Different Scenarios/issues in Research and how to tackle them.

[Sicilian]

Hello everyone,

I am an Asperger's person who is also an ADHD; I am linguistically intelligent; I love sitting-still, reading, writing, and expanding my knowledge, but I, often, get bogged down at some points or fail at finding precise content for literature review. I am differently hardwired; I struggle with implied things, I hyper-focus when I should not, and I do not focus when I should. Irregularities cut my circuit short. I learn slower than others, but when I learn something it becomes mesmerizing eventually, but I don't have the quick and intuitive start many people enjoy. I always end up being excellent at things, but next fall, I will be studying Political Science, International Relations, and I want to work efficiently.

The literature review part of research is mysterious to me; I noticed that scholars tend to keep ideas of the LR implicit so as to be understood only by scholars in the field, but that does not help new people, like me, get a grasp of what literature review is NOT. I know that LR is about citing others conclusions, relevant studies, ... etc, but again, I have difficulty knowing what literature review is NOT and how to deal with its irregularities.

The reason for my question is that not all research thesis and questions have enough/clear/precise/direct-to-the-point content to include in the literature review to eventually run a research in a regular way; there are irregularities; What to do in this case? Do I cite the closest points to my topic even if they seem far from it? spending hours looking through books to get something relevant to my topic makes me lose energy and hope. Are there efficient techniques/strategies for looking through books and journals to find the content I am looking for? Are there any tips as to what and what not to include in the literature review? What different scenarios/problems they may face? And how to tackle these problems.  I know research is not hard as some people finish three 20-page papers in one semester, but I don't get it. Some others, double major in their master's endeavors.

Many professors and colleagues seem to keep things to themselves, but that does not help beginners. Many students suffice with doing like what other scholars do, but I prefer to know why they do things the way they do them? I don't feel comfortable imitating others as I know that, at some point, missing blocks will expose that I was just imitating and that I was not a genuine researcher.

 

[TwirlingBlades]

A literature review does NOT consist of straight summaries of the articles you are referencing. This is a common mistake with new graduate students and undergrads. A lit review should be a comprehensive overview of the relevant topics and methods that your research article/thesis is going to be about/using. The studies will be referenced to strengthen your review.

Going back a bit:

Research is usually based off of holes in the current research, or retesting protocols for reliability. A good place to start finding a specific research topic/question is by reading research articles relevant to the overarching topics and reading the “future research” part of the conclusion. You can use those articles with relevant conclusions to write your literature review. You can then flesh out your methods and read more articles that cover relevant topics and methods. 

It’s better to read and reference more articles and pair them down later than have too few references. 

You can also keep adding to your literature review in the process of conducting research. Methods, scope, and even specific topic can change over the course of research. I suggest keeping your references in categories so you can easily sort through them. If you read back through your manuscript and you talk about something that is not referenced in your introduction, it may be something that could be added to your intro/lit review.

I’m not sure if this helped, or if I completely missed your question, but lit reviews are my fave so please comment or PM me with more questions. I can also give specific examples if needed!

Edited May 8, 2019 by TwirlingBlades

[Meraki]

I agree with what @TwirlingBlades suggests. I would like to state though that there are two types of literature reviews you might be referencing.

First, there is a paper that in itself is a review of the literature and has no empirical study. It serves to identity either all research on a given topic (a systematic literature review), or the most significant studies relating to a given topic. These kinds of papers are meant to compare and contrast various findings on a topic, identify the strengths and the limitations of this research, and identify gaps that still need to be explored in future research. These are true literature reviews, but they take that extra step to offer a thoughtful critique of the review. For this kind of review, I suggest finding a review paper in your field in a top journal and study it. They usually have "A Review of..." or something similar in the title. Dissect each paragraph and note what it contributes to the overall goal of the paper. The paper's purpose is usually clearly stated early in the introduction, and summarized in the discussion. After reading a few, you should start to see themes in what the authors are trying to accomplish, even if the reviews are on different topics.

Second, there is the literature review section of an empirical paper. This usually follows the introduction and leads up to the hypothesis development section, although it isn't always called the "literature review" - it could be the "theoretical background" or something similar. This isn't really a review the way I discussed above. Rather, this section identifies research on your topic that is directly related to your research question, which gives the reader an understanding of why the topic is important, where the gaps are that you hope to fill with your research, and connects to your hypotheses in a clear and convincing way. Again, I suggest looking at a few empirical papers and dissecting the lit review/theory sections.

The best way to learn how to write a lit review is to practice writing them and get feedback from faculty and more experienced peers. It takes time to get a feel for it, and it gets easier as you gain expertise on a topic and know what you want to say (and can easily cite your point) without having to go out and read through a bunch of articles to find a relevant point.

It's also important to be very organized, as this will help you work efficiently. I think there's a thread on this forum if you search for literature reviews where people shared their processes; someone suggested a Google Docs form, others use Excel spreadsheets, others use programs like Mendeley or EndNote, which can be super efficient when citing sources. 

The other bit of advice I have is learning how to "read" books and articles without actually reading everything, or even most of it. Everyone has different methods, but I suggest looking at some videos or articles on how to read journals articles and books. Some people just skim abstracts to see if an article is relevant; others will skip the theory section and just look briefly at the methods and then the results. Others only read the intro and discussion. It depends on what you're looking for, and again, you'll get better at this with time. Once you've identified articles that are relevant to your paper, you can sort them by topic, method, or whatever category you'd like and then dig in a little deeper. This is separate from my suggestions above to dissect literature reviews; in that suggestion, I recommend reading line-by-line through at least a few papers to note patterns, whereas doing an actual literature review for your own paper should involve the latter suggestion for skimming and sorting. 

 

On 5/5/2019 at 5:57 AM, Sicilian said:

The reason for my question is that not all research thesis and questions have enough/clear/precise/direct-to-the-point content to include in the literature review to eventually run a research in a regular way; there are irregularities; What to do in this case?

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean by irregularities. Do you mean that you can't always find articles to support what you want to say? Sometimes you may need to make logical arguments using relevant studies and then draw your own conclusions, perhaps using an example to illustrate a point that isn't directly supported by a research study. I'm not sure if that is what you meant or if that helps. 

 

On 5/5/2019 at 5:57 AM, Sicilian said:

I know research is not hard as some people finish three 20-page papers in one semester, but I don't get it.

It's true that we may knock out three 20-page papers per semester, but it's definitely not easy. I think a lot of students feel the way you do in the beginning, and have no idea if those three 20-page papers are any good. When you look back on your early work a few years later, you'll definitely think they weren't good ? But it is a learning process, and you get better through practice.

 

On 5/5/2019 at 5:57 AM, Sicilian said:

Many professors and colleagues seem to keep things to themselves, but that does not help beginners. Many students suffice with doing like what other scholars do, but I prefer to know why they do things the way they do them? I don't feel comfortable imitating others as I know that, at some point, missing blocks will expose that I was just imitating and that I was not a genuine researcher.

It might begin as imitation, but at some point things will "click" and you'll realize the value of doing things a certain way, so that it becomes strategic rather than imitation. Again, this comes with time and practice. There really is no quick and easy way to learn to write literature reviews. I haven't seen any good books or articles on it that go beyond what is discussed in this thread. In my program, we're mostly taught to evaluate others' works and discuss why they did things, rather than just be told why. You'll learn from your peers as well as your faculty. Don't feel like you're behind the ball because you don't understand the lit review right now. Every first-year student I've known has had these exact same concerns, and one day they just start to get it. Seek out as much feedback as you can on your work and join in class discussions, and you will be fine.