Undergrad Dissertation- Major literature review confusion??

[MW2012]

Hello all, 

This is the first time i'm posting here, so be nice please.

I got a question, I'm working on my undergraduate dissertation in International relations and I think I got a good topic, at least that is what my academical adviser told me. I was nice and confident about it and he told me to start off with the literature review. And this is where I stalled and crashed. Since my dissertation is 99% based on secondary sources (AKA academic literature) wont reviewing the literature in the beginning completely rob me of arguments as I progress? My topic is "How has Islamic ideology really affected Turkish foreign policy?". There are many academic sources talking about this, so writing a literature review should be easy. The problem is that I was going to use those sources to make and counter arguments as I progressed. 

I don't know, I'm a bit confused. My adviser told me that I could talk in the literature review about the wider debate on whether or not political Islam affects a Muslim country's foreign policy and how. 

 

Does it sound like a good idea?

Any tips/advices? 

Cheers, 

 

-Matt

[IRToni]

Hi!

 

Welcome!

Sorry for the late reply

I'm in IR as well. What I've read (and done myself), is literature reviews that were adjacent to the topic, and that helped place the research undertaken in the broader debate (and/or explain it better).

 

For your topic, political islam in mulim country's foreign policy would indeed be one good option, I believe. Another option could be to review the literature on Turkish foreign policy decision-making, I think, especially if your arguments rely on some of that. Both of these would place your research in some debate, and also not take anything away from your real arguments.

 

Which one to choose depends on the thrust of your arguments, I believe. Would you consider your paper to be more about Turkey and Turkish foreign policy, or more of a case study on the role of political Islam in foreign policy?

 

Hope this helped.

[yannao]

Hey Matt!

 

I just had to write my first lit review last semester and it completely stressed me out as well. I get where you're coming from, and it definitely felt rather counter intuitive the entire time I was working on it. But looking back now, it's starting to make a lot more sense.

 

So a lit review is less about analyzing the content and more about methodology. What key questions are the authors' addressing? What types of sources and evidence are they using to support their claims? Are there any key works that everyone seems to keep referencing? Are any of the authors' in dialogue with one another? Are there key questions that are being left out, that people aren't asking?

 

What you're supposed to be doing with a lit review is getting a feel for your field/topic and seeing how people have analyzed it before you. This way you can identify the holes in scholarship, the points that aren't clear, or haven't been talked about. That's where your own work then comes in, as you attempt to fill in those gaps or correct what you perceive to be an incorrect assumption that has been made.

 

Dunno if any of this helped, but best of luck on your thesis!

 

Anna

[jmu]

First, don't panic!

 

Second, I'm in geography which is a related, but different discipline (what isn't related to geography, though?) so I'm not sure what specifically your thesis entails but I can offer you some advice from my perspective. I'm in a similar position where my thesis is primarily a review of the existing literature in a few topics to form a cohesive picture that answers my thesis question. Since my thesis does not have any kind of formal length or structure requirements, I'm writing it in the form of an academic paper. Based on this I tried to find some critical lit reviews that had been published to see how they were formatted and really loved this piece on Africa (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343467) as he was able to review the literature and have a clear, concise topic. Using that as a model, I'm writing mine in the same manner.

 

This might not work for you, but maybe exploding that model out to fit a more traditional undergrad thesis would.

 

Good luck!