctly answers the following four questions : - What is the central research problem?
- What is the topic of study related to that problem?
- What methods should be used to analyze the research problem?
- Why is this important research, what is its significance, and why should someone reading the proposal care about the outcomes of the proposed study?
II. Background and Significance This section can be melded into your introduction or you can create a separate section to help with the organization and narrative flow of your proposal. This is where you explain the context of your proposal and describe in detail why it's important. Approach writing this section with the thought that you can’t assume your readers will know as much about the research problem as you do. Note that this section is not an essay going over everything you have learned about the topic; instead, you must choose what is relevant to help explain the goals for your study. To that end, while there are no hard and fast rules, you should attempt to address some or all of the following key points: - State the research problem and give a more detailed explanation about the purpose of the study than what you stated in the introduction. This is particularly important if the problem is complex or multifaceted .
- Present the rationale of your proposed study and clearly indicate why it is worth doing. Answer the "So What? question [i.e., why should anyone care].
- Describe the major issues or problems to be addressed by your research. Be sure to note how your proposed study builds on previous assumptions about the research problem.
- Explain how you plan to go about conducting your research. Clearly identify the key sources you intend to use and explain how they will contribute to your analysis of the topic.
- Set the boundaries of your proposed research in order to provide a clear focus. Where appropriate, state not only what you will study, but what is excluded from the study.
- If necessary, provide definitions of key concepts or terms.
III. Literature Review Connected to the background and significance of your study is a section of your proposal devoted to a more deliberate review and synthesis of prior studies related to the research problem under investigation . The purpose here is to place your project within the larger whole of what is currently being explored, while demonstrating to your readers that your work is original and innovative. Think about what questions other researchers have asked, what methods they have used, and what is your understanding of their findings and, where stated, their recommendations. Do not be afraid to challenge the conclusions of prior research. Assess what you believe is missing and state how previous research has failed to adequately examine the issue that your study addresses. For more information on writing literature reviews, GO HERE . Since a literature review is information dense, it is crucial that this section is intelligently structured to enable a reader to grasp the key arguments underpinning your study in relation to that of other researchers. A good strategy is to break the literature into "conceptual categories" [themes] rather than systematically describing groups of materials one at a time. Note that conceptual categories generally reveal themselves after you have read most of the pertinent literature on your topic so adding new categories is an on-going process of discovery as you read more studies. How do you know you've covered the key conceptual categories underlying the research literature? Generally, you can have confidence that all of the significant conceptual categories have been identified if you start to see repetition in the conclusions or recommendations that are being made. To help frame your proposal's literature review, here are the "five C’s" of writing a literature review: - Cite , so as to keep the primary focus on the literature pertinent to your research problem.
- Compare the various arguments, theories, methodologies, and findings expressed in the literature: what do the authors agree on? Who applies similar approaches to analyzing the research problem?
- Contrast the various arguments, themes, methodologies, approaches, and controversies expressed in the literature: what are the major areas of disagreement, controversy, or debate?
- Critique the literature: Which arguments are more persuasive, and why? Which approaches, findings, methodologies seem most reliable, valid, or appropriate, and why? Pay attention to the verbs you use to describe what an author says/does [e.g., asserts, demonstrates, argues, etc.] .
- Connect the literature to your own area of research and investigation: how does your own work draw upon, depart from, synthesize, or add a new perspective to what has been said in the literature?
IV. Research Design and Methods This section must be well-written and logically organized because you are not actually doing the research, yet, your reader must have confidence that it is worth pursuing . The reader will never have a study outcome from which to evaluate whether your methodological choices were the correct ones. Thus, the objective here is to convince the reader that your overall research design and methods of analysis will correctly address the problem and that the methods will provide the means to effectively interpret the potential results. Your design and methods should be unmistakably tied to the specific aims of your study. Describe the overall research design by building upon and drawing examples from your review of the literature. Consider not only methods that other researchers have used but methods of data gathering that have not been used but perhaps could be. Be specific about the methodological approaches you plan to undertake to obtain information, the techniques you would use to analyze the data, and the tests of external validity to which you commit yourself [i.e., the trustworthiness by which you can generalize from your study to other people, places, events, and/or periods of time]. When describing the methods you will use, be sure to cover the following: - Specify the research operations you will undertake and the way you will interpret the results of these operations in relation to the research problem. Don't just describe what you intend to achieve from applying the methods you choose, but state how you will spend your time while applying these methods [e.g., coding text from interviews to find statements about the need to change school curriculum; running a regression to determine if there is a relationship between campaign advertising on social media sites and election outcomes in Europe ].
- Keep in mind that a methodology is not just a list of tasks; it is an argument as to why these tasks add up to the best way to investigate the research problem. This is an important point because the mere listing of tasks to be performed does not demonstrate that, collectively, they effectively address the research problem. Be sure you explain this.
- Anticipate and acknowledge any potential barriers and pitfalls in carrying out your research design and explain how you plan to address them. No method is perfect so you need to describe where you believe challenges may exist in obtaining data or accessing information. It's always better to acknowledge this than to have it brought up by your reader.
Develop a Research Proposal: Writing the Proposal . Office of Library Information Services. Baltimore County Public Schools; Heath, M. Teresa Pereira and Caroline Tynan. “Crafting a Research Proposal.” The Marketing Review 10 (Summer 2010): 147-168; Jones, Mark. “Writing a Research Proposal.” In MasterClass in Geography Education: Transforming Teaching and Learning . Graham Butt, editor. (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), pp. 113-127; Juni, Muhamad Hanafiah. “Writing a Research Proposal.” International Journal of Public Health and Clinical Sciences 1 (September/October 2014): 229-240; Krathwohl, David R. How to Prepare a Dissertation Proposal: Suggestions for Students in Education and the Social and Behavioral Sciences . Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005; Procter, Margaret. The Academic Proposal . The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Punch, Keith and Wayne McGowan. "Developing and Writing a Research Proposal." In From Postgraduate to Social Scientist: A Guide to Key Skills . Nigel Gilbert, ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006), 59-81; Wong, Paul T. P. How to Write a Research Proposal . International Network on Personal Meaning. Trinity Western University; Writing Academic Proposals: Conferences, Articles, and Books . The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Writing a Research Proposal . University Library. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. - << Previous: Purpose of Guide
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Free Al Office Suite with PDF Editor Edit Word, Excel, and PPT for FREE. Read, edit, and convert PDFs with the powerful PDF toolkit. Microsoft-like interface, easy to use. Windows • MacOS • Linux • iOS • Android How to Write A Literature Review - Steps with ExamplesThis is something, as a student, I remember very well: writing literature reviews. They were always assigned, yet few of us knew how to write anything really impactful. For me, a good literature review is not the mere act of summarizing; rather, it is analysis, synthesis, and illumination all about discovered knowledge gaps. So let us break it down step-by-step and notice exactly how WPS Office can be used as your secret weapon in getting this one right. What is a Literature Review & What are the Parts of it? It's not a book report for adults—a literature review is a critical examination of research that is already published, which plumbs deep into the scholarly conversation around your topic. Think of it this way: you are giving a guided tour through the general intellectual landscape, and you're not only pointing at landmarks but also explaining their importance, their relations to one another, and where the unknown areas can be. The Blueprint: Introduction, Body, and Conclusion Any well-constructed literature review will be built around the clear structure of an introduction, body, and conclusion. Introduction: This is your opening act. Here you introduce your topic and lay out the central question or thesis your review will address. You might also give a sneak peek at the key themes or sources you'll be exploring, should you do a stand-alone review. This will also be a good place to explain how you picked and analyzed sources. Body: This is the meat of your review. This is where you are going to put together the information from your sources in such a way that it makes sense. Again, do not just summarize, but also include your own ideas pointing out strengths as well as weaknesses of each document and relating the different studies. You will need to write clear paragraphs with effective transitions so that your reader can easily follow through the material. Conclusion: Time to wind up: According to your literature review, there is a need to summarize the major findings and explain how they relate to your question. What are the big takeaways? What remains unanswered? Your conclusion should leave the reader with a great sense of evaluation about the present state of knowledge on a subject area and indication of where future research in this area might lead. This framework will help you to structure a good literature review. Once more, this is only a rough expectation—remember, it is not etched in the stone. While the basic structure will usefully be applied as it is for most of the assignments or projects, sometimes maybe you will need to slightly adjust it according to the concrete needs of the assignment or project. The key is the following: Your review needs to be reader-friendly and organized, and it needs to communicate clearly the research findings. How to organize the literature review [4 approaches]Now that you have collected your sources and extracted their key insights, you are well on your way to developing a well-structured story. In many ways, this is akin to choosing the appropriate lens for a camera—the literature review snaps into focus. There are four common ways to approach literature review organization: 1. Chronological: This approach is almost like a timeline of ideas. You will trace the development of a topic in chronological order, so you will center on central milestones, swings in ideas, and influential debates. 2. Thematic: View this as thematically organizing your research. This will allow exploration of the subject under study in a more systematic way. 3. By Method: If you are dealing with research that utilizes a variety of methods, then this can be a revealing approach. You will draw out comparisons and contrasts between studies based on their methodology, where appropriate, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. 4. Theoretical: This is commonly used within the humanities and social sciences, where theories are key. You will look at some of the several theoretical frameworks scholars have reached for to grasp your topic at hand, debating their strengths, limitations, and how they relate to each other. The best approach for you will depend on what kind of research question you're asking and the body of literature involved. Don't be afraid to experiment and find the structure that works the best. You could also use a combination in your approach—like a primarily thematic approach with chronological elements there to help provide additional context for each theme. How to Write a Literature Review Faster in 3 StepsThis type of strategic planning and effecting proper organization distinguishes an efficient literature review. The process of streamlining it is as follows: Step 1: Gathering and Evaluating Relevant Sources Research credible sources on academic databases like Google Scholar. Use specific keywords in order to find recent and influential publications that contribute to the topic at hand. Appraise every source according to your criteria of relevance and credibility. Step 2: Identification of Themes and Literature Analysis Skim through your selected sources in the search for emerging themes, debates, or gaps in the literature. Secondly, summarize key findings and methodologies for each source. Find the patterns or recurrent discussion which will help you categorize your review well and organize it. Step 3: Outline and Structure Your Literature Review Devise a clear structure for your literature review: introduce the topic and the thesis in the introduction, develop sources cohesively in the body, and summarize key findings in the conclusion. You could make use of organizational strategies such as chronological, thematic, methodological, or theoretical in representing your topic. Use tools like WPS Office to plan your literature review and keep all of your sources well-organized. This will save you much time and guarantee that your literature review stays organized while you remain focused on your research objectives. Remember: Do not simply list and summarize, but analyze and synthesize. Your literature review is not just a compilation of sources but one that critically relates the strengths and weaknesses of each piece of research, identifies the important debates in the area under consideration, and makes links between diverse pieces of research. WPS AI can help you to do this, through its identification of key terms, concepts, and relationships within the literature. Bonus Tips: How to Perfect your Literature Review with WPS AIWant WPS AI to be that magic weapon to help you make an extraordinary literature review? Here is how this intelligent assistant will supercharge your effort. Annotation and Highlighting: WPS AI permits direct annotation and highlighting of parts of interest within its software. This is quite useful to facilitate the marking of key findings, interesting quotes, or even areas in which authors have differed. By annotating through WPS AI, all critical points will be easy to refer to while you compose your review. This WPS AI summarization tool will give you a condensed version of the long article or paper. It saves time by putting together exactly what the point or argument is from each source. On this, you will have a digest of several studies at your fingertips. This helps you easily compare and synthesize in your literature review. Writing Assistance: Use WPS AI's writing tools to build your literature review section. These allow you to check the grammar, refine the sentence structure, work on the text length, and basically improve clarity. With these, you then ensure that it is well-written and easy for the readers to understand. Build in these WPS AI features into your process of writing a literature review for refining workflow and bringing about a polished and insightful review that answers to academic standards. FAQs about writing a literature reviewQ1. what is the step before writing a literature review. You must choose a topic, research existing literature, gather sources, determine themes, and make a defined scope of review before you begin writing your literature review. Q2. Where should the literature review be placed within a dissertation?Place the literature review after the introduction and before the methodology section of your dissertation. Q3. Why do we need to write literature reviews?Literature reviews would hence be a summary of earlier research on a topic, identification of gaps, building a context for fresh research, and devising credibility in an academic writing. A literature review is one of the most critical steps of any research project. This aids in the placement of knowledge, pointing out the gaps, and placing one's research in a certain field. With accurate tools and strategies,or msg like WPS Office and WPS AI, the process can be streamlined in the production of quality literature reviews. - 1. ThinkFree Office Write Review: Features, Review and Download
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15 years of office industry experience, tech lover and copywriter. Follow me for product reviews, comparisons, and recommendations for new apps and software. Title Page SetupA title page is required for all APA Style papers. There are both student and professional versions of the title page. Students should use the student version of the title page unless their instructor or institution has requested they use the professional version. APA provides a student title page guide (PDF, 199KB) to assist students in creating their title pages. Student title pageThe student title page includes the paper title, author names (the byline), author affiliation, course number and name for which the paper is being submitted, instructor name, assignment due date, and page number, as shown in this example. Title page setup is covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Section 2.3 and the Concise Guide Section 1.6 Related handouts- Student Title Page Guide (PDF, 263KB)
- Student Paper Setup Guide (PDF, 3MB)
Student papers do not include a running head unless requested by the instructor or institution. Follow the guidelines described next to format each element of the student title page. | | | Paper title | Place the title three to four lines down from the top of the title page. Center it and type it in bold font. Capitalize of the title. Place the main title and any subtitle on separate double-spaced lines if desired. There is no maximum length for titles; however, keep titles focused and include key terms. | | Author names | Place one double-spaced blank line between the paper title and the author names. Center author names on their own line. If there are two authors, use the word “and” between authors; if there are three or more authors, place a comma between author names and use the word “and” before the final author name. | Cecily J. Sinclair and Adam Gonzaga | Author affiliation | For a student paper, the affiliation is the institution where the student attends school. Include both the name of any department and the name of the college, university, or other institution, separated by a comma. Center the affiliation on the next double-spaced line after the author name(s). | Department of Psychology, University of Georgia | Course number and name | Provide the course number as shown on instructional materials, followed by a colon and the course name. Center the course number and name on the next double-spaced line after the author affiliation. | PSY 201: Introduction to Psychology | Instructor name | Provide the name of the instructor for the course using the format shown on instructional materials. Center the instructor name on the next double-spaced line after the course number and name. | Dr. Rowan J. Estes | Assignment due date | Provide the due date for the assignment. Center the due date on the next double-spaced line after the instructor name. Use the date format commonly used in your country. | October 18, 2020 18 October 2020 | | Use the page number 1 on the title page. Use the automatic page-numbering function of your word processing program to insert page numbers in the top right corner of the page header. | 1 | Professional title pageThe professional title page includes the paper title, author names (the byline), author affiliation(s), author note, running head, and page number, as shown in the following example. Follow the guidelines described next to format each element of the professional title page. | | | Paper title | Place the title three to four lines down from the top of the title page. Center it and type it in bold font. Capitalize of the title. Place the main title and any subtitle on separate double-spaced lines if desired. There is no maximum length for titles; however, keep titles focused and include key terms. | | Author names | Place one double-spaced blank line between the paper title and the author names. Center author names on their own line. If there are two authors, use the word “and” between authors; if there are three or more authors, place a comma between author names and use the word “and” before the final author name. | Francesca Humboldt | When different authors have different affiliations, use superscript numerals after author names to connect the names to the appropriate affiliation(s). If all authors have the same affiliation, superscript numerals are not used (see Section 2.3 of the for more on how to set up bylines and affiliations). | Tracy Reuter , Arielle Borovsky , and Casey Lew-Williams | Author affiliation | For a professional paper, the affiliation is the institution at which the research was conducted. Include both the name of any department and the name of the college, university, or other institution, separated by a comma. Center the affiliation on the next double-spaced line after the author names; when there are multiple affiliations, center each affiliation on its own line. | Department of Nursing, Morrigan University | When different authors have different affiliations, use superscript numerals before affiliations to connect the affiliations to the appropriate author(s). Do not use superscript numerals if all authors share the same affiliations (see Section 2.3 of the for more). | Department of Psychology, Princeton University Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University | Author note | Place the author note in the bottom half of the title page. Center and bold the label “Author Note.” Align the paragraphs of the author note to the left. For further information on the contents of the author note, see Section 2.7 of the . | n/a | | The running head appears in all-capital letters in the page header of all pages, including the title page. Align the running head to the left margin. Do not use the label “Running head:” before the running head. | Prediction errors support children’s word learning | | Use the page number 1 on the title page. Use the automatic page-numbering function of your word processing program to insert page numbers in the top right corner of the page header. | 1 | |
COMMENTS
A literature review is needed to develop your research proposal, refine your methodology and analysis and is essential for writing up your research findings. It is important to understand the difference between a literature review and a review of the literature as an introduction for a research study.
A literature review is a survey of scholarly knowledge on a topic. Our guide with examples, video, and templates can help you write yours.
A literature review is a comprehensive analysis of existing research on a topic, identifying trends, gaps, and insights to inform new scholarly contributions. Read this comprehensive article to learn how to write a literature review, with examples.
Writing 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 (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say "literature review" or ...
Learn how to write a literature review in three straightforward steps. Includes free literature review templates and resources.
15 Literature Review Examples. Literature reviews are a necessary step in a research process and often required when writing your research proposal. They involve gathering, analyzing, and evaluating existing knowledge about a topic in order to find gaps in the literature where future studies will be needed. Ideally, once you have completed your ...
INTRODUCTION Whatever stage you are at in your academic life, you will have to review the literature and write about it. You will be asked to do this as a student when you write essays, dissertations and theses. Later, whenever you write an academic paper, there will usually be some element of literature review in the introduction. And if you have to write a grant application, you will be ...
You need to follow the below-mentioned steps, to write a literature review: 1. Outline and identify the purpose of a literature review. As a first step on how to write a literature review, you must know what the research question or topic is and what shape you want your literature review to take.
A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research. There are five key steps to writing a literature review: Search for relevant literature. Evaluate sources. Identify themes, debates and gaps.
In this video, we walk you through an A-grade literature review from a dissertation that earned full distinction. We start off by discussing the five core sections of a literature review chapter by unpacking our free literature review template. This includes: The literature review opening/ introduction section The theoretical framework (or foundation of theory) The empirical research The ...
How to write a literature review for a research proposal. For your thesis or dissertation proposal, get a detailed guide on writing a literature review.
Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7]. In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights ...
A research proposal aims to show why your project is worthwhile. It should explain the context, objectives, and methods of your research.
Demonstrate your knowledge of the research topic. Identify the gaps in the literature and show how your research links to these. Provide the foundation for your conceptual framework (if you have one) Inform your own methodology and research design. To achieve this, your literature review needs a well-thought-out structure.
A literature review is a critical evaluation and summary of published research studies and other sources relevant to a particular research topic. The purpose of a literature review is to identify and evaluate the existing knowledge on a topic, as well as to identify any gaps in the knowledge base that the proposed research aims to fill.
Stand-alone review: provide an overview and analysis of the current state of research on a topic or question Research proposal: explicate the current issues and questions concerning a topic to demonstrate how your proposed research will contribute to the field Research report: provide the context to which your work is a contribution.
How To Write a Research Proposal. Writing a Research proposal involves several steps to ensure a well-structured and comprehensive document. Here is an explanation of each step: 1. Title and Abstract. Choose a concise and descriptive title that reflects the essence of your research. Write an abstract summarizing your research question ...
A literature review is a methodical examination of the published literature on a specific topic or research question, aimed at analyzing rather than merely summarizing scholarly works relevant to your research.It includes literature that offers background on your topic and demonstrates how it aligns with your research question.
Content of a proposal for a thesis or any research project. What do you call this investigation? What problem or area will you investigate in general? Why is this problem important to investigate? What was previously done in relation to this problem? What were some of the significant studies? (Literature review)
Look at your professor's prompt for the literature review component of your research proposal (or if you don't have one, use the example question provided in this section). Write 2-3 facts you would use to address each question or component in the prompt.
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, and provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works.The goal of this form of a proposal is to provide an overview of the significant trends in the literature that is published on this topic.
Your research proposal and literature review should be a comprehensive outline of your research topic and show how you will make an original contribution to knowledge in your field. Your Review panel will use your research proposal and literature review to assess the viability of your research project, and to provide you with valuable feedback on your topic, methodology, research design ...
PDF | This presentation is to help students address problems of presentation of their literature review sections in their proposals and thesis | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ...
The purpose of a literature review is to highlight a void in the research that your study will fill. The literature review answers why you should conduct your research. To answer the *why* behind your study, find and analyze other studies that address similar research questions, or studies that address your research ...
To help frame your proposal's literature review, here are the "five C's" of writing a literature review: Cite, so as to keep the primary focus on the literature pertinent to your research problem.
A research proposal is a short piece of academic writing that outlines the research a graduate student intends to carry out. It starts by explaining why the research will be helpful or necessary, then describes the steps of the potential research and how the research project would add further knowledge to the field of study.
This comprehensive guide explores how to write an effective literature review, complete with practical examples and expert tips using WPS Office in 2024.
The student title page includes the paper title, author names (the byline), author affiliation, course number and name for which the paper is being submitted, instructor name, assignment due date, and page number, as shown in this example.