Helpful lit review tips?

[Regenerative Christine]

Hi everyone! I'm in the third quarter of my grad program (aka Spring semester) and will be presenting my thesis proposal in June. My cohort and I have already completed a "mini" lit review during last quarter's research methods class, so I am relatively familiar with databases, using Zotero, etc. 

 

There are no page limits for the lit review (not sure if this holds true everywhere) in my specific program. I want to make sure I have "all my bases covered," but I want to be concise at the same time. My thesis topic is looking at community based public art potentially serving as an asset in underserved neighborhoods. Although I will be speaking to my chair sometime next week about the overall structure of my thesis proposal, I would like to see if anyone on here has some helpful tips on organizing your lit review. More importantly, recognizing when enough is enough lol. 

 

Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks! 

Edited April 20, 2014 by Regenerative Christine

[jlr1228]

So I am an excel lover, and I put the basic information for each article into an excel spreadsheet (citation, method, results, overall point, keywords, sometimes notes to myself). This way I can sort based on topic, or results and you can see what you have. It also helps in seeing where you have gaps. I always do this before any writing because it helps me in determining how to organize the actual paper. So you might be passed this point. But hey, if you have time and feel like it give a go I have found it incredibly helpful. Also, my friend did this for her entire dissertation literature over the course of about 3 months, then she was able to write her proposal in a week because everything was already laid out for her!! 

[Maleficent999]

So I am an excel lover, and I put the basic information for each article into an excel spreadsheet (citation, method, results, overall point, keywords, sometimes notes to myself). This way I can sort based on topic, or results and you can see what you have. It also helps in seeing where you have gaps. I always do this before any writing because it helps me in determining how to organize the actual paper. So you might be passed this point. But hey, if you have time and feel like it give a go I have found it incredibly helpful. Also, my friend did this for her entire dissertation literature over the course of about 3 months, then she was able to write her proposal in a week because everything was already laid out for her!!

This is actually kind of brilliant. For my undergraduate thesis I did this using notecards that I then sorted by "camp" or "group of thought" but it never occurred to me to do it in excel and for that I feel kind of silly. To be honest, this makes me feel less stressed just thinking about doing this.

[jlr1228]

This is actually kind of brilliant. For my undergraduate thesis I did this using notecards that I then sorted by "camp" or "group of thought" but it never occurred to me to do it in excel and for that I feel kind of silly. To be honest, this makes me feel less stressed just thinking about doing this.

I learned this through trial and error as well as with MUCH input from older graduate students. There is also this really nice satisfaction feeling you get when you see your excel sheet growing larger It helps to know that the endless hours of article reading are worth it. And then you have proof as to where you have spent all your time recently - for those pesky significant others who don't fully understand what a lit review involves!! 

[Maleficent999]

I learned this through trial and error as well as with MUCH input from older graduate students. There is also this really nice satisfaction feeling you get when you see your excel sheet growing larger It helps to know that the endless hours of article reading are worth it. And then you have proof as to where you have spent all your time recently - for those pesky significant others who don't fully understand what a lit review involves!!

When you sort the excel sheet, do you use the sort tool with keywords or manually sort them yourself?

Thanks for sharing! Now I feel like I can actually do something productive this summer before school starts!

[pears]

Ooh, I like the Excel idea! I usually use color-coded sticky notes alongside a handwritten list (also color-coded), but in my effort to get used to doing everything on my laptop, I think I'll try that for my next lit review.

 

Although it may seem obvious, if you have a writing center at your disposal, use it! I haven't been able to schedule a full appointment yet, but after a 2-hour lit review workshop with someone from our writing center, complete with 5 or so helpful handouts, I feel way better about my writing. They have staff in every broad field (e.g., social sciences), & they can help with anything from posters to thesis finagling. If nothing else, it's worth stopping by to say hello & see what your writing center offers.

[victorydance]

I always start with an annotated bibliography. Basically just a word doc of a bunch of summaries of relevant literature. After you have an exhaustive list then you can start to mentally map out the different 'camps' of arguments. 

 

The excel sheet is a good way of organizing it. However, I do think it is important to start with an annotated bibliography because you actually digest the most important parts of the articles right off the bat. This prevents you from going back and forth trying to remember exactly what each paper said because you already made the mental notes in your head (and have them physically for reference as well). A lit review is more than just organizing and regurgitating the lit on your subject, it's also knowing the literature. This will help you immensely in step 4 (and the entire paper for that matter).

 

I see the excel suggestion as 'step 3' in the process:

 

1) Collect copious relevant articles (if you need additional advice on this subject, I can provide it)

2) Summarize the most relevant articles

3) Organize the articles

4) Write the lit review

 

In fact, each step is a separate and multiple step process in and of itself.

Edited April 21, 2014 by HopefulComparativist

[PsychGirl1]

I stick everything in EndNote and organize them into groups/categories!

[Monochrome Spring]

Excel excel excel. You can add columns with sentences of information like "methods summary", "main results", "relevance to my research", etc. So helpful.