Have you encountered a problem or an idea but you need to check for facts?

• Where can you check facts/ideas?
• Do write the paragraph of the fact and remember who wrote it?
• Why do you need to know who wrote it?
• Do you sketch/jot ideas so that you won’t forget it?

Reviewing the Literature

Lemuel Leonil C. Poculan

At the end of this lesson you will be able to:

• Select and cite related literature.
• Synthesize information from relevant literature.
• Write coherent review of literature.
• Follow ethical standards in writing related literature.
• Illustrate and explain conceptual framework
• Define terms used in study.
• Lists research hypotheses.
• Present written review of related literature conceptual framework

What does “related” means?�

“Related” means connected in some way, in the same family, or belonging to the same group because of shared characteristics, qualities, etc.

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(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/related, Retrieved August 15, 2014).

What does “literature” means?�

“Literature” means the writings of a period of a country, especially valued for their excellence; of style or form; all the books or articles on a subject; any printed matter (Webster’s Universal English Dictionary, 2006).

What is “related literature”?�

The “Related literature” (RL) are taken from published articles, books, journals, magazines, novels, poetry, and many others which have bearing to the present study. The presentation of related literature is from present to past. An explanation of every RL is a must. It is unscientific if RL is presented but no explanation on the relevance to the present study (Calmorin & Calmorin, 2007).

Place of Literature Review in Research

• The literature review is integral part of the entire research process.
• It makes a value contribution.

• The literature review begin before a research problem is finalized and continues until the report in finished.

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Research Process

Literature Review

Bring clarity and focus to your research problem

Improve your methodology

Broaden your knowledge base in your research area

Contextualise your findings

Place of Literature Review in Research

• gives the idea you wish to investigate
• helps you to understand the subject area
• helps you to understand the relationship between your research problem and the body of knowledge in the area.

1. Bring clarity and focus to your research problem

Place of Literature Review in Research

• A literature review acquaints you the methodologies to answers research questions.
• You will be better positioned to select a methodology.
• It helps you to increase your confidence in the methodology.

• 2. Improve your methodology

Place of Literature Review in Research

3. Broaden your knowledge base in your research area

• Ensure you to read widely
• You can get more method for your work from other researchers that is the key for you to open the warehouse of knowledge related to your study.
• It enables you to be more professional with the researching work. It helps you to fulfill the expectation that you are an expert when you undertake a research project for a higher degree.

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Place of Literature Review in Research

• 4. Contextualize your findings
• It is to put your research in the context which make your research more understandable compare to what are already exist.
• Improve your researched result by comparing with what other have found.
• Bring a better record to existing body of knowledge.
• Choose the better result from others work if you have the worse one.

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

Find out the specific problem that you want to deal with by narrowing down your broad area of interest. The review should be focused around your research problem. I need to remind you that there is a danger when you don’t have specific research problem, you might choose the wrong method to do your major literature review.

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

There are 4 steps involved in a conducting literature review:

1. Search for existing literature in your area of study
2. Review the literature selected
3. Develop a theoretical framework
4. Develop a conceptual framework

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

1. Search for existing literature

It require you to have at least some idea of your research problem to set boundary for your search and to search effectively. There are two sources that you can use to prepare a bibliography, books and journals.

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

• Books
• Material published in book is usually important and of good quality, but the material maybe out of date due to it takes a lot of time in completion of work and publication.
• Use a computer catalogue to find and select books that have title appropriate to your topic then print them out or note them down, it will save your time. Be aware that sometimes a title does not provide enough information, you have to check its contents.

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

• Books (con.)
• When you have selected 10-15 books that you think are appropriate for your topic, examine the bibliography of each. Carefully check the bibliography to identify the books common to several of them. Prepare final list of books that you consider essential readings.
• Bring up these books and examine their contents to double-check that they really are relevant to your topic. Delete the book that is not relevant to your topic. Make an annotated bibliography.

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

• Journals
• Journal provides most up-to-date information. Select as many journals as you possibly can. As with books, you need to prepare a list of journals you want to examine for identifying literature relevant to your study.

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

• Journals (con.)

There is a number of way that you can prepare a list of journal:

1. Locate the hard copies of journals that are appropriate to your study
2. Look at citation or abstract indices to identify and/or read the abstracts of such articles.
3. Search electronic databases
4. Use the internet

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

• Journals (con.)
• Identify the journals that you want to look at in more detail, then make preparations to go through them.
• Select identifiable journals, examine its contents, and record its references.

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

2. Review the literature selected

• Get main points from books and articles that are identified as useful. Build up a framework of themes, put the information where it logically belongs under each one of the themes so far developed.
• Note whether the knowledge relevant to your theoretical framework has been confirmed beyond doubt.

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

2. Review the literature selected (con.)

• Note the theories put forward, the criticism of these and their basis, the methodologies adopted (study design, sample size and its characteristics, measurement criticisms, etc.) and the criticisms of them.
• Examine to what extent the findings can be generalized to other situations.

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

2. Review the literature selected (con.)

• Notice where there are significant differences of opinion among researchers and give your opinion about the validity of these differences.
• Ascertain the areas in which little of nothing is known – the gaps that exist in the body of knowledge.

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

3. Develop a theoretical framework

• Theoretical Framework as a Guide in a Research Study The theoretical framework plays an important role in guiding the entire process of the research study.
• It introduces and describes the theory that explains why the research problem under study exists.

Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

3. Develop a theoretical framework (con.)

• It helps the researcher see clearly the variables of the study;
• It can provide him with a general framework for data analysis;
• It is essential in preparing a research proposal using descriptive and experimental methods

Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

3. Develop a theoretical framework (con.)

• Review the literature that pertinent to your research topic.
• You should sort out the information, as mentioned earlier, within this framework.
• Use these aspects as a basis for developing your theoretical framework.

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Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

4. Develop a conceptual framework

• Conceptual framework represent ways of thinking about a problem.
• It stems from the theoretical and concentrates, usually, on one section of that theoretical framework which becomes the basis of your study.

Procedure for Reviewing the Literature

4. Develop a conceptual framework (con.)

• Keeps research on track
• Provides clear links from the literature to the research goals and questions
• Helps the researcher to see clearly the variables of the study
• Clarifies concepts and propose relationships among concepts

Writing up the literature reviewed

• All that remains to be done is to write about the literature you have reviewed.
• The two broad functions of a literature review:
• - to provide a theoretical background to your study
• - to enable you to contextualize your findings in relation to the existing body of knowledge in addition to refining your methodology.
• The content of your literature review reflects these two purposes.

Writing up the literature reviewed

• In order to fulfil the first purpose, you identify and describe various theories relevant to your field; and specify gaps in existing knowledge in the area.
• In order to comply, you integrate your results with specific and relevant findings from the existing literature by comparing the two for confirmation and contradiction.

Writing up the literature reviewed

• Some people write up the entire literature review in one section, entitled :
• Review of the literature or
• The literature review, without subheadings.
• The author strongly suggests that you write your literature review under subheadings.