How to do a lit review. What's your workflow?

[hejduk]

Haven't done a lit review in years, and here I am staring at this insurmountable stack of articles. What is your process for writing a lit review? Really just looking for opinions and advice on how everyone tackles this beast of a challenge:

Do I get my articles first and then synthesize the main points?

Do you make an outline of the arguments you think are relevent, and then plug in the lit to support those arguments?

I'm in the social sciences, but surely lit reviews follow the same format amongst the different disciplines?

[Hopin'-n-Prayin']

For me, I start with the most recent works and I'm trying to accomplish two things: What is the author's argument (one to two sentence summary) and what works/scholars does the author rely on.

I do this so I can identify the major common threads and themes which the articles fit into and I can identify the significant works and scholars which I will build my historiography (thats what us history types call a lit review) around. In other words, who said it and what did they say.

Once I've done that I can more clearly see how the literature is best summarized.

[hejduk]

For me, I start with the most recent works and I'm trying to accomplish two things: What is the author's argument (one to two sentence summary) and what works/scholars does the author rely on.

I do this so I can identify the major common threads and themes which the articles fit into and I can identify the significant works and scholars which I will build my historiography (thats what us history types call a lit review) around. In other words, who said it and what did they say.

Once I've done that I can more clearly see how the literature is best summarized.

So you go through and do this for each article? Are you reading articles in thier entirety, or just mostly the abstract, intro & conclusion?

After reading the articles, you have some themes/concepts that are relevant to your topic, and then you organize those themes into some type of order, and then basically plug in stuff from the article under the appropriate theme?

[Hopin'-n-Prayin']

As to your first question: At least until I get a feel for the common threads and themes, I will "thoroughly scan" every article. I only take this limited notes on the article. Once I have identified the seminal articles, and the different threads, then I place each article (or book) in the appropriate category and look for the one or two things that article adds to the original thread. Works great in history.

As to your second question: Date order usually works best, unless that will convolute the thematic distillation of the literature (which it often does). In this case, I will layout the thematic and ID the seminal works for each in an introductory format and then develop each theme chronologically or by sub-theme or both as the circumstances dictate.

[eco_env]

Do you make an outline of the arguments you think are relevent, and then plug in the lit to support those arguments?

I can't be much help; I'm trying to figure out how to write a good review paper too, but I think this approach is kind of dishonest, at least in the sciences. In fact, one approach that is becoming popular in ecology (as far as I can tell) is to search for a specific set of keywords and include all relevant papers found with those keywords in your review, so that you don't exclude papers that are inconvenient for your argument. That's a little too comprehensive for my purposes.

[Behavioral]

A review paper that has an argument? All the highly-cited review papers I read in my discipline are usually pretty neutral and just report some of the major converging theories and findings [typically those from well-respected journals only] without trying to report anything novel.

Including all relevant papers in a review just seems unnecessary especially when there are a lot of small-impact papers in a domain that may or may not have been carried out well, either in the methodology or analysis used.

[eco_env]

Including all relevant papers in a review just seems unnecessary especially when there are a lot of small-impact papers in a domain that may or may not have been carried out well, either in the methodology or analysis used.

I mean more in the sense of using them for some kind of meta-analysis- not necessarily discussing the content of every paper.

[Behavioral]

Yeah, for our field, meta-analyses != review papers. The seminal review papers we read typically don't do any analyses and even sometimes do a good job presenting competing theories that need to be reconciled so that other researchers can work on that.

[fluttering]

There is a difference between a literature review (of the type Behavioral is describing) and a systematic review - eco_env seems to be referring to the latter, where you use set keywords and pick up everything that fits those keywords and then sift through it with set criteria for including/excluding papers. Systematic reviews can include meta-analyses, and there are very detailed protocols on how to conduct both systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

For a literature review, I take my stack of papers and sort them by topic, then make notes on each of them - in varying levels of detail depending on how relevant they are. It often helps to put things in some sort of table/spreadsheet, so I can easily find all the papers using population A, population B, etc.

[queller]

In the fields (Business & Engineering) where I have done lit reviews they may have served a slightly different purpose making my comments potentially not helpful. Also my experience is limited, and there may be better ways. Typically the lit review section of the papers I am familiar with writing is for doing a survey of peer-reviewed papers that discuss the topic the paper is on, and other closely related topics. With the main objective of it to frame my topic within the other related research. (Note: This framing includes multiple sides and perspectives on the issue.)

My personal steps:

1) Have a firm grasp of the topic I am writing my paper on.

2) Skim related papers reading the abstract and the conclusion.

-- Lots of keyword bases searching

-- If I find a good paper I also skim the papers it cited for investigation

-- I usually do everything through my computer so I place links and small bits of citation to the side. (Mostly the reason for the small bit of citation is to make sure it is peer reviewed, as I use google scholar so sometimes a good resource may not be current. )

3) When I write the paper I do not do the articles in date order I write it in a flow that makes the most sense for the topic I am writing about. Like if there are 2 factors that lead a third thing. I talk about the previous research relating to the two factors individually in a way that I can flow it into research relating to the third. ( I also will use the papers to frame my argument for the ones that agree and present some that disagree as notes within that flow. )

I must admit it has been interesting reading this thread and seeing a glimpse of how different fields do it differently.

[timuralp]

I usually figure out the main areas of work in the particular subfield. Looking at the survey papers helps with that. Then I figure out the papers that originated that trend of research (in CS, a lot of topics are very new) and find the relevant papers that cited them. That gets me to the point where I can describe the basic idea and the subsequent improvements on it -- state of the art at the time of writing. Since there may be multiple different approaches to solving a single problem, I end up categorizing the papers by the approach taken. I don't read each paper, but enough to understand the major contributions of each one, so that I can describe in 1-2 sentences.

[Adelaide9216]

Hello,

what's the difference between doing a 10-page lit review for an assignment versus doing a lit review for a thesis? How do you select relevant article if you've only got 10 pages to go?

Edited August 19, 2017 by Adelaide9216

[guest56436]

I'll try to lay this out as succinctly as possible:

1) You develop a puzzle or ask a question.

2) Identify the empirical components of the puzzle that aren't explained at all or well enough by the existing literature.

3) Identify the main strands of the literature that could potentially address your puzzle.

4) Explain why the existing approaches do not explicitly explain the phenomena you are trying to explain.

Point 3 is the main portion of the 'lit review.' You have to know how the literature is in dialogue with each other, collect the most prominent literature, then synthesize them. Discard what isn't relevant. 

Of course, there is a number 5: build your own theory. Sometimes certain aspects of the existing literature may be useful and can be incorporated into your own theoretical approach.

Obviously there is a lot of things packed into these steps. You don't have to read entire papers to understand their value; the empirical section of the work may be totally irrelevant for example. There are also other shortcuts; some books already have ready-made lit reviews that you can base yours on. Another skill that is really important is being able to identify literature trees. Usually most 'themes' stem from one or two seminal works that then built on to test the theory, change it, expand on it, ect. Being able to see these strands from the beginning is really important for finding your relevant literature.

Edited August 19, 2017 by Comparativist

[rising_star]

Honestly, two of the best descriptions of doing a literature I've read are in Proposals that Work by Locke et al. (I have the 5th edition) and a book on doing empirical research for political science students by Leanne Powner. I'm not even in political science but have used Powner's section on literature reviews in undergrad research methods courses with great success.

Regardless of the amount of space you have, your literature review needs to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature relevant to your topic. One could write a good literature review with 100 sources in 10 pages (but one could also write a bad one with 100 sources in 10 pages). Worry more about making sure you're doing what a lit review is supposed to do and less about how long it will be once you write it. FWIW, if I knew I had 10 pages, I'd be leaning more toward 100+ sources (check out the Annual Reviews journals if you want to see papers that are 15-20 pages long and provide a review of sometimes upwards of 200 sources). Focus on content first and let the length come as you edit and revise.

[Hope.for.the.best]

On 11/21/2011 at 6:24 AM, hejduk said:

Haven't done a lit review in years, and here I am staring at this insurmountable stack of articles. What is your process for writing a lit review? Really just looking for opinions and advice on how everyone tackles this beast of a challenge:

 

Do I get my articles first and then synthesize the main points?

Do you make an outline of the arguments you think are relevent, and then plug in the lit to support those arguments?

 

 

I'm in the social sciences, but surely lit reviews follow the same format amongst the different disciplines?

Everyone has given some very good suggestions. In answer to your questions, some people find it easier to jot down some notes from relevant articles (the approach in your first question), while some people find it easier to outline the arguments and cite the relevant articles (the approach in your second question), so it really depends on what works for you. To me, making an outline and plug in the lit works better. My advice is to find some recently published reviews on your topic. This helps you to structure your lit review and pinpoint the articles that are important. This saves you a lot of time "shopping" for articles. Then you add in the latest articles relevant to your topic as you go. Hope that helps. 

[Hope.for.the.best]

On 8/19/2017 at 7:31 PM, Adelaide9216 said:

Hello,

what's the difference between doing a 10-page lit review for an assignment versus doing a lit review for a thesis? How do you select relevant article if you've only got 10 pages to go?

I would say the major difference is the length. Like what I suggested to hejduk, getting some recently published reviews on your topic helps you to narrow down the reading you need. If you find it difficult to fit things in within 10 pages, I would suggest that you have everything written out first. Then you cut it down to 10 pages. 

[Adelaide9216]

On 2017-08-21 at 1:48 AM, rising_star said:

Honestly, two of the best descriptions of doing a literature I've read are in Proposals that Work by Locke et al. (I have the 5th edition) and a book on doing empirical research for political science students by Leanne Powner. I'm not even in political science but have used Powner's section on literature reviews in undergrad research methods courses with great success.

Regardless of the amount of space you have, your literature review needs to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature relevant to your topic. One could write a good literature review with 100 sources in 10 pages (but one could also write a bad one with 100 sources in 10 pages). Worry more about making sure you're doing what a lit review is supposed to do and less about how long it will be once you write it. FWIW, if I knew I had 10 pages, I'd be leaning more toward 100+ sources (check out the Annual Reviews journals if you want to see papers that are 15-20 pages long and provide a review of sometimes upwards of 200 sources). Focus on content first and let the length come as you edit and revise.

I went to the library today and borrowed the Powner's book you recommended.

[Sigaba]

@Adelaide9216 for your ten pager, see if you can get on jstor or similar data base and search for journals related to your field of study. You may find articles that you can use as "templates." The best examples you find may not fall into your specific areas of interest. For this exercise, printed copies of the articles may be more helpful than digital versions.

For your thesis, your school may have a library that has theses and dissertations written by former graduate students. If it does, see if you can find works done by grad students in your department/program--ideally for your thesis supervisor.

IRT your professors, your supervisor, and potential thesis committee members, IMO there's a lot to be learned by reading what they've written. You may be able to get a better sense of how they think. Knowing your audience can help you write more effectively. If some of your professors are outstanding writers, you may find elements to add to your own tool kit.

 

[Adelaide9216]

That's amazing advice. Is jstor the equivalent of Scopus? 

[cowgirlsdontcry]

28 minutes ago, Adelaide9216 said:

That's amazing advice. Is jstor the equivalent of Scopus? 

I use JSTOR a lot in researching articles for papers on literature texts. Usually click on literature in databases because lit is my field. It may be assessable in other ways also. .

[Levon3]

In terms of organizing strands as I build my lit review, I have been trying to use Scrivener--it allows me to rearrange and create subordinate/superordinate categories really easily.