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There are many ways to describe the process of researching a topic for a paper or a project.
This description of the research process consists of ten actions across five stages. This process is cyclical and creative, not linear. Continue to adjust your terms, tools, and questions throughout the process and move back and forth across stages and actions as you explore your topic and find out new information.
Understand your assignment and timeline, and think about and write down the questions you'll be asking while you do your research. You may be asked to turn in a topic proposal for class, and this stage helps you complete your proposal.
Brainstorm the concepts, topics, and phrases you'll use to search for source material, and think about and choose the databases, websites, or other places you'll search.
Explore and search in the databases or other places you've chosen while developing your plan. Look through other databases or sites as new questions arise. Collect more sources than are required for your paper or project. Evaluate and select your sources. Take your time in this stage, and search again for different sources, if needed.
Read your selected sources carefully, taking notes while you do so. Read critically. Answer your existing questions and come up with new questions. Search again, if needed, so you can fill any gaps in knowledge and satisfy your curiosity about your topic.
Create your product, whether it's a research paper, a poster, a presentation, or something else. Draft your citations, and check your product against your assignment requirements. Edit your draft, proofread, incorporate feedback and turn it in.
So, you've got a paper due and now you have to start researching. What do you do? Where do you go? How do you use any information you find?
This image makes research look neat and orderly, but typically, it isn't. You may repeat steps, perform these steps in a different order, or think you've finished a step only to realize you haven't.
Good news, though: research is a skill, which means the more you practice, the better you get. And, the library is here to help.
Google is pretty great... just not for everything. We recommend using Google to gather ideas and background information about your topic and then using library databases to find the scholarly information you'll actually use in your papers. Here's why:
Databases have information Google doesn't. The Libraries pays millions of dollars for scholarly information that's locked away behind "paywalls" if you're using Google.
Databases prioritize credibility. Google's algorithms emphasize popularity, relevance, and easily digestible information, instead of providing the best, most credible information for your research.
Databases are more precise. Library databases have specialized search options that take some getting used to but can help you find relevant articles faster.
Want more explanation? Watch this Google vs. the Library video .
A study of 137 leaders and their direct reports during the early stages of Covid-19 shows that men were more likely to resort to abusive behavior during stressful moments.
One of the oldest erroneous gender stereotypes is that women are too emotional to be effective leaders, especially in uncertain times. Contrary to this belief, research on 137 leader-report pairs in Europe during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic indicates that women may actually be less likely to let their emotions negatively influence their leadership behaviors compared to men. During this time, women leaders reported higher anxiety levels but did not translate these emotions into abusive behaviors, unlike their male counterparts who exhibited more hostile supervision when anxious. Women typically engaged in family-supportive behaviors regardless of their emotional state. The research emphasizes the importance of recognizing the unique strengths women bring to leadership roles, especially their capacity to lead compassionately and prioritize others, but also notes that caring leadership behaviors are evaluated differently based on the gender of the leader. The study calls for more inclusive research that addresses diverse gender identities and cultural contexts.
One of the oldest and most persistent gender stereotypes is that women are too emotional. This stereotype hurts women’s leadership prospects as they are seen as less fit for leader roles because they are perceived to be more likely to make irrational, emotion-driven decisions than men.
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Methodology
Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.
What is a literature review? 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 that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .
There are five key steps to writing a literature review:
A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.
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What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.
When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:
Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.
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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.
You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.
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Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .
If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .
Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.
Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:
You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.
Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.
You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.
For each publication, ask yourself:
Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.
You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.
As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.
It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.
To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:
This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.
There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).
The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.
Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.
If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.
For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.
If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:
A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.
You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.
Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.
The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.
Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.
As you write, you can follow these tips:
In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.
When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !
This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.
Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.
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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.
Statistics
Research bias
A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .
It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.
There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:
Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.
The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .
A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .
An annotated bibliography is a list of source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a paper .
If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.
McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved September 16, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/
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A new report commissioned by a labor-backed group is examining a problem many Democrats might rather ignore: the exodus of working-class voters from the party they used to call home.
Republicans under former President Donald Trump have been making inroads in the working class, including among Black and Hispanic voters , while Democrats have been gaining suburban moderates and highly educated professionals that used to vote Republican.
“Increasingly, Republicans are the party of working class people,” Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, said during a recent podcast interview, while noting that CEOs and other wealthy professionals have shifted toward Democrats .
Some voices on the left have downplayed the significance or even denied the loss of working class voters, but the data is increasingly clear and signs of realignment are everywhere .
“I’ve watched as MAGA flags have encroached into my community, which used to be a solid deep-blue working-class suburb of New York made of ethnic whites and people of color,” said Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, a labor-backed group that aims to organize a multiracial working-class coalition. “Republicans are making inroads into the working class, and it’s not just white working class people.”
A nonprofit offshoot of Working Families embarked on an extensive research project last year to try to take an honest accounting of Democrats’ problems with working-class voters and find effective messages for the Democratic presidential campaign and others. The group shared its findings exclusively with NBC News.
“We take the right wing and Republican Party seriously when they say they want to be the party of the working class,” Mitchell said. “And as much as Democrats are interested in organizing working-class people, and we don’t deny their sincerity, we wanted to start with a grounded place that provides the most accurate picture.”
The effort started with an attempt to better understand the working class of the 21st century by creating a more nuanced definition of the demographic and breaking it down into seven values-based typologies. Those categories were based on a battery of 40 questions put to more than 5,000 participants in surveys conducted with HIT Strategies, a Democratic research firm.
The conclusions, laid out in a 60-page research report and accompanying 23-page political handbook , was shared for the first time this week in a virtual meeting with 160 representatives of left-leaning organizations and labor unions.
Too often, the report argues, working-class voters are thought of as white men without college degrees, likely involved in a trade like plumbing. In reality, the working class includes men and women of all races who work in trades and in the service sector as waiters, retail clerks, nurses and medical assistants, customer service representatives, hairdressers, IT techs, social workers, teachers, gambling dealers, dental hygienists, warehouse workers and more.
The result is a novel approach to analyze the working class, which the report says represents about 63% of the electorate.
“The working class represents a gigantic share of the electorate. Yet ideological differences within the working class are almost never explored in any systematic way,” the report states.
Educational attainment and income have traditionally been used to define the demographic, but the report incorporates more detailed metrics like occupational category, so that a bartender or teacher with a college degree does not automatically get sorted into the middle class, while a successful business owner without a college degree , like a car dealer or franchise owner, does not automatically get categorized as a working-class voter.
The report sorted people into seven subtypes, each of roughly equal size, arranged on the ideological spectrum from “Next Gen Left” to “Core MAGA,” but the research is especially interested in the four groups in the middle that it says are “cross-pressured,” with values that are best represented in both parties.
Those groups include “Tuned Out Persuadables,” “Anti Woke Traditionalists,” “Diverse Disaffected Conservatives” and “Secure Suburbans.”
The cohorts may look different demographically, but more importantly, they’re sorted by their feelings about economic, social and cultural issues. The key to reaching these cross-pressured sections of the working class, according to the report, is different depending on what messages resonate with each subgroup.
For instance, the research found that populist economic messages about taking on corporations and “big money” in politics are generally popular across the working class, while less effective messages included focusing on the Biden-Harris administration’s work on climate and infrastructure or on Harris’ potential to make history as the first woman president.
If nothing else, Mitchell hopes the research will push Democrats to take seriously the erosion with working class voters and to move beyond one-size-fits all stereotypes when thinking about how to talk to working-class voters.
“It’s not helpful to flatten working-class people into one monolith,” said Mitchell.
Alex Seitz-Wald is a senior political reporter for NBC News.
COMMENTS
In this article I will show you how to write a research paper using the four LEAP writing steps. The LEAP academic writing approach is a step-by-step method for turning research results into a published paper.
Research Report is a written document that presents the results of a research project or study, including the research question, methodology, results, and conclusions, in a clear and objective manner.
Follow our step-by-step guide to write the perfect research paper, from brainstorming ideas all the way to the revision process.
This article takes you through the first steps of the research process, helping you narrow down your ideas and build up a strong foundation for your research project.
In this section, we look at how to write an APA-style empirical research report, an article that presents the results of one or more new studies. Recall that the standard sections of an empirical research report provide a kind of outline. Here we consider each of these sections in detail, including what information it contains, how that information is formatted and organized, and tips for ...
3 Do the Research Steps 1 and 2 will guide your research for this report. You may need to report on other research on a particular topic or do some research of your own. Keep referring to your analysis and rough plan while you are doing your research to ensure that you remain on track.
This review covers the basic elements of a research report. This is a general guide for what you will see in journal articles or dissertations. This format assumes a mixed methods study, but you can leave out either quantitative or qualitative sections if you only used a single methodology.
A research report is a well-crafted document that outlines the processes, data, and findings of a systematic investigation. It is an important document that serves as a first-hand account of the research process, and it is typically considered an objective and accurate source of information.
In this guide we concisely explain how to write an academic research paper step by step. We'll cover areas like how to start a research paper, how to write a research paper outline, how to use citations and evidence, and how to write a conclusion for a research paper.
Learn how to write a high-quality research paper in three straightforward steps. Includes loads of practical examples and a free template.
Research reports are recorded data prepared by researchers or statisticians after analyzing information gather by conducting organized research. Learn all about research reports definition, components, and tips on writing research reports.
Need help writing a research paper? Our step-by-step guide offers tips and tricks for crafting a fantastic document and ensuring it stands out.
Basic steps in the research process. Conducting a literature review. Designing the research project. Collecting and analyzing data. Interpretation, conclusion and presentation of findings. Key principles for conducting research.
How to Prepare and Plan Out Writing a Research Paper Teachers can give their students a step-by-step guide like these to help them understand the different steps of the research paper process.
The introduction to a research paper presents your topic, provides background, and details your research problem.
It focuses on the problems that arise in the writing of a particular type of research report. Many people who write reports of empirical research studies also write theoretical papers, methodological papers, position papers, book reviews, or other types of articles.
This short guide, developed by Issues & Controversies, summarizes the necessary steps for writing a research paper, including choosing a topic & thesis statement and conducting research, and provides useful starting points for these steps. Online Course - Research Basics.
A research paper is a piece of academic writing that provides analysis, interpretation, and argument based on in-depth independent research.
15 Steps to Good Research Define and articulate a research question (formulate a research hypothesis). How to Write a Thesis Statement (Indiana University) Identify possible sources of information in many types and formats. Georgetown University Library's Research & Course Guides Judge the scope of the project.
Learn about report structures and how to write an effective report, no matter the type, in these easy-to-follow steps, from researching, drafting, proofreading and more.
Research Process Steps Research Process Steps are as follows: Identify the Research Question or Problem This is the first step in the research process. It involves identifying a problem or question that needs to be addressed. The research question should be specific, relevant, and focused on a particular area of interest. Conduct a Literature Review Once the research question has been ...
A research report is an end product of research. As earlier said that report writing provides useful information in arriving at rational decisions that may reform the business and society. The findings, conclusions, suggestions and recommendations are useful to academicians, scholars and policymakers.
7 Steps to a Successful Research Report Help your child produce his best work yet with this simple process.
This description of the research process consists of ten actions across five stages. This process is cyclical and creative, not linear. Continue to adjust your terms, tools, and questions throughout the process and move back and forth across stages and actions as you explore your topic and find out new information.
This image makes research look neat and orderly, but typically, it isn't. You may repeat steps, perform these steps in a different order, or think you've finished a step only to realize you haven't. Good news, though: research is a skill, which means the more you practice, the better you get. And, the library is here to help.
One of the oldest erroneous gender stereotypes is that women are too emotional to be effective leaders, especially in uncertain times. Contrary to this belief, research on 137 leader-report pairs ...
The 2023 Report Card, representing HEDIS MY 2022, was the final year for organizations to earn the Distinction. ... Public Reporting - An Essential Step Toward Progress. ... resources and events to keep you updated on emerging trends and research impacting health care quality. Email Additional info (optional) Related Articles. Research
Summary. In the Fiscal Year 2023 Omnibus Spending Bill, the U.S. Congress directed the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to "conduct a comprehensive set of studies that calculate the morbidity, readmission, and mortality related to sepsis with respect to pediatrics, maternal sepsis, nursing home care, and rehabilitation, and the association of pandemic-related changes in the ...
Step 1 - Search for relevant literature Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic. If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions. Literature review research question example What is the impact of social media on body image among Generation Z ...
The conclusions, laid out in a 60-page research report and accompanying 23-page political handbook, was shared for the first time this week in a virtual meeting with 160 representatives of left ...