Week 7
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
- a detailed review of existing literature related to the topic of a thesis or dissertation
TRADITIONAL REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
- a quick overview of current studies - helps explain why your study is important - summarizes present forms of knowledge - gives a new understanding of an existing work - prone to subjectivity - does not require methods but requires you to state your intentions in conducting the review
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
- a review aligning what we know with existing scholarly work
SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
- a thorough search is conducted and explicit methods are used to select and analyze studies - methodical, involves sequential acts of review, does not let you state your intentions
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
- the use of ideas in the literature to justify the particular approach to the topic, the selection of methods, and demonstration that this research contributes something new
Theme A - Theme B
A. Overview of characteristics of the theme (commonalities, differences, nuances) B. Sub-theme-narrow but grouped findings related to the theme 1. Study 1 (Research question(s), Methods/Participants, and Related findings) 2. Study 2 3. Study 3 C. Sub-theme 1. Study 4 2. Study 5 3. Study 6 D. Other findings that fit theme A: studies can be repeated if there are multiple findings that fit under more than one theme. However, no need to rewrite methods/participants in detail (just enough to remind the reader about the study)
Conclusion
An evaluation/critique of the existing literature. Write several paragraphs on: A. What are the contributions of this literature to the field? B. What are the overall strengths? C. What are the overall weaknesses? D. What might be missing? E. What are some next steps for research? The next steps should explicitly address how to connect for strengths, weaknesses, and gaps
• Conduct a thorough literature survey before you start • Ensure to present the research problem clearly • Compare and contrast the different views in the sources • A literature review should include title, abstract, index, introduction, corpus, bibliography, and appendices • Mention the paper's methodology, analysis, instruments, and pieces of equipment used in the study • Remember to cite properly • Limit the bias • Summarize the strengths and weaknesses of the study
Guidelines for writing AN RRL
Introduction
Literature Review Outline A. Describe the overall topic that you have been investigating, why it is important to the field, and why you are interested in the topic B. Identify themes and trends in research questions, methodology, and findings. Give a "big picture" of the literature
PURPOSES OF RRL • To obtain background knowledge of your research • To relate your study to the current condition or situation of the world • To show the capacity of your research work to introduce new knowledge • To expand, prove, or disprove the findings of previous research studies • To increase your understanding of the underlying theories, principles, or concepts of your research • To explain technical terms involved in your research study • To highlight the significance of your work with the kind of evidence it gathered to support the conclusion of your research • To avoid repeating previous research studies • To recommend the necessity of further research on a certain topic
PURPOSES OF RRL
TRADITIONAL REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
RRL STYLES OR APPROACHES
- requires you to go through the following: 1. Have a clear understanding of the research questions. 2. Plan your manner of obtaining the data. 3. Do the literature search. 4. Using a certain standard, determine which data, studies, or sources of knowledge are valuable or not to warrant the reasonableness of your decision to take some data and junk the rest. 5. Determine the methodological soundness of the research studies. 6. Summarize what you have gathered from various sources of data.
SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE - requires you to go through the following: