literature review: types of sources

[HifaMo]

Hi,

 

 

I'm writing a B.A. research paper and confused about literature review.

 

 

Is is obligatory that the sources be empirical research articles?

 

 

What about academic essay or journal articles that are not empirical (there is no specific methodology and no discussion of findings, etc)?

 

 

Does an article published by Ph.D. candidate affiliated with a reputable university count as reliable?

 

 

Thank you

 

[geographyrocks]

It is important that the papers come from peer-reviewed journals. 

[HifaMo]

Thank you

 

What about books (not journal articles) published by reputable publishers?

 

Also, there are some articles published by peer-reviewed journals such as Routledge but they are not empirical (there aren't separate sections of methods, findings and discussion). Are those articles accepted?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited March 5, 2014 by HifaMo

[Monochrome Spring]

Might be a little different than what you're looking for, but here are some advice pages for literature reviews. You should also clarify what kind of literature review you're doing, as there are many.

 

Ten simple rules for writing a literature review

 

Tips for writing your first literature review

[HifaMo]

Thank you

 

 

I just want to ask one more question.

 

If I have a reliable journal article, but only an aspect of it is relevant to my research, should I include a general description of the article or just focus on the relevant aspect?

[Monochrome Spring]

Mm. I don't know the exact context. I would maybe frame it as "So-and-so (Journal citation) investigated the broad issue of X, and identified aspect which is relevant to my research Y". But that's just one of many ways. Maybe skim through some literature reviews in your field and get an idea of how they generally frame their argument.

[HifaMo]

Thank you

[danieleWrites]

Since you haven't told us what discipline you're working in, we can't give you a reasonable accurate idea of what "review of the literature" means and what types of publications you can use.

Generally, literature reviews involve two types of information. 1) The theory in use. 2) Work others have done like yours or similar to yours that you have read in order to prepare to do your own research. Most of what's in a literature review is the second type of information. This depends on the field! If your paper is about how quantum particles vibrate, there's no need to mention that you're working with quantum theory. If your paper is about the use of Twitter during the Arab Spring, you would have to explain the theoretical perspective you're working with because there are several available.

Generally speaking, you would work with a hierarchy of sources. Peer-reviewed journal articles first. Non-peer-reviewed journal articles second. Dissertations, next. Theses, last. Non-scholarship would be used not at all.

Generally speaking, literature reviews are done to put your work into the context of the scholarship that's been done. This means that you would have read the published scholarship of others who are doing research similar to yours. You would then explain what they've done in the literature review, and where your research fits into the ongoing conversation on the subject.

Discourse (the work done in a field) is an ongoing conversation that anyone in the field can participate in. Most papers written never get published, so never seem to be part of the discourse. But they are, even if the only people who read them are the author and the person who grads it/rejects it for publication.

The literature review is very important because it helps the reader understand where you are in the conversation, who you're responding to, and what purpose your work serves in adding to the conversation.

[danieleWrites]

Forgot to mention.

You should have read the literature before you concluded your research. We have an idiom for doing work before reading the literature: re-inventing the wheel. You should read the literature first for a variety of reason. First, you want to make sure that you're not repeating someone else's work (not plagiarizing, but doing the same thing someone else did). You're an undergrad, so they're going to be forgiving about grading, but if you have ambition, you should do what you can to make sure you're not repeating someone else's research. There is an exception! If you are deliberately repeating someone else's research for a purpose, rather than by accident. Many people duplicate research to verify someone else's results. Second, you want to make sure that your research hasn't already been proven or, worse, disproven. You can't do that if you don't check. Third, the literature review will help guide your research by helping you focus it, or giving you ideas of things to question and discover that you might not have had.

Literature reviews should have several sources in them, not just a two or three. Or, ack!, one. This is not a high school paper where you already know what you're going to say, you just need to find some sources to support you. This is a college paper where the first step is to read sources and use synthesis to focus your work.

Synthesis, in this context, is taking specific information (data), finding patterns in the data, and arriving at conclusions. It's inductive reasoning. You should take the sources you've read, and combine the data they offer into a paragraph or two.

Here's a link to an article on an open source, online journal: http://www2.bgsu.edu/departments/english/cconline/FromManuscripttoDigital/

This article is about composition, but it's generally readable to non-composition scholars as the English it uses is more conversational than formal. You can see how the literature review has been worked into the paper. You should go online to the databases your university offers and find peer-reviewed journals in your field. Use the articles in these journals as a guide for constructing your paper.

[geographyrocks]

First, you want to make sure that you're not repeating someone else's work (not plagiarizing, but doing the same thing someone else did). You're an undergrad, so they're going to be forgiving about grading, but if you have ambition, you should do what you can to make sure you're not repeating someone else's research.

 

THIS!  I had this totally awesome idea for a quick research project.  I started reading the literature, and it's been done to death.  Not only did I save myself some time, I also saved myself from getting yelled at by my adviser.  lol